It’s the middle of the afternoon and all about me swirl a mass of humanity, searching for the perfect holiday gift. There’s anxious lovers seeking a treasure that’ll please, parents digging through the remains of empty shelves hoping against hope that a Hatchimal might lurk among the carcasses of toys, or the fed-up grandmother angry that the entire supply of Zip-Loc bags have been plundered by customers seeking to freeze cookies for later gluttony.
No, the above picture isn’t me. But it seems to be a characterization of a woman of a certain age…although, I’m not certain what her age is. I had a big birthday a little while ago. I turned overnight from a middle-ager into a senior citizen. How can that be? I don’t feel any different. […]
I love Macs. I’ve had one since forever. They’re expensive, sure. But my last one lasted ten years and is still going. As a birthday present, I bought myself a brand new one. Above is the actual box it came in. Such a deal! There was a special President’s Day Weekend sale – $100 off […]
It happens every now and again. Sometimes I have a bad day at work. Or a mistake I made that I can’t let go. Something’s looming on the horizon and I obsess about it. Or my brain simply won’t shut up, no matter what I do or try not to dwell upon. It’s a case […]
Son came to us when he was eight years old. We adopted him from foster care. A feral youth, he knew nothing of personal hygiene, was illiterate, spoke inarticulately, had rotten teeth and suffered from severe ADHD. He’d been horribly neglected. The school he’d been attending wrote him off and considered him unteachable. Despite this, […]
It all seemed so wonderful, this writers conference. None of us had been out amongst fellow writers and friends for what seemed like forever. Our last conference was cancelled (I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why). Omicron wasn’t even anything beyond a letter in the Greek alphabet. We were all vaxxed, masked and […]
I took the above picture this morning as I went on my morning walk. Only a few weeks ago, the mountains were decorated in orange, red and rust hues. Now, they’re just brown and bare. The lake still has its usual population of waterfowl, including geese, ducks and swans (they always class up any body […]
Because I’ll take any excuse to whip up some pancakes and sausages, I invited two of my friends over for brunch. I know, that’s pretty said, but then again, you can’t beat pumpkin pancakes with link breakfast sausage on a chilly October morning. That, and I hadn’t seen Chelsea and Connie in ages. Well before […]
We sat around the dining room table, chewing on the remains of scones and a fruit platter. The Zoom version of our writers group ended and a discussion of its topic lingered a short while after. But of course, as conversations goes, it turned to the inevitable, at least in this group. Husbands. Isn’t it […]
WIP, in case you didn’t know, is an acronym for work in progress. Most often, it refers to the manuscript a writer is working on at any given time. It can be either a full manuscript in edits, a hashed-out draft, a few scrawls on a napkin or a thought percolating from a nest of […]
I don’t know the first thing about chess. Well, okay. I know what pawns do, and pretty much what kings and queens do. Apart from that, a game with me would last about an eighth of a second. Still, this chess set created from sculptural table and chairs had me thinking. Oh, sure, I’d love […]
Confessions of A Middle-Age Woman 