There was something in the air. I was trying to weave my day into a seamless garment when a strange wind blew.     Something was bugging me. I’m sure it was my imagination, but I could hear the theme from “Jaws.” Was it climate change? Some people call them ladybugs, but ladybugs are cute. These were flotsam floating on a sea of aggravation. It was October 8, a … [Read more...]

I saw a grizzly bear caterpillar.  It’s going to be a brutal winter.  Still, I was more than happy to share a lovely fall day with the crawler. Folklore says a narrow orange band on a woolly bear caterpillar means a harsh winter and a wide orange band means a mild winter. The truth is that the wider the orange band, the older the woolly bear (also called woolly worm or … [Read more...]

We could all use an upgrade. I got a new cellphone. I was due for an upgrade. My old phone was old, something to be expected from an old phone. The new one was the same brand as my old electronic leash, so the learning curve was minimal.  There was a long line of starlings perched on a utility wire as I drove to town. Each bird had positioned itself just far enough from … [Read more...]

I wasn’t shuffling off to Buffalo. Nor was I off to dance the bison-nova. My wife and I went to Minneopa State Park to see the bison. The bison are usually called buffalo. Minneopa is outside Mankato, Minn. It’s Mankato, no matter how you pronounce it.  Minneopa has a herd of 33 bison. That iconic song “Home on the Range” is incorrect. Buffalo never roamed the range, … [Read more...]

I tried to say, “Irish wristwatch” three times quickly. I failed. I wanted to be pulled home in a Radio Flyer little red wagon. I called Uber. They wouldn’t do it. It had been a hectic day. On my way home, I needed to stop at a grocery store because I had a list. The store was busy. I grabbed a cart. A shopping cart is a fitness coach – a physical fitness coach, not a … [Read more...]

I swallowed a mosquito. I’m an adventurous eater. Swallowing a mosquito often happens to a guy whose mouth is always open.  I stumbled into a drugstore. A friend there told me he’d overheard a woman looking at the makeup shelves mutter, “What’s the point? I’ll still recognize me.” I changed lanes and headed to what wasn’t a dark aisle, one where a mother would warn … [Read more...]

The air carried the scent of a dirty athletic sock that had been microwaved. The fair had ended, and I found myself downwind from a dumpster emitting that lingering stench. It wasn’t the smell of prize-winning flowers discarded into that large garbage container. A florist, who I knew a little but not a lot, walked over. We howdied but we didn’t shake. He told me he was … [Read more...]

It’s time for back-to-cool sales. Pick up a parka. And back-to-school sales. It’s an August sublime. I’m still eating sweet corn and the Minnesota Twins are still in the running. I recall a Luther League trip to Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington to watch the Twins during my first childhood. We sat in the cheap seats far from home plate. The only people seated farther … [Read more...]

A cat owns my wife and me. We have three litter boxes because cats are territorial about those things. The cat isn’t always a precious pet. It purrs as it knocks things from my desk to the floor. If the Earth were flat, cats would have pushed everything off it by now. I think of my narrow boyhood as an outstanding one in which I dabbled in perfection, but I can find no … [Read more...]

I hadn’t heard from him since he went off to college at the South Dakota School of Mimes. I thought it was because he’d stopped talking, but there was another reason. I paid my respects to him, family members, friends and loved ones buried in a rural cemetery with their locations marked by gravestones showing expiration dates. A cemetery is any large burial ground, while a … [Read more...]

Technically, nothing is lost until I stop looking for it. Most men have a favorite shirt. Someone said, “You look good in that shirt.” Boom! That’s his favorite shirt. We’d wear that shirt every day if we could get by with it. I know a grown man in Alaska who owns only two shirts. They’re identical. I stood in front of the closet. I moved my eyes and hands to every shirt … [Read more...]

The Inuit have 50 names for snow cones. Last year, a nice woman told me she had attended the State Fair on each of its 12-day run. She planned on doing the same thing this year. She lives closer to the fairgrounds than I do. A trip to the State Fair eats up an entire day for me and part of the next. The sounds of the fair become my three-day earworm. I’ve engaged in purposeful … [Read more...]

I’m an apex predator hunting for radishes, vital ingredients in a radish sandwich.  I picked a couple of cucumbers while I was at it.     No, I didn’t have a cat that needed scaring. I’ve never known a cat that was frightened of cucumbers.   I like cucumbers. I share them with my neighbor Crandall, who  misplaced his glasses and planted a packet of M&M’s instead. I was a … [Read more...]

I couldn’t see a sun in the sky. It had either overslept or clouds covered it. I took a deep breath. I sucked up a couple of mosquitoes into my nose. They were small ones, about the size of robins. I said, “I love the smell of wet mosquitoes in the morning,” paraphrasing Robert Duvall, who, as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in the movie “Apocalypse Now,” said, “I love the … [Read more...]

Ouch, ouch, ouch! The water hit like thousands of tiny bricks being flung at me with incredible accuracy. I was being pelted with drops of water. It wasn’t a hard rain falling. It was hot water from a forceful shower. I’d intentionally set the showerhead to a superhero power. It was the “hurt me without doing any permanent damage” setting. Exiting the shower, I encountered … [Read more...]