Rising

Another 6.6 million Americans filed for unemployment this past week. That means, without counting the pre-virus unemployed, that the number of people dropped from their jobs in the last three weeks is now a greater population than any state in the union except California. Add in the previously unemployed, or give it another week, and […]

Stranger Times

I was not seeing phantom deer in my yard the other bright night. I remembered to check Monday night, and if it was vegetation it should still sit out there looking like a deer, right? But no, no fauna- (or fawna)-looking flora. Last night, out the laundry room window on an even brighter night, I […]

Shattered

A few years back my book group read a best-seller, Unbroken, about one man’s incredible ordeal in World War II where his situation went from bad to worse to dire as his plane crashed in the middle of the Pacific; he made it to a small life raft and then drifted, eventually pushed by the […]

Duck, Duck, Goose

For awhile we had a pair of geese making themselves at home in our yard. Unlike a lot of bird types, the markings are the same for males and females, so I can’t know for sure (not being much of a birder; okay, not being a birder at all), but we assumed they were a […]

Crazy World

Once long ago, Julie Andrews starred in the movie Victor Victoria as an out-of-work chanteuse in 1930s Paris who is plucked from the street by a very flamboyant Robert Preston (who was so convincing that he selected a western for his next project, and said of his character in that, “Gay, he ain’t!”). He convinces […]

To Your Health

With our newly-minted medical degrees, Kara and I yesterday diagnosed co-worker James with a sinus infection and suggested he go through the convoluted steps of making an appointment with a doctor who might have, somehow, better credentials. And prescribing power. His response: “I don’t have health insurance.” I try. I try and try and try. […]

Paradigm, Spare a Dime

I failed you yesterday: not only did I dangle a participle in front of you, very first thing, but I somehow managed to forget to report the biggest story one could find on April 1 (no foolin’): there was a semi-truck that toppled over and caught fire on a highway near Dallas. Its cargo? Toilet […]

No Foolin’

Never much of a fan of practical jokes, and rarely someone who can remember jokes, April 1 is not my idea of a great holiday. This year I imagine most of us are having trouble seeing the humor in the world’s most colossal prank of our lifetimes. There is one joke I sort of remember. […]