In Part 1, we examined the art of cultivating guilt, a necessary ingredient for the NJM. However, before we proceed with Part 2, I would...

In dealing with parents, specifically mothers, you often have to either laugh or be upset, and frankly, being upset is bad for the...

A few Saturdays ago I had a delightfully productive and social day. I started by chatting with a sister-in-law, segued into doing four...

On a recent Friday, I realized it was time for me to make a decision about downsizing or staying put. The next day, during a phone chat...

What prompted a lost-lost memory of a bizarre afternoon wedding to float up from the depths of my deranged memory file system? It was a...

I used to live a clerk’s life. More specifically a married female sales representative raising two children in the same house as a...

If you’ve read my treatise “Claudius and the Camels,” you will recall he brought elephants with him when he sailed to Britain to conquer...

When I tell you stories about packing, you should keep in mind I’m not talking about carrying a pistol. I have been discouraged from that...

There’s an avocado tree in my neighbor’s yard that covers half of my roof. Every few years someone will cut off its branches at my...

A husband and wife duo and I were “social distancing” a few weeks ago, sitting on my back porch, no closer to one another than ten feet,...

For those of you who experience what is now sometimes referred to as SAD, or Social Anxiety Disorder, everything that follows will be...

Chicago is my kind of town, that is I think it might be. I should know more about Chicago because I’ve been there seven or eight times....

Life is stranger than fiction, right? Everyone has true stories where someone else says, “You just can’t make this stuff up.” The same...

Tragedy plus time equals comedy, right? It is with all due respect, condolences, and shared sorrows that I apologize in advance for...

It’s long been my contention, ever since one bit my finger, that camels are nothing to snort at. I’ve read that they have longer memories...

Not all Very Important Pieces are accessories of personal adornment, such as shoes, scarves, or purses. Sometimes a VIP accessory is an...

Have you ever in your entire life, even once, heard an American woman past the age of ten utter these words? “I love my hair! It always...

What can you say about jewelry other than the person who dies with the most diamonds wins? That’s what cartoonist Gary Trudeau had one...

Watches are relatively new to the list of non-essential objects that rank in importance far beyond their existent or non-existent...

Although you asked to write my memoirs while I still remember my name, sometimes I just like to write about Things. You know, purses,...