Category: Uncategorized

Here is a true and recent dog story for you.   I am currently taking a wonderful class about writing for children – specifically, writing picture books.  When our name comes up in the roster, it is our turn to submit a story for critique by the other students.  Although I have a “ton” of children’s stories to submit, this past week I watched Kate, the Border Collie who stays with me, occasionally.  So, I wrote about that event, and here it is.  The story that I submit for the reading won’t have the photographs, but I couldn’t resist putting them in the BLOG.  Feel free to critique it and tell me how it can be improved.  Thanks.  (Oh, by the way – you can tell that I don’t know what the story’s name will be because of the two possible names.)

Remember when Mr. Rogers sang that song on his children’s program?  Once in a while, as an adult, we get to have such a day.  And, last Sunday was such a day.  A friend and I made plans to go to a rocks and mineral sale.  Another friend joined us.  My Tahoe is a little better for fitting in three adults, so we took it and drove a far distance from the center of town (where I live) out east to the edge of the metropolitan area.  A far piece, indeed.

Dear Readers:  This is getting to you a bit late.  We had an almost eight-hour power outage.

______________________________________________________

I really like Chinese food.  Thai food.  Any kind of food that ends with a cookie – a fortune cookie.  What fun it is to crack open the cookie to pull out the little paper with your “fortune” on it.  Sometimes, the words make sense, but even if they don’t you usually pretend that they do

Can anyone tell me what has happened to civil discourse?  To being polite?  Last week, I spent much of two days watching the confirmation hearings for, possibly, our new Supreme Court Justice.  (I know.  I know.  I promised no politics, but I think this is not politics.  I think this is the disintegration of politeness in human interactions – the situation of one person being inconsiderate toward another.)

What is it that gives you pause to cry?  Is it ducks on a pond?  Is it birds in the blue sky?  Cute kittens?  What is it?

Lying awake, listening to the radio that I use as “white noise” the other night (that obviously wasn’t working, that night), I began thinking about the act of crying and why it occurs.  For me.  I know that some of my crying occurs when I am so frustrated with a situation that I think I cannot change what is happening.  I cannot make some move to send a happening onto a different track.  NOTHING I can do will help.  Then I cry.

And, then, there are other times.

This article will be published the day before St. Patrick’s Day, 2022, my favorite non-religious holiday – my absolute favorite.  Time was, I made sure that on St. Pat’s Day, I always wore something of green.  Children love to catch someone without green – pinching becomes the art of the day, and school kids are no exception.  Today, I sometimes forget that it is the 17th of March.

Before we begin:  Tallying snowfall in the metropolitan area is anybody’s guess.  Sometimes, it’s measured at the airport, and that is usually less than what falls on my yard.  Sometimes, the report is from the Foothills.  Sometimes, that is more than falls on my yard.  My measurement for the past month (February and part of March 2022) falls between 20 and 24 inches.  Fortunate for us, it melts somewhat quickly – just not in my front yard.  It snowed, again, this past week; after we’d cleaned the snow from the storm in the preceding week’s storm.

This past weekend (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) was a really wonderful weekend for lots of folks.  And, a lot of hard work.  Not so much, hard work for me, but hard work for many.  This was the weekend of the show and sale of the Denver Gem and Mineral Guild (DGMG) at the Jefferson County Fair Grounds.  The first show and sale since the beginning of the pandemic.

Never, never, let a machine know that you are in a hurry or on a deadline.  Earlier this afternoon, as I was starting this week’s blog, my computer screen didn’t look right.  In fact, it looked really wrong!  So, of course, I called my computer savior, Roger, who kindly took things in hand, fixed everything, and got me back into work mode.  Thank you, Roger.  I had a few ideas about what this week’s subject would be, knowing that I had several in mind, none of which was worth an entire blog.  I decided to write about just a few of them; a little piece at a time.

Thinking Out Loud

I recently told you what a terrific neighborhood I live in.  I began thinking about other things in my life that make my life better.  There are a lot of them, so I’ll try to keep it to some basics like inventions.

An invention is something that no one thought about before and now it exists.  Like shoe strings.   Or equal to that – aglets.  That’s a tag or metal sheath on the end of a lace, a cord, or ribbon to facilitate its passing through an eyelet.  (Definition: American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 1982 edition)  Thus, on to more inventions.