The joke is that everyone will emerge from the pandemic as either a hunk, a chunk, or a drunk. I’m working on two of the three like I’m on a mission from God. I wish I could blame my weight gain on that witch Corona, but it’s not her fault. The truth is the pounds have crept on slowly over the past two years since my mother’s death. And once the pandemic hit, I had even more reasons to overindulge.

When I was a kid growing up in the ’70s, my mother worried I’d join a cult. Cults were big news back then. Patty Hearst was kidnapped and brainwashed by the SLA, Jim Jones was doling out Kool-Aid at the People’s Temple, and the Moonies were camped out at every airport in the country just waiting for impressionable young neophytes like me. But those drapey orange robes were such a turnoff. I ask you, who among us can pull off an apricot toga?

I could practically hear the banjo music as I crept up the dirt road toward the pasture. My objective: snap some pictures of cows and scram before Leatherface chased me down with a chainsaw. It was dusk, and I was alone in rural Oregon getting eyeballed by a herd of dairy cows. Let me be clear; trespassing was not my idea; this was my husband’s plan. “Get closer!” he hollered. Easy for him to say from inside the safety of our minivan.

Nothing’s very funny in the middle of a pandemic. I’m currently in quarantine with my husband, two grown sons (yep, still here), and our cognitively impaired dog. She’s 15 and has canine Alzheimers, she can’t remember where the front door is, but I’m pretty sure even she could remember “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.” All of this is my way of explaining why I haven’t been writing. It’s certainly not due to the copious amounts of wine, M&M’s and streaming media I’ve been consuming during quarantine. Nope, no way!

If you’ve read Chicken Mom and The Big Eddy, then you already know I’m not a risk-taker. You need to understand from the start; this is not the story of two great adventurers. This is the story of two middle-aged idiots trying not to drown.

Our youngest son left for college last month. Perhaps you’re familiar with this rite of passage. It’s a time filled with excitement, anxiety, anticipation, and of course, shopping. I was thrilled about the shopping. Shopping’s in my wheelhouse; it’s practically my Olympic sport.

“Just remember, when you’re over the hill, you begin to pick up speed.” — Charles Schultz

It’s been said that the inability to accept change is the harbinger of old age. In my case, it’s not a matter of acceptance; it’s a matter of adaptation. Technology is a prime example. I’m an analog girl stuck in a digital world, and recently my smartphone has begun to outsmart me. It turns out it wasn’t that hard to do. All it took was the autofill feature on my phone.

I live in a haunted house on the Oregon coast. When my husband and I bought the 83-year-old Cape Cod last fall, we didn’t know it was haunted. Maybe we didn’t read the fine print close enough when we agreed to purchase the house “as is.” We’d assumed that meant old furnishings and worn out tea towels. We didn’t know we’d signed on to cohabitate with Maxine, the ghost of the previous owner.

To say I am uncoordinated is a gross understatement. Like saying Beyonce can carry a tune or Tiger Woods kind of likes golf. Case in point; I broke my foot walking across the yard last week. I’m confined to a cast for the next six weeks due to my extreme lack of coordination, and I have no one to blame for this latest debacle but myself.

It’s hard to say what first attracted me to him. Was it his liquid chocolate eyes or his flawless café au lait completion? Maybe it was the soothing quality of his deep baritone or his charming accent that drew me in. But drawn I was, like a middle-aged fish on a very seductive hook.

I first noticed the change when I slid out of the bathroom stall at my favorite Italian restaurant and caught sight of my reflection in the darkened mirror over the sink. The room was so dimly lit my face barely registered in the glass. It was at that moment I realized that I was no longer pretty, I was now blurry-pretty.

The family road trip is a rite of passage or maybe something to be endured like a spinal tap or the comedy stylings of Carrot Top. If done correctly and with the right medication, a road trip shouldn’t leave any lasting scars. And it just might build character — that is if no one loses a finger or lands in the county lock-up.

How do you say goodbye to your best friend? The one with the four floppy paws, soft brown eyes, and the big wet nose. The one who celebrated your joyful moments and nursed you through the wretched ones. The friend who never left your side through injury or illness. And when you were sad, she kissed away your tears and offered up a smile in return. She lived for you; you were her entire world. She never asked for anything in return, all she wanted was your love. So, how does one find the strength to say goodbye to that kind of love and devotion?

“The River can kill you in a thousand ways.” ~ Paul Serone, Anaconda

As I stood on the banks of the Deschutes River in Central Oregon staring into the jaws of what I assumed would be certain death, it was Jon Voight’s voice I heard above the roar of the rapids. His infamous line from one of the worst horror flicks of all time, Anaconda, kept repeating over and in my head. There were other voices in my head that day, too, voices that screamed: “Run fool, run!”

I’m in Hell. Not the fire and brimstone kind of hell. I’m in what’s known as “Appliance Hell.” It’s just to the left of Car Repair Perdition and right around the corner from Pest Control Purgatory. Appliance Hell is when your household appliances ALL break down at the same time, like some sort of mechanical mutiny.

Here’s the ugly truth; a man with gray hair is considered distinguished but a woman with gray hair is old. It’s not my truth, but it’s a double standard our culture has willingly accepted.

I remember the day I discovered the bottle. I had just turned 18 and a friend dared me to try Miss Clairol № 9. I’ve been hitting the sauce ever since.

Summer’s almost here and it’s decision time. Is your bod bikini ready. . . or is it time to talk about caftans? Oh, you didn’t know that was a thing? Well, neither did I until I was in the checkout line at Ross watching a shopper dump armloads of them onto the check stand. Catching my eye she held one up for me to see. “It’s a caftan,” she said in a hushed voice, as if letting me in on some big secret. “I send these to my mother down in Florida by the dozen.”

A blind date is more than a simple meeting between two strangers, it’s a measurement of your character. It can be a measurement of your bravery or perhaps even your desperation. More than anything it’s a calibration of your willingness to take a risk. To throw caution to the wind and take a chance on a perfect stranger.

This isn’t going to be a funny story. Sorry. I’m not going to regale you with tales of my parenting blunders or middle age melodrama. I need to talk about goodbyes. I’ve been saying a lot of them lately and I’ve found it both overwhelming and somehow grounding. Grounding because loss has a way of putting everything into perspective.