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Thank You, 911!
“This is the other half of dumb and dumber calling!” I announced after my husband answered his cell phone. “You got a minute?” “I’m in the middle of dictating…” he sighed sounding vexed. “But, you are finished seeing patients?” “Yes.”…
Holiday Pageantry
It is the size of a brick and just as solid, weighing three pounds, filled with nuts and candied fruit galore including pineapple, cherries, walnuts, almonds, lemon and orange peel. Certainly this Thanksgiving will be unlike anything that any of…
Razzle Dazzle and Hope
Our gleeful squeals echoed all the way to Highland. We quickly assembled in front of the Cadillac convertible. “I wouldn’t walk across the street to see a parade,” Daddy declared at breakfast the day before Thanksgiving. “I don’t hold with…
Blooming Roses
I started my own wish book of a bedroom filled with pillows, bookshelves and poster-covered walls. When I was a child, our family moved from one military base to another every year or two. On my first day at a…
What’s Cooking
As for spices, I may own three. (Do salt and pepper count as spices?) “Hey, what’re you making?” My older son had wandered into the kitchen as I was browning some breaded chicken for dinner. “Chicken with bread crumbs and…
Home Repair
by Erika Hoffman My AC debacle started around the 11th. It was a Saturday, when Will, who took over the business from Curt when Curt died, answered our call. Every Friday, my old college roommate sends me a letter. Now…
Moving Day
As I made her bed, I felt the lump again. My baby wouldn’t be sleeping under my roof that night. “You’ve already spent so much on my move to school,” my 18-year-old daughter, Julia, said. “You bought my bedding, my…
House of Dreams
As my parents approached their sixties, my Dad wallpapered the living room one more time. Still red, but this time it was fuzzy flock paper. My folks first and only house was not their dream house – that perfect castle…
Safer at Home
And as a teacher, I assigned, corrected, and scored work for my students while monitoring my children’s virtual learning. It was challenging, but we got it done safely, at home. It is true that home is a refuge, a safe…
Puzzled
But every night now, the time arrived to end my day and sit at the dining table, quietly fitting pieces together and talking with my loved ones. I found the jigsaw puzzle about a year into the renovating-and-moving-in process. It…
Make ‘em Laugh, First
I can speak French. I can read French. But when it comes to translating a French cartoon or joke, I’m at a loss. I don’t find them funny. “Never cook bacon naked,” my husband announced as he turned over the bacon,…
The Eyes Have It!
Now, either no one recognizes me all masked up or nobody cares as they just want to get home in the safety of their own little bubble. So how are you feeling? Are you missing personal contact with your friends…
The Loose Tooth Lesson
The day was just beginning, and I already felt defeated. I was overwhelmed as I looked at my To Do List for that day. So many things needed to be done that I knew I’d be up all night to…
The Best Medicine
I put on my glamorous paper towel gown and climbed on the cot and nervously waited for someone to reassure me that everything was okay. Early in my pregnancy, I felt a stabbing pain on the right side of my…
Bird is the Word
My husband made it clear early on that he would rather build a bridge to jump off than participate in my quotidian inquisition. My favorite morning ritual is reading the Word of the Day posts on my computer while enjoying…
Play Ball!
Knowing all that, for some reason, I’m beginning to have a need to see a game — to experience America’s pastime once more. I was never much of a sportsman. It wasn’t for lack of trying. Being the fastest kid…
Ikigai & Me & My Writing Career
Don’t begin your writing career by trying to rival John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath or worse, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. Okinawans lead long lives. Here in the USA, we’ve been told that longevity is related to eating healthy, exercising…
The Race of Ages
Her face contorted with noiseless laughter, so deep I worried a lack of oxygen might damage her brain. The line in the dirt had been drawn. On one side stood my husband, the official of the race, assisted by our…
Savor the Little Things
Then the path turned and led us straight up a hill covered in wildflowers – mountain heather, Indian paintbrush, rosy spirea, yellow broadleaf arnica, bluebells, and more. Sometimes, when a big thing is missing, little things have their chance to…
Humbled
Heck, I usually see my favorite hairdresser JP every three weeks, so I had no idea how bad the gray actually was. This era of the COVID19 virus has been very frightening but also very humbling – incredibly humbling. It’s…