Entries by Janet

I remember sleep

Boy, am I cranky.  Oh, didn’t you sleep well?  No, as a matter of fact, I didn’t sleep at all. The great physician, Sir William Osler, once said, “The man who is well wears a crown that only the sick can see.”  I have always been struck by that quote, because it just goes to […]

I’ll get right to it

I have been meaning to write about procrastination for a while, but I kept putting it off. I’ve been procrastinating for years; one of these days I’m going to have to get some help for this problem. No, really, if it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done. As Mark Twain said, […]

My Green Doughnut

As Sister Margaretta confessed in “The Sound of Music,” Reverend Mother, I have sinned. Except her crime — tampering with a Nazi car to save Julie Andrews, and let’s face it, who wouldn’t do whatever it took to save Julie Andrews — was more forgivable than mine. I ate a doughnut. Not only a doughnut, […]

Our Star-Mangled Banner

It’s pretty sad when you’re watching a sporting event and your first reaction is, “Oh, God, make it stop,” and the game hasn’t even started yet! Anybody watch the Rose Bowl? I don’t know who the singers were, don’t want to know, but I just kept thinking, if someone could actually sing the National Anthem […]

Mispronounced on purpose

We know the right way to talk, but in our family — in private, not out in public — we often choose not to do it. I can’t explain it, but we think purposefully mispronounced words are funny. I don’t think it’s just a Southern thing; Mark’s grandfather was from Ohio, and he liked to […]

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Constant surveillance

Forget the NSA. For real experts in constant monitoring and surveillance of the smallest details, turn to a dog. At night, if I get up to go to the bathroom, I make sure never to put on my glasses, because our Lab, Molly, who only pretends to sleep but is actually watching somehow through closed […]

My mailman’s name

Small town problems:  I don’t know my mailman’s name. He has told me, and I instantly forgot.  It is a terrible flaw I have, and I come by it honestly. My dad, for years, had a default first name of Fred for men whose names he couldn’t remember. My mailman has gone out of his […]