A while ago I told Ember, “I’d do anything for you.” No reply. It seemed like she didn’t hear me. Fast-forward to this week. A master of prolonging bedtime, she draws on techniques like engaging me with interesting questions she knows I can’t help but answer, or requesting things that seem suddenly essential. A few nights ago after I’d gotten her all tucked in, she asked for a back rub. I declined, on account of […]
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A gathering of words
Amazing Gracelessness
In 1976, at my father’s insistence, I learned to touch-type in a Heald Business College course during my last semester of art school. Eventually I achieved the stunning speed of 35 words per minute (if you don’t subtract for errors, which would have made it negative 80 w.p.m.). Though it was standard to require a minimum of 65 words a minute for a secretarial job, upon my graduation I was hired at a brokerage firm […]
Read moreA Losing Proposition
“How does your garden grow?” you might ask me. Well, the good news is that many flowers have finally appeared in my raised bed. Even some of the handful of remaining sunflowers are blooming. This tall fella was the first to sprout color. It took five days from initial glimpse of yellow till it fully opened. Here’s Day 4: Three others are likewise showing their stuff, but who knows how long they’ll stand. I guess […]
Read moreIce Water
June 1, 2022: The best thing about my security cameras (when they deign to work) is the pleasure I get from learning what prowls outside my house after dark. So far, it’s been nothing sinister. Meet this 3:00 a.m. visitor to my back porch. It’s welcome to drop by any time, even without an invitation. June 2: This afternoon Ember was cocooned in her elaborate bed-fort, pondering the universe, when she called out to me: […]
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