Tidbits & Whatnots

Back in my younger days, I had a sports car with twin turbos. There was nothing I loved more than taking the t-roofs off and, with the wind blowing through the car, driving like my hair was on fire.   It was a car that was built for a shorter person. My then-fiancé hated the car. He hadn’t mastered the art of looking through other cars’ windshields to catch oncoming traffic before pulling out.…

Sitting at my kitchen table, I hear the low winding-down sound of the power going out. I make a subconscious note to limit opening the refrigerator and continue working on my laptop. I type until the silence becomes too loud. Its weight settles on my shoulders. I look up, as if acknowledging the silence as a presence.  I am alone in the house. I lean back and feel the chair’s curved wood support…

This week has been a week. There are so many things going on that make me feel sad, furious, and helpless all at once. My son seems to have figured out my patterns.  As he stood, scratching my back—I seem to have taken the place of the family dog—and the music for The West Wing starts; “I know you are stressed about politics when you start rewatching The West Wing.” Just like that. I am not…

Carl is a creative first grader who loves ideas. He has an imagination that generates ideas at lightning speed, but Carl is not just partial to his own ideas. He will happily listen to others’ ideas and incorporate them into creative tag games or just goof around on the playground.    One of his favorite parts of first grade is the after-lunch creative time to write stories. His mind fills with…

AI. Artificial Intelligence. Interesting the feelings those two words provoke.  Currently, it has a negative reputation. Despite being people’s guilty little pleasure. It is used for anything from simple search summaries to making office tasks easier, to best sellers. If some people are to be believed.  I see both the bad and the good in it. I can see how helpful it can be in mundane office…

Wouldn’t it be great if you were one of the lucky few who received an unlimited amount of Pym Particles?  Imagine what you could do with a super set of Hot Wheels. A whole dealer’s lot of cars, stored in a case on a shelf.   I know I would have loved using the particles this morning to get through traffic. I like the idea of the subatomic particles turning me 50 feet tall.  Imagine making…

Spring has sprung, which used to mean Easter egg hunts with a certain Aussie Dog, leading the hunt.  She was the secret weapon on Easter Egg hunts. She and my youngest were an egg-hunting dynamic duo. She sniffed them out, and he put them in his basket. Sometimes, he would have to look a little, squeal with delight, and show it to her. She sniffed it in approval, and they would move on to the…

Rowan couldn’t sleep.He sat up in bed, knees pulled close, gazing out his window toward the street. Most nights there wasn’t much to see, but tonight his eyes kept returning to the front steps of the house. The lamp was on. It stood there the way it always did, steady and quiet, like a soldier on duty. It didn’t move or flicker. It just watched over the house with its warm, constant glow. Rowan…

Janey stood beside her Dad outside her grandmother’s house, waiting for her to answer the door. Janey loved visiting her grandmother; they always had fun together, but today Janey was sad, barely holding back tears. Her favorite blanket had lost a vital button to its secret compartment. Grandma noticed the sad face the minute she opened the door. She gave Janey a sympathetic look and asked if…

Who made the rules for breakfast?  Who said they were correct?  I grew up with the notion that a real breakfast consists of eggs, bacon or sausage, but on the weekend, pancakes or waffles were added.   Tell me what the difference is between pancakes with syrup, whipped cream, or chocolate chips and a piece of chocolate cake.  Is it frosting, or does it just mess up our categorical thinking about…

Where rivalries belong on the field, not in everyday life I love football. I like the idea that for that short span of time we suspend our chaotic lives and just be 100 percent for our team. We boo a call against our team, taunt the other team when we score, we all hold our breath when a player goes down, and we celebrate with the strangers next to us when we win. We have an instant connection…

The Kind of Perseverance We Don’t Talk About Reflecting on perseverance this week, I realized how narrowly I’d defined it—goals, accomplishments, grit in sports or school or work. But there’s another kind of perseverance. The kind that doesn’t come with trophies or accolades. The kind shown by a friend who shows up, again and again, even when it’s hard. Even when it’s dark. We’ve all seen the…

I was asked today: what is your favorite word?  It gave me pause. How often does anyone think about their favorite word?  We often hear the infamous James Lipton question of what is your favorite curse word? Personally, I go back and forth between two of them. But to think about non-curse or filler words is interesting.  Immediately, my dyslexic brain wanted to make the distinction between…