The Adventures of Roberta X

     I rested well overnight, got up and took a walk, napped more, did a little laundry very carefully and almost convinced myself I was get...

     Between work yesterday (trying to rebuild a portable camera tripod that has had a hard life, typical of them; they're extremely dif...

      During the pandemic, Tam and I got into the habit of taking a walk around the block every morning.  Or, by and by, two blocks, or thre...

     Monday wasn't fun.  Tuesday wasn't great, either: my back.  I've been living on aspirin and sleeping on an ice pack, walkin...

      Actually, we have almost done it.  For, well, years, Tam and I -- mostly me -- have been accumulating fallen branches and twigs on th...

      The Roman lawyer, writer and orator Marcus Tullius Cicero is greatly admired for his command of language.  Like Shakespeare centuries...

     Writing -- and chairing the critique group -- has me in the habit of taking a critical look "under the hood" of books and TV/...

     Odds are pretty good that I'm in a recurrence of rheumatic fever.  It's an autoimmune ailment, triggered by strep, and sure eno...

     Multitool maker Leatherman sells a gearless ratchet about the size of a fountain pen, and nobody told me.  There was apparently a lot ...

     Oh, I'm not as old as old, but I'm really quite an age, and I had thought I would be spending more time at my own keyboard and...

     There's no darker glass, at least in metaphor, than a monitor or TV screen.  I had occasion to rewatch the film Civil War recently...

     It's Memorial Day -- and like pretty much every Memorial Day of my entire life, U. S. troops are in danger.  Soldiers and sailors, ...