The military just released declassified video of unidentified flying objects it has filmed over the years. The video, sadly, was rather underwhelming. What I saw was a mix of circular blobs and geometrically unimpressive aerial triangles moving really fast through the sky. I guess the aliens don’t have cloaking devices or don’t care if we […]

There was the time, I was probably 9 years old and made Nana’s recipe for whoopee pies. Her recipe called them Black Moons. The yield was four dozen. And you know, there are two cakes to each, so there were 96. They smelled delicious and looked just right as they cooled. My brother, Russ, took […]

Life is filled with them. We learn, or sometimes swear we will never learn when we repeat the same stupid one. They are fertilized by haste, laziness, naivete, fog and distractions and are woven into our lives. I’ve made mistakes while thinking myself smart. I have a hunch that happens to everyone. Spoiler alert: Mistakes also have surprises, […]

I was listening to an audible book and dozing off when my iPhone rang. Usually I look to see if I know the number. I answered in a slight fog. Mistake No. 1. The voice on the other end said he was calling from Apple. Someone was using my identity to try to make purchases […]

If Alexander Pope’s dictum ”To err is human; to forgive, divine” is true, I have given many people an opportunity to ascend to divinity. Egregious examples include: Making gingersnaps for my sixth-grade classmates using whole instead of ground cloves. Asking a woman who had recently gained weight when she was due. Attempting to throw out […]

I’m a fly fisherman, and one of the reasons I enjoy the activity so much is that it connects me to an alien world, the aquatic world of trout and bass (in Maine) and snook and redfish (in Florida). There are other reasons, like fish hang out in beautiful places, and I enjoy the solitude […]

Mistakes. My writing brims with them. Typos. Invented words. Thoughtful substitutions made by the AI which rob the line of sense. “Not” for “bot.” “Withering” for “hithering.” “Affectopm” for “affection.” Stubbed grammar also spots and rends. An unclosed quotation mark means the copy runs on forever. Ill, I’ll be. Were we where we’re wore? Fast […]

I was 11 years old. I was just starting to feel a little bit haughty about my worldly knowledge and was just dipping my toe into that span of time when kids cause adults to take up teeth grinding. I was realizing that I wasn’t a little kid anymore, and I was almost in junior […]

As a young woman, I had always liked the idea of dressing in vintage clothing for a special occasion. That occasion presented itself one day. A friend, a Bates graduate, was going to have a dinner party at her home in Lewiston. Among her guests were friends and professors from Bates, so I was expecting […]

To quote the great Yogi Berra, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Looking back at my life is always an exercise in wondering. Many of the forks in the road happened during my childhood. Obviously, I had no control over those situations, so I never waste a great deal of […]