The Stomach Bug, Handsome Men and Minding The Suffering Gap   It’s Saturday and you have a lot you want to accomplish today, but you think you may have a stomach bug. The kind that confines you to your bed with a heating pad. You feel so bad you can’t even take a break from…

  I Have to Pee   John was waiting for me to get in the car and I yelled down that I was ready, but that I first had to pee.   I’ve said “I have to pee” a lot in my peeing career. To clarify, not that I have to pee a lot or…

“I’ve said that I emerged from the womb with a saltshaker in one hand and a ripe tomato in the other. I also was born with a thirst for authenticity. I’ve truly always wanted the truth, even if it was painful. Lies seem pointless to me, a waste of everyone’s time.” –Pamela Capone, The Little…

No Parley Polish…Sorrry   One of my favorites images is that of my daughter, Cassie, trying and failing to stifle a giggle. Over the course of her nearly 30 years, I have gone to great lengths to make her laugh, to see her fight back the funny. I must say, I have had great success….

Fox Crossing   I recently crossed paths with a fox on my mountain bike trail. It reminded me of another time—many moons ago—when I crossed paths with a whole other breed of fox, my man John Capone.  He was and is the RRrrraarhhhhh kind of breed:     “The summer following my freshman year, I…

Escargot   Hi, my name is Pam and I have inner conflict. Occasionally when I accidentally run over a snail with my bike, I hear the crunch and I am all at once racked with regret AND have this unexpected, satisfying surge of pleasure like popping bubble wrap.   Ooooh, that’s good. No, wait, that’s…

Sponge Cake   I woke up from a dream this morning. In the dream, I was standing in front of a congregation at church, telling people all the things I have to be thankful for that have happened in my life lately. At face value, all the things I mentioned could be evaluated as “meh,”…

Six-Pack of Deer   I single-handedly started a new hashtag. It’s #thankfulforthelittlethingsseries.   I, for one, need to remember the creature comforts; the little things I take for granted, some of these are flat-out miracles. (I’d love to get you in on the ground floor of this revolutionary act.)   So yesterday, I had just…

  Eyes Wide Shut   When I was a child, I used to do that thing that many little ones do—I’d put my hands over my eyes because I thought if I couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see me.   This past September, I crossed paths with a bobcat on a mountain biking trail and…

Gratitude   What’s a human called who generally lives from a place of thankfulness, regardless of varying circumstances? A gratidude. Gratitude shows up in all sorts of places and ways. I snapped this photo of a woman’s beautiful shoulder in church. As I listened from my pew with a view, I couldn’t help but feel…