Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2024 – Blogger’s Note: I skipped posting yesterday because I was preoccupied or more precisely, anesthetized, while medical personnel jabbed a foot-long (I might be exaggerating that by a couple of inches) needle into the left side of my pelvis to draw bone marrow samples in a “routine” annual exercise to monitor the presence …
JULY 18, 2024 – My namesake niece, Erica Rhodes, has achieved fame—if not yet a fortune (I’m still waiting for her to buy us a mansion)—as a standout standup comedienne. Based in L.A., she appears at comedy clubs all over the country[1] and never fails to draw an enthusiastic crowd and hearty applause. This evening …
JULY 13, 2024 – Yesterday evening, my wife and I along with other family members were among the sardines who packed ourselves into the Fitzgerald Theater in downtown St. Paul for the first of three 50th Anniversary shows of A Prairie Home Companion. If the marathon performance encroached on the bedtime of many a fan …
JULY 10, 2024 – If you read my immediately preceding post, you know that at yesterday’s close, I was in a celebratory mood. Despite Sisyphean odds, I’d managed to drag my MacBook Pro up a steep hill of technological glitches all the way to the summit of technological fixes. From that vantage point, the seemingly …
JULY 8, 2024 – Among the innumerable micro-adventures of modern life is the smartphone, laptop or kindred device that up and dies—which is an odd idiom, since what thing, animate or inanimate, goes “up” then dies? I can think of things that either go down and die or die in place, but I’ve never heard …
JULY 1, 2024 – Recently, several members of my family got embroiled in an argument over “concept art” and whether it’s truly art. The heated discussion began over one of the participant’s recent trip to the Yale University Art Gallery. The specific item that engendered debate was a shovel; an ordinary snow shovel purchased in …
JUNE 29, 2024 – This weekend my wife and I are preparing the Red Cabin and yard for a boatload of company next weekend. Our goal for the grounds is modest, however: when our guests pull up after their journey’s last leg—a long, winding, two-track dirt drive through a veritable jungle—we don’t want them to …
JUNE 26, 2024 – It seems that whenever we get together with friends, we wind up trading recommendations for series on streaming services. “Have you seen ______________?” someone will ask, opening the trading session. “No, but I’ve heard it’s really good,” says someone else. “Is it on Netflix?” “Hulu.” “We’re into season three of ______________,” …
APRIL 29, 2024 – Recently, five of us from our clan attended a wedding and reception just outside of the little ski resort town of Windham in the Catskills. The bride was the daughter of the legendary “Cliff” from my Inheritance series posted last summer right here on this blogsite. For me wedding was a …
APRIL 8, 2024 – Blogger’s note: In light (“In the darkness”?) of today’s event, this post interrupts my current series, The Neighbors. That series resumes tomorrow with a particularly amusing installment. Stay tuned. Did you hear about today’s solar eclipse across a broad swath of the United States? You didn’t? Well, I’m glad that at …
MARCH 28, 2024 – Trust me. I’m only half as crazy as I appear to be. But I must confess, I thoroughly enjoy the level of insanity that I’ve been able to maintain throughout most of my life—thus far. Despite my strivings to go all the way over the edge, I’ve long accepted that life …
JANUARY 23, 2024 – By sheer will I came to terms with the undeniable fact that what I’d wanted to believe was the bat was nothing more than a black sock. Meanwhile, Beth called me from back home, safe from nature. Nonetheless, she is our veteran cabin mouse killer and bat battler. Some eight years …
JANUARY 22, 2024 – In our part of the country, a family tradition is owning a lake cabin (Minnesota) or cottage (Wisconsin) “up north.” It’s where we urban folk can fish, swim, marvel at sunsets, watch the stars come out, and roast marshmallows for s’mores. It’s where we commune with nature and, ironically, where we …
DECEMBER 26, 2023 – In the context of a musical performance, my dad used to say that greatness lay in the details—not any single detail, he noted, but in the aggregate effect of all the details. “Therefore,” he said, “as a performer you have to get all the details right.” Dad’s musical refinement came as …
DECEMBER 24, 2023 – (Cont.) As my Grandpa Nilsson used to say on this day (out of earshot of other adults, except Dad), “’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring . . . not even a mouse turd.” Then he’d laugh at his own joke, and as …
DECEMBER 19, 2023 – Today I pursued a mundane task consuming unexpectedly over two hours of time and energy that could have been deployed to far more productive endeavors. Call it a misallocation of scarce resources. My unplanned diversion, however, was not without profit. Beyond the immediate benefit of providing material for today’s post[1] was a …
DECEMBER 15, 2023 – In this age of self realization I’m finally at liberty to publicly acknowledge a condition, an affliction that has long clouded my otherwise happy existence: From childhood to geezerhood I’ve suffered from a form of aural dyslexia. That I’ve “suffered” is probably a gross overstatement—so much so that such a characterization …
DECEMBER 9, 2023 – Friday morning it was “Sassafras” who showed up—fairly late—at the back door. Under her North Face down parka was her unicorn gown, and under that, her new Korean kitty-kat PJs courtesy of “K-Grand Aunt.” Beth reminded me that it was “Pajama Day” at school. Apparently our granddaughter had had a rough …
DECEMBER 5, 2023 – Yesterday evening after scoring a sugar high from “doughnut-making” time with Grandma, our eight-year-old granddaughter was packed off for home. As Grandma herself then realized that her “supper” had featured . . . doughnuts with icing colored (by our granddaughter) in imitation of automotive fluid and over-adorned with “sprinkles.” If I …
MAY 18, 2023 – In the early days of my legal career, I dreaded “CLE” (Continuing Legal Education) seminars. Al Gore had yet to invent the internet, so “webinars” didn’t yet exist either. Even “casual Fridays” were a thing of the future. You had to attend all sessions in person and wear your usual uniform—a …
MAY 6, 2023 – I’ll never forget the humiliation. Three of my college buddies and I were watching ABC’s Wide World of Sports on the eminently portable black-and-white TV in the common area of our dorm suite. On that particularly memorable occasion, it was a slow day for Jim McKay: the featured spectacle was the …
MAY 4, 2023 – (Cont.) 5. Travis, wearing a neat, clean pair of striped bib overalls appears at the door and accompanies Malarkey to the latter’s house. From the driveway, Malarkey points to the second story fascia board in need of replacement. “I don’t climb on roofs,” says Travis. “I promised my ex that out …
MAY 3, 2023 – Our seven-year-old granddaughter and I joke a lot about co-authoring children’s books patterned after her many favorite “silly series,” such as the Old Lady who Swallowed a [Something or other] or the Seussian classics that rhyme like “a lime on the nose of a Thing like our Zing with a ring.” …
APRIL 29, 2023 – Years ago, Beth, my wife, bought the World in an all-inclusive deal: seven seas, seven continents, seven thousand islands upon a wide-diameter sphere—mounted on a handsome, wooden floor stand. The garage sale price, fully haggled, came to five bucks. The acquisition was for me (the consummate geography nerd) and fulfilled my …
APRIL 24, 2023 – (Cont.) And yet . . . I must confess that this same Pavlovian response (answering the phone spontaneously) has hacked its way into my cranial circuitry, albeit inconsistently. If certain people call me and I’m within earshot of my phone, I feel as if it’d be taken as a personal affront …