Ask the Woodchucks: March 22, 2018

There are many small things, including several battery changes, you may not have thought about when it comes to garage door maintenance. Lubrication is absolutely necessary for devices like this that operate every day.

Ask an Angel: March 22, 2018

I’ve been a caregiver for over 30 years, and I’m now ready to retire and must get something off my chest. I mainly work with people who have mental problems such as Alzheimer’s, depression, bipolar, etc. Why do people treat mentally ill people differently from people that are ill from many other illnesses?

A final Valentine’s Day lesson of love everlasting

Just after dinner this Valentine’s Day, while we were in our Florida home, my wife caught my attention as I was washing the dishes. She beamed a beatific smile, flashing me a thumbs-up from her wheelchair.

Because she was robbed of speech eight years ago by a pair of severe strokes, there is no way to know exactly what she meant by it. It might have been: “Thanks for cooking my favorite meal tonight.” Or it might have been: “What fun we’ve had over these past few days.” Or it might have been: “I love you so much it almost hurts.” It might even have been her approval of the little solar-powered dancing flower I gave her at breakfast that Valentine’s Day morning, the kind of tiny gesture we both treasure far above grand displays of love.

Back to Bavaria

Believe it or not, Nancy has a real job. She is a travel agent, and years ago she won a river cruise for two through Bavaria with a German cruise line. Out of 80 passengers, only 10 spoke English. As we were sailing along, our cruise director would point out various landmarks and give a five minute dissertation in German. He would then point and say to us in English, “there it is.” While showing her clients some photos of our trip, she developed a taste for German food. We remembered seeing the Bavarian Lodge in Lisle and decided now would be a good time to review this restaurant.

Oh, I know, New Year’s resolutions are supposed to start in the early hours of January when the year is still new. I can hear you smirking at me for taking this long to get around to it.

Hostiles: a somber story

Here we go another time. Two years ago and then again last year I complained about the lack of decent new releases hitting the theaters this time of year. Perhaps a columnist from the Los Angeles Times described it best, “For decades, spring was largely considered a kind of dead zone in Hollywood’s release calendar, an island of cinematic misfit toys lacking a coherent identity or much inherent appeal for film distributors. In everyone’s minds there’s the holiday season, there’s awards seasons, there’s the summer movie season – and then there’s spring.”

Frog vs. Gator

Jim’s arms were getting too short for him to read anything, and the adhesive tape wasn’t holding his broken glasses anymore, so off we went to Spring Hill Mall to remedy the situation. His vision was impaired with his old prescription eyeglasses, but isn’t it funny how he could spot a restaurant from a mile away??? The name piqued our interest, so we decided to try the Chubby Bullfrog Bar & Grill (next to Sears) in West Dundee.

Another Christmas without coal in my stocking

Another Christmas has come and gone, with not a single lump of coal at the bottom of my Christmas stocking!

To be honest, that may or may not be a testament to my good-boy status over the past year, because I don’t know where Santa would find a lump of coal these days, even if he felt my behavior warranted it. Does Amazon deliver coal to the North Pole?

Ask the Woodchucks: January 25, 2018

Are Your Windows Closed? Are You Sure?

Ask an Angel: January 25, 2018

My siblings and I take turns bringing our mother to her doctor visits. We seem to have a handle on the appointments, but when it comes to keeping records, we often have details that fall through the cracks. This leaves us feeling frustrated. How can we manage her doctor visits, so we are all on the same page?

Elvis has left the restaurant

It was a cold, dreary, Sunday morning. Cabin fever was rearing its ugly rear. Nancy was staring blindly at the computer screen when she noticed a Groupon coupon for a new brunch restaurant. I was staring at the TV screen sucking down my first cup of coffee when she yelled, “Breakfast is ready!” We bundled ourselves up, jumped into the Dining Duo Mini-Mobile, which now resembles a block of salt, and headed for Southern Belles Pancake House in Carpentersville.

12 Strong – a gritty reminder

No one reading this can forget where they were or what they were doing when 9/11 hit. It was like a bullet between the eyes for all of us. On the other hand, few if any of us remember the date October 16, 2001, the date when the first combat teams from our military began the fight in Afghanistan. This is the true story of a group of twelve Special Forces warriors who began the fight and paved the way for the rest of our troops.

Sit back and enjoy the view in Heart Spring Mountain

Maple is an obvious word to start a story set in rural Vermont, but in author Robin MacArthur’s new novel Heart Spring Mountain, the obvious ends there because what follows is a beautifully original tale of a family and the imperfections that bind three generations of women to each other and the landscape and history that has shaped their lives.

A New Year’s journey into the Twilight Zone

I spent New Year’s Eve binge-watching “The Twilight Zone” on the SY-FY channel.

Oh, I know, that’s not what most people think of as a rockin’ New Year’s Eve. Most people want a night on the town that would cause them to wake up in the morning (or afternoon), rub their aching head and moan: “Never again” — behavior that probably involves copious amounts of alcohol and so many drinking games they could make an Olympics out of it.