Senior Living

One of the reasons Manyu is in Taiwan for an extended stay is to help her mom figure out her living situation. My ninety-year old mother-in-law is healthy for her age, but her home is a third-floor walkup. Soon the stairs will be too much.  Manyu has taken her mom to...

Peanut, Peanut Butter

Buzz called me on the phone, and the first thing he said was, “Did you put an empty peanut butter jar in our recycling bin?” He and his wife Pat had just returned from a Florida vacation, and I had been watering their plants and shoveling their driveway while they...

A Thought About Retirement

I finished last week’s blog by saying I would use an upcoming blog to explain why I was reading Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains. Writing in one blog entry that I would use a future entry to explain my reasons for reading a book may have made it a bigger deal...

A Book for Young Readers

Last week I checked out Mountains Beyond Mountains from the library. The book is the story of Paul Farmer, an American doctor who spent most of his career running a medical clinic in Haiti. I was only two chapters into the book when I flipped to the last page to read...

Down a Rabbit Hole

For several years I’ve known there has been something (I wasn’t sure what) about a possible thirteenth sign of the zodiac. Last week I googled “13th zodiac” and came across several sites mentioning Ophiuchus, the serpent-bearer. If I am reading the conflicting...
Steven Simpson