Curmudgeon alert: I hate Halloween. I always have. No, I was never traumatized by a goblin on Halloween, I just don't like scary things. I don't like scary movies, books, or TV shows. I don't like the dark. I don't like rides that make me feel as if I could be risking...
Earlier this week, I wrote about Jim's sudden layoff this past Tuesday morning. One of the things that made it difficult was that he and the others were asked to leave the building immediately and make arrangements to pick up personal effects after business hours. So...
Insomnia. It comes and goes, and I never know when it’s coming or when it will go. It perpetuates itself; the longer you go without sleeping, the more you worry because you’re not sleeping. The anxiety keeps you awake, so you can’t get to sleep, because you’re worried...
Stan Musial died today. And it made me cry. Stan Musial, for those who aren't baseball fans, is the greatest Cardinal who ever played the game. He played his entire career — 22 years — in St. Louis. His statistics are impressive, to be sure, as he was the consummate...
I never try to hide my age; I'm proud of each and every year. I always say, no cancer survivor complains about growing older. I cherish and revel in my birthdays, because each one is another little triumph over the big C. For those of you who dread getting older,...
Thank goodness this election is over. Never in all my years of voting (and that's quite a few) have I seen such divisiveness and bitterness. I've seen rifts between friends over who is voting for whom. Over the past few months, many of my Facebook friends have talked...
We aren't quite to "after," but the new cabinets are in. It took an entire day, and, of course we're going to have to do some touch-up painting. And some drywall work as, shockingly, our furdown is not completely plumb. Haven't used the stove or oven yet, as we have...
We've been living with an outdated kitchen since we bought our house in 1991. Built in 1978, the kitchen was, and still is, of that vintage, complete with the lovely harvest gold stove and double ovens. The cabinets are original as well and the countertops date back...
Remember Mr. Potato Head? Better yet, remember when you used an actual potato to play with Mr. Potato Head? I do. The older I get, the more nostalgic I become. Maybe it's because I have increasingly more things to look back on. What I didn't remember is that,...
Yesterday was an epic day in my baseball world. We went to AutoZone Park to enjoy a Redbirds baseball game, some postgame fireworks and the main attraction, the World Series trophy. The same trophy former manager Tony LaRussa held proudly after the historic 2011...
Unremarkable. It means ordinary, lacking distinction. Not something we generally consider a compliment. But medical terms are strange. A test result that is negative is usually a good thing; positive means you have whatever awful thing they are testing you for. So...
A hysterectomy is no minor procedure. Like anything involving an abdominal incision, it's one of the biggies. So when I realized that's the direction we were going, I made plans to live it up with my family and a few friends before being out of commission for several...
You know that dream where you're naked in front of a room full of people? Yeah, I do too. A few nights ago. Even in the dream, I wasn't really naked in the literal sense. But it was that feeling. I often have weird dreams. Usually I can't tell whether they mean...
Update: 1:31 p.m. I just made it to the other side of the house. Wow. This is our neighbor to the south. I wasn't home at the time, but today's storm did a bit of a number on our backyard. Our neighbors got it a little worse, as this large tree fell on their roof. All...
What is the one thing you are least likely to do? Jump out of an airplane? Go camping? Run a marathon? There is no skydive, no tent and definitely no 26.2 in my future, but if you had asked me this time last year what I’d be less likely to do than any of those ... it...
Ugh. Jury duty. Dread. I reported to the federal courthouse building on a snowy morning when I’d rather have stayed in bed. My hope was that I’d be quickly excused, but as the process unfolded, I became intrigued. My name was called, the judge questioned me and the...
I turned 51 a couple of weeks ago. I like birthdays. And no cancer survivor in their right mind complains about getting another year older. It's kind of like a lopsided baseball game — even though the winning team is far ahead, they still try to cross home plate one...
It was a beautiful sunset — or was it a sunrise? I watched it from our deck of my family's house overlooking Greers Ferry Lake. Sara Ann was about to begin her senior year in high school, my last school year with a child at home. Prelude to the empty nest. Between the...
Yesterday was not my best day behind the wheel; I made two really stupid driving mistakes in the course of about an hour. I wasn't on the phone at the time, had consumed no alcohol; these was just stupid errors, the kind we all make from time to time when our minds...