That’s right, even with their weird bloated-shut eyes and fuzzy lint-ball bodies, baby cardinals are still cute. We noticed the nest last Friday during a particularly ribald round of Yahtzee! on the porch (sorry, no details). It’s tucked behind a grape-vine trellis just outside one of the screened windows.

The mama came out and squeaked for [...]

Got a call late last night that the soup kitchen was open. So I went over to the neighbors’ house to see what was available. Their grandson (who’s my age) works in a Scandinavian bakery/deli near here called, naturally, The Scandinavian Bakery. He’s always bringing home leftovers.

Usually it’s bread in one of its various Scandinavian [...]

Busy weekend, figuring out how to fit a three-person wardrobe (two for her, one for me) in a one person bedroom. That involved, sadly, a second trip in a week to Ikea. But I did get a nice 75 cent hot dog, topped with lingenberries.

This time, though, we made it through in under 30 minutes, [...]

NPR has been running a series on creative spaces; the environments authors, actors, musicians and others find most conducive to creativity. Last week was writer Daniel Silva, who holes himself up in a basement room no one is allowed to enter. No one, except NPR and its millions of listeners.

This week was Felicia Rashad, the [...]

“I’ve never heard anyone use that term before in all the time I’ve worked here.”

Uh oh. I’d identified the man in the orange apron – the one I’d spied halfway down the hardware aisle – as my last, best hope of fixing my leaking bath-tub faucet and stop the dripping in the kitchen below. But [...]

I love my girlfriend. That’s a true statement; its truth is undiminished by the fact that I was obligated to write it.

“You can write whatever you want,” said she, “as long as you first write that you love me.”

“But I do love you.”

“Then write it.”

See, she’s painting the family room. Again. Actually, there should be [...]

Would it be wrong of me to try to sleep in the basement tonight? There are some shelves down there I could clear off, and if I covered my face with a sheet I’m pretty sure I could keep the spiders out of my mouth.

Because it’s too hot to move anywhere else in the house. [...]

Ikea is the Swedish Wal-Mart. Big store, lots of stuff, really cheap. Difference? Only one is great.

It is not Wal-Mart, the one that is great.

Evidence of this: you don’t see hundreds of people camped out in tents waiting for a new Wal-Mart to open (unless they’re protesters). Ikea, which opened its first store here in [...]

Sorry for the title…it’s Monday.

Bachman’s sold my girlfriend an orchid for ten dollars, and she left it in my care. That’s like trading a BMX for a BMW, and then letting your golden retriever drive it home.

The orchid has a tall and wobbly stem; it can’t stand on its own, so it’s twisty-tied to a [...]

There is an old, flaking, red picnic table in the back yard beneath which things appear. Mostly, those things are grass, since I can’t get the lawn mower under there (I started drawing up plans to move the table, but it was too difficult, logistically).

Many hundreds of ants have also appeared there, as if congregating [...]