-
How to Really Learn Something
“The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks.” — Mortimer Adler When I was in high school, I took a number of science related courses. They were hard. The information I needed to take in was huge. The concepts were sometimes alien. But…
-
Hare Brains
Yesterday, as I was on my way home from running errands and grocery shopping, I thought my heart was going to stop. There is this wacky couple mile long stretch of road between my last stop and Prescott Valley. So when I exit the parking lot of Costco, I get immediately over into the inside…
-
Waiting for the Hot Water
Every morning before dispensing my supplements, I wash my hands. I’ve rubbed our cat’s belly, given the dog a good scratching all over to help her wake up. Maybe I’ve cleaned the litter box. Often, just as I am about to wash my hands, Bernd is ready for our good-bye kiss ritual and wants me…
-
Practical Jokes and the Need to Laugh
Both my parents loved practical jokes. My mother told me that once she sewed shut the flies in all of my dad’s underwear. Apparently, he was not very amused, but she laughed and laughed. My parents played practical jokes on me and my sister when we were still very young and not really able to…
-
15 Things I Like
There was a time when banana flavored popsicles were my absolute favorite treat to buy from the ice cream man. He had the worst hands, chapped and cracked and callused from putting them into a cold ice cream truck every day, but he handed out the most wonderful treats. And we were always happy to…
-
Things I Have Learned
For the most part, a lot of the things I’ve learned over the years have been the source of a great deal of retrospective chagrin. I also laugh about a lot of them now, but at the time maybe not so much. I’ve compiled a bunch of them for the last chapter in my memoir.…
-
Weird Words, Part 8
Hunky-dory That’s a word you don’t hear very often any more. I’ll call it a word and not a phrase because it is hyphenated. I’m not picking nits. It’s just that I like to make my article titles accurate and relevant to the body of the article. Really. Well, mostly anyway. Now, where was I?…
-
Beneath Certainty: Some Ramblings about Life in Dianne Land
Beneath certainty lies a very nastily tangled web of doubt. It seems to me that any rational person could not possibly be certain at all times about all things. And therein, as I see it, lays the problem. For me it is a large one. Mostly, I go about my life certain that I am…
-
Common Misconceptions, Part Three
The Dark Side of the Moon When I was very young, I wondered why we saw only one side of the moon. I was a little odd. Still am. I set about finding the answer to that question. We didn’t have the Internet at that time. Our family didn’t even have an encyclopedia set. And…
-
Common Misconceptions, Part Two
Napoleon was Vertically Challenged I used to find solace in the fact that someone so short could still have such a profound effect on history. My God! The man practically invented canned food. Well, not literally. But he did set things in motion that eventually led to the canning of all sorts of foods. I,…
Maddie's Mom Writes 