My business mentor, Charles Fisher, was a prankster aficionado. He did things like poke a tiny pin hole in the side of your soda can, just below the tab opening, so that every time you took a sip it would dribble down your chin. For all new employees, he would leave pink return call slip on their desk with the phone number to a funeral home asking them to return a call to “Myra Maines.” He always had a joke ready for any occasion.

The CDC recommends not traveling unless you absolutely must; and if you must, be smart about it. Weighing these recommendations, I thought about my upcoming and necessary trip to Miami, Florida. Should I rent an RV and drive? With a pull-along bed, bath, and kitchen I could quarantine throughout the three day drive down. It seemed like a responsible way to travel.

I’m not good at remembering proper nouns: people’s names, places and events. But I am good at remembering all the other sentence structure that make for good conversation and storytelling.

Since mother’s passing in 2018, my sister and I haven’t seen each other much, though we keep vowing to make time to get together for lunch. There’s no particular reason for this sabbatical, just a lot of little ones. We live 45 minutes from each other, and after years of serious end-of-life communications about our mother, it’s felt good to have a reprieve from speaking. Then, the uncertainty of Covid-19 happened. And lastly, like many families, we are of opposing political views, so waiting to visit after the election seemed like a nice idea.

My granddaughter, Evelyn, used the words “uncanny valley” when I mentioned taking her and her little brother, Marshall, to see the new Jim Carrey fantasy/sci-fi movie, Sonic The Hedgehog.

Yes, it all happened casually, without much thought. I’m sitting in my hairdresser’s (stylist’s) chair, talking about how much I wish I could still wear big, hoop earrings, when she says, “Well, get another ear piercing and you can.” How? Whatever did she mean?
Her assistant overhears and says, “Oh yeah, just put it higher up on the ear. And by the way, if you go, I want to go and let’s get our nipples pierced.” (God, I hope my granddaughter is not reading this).