Memoirous

 Dill Pickle Ranch Avocado Chipotle Chips   I’m at the grocery store, wandering the aisles. I come here because I know where everything is. It’s always the same—except the prices! They change every day. I am bombarded and in a constant state of hyper-alert. A fight or flight reaction—except I want to burrow into a hole. Sink beneath the sea. Until, I see: a front-facing shiny bag of Dill Pickle Ranch Avocado Chipotle Chips. What does this even mean?! I break down each word, the imagined flavor sensation, and am overwhelmed by the endless possibilities. Each one more fabulous than the next. This is inspirational, aspirational, a reach for the stars, a rocket to Mars! Then, I question: Is this layered or blended, a mishmash like swamp soup, a taboo mixing of all the Play-Doh colors? Or will I, with each flavor, begin an adventure? Travel to the Southwest, south of the border, taste the sweet and sour, the stinging salt and biting bitter. There is so much more to life than co...

 Betty Tsang’s Estate Sale   At Betty Tsang’s estate sale there are slow cookers, Instant Pots, and mandolin graters. On the counter are the everyday cutlery and the formal silverware. There are the special place settings, the weekday dishes, and the various plastic cups picked up from special events and fast-food restaurants.   Lots and lots and lots of empty pill bottles, melatonin yellow, catching and refracting late afternoon sunlight, making willow leaf patterns on the faded kitchen walls. The living room shag carpet is thick, like the rough collar outside the putting circle on a golf course. In the basement are golf clubs, several sets, and croquet mallets and primary color wooden balls. Like new! $20. Pay with cash or check. No credit! In the center of one room is a hospital bed. The shades are drawn. Surrounding the bed are stackers filled with more clean pill bottles, Chux underpads, plastic urinals, and pink water/ice pitchers. A wheel chair, folded, lines o...

Telephone books. I know, I know. They don’t make them anymore. We used our Dayton and outlying suburbs book for me to sit on at Thanksgiving at the big people table. I remember as I got older checking for the last name of the boy I might have a crush on. Once calling and hanging up when their mom answered the phone. Scanning for names of people I might possibly call if I had the courage to see if they wanted to go sledding or play tennis. Activities where you needed another person. I remember feeling so lonely going through the directory. All these names and there was no one for me. I remember when on vacation the first or else first thing when I was bored, I’d look for a telephone book at the motel we might be staying at. And see if there were any other Feebacks in the area. That was my maiden name. A weird one. There’s a greater than average chance any Feeback in the area was related to us or originated in the Kentucky area where my father came from. From Ancestry: Where is the...

I thought after getting my eyes fixed everything would be perfect. But, suddenly, I noticed how old I look. Is this how others see me? Grey, veiny, flabby, crepe-paper skin. Tea-stained teeth. Like an old Twilight Zone episode, the irony of good cancelled out, subsumed by a new revelation. The one thing that completes, now disrupts, throws the wheel out of whack. One step forward, one step back. Pull back the curtain. I can see so much more clearly: What others have known all along: This façade, these bones are sailing away Nothing is as it seems.

 This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. This is the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the AI That sent the bots to worry the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. This is the bots That hacked the program That like a serpent eating its own tail Brought down the house That Jack built. This is the ground where the house stood Converted into a data center That worries the cat, the people, the cows All that lives nearby. There is no longer a house that Jack built. This is the technology Hailed as the future That ate the cat, dog, cows, jobs, the researchers That mowed down all in its way That took over the world built on dreams. This is the devil’s hand, the work of chaos Sown by theories of evolution Whether nature, m...

I remember Welcome Wagon. Welcome Wagon was an idea dreamed up between neighborhood groups and the local Chamber of Commerce. In the 1960s and 70s when suburbs were expanding and many middle-class families (remember those ?!) were moving into homes, Welcome Wagon was a way to introduce the families and familiarize them with the local businesses (remember those?!). I remember when our family moved to a newer, bigger house in Village South in Centerville and a woman came to our door within the first week carrying literally a basket with gifts and coupons. She learned our name and a bit of our story ie why we moved etc. I thought of this last night as I took a quick walk—it was starting to sprinkle—and reflected upon the fact that I didn’t know the names of 90% of our neighbors. There was no welcome when we moved here in 2022. And, truthfully, several homes have turned over multiple times since then. Some are owned by older singles who either work or are retired and, thus, gone a lot....

T he podcast I did this past summer, Written in the Stars, at Lansing Community College is now up on YouTube. So if you want to see what I look like when I'm trying to make conversation= It's here!!

 Not sure what to do with this piece: Any ideas/thoughts?? I thought I saw you the other day. You were in the food storage aisle at the grocery, next to tin foil. I remember the tin foil hat you made me. I saw you in the woods, walking through a copse of trees. I tried to catch up to you. I asked myself later if it was you, but how could it be? After you went away. I dreamed about you, me, us every night for one year. Then nothing. Then, I began to see you all around me. It was unsettling and reassuring. We had this way of talking, finishing each other’s sentences. We laughed. When I was sad or afraid, you would place your hand on top of my head. I’m here, you said. Here, but not here. After the estate sale, after winnowing down, giving away, selling off years of togetherness, I kept the Ma and Pa pig salt ’n’ pepper set. So ridiculous to be the one thing. The thing is: I miss you. Sometimes your cell phone still calls me. I recently put it away, in a drawer, lett...

 Me Time--is a weird, funny, awkward piece that simply spun from my pen. Wish it could be more dramatic than that. I'm not always sure where ideas come from. There's a tire store called Protege that I pass when riding my bike to Trader Joe's.  https://persimmontree.org/fall-2026/me-time/ The piece was accepted in April and is out now in a journal called Persimmon Tree:  An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women Over Sixty There is so much to love here.