Exploring the Jungle —Mary Lott

Pokey was nudging my hand, forcing me into consciousness. He was rolling his eyes, dancing around, and almost crossing his legs. “Get up, Mom! I have to go out.” Pokey is my dog. I wish he understood that on Saturdays humans don’t have to get up as early as on…

“You’ve reached 911. What’s your emergency?” My daughter Beth answered the call, ready to direct the correct emergency department to the scene. Nothing in that job is routine, but she didn’t expect the situation that unfolded. “Please send animal control to my house. There is a Komodo dragon in…

Give ear, me hearties, and listen to my tale. It’s a story of riding the high waves and plunging into the troughs between. Me tale begins many a night ago as the kraken rose up to assail me ship o’ life. Ye find me many a day befuddled…

I looked about in wonder. The prairie — the vast, great American prairie, which reputedly had vistas so wide that the horizon was far off in the distance — filled my vision. But the vistas I saw were not wide, and the horizon was not far off. This place had…

“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” Dorothy Gale in L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” was quite disoriented when a tornado whisked her and her dog, Toto, out of their home in Kansas. Everything was different, and she had to find her…

Usually, I can pinpoint a cause for the challenges I face. I know exactly when, why, and how I broke my nose and ended up looking like a raccoon for more than two weeks. I wish I’d asked a responsible person to monitor the pool when I attempted a back…

Way back in 1974, my now husband, Mike, asked me a question as we waited for the beginning of our next class at Auburn University in Alabama. He started off by telling me of his plans for the upcoming weekend. We were both music majors, and after about five minutes…

“Mom, how did you know that?” My youngest child was astonished that I knew of a particular naughtiness they had done. My two older children groaned. They knew my stock answer was coming. They had gone through this phase earlier and had ceased asking me that type of question. “Easy,”…

It was a rather inauspicious start to a visit. I arrived after midnight one night and my daughter Gail didn’t allow the kids to wake me up the next morning. So, after gaining consciousness and orienting myself to my surroundings, I moved out of the basement bedroom and went upstairs…

I gave up with a sigh. Yet again, I’d spent over half an hour lying in bed, hoping to beckon Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep. His absence was exasperating. Once again, I started my get-to-sleep method. I can’t completely blame my insomnia spells on cold agglutinin disease (CAD).