Carol got me a pasta maker for Christmas. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not at all like giving your wife a vacuum cleaner or a clothes washer. I wanted one. During the year, I had expressed an interest in making homemade pasta for the fun of it. I had also expressed an […]

   It rained today in Southern California. It rarely rains here, but when it does, it usually manages to throw a monkey wrench in outdoor plans, especially for Carol’s family. Just in the short time we’ve been together, rain has disrupted a wedding and a birthday celebration. But covid has done worse, so rain this […]

   So here’s how someone who didn’t feel the Christmas spirit handled these pandemic holidays.    Carol popped up in bed at 7:30 Christmas Eve morning, and began whisking batter and heating grease for snowflake cookies. It didn’t go well. What should have been perfect, light, golden flaked confections actually peeled off the cooking iron […]

   I asked Carol if she was feeling the Christmas spirit this year, and she just shook her head. I really didn’t have to ask, though. She’s already had to miss all her grandchildren’s holiday shows, because there weren’t any. She’s not going to see her beautifully wrapped gifts torn apart by small, impatient hands. […]

   2020 may go down as a year best forgotten. On the other hand, if it’s true we do tend to learn best from our own mistakes, then this year might be the one to take full stock of, as it’s a treasure trove of fubars, bad decisions and poor choices. As in your own […]

   “It looks like something your ashes might be put in.” Carol was considering her placement of the very lovely wine box, woodburned with my full name and new brand logo, a gift from my relaunched blog’s website designer. Carol was viewing the whole picture: the coffinlike wine box she had placed above the orange […]

   I turned the corner during my morning jog, already lost in a spirited dialog with my chosen, invisible nemesis running partner. Across the street I noticed a cyclist gesturing with one hand and then the other, presumably to a nemesis partner of her own. There we were, the four of us out for our […]

   The last time my thumb was out was to indicate to the waitress that the eggplant parm was for Carol. Prior to that, you’d have to go back almost 50 years to the shoulder of Highway 90 just outside New Orleans, where the thumb of a freshly graduated college boy was outstretched alongside a […]

Here’s an example of one of my earliest icebreaker/pickup lines. See if you can see what it might have foretold of my future as a “player.” I was working at my first job in a snowball shop. I had my back turned to the window. And when I turned I was startled to see two […]

I had an idea for a blog the other day. It arrived with the clarity and completeness that I’ve come to recognize as “serviceable.” That’s the midrange of the ideas that I get. There’s the ones that come with the blaze of divine inspiration and strike with the suddenness of an attack of sciatica. And […]