Sometimes I am just lazy.

One of the agonies of being a news reporter is that people often believe you know everything that’s going on everywhere in the county as soon as it happens.

Warning! Never let your grandchildren look at your high school yearbook. 

Remember Weebles, those egg-shaped toddler toys with a weighted base in the 1970s? 

Uh oh!

Have you ever watched HGTV where couples work happily together on a home improvement project? They have fun, laugh at each other and seemingly are more in love than ever.

In the movie, “What About Bob?” when the character Bob Wiley is asked why he’s getting a divorce, responds, “There are two types of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond and those who don’t.”

The main selling point of a Joe Biden presidency was that he wasn’t Donald Trump.

In a procedure I only imagined ever undergoing if I’m abducted by aliens, a nurse stuck a giant cotton swab up my nose Wednesday morning.

My entire life can be summed up in the “good news and bad news” mantra. Or is it an axiom?

At 12:30 p.m. Wednesday my desk phone rang. 

As more and more people get their COVID vaccinations, family members — the good, the bad and the ugly — are getting back together for the first time in months.

In the spin cycle, my old washing machine sounds like a helicopter landing.

Victory never smelled so sweet — sweet as a pumpkin about the size of a softball, that is.

Time to run for it, Aunty Em!

Remember the nursery rhyme “Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater?”

My only grandchild, my delightful granddaughter turns 20 today. I don’t even know what to do with that number. It means I’m old, like really old. And yet, I remember exactly where I was when I turned 20: at Kent State Ashtabula, taking classes for a journalism degree.

With COVID behind us and cruises ahead, Hubby and I spent the other night reminiscing about past cruises, including our unforgettable stop in Ochos Rio, Jamaica, about 12 years ago.

While vacationing in Florida two weeks ago, I decided to give Delightful Granddaughter a call.

NEWS ALERT: Thinking of taking the vacation you could only dream about last year during COVID? You and a million other people! 

You won’t believe it.

Today is a special day. 

Faithful readers may recall Hubby and I are having a contest to see who can grow the biggest and best pumpkin to enter in the Ashtabula County Fair.

Voltaire, the 18th century French writer-philosopher, preferred an enlightened aristocracy to democracy yet he eloquently embraced one of the latter’s most sacred tenets, the right to free speech.

Since last summer when I started writing this column I have been blessed with many emails and letters in the mail from past friends and several new folks who offer their ideas and suggestions about Conneaut and Ashtabula County.

There were many times, I’m sure, when my mother was disappointed in me, but one memory is seared into my brain like rice scorched into the bottom of a forgotten pot on the stove. Imagine it’s your mom’s favorite pot. The one she inherited from the good grandmother. 

Hasbro’s announcement this week about Mr. Potato Head was quickly sliced and diced. Days later, the toymaker is still getting mashed and roasted on social media.

The Blizzard of 1978 spoiled me. Two weeks of below-zero temperatures, arctic wind and somewhere between a buttload and a metric ton of snow was a dream for northeastern Ohio kids.

“I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”