Point Made

I know I'm moved into the castle on the hill because not only have I waved at my neighbors, which they returned by using all of their fingers, but I know the school crossing guard, Dennis. Dennis is a ten-year veteran of the Appleton School District crossing guard organization. He volunteered that his wife is also a crossing guard. Dennis also expressed his happiness in that our house was occupied. He was watching it lay empty for the last two years. He knew the lady that occupied the house before. She was taking care of her invalid mother when the bank finally foreclosed on her. Ouch! that kind of hurts.  He was a little surprised when he discovered that I didn't come out of the house to introduce myself to him, but I was actually waiting for the bus. I had an interview downtown for my restaurant column in Appleton Monthly. I've mentioned before in this space my enjoyment in meeting the people who run restaurants in the Fox Valley. Man...

No, not the fitness course at Xperience, my gym of choice. I've now become, after 5 moves in five years, an expert at packing boxes. I thought I was doing well when I worked in Bob Va Asten's Halloween Pop Up store, Spirit . The merchandise we had was on consignment. At the end of the season, we closed down the store which entailed boxing all of the leftover product for shipment back to the consigner. Trust me, we had to be careful how we packed all of the product since we were probably going to get it all back next season. Packing for a personal relocation is not much different. There is a difference in moving across the country as we did when we moved to and then back from Louisiana. First of all, you try to balance the weight of the loads. You do not fill, even a small box, with books.  You wrap (Yes I'm a Wrapper, Watch out Snoop Dog) all breakables with bubble wrap and you secure all boxes with good carton sealing tape, one strip to close the flaps a...

We are not frozen yet, but we got a bite of Jack Frost the other day. You know the days are getting colder when you observe the person waiting for a bus that has a parka on, back to the wind and gloved hands. Confusion could result because walking past him is the high school student in shorts, flip-flops, and a T-shirt. Never judge the weather by what young people wear. They have all of those raging hormones keeping them warm. It felt really cold. How cold was it Oh Great One? It was cold enough to end the invasion of mosquitos. The biggest downside to this was that nobody had anything to complain about until they realized it was cold. It was so cold I had to pull on a jacket when I took the dog out for her tour of the yard. She didn't need to put on her coat of course. Lucy makes me so mad. She never flushes, puts the lid down, or washes her paws. It felt so cold that the day we took the air conditioner out of our bedroom window, Maria put the...