Novelist | Singer
I learned something new today. Don’t you love that? Life has a good way of handing us humility in good measure almost every time we open our mouths. Here’s my discovery: Having published two of these excerpts on caring for a loved one, I suddenly started to think about the terms I have been using,…
Once you enter the caretaker’s role, it seems like everything becomes about the patient. This is inevitable. This also helped me to deal emotionally with Mom’s cognitive loss. We brought my mother to live with us in September 2012, six months after my spinal fusion back surgery. I was still in chronic pain that necessitated…
This is the first part of a multipart series on caretaking for a loved one. I will delve into several aspects of caretaking and why it is one of the most important things you will ever do in your life. Caretaking is both a blessing and a curse. It sets up the potential for a…
I walked into a California convenience store in 1993 and was taken aback by the ambivalence of the check-out girl to my presence. Not only did she fail to acknowledge my arrival in the store, but she never looked up or spoke to me as she totaled my purchase. There was no personal exchange at…
Let’s face it. We’re all suffering from Covid hangover. Peak Covid time was tougher, but somehow it has derailed my sense of time. I can no longer remember how long ago things occurred within the past several years. Have you noticed that events are either pre-Covid or post-Covid? I’ll bet you’ve used that yourself to…
But not just any dog. I want to be my dog Sailor, the best example of living well. I want to greet each day with the smile of a two-year-old, in anticipation of nothing more than gazing into the eyes of a loved one. A magnetic look that sends love lasers through the air and…
I have a girlfriend! Her name is Maisie. I met her the very first day my people brought me to my new home. She came to my house. At that time, she was bigger than I was, and lots stronger. She could jump too! She outweighed me and so when we ran, sometimes I would…
Life in that whelping box was a pile of puppies. Usually, Mom was there and when she was—yum! Warm milk slid right down my throat and into my belly until I fell asleep from being too full. My nose led me around, and everywhere I could smell my pack, but especially my Mom. Mom=warm yummy…
Valued reader, I know there are a million dog stories out there, and many of us read them. Is it overkill? Perhaps. Or perhaps writers write about dogs because they are so special. They are happy all the time. They are loyal, present, honest, playful, smart and they seem to know what we want and…
I plant nasturtiums on the side of my driveway, where the soil is too lousy for most anything to grow. But as long as they get water, those edible delights with their groovy name thrive in the sandy soil. They flower better in poor soil as well. A nasturtium is useful as well as beautiful….