Let’s talk about Amy Coney Barrett and me. This is what we have in common: we are both female. We both adopted children overseas. We can both pronounce stare decisis, a legal term that has something to do with precedent. Here’s how it’s pronounced: “STAR-ay deh-SIGH-sis.” It comes from a…
Author: Wendy Herrmann Smith
Ferrets and Debates
I was in the pet supply store yesterday. My cat has a litter box, and I needed a new scoop for it because the handle broke off the old one. In the middle of the store, I saw an unusual pet for sale. There in a Plexiglass case were two…
Fall Weather
My son, Rob, is a mechanical engineering major at Clemson. My husband and I were chatting with him about classes, specifically one called Heat Transfer. “How can there be an entire class on heat transfer?” I said. “Who are you to talk?” my husband said. “You got a theology degree…
Dying Phone Battery
My phone battery is dying. I just got an alert from the iPhone battery health department. “Your battery’s health is significantly degraded.” You’re in good company, Cell Phone Battery. I’m 52 years old, and parts of me are significantly degraded, too. The question is, What do I do with my…
Shoot the Moon
My new life goal: find things I’m bad at and use them to my advantage. Take card games. In the house I grew up in, several decks of cards with rubber bands around them were kept in a big steamer trunk in our den along with other games like Battleship…