In hip hop culture, a grill is dental jewelry for inside your mouth so your teeth can sparkle with gold or diamonds. In a car, a grille covers an opening in the body of a vehicle to allow air flow. If someone is up in your grill, they’re confrontational. If you’re getting grilled, someone’s asking you a lot of intense […]

I spent 14 years as the last country judge in Hennepin County—during several years I handled family, criminal, and civil case calendars all at once. Most judges do just criminal, just family, or a combination of civil and criminal. Those were the favorite years of my favorite job. Imagine having a deputy with a pistol and handcuffs nearby to assist […]

It seems to me there are three types of cabin-goers. Allow me some latitude here. This is an essay, and like our old essays in school, it follows a pattern. Remember ‘compare and contrast,’ or ‘descriptive,’ or ‘rhetorical,’ or ‘satirical’? Here I’ll do a typology, a categorization. So, to repeat the thesis, it seems to me there are three types […]

My friend Mike recently suggested that instead of calling ourselves old, we should call ourselves “Older.” That makes me an Older Woman. I like that, but older than what? Older than dirt? (Sorry—couldn’t resist.) I don’t feel all that old, though, even though I just celebrated my 73rd birthday. My husband Jerry is nearly 80, and he still rides his […]