PEACE AND QUIET

Running errands with my over-active, over-talkative four-year-old son challenged my reservoir of parenting patience. As we drove the fifteen miles into town and then from bank to post office to grocery store, Luke rehearsed of every thought that had crossed his mind since birth.
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What Health Insurance Crisis?

My father-in-law no longer worries about health care issues, the state of the economy, or global warming. He doesn’t fret about bulging landfills or neighborhood crime. Even the cost of prescription drugs has lost its ability to rattle him. He doesn’t worry about anything.
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Groomed

When a young Ray Barone proposed to his girlfriend Debra (Everybody Loves Raymond), she whooped and danced around the room. Then with barely a nod his way, she whipped out the scrapbook of wedding ideas she’d collected since she was twelve.

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I Heard What You Said

Late to get out the door with her brood of four children, my friend “Wanda” shooed them and shoed them.

“Brittany, get your shoes on right this minute!” Mom Wanda grabbed her keys, purse, and errand list plus snacks, sippy cups, and diapers for the littlest one, expecting four-year-old Brittany to slip into her Velcro shoes and fall in line behind her.
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Colorful Characters

By Cynthia Ruchti

Consider any troupe of sit-com characters. What makes the blend work? Their differences linked by a common bond.

For example: the quirky young people with vastly different internal conflicts, all struggling to become full-fledged adults in the big city environment.

The unique family dynamics that often erupt in a firestorm that keeps us laughing because, though exaggerated, the mother-in-law seems like our own…the brother’s phobias sound familiar…the grandpa’s caustic comments show up at our own Thanksgiving dinners.

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