• C, Eb and G Walk Into a Bar…

    C, E-flat and G go into a bar. The bartender says, “sorry, but we don’t serve minors.” So E-flat leaves, and C and G have an open fifth between them. After a few drinks, the fifth is diminished and G is out flat. F comes in and tries to augment the situation, but is not

  • WHEN THE TRUTH HURTS

    WHEN THE TRUTH HURTS Yesterday I got a call from a life-long friend. I had asked her to read the first draft of a screenplay – the first screenplay I had ever written. I knew that she had lots of experience with this sort of thing, so I knew that her opinion would be valuable.

  • THINGS THAT DON’T WORK

    THINGS THAT DON’T WORK – EVEN THOUGH THEY SHOULD Right now my whole house stinks of vinegar. I am in the process of trying to save our cast iron skillet. You see, it was one of my favorite pans a couple of weeks ago. And I thought, well, maybe I should season it again. For

  • THE RAVELED SLEEVE OF CARE

    THE RAVELED SLEEVE OF CARE It was one of those nights. First, I fell asleep on the sofa watching TV at 8:00 p.m. At 9:00 p.m. Art woke me up and gently guided me toward the bedroom. Like a sleepy child, I just managed brush my teeth and then gratefully slid under the covers. I

  • SUNDAY AT THE BIG BOX STORE

    SUNDAY AT THE BIG BOX STORE I played hooky yesterday from just about everything. I forced myself to do a couple of loads of laundry just so I wouldn’t sit up all night chastising myself for general sloth. Among other wild goose chases yesterday, Art and I went to a “big box” home improvement store.

  • SOMETHING TO PONDER

    I’ve heard that work expands to fill the time available (or something like that – Remind me to get a Bartlett’s Book of Quotations so that I don’t mangle these axioms and I can tell you who said it). Anyway, this morning was a case in point. Because Thursdays are mostly taken up by my

  • WHY I CAN NEVER REMEMBER ANYTHING

    WHY I CAN NEVER REMEMBER ANYTHING My husband and I take a walk through our neighborhood every day. That’s how we keep ourselves from falling apart. Yesterday during our walk, I saw that a neighbor had some beautiful orange tulips in bloom. Immediately, my “inner D.J.” (as my sister refers to this mechanism) starting playing

  • AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME

    AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME Thanks to living in a litigious society, we now have warnings posted for virtually all drugs – “Warning: May cause dizziness” – “Warning: May cause drowsiness” – “Warning: Do not operate heavy machinery while taking this drug”. We’ve all seen them – on our aspirin bottles, on our cough

  • HAIR TODAY

    HAIR TODAY If you want to truly embarrass a woman, make her witness a cavalcade of photographs of her hair styles going back to childhood and proceeding forward to present day. (That is, if you don’t care whether you ever see her again or not). My sister and I were talking yesterday about this. We

  • REJIGGERMENT

    REJIGGERMENT As I write this morning, I am seated at my desk wearing pink fuzzy slippers, a long flannel nightgown, and my pink fuzzy robe. It is almost nine o’clock, and my bed hasn’t been made, the breakfast dishes are still in the sink, and I have not yet had a shower. Outside, I can