"Holiday letters are a lot like fruitcake: People either love them or hate them."
If you produce an annual Christmas letter for family and friends, this article provides some helpful hints. (This is a service I'm providing to reduce the number of bragsheets disguised as holiday greetings.)

I have to laugh whenever I see that Goodwill is running a 20 percent off sale. Do they really think it's the prices that keep us from shopping there?

When I tell people I work for a hospital, the first question most people ask is, “Are you a nurse?” Thankfully, public relations is far removed from the aspects of patient care that make some of us squeamish. Well…usually.

A few days ago, my boss called to let me know that our Intensive Care Unit needed a photo taken “before they closed the wound.” Realizing that a condition requiring ICU treatment was probably more than a simple scrape, I tried to prepare myself as I grabbed my digital camera and headed for the unit. As it turns out, “wound” was quite the understatement. I managed not to faint, or even react, while I took a series of photos of the gruesome results of a flesh-eating bacteria. I won’t be volunteering for regular duties on the unit anytime soon, though. I prefer to stay a safe distance away, where the worst thing I see on a typical day is nothing more than a bad piece of clip art.

The frenzy surrounding today's opening of the Valley's first Ikea store makes me very glad I visited the San Diego location a couple of months ago to satisfy my curiosity. Judging from reports that the parking lot was two-thirds full at 6:00 this morning, it could be a while before it could be considered sane to shop there.

An article in today's Arizona Republic poses the question I ponder every time this sort of hype erupts:

What is it about that mystical opening day - whether you're after the first Krispy Kreme doughnut, the latest Harry Potter, or the middle seat in the middle row of the first screening of the latest Star Wars film - that takes human rationale and tosses it out the window?

The older I get, the more I marvel at the fact that the whole realm of dating is still so much like it was in high school.

I requested a mail-in ballot for today’s election, then chided myself later for procrastinating on completing the ballot. I realized on Friday that I’d put it off to the point that it was risky to depend on the mail to deliver my vote on time. I ended up turning in the ballot at my nearest polling place this morning, and realized I’d ended up with the best of both worlds: the convenience of filling out the ballot at home, and the privilege of going to a place where the democratic process can be observed, up-close.

Plus, I got one of those swell "I Voted Today" stickers to wear for the rest of the day.

It's one of Phoenix's rare rainy days, and for a change I was smart enough to grab an umbrella before dashing out the door this morning. The umbrella is a traditional full-size style with a wood handle, not the compact fold-up variety that everyone else carries these days. I feel like Mary Poppins.