PANDEMIC

I had a close encounter of the COVID kind the other day. And I lived to tell about it.

Headed out to the neighborhood pool last weekend; just wanted to catch a few rays and say goodbye to the season. Things hadn’t quite worked out with my highly anticipated Hot Girl Summer, but I sure did appreciate that the pool stayed open after Labor Day and the potentially unvaccinated among us stayed the hell away from me.

Then I encountered a real, live nightmare — in the form of a young mom and her wailing little newborn.

Tucked away on a lounge chair far away from any other folks, I relaxed and read my book. I come from a…

POLITICS

Many of you know the sad, sad story of the Washington Football Team.

You know — the three-time Super Bowl champions who haven’t been to The Dance since 1992.

Yes, I lived in D.C. during Washington’s heyday, about a mile from RFK Stadium, once the team’s home. I remember many a thrilling winter Sunday, when the cars of jubilant fans snaked down Constitution Avenue after a home game, sometimes covered with a thin sheen from a percolating snowstorm. Neighbors like me would line the street, slapping high fives with giddy boosters, not worried about the traffic but luxuriating in yet another team victory.

It was, basically, a rolling tailgate in the frosty streets of our nation’s capital.

I could care less who the folks in the Chevy…

REALITY TV

She lived at New York’s Waldorf Astoria, the biggest gem in her husband’s Hilton Hotels crown, for eight years.

She stays up til all hours of the night, because no one has ever made her keep a schedule. She doesn’t seem to understand the premise of reality TV drama, and is adored for her hilarious — and often unrelated — asides during times of primo Bravo reality TV witchiness and conflict.

She tells only the truth when playing “Two Truths and a Lie”, and thinks “Hunky Dory” is a person.

In a world of stupendously overachieving rich gals, meet Kathy Hilton — the only real “socialite” I’ve seen on any of the Housewives shows I’ve screened.

I’m no expert, but I’ve been around the block with some of these folks.

In the interest of full disclosure, I ignore The RHO Dallas because no one on…

POLITICAL LINGO

I always wondered what a “slippery slope” was.

What about “strange bedfellows”? And what kind of “stage” would a political candidate “set” if she or he were inclined to do so? How does one “fit into the conversation” of a policy debate? And what in the Holy Hell, as my Nana would say, is a dang “inflection point”?

I don’t know about you, but the Episcopalian in me always thinks of “genuflection” when I hear that last one.

As a long-time high school English teacher, I did a fair amount of ranting and raving about my students injecting jargon into their writing and their speech. …

PANDEMIC POLITICS

My Mama once told me I should curb my colorful language.

This, from the woman whose favorite expression was “Oh, balls!” And not, I venture, the kind one dribbles in a basketball engagement, nor pitches in a baseball encounter.

Yeah, she cussed like a sailor. But we always knew where we stood.

All I can say is I learned from the best of ’em. And I’ve been deploying quite a few select “F” Bombs and such in my own language during the last 18 months as political knuckleheads and their brainwashed disciples continue to mess with our collective national health.

But today, I’m not so much preaching to the choir as perhaps hoping my commentary falls on fewer deaf ears, by attempting to quell offense from the get-go.

In other words, what I plan to say is a total…

LIFE LESSONS

A short lesson about real life, told from a pint-sized perspective, left me alternately giggling and quite a little bit alarmed.

I was just trying to squeeze in the last rays of summer on Sunday. As the temps climbed, I decided to journey to the neighborhood pool to splash a bit and read my novel.

(If you’d like a rec, I’ve been spending time this past week with The Most Fun I Ever Had, the freshman effort of social worker-turned-New York Times Bestseller author Claire Lombardo. Unclear about Lombardo’s writing process, but props to her for crafting a 544-page story…