My tummy is getting rounder in large part because of my yen for cheese. “Just say no” would be a better title than say cheese. I prefer it freshly cut from a wedge or block rather than pre-sliced. But either will suffice when it comes to satisfying the call for cheese. I also like it added to grocery-bought frozen pizza … to savor it melted. Either way, solid or melted, it’s a hit! Do I count calories? Not when I’m slicing a mouthful off a big chunk. So you see I like to snack on this dairy treat. Of course, snacking on dairy means different things to different ...

Living on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean presents its challenges, here and there. Some days I can’t find my favorite brand of tart cherry juice because the shelves haven’t been restocked. And what about green onions that I once called scallions. Where are they when I need them? The list gets longer and more serious. When you live on a land mass that juts out of a sea, friendships can take their hits. But not the water resistant kind that touch our toes like distance isn’t a care. So this doesn’t mean that all friendships can stay alive after how...

This is tough. Almost as tough as when my girlfriend Joanna, a very special classmate, came to the island, and we picked her and Steve up in our shiny silver car. Who would have guessed that a three year old Tesla (“Tes”) could cause me such internal turmoil. (I could only imagine what she’d think.) Our 2012 black Chevy Volt was back in the garage plugged in for the day and would have been less roomy for a tour of the island; otherwise we could have hidden Tes at home. My father, the late George Gilbert, who I’ll always adore, commented early on, that my husband was...

I thought that editing the Milton Katims’ piece for Music Journal stretched my editing skills to the max. I was a 24 year old freelancer when I picked up an assignment that curled my dendrites to a tight coil. What he could induce with his baton was one thing (he conducted the Seattle Symphony for more than two decades) but decipherable he wasn’t. What I guess I’m trying to explain is that I’m not a novice at editing. I was rewrite editor for my JHS newspaper (quite a title, I know), editor of of my high school paper, edited a weekly shipping journal, hey, this isn’t...

Bryce has a perplexing problem. Something’s missing in her life. Her cell phone’s gone. No forwarding address, no heartfelt good byes … just one day it was there and the next day it wasn’t! I have a theory that it happened about the same time she started “planking” (looks like a push-up) in the gym. Gravitational forces may have re-situated her precious aqua phone far from home. I keep telling her that it’s on an adventure. Away. But where? Nobody said it would be easy. But unlike me she hasn’t got the hang of worrying. Last heard from, she was...

I’m thinking of starting a gym for people who bend backwards not to perspire during work-outs. (You know, of course, that bending backwards is not a medically approved method for keeping dry…) I envision a gym for people who don’t bring towels in their duffle bags and who take enormous pride in their under-active sweat glands. A place for gym attendees who stand tall knowing that they leave behind no traces of residue on the machines they’ve visited. A work-out site for those of us who’ve done our best to avoid the company of “wet wipers,” the wretched...