I hadn’t intended to share “Secrets,” the story I published earlier this month.  When I read the printed version, I discovered errors: “compliment” for “complement”; “shinning” for “shining.”  The punctuation was flawed with double periods in several pla

Our president, Donald Trump, is doing a great job of alienating most of the world.  Certainly, he earned us no goodwill when he refused to shake hands with  Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, and, arguably, the real leader of the free world. Beyond insulting an ally, he p

All I wanted to do in my retirement years was write.  I presumed the easiest way to do that was to find a publisher and let the company go through the mechanics of getting my books into print.  So far that decision has proved unsatisfactory. I won’t go into details, but gi

When I was a child of five, one of the first books I read in school was about Dick, Jane and a dog named Spot.  They lived in a house with a picket fence on a sunny street with a mother and father named Mr. And Mrs. Little.  Dick, Jane, and Spot had many adventures and I lov

In the last two years of my political life, I served with 4 other women as a county commissioner.  I was the fiscal conservative in the bunch but shared their liberal persuasion for social concerns.  About money, I saw it as a fickle friend, not to be relied upon as the answ

People sometimes ask if I’ve thought about publishing a selection of my blogs in book form.  Naturally, I’m flattered, just as I am when they suggest my novels would make great movies. Such notions don’t swell my head. Steven Spielberg, I know, won’t be calling soon. 

Recently, my mother celebrated her 100th birthday.  I took her to lunch at a restaurant we’d frequented over the years.  The proprietor doesn’t open in the afternoons, but for us he did. To make the occasion festive, I brought a  balloon and birthday cards sent by my friends wh

I take my mother to lunch every Friday. At 97 she likes to stroll the mall to see the latest fashions. Passing a cosmetics counter she’ll often say, “I think it’s time to renew myself.” We pause over the glass display until a crisp looking salesgirl comes forward. She offers u

I’ve  always been a cautious driver and age hasn’t improved my courage.  Knowing  my reaction times are slowing,  my hearing fading and my periphery vision narrowing, I take extra precautions, which include driving at the lawful speed even if the road ahead is

Appropriate to the season, a friend gave me a gift certificate to Powell’s bookstore.  Overjoyed, I hurried off to use it before it got lost in the midst of my move to the retirement center.  Choosing a book wasn’t hard.  I keep a list on my refrigerator door.