The last thing I said was, “right brake first, then left.”
When we least expect it, some small gift will show up, presenting itself as a harbinger of better times ahead. In this case, it was a shoe, left shoe, size 10, that made me laugh at my good fortune and, for once, believe my luck may be about to change.
That black stick that had fallen across the bike trail turned out not to be a stick, a fact I discovered just in time to lock up my brakes and avoid running over it.
On a recent dive down the YouTube rabbit hole, I came across an interview with a 90-something woman from Appalachia who walks miles a day and has the limber knees of a rag doll.
The sun was beginning its descent over the diamond when I was called up to the pitcher’s mound, and I was not prepared.
As we all know, the world has been spinning all wobbily this past year or so. We can blame the global pandemic for most of the trouble, but not all of it.
The mask with the reindeer fabric was under the passenger seat. A couple of the flimsy paper masks were jammed between the seats. And my favorite – the mask with the first lines of the U.S. Constitution on it – finally turned up. It was under the driver’s seat.
People talk about which COVID vaccine they received; they talk about where they received the jab and how they found the appointment. They talk about how they felt the next day.
That dot on the map, the one moseying along thousands of miles behind the rest of the pack? That dot would be me, on my bike, dragging my team down.
YouTube is rife with rabbit holes. Type in a topic and the page offers up so many similar videos that you find yourself pulled into the swirling depths of mindless but irresistible content.
It won’t be long before we all emerge from our pandemic dens, sluggish and fluffy after so many months of languishing. How challenging it must have been for those who count their footsteps, aspiring to the healthy 10,000 a day.
Last Sunday I took a walk. I laced up my sneakers, peeled open a trash bag, put on rubber gloves and headed down the trail to pick up litter.
Twice in the past week while reading in bed, I felt a little something crawling on my shoulder. Propping myself onto my elbow, I twisted around to have a look.
Every Saturday or Sunday, I drive the hour or so to the little college town where my daughter lives and studies. We sit on a picnic table outside her apartment and talk while she digs into her favorite take-out pizza I’ve brought from home. The meetings usually wrap after an hour or so; she …
Twice a week I fill a dutch oven pot with brown rice and water and set it to boil on the stove. After that I take two chicken breasts from the freezer and put them into the microwave oven to defrost and cook.
The great author of history, David McCullough, writes on a manual typewriter. So did the late playwright Sam Shepard. Tom Hanks owns dozens of typewriters, his favorite of which he uses to type thank you messages, noting a quick e-mail doesn’t convey real effort or gratitude.
Want to know how to appear more youthful to members of Generation Z, even if that may not be possible?
It looks like we might be moving toward the speck of light at the end of this pandemic tunnel. Maybe it’s the news of fewer COVID deaths, or maybe it’s the advent of a third vaccine that’s bringing this sense of hope.
Dinner last night was an omelet with potatoes in it. With the cupboard pretty bare and the car too encased in ice to drive to the store, I rummaged around in the kitchen and found enough to throw something together. The potatoes came from a can. It was a plate of brown, bland food.
One vitamin C, two vitamin Ds, two Bs, a cod liver oil capsule and half an allergy pill – that’s the morning routine. At night it’s a different amount of the same things, minus the allergy pill.
This is a recounting of how a search for a half-inch disc of plastic hijacked my attention for an entire morning.
Of all the many disheartening words spoken in reaction to the horrific events at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, these struck me as the most sad.
The come-ons arrive in the mail a few times a week.
Let me tell you about my poorly planned and ill-fated jaunt to the mailbox during the winter storm Wednesday night.
My friend Dana starts most days reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. And after that, she sings the “Days of the Week” song.
So, I’m reading the transcript of an interview I did for a television story, and the truth jumps out at me.
Just when I thought that fruit stickers were the most annoying detail of domestic life, there comes the shipping sticker.
Growing up in Finleyville, my backyard was where all the neighborhood kids played. The long, grassy part was the kickball field; beyond that was the wooded part with the tree swing, the hammock and the green canvas tent.
These columns usually take me about three hours to write and edit. This one will take double that before it’s ready to go. I am proceeding along this sentence at a pace that’s frustratingly slow and error-ridden.
Most mornings around here start with a cry – not a gentle, weepy interlude but an ugly, slobbery jag that ends as abruptly as it starts.
The box has been loitering on the kitchen island for going on two weeks now, ever since the day the farmer went to the garden to bring tomato season to a close.
In his hometown of Canonsburg – and across the United States – people are mourning the loss of Metropolitan (Lazor) Theodosius and pausing to remember a man who championed kindness, love and respect for all.
Jacques Pepin is making me feel bad about my cooking. Every time I check in to Facebook, our handsome French-American elf pops up from his Connecticut country kitchen, uninvited and, increasingly for me, unwelcome.
Today marks about seven months since the coronavirus drove us all into the safety of our homes. My last day in the office was March 12, a Thursday.
A law of nature holds that within two days of your having purchased and installed new printer ink, the printer itself will stop working.
The occasion will be marked with a cake, a little glass of wine, and 21 candles. We’ll sit outside at a picnic table just off campus, and toast the birthday girl.
Back when people were going to live concerts, I’d shake my head at news reports of fans camping in lines outside the venue, hoping to get tickets. My work as a TV reporter sometimes had me covering those stories, as well as the ones back in 1983, when surly parents lined up at stores to buy …
The package arrived on the doorstep this week, tossed there in its dark blue bag by the delivery man. He had parked the van up on the road and ran just far enough down the driveway to hit his target.
Wednesday was a bad day for shoes around here. Wednesday was also National Dog Day, so maybe Waylon the collie thought he deserved a treat.
Our garage is like a page of doodles, decipherable only to the person who drew them. I look at our two-car garage and see a cryptic mess. The farmer sees Marie Kondo order.
The critter, whatever it was, did not like the kale.
If there’s a record for going the longest without looking into a mirror, I think I might have broken it. Not since the cave woman days before the creation of glass had a female gone so long without checking on her face.
The farmer and I order takeout from a locally-owned restaurant about once a week – our way of helping small businesses during the pandemic.
It’s Christmas in July! Slice up the fruitcake and let’s watch a dumb movie.
Every week or so I’ll get an early morning text from Gina.
So I guess I’m a reptile. A snake or a turtle. Or maybe one of those Komodo dragons that have been known to bite off a toe or two. Whatever, I’m a cold-blooded person, and I mean that literally.
It’s possible to live a long time without having to say the word “trajectory.”
In February of 1968, I donned one of my mother’s bridesmaid dresses and a wig made of surgical cotton to play the role of Martha Washington. I’d been selected for the part by a boy named Jeffrey, who’d been elected George Washington by our third-grade classmates.
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