It was the 4th anniversary of my brother Danny’s death this past Monday. In honor of it, I’m posting an excerpt from “The Jim and Dan Stories,” the book I was compelled to write after losing my brother Jim, and then Dan, a month later. Written in a conversational style, the book is structured by [...]
This is what cohorts do when one is having a birthday and she and her friends are celebrating at Floyd’s Oddfellas Cantina. One friend in the group introduced herself to another friend’s new boyfriend as “a cohort,” which then triggered the game we, women of a certain mature status, frequently find ourselves playing. It’s called [...]
I was born in Quincy in 1950…My Dad was in the Navy…and my Mother was pretty…Are you doing the math in your head yet?…Here, want a pencil?! I don’t tell anyone my real age unless it’s going to save me some money, which happened recently. Floyd’s Jacksonville Center for the Arts has a new retail [...]
AKA Raising the Roof: The Palomino pop-up camper rides again. My husband, Joe, and I went camping this weekend along a nearby lake. The water was warm, the camp chili was good, and the blogging was no-tech, as opposed to low-tech, which means I was writing in notebooks. I’ll be back to my regular posting [...]
Our garden was recently raided by a bare-footed hungry Corn Maiden, my youngest son’s girlfriend’s daughter. She plans to come back in September or October when the pumpkins are ripe, at which point we’ll call her “The Goddess of Harvest.” And in other news, for those who haven’t heard: 1. Please don’t use the word [...]
Mara contemplating her strategy. If you were playing The Millionaire on TV and were stuck for an answer, the rules of the game allow you 3 options that give you a better chance at choosing the correct answer. You could eliminate half of the answers, leaving only 3 to guess from; you could ask the [...]
Playing Scrabble at the Cafe de Sol
I dream of Hull the way I imagine my Grandmother dreamt of her homeland in Youhal, Ireland. I have a re-occurring dream of walking the length of Hull, the way we used to as kids when we would spend all our money, including our bus fare, at Paragon Park and had no way home but [...]
A bird that sounded like a ringing cell phone flew into the house and couldn’t get back out. I was in the upstairs office when I heard it, and I nervously crept down the stairs to see what it was because I don’t own a cell phone. My husband’s nephew, who was having trouble with [...]
One of my most interesting writing assignments was interviewing Ruby Altizer Roberts in the fall of 1999 for Expressions magazine, a Blacksburg art publication that is no longer in existence. In 1950 Ruby was voted the first woman Poet Laureate of Virginia by the General Assembly. In 1992, she was given the added title of [...]
Lately, I’ve been spending more time with vegetables than I have with people. Braiding onions – the tangled hair on the little girls I never had… Lining up Yukon Gold potatoes – more than an Irish Catholic mother’s brood… Babying the volunteer turnip plants that have sprouted up, as though they were orphans needing adoption… [...]
The pool wasn’t busy the last time I was there. With so many empty lounge chairs to pick from, I made a couple of false starts before making my final decision on which one would be my base of operation. Ironically, it’s a lot easier to choose a lounge chair when the pool is crowded [...]
A butterfly flew straight towards me, without any introduction, and landed on my bright Caribbean blue sundress. The one that I wear when I’m gardening with the palm trees on pink islands and yellow hibiscus flowers on it. “It was a swallowtail,” my friend later told me when I described its yellow and black striped [...]
AKA: How Green is Your Grass? After my recent post, a day in my life in 25 easy steps (a description of my current typical day), I received a couple of comments that caused me to suspect that some readers might have the impression that my life is idyllic. I think things can sound better [...]
Some folks feel protesting is wrong, that you should mind your own business. But when the biggest earth mover in the world shows up at your gate, you suddenly realize that industry regulation is your business. ~ Author and poet George Ella Lyons, talking about strip mining in coal fields of Kentucky. If a family [...]
Woke up, fell out of bed, Dragged a comb across my head, Found my way downstairs and drank a cup, And looking up I noticed I was late… ~ The Beatles The following is one typical day in my current life, told in 25 easy steps. 1. Sometimes, when I wake up, I find a [...]
When my husband asked me recently what he could do to help in the garden, my answer was, “EAT! IT’S PAY DAY!” August Gold We get paid in corn for our garden labor We strike it rich with every husk pulled back The sun has forged an Aztec banquet a silky purse for August gold [...]
My kind of car wash is the rain. It saves me from having to pay to get my car washed and from using the hose on my corn. Recently, I tried to unravel our green garden hose from the hook that it hangs on, but it was attached to my rake by a vine, and [...]
