San Francisco’s China Town always feels as if it is a magic portal. The amazingly low veggie prices, the unusual children’s toys, the savory food with unrecognizable spices. And the signs that probably don’t mean what they say.

Signs from San Francisco’s China town:

Science fiction stories have made a cliche of the ordinary seeming shop that really sells magic.

This seems to be one of them – masquerading as a simple travel agency for…

I am writing this tonight because I need to share something. I found out a friend of mine, a cyber friend, lost their wife this past week. It was very sudden. It came on the heels of so much else, job loss, losing his home and now his wife suddenly passing.

I sit here in this decorated home, with so many presents waiting to be opened, children sleeping upstairs and dogs down for the night. I sit here thinking about my friend. We have never met but he and others were writers on…

"If you have time and care to do this, Uncle Bob is going on a one day trip to DC for WWII vets. It's called an Honor Flight. The organizers have requested letters to be handed out during mail call on the plane home. I've asked some of the relatives to no avail and I thought you might be interested in writing a letter to him thanking him for his service to his country. If you care to do this, send it as an attachment and I will include it in the pack I'm sending today. Love you -…

"People are like stained glass windows; they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there…

Excuses for not exercising each day abound. Maybe the excuse involves an injury, or a medical condition, or a dislike of gym, or the absence of a spouse to walk with, or a job that involves travel.



One excuse, though, crops up more than any other: there just isn’t enough time! As a chronic user of this excuse, I can write about it as an expert. For most of my adult life, I could never find the time to exercise.



Perhaps the problem begins with the verb “find.” It must be…

One of my grand twins lost her shoe in a pile of leaves.  The shoe hunt, accompanied by much arguing and complaining lasted about two minutes.

“That took at least an hour,” said one of the twins. 

“Do you have a watch?” I asked.

“I don’t want people to ask me what time it is,” she replied.

At this point I almost changed the subject from the value of estimating time to the value of helping others.  But my grand twins are experts at changing…

      On the last Saturday of every month in the late 70's my store in Ottawa Ontario would be filled to the brim with customers looking for the exotic in wear. Corsets, platform shoes, barely there underwear and French maid costumes. For a month or two I was kind of baffled as to what was going on until one night I drove by the Nelson Theatre on Rideau Street.

There, standing in line were a couple hundred people dressed in things your mother told you not to wear. Of…

This is dedicated to family and friends so that they might understand my continued pursuit of happiness. Bigger and better is not always the right choice sometimes. I try to put aside my rightness in most situations now to get a better perspective on things. Some people never ever get it and I was almost one of them.



Yesterday I got an email from someone saying that some people find me annoying, cloying, and overdone, amongst other things. I did not know if that was supposed to…

I was born in 1951 and sex was a pretty taboo subject in those days. In fact I heard my grandmother tell my very sick mother not to worry if she could only have limited sex. Grammy kept repeating that sex was only for “baby making” anyways. There was no sexual education in High School as the school board frowned upon it, and health movies issued very little on the subject. The only sexual information I had when I got married at 21 was from my father’s girlie magazines he hid in his bottom…

In today's Z-Daily: Time Magazine's Person of the Year, a CPP breakdown, Beethoven's 240th, La Streisand's 'Barn', & Ronnie Spector's 'beehive maintenance'.

CableGate: 'Mark Zuckerberg, Imma let you finish but Julian Assange was clearly the Person of the Year.' (Forbes.com…

Lesson 3



Reflections on life based upon the book “God Never Blinks” 50 Lessons for Life’s Little Detours by Regina Brett



Life Is Too Short to Waste Time Hating Anyone.



Here Regina reflects back upon a family that had an alcoholic father and how his drinking hurt himself and his family. But this story isn’t about complaining, hate and anger; it’s about forgiveness and love and how the wife of this man was able to see past her sorrows and pain and still do the right…

Last week I was reading an article by Philip Zimbardo where he suggested that our school system was now obsolete. He suggested that for children of today the hierarchal system of teacher – student was unproductive and in most cases boring for the students. I don’t think that point would be challenged by to many students today.

Does this make the idea of school wrong – I don’t think so, but the existing system certainly needs to be updated a heck of a lot quicker than in the…

A little boy was kneeling beside his bed saying his night time prayers when his father walked by. His father stopped and said "Son what are you doing, I told you…