Category: Uncategorized
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Lifetime Brakes
When grandpa and I took his car for a spin, he often boasted to me about the good deal he got by paying the shop for a lifetime guarantee on his brakes. But one day we came flying down Skyline Drive off the Blue Ridge Mountains and I felt the brake pedal depress under my…
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Sunday Dinner
Always polite, though not genteel, my grandma has deep regard for Southern codes of propriety – a comportment that unsettles me when she describes how her mother would prepare fried squirrel brains as a treat for the family after their Sunday dinner: cutting off the heads with a knife, boiling them to remove the skin,…
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Vaseline
Which puzzle piece was she putting away, which plastic ball and rattle, which toy car – each one tidily returned to its home, books back on the shelf, clothes in the dresser, getting ready to head out the door – when her baby in his play pen somehow found a jar of Vaseline, removed its…
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Dollars per Gallon
Zero-to-sixty became expensive. The price per g of acceleration quickly went up to luxury status after Putin’s tanks invaded Ukraine. Drivers in their cars on the road think twice about how hard they press that gas pedal. Opening up the throttle will cost you – are the moments trimmed off a trip worth it? Distilled…
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Stored Milk
Stored Milk for Our Son Breast milk keeps in the freezer for six months. That is about half his lifetime ago. October now, what he had at bedtime my wife pumped and stored in the middle of spring. They say an infant’s saliva contains instructions for the mother’s body, a recipe to make the nutrients…
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Hand Mixer Cookies
My ex-wife took our KitchenAid mixer when she moved out, a gift for our wedding from long-time friends. Of all the things that were a shock to see gone from our apartment when I came home from work one night – a bookshelf, artwork, her dresser – nine years later, about two times the duration…
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Hibiscus Tea
Preparing loose-leaf tea is a ritual. Hot water poured into a glass pot, you can watch the floral infusion bloom. A red cloud spreads throughout the reservoir. Dried petals sublimate. Pink-tinged vapor climbs up the transparent walls like a vine. Tendrils of steam escape the spout. It steeps. Minutes pass as if events in time-lapse:…
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Retired Acrobat
Not so long ago, she was in prime shape, thrilling audiences each weekend with her solo act under the big top. Suspended from a perilous vantage high above the stage, she contorted her limber body around the trapeze and her muscles rippled from exertion. She spun wildly, flinging her braided hair like a bullwhip, and…
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Summer Retreat
At Mount Madonna, she meditated twice a day or more for an hour each time. She practiced yoga morning, noon, and night – learned how to teach others the positions. Her diet there was vegetarian: warm kitchari from an earthenware bowl, curried leafy greens with golden raisins. Alcohol and caffeine were forbidden. After a month…
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Ghost Story
Grandma Tells Me a Ghost Story “Seven years after he died, I saw your dad standing in the doorway of my bedroom. He had on a shirt you all gave him: navy blue with a thin, burgundy stripe. His beard was trimmed short and he wasn’t wearing his glasses – you don’t need them in…
From the Firefly Galaxy 