I’m a big fan of laughter. It’s a universal human trait. I use it in my personal life and in my coaching. But I’m curious: Why do we laugh? It seems to be something uniquely human. . That’s what I thought until I learned that 65 different species of animals have their own sort of
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Company on a Desert Island
Who would you choose to be stranded with on a desert island? Just 2 of you. No idea how long you’ll be there. Give it some thought. . The pandemic has been hard on friends, roommates, and family. It’s been an acid test of how we see the people we love, what we’re willing to
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Chicken foot dominos
Here in the Midwest, people still get together and visit on the porch, make music, play euchre, and have happy hour together. And they play chicken foot dominos. There are quite a few versions of chicken foot but it’s an easy game to play. Everyone makes mistakes, laughter can be uproarious and prolonged, the players
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Mom and the Clinique Counter
Aging. The whole topic of aging is loaded with unexploded emotional and self-worth landmines. We never know how to navigate around aging safely. Young people want to look older. Older people want to look younger. People lie about their age so often they actually forget how old they are. They avoid talking about their age,
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Mannequin Maidens
There’s a house near me whose occupants have a sense of humor. In the country, lots of people have old cars, junk, and painted ancient farm equipment in the front yard. It’s rare to see statues or even gazing balls. These folks have three pregnant, headless, armless mannequins. When they first put these ladies out
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You Are What You Eat
The other day I heard someone remark, “You are what you eat.” Since I was eavesdropping, I didn’t feel right asking, “Hey, are we talking only food, or can we include things like anger, disappointment, humor, weightlifting, books by Jodi Taylor or Netflix? . I’m now declaring, by the power invested in me by me,
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Weighty Wood Roach
When you live in the country, you live with the critters that invade your house. We have wolf spiders, Indiana wood roaches, no-see-ems, midges, biting flies, wasps, gnats, ants, etc. . If they’re inside, I take them outside. It’s a no-kill kind of house, at least from my point of view. Ken also takes out
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Holidays=Comatose=Our Relatives Did What??
Yesterday I was missing those holidays with my my dad’s family at my great aunts’ farm in Kentucky. There was no TV, no cell phones, no toys, no games. There was no running water and no indoor plumbing. . Water came from a farm pump on the back porch. The outhouse was in the chicken
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Michael Proposes
Let me introduce you to Michael Coleman. Ken and I never missed Chicago guitar bluesman Michael Coleman’s gigs. He’d been blues harmonica legend James Cotton’s band leader and played the kind of funky blues that had people on the dance floor after the first few bars of a song. . Michael lived for his booty
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Are We Really Like That?
Name some of your characteristics. Negative or positive, your choice. Are you smart, good-looking, terrible at relationships, bad at math, a great artist, a supermom, fat, feisty or a hundred other self-images? How did these characteristics get attached to you? Did you decide what you are? I bet you labeled yourself with input from your
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Revenge: It’s a Family Thing
My family on my dad’s side was a close knit, clannish bunch. They have roots going back so far in that one time my grandmother called people who came over on the Mayflower “late comers.” They were a tough bunch, hacking out an existence by hand on their farm. They never did have running water
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Fabulous! You’re looking absolutely fabulous!
When my daughter Dakota came to visit, we went for our traditional manicure, pedicure and lunch date. We’re not really girly girls but we do like having our toes and fingernails looking groomed and snazzy instead or snagged, bitten, broken and neglected: our usual sad state. . For those of you unaware, manicures and pedicures
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