It took me a long time to learn how to drive a car with manual transmission. With automatics, you just put the car in “drive” and off it goes, but manual brings many wonderful nuances to driving. I learned that the car needs to reach a certain speed before I could shift up to […]
Once when I was young, my best friend and I were walking around the city. A woman came up to us, all smiles and warmth, and handed us a couple of smiley face buttons. We, being innocent, smiled back, and accepted the buttons. Then she started in on us, trying to sell us on being […]
Growing up in my neighborhood, everybody threw rocks at each other at some point, or had rocks thrown at them. It was an epidemic. One thing that we learned, though, was that once someone had been hit, the offending rock thrower had to apologize and bring some kind of gift as a means of making […]
Sometimes in traffic, when the light turns green and you start to go forward, the people next to you may be slower to notice, and you are alone in your forward motion. If you are like me, this can be disconcerting- for a second you might wonder whether you are mistaken, and whether you shouldn’t […]
Once, I bought a mocha-colored pair of hiking shoes because I was in love with their color. It was a completely emotional choice. At the store, the salesperson told me that these shoes were discontinued, so they didn’t have them in a larger size. I went straight into denial about the fit- they were a […]
With plants, if you water too much or too little, the results are similar- the plant will get stressed, and if nothing changes, will die. People who over-water their plants tend to not trust that the plant will make it without their constant tending. They just keep pouring water on, and the roots can’t breathe, […]
What is it like to be a fish, swimming around in the day-to-day, looking for some food, when all of a sudden, there’s a big, delectable worm floating right there in your face? Maybe it seems like the food is chasing you around. An irresistible feast is dangling right there before your eyes. So, you […]
In this part of Colorado, it is good to protect the roses for the winter, but not for the reasons some may assume. We have a freeze/thaw cycle in the late winter and early spring and the roses need protection from the warmth rather than the cold during this time. So, once the ground is […]