Old friends bring new memories
Some friends of ours were visiting for a few days. This is the couple who introduced my husband and me to each other some 40-plus years ago. I’ve known the wife since first grade, and the guys have known each other since working together during summer jobs in high school. My husband and I got married exactly one year after our friends did, and we were all in each other’s wedding parties. For many years we celebrated our anniversaries together. [...]
Staying alive – and then some
I was on the treadmill at the health club when an elderly gentleman walked by and greeted a man who was on the treadmill next to me. “Trying to get in shape?” he asked him. “Just trying to stay alive,” his friend replied. This reminded me of a comic strip I saw once that pictured a doctor with a clipboard talking to an overweight man who had just completed a physical. The doctor glanced at his clipboard, then asked the [...]
A visit from a night stalker
I had a dream the other night in which I got a phone call from a young man who was commenting on one of my recent columns. His voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him, and he wouldn’t give me his name. He was very complimentary, and referenced other columns I had written over the years, so he was obviously either a long-time reader of my column, or someone I knew personally – or with whom I had [...]
An “oops” or two won’t spoil the fun
I accidentally bought a box of brownie mix, instead of chocolate cake mix, for a dessert I was planning to make. We got half-decaf – instead of full-strength coffee – by mistake, and didn’t realize it till we were making the first pot of coffee in a house filled with can’t-wake-up-without-it coffee drinkers. And just for good measure, it rained all afternoon and evening on Friday – starting just minutes after we got on the boat, planning to spend a [...]
Catching up with an old Beatles song
A song has been running through my head for the past few days. Not the whole song, just one line. It’s from an old Beatles song, and goes: “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” I was 14 when the song first came out in 1967, so the lyrics weren’t really relevant to me. That never mattered. As with many popular songs, I knew all the words and could sing along with the radio, [...]
A delayed flight brings airport adventures
We were just getting out of our car in the parking garage at the Atlanta Airport when I got the text message from my sister. “Have you left for the airport yet? Because we’re going to be late.” My sister and her son were coming to visit us for a long weekend, and we were picking them up at the airport. But after they had boarded their plane in Chicago, a minor problem was discovered with a cargo door on [...]