Thinking Outside The Dent

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published June 27, 2022] ©2022

Over the years, I have found that some of my best kitchen tools would be under the heading of “off label,” i.e., not originally designed for kitchen use. Or at least their original kitchen use. 

Several decades ago, in the dark days before Amazon, I found myself unhappy with the selection of wimpy meat pounders at my local kitchen store and ended up purchasing a large rubber mallet at what was then Kragen Auto Parts. I’d been inspired by seeing one in action at the service station and thought, “Yup, that’s exactly what I need.” Chicken or meat or even bags of nuts wouldn’t stand a chance against this sucker.

I still vividly remember the saga of its acquisition. 

The main problem was explaining what I wanted to the Kragen guy since I didn’t look like the kind of person who pounds dents out of automobiles. 

“So, what are you going to use it for again?” the nice sales guy queried, totally puzzled.

“Well, for example, making chicken piccata,” I said. 

The salesman pondered this for a moment. 

 “You know this is an auto parts store, right?”

“It makes the chicken really flat,” I explained.  “But I think it will work equally well for schnitzel or even nut topping for streusel.”

I could sense this guy wanting to back away from me.  But shortly thereafter, he returned with a large rubber mallet.  Alas, the mallet head was black. “Is this what you want?” 

“Exactly!” I said.  “But what other colors does it come in?” A black rubber mallet would look really ugly in my kitchen. Way too, well, automotive-y.

“Lady,” he said, exasperated, “It’s a mallet.  It doesn’t come in colors.” 

But as luck would have it, another sales person, who was likely fired within minutes of my departure, piped up, “Actually I think they come in white too.” 

Amazingly enough, they were able to order me one in white. When I came to pick it up, the guy at the desk said, “The chicken lady, right?” I smiled, “You know, you guys should really be thinking outside the dent.” 

Thirty-some years later, this mallet has been one of the most versatile kitchen gadgets I’ve ever owned. I was tempted to bring the Kragen guys some chicken piccata just so they could see what a phenomenal job it does. But frankly, they looked more like mac n’ cheese people.

Another great “Didn’t-come-from-Williams-Sonoma” gadget is a pair of surgical forceps, acquired from a medical supply store.  I’ve had these for at least 25 years now.  They’re perfect for sautéing really small items.  I figured that anything that could keep a firm grip on internal organs would probably be able to hang on to gnocchi.  As it turned out, these forceps also worked well for tormenting my then-15-year-old son. Kids that age don’t want to know about female anatomy unless it belongs to someone in their own demographic.  Henry watched me cooking with the forceps one evening and commented that it looked a lot like a surgical tool.  “Yes,” I replied, “the surgeon gave it to me as a souvenir after my hysterectomy.  But, don’t worry -  I ran it through the dishwasher first!  Hey, where are you going?” 

OK, I admit it.  It was mean. But maybe you’ve never lived with a 15-year-old boy. Revenge is where you find it. 

Moving right along, Olof decided several years back to re-create his family’s Christmas cookie recipe to send to all the family, including decorating them, his job as a child.  He even included a batch of anatomically-correct ginger people to punk his sisters.  (They were strangely unappreciative.) After trying numerous implements to decorate his cookies and gingerbread persons, he discovered that the ultimate tool was a tiny screw driver that we kept on hand for adjusting the screws on top of sprinkler heads.  It got dishwashered first, of course.

But my most recent kitchen innovation has been to use an adjustable rubber jar lid opener as a grip for a glass with ice in it.  Let me just say that it is perfect for older persons with mildly arthritic hands to keep a good grip on their gin and tonic.  There is nothing worse than sitting out on a nice early summer night with an adult beverage only to have to slide through your fingers and splash all over your orthopedic pillow. Growing older is a constant process of accommodations.   I think I should apply for a patent.

I’ve been writing this column for nearly 14 years now and I honestly can’t think why I never managed to write on this important topic. (OK, the job lid opener is a newer innovation.) 

Of course, now there’s Amazon and the choices are pretty much unlimited so creativity isn’t required. Somebody somewhere is selling just what you want. But it still never hurts to think outside the gadget.

                                             Assorted off-label kitchen tools
 

Jar opener makes perfect G&T gripper

                          Olof decorating ginger persons with tiny screwdriver (in dish)

Note: Images of piccata making and hysterectomy not available

 

Please Don't Do This To Your Kids

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published June 13, 2022] ©2022

Have I ever mentioned that on my mother’s side of the family, I am the only one in my generation, including my siblings, who is not a hoarder? 

My cousins and the sibs wouldn’t quite qualify for one of those cable TV shows.  Well, maybe one of them.  OK, two.  They are more selective hoarders, particularly books.  And, of course, National Geographics.

What is it about National Geographics that make people hang on to them forever?   I know people who have moved twelve times and while the dining room set or even the kids didn’t always make the cut, the National Geographics invariably end up on the truck. 

It’s probably just as well that I live in a small built-by-the-lowest-bidder-after-The-War 1947 cottage with teeny closets and no garage, attic or basement.  If we buy something, we have to give something else away.

Lack of space, however, has not deterred my various relatives.  I learned only recently that one of my cousins actually lived in a four-bedroom two-bath home which I always assumed from visits was a two-bedroom one-bath home.  The other two bedrooms and bath were just full of stuff.

Ultimately, they maxed out on space and bought a new house solely on the basis that it has TWO basements. Even so, my cousin admitted that they are footing an $8,000-a-year bill for outside storage. 

My cousin added that the trustee for their estate only accepted that responsibility “with the stipulation that she had no responsibility for the immense quantity of ‘collectibles’ clogging up our home.” Smart move.

In the interests of transparency, I will confess that my sons consider my formerly 67-now-36 albums of family photos to be hoarding. I myself think of photos as “artistic curation.” 

The kids had long been threatening to cremate me after my untimely death with the photo albums that I had amassed over the years. It would be a two-fer; get rid of Mom and the albums all at once. 

But at least my “hoard” was confined to one (very large) bookcase.

My dear friend Eleanor actually maintains that she found a cure for her husband’s hoarding. “I put my husband’s stuff that he wouldn’t get rid of in storage, then stopped paying the bill after three months.” This is brilliant in its simplicity. 

On two occasions in my life, I have been tasked with cleaning out the home of a hoarder relative.  For the record, most of the organizations that pick up donations will only take 25 boxes at a time.  That house took me eight months.

When I ended up cleaning out my aunt’s home in Hard-To-Get-There Ohio, distance and time constraints required a 35-foot dumpster, which we filled up the first day. My aunt (never married, no kids) literally had magazines dating back to the late 1800s. And yes, National Geographics.  The house had been in our family since 1860.  It’s amazing how much stuff you can acquire in 145 years.

Some weeks ago, the New York Times had an article about “death cleaning,” i.e., going through your possessions long before your demise so that your relatives are not burdened with the truly onerous task of separating the wheat from the trash.  One of the subsequent Letters to the Editor really caught my eye.  The writer, after noting that she wasn’t planning to spend a single moment of her precious time culling her abundance of possessions, including 15 years of New Yorker magazines, rationalized it like this:

“Isn’t it enough,” she queries, “that my children will receive whatever is left?  Gosh, there’s some pretty good stuff in that mess.  And isn’t it possible that inching their way through it will prove to be an interesting and rewarding treasure hunt?  And won’t this exercise tell them things about me that could not be learned any other way, adding mortar to their memory, and perhaps even their regard for me?”

Note to her kids:  MOVE NOW AND LEAVE NO FORWARDING ADDRESS!

Let me assure you, Letter Writer, their regard for you will be in the dumpster (along with most of your stuff) by the time they’re done “inching” through your lifetime’s collection of detritus. 

“Interesting” and “rewarding” are not two adjectives I’d ever use in cleaning out the home of a hoarder.  It’s true that my aunt’s house in Ohio produced some wonderful treasures, like stereopticons, gorgeous oil lamps, and some ornate ewers - intermixed, alas, with multiple cases of 40-year-old Jell-O, cartons of ratty underwear preserved in 1952 newspaper (she was a child of the Depression), and a huge freezer that was a veritable biohazard.

I remember showing my (hoarder) cousin a freezer container labeled “raspberries, 1968”. (It was 2004.)  She said, “Maybe they’re still good?”

So, please. Do not do this to your poor children!  For every “treasure” they might find after your demise, there will be 200 moments of fervent praying, “Please don’t let this be hereditary.” 

 

 

I May Have Outlived My Time

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published June 6, 2022] ©2022

My worst fear isn’t dying.  It’s having to get new electronics.

Seriously, I don’t know what I’m going to do when the iPhone 30 comes out and my iPhone 7 simply won’t work anymore.  As I’ve said before, I know many people (that would include my own sons) who can’t wait to upgrade to the latest phone.  Me, I’d rather eat my own organs. 

Those nice people at the phone store always insist that they’ll do all the work for me and I won’t even notice the difference. They lie.  Not one single app that I had used before will ever work the same.  Apple will have upgraded it so that whatever features were simple and obvious require an engineering degree, or a user under ten.  My grandchildren intuitively know how to work this stuff.  But then, they study the phone nook that was built into the wall of my 1947 home and ask, “But where did you plug in the charger?”

My grandchildren are growing up with ever-changing technology so it comes easily to them.  But for me (and many in my age group), learning any new technology is just plain stressful.

My friend Ingrid sent me this message some time back about her boyfriend Mike (my age) which I keep taped to my bulletin board because it is such a delicious fantasy:

Hi Inga,

Did I ever tell you that one day I went to Mike’s house and noticed that his computer was gone? He said he was so frustrated with it that he took it out in the garage, took a hammer and beat the hell out of it. It ended up in the garbage can. Mike never bought another one.

I feel you, Mike.

Other than self-driving cars, an innovation I can really get my head around, I’ve clearly outlived my time. I grew up in an era when TV sets and household appliances did not need manuals. (Yes, really.) When paid parking required putting coins in a meter.  Where I understood light bulbs. Where I’m not completely thwarted by a self-service scanner at CVS. Where you didn’t need to use an app on your phone to check out a library book (which, by the way, takes five times longer than using a library card). 

And don’t even get me started on those Japanese toilets.  Personally, I think that people who don’t leave specific instructions taped to the wall behind them deserve what they get.  I hope you’re getting my drift there.  That’s my second favorite fantasy after smashing my computer into little tiny bits.

Some areas of technology that I was really looking forward to have utterly failed, in my view.  Like security cameras.  I’ve written about the spate of crime in our area and the frustrated efforts of my neighbors to rein in what seems to be a nightly onslaught of bike thieves, garage break-ins, porch pirates, creepy trespassers, and brazen burglary attempts even when people are home, all caught up-close-and-personal on their home security cameras and then posted on Next Door. 

Alas, security cameras are purely for entertainment purposes. Crime reduction or criminal apprehension, not so much.  You just get to watch people stealing your packages or your car or breaking into your house in real time. Sometimes the perps even wave

I have definitely found it is a mental health move to rant about technology from time to time.  Otherwise, I truly would be sorely tempted to follow Mike’s lead and inflict violence upon my computer, and maybe even my phone too.

I remember in some long-ago anthropology class where some cultures, not wishing to waste precious food resources on non-productive elders, set them adrift on an ice floe, probably in the direction of some hungry-looking polar bears, and waved bye-bye.   This worked better in cold climates than, say, the Kalahari Desert, where the equivalent was probably tying a tying a slab of raw meat around mom and dad and leaving them on the savannah.  Where was I going with this?  Ah yes, people outliving their time. But maybe those old folks were ready to go. I fantasize them floating off to sea saying, “Don’t tell the kids but we just so sick of trying to get reliable Wi-fi in the igloo. How hard was dog sledding over to the neighbors?”

It is a common lament among people in my demographic to wish that daily life didn’t seem to require tech support in the form of adult kids or alas, actual tech support. We don’t want to have to ask anybody how to do what always used to be simple things.  The irony is that we all agree that at one point in our lives, we were really excited about future innovations. Who knew that the Smith-Corona electric typewriter that revolutionized my college career was going to be such a slippery slope?

But I still wouldn’t mind one of those self-driving cars. 

 

 

Leave Me Alone. I'm Not Buying.

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 30, 2022] ©2022

Sometimes it feels like there is hardly a moment in my day that I am not being marketed to. The reason for that is that there truly isn’t a moment in my day that I’m not being marketed to.

The thing is, it’s a total waste.  I am probably the hardest sell in America.  Unless it’s dog food, I’m pretty much not buying. Signing up for Ad Block only seems to slightly reduce the onslaught from pretty much any internet site I look at, and even Instagram friends now subject me to ads if I want to see their content.

If there’s one group whose salesmanship I am especially impervious to, it’s celebrities.  I guess one of the perks of being famous is that you can sell your name and that people who are not me will buy stuff just because you said so. For me, it’s an anti-endorsement if a celeb’s name is attached to it. 

Some celebrities, even ones I find appealing in their own ways, are so over-merchandized that every time I come across their latest consortium-building endeavor I want to scream, “Stop! Please just stop!  You’re an actress! Why would I want to buy cookware from you?”

And is there a celebrity who does not have his/her own fragrance? How many fragrances can the market and/or the CVS beauty counter bear? (For the record, my signature fragrance would be a heady mix of Chardonnay and Mounds bars, with notes of chicken wings.)

The Kardashians, of course, are legendary in the merch world, a new line of products seeming to “drop” every week. Ditto Chip and Joanna Gaines whose ever expanding empire includes multiple TV shows, magazines, housewares, a store and enough other projects to keep anyone busy 72 hours a day. I can only wonder how the Kardashians and Gaines even remember their collective kids’ names never mind spend any quality time with them. (I fantasize a future reality TV show Who Are My Parents? where these kids have to pick their folks out of a line up. And are rewarded with merchandise from the folks’ conglomerates if they do.)

Even Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond has now branched into candles, denim apparel, floral quilts and ice cream makers in addition to opening a restaurant and a boutique hotel. I mean, can’t she just cook?  Actually, if she were hawking butter, I’d probably buy it. This woman knows fats 

It’s not just celebrities whose charms I am happy to resist.  I know that some people have to make their living cold calling but who in their right mind turns over their hard-earned money to a total stranger who calls them over the phone?  Especially if that caller is selling financial products.

This being La Jolla, I’ve had my share of cold callers offering me a “free” review of my investment portfolio to see if they “might” be able to offer me a better return.

Hard to imagine that this cold caller would ever look over my investments and say, “Nope, you’re good! Can’t do any better for you!” Harder yet to imagine that I would ever let someone even look at it in the first place.

I do have to confess that during my 12 years of impoverished single parenthood, I might have been tempted to say yes, since my entire portfolio consisted of $54.  If that investment sales guy could have offered me an upgrade from spaghetti to hamburgers, I might have gone for it.

I think pretty much everyone who owns a cell phone is getting robocalls from those automobile warranty people.  One of these days, if I’m not busy, I’m going to engage one of these folks just as I did recently with the Grandma Scam.  Frankly, I’m not convinced they want to give me a warranty on my 2005 Toyota Corolla.  Of if they did, whether the premium would be more than the value of the car. And by the way, those folks must have a thousand numbers.  I have blocked literally 100 numbers from the auto warranty folks on my iPhone but they just keep calling on a different line.  You think they’d have their own Do Not Call list (“Has old Corolla. Don’t bother.”)

I’m starting to figure out that monetizing anything and everything is pretty much the norm anymore, whether it’s a personal blog, Instagram account, or any type of internet communication.  But if anyone starts sending me an email with an ad in it, our relationship is over.

So sorry, U.S. economy.  We’re strictly in downsize mode at this stage in our life. I just hope technology can come up with a both a phone and internet command, Control N, short for “No Ads Ever! You’re wasting your time! And annoying the s—t out of me!”

 Not going to happen, but everyone needs a dream.

 

We Were Just Trying to Pay Our Taxes

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 16, 2022] ©2022

Olof and I don’t have a complicated financial life, so he is fully capable of doing our taxes on TurboTax every year. Somehow this year, instead of getting money back from both the state and the feds, we owed them a bunch of money. As in low-five figures. But as we do with our quarterly estimated taxes, I wrote each entity a check, stuck it in the envelope with the payment stub and deposited it (obviously not certified) in the mailbox outside the Pacific Beach Post Office.

The federal check was cashed within a week.  The state check is still at large.

I have no idea where the U.S. Postal Service or the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) is at fault.  But a wayward tax check can cost you a bunch of money in penalties and late fees if it is not received by the deadline. 

Fortunately, I had sent both checks more than a month in advance.  When the one check didn’t clear, I started to panic.  The Franchise Tax Board’s chat line human said there was nothing she could do in less we had a cancelled check.  But, we said, that is precisely the point.  You haven’t processed our check.  Wait a little longer, she said. We’re not exactly balls of fire 

We tried setting up MyFTB.gov accounts but to do that, your identity has to be verified by Transunion, one of the credit reporting agencies.  We have never ever been able to get our identities verified for any on-line site through Transunion, despite multiple efforts to correct inaccuracies over the years, because they insist we have lived at places we never lived or had phone numbers that are so ancient that we no longer recognize them.  So the only way to get these accounts set up was to have the FTB send us pin numbers in the mail in “3-5 days”.  Olof’s took 12, mine 18. But both arrived long past the tax deadline.

Meanwhile, the federal and state Estimated Tax payment checks I’d sent a week after our  tax return checks immediately cleared.

The idea of cancelling a check to any government tax institution was almost too terrifying to contemplate.  But as the April 18 deadline fast approached, I finally stopped payment on the first check.

I then bit the bullet and called the Franchise Tax Board’s customer service line. The endless recording, of course, advised setting up an “easy” (hah!) MyFTB.gov account rather than wait for what they predicted would be AT LEAST three hours in hold time. And believe me, it was.

But I finally got a human who said he would investigate the situation for me.  He asked for my call-back number in case we were disconnected before putting me on a “brief hold”. Whereupon we were disconnected. He never called back despite the fact that I clutched my phone in my desperate little hands for the next four hours hoping he might.

So, now at the 11^th hour, with the Franchise Tax Board’s automated line continuing to profess no payment from us, I went on to their link to pay them directly through our bank account routing and account number.  This went well until I tried to actually input the amount of payment.  I tried it 15 different ways – commas, decimal points etc. etc. – but no luck.  Finally I dragged Olof over to my computer to consult.  It has been my experience that machinery, particularly computer-related machinery, is afraid of Olof and will cooperate in ways with him that they won’t with me.  And sure enough, Olof typed in the amount using the numerical keypad on the right side of the keyboard and voilà.  It’s entered.  I was using the numbers along the top of the keyboard. 

And this leads me to why I prefer to write checks instead of setting up on-line accounts to pay things.  There is always some stupid glitch.  I swear agencies like Transunion and the DMV and the Franchise Tax Board only hire people who have flunked out of computer school and have never once tested their websites on an actual person before inflicting them on the populace.  Certainly the Covid vaccine scheduling sites were a classic example.

Setting up on-line accounts usually requires – as did MyFTB.gov – picking three security questions from ten utterly inane options like: “What is the one course you regret not taking?” Whatever happened to “city where you were married”?

So even before you get to the idiotic questions whose answers you’d never remember, there’s still the whole dual authentication thing where they send a code to your phone (usually my phone which is very annoying to Olof in case I’m not home), and deciphering the sometimes indecipherable I’m-not-a-robot stuff, and resetting the password that you had to set up with a capital letter and special characters and at least eight numbers that expires every six months and can’t be re-used.

Believe me, a check is five times faster.  Well, assuming it gets there.

 

Favorite Column Leads, Part V: Technology And Misceallaneous

 [“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 9, 2022] ©2022

 This fall will commence my fourteenth year of writing “Let Inga Tell You.”  It’s been the best retirement gig ever. I’ve covered a lot of topics, some of them repeatedly:  technology, kids, husbands, rats, weight, parking, appliances, Covid, and a host of La Jolla-centric issues.  Over the last four columns, I re-capped some of my favorite leads from the time I started this column. (No, I’m not retiring.) In this final installment, I’m covering my on-going battle with technology, appliances that have gotten too smart for me, travel, and assorted miscellaneous topics.

Technology 

I personally think that it’s not too much to ask that computers do what you want, not what you say. [Jan. 14, 2010]

I know some people who can’t wait to upgrade their cell phones when a new model comes out. Personally, I’d rather eat my own organs.  [March 29, 2017]

Welcome to Auntie Inga’s Curmudgeon Hour. Grab your preferred beverage and sit down while I whine again about why life has just gotten too perplexing for me.  Jan. 22, 2020]   

Every election, I conclude that robocalls are God’s way of punishing people who still have land lines.  [June 12, 2014]

 As anyone who has read my column for any length of time knows, I truly believe that technology will be the death of me.  Probably literally, when I can’t figure out how to call 911 on my cell phone as I’m having a heart attack. [“Feb. 19, 2020]

  Technology has just become too technical.  [Aug. 16, 2018]

  There are infinite numbers of things that can go wrong with your computer. And Microsoft thinks of new ones every day. [ Aug. 27, 2015] 

  Being defeated by my new alarm clock was definitely a new low in my ever-deteriorating relationship with technology. [May 18, 2017]                 

Appliances:

It’s getting harder and harder to find dumb appliances. You’d think that with tens of millions of us Boomers descending into incipient senility that appliance manufacturers would be falling all over themselves to create the Jitterbug phone version of washers, dryers, stoves, microwaves and remotes.  [Sept. 21, 2017]

“Smart” appliances have totally run amok.  A friend’s dryer had an auto “wrinkle control” feature that fluffed up dried clothes every 30 seconds until the door was opened.  The friends went on vacation to Europe having put clothes in the dryer before they left. It was still fluffing when they returned. [Jan. 24, 2019]

Most of us are familiar with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of dealing with death, but I think they work equally well with appliance repair. [April 22, 2010]

Travel:

After our flight to Boston was delayed in 30-minute increments for eight hours only to be cancelled, it occurred to us that the reason TSA confiscates guns and knives isn’t just to thwart terrorists but to protect the gate agents.  [July 23, 2015] 

Somewhere in our fourth hour as hostages of a major airline at SeaTac, I couldn’t help but reflect that if our captors were terrorists, there would at least be someone negotiating for our release. [Nov. 12, 2007]

A close friend recently reported that her husband, a 59-year-old senior executive, has concluded that the nearly ten million miles of business travel he has logged in his career have taken too much of a toll on his health and he is taking early retirement.  It could be more of an adjustment than he thinks, she adds. She’s not sure he realizes his only friends are airline personnel. [Dec. 15, 2011]

And now, a few favorite Miscellaneous:

There’s probably nothing I enjoy more on the internet than misspelled moral outrage.  [April 7, 2011]

There are two phrases that always strike fear in my heart: “packed flat for easy assembly” and “it’s a simple outpatient procedure.” [November 6, 2014] 

Recently I hired a local high school kid to help me move some boxes, explaining that my husband was in Saudi Arabia. My teen helper’s brow puckered for a moment before he inquired, “Is that near Fresno?” [Feb. 10, 2011]

It’s not only modern men in power positions who are clueless about women.  If Ben Franklin were alive today, I’d love to whack him upside the head with my Susan B. Anthony T-shirt.  [Dec. 6, 2017]

People often ask me if my husband and children mind that I write about them.   Well, they might if they ever read my column.  [August 8, 2013]

Sometimes people ask me to help their kids with their college application essays under the assumption that I actually have any expertise.  I’m happy to help but first feel compelled to issue the disclaimer that my sum total writing training has been comprised of wantonly publishing often-ill-considered personal stories in my local paper. [Dec. 1, 2011]

 

Favorite Column Leads, Part IV: Life In La Jolla

[“Let Inga Tell You,” La Jolla Light, published May 2, 2022] ©2022

This fall will commence my fourteenth year of writing “Let Inga Tell You.”  It’s been the best retirement gig ever. I’ve covered a lot of topics, some of them repeatedly: technology, kids, rats husbands, weight, parking, appliances, Covid, and a host of local issues.  Over the last few columns, I’ve re-capped some of my favorite leads from the time I started this column. (No, I’m not retiring.)  Previously, I covered Husbands, kids, pets, grandkids, health, and aging. This week it’s Life in La Jolla. 

I know that everyone has to die of something.  I, for example, am more than willing to die from chocolate.  What I’m not willing to have as the cause of my demise is Death By Vons Parking Lot.  People roar down the aisles of that lot like Bobby Unser on the Indianapolis Speedway.  Except, of course, that when Bobby took the curve in the final stretch, he wasn’t talking on his cell phone.  [August 20, 2009]

What is so rare as a day in June that is not gloomy? [June 15, 2016 

I think it should be standard practice that after a remodel, you give a party for your neighbors and beg their forgiveness. [“September 11, 2014] 

It was the Monday of Thanksgiving week, three days before the kids and grandtots would be arriving, when my kitchen suddenly smelled like a marlin had died on the counter top. I only had one question:  Does God hate me? [Dec. 10, 2015] (A possum had died and decomposed in the crawl space under my kitchen.)

You know you’re turning into a curmudgeon when you can’t decide whether to write about dog poop or leaf blowers.  [Sept. 19, 2013]

Those who celebrated the Chinese New Year on January 25 know that this is the Year of the Rat.  I couldn’t help but reflect that in La Jolla, it is always the year of the rat.  The little buggers really like it here. [March 12, 2020]

There have long been allegations that there are plenty of parking structure and off-street spaces in downtown La Jolla if the local denizens weren’t too cheap to pay for them.  Well, OK, we are too cheap to pay for them, but that’s the least of it.   [April 7, 2021]

I can only conclude that La Jolla’s motto should be “Build it and you will get away with it.”  [March 19, 2020]

You know that life around you has become too perpetually noisy when you hear a sound that you can’t quite place but seems familiar. Then you realize it’s birds chirping.  In fact, it’s your own aviary birds. [May 5, 2021]

Sometimes I think I’ve fallen into the twilight zone when I realize I live in a state where it’s legal to get an abortion, but not a haircut.  [Jan. 13, 2021]

I was going to write about the vaccine rollout last week but my first draft was 25,000 words and they only allow me 800.  But maybe that says it all right there. [Feb. 17, 2021]

With an 11,000 square foot lawn-infested lot and only a 1600 square foot home, my husband and I are plagued with nightmares of San Diego’s newly-created Water Police showing up in the dead of night. The only question is:  will they be after us or the azaleas?  [June 2, 2009 

Every letter to the editor on the subject of the drought suggests converting lawns to a garden of “attractive native plants.” Is it just me or is “attractive native plants” an oxymoron? [June 18, 2015] 

Even in a beach community, restaurants have standards, as in the not-uncommon sign, “No shirt – no shoes – no come in.”  It goes without saying that they’re referring to guys as nothing would probably be better for business than women showing up topless. [Aug. 24, 2017]

The man who knocked on my front door pointed to the curb.  “Is that your car?”  Instantly you know there’s no good news to be had.  Which doesn’t, of course, keep you from fantasizing he’ll say, “I just wanted to say that I totally love those older model Toyota Corollas.  Such classic lines.  And SO affordable.”  [May 1, 2014] [My car was hit-and-run.]

DMV, how do I hate thee?  Let me count the ways. [Nov. 14, 2019] [Getting my Real ID]

One night about a year and a half ago, some miscreants wandered up and down our street and smashed the side mirrors and tail lights of more than 50 high-end cars. They significantly damaged our neighbor’s Lexus SUV then moved to our driveway where they whacked Olof’s BMW. But like the Angel of Death, they passed over my 2005 Corolla. I couldn’t help but wonder at the time: was this a class thing? Did they consider my crappy Corolla one of their own? Or, I feared, did they just think it wasn’t worth the effort?  [May 7, 2015] 

When you can’t even hear your own outdoor aviary birds, you know that surrounding construction projects are out of hand.