Tag: NNU
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Five Pairs of Pants and One Shirt
“Life is complicated and not for the timid. It’s an experience that when it’s done, it will take us a while to get over it.” Garrison Keillor from Leaving Home When circumstances are happening fast, situations unfolding in real time, and decisions are being made without the full engagement of sufficient brain power, sometimes you…
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Putting a Pin in Hope
Over your lifetime, whether long or less long, how many staff meetings have you sat through? This is not an attack on staff meetings . . . they are (usually) a necessity. I’m just curious as to the nomenclature of the room according to the decade in which you sat/are sitting. It’s been a while…
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Relentless Goodwill (Ugh)
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away I stood chit chatting with a lady at church. She was somewhat older than I, respected in the congregation, a well-liked person with a nice circle of friends both there and in the community. She explained to me why she and her family decided to…
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The End of Coco’s Tail
It begins long before the tale of Coco’s tail, way before my boyfriend introduced me to his own actual family. We start here. On 1st Street in Nampa, Idaho. In this old house. Once upon a time there was a skinny college boy who needed a place to stay during the summer. The boy had…
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Beulah Land and Betty Lou
My blessed mother-in-law started talking about her funeral somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 years ago so we “kids” became accustomed to nodding and smiling and “mmhmming” when that inevitable topic came up. Now we’re all sitting around on couches holding cups of cold coffee staring blankly at each other wondering what to do because…
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Turbulence, T-Shirt Tags, and Trains
International air travel. An acquired taste. The few places I’ve ventured to out of my home country can be counted on one hand — at least I think they can. Let’s see. England, Scotland, France, Monaco, Italy, Ukraine, and Ecuador. Oh, wait. Mexico and Canada. And I did not fly to those two. And clearly…
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This Is Now
Around the time that first memories were becoming solid and not just fleeting images of grandmas and old houses and smells and scenes, I can remember a Thanksgiving in Houston, Texas at my Great Uncle Clyde and Aunt Juanita’s house. We’d traveled there from Colorado and when I crawled into my lovingly prepared cot at…
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Valentine
If I can’t give anything else to my children at the end of my life because I’ve spent it all on puppies, plants for the yard, and train trips to baseball games, what I can give them is a love story. It’s the only one I’ve ever truly known so I can’t say whether it’s…
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My Holly Street Home
Once upon a time a skinny teenage girl with long brown hair set foot for the first time on an Idaho sidewalk underneath a row of tall trees in front of a pink brick building on Holly Street and she was home. Those trees are gone. That street is now University Blvd. The pink building…
Beyond Lashley Lane 