Out in Public

This afternoon I stopped off at the grocery store to pick up one thing and miraculously left with only two more, a record for me.

Bear on the Loose

 

I’m currently enjoying yet another book by Alexander McCall Smith, who either started writing right out of the womb or has the record for the fastest production rate of any writer in history. His series include The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (19 books), the Isabel Dalhousie series (12 books), the 44 Scotland Street series (12), and 16 more in assorted other series.

His books tend to drift off into philosophical musings, and The Second-Worst Restaurant in France is no exception. It was published in 2019, but this passage that I read yesterday was eerily prescient considering today’s world news:

One of the characters said, “. . . he understood how jumpy the Russians were and how they didn’t like having NATO forces on their borders, because Russians have always felt threatened by the West – they just have. They’re paranoid about it and you have to be very careful not to make their nightmares any worse.  You keep your distance. But he said some of his counterparts didn’t see it that way. They said that it was better to eyeball-to-eyeball with them.”

Pre-school Précis

 

In case you’d like to compare your past week to what the under-four set are up to, here’s the wrap-up from our twin granddaughters’ preschool.

That's Entertainment

          It’s incredible how little time we spend now on network tv, especially considering the number of channels available to us, if the cable company’s guide is to be believed.

Pricey Paycheck

          I’ve been grateful more than once in the past two years that I’d retired from teaching when I did.

And I thought the New Jersey Turnpike was challenging . . .

Every time I stuck a shovel in the ground at our house in Massachusetts, I was amazed at the determination of early New England settlers.

Cheap Woman

 

 

         Yesterday, on my way to buy a new shower rod, I was lured into Chico’s, a ladies’ apparel chain whose fashions I like and whose prices I don’t.

Rainy Day Woes

 The word is out, darn it.

Java Jive

 

We’d made plans for dinner out with another couple, followed by dessert back at our house. We’re all learning Mahjong together – fun, but amazingly hard even for a group of people replete with graduate degrees.

Isn't walking supposed to lower your blood pressure?

So there I was on my morning walk down Venice Avenue, National Public Radio pumping into my headphones, when I suddenly stopped and found myself saying aloud, “Nooooooo!” and “Stop!”