Politics. How I hate them. Especially in a presidential election year, I find myself lunging for the off button to the radio, the TV, as soon as I hear someone from The Other Side spewing garbage over the airwaves. Even when one of “my” candidates…

While the battle raging around motherhood right now is about attachment parenting vs. the leave-‘em-in-the-yard-all-day method, something else has been a pet peeve of mine for a long time. I thought it would end once my “kids” were adults. It seems I was wrong. First,…

Do you ever wonder what you would do if you were confronted with a life-or-death decision? I’m not talking about whether to buy natural peanut butter or the kind full of chemicals, and I’m not referring to the guilt you feel when the Salvation Army…

A friend of my daughter’s interviewed me the other day for a history class on the “military action” in Vietnam. I said I’d be happy to talk, but I didn’t have much to contribute. None of the boys I knew was drafted, and only one…

NPR’s “Morning Edition” broadcast an interview with two women recently. I came late to the report, but it sounded like they both worked at the same place – I’m betting it was Wal-Mart – and had suffered major downsizing, if not layoffs. The reason was…

As you may know, I get headaches. Chronic, daily migraines. Hence, I’ve tried a lot of remedies. Some of these cause side effects. The good, the bad, and the ugly, you could call them. In the medical world, these unwelcome consequences are known as “adverse…

Sensing my lack of, shall we say, enthusiasm about things lately, a good friend asks, “Where do you find joy in your life?” JOY? I want to squawk. What in the world is THAT? Thus proving my friend’s diagnosis might be too close for comfort.…

I’ve been thinking about a children’s book I bought and read aloud to my kids a long time ago. Called “The Stranger,” it is written and illustrated by the award-winning author-illustrator Chris Van Allsburg. You’ve probably heard of him, if not from books then from…

When I was born, I had a full complement of aunts and uncles. Though my parents’ families were nowhere near the size of some Dubuque clans, my mom had a sister and two brothers, and my dad had — let’s see – two sisters and…

Now I know it all. Now I know I know your heart’s imperfections: left anterior descending coronary artery fifty percent occluded, right one nearly as bad. Aorta: distal, mild. Those petechial hemorrhages on the small and large intestines, they can’t hide from me now. I…

There is a vintage suitcase in my bedroom, packed so full I can hardly get the latch closed. It lends a bit of mystery to the room. Was that my grandmother’s valise, the one she used when she eloped? Is it full of old letters,…

A friend of mine died this month. She had been fighting the good fight against an especially virulent type of cancer for over five years. Still, I wasn’t expecting this, not now. But when I saw an email from her son in my inbox, I…

The car was just beginning to warm up as we pulled over to our friends’ house, brightly strung with holiday lights. As we approached the door, I hissed at my husband, “If anybody asks you if we’re ready for Christmas, say YES!” I don’t remember…

Has this ever happened to you? There you are, clad in apron and hot mitts, running between the stove and the sink, trying to put together a meal for your family or company – something complicated, something you’ve never tried before, unlike the usual meals…

It was a palace. At least a mansion. The home of the late Aaron Spelling, according to the New York Times, was really something. It was in the news because it had been purchased, for a cool $85 million, cash, by Petra Ecclestone, British “heiress…

Every Friday, I sit down at my kitchen table and perform The Pill Ritual, filling five pill boxes for the coming week. Each box represents the five times each day I take my migraine cocktail. Each box has seven sections. Sounds like a nightmare story…

There we were, flying down Interstate 94, listening to “Car Talk” on satellite radio. If you’ve never heard Tom and Ray Magliozzi talk about cars and car repairs, you’re missing out. Not only are they funny, they know a lot about cars, and genuinely seem…

What is it about dust? Why do so many of us – and not just women, I’ll bet – cringe in embarrassment if our tables, bookcases, or wood floors are even lightly sprinkled with dust? Why is there, in every home, a lowly piece of…

My sister doesn’t want to walk. I don’t mean she wants a rest. I mean she really does not want to walk anymore. She wants to live out her days in a wheelchair. Preferably a power chair, since she can’t maneuver the manual one she’s…

Somebody accused me, re: my last column, of being “Debbie Downer,” although I certainly didn’t mean it to come across that way. So this week, I’ve decided to talk about happy, perky, jolly things. To be Ms. Pollyanna 2011. If you can remember that Leslie…