A Letter to Agnes

Dear Mom,

We've been out every weekend. Three weeks ago, I drove my Mom to visit her best friend in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. On the way back we visited relatives in southern Vermont.

Keep An Open Mind

At the phenomenal web site WikiHow, which contains instructions for doing just about anything you can imagine, there's a page entitled "How To Keep An Open Mind." Basically, to keep one's mind facile, we are told to keep doing things we've never done before: New crossword puzzles, new kinds of music, TV shows we think we wouldn't like (or, if we love TV, turn it off!). The premise is that doing or learning anything new causes new neural pathways to form in the brain, which in turn enable one's mind to open to further new possibilities.

Internet Friends

Last night we had dinner with a friend from back East (actually, it's Ohio which she thinks of as the "Midwest") and the topic turned to Internet dating. Is it possible, we discussed, to meet a quality person on the Internet, someone you'd want to be friends with if not married to?

Thankful

In Luke 18:11, we read:

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: "God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this 'publican."

While I, too, am grateful to not be a Republican, the Pharisee's approach to thanksgiving is generally presented as being a poor one. Nevertheless, as an "attitude of gratitude" is supposed to be good for the soul, not to mention the blood pressure, I'm going to highlight just twelve of the many, many things for which I'm grateful and make them public right here.

The Importance of Eating Ernest

Ernest was a young, somewhat overweight, turkey who was beloved of his few friends and whose death shortly before Thanksgiving of 2007, while not unexpected, was still a tragically beautiful footnote to the whole Circle of Life.

A Little Easter Humor

So with Easter almost upon us, I thought I would share my favorite Easter story.

Answers to my April Fool's Day Challenge

In yesterday's post, I presented a number of news articles and challenged the reader to guess which paragraph in the post was not true. Here is the answer to that challenge.

Gym Clothes, Music, Book, GPS

So, my birthday has come and gone. We had a nice family dinner to punctuate the fact that I am now 57 years old. It really was a nice celebration. I got a pair of gym shorts and an exercise shirt from Jenny (she really wants me to keep working out) and a GPS and mount from Michael, Karen, Mary, John and Rachel so I won't have any trouble finding the gym.

Things You Didn't Know To Worry About

Yeah. We all know the obvious things to worry about, like losing your house to foreclosure (up 57% since last year), being unable to afford the gas to drive to work so you can buy gas to drive to work (average price is now $3.50 a gallon), global warming raising sea levels so that your land in Florida will be underwater (even if it wasn't before). But that's just the tip of the melting iceberg. There's lots of things to worry about you may not have suspected. And as a public service, I'll let you know what a few of them are.

Family Thrown Off Royal Caribbean Ship

You might remember, gentle reader, that I and my family took a cruise on a Royal Caribbean ship this past January. During the trip, Michael became ill and we were charged $1000 for his medical care onboard ship. Supposedly the trip insurance was going to cover that, although we have yet to see a check. Now it looks like we were lucky to be kept on board. The Luis Cortes family of Orange County, Florida, wasn't so fortunate.

Camping Checklist

What should be taken on a camping trip? What's essential, and what can be left out?

Blogging Shepherds

May your holidays be notable!

Ike's Story

Michael and I and our friends, Eddie and Carl, were sitting around the fire at their campsite near Verde Hot Spring when we heard drumming from a distance. "That's Ike," Eddie remarked. "He drums all through camp…hopefully he won't be doing it all night."

Facebook In History

Facebook has become such an integral part of our world that it's hard to imagine life without it. But what if Facebook had been around in Galileo's day, or Darwin's, or Caesar's?

An Open Letter To Circle K

Dear Circle K,

My experience yesterday at the Circle K at the intersection of Ray Rd. and McClintock in Chandler was upsetting enough that I want you to know why I won't be visiting there ever again.

Where The Hell Is Paul?

Well, it's been a few months since I last posted here! It's not that I've been sick or dead, it's just that our computer crashed, hard, last February. And, since this blog uses my own proprietary software, and I never bothered to program into it any alternate means of posting entries (for example, by smartphone), I haven't really had any options until the computer was replaced.

Lessons Learned from Craigslist

In early March, I received a partial judgment in my disability case, which gave me a small sum of money but not an actual monthly income. Still, with the idea that I was going to return to work, I decided to buy a used car to get to work in. I found it on Craigslist and have learned some very dear lessons from the experience, which I pass on to you, gentle reader.

Sanitizing Halloween

That Halloween is an ancient holiday is generally accepted; but I was surprised to learn there isn't much agreement on exactly how ancient. There's a clear path back to the Celts in Ireland and Wales; many of our traditional Halloween rituals, such as the Jack-o-lantern, come directly from them (though, in the original story, Jack carried a lit coal in a turnip; this became an easier-to-work-with pumpkin when transplanted to North America.)

Grooming Is A Drag

When I was nine, living on a remote Vermont property in 1960, I found a trunk of my mom's old clothes—Ladies' Aid uniforms from WWII, a sparkly purple gown, and a Revolutionary War gentleman's suit. I was obsessed with Superman, but even at nine I knew Clark Kent's disguise was ridiculous. Glasses? Please. My mom wore glasses, and I never mistook her for someone else when she took them off.

Everywhere To Be Found

When I was 11 or 12 I discovered the Oz books. Written by L. Frank Baum in the early 1900s, I was fascinated. Even at that age, I appreciated Baum's worldbuilding so much I was inspired to write Oz stories of my own. I even convinced a younger friend of mine that I traveled regularly to the Land of Oz and had adventures there. (He believed me so hard that I finally regretted making the stories up and had to come clean, and even then he wanted to believe.)