"Bow down to her on Christmas, salute her when her birthday comes...
Halloween buy her a pumpkin, Christmas, buy her a drum." --Bob Dylan

So sometimes, probably often, you have a conversation with someone and little did you know, but it turns out that it was your last conversation with them, ever. For one reason or another. Or for the worst reason, which is that they died.

But other times...

When I had my last conversation with my best...

I had to order some office supplies and it reminded me of long ago, back when I worked with the world's dumbest receptionist.

Sometimes people are just intelligent in different ways. I don't believe that was the case with Marina. (Hey, this is anonymous, right? I would not want to embarrass Marina. Not that I actually believe she can read.)

So, item one, dumb questions. She asked it.

Marina: I know this is a dumb question but are there clams in clam chowder?...

Holy crap, this is my favorite house in Denver! A real steal at only a little over $3 million, and excellent location, close to Cherry Creek Shopping Center and the Denver Country Club.

I first encountered this home back in 1975 or so, when I was a telephone installer. I put seven phones in that house. Three lines (which was unusual at the time). A family line, a children's line--so the five children could call their friends without tying up the doctor's line--and another line in...

So, had my first Zoom meeting last week. I thought I was prepared. I combed my hair. I even had on pants, which I didn't consider fully necessary because I had a sweater on top and that was the only thing that was gonna show.

Well holy shit. That was not the only thing that showed.

There I am, on screen. Lit from above. NOT a good look. Also the screen was angled up so it also showed, in addition to my scary face, a bunch of stained ceiling tiles and a pile of boxes...

Yeah, I knew better. The fact is that I have to go to a special lingerie store--not Victoria's Secret, not even Nordstrom, but a store that specializes in END SIZES--to get a bra. One such store tells me there's no such thing as a minimizer in my size. The other store has one, but it costs $106 and usually they have to order it. Sports bra? Also difficult.

So I've been shopping at these two stores for 15 years and suddenly, based on some stupid ad on the Internet, I think I can order...