Shooting Pains
I clattered around the kitchen to the washboard beat of a Johnny Cash playlist, scratching crusted butternut squash soup and quesadilla remains from a pile of pots and skillets. The stains from […]
Beefcoin
The veterinarian and I stood out in the slush, faces toward a sun beaming with the type of warmth this pale Midwest skin hadn’t felt since November. I was doing […]
Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Heat Nor Gloom of Night…
I got the call at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon. At the time I was putting the finishing touches on a PowerPoint deck intended to convince the firm’s investment committee […]
The Thing About Wood Heat
They say there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. I was wearing bad clothes. Bare feet sheathed only in Ugg slippers. Lightweight polyester-cotton blend long johns […]
Foreign Country: Plano, Texas
It was lunchtime on a sunny summer Friday and I prowled the Dallas suburbs looking for the Next Big Deal. It sounds sexy to be out shopping for a thirty […]
Getting Away from it All
The whole thing had the look and feel of a tourist board commercial narrated by Tim Allen. Man casually sprawled on weather-faded Adirondack. Cargo shorts and faded sweatshirt spiked with […]
The Dews of Heaven
I keep a well-worn pocket-sized Spanish hymnbook in my nightstand for those warm, restless nights. When the peepers and crickets play a chorus as sweet and fuzzy and tender as […]
Equipment Dysfunction
“How many kids do you got?” Steve asked. The answer is eight, of course, though it sometimes feels like more. A lot more. There are times it feels like twenty. […]
Sacred Saturdays
I was up early, just after first light, alone and whistling softly, in good weekend spirits, preparing a batch of agua de sandía, a beverage engineered specifically for shirt-drenching workdays. […]
¿Se Habla Tuxedo?
If a team of advance scouts from an alien race intent on overtaking our planet were to reconnoiter from a back table at a business summit they would probably knock […]
Paul Fredenberg 