Their eyes were locked on me, reading my every thought, prying at my secrets, peering uninvited into my soul. The light over the table swayed, uncomfortably bright. Beads of cold sweat sprouted along my hairline. I braced myself for the inevitable interrogation… “How do you like the pork chops, Dumpling?” she asked, with a nonchalance…
Book Review
Is there life after terminal leave? Keep on dreaming…
Ever since my retired Navy husband, Francis, went on terminal leave, I’ve been having some pretty weird dreams. Nowadays, some prefer to use the label “transition leave” because it sounds a little less like someone is about to die, but no matter whether one uses the ominous traditional term or the newfangled sugarcoated expression, both…
Shop, Drop, and Enroll
“Three decorative pillows or just two?” my daughter Anna asked in front of a colorful display of bedding at a local Homegoods store. It was 7:00pm, and we had been shopping since the stores opened that morning. The first place we stopped was the Apple Store, where I spent over a thousand bucks in less…
Yard Sale Booty Blues
“I’ll give you thirty bucks for all of it,” the man said in a heavy Rhode Island accent, gesturing to a table heaped with vintage toys from my childhood that I’d decided to sell at a recent neighborhood yard sale. “Are you kidding me?!” I blurted incredulously. “No way!” I continued, “I could get that…
What I believe about Hell and hand baskets