Opinion

Working as we do with deadlines, often means we are scrambling to get in all the last minute things that happen on a Monday evening before the page designers begin their work on the final stages of page layout Tuesday morning bright and early.

I ate breakfast with a woman last week who, in the course of twenty minutes, sent four cups of coffee back to the kitchen because they didn’t meet her standards, a drip-brewed cup with milk, two lattes, and a latte with oat milk.

Every once in awhile we get to witness something that makes us appreciate a stranger making an effort to make someone’s day a little better.Over the weekend, that came for me in the form of a FedEx delivery.

A balmy, even summery, fall in Minnesota and then suddenly snow fell and my aging homeowner pals back home are reconsidering their options.

An ordinary late October day and the world is dense with stately trees in variations of reds and gold and orange that Crayola never contemplated — no need to shop around for magic mushrooms or give up your life as a good citizen for something involving incense and flutes — just walk down the street ignoring the Halloween skeletons and let your heart be lifted.

Many weeks, this is the last item I write before the newspaper goes to print.