I enjoy cooking. I’m good at baking, boiling or browning good eats. But I came home from my last grocery shopping trip with a gallon of milk, one box of Golden Grahams and one box of Reese’s Puffs. And a tube of peel-and-eat cookie dough for dessert. That’s the thing about being a ...

The epiphany splatted me upside the head at the laundromat. (Being splatted by an epiphany is something like being socked by a fit, but without the frustration of being swamped by a fitted sheet.) I had just flipped open the washing machine lid to discover “snow” splattered throughout ...

It had been a long, tiring day. All I wanted to do was to snuggle into comfy pajamas, flop in my chair with a good (comic) book, and relax. I pulled flannel pajama bottoms from my drawer. Perfect. Then I padded, sifted and slammed through every bedroom drawer, searching for the matching ...

Dried-up rubber bands and balls of single shoelaces. Nine-volt batteries and decks of cards without any aces. Brown paper from packages with snippets of strings… These are a few of my favorite (junk drawer) things. (If you sang the above lines, I offer my apologies to you, Rodgers, ...

Cousin Ollie tossed down his comic book and sighed. “I’m bored.” I was in the middle of a very important panel of my Little Lulu comic. I fumbled for the empty wrapping paper tube beside me and flung it at Ollie. “Here, look for something to do through your telescope.” Back in ...

I must have watched the old guy for 20 minutes, maybe more. All he did was sit at that table with his coffee and stare out the window. I couldn’t understand it. How can someone just sit for extended periods of time and do nothing but stare at something? Or nothing? I studied him for ...