I’ll just wait till my brother calls me to tell me how much he lost.

I’ve been ordering from JustFlowers for years. 

I’ve been ordering from JustFlowers for years. 

This was a long time before Craigslist.  :)

My daughter is a gifted pianist. For a couple years when she was learning, she had to make do with an old electronic practice piano that we picked up cheap at USC’s surplus outlet. Its action was really stiff and it was hard on her hands. But it was the best we could do at the time.

I’m really happy with Costco Travel. We got a great package for our Hawaii vacation. And we chose a hotel on the non-touristy side of the Big Island.

My husband got shingles a few years back. Fortunately it didn’t incapacitate him. I went and got the shingles vaccine as soon as I could talk my doctor into it.

That happened to my daughter. She caught the chickenpox when she was a baby. We thought that was going to give her immunity.

With our plumber it’s a “mere” 3K. Oh, and digging up the front yard. Which might or might not cost extra.

Of the four kids in my family, all but one of us were born before 1957. And I know my oldest brother and I caught the measles. Don’t know about the other two. My parents were really lah-di-dah about health care (and for most of my childhood had no insurance) so it could go either way. My youngest brother was born in…

I have an old 10" Galaxy Tab that I turned over to Samsung Kids Mode for my 5 year old granddaughter. She sometimes plays with it for quite a while. Last time she was at our house she got frustrated with a game that didn’t work the way she wanted it to work and showed all the signs of an incipient meltdown.

I tried so, so hard to get this point across to one of my brothers. He was determined to apply for SS as soon as he turned 62 last year. He’s been a poster boy for the gig economy for years, driving around delivering things and running his car into the ground while waiting for his big break as an actor. I got him to…

My parents took me to get a polio shot when I was 5 (and polio shots were new). They told me where we were going and why. And I cried all the way there because I did not want to get a shot. That was 63 years ago and I still remember it.

Isaac Asimov:  “Buy Jupiter.”

Our food rule was simple. You must eat one honest bite. You may not spit the food out, make rude noises or complain. If you do not like the food after one honest bite you do not have to finish it, but you’re responsible for getting your own alternate meal.

I had to stand on my own feet pretty much from day one, because my parents had absolutely no connection to the world I lived in. I figured stuff out for myself because I knew my parents would be helpless.

We ended up owing less this year than last year, but I’m sure that’s due to our hiring an enrolled-agent accountant this year.

My parents were much stricter with me than with my brothers. I think this has a lot to do with my being the oldest AND the only girl. My dad came from an extremely boy-centric family, for one thing. Even though he had an older and a younger sister, females really didn’t figure into his world view very much.

My mom played favorites. Whoever was the youngest was the favorite, and this extended right on into the grandchild generation. So each newer child got all the attention.

When I was a kid I was terrible about brushing my teeth, and I had a lot of cavities. Our dentist would schedule me for the fillings and he would say “If you want novocaine, come 15 minutes early.” I would dutifully convey this to my mother, who made a lifetime career out of being late. And so I would always be…

Ford pickup trucks are overhyped, too.