Category Archives: updates

Peacocks and Pancakes

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We were seated outside of civilization.

We were seated outside of civilization.

“Oh, hello, yoo hoo…” (think: fingers tapping impatiently) “We’re over here and we’re hungry!”

It’s well after 9 p.m. Quite a while ago the IHop hostess seated my friends and me in a lonely corner booth. When we first entered the restaurant, we noticed a packed house, tables full of families clinking coffee cups and chowing down on pancakes adorned in mountains of luscious whipped cream. The hostess marched our party of four past these happy tables where adults chatted and children hooted. She led us to the back room, crammed with vacant tables. Perhaps, I thought, a server assigned to this section needed some business and the hostess decided to help out by seating us in the back room. I didn’t realize IHop would need to hire someone off the street before we would get service. Hours passed, then weeks, and not one server approached our table. Perhaps I exaggerate the length of time we waited. But how long does it take for someone to acknowledge us and take our order? read more

If I Could Change The World

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Walk? (yawn)

Walk? (yawn)

1.       Traffic lights at pedestrian crosswalks. They flash “walk” or “don’t walk.” But I’d like to have mystery traffic lights that surprise us? How about “run” and “don’t run”? This gets the heartbeat up and good for our health. I mentioned this suggestion to Jerry and he said, “If people run, they have a better chance of tripping or darting out in front of a car, so walking is better.” But is it? We can look both ways and make a note not to trip no matter what the sign commands. How about a “Hootchie Cootchie” and “Don’t Hootchie Cootchie” traffic light? Pedestrians would cross the road while shaking their shoulders and hips. The traffic lights could have speakers as Creedence Clearwater belts out: “Big wheel keep on turnin’, Proud Mary keep on burnin’
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river
Rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on the river.” read more

How To Be Really Rich

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Watercolor painting of the Rosson House (above) by Jerry Wilson.
(l-r) Phyllis, me, Julie, and Murphy

(l-r) Phyllis, me, Julie, and Sherlyn. 

Α week ago, my girlfriends and I took a trip back in time, to the year 1895.

Our morning started off in 2016 but when we stepped inside the Rosson House, a Queen Anne Victorian home in Phoenix built for Dr. and Mrs. Roland Rosson in 1895, time whisked backward.

The Rosson home, fully restored to its original grandeur and open today for public tours, features 10 rooms, five fireplaces, and a creaky, oak staircase.

The staircase can make you dizzy if you look down or try to ride the bannister down.

The staircase can make you dizzy if you look down or try to slide down the banister.

Before entering the home, our tour guide introduced herself. “Hello, I’m Debbie. I’ll be your guide,” she said with a cheerful air swinging her dark, wavy hair as she took our admission tickets. Eight of us stood on the beautiful porch with ornate railing waiting for her to open the front door and begin the tour. read more

SHUSH! QUIET!

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My quiet patio view.

My quiet patio view.

This past week I realized my life is too noisy. Maybe yours is too?

Here are some suggestions for correcting this “issue.”

To escape the noise:

Take a visit to Tucson and stay at the Hacienda del Sol resort. There, you can get a room with a patio that overlooks the Santa Catalina Mountains framing the Sonoran desert lit up in colorful wildflowers and scrub brush. Enjoy the quiet. Of course, you may still have the noise rattling around in your head and that could be a problem. But the desert in all its cactus glory utters nothing except for the occasional chatter of a bird. No political campaigns, no commercials talking about erectile dysfunction or how to lose 50 pounds on Nutrisystem. No whoosh of traffic, no trucks blowing their horn because you were reading a text message on your phone when traffic stopped and you didn’t notice it had started moving again, no landscapers shaping hedges with sputtering trimmers that sound like rocks in a blender. Just you and a peaceful desert breeze with the scenic view of creosote bush, teddy-bear cholla, and the deep pink blooms of the hedgehog cactus. read more

The Word I Didn’t Have Permission To Say (but I said anyway!)

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I loved the song "Surfin' USA" ~ it was (bleep!)

I loved the song “Surfin’ USA” ~ it was (bleep!)

Back in the sixth grade when I attended Louis G. Zeyen Elementary in Garden Grove, California, I liked spicing up my vocabulary with “bitchin.” I used the slang word liberally as in “The Beach Boys are so bitchin.” Or whatever I thought cool, wonderful, awesome, I called it bitchin.

That was the word my classmates used, in the same way the children of the 80s used “rad.” My dad overheard me use the word bitchin one day and said to me with a serious frown, “Don’t ever use that word again.” read more