My Blog
Sharing my thoughts and providing real life stories for my readers to think about.
Kalimantan on My Mind
For twenty-four years, I dreamed of visiting Borneo. I even had it listed on my Bucket List. While I ticked off other items on my list during that time—some as remote and hard to get to as Borneo—I still put it off thinking it was too way off the beaten track and...
Scintillating Singapore
Money aside, it takes a lot of effort, energy and time to travel the world. I should know as I just returned from visiting my 55th and 56th country: Singapore and Malaysia. If I had to rank those factors in order of importance, I’d be tempted to place energy right...
October Birthday Voyage
Eleven years ago, to mark a milestone birthday, I booked a solo overseas trip to check off two items on my bucket list: a Kenyan safari guided by the Maasai Mara and a mountain gorilla trek in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest of Uganda. While I had previously been...
Layoffs and Loyalty
Two months ago, a friend of mine was laid off after 20 years of employment at a company with a national presence. Not only did he perform his job well, but he was the top sales producer in the country. To say he was shocked would be the understatement of the century...
Picking up Where I Left Off – The Plague Saga
Last month, I revealed with much excitement that I resumed writing every day, beginning by editing a novel I’d started back in 2021. Yes, it had been more than three years since I looked at that manuscript—one of three yet-to-be-published manuscripts. In fact, I was...
Back to Basics
Thankfully, I have a full life with many blessings and much to be grateful for. I am truly never bored as I always have something to do or somewhere to go. In fact, I can no longer keep up with the numerous hobbies I collected over the years because I’ve replaced them...
Hypothetical Questions
Recently, a hypothetical question was posed to women on social media: Would you rather be alone in the woods with a man or a bear? Although there was no unanimous answer, most of the women on sites like TikTok, Instagram and X responded they’d prefer to be alone with...
May
Lots of things come to mind when I think of the month of May. Everything from May Day to Cinco de Mayo to Mother’s Day to Memorial Day. Yet, for the past 17 years, the first thing that comes to mind is my son’s birthday, May 8. My second thought is that he made me a...
Life is Short
In anticipation of a milestone birthday last October, I decided to start travelling internationally again; something I hadn’t done since COVID shut down the world in 2020. Because I enjoy travelling—and often do so on my own—I considered 2023 as my “travel year,”...
The New Laziness
One of my three yet-to-be published novels, simply titled A.I., is sitting—or rather rotting—in my computer, written three years ago when I was inspired by the thought of whether artificially intelligent creatures could mingle successfully with human society. Although...
Finding Authenticity on Social Media
Like most of you, I am ambivalent about social media. Most of the time it’s a love/hate relationship with both sides swinging wildly to the extremes. At its worst, social media can be an abyss of vile hatred perpetrated by ideologs of all stripes and aimed at complete...
A Little Levity Goes a Long Way
The 18th anniversary of my father’s passing occurred last week, bringing up a lot of memories. Happy, sad and humorous. My dad was highly intelligent, sensitive, creative as well as extremely funny. Deadpan funny at times. Irreverently funny. Like the time he called...