More than just the mouse

Well that was a grueling couple weeks, wasn’t it? With that 2020 has given us, the escape button has never been more important. Netflix and other streaming services have been that relief in the form of original content for everyone. But what of that other new service from the most American entertainment company in the business: Disney?

Ask an Angel: November 19, 2020

I have a routine doctor appointment scheduled for this month and am considering canceling the appointment. I’m an 84-year-old male and have diabetes. I typically see my doctor every four months, but my last appointment was pushed back due to COVID. I know I’m due for blood work but am worried about being exposed to COVID while in the doctor’s office. Do you have any advice?

Breaking news: Louis L’Amour is still dead

The bad news is: Louis L’Amour is still dead.

The good news: I’ve made my peace with it — a necessary healing because, after all, I’m the guy who killed him.

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Roses often get a bad rap. Although it really isn’t in my nature to convince people to like certain plants, please hear me out. It is early November and as I drive around your community during the day and walk around my own during the evening, I see hundreds of beautiful blooms of roses still standing proud. Roses have been flowering since June and are continue to sprinkle our landscape with gorgeous fuchsia, yellow and peach flowers.

I’ve been lucky to live long enough and to travel extensively enough to wear my bucket-list pencil nub down quite a bit. Notre Dame Cathedral, The Louvre, Sydney Opera House, Brandenburg Gate—the list has narrowed quite a bit since I was a young, wonder-eyed boy.

Ask an Angel: October 22, 2020

Green screen: How YouTube videos can help with your garden

Recently, I needed to record my voice using my computer. Since I had absolutely no idea how to accomplish this, I called my son, Christopher. I explained that this was for an important project and asked if he could please send me an email with step by step instructions. The email I received was exactly 4 words long. ‘Download this. Watch this.”

Thrills, chills, and pills

In a year that we have had, how does Halloween stand up to 2020? Trick-or-treating is still on, with precautions, for the kiddies. With no parties, how can we adults get into the spirit so to speak? No fear (pun intended), there is a lot of media to get us in the mood as well. Sadly some of them are duds, which happens. But luckily that is my job to see the eye-rollers so you don’t have to.

Let’s get through those first.

Cravin’ Asian

Jim and I have been “cravin’ Asian” food lately. As a matter of fact, we are total Asian food junkies. There are not many dine in Asian restaurants that we haven’t been to. After checking Facebook for the 4,322 time one day, a light bulb went off in our pea brains.

A tale of Daddy Warbucks and other dogs

Last week, as our nation teetered on the brink of 200,000 citizens dead from a criminally mishandled pandemic, and with my mind reeling from the never-ending stream of disastrous news, I hit the road to escape self-imposed lockdown and hopefully find someplace to unwind in relative safety.

It was Starved Rock State Park, where one could wander peaceful outdoor trails through winding canyons, as gold and orange leaves drifted down through the still air. And although I knew I might meet others seeking a bit of sanity, I felt confident that I would find enough safe social distance outdoors.

Tenet: Is it worth it?

Let me take you on an adventure. It requires some imagination, dear reader, to remember a time in the past. A blissful time where our current state of things was not in the back of our minds. The prospect of walking into a theater for a new release was an open invitation, not something we would debate over. It may not feel dire, but the sense is in the air like the autumn chill. All of this sounds like the plot of some international thriller where our Protagonist must take on a dangerous madman hellbent on destruction. No, I am not talking about any real person or situation in particular. This is just the basics of “Tenet.”

Ask an Angel: October 8, 2020

fter having to postpone their summer wedding, my grandson and fiancé have decided to have an intimate wedding this fall. While they are keeping the wedding party and guest list small, I still have reservations about attending. I’m in my late 70s and am relatively healthy, aside from suffering from seasonal allergies.

New burgers on the block

Some people have a green thumb. Jim and I have the black thumb of death. Every Spring we go to our local nursery, buy some perennial plants, and by the end of summer, they commit suicide. Our landscaping is what our neighbors point to and use as a bad example. This year our lawn caught a bad case of fungus. Along with that, some cute striped little critters, aka Chip and Dale, set up camp under the sidewalk leading up to our house.

Breathe easy with indoor plants (and other health benefits)

Mary, my daughter, bravely got on a plane Sunday afternoon, in the middle of a pandemic, and flew 2000 miles to Seattle. As a recent college graduate, she will be starting her new life in the Pacific Northwest. While texts that include pictures of her smiling face in front of Meredith Grey’s house (We are HUGE Grey’s Anatomy fans!) have helped to ease my mind, as quite a few of you know, the burden of missing a child can be tough.

Text in your votes, because THIS … is Graven Image Challenge!

All things considered, it’s not really all that hard to obey the Ten Commandments, is it? Oh, sure, we all waffle a bit when it comes to coveting, but most of us manage to steer clear of outright murder and theft, and we’re pretty fond of Mom and Dad.

But then there’s that pesky Commandment Number Two, the one ordering us to “make no graven images.”

Are selfies covered under that rule?

Falling in love with florals this season

The season of fall is synonymous with a gorgeous array of various shades of red on a myriad of shrubs and trees. The sight of stately trees in all of their glory at the end of a beautiful summer is what many of us look forward to all year. Often overlooked though are the dozens of perennial flowers that offer up their beautiful blooms as we approach months of cold, ice and snow. It seems as if for these flowers it is their final performance of the season. It’s a performance you don’t want to miss.

The “Village” People

On September 5 you may have noticed signs all around Huntley saying, “Tune Radio to 101.5 FM For Fireworks”. Don’t worry, this did not mean your radio would have exploded if you tuned in. Huntley Community Radio had a live broadcast during the village fireworks display, and someone had to put up all those signs.

Blockbusters @ Home

As this month began, the promise of movie theaters reopening has given us some pause. How will things change in this new world we find ourselves? What safety measures have the staff put in place to make for a comfortable experience? The studios have held back a great deal of their slate until later in 2020 or even next year. With “Tenet” the only major release that seems worth it (and I may still review it later), the resounding feeling of disinterest may have you feeling the small screen to be the better choice. Luckily, we don’t need to give up big budget storytelling in the exchange.

Ask an Angel: September 24, 2020

My wife and I are in our late 50s and retirement is on our minds. We do plan to continue to work for a few more years, but we’re nearing the next season of our lives. We have three children, one in high school, two in college. We feel that they are adequately set for their futures, now we want to focus on us.

A comet is just a comet, right?

One clear night this summer in mid-July, I stood out among the corn fields at the western dead-end of Ernesti Road and finally knew what it must have felt like to live during the Middle Ages.

For the record, I have always felt a touch of envy for those long-ago folks because medieval art is filled with paintings showing blazing comets in the sky, and I have always wanted to see a comet blazing across the sky above me.

Syrup-y Sweet!

Nancy and I have become desperate for entertainment during this Covid-19 crisis. Nancy is convinced she is qualified to be a doctor after watching “Untold Stories of the ER” on TV, and she actually is becoming good at diagnosing the cases. Our Saturday night entertainment is now the Three Stooges followed by Svengoolie. We have also learned from the grandchildren the importance of checking FaceBook constantly. This turned out to be true when we read in the Wildflower Lake neighbors group about a new restaurant called Syrup in Algonquin.

Brown grass?

My daughter, Mary, came over on Sunday. Due to social distancing we were hosting her and her boyfriend, Stephen, on our deck. As she was sitting down, she looked into our backyard and asked “What happened to the lawn?” It looked like we had purposefully tried to create ugly brown stripes and circles in our lawn by spraying herbicide.

It wasn’t us, but a climatological condition that is causing the lawn to go dormant. The lack of rain had resulted in dry brown grass in stripes over our septic lines and a big brown circle over our septic tank.