Two years ago, instead of springing for a nice all-inclusive year-end vacation, I decided to literally put my money where my mouth is. I got a root canal for Christmas, which led me to figure that it was time to have my teeth checked. It had been three years since my last check up. My…
When you think of the words “dog lovers”, you might have visions of the legions of breeds, their breeders and fans at their show-of-shows, the Westminster Dog Show. A great sendup of this world can be found in the Christopher Guest mockumentary “Best in Show” (which also includes Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara, more recently…
This past week we learned of another death. Oliver died at little more than a year old. That seems tragic enough, but he wasn’t expected to live past six weeks. Oliver was a suckling pig, destined like his brothers and sisters to be the tender main feature at a barbecue or luau. A kind-hearted person…
Anyone else thinking about death lately? Self-isolated, socially distanced reflection and introspection. It can be a bit gloomy at times. Just when you see a glimmer of light in the Covid-19 storm, along comes an intensely tragic flareup of racial tensions that is reverberating around the world. It is hard to find the glimmers of…
I wasn’t always a curmudgeon. I think most would agree that the blossoming of a curmudgeon comes with advancing years. You don’t hear about babies popping out of the womb with shaking fists, decrying the state of the medical system and yelling at the nurse to fetch them a cardigan before they catch a chill….
Letter to the editor of the AZ Republic March 30th, 2020 (limited to 200 words and 1200 characters) During the coronavirus pandemic, there have been tons of stories of people freaking out when they can’t get their eggs, milk or meat at their local grocery store. They should consider themselves lucky. Many of these “staples”…
“A Kinder World” – image copyright Susan Pitcairn – susanpitcairn.com This week more than any other since October when I kicked off my writing efforts, I am struggling to write. Valerie was listening to a podcast today where a man described the pandemic like a mix of the trepidation around a tsunami or hurricane and…
Forgiveness is a shifty creature. The worst kind of forgiveness is probably the premature variety. If we aren’t truly ready to forgive, but do it anyways, it is like wrapping a tight bandage around a wound that needs to breathe. Lingering resentment can persist like slow poison in your blood. When we are ready to…
In 2008, as the full weight of the global economic collapse came to bear on American consumers there was a brief period of sanity: average house sizes bucked the trend and began to decline. Since the early 1980s, average detached homes had grown by about 50%. After the economic crisis, the average size settled back…
Works that have been passed to us from ancient history are a little suspect in terms of both attribution and accuracy. It’s kind of like the telephone game in school, where a message is whispered down a line of students to emerge hilariously unrecognizable. Also, the depth and beauty of women’s words from ancient cultures…