The cashier handed me my receipt. "Have a good day."  Where was my bag?  Luckily I was wearing Little L's diaper bag, so I opened it up and stuffed the wet wipes and prunes in. When my niece K got out of the bathroom, I asked her what had happened. "Oh, they don't give you a bag in California. Yo... Read More »

Last Friday night I turned my phone off at 6 p.m. and didn’t turn it back on until Saturday around noon. Do you know what I missed in those 17 hours of not checking my texts and emails? Not a thing. When I turned it back on, I didn’t have even one new text, voicemail, or email. I’m not suggesting... Read More »

It’s too far away, I told my friend. He wanted to rent us a room in his house. Too far away from what? From where we live now, I explained patiently. We decided to be long distance friends. I call him when I’m in South Minneapolis, and he does the same when he visits Northeast. We see each other ... Read More »

“What? YOU went to Costco??!?” Ana texted me back. Which made me realize that I haven’t yet outed myself as a megastore shopper. Yup, for all of my talk of minimalism, I’ve been walking around with a CostCo card in my wallet for the past ten months. It all started because my brother David and his... Read More »

This morning Little L and I saw her***! At least we thought we did. We saw a shadow near the door right before the lights went out. Was it Woof-Woof? Or a new sofa? Now that the leaves have fallen, we can see the house across the way. Aren’t they pretty much asking us to keep tabs on their dog? ... Read More »

“Want to play something else?” New Friend asked. We decided to play gin, though I wasn’t quite clear on the rules. Later, I realized it was just like Mah Jong. You can make runs OR threes/fours-of-a-kind. But how to organize my cards? Put all of the twos together or put all of the hearts together... Read More »