humor

The Venue: What It’s Supposed to Look Like: One important use of the pool for a working writer: Another important use of the pool for a working writer: The Careful, Skillful Maintenance (an actual Olympic event in itself—the NIGHTLY POOL COVERING EVENT) Kindly notice that when properly covered it is very difficult to determine […]

Are you hanging on by your last frayed nerve as you slog through the dregs of winter? I know it well: the March vagaries of a couple of days in the sixties that bring daffodil shoots above ground reaching for the sun, teenagers in shorts and T shirts flocking like birds, kids wobbling around on Christmas bikes, happy dogs taking their humans on long walks. Fooled again, suckers that we all are, the next day or the next week, of course, comes another “winter storm,” with sleet

Have you ever had a string of days in which everything goes totally, weirdly blooey? I’m definitely not talking about the unbearable losses that most of us suffer at some point now. I’m talking about those times when you’d swear some evil genie had set up your schedule like a very long line of dominos […]

I have always been an animal lover. Possibly, like enough of my identity to be embarrassing, it was born of rebellion against my parents. Well, actually my mother. It was she who was most vocal in her adamant refusal to let me and my sister have a pet. Jan and I wanted a dog, we […]

We were recently with our daughter’s family. They have two kids, two dogs–one of which is a Labrador retriever–and astonishingly immaculate hardwood floors. We have no little kids at home, one Labrador retriever, and hardwood floors that make people wonder if we’re running an unlicensed barber shop. Labs shed. Forget that myth about twice a […]

I’ve spent a couple of years trying to figure out how my very smart dog—who can remember and break into any place food is stored—can have such an extremely short memory. Every day, when Scout the Lab sees the horrible menace of the mail truck as it stops in front of the house, we have […]

This happened before the election, when I wasn’t so worried about the country. My daughter and son-in-law claimed they still have only a three-year old girl and a six-year old boy, but they lied. They suddenly have nine kids, maybe more. I know this because my husband and I spent several days taking care of […]

When Google maps swears that a drive to New England from southwestern Ohio is absolutely going to take sixteen hours and twenty-one minutes, you can be completely sure that Mr. Google Maps is a gold-level member of the Pinnochio Club. Like a certain person to whom I am married. My husband and Mr. Google Maps […]

I must have gotten engaged without realizing it. All I know is this: my sister called and said I’d posted something on Facebook about how another author’s book was an overnight best seller with no marketing effort. She wanted to know why my publisher doesn’t use this obviously brilliant system for A Matter of Mercy. “I […]

Television is evil. It is obviously ruining The Perfect Dog. This is all our kids’ fault. They insisted that my husband and I are completely out of it (new evidence of their favorite point!) when they belatedly discovered that we’d never watched a single episode of Breaking Bad. The final astounding, culture-changing episode had aired, and we both shrugged and said […]

Meet Scout. We just adopted him. Yes, I know: “That’s not a very original name.” My daughter already told me. But Atticus seemed a bit of a mouthful, Calpurnia was out of the question, and Jem sounds like “Gem,” and I didn’t want to be accused–again–of implying that we have the perfect dog. Although he might […]

I haven’t done a blog post in a long time, and a few people have been kind to mention that they’ve missed them. It’s not that I’ve forgotten. Life has interfered with my getting much work done. During late summer we had some minor (ha!) renovations done to our house. The decision to start renovations […]