The following is one of the essays in my new book, A Dead Tomato Plant & A Paycheck. It first appeared here on the blog in 2006, but it is still fun to read today. Check it out, then check out the book for more fun reading. In all honesty, most of us will have …
Sometimes I wonder if there’s a new element in the air making people crazy. I especially wonder when I find myself fighting an urge to do something stupid while I’m driving, like drag a car that’s trying to pass me. (By the way, I lost. A Pontiac Vibe, even a very nice Pontiac Vibe, is …
My son called recently to tell us that his wife had gone to visit relatives for a few days and had taken their baby. So he was alone in the house – except for the dogs – for the first time since baby’s arrival in their lives. He sounded a little wistful as he talked …
They’re suing the Colonel? When I first heard it, I thought it was a joke. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) filed a suit against Kentucky Fried Chicken because the company still fries chicken in oil that has trans fat in it. I guess the CSPI has concluded that we are not …
When we built our house a number of years ago, the spare bedroom was delegated to be my home office where I would write the novel that would enable my husband to retire and live off my royalties. I’m not sure if the agreement stemmed from some magnanimous gesture on his part, or if he …
At age ten I decided to be a writer. My friend and I were in our favorite reading spot, a small clearing in a wooded area with a blanket between us and a colony of ants. I hugged my just-finished book to my chest, watched wisps of clouds drift across the blue expanse of sky, …
As we all know, writers are by nature very insecure people, especially in the early years when perhaps the only thing we get published is a letter to the editor and that’s cut from four paragraphs to three lines. In fact, for years basic insecurity was the only thing I had to affirm my credibility …
Pretty little flowers all in a row. Not that year. That year a few scraggly weeds lived in the spots usually reserved for the pansies that thrived early in the Texas growing season. Normally, when the sun burned too hot, the pansies would be replaced with petunias, then later with periwinkles. Those hardy little flowers …
My very first publishing success was a weekly column that I did for a local newspaper in a suburb of Dallas. It was a humorous look at family life and at the time I had plenty of family to draw material from; five kids, two dogs, a couple of hamsters, and a husband thrown into …