Author Archives: Judith Pettersen

I remember a time when celebrating the new year meant dancing so hard, you broke a heel on your shoe and had to hobble home through the snow, because you couldn’t get a taxi and the buses weren’t running. When you are young, -30C is a minor detail. When you’re my age, it’s a reasonContinue reading “Happy Old Fogey New Year”

It’s been a year since we said goodbye. Though we talked a lot in your last days, I have some other things I need to say. Congratulations on your one year anniversary of enjoying heaven with dad. You’ve beaten your record of life without kids by three months. And mom, you’d be so proud ofContinue reading “Dear Mom”

If someone stuck a pea under the twenty mattresses I was sleeping on, it would wake me up. Just me, not Clarence. My husband could be on fire and not notice. Someone could shoot him in the leg and, if they used a silencer, he wouldn’t notice for hours. Cuts, burns,  cracked ribs, pneumonia. NothingContinue reading “The Princess and Every Damn Thing”

Apparently, cows are bad news for the planet. All that farting and pooping heats the atmosphere a hundred times faster than regular CO2. And lamb is the same. I heard nothing about sheep. If a lamb hides in the forest and waits to grow up, will it be kinder to the environment? I’m not sure.Continue reading “The Bug Eaters Dilemma”

Something strange comes over me in the month before Christmas. A restlessness. An inability to view my surroundings with anything less than creeping dissatisfaction. The benefit of this emotion is that I get things done. Tree up. House cleaned and decorated. But there’s a less beneficial side effect. I call it the ‘Can’t leave wellContinue reading “‘Tis the Season”

There are two kinds of people in the world. Nay, three. First are the collectors. They spend their lives searching for the perfect addition to their vast hoard. The missing piece. The finishing touch. Nick nacks reproduce in the dark of night, popping out baby nick nacks and expanding their territory so that every timeContinue reading “Nick Nack, Paddy Whack”

I hate the idea of being afraid. Of running for my life for any reason at all. Catastrophic climate change. Nuclear war. Zombies. But aside from the potential for slow starvation or my inability to outrun anything with legs, there would be certain advantages. Like, never doing my hair again. I’d get one of thoseContinue reading “It’s the Apolcalypse! And Yet…”

Here’s the thing about writers. They’re not what you think. Sure, some of them own sweaters with suede patched elbows, or sit at antique desks looking off into the distance while chewing pensively on feathered quills. But not usually. Most writers are like the people I meet at conferences. Vague looking, mostly old, and holdingContinue reading “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night”

There are moments in life when fear takes you by the throat and squeezes until you can hardly breathe. Like when you’ve settled nicely into the middle seat on a plane, and a couple of six hundred pound men with bad B.O. lumber toward your three person row. That’s a worst case scenario. Or soContinue reading “Fear of Flying”

In 1978, we had a truly awesome idea.  “Why don’t we travel across Asia in back of a Bedford army truck with a bunch of strangers and an insane driver?”  Yeah. Encounter Overland called our three month vacation their most disastrous trip ever. In spite of that, or because of it, we bonded. It mightContinue reading “The State of Our Union”