There’s nothing like having 10 or 12 mild winters (and by “mild,” I mean no huge snow storms, no days we couldn’t get to the grocery store, and just a time or two of below zero weather) to get us totally spoiled.

               When a friend was looking to move back to Ohio from Nevada last year, he bemoaned the “brutal Ohio winters.”  We laughed and joked – at his expense – and said, blithely, “buy a coat.”  Seriously, they just hadn’t been that bad.

               Then last weekend hit.  We got 12 (give or take a couple, depending on what news show you watch) inches of snow in 24 hours.  Plus, the temperatures hovered in the teens, with wind chills below zero for days.  The snow doesn’t melt with that kind of weather.  We amended our comments to our friend and told him, “buy a coat…and a hat, scarf, gloves, thick boots, a snow shovel and a snow blower, too.” 

               Twelve inches or not, we’re still better off than those folks who got two feet.  And we’re better off than the folks who got inches of ice.  Ice and wind will take down trees and power lines.  Snow?  Not so much.  We were lucky, yes lucky, I say, because we never lost power (knock on wood). While we were prepared with no-cook food, logs for the fireplace, and lots of candles, it was still a blessing to have lights,  heat, the stove, and the television.

               We never lost internet either, so all-in-all, not a bad snowstorm. 

               Then we started noticing the after effects.  First of all, the battery in our truck (the one with 4-wheel drive) died. We tried to charge it with our other car, but before we could even get them aligned in the garage (no easy feat, that!), the truck didn’t like what we were doing.  It began flashing lights and sounding the general alarm, which reverberated through the garage like an air raid siren.  It took a bit to figure out how to turn those things off.  After all that, and a long charge to our car…nothing.  We have to go buy a new battery.

               The second issue we discovered is that the mail lady couldn’t get to our mailbox.  If the foot of snow, plus drifts weren’t enough, the plow had gone up the hill, shoving more snow to the side and up against the mailbox.  This made a high, thick, and quite effective blockade.  Unless she had a combine, she wasn’t getting within three feet of the mailbox.  Normally I wouldn’t mind, but Murphy’s law tells me that some invoice will come in that is due immediately and I won’t be able to get it, or subsequently pay it, and this will cause untold horrors for us.

               Meanwhile, common sense has gone out the window. People driving who don’t need to be on the roads is bad enough.  Employers demanding their employees come to work is worse.  Seriously, the world will not end if they pay their employees to stay home two days.  Their businesses won’t fail, either.  Heaven forbid we don’t have a fast food joint to go to…but wait, we’re not supposed to be driving unless it’s “urgent.”  Do we really need a cheap taco or double burger that badly?  Apparently so.

               In any event, I’m warm and happy in my cocoon and don’t plan to venture out for a few more days.  Although it’s been 15 years or so since we’ve had a brutal winter, I know just how to survive them – stay warm and dry, eat potato chips, read a lot, and look at the snow from a window. 

               May you enjoy the same good fortune!

               We’ve all had adventures – or misadventures – with laundry!  I know at least ten people (myself included) who have accidentally thrown a red towel in with their whites.  That’s always fun.  You end up with pink shirts, pink towels, and pink underwear.  None of that is too bad – unless you’re not a “pink” person.

               Many of us have also accidentally pressed the wrong button on the washing machine.  Let me digress to complain that when I started doing laundry, there were not so many choices.  All I remember on the washer is “on” and “off.”  And the dryer was basically a hand wringer and clothesline.  So it’s not always my fault that I press the wrong button.  I have to choose between about ten different cycles, five temperatures, four spinning speeds, and remember to put laundry detergent, fabric softener and (occasionally) bleach in the thing!  So it’s no surprise that once in a while the buttons pushed shrink pants or shirts.  The machines set you up for that.

               I don’t know anyone who hasn’t had the laundry room goblins steal a sock from time to time.  I honestly think that all those missing socks end up in the Tupperware drawer as lids to containers that don’t exist.

               But worst of all, for me, is those fitted sheets – especially for a larger bed.  Ack.  Don’t wash them with anything else, and I mean anything.  I did that, and it was a nightmare.  First of all, the spin cycle created one long, tangled, entwined snake of material.  Because nothing that was wrapped up in the sheet actually “spun”, it was all soaking wet in the middle.  That meant it was huge snake that weighed about 50 pounds!

I finally got the massive clump out of the washer whereupon it spilled onto the floor, making puddles.  I wrestled my t-shirts and dish towels from the middle of the thing with great difficulty. In fact, in trying to pull it apart, I slipped in one the aforementioned puddles and cracked my elbow against the wall.  Ouch.

When I stood up, I slipped again and my knee hit the washing machine rather painfully.  When I finally regained my footing, I was a mess.  I was soaked, in pain, and to top it off, when I stood up straight, I cracked my head on the door of the dryer.  Why did I leave it open for heavens’ sake?

So there I was, stuffing sodden clothing back in the washer and trying to find the “spin only” button.  I put the sheet in the dryer and started it on the “sheet” cycle, because I wanted it out of my way.  Then I limped to the bedroom to put on some dry clothes, leaving wet shoe prints behind on the carpet.

There are good reasons I don’t do laundry often.  First, I’m terrible at it (clearly).  And secondly, I don’t have the desire to end up in urgent care for a spin-cycle emergency!

               Dick Van Dyke is one of my favorite entertainers.  He’s right up there with Danny Kaye, in my opinion.  Last year, he celebrated his 100^th birthday by having a book published entitled 100 Rules for Living to 100.

               Although it is my desire to follow in his footsteps and live a healthy life to that wonderful number, the rules apply no matter what age you hope to achieve!  Each rule, or nearly each one, is supplemented with a story or two from his own experiences.  Those are a treasure trove!

               I won’t list each of the 100 rules.  That’s likely a copyright issue, but I am going to talk just a little about six of them.  The first one that struck me as one to which to pay attention is “Find Your People.”  He writes eloquently about family, friends, and co-workers who support you along your life’s journey.  Once you find them, it’s important to keep them close and support them in return. Living to 100, he acknowledges that we lose some along the way.  To that he advises:  “they’ve left us with the tools we need to find new playmates, for a moment or forever.”

               One of my favorites is “Suck Up to the Landlady.”  This was mostly a section in which he described his relationship with another of my favorite celebrities – Lucille Ball.  Ms. Ball was his “landlady” (and lifelong friend) because his television show was filmed at Desilu Studios.  While this rule is mostly in good fun, it’s also really good advice.

               In a more serious vein is his rule “It’s Doesn’t Take a Good Boss to Do Great Work.”  This is an invaluable lesson to all of us, because everyone, at one time or another, has had a really terrible boss.  That doesn’t mean that the work product isn’t good, though, and often, it’s great.  He phrased it better in saying, “There are a lot of mediocre bosses and leaders out here, but we can’t let their mediocrity drag us down…Together, you can turn life into energy, character, and emotion!”

               Possibly my favorite of his rules is “Retire on Your Own Terms.”  He was 68 years old when he was offered “Diagnosis: Murder” on CBS.  Andy Griffith called him to advise him to turn it down, because working was just too hard at that age.  But Dick took the job and had a successful eight seasons.  He did it on his terms – and these terms apply to anyone who’s retiring.  He prioritized “family time” (and did this by including several members of his family on the show).  He stayed fit.  That’s a big one!  And, finally, he did all the things he loved (dancing, magic tricks, jazz, singing) as part of the show.  Engaging in his favorite pastimes with his favorite people made all the difference – it made “work” not hard at all.

               Another one that hit close to home for me is “Write it Down.”  As a person who keeps a daily journal, I thought I knew what he was going to say.  I didn’t.  He talks about writing down any idea that comes to us, nuggets of wisdom to tell your grandkids, and ideas for presents.  He writes, “If each one of us kept a record of all the incredible, transformative things that are possible for us to do, we’d be one step closer to actually doing them.”

               The final rule I appreciated is “Find Your Arlene.”  His longtime love, soulmate, and wife is his number one fan.  He writes “Arlene shows me all the ways I am young. When I worry about death, she tells me I am life.  When darkness creeps in, she turns on the magic.  Now you try it.  Be Arlene.  When darkness creeps in, turn on the magic.”  Dick advises us not to merely find our Arlene, but to be Arlene for someone else.  That’s the best advice, ever.

               The whole book is a treasure. Published in 2025 by Point Productions, Inc., you can find it at our local bookstore or online.  It’s a wonderful way to start a new year. 

Being a music lover, I have spent many happy moments singing – usually in the car, but sometimes in a choir, in the shower, or while I’m mowing the lawn. Over the years, my husband and I have had many chuckles over the misunderstood lyrics of both our friends, and ourselves.

               Most of the time, misunderstood lyrics are just a funny thing that we enjoy privately.  Sometimes, however, we are embarrassed to find we’ve been singing words incorrectly, and singing them loudly and publicly.

               My husband had a friend who loved to sing along with the Supremes.  (Who doesn’t??). She didn’t mind singing along with others, and it caused a lot of chuckles when she belted out “Stop!  In the neighborhood…” – because as we all know, the correct words are “Stop!  In the name of love.” 

               Both of us had friends who loved to sing “Bad Moon Rising,” recorded by Credence Clearwater Revival.  Both friends who sang this song, thought the lyrics were “There’s a bathroom on the right.”  These words don’t make any sense at all, at least in the context of the rest of the lyrics, which are:  “don’t go around tonight, well, it’s bound to take your life, there’s a bad moon on the rise.”  The fact that the title includes the correct lyrics only makes it funnier.

               Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta recorded a wonderful song from the movie “Grease” entitled “You’re the One that I Want.”  The correct lyrics are:  “I’ve got chills, they’re multiplyin’.”  However, a college friend of mine sang, loudly and proudly, “I’ve got shoes, they’re made of plywood.”  Seriously funny.

               Also amusing are folks who sing “hold me close, Tony Danza” to Elton John’s recording of “Tiny Dancer.” Again, the words are in the title, so it’s doubly funny.  It’s “hold me close, Tiny Dancer.”

               Most often, folks argue about the lyrics of “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas.  The song is perfect for singing in the car or at a party. When you get to the second verse, the words are unclear.  Is it “got down on my knees and I began to pray” or is it “got down on my knees and I pretend to pray”? I’ve never really known for certain, so I researched it a little.

               It turns out, Denny Doherty sang the lead on this recording, and he sang “got down on my knees and I began to pray.” But the rest of the group, singing back up, sang “and I pretend to pray.”  So we heard both words in the song and, in my opinion, this makes either one acceptable!

               I have also misunderstood lyrics.  The good news is that what I heard was at least a homophone for the real word, so no one knew I wasn’t getting the meaning correctly!  The bad news is, it took me years to figure it out.

               The Temptations recorded a song in 1972 called “Papa was a Rolling Stone.”  The chorus of that song is “Papa was a rolling stone, wherever he laid his hat was his home, and when he died, all he us left was alone.”

               I spent decades crooning this song, believing that they were singing “all he left us was a loan.” Either way, I guess, Papa died leaving them alone or in debt.  Either or both are unhappy things, but I really think the writers missed the boat.  If he was at home wherever he “laid his hat,” it implies he wasn’t around much.  So leaving them alone didn’t make sense to me. 

               Oh, well, at least I didn’t give anyone a huge laugh at my expense.  Just myself!