Tag Archives: humor blog

Seven Marketing Tricks That Need To End

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1. So Rich You Look Poor

Who thought to take a pair of jeans, rip gaping holes at the knees with lots of dangling threads and sell the jeans at ridiculous prices? Celebrities, the very rich ones, like to be seen wearing jeans with raggedy holes. I remember a time when people who wore jeans with holes carried tin cups and asked us if we could spare some change. Not anymore. You need to be quite wealthy to wear jeans with ripped holes in the knees. Don’t think you can gash holes in your Kirkland jeans from Costco. You have to have a designer label and have paid well over one-hundred dollars for your holey jeans to be authentic. read more

Five Tips For a Better Life (possibly even happier)

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1.Rename things. I’ve found that giving new names to ordinary things provides a positive outlook. It also gives new meaning and joy to your everyday world. This is how it works. Jerry and I have a den in our home. Den sounds crass to me. It’s where animals hide. Therefore, I renamed our den the Entertainment Room. Never mind it doesn’t have a popcorn machine. The Entertainment Room is a more enjoyable space to view my 32-inch TV than when we called it the den. We have a spare bedroom at our house, but we never call it a spare bedroom. It is my Writing Studio. We have an enclosed patio with floor to ceiling glass, but enclosed patio is not what we call it. It’s our Atrium, of course. We have a garbage can enclosure on the side of our house. I prefer to call it the Hideaway Retreat for Used Throwaways and Slightly Rotting Produce. You see what I mean? Renaming things gives you a new perspective on your life. By renaming things, you can upgrade your world into an amazing Shangri-la. read more

The Saddest Part of 2018 (you probably don’t realize)

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Some people say “the good ol’ days weren’t so good.” I’m here to tell you, they are wrong.

In the good ol’ days, like 1987, we didn’t have cell phones. At least they weren’t a common household item. Cellular phones in 1987 cost about as much as a Ferrari and were the size and weight of a toaster. They didn’t fit very well inside our purse. They didn’t make toast.

Most everyone in 1987 had touch-tone dial phones that sat on desks or hung on the walls. We almost always answered the phone every time it blasted its loud jangle. We didn’t have caller i.d. and we never knew who might be calling. The thing is, in 1987 you could still hope for a fun phone call. read more

Have Your Soup and Eat Their Soup Too

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“This soup is really not what I ordered,” I say aloud.

“Oh, that’s my soup,” says Judi, fellow Compassion sponsor and muy buena amiga (aka Audrey Hepburn in a previous blog).

Judi adds with a smile, “That’s okay. You can have my soup.”

We probably sat at one of these tables.

I’m in Mexico, seated outside at a sidewalk café. It’s our last day in Oaxaca and I sit with many of my fellow Compassion sponsors. Nineteen of us have gathered from all over the U.S. for a week-long tour in Oaxaca, which includes a day with the child we sponsor through Compassion International. Our week together is about to come to a close. read more

Life’s Unexpected Drips, Drops, and Spills

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It was a beautiful day at the writer's confernece in Edmonds, WA.

It was a beautiful day at the writers’ conference in Edmonds, WA. The Frances Anderson center sits behind the trees.

The “incident” (think theme music from Jaws) occurred last weekend at the Write on the Sound writers’ conference in Edmonds, Washington. Having lived in the Pacific Northwest for many years before moving to Arizona, I missed the Northwest experience of writers’ conferences. So I flew to Seattle to attend the city’s annual conference on the craft of writing.

When I arrived at the conference, I checked-in and then headed straight for the Plaza Room where I planned to meet my friend Janet. I hadn’t seen Janet in five years. Prior to me leaving Washington in 2011, Janet and I had attended the annual writers’ conference together. As an aside, Janet and I became friends at the Fear of Flying Clinic in 2006 where we learned we shared common interests other than our fear of flying. We both liked laughing, talking, slugging down coffee, and of course, writing. With these shared interests we formed our own writing group of two. I proposed we call ourselves the Smokin’ Hot Writers. Janet suggested we get long cigarette holders to be more like real authors. But neither of us wanted to take up smoking. read more