Kitchen Sink

Worn out

I’ve put a lot of miles on my shoes. If only they could talk they’d day, “put us out of our misery!” Buying shoes isn’t something I enter into lightly. It’s a ten (or more) year commitment. I walk past shoes in the store on display, looking for the perfect shoe. I’ve never found them. It’s like trying to shop for a new best friend. How can you…
Read more
Kitchen Sink

I'm OK

“You’re just ok? Why? Is there anything I can do to help?” Honest to God, this happens to me all the time. You see, I’m an ok guy. If someone asks me how I am, I usually tell it like it is – unless I feel like crap. I’ve come to learn folks aren’t that interested to know how you’re doing, passing in the halls. I’m smart enough to know…
Read more
Going for Broke

To the mattresses

Has a plunger ever given you blisters? This evening I exercised my power to make (if not officially declare) war, as chief executive of the Kauffman House, and commander-in-chief of the household tools. We’ve been involved in the occasional skirmish for years, but this evening our toilet struck a surprise, vicious blow, leaving me little choice but to fully engage the enemy. Armed with a…
Read more
Wellbeing

The regrettable application of long term memory

Have you ever forgotten what it was like to feel good? I’m almost there. I almost have to flip the calendar to find that last, blissful day. The worst part of it all is it may be self inflicted. “Wait a second, how is a cold self inflicted?” Kudos to me for such a good question. My daughter inherited my gift for interrogation, but that’s another story. The cold started…
Read more
Kitchen Sink

Recycle this!

Is it possible to digress before you get started? Some folks make fun of my recycling box, itself a recyclable item: a big cardboard box from Amazon. When one wears out or grows a little funky I fold it up and put it in a new, recyclable box. It feels like an elegant solution to a daily responsibility. Something about getting a plastic box to collect recyclables just feels… Wrong. This…
Read more
Family and Friends

First time

Cheryl was headed out the door early this morning to take Adam to a soccer game, and I felt compelled to give her a warning. A Floridian for most of my life, I’m almost certain these words never crossed my lips before: “Be careful, there may be ice on the roads.” It came out so naturally, you’d think it was a memory encoded in my DNA – from generations of ancestors…
Read more
Going for Broke

It's an IKEA world

Note: the opinions expressed or implied in this post do not necessarily reflect those of the author, or the individuals described herein. The events are dead on though. IKEA came to town six months ago. A month after it opened, we drove over the bridge to see if reality recognized hype in the mirror. We got a sense of the hype and a smidge of the reality, but we never got out of the car. The Tampa…
Read more
Family and Friends

Letter from Santa

Here’s another post you can blame Cheryl for, at least in part. Every year we have a Secret Santa gift exchange at work, much like may of you (probably). For the last ten years (give or take a few) I’ve included some kind of letter with my gift. It’s been my schtick, my thing. Cheryl thought I should post this year’s letter, in part because we didn’t send out…
Read more
Kitchen Sink

Fickle Facebook friends

Note: I wrote this months ago, so the time references are way off (like someone’s concerned about timeliness… here of all places). I was a social networking snob. At one time I had a blog, a web site, and all of it ran on a web server under my desk. I had Internet cred, and Facebook was beneath me. Like everyone else, I didn’t get Twitter. About a year ago I was talked into…
Read more