My blog has migrated to a new host and is being painstakingly reconstructed here. Please bear with me as I iron out wrinkles, hammer out the dents, and apply enough spit and duct tape to hold it all together.— Karen
“I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical.” ― Arthur C. Clarke I’ve lost count of the times someone’s sent me “intelligent, you-should-read-this” coronavirus advice that turned out to be total hooey. Remember the (now debunked) Michigan doctor who told us all to wash our vegetables in bleach ? Did you…
It happened again a few days ago. I was on the sidewalk in our small California town when a family — parents, three kids, a sweet, goofy dog — began ambling towards me in a convivial cluster. Heartwarming, right? I reacted by leaping smartly into the street, heedless of oncoming traffic, to avoid their unmasked…
Of all the bonehead ideas floated in the 1950s — the curved-barrel machine gun for firing around corners, the vest-pocket ashtray, and bird diapers come to mind — the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab for children is a hot contender for top prize. Giving a kid a box of radioactive uranium ore to play with…
Rich loves swimming and normally does laps several times a week. Years ago in the locker room of his Cleveland gym, he noticed a man heading toward the pool — stark naked. “Excuse me,” Rich said politely. “There’s a rule you need to wear a suit in this pool.” The man shot him a “Well,…
When I was a college freshman, one of my roommates came home from a consciousness-raising seminar and announced that from now on she was eating nothing but purple foods. “They have the highest karmic level,” she explained. Some guru had convinced her beets, blueberries, and raspberry ice cream would keep her karma in tip top…
For inspired lunacy, it’s hard to beat the idea of a pandemic mask printed with the lower half of your very own face. We’ve spent months feeling stripped of our visual identity by surgical masks and struggling to express our personalities through face coverings of cheery print fabrics or don’t-mess-with-me dark solids; is now the…
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Winston Churchill I’m not much of a spelunker, but some years ago, I found myself deep underground on a private “wild tour” of West Virginia’s Organ Cave,. “How long does the tour take?” I’d asked at the outset. “Five hours.” “Sorry, we only have three; we need to…
In sci-fi movies, it usually takes an hour and fifteen minutes for the loony but brilliant scientist to look up from the microscope, shout “ Aha! ,” and announce the breakthrough that will save the human race. In real life, after six months of feverish activity by practically every PhD on the planet, the mystery…
My face shield It’s not often I get to set a new fashion in trendy California. But having emerged from quarantine (yay!) completely symptom-free (double yay!!), Rich and I are now out and about and constantly stopped by neighbors who want to ask about our face shields. I explain they offer good protection , greater…
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” — Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of…
CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBORS These days I’m writing about Good Neighbors, exploring how the people around me are working to help each other get through these challenging times. My weekly posts appear on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my travel and research schedule.
THIS BLOG IS A PROMOTION-FREE ZONE. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful.
