Humorous Writer Person and Illustrator of Important Stuff
Every woman needs a really mean cat who adores her. The kind of cat that when the vet sees him coming, he pulls on elbow length leather gloves like he’s about to wrestle an alligator. The kind of cat who has a big red sticker on his medical file that says, “Caution: I bite.” Continue reading “One Mean Cat”
Every woman needs a really mean cat who adores her. The kind of cat that when the vet sees him coming, he pulls on elbow length leather gloves like he’s about to wrestle an alligator. The kind of cat who has a big red sticker on his medical file that says, “Caution: I bite.” Continue reading “The Missing”
It was the worst job interview of my life. Worse than the time an employer asked where I needed to improve and I blurted out, “I need to stop stealing office supplies for drug money.”
Though I’ve been told I have a big head, lately it’s not big enough to hold all the information I’m collecting. My head is stuffed full. Too many entries are crowded willy-nilly in my mental data bank, making retrieval difficult, sometimes impossible. If only my brain had a delete button so I could dump some old memories to make room for new ones. Of course, a few embarrassing moments should be retained to keep me humble, and a few sad ones–not too many–to keep me grounded. I wouldn’t have to delete much, I just need a little more room. I want a pill that relieves over-crowding and creates extra space, like Beano for the brain. Continue reading “My Head Ate Too Much”
I feel weird getting naked in someone else’s home. I was spending the weekend with friends, and decided to take a shower before bed. From inside the bathroom I could hear my hosts talking, and there I stood, one door away—stark naked.
Suddenly I flashed on the first time I had to get naked in front of people, an event that traumatized me for life—my first day of junior high gym.
For my husband’s birthday I made his favorite dish: pasta Bolognese. In the three decades I’ve been making this meaty sauce, this was the first time the planets aligned in a harmonic convergence which culminated in one batch of unequivocal, undeniable—perfection. This accomplishment should fill me with pride—right?—but all I feel is doomed.
Last night Sleep and I broke up. We disagreed over a bar of dark chocolate. Sleep said, “You’ll regret eating that.” But of course, I ate it anyway. I should have listened because sleep was right. And I had all night to think about it.
My dark-chocolate buzz made random thoughts swirl in my head like an inter-cranial tornado, thoughts like, why can you give someone short shrift, but not long shrift? Why is abbreviation such a long word? And why are your loins the only part of your body you can gird?
Bingo wings are not the latest spicy appetizers; they’re the flabby upper arms so many of us boomers are fighting. This genetic condition also goes by many lovely names such as bat wings, Jello jigglers, flabby dabbys, shakers and movers, Miss Wigglys, and Parma hams. And like a ham, they’re big and hard to hide, especially with today’s sleeveless fashions.
When I was a child, my mother lost part of her vision. Too cash-strapped to pay for eye tests, my parents never discovered the reason. Back then it was a choice between glasses or groceries. But Mom made the best of it. She found if she held a book farther away, she could read it. Sometimes she’d say, “This is mice type. My arms are too short to read it,” and I’d hold the book for her. Anything too close, or too far away, she saw in soft focus. She said it was like watching an aging movie star filmed through gauze, a technique that makes everyone look younger and prettier.
At night while my husband sleeps, I slip out of bed and sneak into the kitchen. No, I’m not a secret eater out to nab an illicit brownie; it’s even worse—I’m a secret recycler.