Bad Hair Day

It took until this morning to realize it, but stress over a haircut is just about to send me over a literal edge. Covid stress is nothing new, probably to every person on the planet, even those who believe it’s a hoax, but on top of political stress and strife and the part where decisions […]

The Diabetic Arts

Diabetes is a two-handed disease, it turns out, and in a household that generally has four hands but temporarily is reduced to three, that means some changes have been in order this young year. Lynn had shoulder surgery on Dec. 30 and now has her arm strapped into a sling. She also has diabetes, as […]

A Star Descendant

Personal responsibility is hard. Stepping up and owning mistakes must go completely against human nature, given how many of us (you all, I mean — I’m pretty sure I’m perfect) try to duck even the least egregious of actions. As a business owner, I’m well versed in the “I dunno” and “It wasn’t me” responses […]

The Man Who Came to Dinner

Lynn’s physical therapy started Monday, cramming one more thing into jam-packed mornings. I have big ambitions but not so much on the follow-through. Blogging may remain intermittent, no matter my intentions. In a play first produced in 1939 (made into a movie in 1942), a radio celebrity sets out to visit a well-off family in […]

Tough Calls

The other day I called my mother right after she’d received a text from my aunt, the aunt who not that long ago had to put my uncle in a care facility. My uncle who absolutely does not want to be in this facility. The uncle who is wearing his wife and sister to a […]

On Ice

Expensive ice cube, now elevated as not instructed, with no impatient to put it on. Yes, I have been AWOL (absent without leave) and yes, I feel somewhat bad about this. I can throw you a bunch of excuses, relying heavily on Lynn’s shoulder surgery, but it comes down to feeling like Life itself is […]

Passing Through

They came in shortly before closing, the little girl first, followed by her mother with the same copper-bright hair, and finally her father, hair color hidden under a ballcap. They were looking for Crested Butte shirts; they’d spent the day skiing, but for some semi-articulated reason decided not to linger up there. Gilly is always […]

Benched

Somewhere in my book collection, quite possibly still in this house, resided a Weekly Reader book selection entitled A Place By the Fire, about a gruff old sheepherder and his border collie that was getting too old to be a working dog. As is true on a lot of real-life farms and ranches, it’s not […]

Christmas Tiredings

Yesterday I got one sentence into a Christmas post and then stopped. I’m sorry; it just doesn’t feel much like Christmas, and I don’t know why. I mean, you can point to Corona and I can say “sure,” but really, our Christmas so far today isn’t looking all that different from many of them. Lynn […]

A Tale of Two Monies

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it […]