August 13, 2026 · 2:46 am

Deep thoughts on deep-cleaning

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

I found a dead bug in the bottom of my stove this week.

But, I’m getting a little ahead of my story. Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. A long, long time ago…

As a teacher, I have been trained over the years, even in retirement, to conduct an annual, ritualistic deep clean of my house. I don’t know what there is about it, but the idea of returning to the classroom always seemed to spur me into making sure the house was in good shape…a cleaning that was to last the entire year and never be thought of again during the nine-month rush of lesson plans, corrected papers and gradebooks, and dramatic performances—on the stage and in the classroom!

I know what you’re thinking—one cleaning a year does not make for a clean house. I agree with you; but one true, deep cleaning a year is about all I can scrape together the enthusiasm for, since, as I have mentioned before, I’m not a cleaning fan and school duties did keep me very busy.

I have since ditched the teaching responsibilities, but the inclination or habit, if you will, to commit—I mean, conduct a deep cleaning of the house every August is very strong. The weather heats up and I’m looking at dresser drawers that won’t close and a freezer that won’t shut, and I’m thinking it’s time to do that thing we do every August. (I don’t even like to say “deep clean”.)

Now, when I say—that phrase—I don’t mean sweeping floors and dusting the furniture. Oh no, I mean cleaning out closets, defrosting the freezer and cleaning behind cupboards and appliances.

It has been suggested to me that at the hallowed age of 70, perhaps I shouldn’t be turning mattresses and dragging around heavy furniture in the August heat. I would definitely agree, but I can’t leave this sort of thing for my lovely housekeeper: one look at the frost buildup, confusing array of half-emptied frozen vegetable bags and tinfoil-wrapped packages of mystery meat in my freezer and my very fine housekeeper would quit! No, the deep-cleaning is the cross I must bear.

But I digress. We now come to the kitchen deep-clean this fall…and the bug. After wiping down cupboards and scraping the unidentified gunk off the refrigerator door, I was ready to face the stove. My stove is located in the middle of two counters and there is enough of a distressing gap between stove and counter to allow spills. The first time I encountered this, I had been in the house for several years when it finally occurred to me to clean behind the stove. The two were so glued together with food residue, that some of the molding around the counter had attached itself permanently to the stove. Now, I try to get to it at least once a year—during the deep clean.

So, as is my August habit, I pulled out the stove and discovered a year’s diary of cooking disasters, written on the sides of the stove and the counter.

The sides of the stove where they joined with the counter were a positive artwork of cooking dribbles and drab running all the way to the floor. The worst was a drooled sheet of red spaghetti sauce that looked like I’d been making blood stew for Dracula. And it was while I was scrubbing the months-old spaghetti sauce off the stove and floor (not happily) that I happened to notice the bug. It was lying in the spaghetti sauce and was glued to it on the floor. It was lying on it’s back and had all six legs sticking straight in the air.

Now, in normal circumstances I might suppose it had drowned in the spaghetti sauce. But since I am a little paranoid about my cooking, I thought its position suggested that it might have tried the spaghetti sauce and was poisoned. I quickly cleared away the evidence, but it might be a while before I serve spaghetti again!

Next year, during deep cleaning—Roy gets to clean behind the stove. He won’t care what killed the bugs, as long as they are dead!

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August 6, 2026 · 12:51 am

Letting It Hang

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

My husband and I are in agreement on a great many things. That probably explains why we are still married. However, I will admit that we are a mixed marriage on a small number of issues and this month I have been reminded of one of them. If Shakespeare were to state the problem, he would say, “To hang, or not to hang, that is the question.”

No, I’m not talking about an execution; I’m talking about the laundry. Roy insists that the smart and economic thing to do is to hang clothes outside to dry. I, on the other hand, from a very young age in Sunday school, have always believed that if God intends us to hang clothes out on the line to dry, He would not have invented the dryer! That is such a clear sign from above that laundry lines are evil!

It is obvious to me on several levels that Roy did not grow up hanging out the laundry. He had two sisters and a hard-working mother and laundry is clearly “women’s work.” That means he never had the pleasure of standing out at the laundry line trying to wrestle a sheet over that flimsy string in high wind. I still remember the time my father looked at the laundry after I had finished slapping on the clothes pins and remarked, “It looks like it was hung by an indifferent drunk.” He was half right: I was definitely indifferent!

The only time I remember getting in trouble in elementary school was when we were reading The Long Winter. When they described laundry day, I blurted out, “What? Are they crazy?” The teacher pursed her lips disapprovingly and told me that further observations on my part would not be necessary; in that way teachers have of letting you know that the next “observation” will be shared with your parents.

I shut up that day, but seriously, those people took clothes outside in the middle of a blizzard-after-blizzard-winter and hung them up in the freezing cold! Then, they brought in the frozen remains and hung them behind the stove so they could both thaw and then dry! Am I the only one that thinks this does not make sense? Just let me sit in the cold shed and twist hay into burning sticks—at least that activity had a useful purpose!

Now, I should state here that when Roy insists the laundry be hung outside, he is willing to do the hanging. But I am not willing to deal with the results. Let’s start with the towels. I don’t care how much the wind is blowing, towels always come off the clothesline with all the softness of a pan scraper! I went to take a shower the other day and I had to go down four levels to hit a towel that I had washed and put in the dryer.

I think we may have reached an agreement on towels, however. Even he can’t deny that a towel dried outside has all the desired textural comfort of sand in your shoes. I see that in his last round of laundry, the towels actually made it to the dryer and not the line.

And so we go on to the rest of the clothes. Now, on a personal note, I like my neighbors far too well to subject them to the sight of my bedraggled undergarments hanging on the line like dispirited and grungy flags. On top of which, we have the same texture issue. My sister used to dry them for ten minutes in the dryer and then hang them out. That might have taken care of the texture issue, but it didn’t take care of the “I’m way too lazy to do that much work” issue!

And that leaves my outer clothes. I will never be a snappy dresser, and I generally wear my clothes until they are pretty much falling off. But when Roy puts them on the clothesline, they come back with all the smoothness of an accordion. I am then left with two choices. I can either wear them as is and hope nobody notices, or I can iron them. Now, we all know that I am not going to go through the “sprinkle clean clothes lightly, roll them up and put them in the refrigerator (usually until they’ve picked up refrigerator odor) and then take them out and IRON them!” No thank you, I’ll just tell everyone the accordion look is in!

Until I am back to full strength from my knee surgery, Roy is in charge of the laundry, so the question of whether to hang the clothes or to conveniently throw them into the dryer which is right there, will continue to plague us. But nothing will ever change Roy’s mind that it’s more practical to hang clothes out, nor change my mind that laundry lines were meant to be seen and not used, so I guess we will remain a mixed marriage on this issue!

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July 31, 2026 · 6:12 am

Boiled Fly, Anyone?

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Now, I know that every summer, we are inundated with flies and every summer I whine about hating them. So since it’s summer and there are flies, this column should come as no surprise to anyone!

Most of the time, I’m just irritated by their ability to annoy. They fly in my face, crawl up my clean windows and buzz when I’m trying to sleep at night. The one thing I have not written about, however, is their threat to my food supply. But this week, they even crossed that line.

I was preparing one of my favorite meals which requires a pot of boiling water to cook the pasta pockets in. I made the pockets, got the water boiling and then, took off the pan lid. I walked back to the counter, grabbed a pocket and came back to the uncovered boiling water. I threw in the pocket and then noticed there was something black on it. That made no sense! There was nothing black on the pockets!

That’s right, you guessed it. It was a fly. Now, I’m fairly certain that there was no fly on the pocket when I picked it up, so the only explanation is that the fly willingly jumped into a boiling pan of water! Isn’t that the way they used to execute people in the Dark Ages?

A full pan of boiling water and a pasta pocket that took some considerable work to make: what to do? Should I chuck the whole works and start again, or fish out the fly and pretend it never happened? Now, I’m gonna be honest; a lot of me wanted to do the second thing, but I have not yet been reduced to eating fly residue, and there was no way to be sure that Roy would be the one who got the fly-flavored pocket, so I chucked the whole thing and started again!

I try to be careful when I have food around  and it’s fly season. I cover things on the counter and try to keep the area as fly-free as possible. But those buggers have not gotten the memo that they are not welcome, and they are not particularly fussy about what they will eat.

Especially is it difficult to keep them out of drinks. I think liquid must be the fly equivalent of the Viking Valhalla, because they jump into every liquid imaginable, hot or cold! This must be a direct route to fly heaven and much preferred to being caught on a sticky tape or smashed with a flyswatter.

While I was still teaching, I had the awful habit of bringing coffee into the classroom. Knowing that flies crawling into warm liquid are at their worst in the early fall, you would have thought I would be more cautious. But on one memorable occasion, I was helping a young lady with her project, holding onto my coffee cup, and I took a sip. The minute the saturated fly touched my lips, I knew what had happened, and automatically did the reflexive thing. I spit that coffee everywhere, including all over the astonished young lady I was attempting to help. I apologized, sent her mother a note offering to clean her clothes and dumped that coffee with the fly carcass out the schoolhouse door. However, there is at least one student who does not remember me for inspiring her. She will remember me as the teacher who vomited hot coffee all over her! And it’s all that fly’s fault.

I have read reviews of restaurants where someone complains that they got a dish of something which contained a fly and they will never go to that restaurant again because of health issues, cleanliness failings, etc. However, anyone who has ever been in a South Dakota kitchen as July melts into August knows how easily this could happen…and it has nothing to do with health or cleanliness. Having said that, I would definitely send the fly-enhanced dish back, but I wouldn’t boycott the restaurant—unless I saw the cook stirring the stew with her hands!

And on that note, you are all welcome at any time for a meal at my house. I do know how to prepare most dishes without a fly as an ingredient. I will be very careful for your sake, but I do advise you to keep your eyes open. Cause you never know…the flies might have other ideas!

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July 24, 2026 · 4:10 am

Me and my Shadow…

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Well, I have taken the plunge, so to speak, and had my left knee replaced. Now, this was a difficult choice for me, but one that I am assured–by everyone who knows–that I will be glad I did…after a while. I’m glad to be on the backside of the surgery, but it has had one unexpected consequence. I have acquired a new shadow.

One of the things you must have (other than a whole lot of ice) when you do knee surgery, is a walker. Now, I have no objection to a walker; I have indeed on rare occasion used one for a sore leg in the past and have been glad of it. However, this surgery has required that I take on a walker as my constant companion, for at least a few weeks.

This really doesn’t sound like that big a deal, I know, but it has required some adjustments. I have to remember each time I get up that I must bring along my four-legged friend. And usually, I am carrying something with me when I move, and this does not make my shadow happy.

“If you are going to carry that glass of tea, who is going to push me?” The walker will demand. “When you are operating me, I want all hands on the walker!”

I have learned the fine art of holding onto the walker and the coffee mug in the morning, both at the same time. Of course, I won’t say all the coffee makes it the whole way in the mug, but as long as I don’t splash the walker, it doesn’t complain!

I have discovered that the walker comes with a long list of demands. If I find a spot to sit in the house, the walker snaps, “That’s fine for you, but where is my spot? And don’t put me in the corner, like you did the last time, it’s so demeaning!”

Leaving the house is even more of a trial. Once I am in the car, what do I do with the walker? Should I put it in the back seat, like a second-class citizen or should I confine it to the trunk like so much luggage? By the time my shadow and I are loaded, it’s taken an extra half hour just to get started going anywhere.

In any public setting, the walker immediately becomes an issue. “Where am I going to sit?” it clearly demands, as it straddles the aisle, or blocks the seats behind it. Since folding it up and holding it in my lap is not an option, it means that wherever I go, my shadow makes it necessary for me to take up more room than usual. It makes staying home more and more appealing.

My walker definitely makes me feel bigger than I was before. By the time I have wiggled all six of our legs and the width of the walker, wrapped around my already considerable width, through a doorway, it makes me rethink that second doughnut I had for breakfast. I need twice the normal space to get around the living room, down the hall and into the bathroom.

While the walker may have problems with me, it has started an all-out war with the dog. She is not excited about my new companion and has attempted to play chicken with the walker on several occasions. So far, the score in that competition is Walker-10, Dog-0 and a well-stomped tail!

Possibly the greatest difficulty in my new shadow is that it does not automatically join me in my travels. Sometimes I forget that I need my mechanical companion and I take off on my own. Especially is this difficult when I wake up. I got up in the middle of the night and went to the kitchen for a drink. It was while I was reaching for a glass that I suddenly had that exposed feeling, like something was missing. That’s right, while I was having a drink in the kitchen, the walker was standing in the bedroom hollering, “Did we forget something…or someone?”

For anyone out there who is worried for me because of my knee replacement, you really shouldn’t be concerned about that. I am in very good hands. However, if you want to worry about the fact that I’m sitting at home having conversations with a walker, now that’s probably something you should worry about…

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July 17, 2026 · 9:35 am

A nurse I am not!

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

The medical world and its workers have always fascinated me. Imagine having that much knowledge of the workings of the human body! And it seems they discover something new every day. For an old hypochondriac like me, knowing that much about my body would be mentally unhealthy. I still remember being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and having my doctor say, “Ask the questions here…don’t Google it.” She had no worries: if I had Googled it, I would have just updated my will and lit candles to wait for the end because I have no clue how to interpret medical data and generally come up with the wrong diagnosis! I will leave it to the professionals.

And now back to these medical professionals. It just so happens that I have made a few observations about those in the medical world myself. A recent stay in the hospital caused me to note a number of phenomena which prove to me that I will never be in the medical profession, because I couldn’t make it.

For instance, in order to be a nurse, I would have to keep an orderly watch on any number of people, made excessively crabby by their infirmities. And I would have to do this with empathy and no slapping the whiners around.

For an example of duties, as a nurse or other medical professional, I would have to touch urine containers, feces containers and highly aromatic bags of vomit, and anything else which might emit from the human body. I can barely force myself to handle a coffee filter filled with used coffee grounds and these people are handling much worse with calm assurance.

Were I to go into the medical field and someone were to hand me bags full of vomit (as I did to nurses this week) my reaction would be immediate. “You’ve got to be kidding! What do I look like, waste disposal???? Empty that yourself!”

They also have to be the kings and queens of optimism. While I am melting down over having to walk or not being able to salt my food, they are following along behind me and my walker declaring, “You’re doing great; you’re looking just beautiful.”

I find this a particularly endearing and brave comment for them to make considering that they are making a statement like that and sounding sincere, while what they are most likely looking at is my bare behind sticking out of the back of my gown as I go limping along. That is positivity!

Medical professionals are required to look at you with a straight face as they inquire about your poop output, and the quality of your urine—and they must look as though the answers are not going to gross them out. They are required to check out our mouths, our ears, our eyes and other orifices less pleasant so they can draw their conclusions on our health. I am never more aware of things like bad breath and the otherwise unwashed condition of my body than I am when someone has to check me out. They must explain to a horrified patient where they are going to check for body temperature and then proceed to do it—quickly—before the patient has time to consider!

One of the things I find most amazing is their dealings with drugs (nothing illegal implied). They can look through my list and discuss medications with me that follow no writing or speaking pattern. They pronounce the names with skill, overlooking the fact that the words defy any phonics or any alphabetical rule out there. What’s more, they know what these drugs do and whether or not they play nice with other drugs. Unbelievable. “Ma’am, do you take ****** (word unpronounceable)?

“I don’t know,” I stumble over a reply. “Is that the one that controls my blood pressure or handles my indigestion?” They keep good records of that and it’s a good thing, because the medicines confuse me considerably—even if I could pronounce the names.

I think the thing I most admire—especially in the nursing staff—is their ability to maintain an emotional balance. They must operate somewhere between too much sympathy (Oh, is that making you upset?) and the attitude of a prison guard in the 18th century (Suck it up, buttercup, it’s only going to get worse.) The fact that they can be both practical and encouraging says a lot about them.

Knowing as well as I do that I am not going to make a good nurse, it only remains for me to thank the nurses, nursing assistants, doctors, ect., for being willing to take on the job for me. Without them, there would be no one concerned about the state of my bodily functions and certainly not a soul who would want to help me with that vomit bag!

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July 11, 2026 · 10:44 pm

Missing in Action

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Missing in Action

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have a recurring nightmare. In this nightmare, I am wandering in a thick, dense forest (could be a jungle; I’m not sure). In any case, it is obvious I am not going to get myself out alone.

The worse part of this nightmare? I know, in the way that dreamers do, that the only person who knows I’m lost and is looking for me is Roy. Now, don’t get me wrong: Roy would do his utmost to locate me if he could—most days. The problem is that Roy is not good at locating things that are missing, so unless I am two feet from him and singing the Star Spangled Banner, he’s never going to find me.

I make this criticism even knowing about myself that I lose many things as well. Sometimes I spend the greater part of a day just looking for my phone or my purse. But the difference between Roy and I is that I eventually find them…sometimes in weird places, but I find them.

Roy has been known to stand in front of the desk and lament, “Why can I never find a black pen in this house?” When I go out to help him find it, he will be looking down, searching the surface of the desk, while an entire pencil holder will be sitting at his eye level on the shelf in front of him, packed with black pens!

“Honey, can you go and get the electric skillet?” I will ask as I’m working in the kitchen. “It’s in the hall closet.”

“I can’t find it,” comes the frustrated answer as he looks wildly through the living room closet.

Of all of his many and useful skills, finding anything that is not out in plain sight and clanging a bell, is not one of them.

Today, I went to take care of some financial business for him, since I’m always ready to help. “They have the document,” he told me. “I looked in my files and I don’t have it, so they must.”

I relayed this information to the poor clerk at the front desk. “Uh…we don’t have the document,” she said, looking carefully at her computer screen. “Perhaps you really do have it?”

“Of course not! Roy told me he couldn’t find it,” I said confidently, sure that someone else was at fault.

“Maybe look one more time?” she suggested.

In a huff, I marched home and looked through all of the documents we had. No, the needed document was not there. And surely, he had looked through the whole drawer, even where the documents were not filed, but I would look again. Of course, there it was, having accidentally slipped behind other files, but in clear view…if you looked for it! So, I had to go back and sheepishly admit that I had the document all along. But I made sure to throw Roy under the bus for it.

In talking to other couples over the years, I have discovered that in most cases, there is one partner who can find a needle in a haystack and another partner, who needs someone to find both of their shoes and their keys and sunglasses. And I’m going to lose all my male readers when I make the gender-biased observation that the seeker is in most cases, a woman. And no, I haven’t got research data to back this up, so it is merely my opinion!

So back to my nightmare about getting lost in the forest and Roy being the only one to go looking for me. I finally shared this nightmare with him and his response was a little different than I was expecting. “That really might have an upside, you know.”

Now I’m really worried. I’m depending on the rest of you seekers: if I disappear into a heavily wooded area, don’t let Roy be the only one looking for me. I may have provided him with the incentive not to go search at all!

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July 5, 2026 · 12:02 am

Itsy Bitsy Spider

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Before I begin, I should confess that I really don’t like Charlotte’s Web. I mean, come on—a story about a pig that was saved by an artistic spider? It’s a little hard to take.

I have spent my whole life despising this insect (my grandson corrected me—arachnid) above most others and as the years have gone on, I have sent as many of the multi-legged, multi-eyed pests to their heavenly webs as I can. I don’t mind destroying their stringy abodes right along with them, so I guess that makes me the Godzilla to their delicate homes.

This anti-spider sentiment came to me this week as I was conducting my monthly, well, bi-monthly, (okay, semi-annual) cleaning of the ceilings. Spiders are so prevalent that my house looks pre-decorated for Halloween and I’m quite sure they are reproducing faster than the rabbits in my garden!

While I dislike spiders, I have developed a certain respect for them. I’ve learned that they are not just eight-legged decorations hanging from my ceilings. They have strategies. I was knocking down webs and trying to squash spiders once not so long ago and suddenly, one of the spiders, having kept still as I crept closer, hopped on the end of the broom and headed down the handle towards me. Knowing that spider bites are no joke, I of course,  tried to scream it to death before it dropped off the broom to the floor and I was able to attach it to the bottom of my shoe. But I tell you, that spider had murder in its eye(s) and me in its sights!

When I was an elementary student, our music class always included the song, “The Itzy, Bitzy Spider.” It included hand movements demonstrating the intrepid spider going “up the water spout.” I always loved the part where the rain “washed the spider out.” I got in trouble, though, because I didn’t like that the spider survived to climb again, so I made a strangling motion with my hands on that part. I then motioned throwing the spider to the floor and stomping on it.

I have never regretted that action. I took a stand against making spiders lovable and admirable creatures when actually, they are nothing but creepy crawling wall-walkers,  lurking in dark corners to drop in your hair. I will say, however, that my elementary music teacher is probably surprised that I didn’t turn out to be a sociopath—but my only obsession is an unhealthy need to get rid of spiders!

I read many years ago that in our lifetimes we swallow about 16 spiders, who crawl into our open mouths when we sleep. I have since read that this is inaccurate, but I still have the urge to sleep with tape across my mouth after I have encountered a spider.

I can’t help getting the creepy crawlies when I see people with pet tarantulas crawling on them; it makes me want to run! The only thing that comforts me about spiders is that they are small. Makes me feel like I’m in control. So spiders like tarantulas scare me more than most.

 At one time, I happened to look up and there was an involved spider web up in the corner of my outside entry. And staring serenely down at me was the largest spider I have ever seen. Now, I know you’re waiting for me to tell you I killed it, but I didn’t. Remembering the small one that came after me, I was far too afraid of this queen of all the daddy long legs! So, I made it my friend. “Hello, Bride of Spiderman, how’s it going?” I warbled as I dashed into the house.

From then on, I always passed the time of day with Mrs. Spiderman, trying to keep her from dropping down on me. “So, I went shopping and got a new pair of shoes, what do you think?” I would say, showing my new sneakers. She never answered me, only crossing her eight legs to show that a mere two shoes is nothing.

In the end, I hated being looked down on (literally) by a spider and I waited for fall to fade into winter, at which time I scraped off the remains of her home in my entry with a snow shovel and buried it in a snowbank. I know, I know, she was long gone, but I felt more secure anyway!

As they watched me write this column, my grandsons were outraged at my hostility to spiders. They quickly pointed out that spiders are very useful creatures who do a great deal of good for our world. I think they have a good point, but they will never convince me to love “arachnids.” Is that the right word, Arthur?

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June 26, 2026 · 2:25 am

Through the Ages

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Before you even read this, I will have turned 70. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that one, because as most 70-year-olds will tell you, SEEING 70-year-olds and BEING one are two entirely different things.

“Look at that woman over there, she looks so old! I bet she’s at least 70!” I overheard a young woman snicker to her friend. I paused for a moment in righteous indignation for the woman they were talking about but looking at the rest of the people in the ticket line, I didn’t see a 70-year-old around anywhere. That’s when I realized they were talking about me! Now aside from their bad manners, there was the problem of me looking 70 years old without having accepted that fact.

I decided to own that moment, though. I stooped a little bit, hobbled over to where they were standing in line and said, “Pardon me, but would you two lovely young girls mind letting an old lady in ahead of you? It’s so hard to stand on my old legs!” They let me in the ticket line ahead of them and I refrained from skipping when I left, (I couldn’t have anyway) having purchased my tickets before them!

I had a friend ask me, “How does it feel, turning 70?” That was a hard question to answer, because the real answer is that it feels a lot like it did when I turned 30…only with more arthritic joints. My mind is still a happy-go-lucky ten-year-old, but the body says, “Reality check, lady!”

Over the years, I have frequently written about my birthday, and recently, I did a search back to see when I started. The first one I can find that is me, whining because I am getting older, is when I turned 35. Now, I have read that column many times before and every time I read about what a “bummer” it is to turn 35, I want to go back and slap that 35-year-old right in her bummer! (Yes, I actually used the word “bummer” to describe getting older!)

It occurs to me that aging goes through specific stages. For the first 19 years of my life, birthdays just meant a cake, pictures and presents. Birthdays were fun! And they never came around soon enough. This was to change…

Between 20 and about 35 (when it becomes a bummer) birthdays come around with great frequency, but I don’t think we pay as much attention to them. We are busy, establishing a career, taking mates and raising children if we wish and we accept the passing years with a great deal of passivity. It’s when we reach about 40, and we’re letting the children out the door and the dogs in, that we begin to think, “What is that twinge in my back and when did my knee start hurting in the weather?”

It’s between 40 and 50 that birthdays become less fun. Yes, we are celebrating that we have made it one more year, but we are also noticing that we don’t run as fast as we used to (or at all) and some of the signs on the road are written in awfully small print! But still, life is busy and pretty good.

By 60, we are starting to wonder how that birthday comes around so fast every year. People begin to wonder what to give us for presents, because we already have what we want and usually the cake has to be gluten, sugar, and fat free and I would just as soon let the candles burn it up, in that case.

And now, we have arrived at my 70th birthday. “We need to do something special, to celebrate your 70th,” my children told me. Please, at my age, getting out of bed without my back and three other joints going out is pretty special! My hair is thinner, but that’s okay, because it’s also going gray so no one will notice. My eyes keep needing bigger print and if you want me to hear you, an airhorn might get my attention!

Still, it really isn’t so bad achieving 70 years. I’m pleased with so many of my accomplishments and I still feel like I have some things to contribute. So, to my 35-year-old self: I would say that 70 birthdays have made me much more appreciative of life’s joys than I ever understood as a 35-year-old.  Bummer for you, huh?

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June 19, 2026 · 7:10 am

Cooking Gone to the Dogs

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

So, it’s come to this. After years of deprecating my own cooking skills and proving time and again that I probably don’t have any, vindication may have arrived. I might finally have a fan.

Only trouble is, she has four legs, a tail and lacks the ability to brag about my culinary arts. That’s right: the fan of my cooking is Josie, our golden retriever.

Now, Josie and I have had a rocky relationship over the years. It’s no secret that when it comes to human companions, she prefers Roy…and I’m fine with that.

But it is also true that she has a hankering for people food. Occasionally, if I forget to put the top on the butter dish, I will walk into the kitchen to see a cleanly licked butter platter and a supremely satisfied dog.

There is also the time that we were sitting in the living room when we were struck by lapping sounds and a metallic tapping on the kitchen counter. We discovered the dog had helped herself to half a chocolate pie—that was all she could reach. I’ve heard that chocolate can kill a dog, but Josie has consumed at least a boatload and she’s still going!

But about my cooking. Josie had a tough time a couple of weeks ago. She went through several days where she could not keep anything down and she just laid around, not moving all day. She lost all interest in any food, including the popcorn she usually gets from Roy in the evenings. When she refuses that, you know she’s sick.

We watched her struggle for a couple of days and then we couldn’t stand it. So, we bundled her up and went to see the friendly local vet. The people at the vet clinic were so good. They checked Josie over and gave her a shot for nausea. Then, the vet said, “Maybe, instead of dog food, try some scrambled eggs or something that might be easier to keep down.”

Interesting suggestion. The vet was suggesting I cook for the dog. As that was sinking in, I looked at Josie and I knew just what she was thinking: “Please, I’ve seen her cooking. It’s inhumane to expect me to eat it. At least give me another nausea shot!”

As unenthused as she might have been, it suddenly struck me that I had reached a new  low as well: I had been reduced from cooking for unenthusiastic humans to cooking for a dog who wasn’t keeping much down.

It did occur to me, however, that there was some additional pressure: if that poor dog were to die after eating my food, my inadequate cooking skills would graduate to killer status.

Nevertheless, do not let it be said that I did not rise to the challenge. I got out my pan and my eggs. The dog watched me with no enthusiasm. She had no hope, but I knew I could do this. I scrambled the eggs—I even used butter—and holding my breath, tipped them into her pan.

At first, she just sniffed it. Finally, she took a small bite. Then, a little more and a little more. She never “wolfed” it down as they say, but within the half hour the dish was empty—and she held it down!

We decided two mornings of scrambled eggs would be good, just to get her over the hump. By the third evening, we filled her dish with regular dog food. She looked at it and then at me as if to say, “What is this garbage? Where is my freshly cooked meal?”

She abandoned her dish and came and watched Roy and I consume our ham and potatoes. She drooled a little. After the meal, she stood in the kitchen and watched me pack all the leftovers into the refrigerator.

Then and only then, with the air of Joan of Arc headed to the stake, she went to her bowl and ate.

“What was that all about?” Roy asked.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I replied. “The dog is a fan of my cooking.”

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June 12, 2026 · 1:02 pm

Wanda and Me

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

We were sitting in the living room the other night when suddenly, from the stairs leading to the lower level, came what my grandmother would call, “an unholy racket.”

“What is going on?” Roy, startled from his reading, inquired.

“That’s nothing,” I replied, “it’s just Wanda.”

“We have a woman named Wanda rattling metal in our basement?” he said, astonished. “Why did no one tell me?”

“Wanda! Knock off the noise!” I hollered. “Don’t make me come down there!”

But I was just posturing. Wanda and I both know that when she is making those noises, I’m going to have to go down eventually and slap her around a little. It happens every time.

You see, Wanda and I have known each other for about ten years now. That’s how long she has lived in my basement, washing my clothes.

“Wanda, since you don’t seem to know, is our washing machine,” I told Roy in a rather superior voice.

“You’ve named the washing machine Wanda?” He seemed neither entertained nor surprised.

“When you work as closely as Wanda and I do, you get personal,” I explained to him.

And it’s true. Wanda and I have been together long enough to understand each other. We share more secrets and quirks than coffee klatch buddies.

For instance, I understand that if I want my underwear to not end up wound around the base of the washer, I will wash it on a gentler cycle. That way, Wanda won’t sling it around like she’s a stripper on a pole and twist it irrevocably into the inner workings of the washer.

When I put clothes into the washer, I understand that Wanda is a delicate and well-balanced flower. Therefore, I must lay the clothes in the washer with the precision of a master brick-layer. Because if I don’t, Wanda gets out of balance and throws a very noisy temper tantrum.

Wanda knows that when she does do the “jump and shout out of balance dance,” I will be down to jerk her back into place with a few choice words of my own added. To tell the truth, I think she enjoys my temper tantrums because I often think I see her hiding a smirk in the laundry soap bubbles!

And that brings me to the biggest argument between Wanda and me (outside of “what did you do with the other sock this time?”). We can’t agree on a laundry detergent. She favors the big jugs of liquid, the more additives the better.

I have tried everything (to avoid that). I even went to the pods, but she would chew them up and spit them back on the clothes so that nothing short of a hurricane could get them off. Finally, I thought, “Well, let’s try one of those environmentally friendly sheets or tabs. That should be good.”

Wanda scoffed in disdain. “I’m sorry, but did you mean for me to use that excuse for laundry soap?!” We have ultimately agreed to disagree—meaning we do it her way.

Roy has finally recovered a little from me giving the washing machine a name. “It’s a good thing the dryer is new, you haven’t had time to get hostile with it,” he joked.

“Dougie the Dryer? Oh don’t get me started! He eats so many socks, he makes Wanda look like she’s on a diet…”

If you see Roy at the laundromat, tell him Wanda and Dougie say hello.

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