Behind the Ironic Column

Wow, breaking the heat records in Oregon this weekend.  A couple of days ago it was gray and drizzly and the high was in the low 60's.  Yesterday and today it's been above 90 and even slightly humid.  It feels like mid-May in Washington, D.C., where I used to live.  ...

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There's nothing like scraping up raw eggs with your hands to jolt you awake first thing in the morning.  I blame it on the sun.  I'm so accustomed to the drizzly grayness early in the day that the fact that the sun was out and shining throught he window was ...

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“Tell him I need a fish head…”   The woman, dressed in the usual jeans and parka dreary-day uniform of Portland, was speaking to her cell phone companion as she made her way through the center of the Park Blocks, dodging the skateboarders.   I was waiting on a bench for my ...

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One of the amusing things I’ve noticed about all this clearing out of old records is that my spending habits are remarkably consistent.  And I used to use checks for almost everything in those days so it’s pretty clear where my money went.  These days of course I’d have to ...

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Walking down the street today, I happened to be following a young woman who was wearing a suit with the seams inside out.  Not that she had her jacket on backwards, but that the suit was constructed so the external seams looked like unfinished internal seams.  It was otherwise well-pressed ...

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My gardening abilities have taken a serious beating this summer.  I usually manage to have at least halfway decent plants on my balcony – even though the new balcony is much less plant friendly than the old one.  As soon as I moved here, things started to die or become ...

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There are various ways of interpreting that advice about not standing in your own way  -- or, sometimes, not standing in your own light.  Essentially it means avoiding some action that detracts or distracts from your real goal.  I think it’s fair to assume that most authors intend for their works ...

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Today was not a day I had scheduled to have blood drawn.  Those days come fairly frequently but not usually on a nice Friday morning.  My body, however, seemed to have other plans. I was making another in my ongoing series of attempts to manage the paper jumbled around my desk.  ...

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Even to those of us with an overdeveloped desire to be helpful and assist others with research, etc (e.g. especially people trained as librarians), the insistence of some companies on requiring a “readership” survey before they let you link on through to an online article is simply stupid.   What do ...

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I’ve had a headache all day today – no doubt caused by spending something over 8 hours reading yesterday and the tension brought on by the various wizard trials and events.  Or maybe brought on by the fact that this is the last of the Harry Potter series and I ...

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