Musings and Memoir
I’m fortunate enough to have friends who treat me like family, no matter how much time passes between our seeing each other. They are people I can comfortably reveal myself to, and people whom I trust to take care of my kid. Trouble is, most of them live an
Musings and Memoir
I have some anxiety about death. Not my own, and not those of my dearest loved ones (that’s straightforward fear, not anxiety), but how to answer when it comes knocking at the door with news about somebody in my life. In the case of everyone significant in my life
Musings and Memoir
As summer officially begins in the Willamette Valley, it’s rainy and gray outside my office window. It’s supposed to stay rainy all weekend. Instead of being out in the yard, letting the puppy chase us around and grilling steelhead, we are in the house revisiting our cozy, wintry
Parenting
School has been out for a week and we’re descending into YouTube Hell. There’s no day camp this week, and my husband and I are mostly working, so the kiddo gets left to his own devices quite a bit. “Devices” is literal. I can’t tell which is
Musings and Memoir
If I responded to every email asking for my feedback on something, I’d start to think the universe revolved around me. My opinion would be highly sought after. Companies would be at the edge of their seats, waiting for me to rate their product or service so they could
Musings and Memoir
I was lucky to get in a catnap before making dinner tonight. I’d just finished a busy day at work, getting ready for a deadline, and was still waiting for word of an after-hours software deployment that I had to do a quality check on. I put my phone
Musings and Memoir
Recently I sat in the audience at a community college theater, a very nice one, and watched the red curtain ascend over the opening guitar riffs of Jesus Christ Superstar. The intro to that musical goes on for several minutes with no performers on stage, and no lyrics, but my
Musings and Memoir
A few nights ago, my son came down with a fever and was very sluggish. Two nights in a row he fell asleep on the couch without dinner, hours before he would normally wind down. His dad and I had trouble rousing him beyond getting him to raise his eyelids
Musings and Memoir
An Interlude
Musings and Memoir
I was 19 or 20, in college, when I showed enough competence to pass an introductory piano class. I was about to turn 40 when I got a keyboard to learn on at home, a beginner once again. In between, I forgot everything and ignored my inner artist while vaguely
Musings and Memoir
Understatement of the year: It is rainy in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. In the throes of wet season, my husband and I sarcastically say to each other about once a week, “It really should rain more,” as we gaze upon the growing soggy patches in our yard. We also often
Musings and Memoir
I’m naturally a planner, but life gets busy for all of us, and this year I had some shopping to do on the Saturday before Christmas. I waited until I thought mall traffic had died down, then grabbed my coat and prepped my husband for what time I would