What, really, is a shell? Is it a nest-wing of comfort? Is it a book of wise lessons and sage advice? Is it a warm blanket? A home? A roof that doesn’t leak? A hole in the base of a tree? A fence? Is it a place of solace like a fort or barricade? Does it keep something safely in or keep something out? Is it self-serving or sharing?
I’m pondering shells today. I recently rescued a six year old miniature schnauzer whose owner surrendered him when her boys left for college. She wanted to travel. My new dog’s former shell crumbled, but I took him into mine. As I hold him and stroke his soft fur and feel his playful nose-nudges, I have to wonder: will the boys and their mother feel the empty shell syndrome when they come home for holidays and realize that there’s a lot of love missing? Will they rearrange the furniture as they put up the Christmas tree and realize when they discover a forgotten toy that he was part of a family he’d loved and now he isn’t there to chase the ball anymore and nestle in their blankets as they kick back and watch a movie?
Have their hearts hardened, or will their shells soften when they realize the grief impact of their mother’s decision to teach her sons that love is a one-way street just for when it’s convenient?
Something about Halloween in a Mahjong group has us scrambling for spooky snacks like we’re back in the days of making party treats for our children. What is it about the childlike fun of playing a game that makes us feel so excited again? The assignment: Bring a Spooky Snack to Mahjoween on Friday.
On Thursday, I scoured the aisles of the grocery store. Cranberry Crackdragons were out of the realm of possibility, since there were no fresh cranberries to put powdered sugar on and pop in the oven to create a burst of tart sweetness with every bite. A candy corn shaped cheeseball was a consideration, and that shifted to a cheese puff- crumbed cheeseball in a pumpkin shape, but I was not in the mood to cut cheese. I toyed with the idea of cream cheese-filled mushroom eyeballs with pitted black olive pupils and sun dried tomato veins. But honestly, I’m just not all that creative when it comes to food. I’d threatened to bring Halloween Oreos or BOO-nana bread, but even I rolled my eyes at the thought of that kind of laziness.
That was when it hit me. A certain little seven inch porch goose the host and I bought as a gift for our Sensei (Mahjong instructor) as a gift got me thinking about the little witch hat and the way I could try to replicate those same size snack hats using Bugles, mini Nilla wafers, and melted chocolate chips with a peanut butter chip as a hat buckle. I rounded up the ingredients, satisfied I’d made the right choice.
First, I opened the bag and found the best-shaped Bugles that had a rounded opening at the bottom so they would stand on the cookies until the chocolate hardened. I did the math and planned for three dozen, and then laid out some extra cookies to put chocolate on. I made one prototype so I could see if it would work, and lo and behold, it did! I surprised myself. Even the Reese’s peanut butter chip stuck once I coated the top of the cookie, coated the Bugle and stuck it on, and affixed the chip onto the base of the Bugle.
Our teacher from Augusta is coming to be with us. We call her Sensei Susan, and she is coming even as one of her dachshunds is recovering from back surgery last week (and an abscess after that) and she’s had to cancel her tennis games. We’re so blessed that she is willing to travel two and a half hours to be with us and spend time helping us refine our strategies and skills.
We got her a small porch goose all dressed for Halloween that is perfect for her kitchen counter, to remind her how much we enjoy spending time with her. We’ll sew on some Mahjong beads and give it to her as we play the day away and make plans for a Thanksmahj and Christmahj. And we’ll add some festive Mahjong outfits each time we get together.
We’ve already been shopping for the fabric and the rick rack and hem trims. Get ready to see a gaggle of gregariously dressed game-ready geese! I’m hopping from the kitchen to the sewing room now……
Have I mentioned lately how much I love being retired?
Yesterday, I shared a little about the Poetry as a Healing Art series that began this week as part of The Stafford Challenge. You can still sign up (registration is free) for the remaining sessions here at this link. Dr. Deborah E. Grayson led us in some prompts on Tuesday evening to inspire writing as therapy. One was a soundtrack of our lives, which I wrote about yesterday, and today I’ll share three more inspiring ideas from Tuesday evening’s session.
Dr. Grayson asked us to consider where we find healing and to write about those places in response to the “salty times” of our lives – such as divorce, death or illness of a loved one, or loss of a beloved pet. Many people responded that in addition to poetry, healing is found in scripture, in reading books, in art, in nature/gardening, and in playing or walking with pets. I agree with all of those and would add coffee and conversation with friends and loved ones as well. I love travel and seeing new places and parts of the world and find that travel often offers new perspectives that can bring healing.
She also inspired us to create a Prescription for Loneliness. My first go-to is reading. I find that when I read, I’m keeping company with characters and authors. My book club sisters and I meet each month to talk about our reading, and that’s a lovely time shared with others! Getting outside with my dogs also keeps me in good company when my husband is at work and would be #2 on my prescription list. I shouldn’t admit this, but Hallmark movies somehow make me feel like I’m a nicer person, and those have a medicinal effect on loneliness too. Grayson explained that all of these items on our brainstormed lists can be used in poetry, such as list poetry.
Finally, our concluding activity was to spend a few moments and write a list poem. We could use our Prescription for Loneliness ideas, our Playlist of our Life ideas, our places we find healing, or we could write one like poet Andrea Gibson made in the days before she died after a long battle with Ovarian Cancer in July 2025. Her poem was entitled A List of Things that Don’t Suck, to Make Your Day a Little Brighter. I’ll begin my own list with 3 that come to mind:
Things that Don’t Suck
A rescued dog who rolls belly-up in the grass, kicking his legs toward the sky in happiness in the autumn sunshine and you think you see him stop for a second to offer you a smile of gratitude.
A playlist of great songs made especially for you in retirement, sent to you by your daughter.
Today is the first day of the October 2026 Open Write at Ethicalela, and Anna Roseboro of Michigan is our host. You can read her full prompt here as she inspires us to write about letter grades in education.
What A Grade Can’t Show
a grade can’t show all that they know
those boxed-in letters produce learning fretters
we’re labeling and lumping praising and dumping
and when grades are the game learning’s not the same
learners and scholars wear different collars
there’s no motivation at most learning stations
we’re the ones who need learning on tides that need turning
….and now, let’s be real: AI’s at the wheel…..
Sensei Susan, me, and friend and fellow Mahj enthusiast Christian
I’ve never played pickleball, but I’ve heard that the craze is so fast and furious that new players kidnap all their friends and drive them to the courts, taking extra clothes and gear and even letting complete strangers use whatever equipment they need to join in the game with zero awareness of any rules as they walk onto the court all bewildered. There, they hand them a paddle and explain all about the kitchen and who can go into the kitchen and who should stay out of the kitchen and a hodgepodge of rules that sound like the Charlie Brown teacher to a bunch of head-scratching people who suddenly find themselves in a surreal moment they didn’t choose, pinching their forearms and wondering how they actually got there. And then, these same clueless people now caught up in the madness are the next wave of new players grabbing all their unsuspecting non-pickleball-playing friends the next week and bringing them back for an initiation into the cult sport.
That’s a lot like Mahjong, only with far fewer physical risks of injury for the older folks who do not need additional help finding the ground and suffering injuries. My husband’s father experienced this when he played pickleball and ended up with knee surgery and months of physical therapy. But where crossword puzzles and Sudoku have been the traditional seniors’ choice for cognitive exercise to stave off the inevitable decline of functional brain cells and memory, Mahjong emerged onto the American scene like an Asian tsunami across the globe and up through the cracked-earth dust of history straight outta ancient China and settled in the homes of women who are now going broke buying tablescapes and four-layered theme tiles they store in Michael’s clear lidded candy jars in the china cabinets where their great grandmother’s heirloom dishes used to be displayed. Husbands everywhere are begging: Please, someone, make it make sense! It’s like a CrackDragon tile walked up to the New York Times puzzle page and said, “Hold my beer.”
It’s true. The latest trend in real estate in Texas is the Mahjong room, and if a home doesn’t have one, the wife tells the husband she wants to “look further” for one that does. Because, well, ….the whole group of friends must have a place to play on proper precisely-measured square tables that doesn’t involve a flashmob-style takeover of a Chicken Salad Chick on a random Tuesday at 10 a.m. There are entire YouTube video series sessions that feature how to store mats by rolling or hanging, how to read the official NMJL card, and how to choose tiles based on size to fit your racks and pushers (which are, by the way, sometimes deliberately selected not to be all “matchy-matchy” with the tiles and mat and tablecloth and lamp and dice dish).
And let’s talk about trinkets. Most often they’re tiny ducks or other little pinkytip-sized animals that are collected as trophies upon a Mahjong win that is declared valid with no opposition from the players at the table who have checked the exposed tiles against the card. These ducks are sometimes kept in a little pouch, so when your sensei who taught you to play Mahjong and lives two and a half hours away is preparing to come for an afternoon of games and will “bring her bag of ducks,” you don’t have to read that twice. You understand there is no typo there.
Even more, you understand that what seemed illogical the summer before you learned to play the game now makes perfect sense. It’s gospel, yet it can seem like learning a whole new language in two humorous Mahjong 101 and 102 lessons. It can be deep and carry life lessons, like that scene in Crazy Rich Asians. Even Julia Roberts plays, and insists that the craze is about making order out of chaos because it’s not a gambling game, and it’s not a drinking game. Folks who were complete strangers in the grocery store and bookstore and at church a few months ago suddenly become best friends. These same folks will drive hours to play away an afternoon, and they’ll bring Mahj gear and give it to you as a gift, along with their bag of ducks. They will talk strategy and explain reasons for pivots, and everyone will eat snacks and laugh all afternoon and send each other YouTube videos on game strategies, tips, and obscure rules and, of course, all the things they are putting in their Amazon cart. You’ll understand that while winning is fun, it’s just as much fun to lose because there is no losing where there is so much fun that you don’t even realize your brain is exercising and that you might not be the extreme introvert you once thought you were.
You’ll thank the good Lord you didn’t wait another day to retire, because you look forward to each day you can play with new friends, old friends, and your sister in law across the farm. And you’ll feel sorry for all those pickleball players who think they’re all that and a bag of chips. Because you know the real truth about what a kitchen is for.
Bethany, Christian, and me – photo created by Christian
Our sensei brought these flowers and basil she grew in her own garden when she isn’t mowing grass in straight lines or playing tennis or teaching Mahjong
Retirement officially began for me August 1st, and each second and fourth Friday, I’ve begun reflecting on the first year of retirement in two-week windows and what it’s like in this new chapter of life – mainly because so many writing community and personal friends asked me how I would spend my time and whether or not I thought I would get bored. I don’t ever see getting bored in retirement, since I tend to keep myself busier than other people have ever tried to keep me. At the beginning of my first week off, I used a green spiral notebook to make a list of all the things I wanted to do — something enjoyable each week, blending in some new hobbies and routines as well. I remember my late father’s words, on retirement: You don’t retire FROM something, you retire TO something, and you’ll be busier than you’ve ever been. He was right, but the busy part is optional, like wearing real clothes on most days instead of my preferred loungewear. And I like having that choice in case I decide to stay home for two days straight and write, read, cuddle with dogs under a blanket on the front porch drinking coffee in the cool morning air, listen to music, and play Mahjong online in real time across the miles with friends.
Here are some things I’ve enjoyed in my first official ten weeks of retirement, with each being described in detail in previous posts :
Here are the most recent things I’ve added to my list of 100 Things I’m Enjoying in Retirement. I’ve reversed the order, going backwards in time to the beginning.
43. Virtual Author Reading for Time in the Landscape – Although I did not attend the gathering in person in Massachusetts for the Time in the Landscape event in September, I sent a recording of a reading for those in attendance. I’m enjoying reading the book in small increments as a slow read to make the book last longer. My hard copy of the book arrived in the mail last week, and the cover design is stunning. A color rendering of each of the juried art installments along the trail is included with the poems so that readers can see what inspired each poem.
This was the art installation I chose to write a Tanka about; it reflects phases of the moon.
42. Author Readingfor Anna Roseboro’s Book Study- I took part in an author reading for a book study on the anthology Temptations of Christians. Despite the scary intrusion by a small group of folks intent on disrupting the event, I did manage to laugh when I looked back and saw that my Ponytail Palm Tree in the background made it look like I was sporting an interesting hairpiece for reading my short story excerpt.
41. Indie Bookstore Shopping – I visited bookstores in several small towns and savored the vibe of each. In a Barnes and Noble or Books-A-Million, the vibe is all the cookie-cutter same, and still I’ve never met a bookstore I didn’t like. In an Indie bookstore, though, each space has such a unique feel that it’s almost as if the bookstore could be a character with a complete personality and traits. Logos, shelves, wall colors, art, smells of inked pages and coffee and candles and warmth, bags and bookmarks and other merchandise, the rich woods of checkout counters and the way that furniture is arranged are all like their own artistic statements of how small worlds are contained in the books themselves. I particularly love displays where curations have been arranged on themes with book covers facing out or up and plants and small items adorning the display table.
40. Dock Time on Jackson Lake in Georgia – we spent an afternoon on Lake Jackson with my husband’s brother and his wife to enjoy an overcast and breezy day on their dock, just sitting and loving a relaxed pace. It was fun watching the water enthusiasts speed by, while the clouds ambled at their own pace and made pictures in the sky for the finding, like an I Spy book turning pages above our heads.
39. Adopt a Dog – I adopted a 6-year old male Schnauzer from the rescue where I adopted two previous dogs, and he is adjusting beautifully on the Johnson Funny Farm. He came to us as AJ, which we shortened to Jay (Gatsby) as a literary name nod to our Fitz (F. Scott Fitzgerald), who left us last spring as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge. But I call him The Crackdragon for his feisty manner and the way he high-step march/skips along, hiking his back legs up. My favorite Mahjong tile is a crak dragon among the craks, bams, dots, jokers, and flowers.
38. Train Ride to See Fall Foliage – we rode the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway along the Toccoa River from Blue Ridge to McCaysville, Georgia and Copper Basin, Tennessee to see the beginning of leaf season. It was a welcome way to enjoy the beginning of cooler temperatures and see how the landscape changes just in a short geographical distance. I love that about road trips and train trips where I get to see the actual land not from a plane.
37. Cabin for a Birthday Celebration in North Georgia – we rented a VRBO called Trout House in Mineral Bluff, Georgia to spend time with my husband’s brother and wife for their birthday month. Little did we know at the time that my brother in law would suffer a heart attack two weeks before his birthday, and this trip would bring a whole new perspective on the importance of slowing down and spending time with those we love. He is physically fine, but the wake-up call when we have a close call like that can leave us spiraling in our head space for weeks, months, and years after the scare. And so we press onward, making new memories and living life to the fullest each day.
Here are my previous 36 Items on the Retirement List in countdown order back to the beginning:
36. Fall Baking
35. Hosting Open Write
34. Kindred Spirits September Book Club
33. Mahjong in Blairsville, Georgia
32. Daytripping for Lunch and Small Town Adventuring
31. Hiking the Appalachian Trail
30. Camping at Vogel State Park
29. Lunch with Friends
28. Almost-Birthday Pedicures with my Sister-in-Law
27. Mahjongg Regular Group Formation
26. Stafford Challenge Writing Workshop
25. Stafford Challenge Small Group Zoom Meetings
24. Dolly Parton Tribute at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee
23. Labor Day Camping at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, Georgia
I’ve never met a bookstore I didn’t like, so in this chapter of life where there is more time to read, I added Independent Bookstore Shopping to the list of things of delights that retirement would bring time to enjoy. I knew this would go in my green notebook list of things to do after visiting Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon in June. They call themselves “fiercely independent,” and if you read a little about the history of this amazing store and the philosophy about reading that guides its management, you know both the the power and the risk of the break from big box corporate bookstores. Take, for example, the poetry section. Those sections are usually what I would consider the weakest link in a bookstore. But not in Powell’s. They have several sections of floor-to-ceiling titles of poetry books, and the best curated collection I have ever seen. In the eastern United States, Malaprops in Asheville, North Carolina gets the highest mark for a poetry curation. I’m on a quest to find those that stack up to the gold standard of Powell’s.
Since I would live and breathe reading if it were possible to do, I like to get as close to it as I can and inhale deeply, taking in the feel of the books, the smell of the shop, the vibe of the readers considering what they want to read next. On a recent North Georgia Mountain trip, my sister in law and I visited indie bookstores in Ellijay and Blue Ridge and also in Copper Basin, Tennessee. My favorite moments are when someone asks complete strangers if anyone has read a particular book. That happened in Copper Fox Books in Blue Ridge, Georgia recently, and we helped steer a reader to Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth as her next book after chatting preferred genres. It’s a lovely feeling to be a book matchmaker.
I’m always eager to hear about favorite bookstores. If you have any, please share them. My dream trip would be adding bookstores to a wine tour. I’d get on a bus and go wine tasting but in between all the wine tastings, the bus would stop at bookstores. I wonder what books I would add to my library if there were such a tour – – and whether it would be poetry and novels or whether I’d branch out and surprise myself with some new genres when I arrived home and checked the boxes to see what all I’d bought!
We spent Saturday afternoon with Briar’s brother and sister in law, sitting outside with them on their dock on Jackson Lake. The weather was perfect, and the breeze delightful. These are the moments I have looked forward to in retirement – being able to share time, unhurried, just breathing and being, without the pressure of work-related deadlines and duties.
Jay enjoyed some time getting to know his new family members in small doses as he develops trust in his new home with us. I can only imagine how challenging it is for dogs whose circumstances change abruptly, and my heart hurts for him when I think about how he must be feeling, constantly on the lookout for those he has spent the last 6 years loving.
a day at the lake
recalibrating our pace
in good company
As we were traveling, I saw a stuffed dog in a trash can along the side of the road and thought of the similarities to the situation. A loyal dog, there to comfort and bring joy, now kicked to the curb. And my heart felt heaviness and hope all at once – glad I can be there to save a dog who needs a home he can depend on. I’m so thankful that rescue organizations exist for dogs like Jay, and for all those who open their arms and hearts to be filled once again with the love of a dog who can help heal the ache.
Sometimes the most write-down-to-the-bone writing challenge comes from friends in a writing group: Let’s all write a poem about what really annoys the hellout of us, one among us says, throwing a gauntlet right at everyone’s feet. And don’t hold back. Tell everyone how you really feel. Write down to the bone, as Natalie Goldberg would urge.
I got my sass going and pulled out my pen and my notebook and let my mind go to a time I really wanted to jerk a knot in someone’s neck. It didn’t take long to feel my blood boiling in memory alone. That’s what writing does when it takes you back to the moment you need to just let something go or deal with it.
I’ll tell you what annoys me: when someone flippantly tells another person to smile. Especially when someone doesn’t know the personal burdens people are carrying, whether the directive comes from someone at work, a stranger in public, or anyone else who crosses a personal boundary and doesn’t know the challenges others are facing. It’s the most insensitive way to treat others, and seems to be a trademark habit of those who feel especially narcissistic and entitled.
I’ve had it happen to me on multiple occasions on the heels of my father’s death when the lines of grief had set in and seemed to hold a strong presence on my brow, but never more stinging and offensive than the time right after I’d gotten the phone call from the veterinarian that there was nothing more they could do for my beloved Schnauzer Fitz, and that I needed to begin thinking of a time when I could bring him in for his final appointment. Someone who professed to be “an expert on reading body language” walked by on the way to refill a coffee cup and said, “Smile. You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
As a matter of fact, I did have the weight of the world on my shoulders. And in that moment, for a “professional body language reader” to be so careless with that astute observation yet offer that remark, I wasn’t sure whether to cry, scream, or slam my computer shut and run out of the room. So I decided the best approach was to feel pity for the self-proclaimed professional heartless creature seeking caffeine. To be so filled with the gift of body language literacy and so devoid of sensitivity, the caffeine was clearly not the wake-up call needed.
Here’s a thought I wanted to share with the oblivious coffee drinker: use your body language reading gift with the utmost stewardship and assume someone might actually be distressed if they’re throwing off that vibe. It does no one any good to have a gift and not use it for good. Think of it like gun ownership, because it’s similar and can be worse: you wouldn’t show up to a sharpshooter’s competition waving a gun like a drunk Otis on Andy Griffith. Use your weapon to protect, build bridges, and help heal, not to kill. I can’t imagine that my late father, in his pastor days, would have ever looked at anyone with a distressed look on their face and inhumanely told them to smile. And I don’t expect people in positions of leadership to lack the lick of sense it takes to figure out the obvious and remain oblivious. It reeks of a football coach with so much lingering head trauma that when an injured player is writing in pain, they tell the player to get up and shake it off.
This got to be such an obvious thing with this particular coffee drinker that all those who’d been flippantly told to smile began sending messages of support to each other. Imagine the day I walked by a desk in an RV dealership and saw the sign: Director of Smiles. I tried to grab it and hold it up for the picture, but it was adhered to the desk. Someone before me must have tried to steal it. Now, it has become the regular image we share when someone has been told to smile.
Director of Smiles Tanka
Director of Smiles,
the sign reads, reminding me
my natural face
is who I am, not some fake
show of my humanity
I think Leigh Elena Henderson (I adore her and her expressive eyes that can carry on a full conversation all by themselves) gets it – – check out her viral Tik Tok on HR Manifesto.
I call Bethany my sister-in-law because what’s his is mine and what’s mine is his, and since she’s married to his brother, that makes her my sister in law too. When we saw that we would not be able to complete Part 2 of our Route 66 trip from Santa Monica to Albuquerque this year, we booked a quick weekend getaway to the mountains of North Georgia a couple of months ago to celebrate their birthdays this month. We’d flown to Chicago and rented a car to drive to Albuquerque and fly from Albuquerque back to Atlanta in June 2024, and we still talk about all the great memories we made on that trip. I can’t forget that coconut pie at the Midpoint Cafe in Adrian, Texas, but that’s an entire story for another day. And so we found a VRBO situated just outside Blue Ridge on a winding creek where we could relax and lower our blood pressure.
That’s why it was so meaningful yesterday when Bethany shared that she knew God had this weekend in mind, prompting us to plan the trip when we did, knowing we’d need to get away more now than ever. Things got real a couple of weeks ago when Kyle had a heart attack. When he’d picked Bethany up from the airport, he shared he wasn’t feeling well, and she’d recognized the symptoms. She took over the driving and took him straight to the hospital, where hours later, after his heart attack, the doctor showed them The Widowmaker images and assured them that they had done the right thing getting to the hospital when they did. Following surgery, he was released a few days later as good as new – even better, actually. Doctor’s orders were to take it easy for the next few weeks.
Nothing surprises God. He had Kyle in his hand, getting him to the hospital so he could be here to celebrate another birthday. Here in these mountains, we’ve eaten delicious foods, sipped coffee in the early morning, taken walks, and sat around talking and laughing as we’ve shared family stories by the fire. Today, we’ll ride the rails of the Blue Ridge Scenic Railway along the Toccoa River to see if we can spot the first leaves of fall turning their glorious colors. And we’ll each say a prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty of nature and the time together to enjoy it.
We’ve always heard the popular phrase, “Life is short. Take the trip. Buy the shoes. Eat the cake.” But when someone we love has a close call, you realize it’s not just some random saying on a t-shirt. It’s true. We get one wild and precious life, and the poet Mary Oliver had the right idea asking us what we were going to do with it. Today, we answer: we’re going to live it to the fullest and thank the Good Lord for the gift.
They waited on us while we shopped in Elegy
They stood on the bridge of the creek that ran behind our rental, Trout House, and watched for….trout!
