I celebrated my 52nd birthday this past Wednesday and so naturally it got me thinking of the passing of time. We are told to live each moment as if it could be the last, with quality and purpose, and yet so much of time is spent waiting to get from one point to another, with seemingly no purposeful meaning at all. Standing in the wrong long line at the grocery store, waiting on hold to speak with a live human on the phone for a customer service issue, sitting in the doctor’s office, waiting for your name to be called, and on and on. How much of our time is collectively spent in those often very frustrating moments? Read more

While these stamps are perfectly functional, they symbolize the loss of an era right before our eyes...

Last weekend Dan and I made the decision to trade in our Android phones (which we fondly referred to as “The Evils”) for an Apple iPhone. Before we got to the shop, we took a quick detour to the post office to get stamps and I was in shock with what I saw.

There is no question that somehow the spirit of Andy Rooney lives in me, because I instantly found myself becoming a curmudgeonly grump. No longer does our self-service stamp machine give out books of stamps. Instead, to save money, we are now given stamps that are printed on a sheet of label paper. They are completely boring and devoid of any personality whatsoever. And why should I care so much – the sole purpose of the stamp is to get my mail from point A to point B without delay, isn’t it? Read more

Christine feeding two of her Riverfront cats – Leroy and Lion King

For many of you that know me, you know that Christine Michaels of Riverfront Cats, Miami, is a dear friend of mine. She is known in the cat blogosphere for being the caretaker of her twenty or so outdoor community cats in the Riverfront area as well as being the original source that exposed the inhumane trapping of the outdoor cats on the Loews Universal Resort properties in Orlando that spearheaded a nationwide movement to save them. Read more

Dara Torres back at home (South Florida) in 2009 at a photo shoot for a fitness nutrition line she was endorsing. Photo courtesy of Dan Power.

I don’t know how many of you are following the qualifying rounds for the Olympics, but when I watched Dara Torres miss making a record sixth U.S. swim team by nine-hundredths of a second, finishing fourth in the 50-meter freestyle on  the last night of the trials this past Monday, I actually cried as I saw the look of defeat in her eyes. Sometimes the split second, blink of an eye randomness of life just seems so unfair – an entire future shaped by nine-hundredths of a second…  Read more

Even if no one else is listening, my voice is important to me. But, chances are, someone is listening. Now that BlogPaws has officially come and gone, whether through comments on my blog, posts other bloggers have done, personal emails to me, comments I have made on other blogs, photos, facebook chat, and so much more, I noticed a subliminal undercurrent of conversation this past week and decided I wanted my own keynote speech to all of you. Read more