This Mortal Coil

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil . . . –Shakespeare, Hamlet Mel Torpey, now retired, used to be a P.E. teacher and a gymnastics coach. Gymnastics was not a sport I understood, particularly — […]

To Market, To Market

One of the books I’ve saved for absolutely no good reason at all is my 1979 Writer’s Market. All right, I’ve saved lots of books (lots and lots) for absolutely no good reason at all, but this is a badly out-dated reference book in an era that eschews reference books even if they’re current. […]

On the ‘Post-Cusp’

Well, I missed it, so it might not be as significant as I thought: Nov. 11 was the anniversary of the day I posted my first blog entry. I launched the blog the day before, when WordPress thoughtfully provided my first entry for me (“The Journey Begins” with a picture selected from what I’m sure […]

The Truth is Out There

Awhile back I posted a discussion/diatribe/soliloquy about an article I read on being a better listener. I found a great place to put this to the test, and I’m afraid I may have failed. I do think that a truism may have emerged: it’s very hard to be a great, or even good, listener when […]

Home Schooled

I learned something from my shower: yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the debut of Sesame Street on PBS. I’ll bet you don’t learn these kinds of things from your shower. My shower, which is special in every sense of the word, comes with an FM radio, and somewhere along the way recently I finally […]

To The Stars

I played hooky yesterday morning, watching a Star Trek movie on TV just like I had nothing else in the world going on. This may have been the first Saturday since we got serious about moving that I’ve done anything like that. I saw that Star Trek: Generations, which handed the movie franchise off from […]

Carrying On

Yesterday one of my many friends named Bob apparently clawed his way back from Death’s doorstep. Again. He has been camped on the front porch for the better part of a year, or longer, and there he remains, but not right on the sill where he has ventured more times than all the cats he […]

In My Hands

It’s a weird thing, to hold a human life in your hands. This happened to me yesterday, from a quarter I never expected. I came back from voting to work, where two people I didn’t recognize were waiting to talk to me. Turns out, while I’d never met them, I was quite familiar with their […]

Saga of the Shed

I realize I’ve been slacking on my blogging. I’ve spent most of my non-Daylight Saving Time sleeping, like a hibernating bear. Time changes mess with me. Yesterday while we were eating lunch, Lynn looked out our windows and exclaimed, almost indignantly, “There’s a shed!” Sure enough, heading down Kokanee (Road? Street? Avenue?) was a pick-up […]

Hollow-een

Lynn and I did something quite novel two nights ago: we sat in our house with the lights on. On Halloween. This is the first year in decades that I have not been in the Palisades subdivision, where Halloween is A Thing. Not necessarily planned or wanted by residents, but a Big Thing for all […]