(re-run) I’ve been on the hunt for bookcases for a while now. I have ten tubs of antique books sitting in a damp garage near the beach, and I think it would be good to get them into the house. I sold all my beautiful bookcases when I was getting divorced. I knew the new… Continue reading Whatever is Meant to Be
Marathon Man
(re-run) She’d tried them all — Match, eharmony, Our Time, Chemistry, Zoosk, Okay Cupid, and Coffee Meets Bagel. She’d had her share of weirdos and had learned to use a fake name, fake town, and a fake place of work. She had been stalked in the past. Now she knew how to do it and… Continue reading Marathon Man
His Baby, She Wrote Him a Letter
(re-run) Holly moved from San Francisco to the East Bay and missed her old classmates. The smart kids and the popular kids had already established their cliques. She was an outsider. Holly had no close friends to share her excitement and concerns at Bishop O’Dowd High School, even though she was kind of cute, smart,… Continue reading His Baby, She Wrote Him a Letter
Mother-in-law and the Birth Control Device
Years ago, visiting my mother-in-law in Omaha with my husband and two (or three) kids, I faced a dilemma. What to do with my diaphragm as it air-dried after I washed it? There was no discreet place to put it, since we all shared the same bathroom. Instead, I elected to put it up in… Continue reading Mother-in-law and the Birth Control Device
Waitresses Make the Best Tippers
(re-run) After moving to Omaha and teaching for a couple of years across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I grew tired of driving a car that smelled like a mildewed basement. My poor Chevy Monza had suffered through a Nebraska flood back at the farmhouse, and the car stank. I couldn’t afford a… Continue reading Waitresses Make the Best Tippers
Abortion, High School Pregnancies and Memories
(re-run) It amazes me how one memory leads to the next and so on and so forth. Our brains are a beehive of memories, each one stashed in its own little honey-comb hexagon that doesn’t break out until something triggers it. Today it was talk of abortion and how a friend told of hers at… Continue reading Abortion, High School Pregnancies and Memories
Blind Date in a Castle
(re-run) Lynne was studying abroad at a university in Sweden. One of her friends convinced her plus another young woman to be blind dates. The friend’s boyfriend’s military school was hosting a fancy dinner and ball at a castle in Stockholm. The Swedish school was inviting guys from Denmark and Norway for the event, and… Continue reading Blind Date in a Castle
The Sprinkler Man and the Glass Coffee Table
(re-run) When my two oldest children were 5 and 2, we moved from one house in town to another. We didn’t gain any square footage, but the new house had a huge yard, front and back, and forty trees in a better neighborhood. The house had been vacant for months. The sprinklers weren’t working in… Continue reading The Sprinkler Man and the Glass Coffee Table
The White Album
(re-run) The last time I saw the Beatles cover band in the Santa Cruz mountains hippie town of Felton, I noticed that most of the crowd was coupled off, and most of the couples didn’t dance. They were too old, having been die-hard Beatles fans for fifty years. It was a shame. The floor is… Continue reading The White Album
Moon Over Lafayette
(re-run) Trudy worked at an engineering firm. Joe was the visiting copy machine repair man, or as her office mates called him, the Xerox guy. One day Trudy had to make copies. Joe was at the machine, repairing away. “Oh,” she said. “No copies for me!” “Hey there,” Joe said. “We should catch dinner sometime.”… Continue reading Moon Over Lafayette
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 