Linda Vinopal

Playing phone games

Oh No….Could I Be Addicted to Phone Games?

I have yet to miss the daily Wordle. I've added it to my OG games Boggle and Wordbubbles (WB recently released its own version of Wordle, aka my Wordle practice). The time spent on these games I justify as useful and educational in adding new vocabulary and recognizing word patterns and spellings, all great things. These skills enhance my love of reading and wordsmithing, right? What's alarming to me is the time-wastiest of all time wasters: Toon Blast. I'm finding that I’m powerless to stop playing....
Bra

Help: Life Long Search For The Perfect Bra For 38D

I have more than a handful, more even then if said hands can palm a basketball.  I am a tall woman with a sturdy back and when it comes to bras, nothing is simple for me. I think that I have regular criteria: lift (somewhere between elbow and shoulder); separation (no uni-boob); something I can wear it all day; pretty. Is it too much to ask for a bralette?  'The internet,’ I thought. ‘Surely it would reveal a solution.’...
Vintage bathing suits

Self Acceptance and My Bathing Suit

I thought age and maturity would show up on some designated day, not that it would sneak in like a single mouse right before the massive infestation. Gray hair runs in my family, so that wasn't a surprise. The freckles on my hands were a surprise, the extra skin on my arms, whoa. Suddenly instead of the snotty idiot judgmental teenager horrified at those Ladies at the pool (who seemingly didn't care about their wobbly arms and jiggly thighs), I WAS that lady at the pool....
Dad and I

Dad’s Girl

"Hello Dad" I smile as his hand covers mine.  Just like that I am transported back to being Daddy's little girl, his beautiful first daughter.  Never mind that his hand covering mine is gnarled and arthritic; and that my hair at fifty-nine is a white as anyone else's in the room. I pretend not to hear the murmuring "That's Charlie's Daughter, isn't she lovely?"…and laugh when I hear him gleefully telling his Bridge cohorts as we leave the card room: "She drives that electrical car thing and, you know, they have to stop and charge halfway…"  Of course, I parked by the window. Dad.  He's always been one of the one of two people on Earth (the other my Husband) who always makes me feel loved, cherished and beautiful....
Bar Cart

The Bar Cart Dilemma: We Vowed Not To Shop At Walmart And Then…..

Mom would scary-mutter things about unfair labor practices and dismal manufacturing conditions whenever we drove past that store, her opinion proclaimed with such vehemence I could clearly imagine whip-wielding giants standing over kids (just like my friends and I) laboring over assembly of Barbie Dream Houses.  Walmart-avoidance was just a point of fact as I grew up, never something I judged in others. Or did I? I probably could have been quieter about disliking Walmart when the Kids were young.  But like many Mom-isms, the words and explanations of why “We don’t shop at Walmart” shot out of my mouth. The Kids were listening....
Hamilton the dog

Six Ways Puppies are Not Like Kids

Try searching “puppy diarrhea” on Google at 10pm and remaining calm. After reading all the horror (Hamilton slept peacefully after making a total mess of his pee-pee spot), I found myself at 5am buying organic chicken breasts and white rice, nearly screaming with panic during what turns out to be a COVID canned pumpkin shortage. Kid and puppy diarrhea cures are the same, as is the (unfortunate) inspection of poop. Thank goodness there was no internet when my Kids were little, I would have been one of those berserk zombie Moms forever banned from my beloved Pediatrician’s helpful office. Advantage: Pup...