When I slipped from the womb, all that kept me from climbing on the back of a horse was my lack of mobility. And a horse, of course. Due to a few quality blows to the head, I have few memories of the Mesozoic-like period of my life, but the era is vaguely reproducible from a drizzle of curling black and whites and fading Polaroids of me sitting on anything that resembled an equine, along with the myriad of family complaints at any gathering of my stubbornness in this respect.

Recently we drove through scenic Alburtis, Pennsylvania where I picked up some great curbside appeal ideas. Like endless ways to use versatile rippled, green fiberglass roofing, the year-round charm of fake flowers in hanging pots and the magic of spotting a latent Halloween skeleton. This could explain my sudden urge to build a carport. I should have said “erect” a carport. My husband likes it when I talk dirty. That’s about as close to sex as we get since I entered my 50's.

This post originally appeared on a blog site called "Rescue Dog Tales." He came with the name Pony-Pony. For obvious reasons, we changed it—quickly. But we didn’t go with my son’s suggestion: Brownie. To the child who’d named the goldfish with big eyes, Eyes, and the one with a gold cap, Hat… well, you get the picture. Instead, we admired the overgrown mane of this plain Jane equine and equated it with our favorite vintage animated cartoon character. Shaggy it was. Shaggy

I once shared a story with an audience in Philadelphia about the day I decided to take my own life. This is that story. Access the audio version here . Joe Walsh, a member of the immortal rock band, The Eagles, once said, “As you live your life it appears to be anarchy and chaos and random events; non-related events smashing into each other and causing this situation and then this happens and it’s overwhelming and it just looks like what in the world is going on. And later,

Access the audio version here . I avoid vacation. I don’t like the inconvenience of packing up and relocating to a place where I can do the same thing I can do from home. It drives my family crazy but honestly, it’s not my fault. Living in Philadelphia with its vast options for entertainment and recreation makes it easy for me to be a homebody. Quite frankly, I’m justified. So in August when I was invited to go on the rodeo “trail” with a friend of mine who’s a professional