(in honor of my parents) He was tall and lanky. She was short with a great smile. They were the leads in the school play at Des Moines Tech high school in 1947. They flirted on and off stage. They even had a kissing scene. Joanne knew Bill was the one. Bill asked her out.… Continue reading Two Dates, Two Dolls
Category: best
The Power of Nature
(re-run) Sun, trees, dirt, flowers. My nose is full of the smell of Eucalyptus. I used to hike twice a month with my senior hiking group called DASH. Then my sis moved in with me so that I could be her care giver. My hiking days stopped except for once last summer when I lucked… Continue reading The Power of Nature
The Sunday After
(re=run) No dogs were walked, no outside balls were thrown, and no outdoor chores got done, including painting my new white locking mailbox gray to blend in the neighbors’ 45 year old boxes, and cleaning up the hedge and pine needles strewn across the greenbelt next to my property. Yes, it seems silly to have… Continue reading The Sunday After
Purple Friday
(re-run) If it’s Friday, that means Yuko is teaching aerobics. And if Yuko is teaching aerobics, you are going to have a good work-out and stretch. I still had my five-day-old headache but didn’t want to miss the class. When I got there and took my spot in the front row side (since I am… Continue reading Purple Friday
The Contractor and the Jet Setter
(re-run) Tom, the contractor, set up his umpteenth date on Match.com. The woman he matched with was from the same affluent town, was the same height as he was, and was ready to meet him at Bridges, the hot spot downtown with the best happy hour. But when Ellen walked in, she had on three… Continue reading The Contractor and the Jet Setter
He Wouldn’t Take Non for an Answer
(re-run) Harry was an American soldier. He had survived D-Day. The war had just ended in Europe. He helped free the town of Reims, France, where she lived. She was so beautiful that when he met her on the street, he asked to/walked her/followed her home. She thanked him but wasn’t interested. “What is your… Continue reading He Wouldn’t Take Non for an Answer
More Machu Picchu
(part two) Christy and I finished our breakfast at the hotel up at the top and looked into the fog. The buses wouldn’t start arriving until noon. “Let’s hike up the big mountain,” she said. “Okay,” I said. My lost and found tennis shoes were too small, but I had cut out the toes so… Continue reading More Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu Before It Was a Thing
(re-run) It was 1977. I was finishing up ten weeks of student teaching in an American oil school in Caracas, Venezuela. My roommate, Christy, wanted to travel for two weeks before we went home to the states. She wanted to visit Machu Picchu in Peru. I’d never heard of it. “It’s the lost city of… Continue reading Machu Picchu Before It Was a Thing
Daisy Rescue Dog, Let the Fur Fly # 6
Two steps forward, one step back. Things seem fine, and then the new Jack Russell rescue dog named Daisy attacks the raised-from-a-puppy lab/border-collie/pit bull mix named Pepper. What the fluff? What happened? Things were going so well. The advantage of having a white dog is that you can see every scratch and bite on it.… Continue reading Daisy Rescue Dog, Let the Fur Fly # 6
Best T-shirts Ever
(re-run) A student at Sonoma High School wants to collect enough t-shirts with college logos to give a class of first generation fifth graders. Why? So they will start thinking about going to college. This is a cool idea. A writer friend, who also happens to be Latina, shared the student’s post on her Facebook… Continue reading Best T-shirts Ever
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 