In the Muck and the Mire (because you didn’t listen!)

In the Muck and the Mire (because you didn’t listen!)

I don’t want to say I’m always right, so let’s just say I’m never wrong. I admit it can sometimes take a while, like decades, for my rightness to be recognized. Case in point: the resurgence of the best thing to come out of the eighties besides my daughter–the...
A Clip Too Far

A Clip Too Far

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash My dog Harper is a very good boi. He isn’t destructive, he doesn’t take my car without asking, and unlike my beloved, yet undeniably quirky dogs past, he neither retrieves used Q-tips from the trash nor barks at patterned wallpaper....
Learning Some Key Lessons

Learning Some Key Lessons

Every relationship has its ups and downs. After seventeen years of marriage, I have learned to navigate the most predictable shifts, but I was completely blindsided by an up-and-down episode last week that played out in the Panera parking lot. Because my husband and I...
Maddening Medical Merry-Go-Round

Maddening Medical Merry-Go-Round

I have been on a hellish health care carousel for the past several months as insurance changes have necessitated my replacing all my beloved medical providers with new ones. Every merry-go-round I’ve ever ridden in my life has left me dizzy and nauseated, and this one...
Dermatology Delights–My True Confession

Dermatology Delights–My True Confession

As publicly oversharing our deepest, darkest secrets is our birthright, even our duty, as Americans, I’ve decided to fess up to my secret obsession.  I’m sure some will judge me harshly, but here goes. I was about thirteen or so, the time in life when the...
No Bones About It–Our Health Care System Could Use A Hand

No Bones About It–Our Health Care System Could Use A Hand

Let me start by saying that as someone with a lifelong concern, preoccupation, okay, outsized and runaway paranoia about health issues, I have always respected, admired, okay, downright revered all medical professionals. Covid wreaked merciless havoc on every level of...
From Boob to Bowel: The Year of Living Embarrassingly

From Boob to Bowel: The Year of Living Embarrassingly

I’m no stranger to public humiliation, particularly as it relates to my body parts and medical matters. That die was cast forty years ago when, after sixteen hours of labor, I lost control of my bowels in full view of my OB, a resident, and two medical students. Worse...
Harper Saves the Day, Woof!

Harper Saves the Day, Woof!

My Labrador Retriever Harper is a dog of many talents, not the least of which is the ability to sniff out a single slice of pepperoni in a hermetically sealed container buried six feet underground on a distant continent. (Okay, he’s never actually done that, but it’s...
A Lamentable Lack of Laxatives

A Lamentable Lack of Laxatives

Okay, people, pardon my français, but sh*t just got real. And it was not pretty. For the past two-plus years, we’ve all been dealing with various shortages due to lingering supply chain/production problems. Compared to parents desperately seeking baby formula, my...