Messy rooms, learning problems, and nailing cattywompus jello to a tree
Why do so many of us suffer from right-left confusion? Why the disorientation when dealing with something upside down or inside out? Why can’t we remember names learned only ten minutes ago? Why are we...
View ArticleWhat’s Your PRQ?
In my practice as a cognition therapist, I use a visual-thinking course to promote pattern-recognition skills. I suspect this course of producing a frequent side-effect in my clients—higher IQ scores...
View ArticleTen Ways to Drive Younger People Mad – Observations from Nicaragua
Much has been written about travel with old folks and now it’s my turn–before I am forced to join that club! May these observations serve as a cautionary tale to us all. TEN WAYS TO DRIVE YOUNGER...
View ArticleTen MORE Ways to Drive Younger People Mad — More Nicaragua Observations
11. In restaurants, always demand something off the menu, especially if there’s a sign prohibiting it. After all, you are the owner’s special guest by virtue of age if nothing else. 12. Complain about...
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Three Foolproof Finales to Drive Younger People Mad
1. Lock the hotel room from the inside by sliding the bolt home–while your roommate is outside. Now go to sleep. 2. Leave town on your own without telling your roommate or even leaving a message....
View Article“Land of Liars, Thieves, and Pretty Whores”
Wasn’t there a hotel chain that some decades ago adopted the slogan “No Surprises”? A hotel wouldn’t want to try that on in Nicaragua. Few businesses in Nicaragua, methinks, would think that a good...
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New Book: Million Dollar Smile: Save Your Teeth and Your Wallet in Friendly...
Hola, readers! As I type this, my daughter is hard at work formatting and uploading my latest offering to the world of books: a non-fiction guide to dental tourism in Nicaragua. I know. Sounds boring....
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Tired and Retired
I confess to letting more than a couple of tears slip on finding in the mail a thoughtfully provided early application for my government pension, scrawny little thing that it promises to be. Not that I...
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How I Died…Again
I once put out a little chapbook entitled How I Died. “Hmmph,” snorted my mother. “Who wants to read about that?” “Pretty well everybody, surprisingly enough,” I replied. This was true, even though I...
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La Senora de la Pussies
Why had Senora Julia invited me to stay with her? Possibly, I thought, because I’m younger and can cook. Possibly because her lovely house with the sixteen mango trees and the pool, just three...
View ArticleA Way to Readers’ Hearts?
For several Saturdays, I’ve been trundling boxes of local books to the Farmers’ Market, where all things local are permitted to be sold and one simply gives the Market a percentage of the day’s sales....
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Het heerlijk nachtlicht: the delicious light of night
My mother sometimes reminisced, with a giggle still nervous from all the undeserved punishment her father had heaped upon his once precious eldest child, how one day his interminable dinner prayer had...
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Heartbreak and poetry
As there’s never time for everything, today presented me with a difficult choice: nag the PTB (Powers That Be) to make a decision on my kids’-poetry project, or pay respects to a recently deceased...
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What If My Book Were on Canada Reads?
“A swimmer in a cold and urgent sea”–the book’s last line Canada Reads is too competitive, a friend suggested today. Too brutal. He doesn’t tune in. I imagined my book La Chiripa in that competition,...
View ArticleThe Overnight Pariah
Take your journal to the hospital, and a couple of pens. You never know when its seems wisest to stay awake by scribbling your way through the dark. I was becoming desperate for the four-hours-straight...
View ArticleBorborygmi Theater
A left-behind stethoscope was our ticket into the Borborygmi Theater. A nurse or doctor had momentarily forgotten the thing. With a conspiratorial glance, Kay and I began listening through it, the way...
View ArticleLose 7 Pounds in 30 Hours–Without Boring Exercise!
As soon as I’d clambered into the house, I waddled into the bathroom and weighed myself. Two pounds heavier than when I’d entered the hospital. I put a tape measure around the belly That in itself took...
View ArticleIs A Life So Small?
"Is a life so small?" Lately, I hear that cry of anguish again, every day. The heart-shaped face of my Hawaiian poet-friend, Susan Starr, arises from memory. Eleven years ago, kay and I were struggling...
View ArticleWisdom Nugget
The acquisition of wisdom is seldom much fun. The happiness part comes later, once the pain subsides. Take me, the woman stepping around town now with a smile wrapped twice around my face, ending with...
View ArticleMaddening
A full month after the surgery, the lab results arrived. They were said to be due within two weeks. Good. That way, I thought, I can plan my summer. If the cancer is gone, maybe I can attend my...
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