05/11/2008

Donna Fielder: Circle the traffic, the British are coming
Blimey, mates, we’re becoming more bloody British all the time! Yeah, I know. My accent’s lousy. But I figure it will get better as we get more roundabouts in town.

04/27/2008

Donna Fielder: Game puts you in the driver’s seat
I’m developing a new computer game, and I think I have a winner. It’s a cross between Everquest and Doom, with a touch of the old Monopoly board and a lot of gratuitous violence thrown in. I call it “County Seat Streets.” The computer game environment consists of four major intersections on four one-way streets, with an ornate courthouse in the middle. The main character is female, with the body of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider, and the face of Mary Horn. Real­is­tic-looking county commissioners come and go, and the players’ pieces are diminutive Mus­tangs, Beemers, Dodge Rams and delivery vans.

04/20/2008

Donna Fielder: She was always laughing
I’d been planning to visit Aunt Polly for months.                                     But you know how it is. I was buying a house and selling a house and moving, and there was always something I needed to do. Probably there is someone like this in your life. So you understand how it was. Her real name was Wanda, but she was Polly to her two brothers and three sisters and all her nieces and nephews. I looked at her still form in the casket on Thursday and thought that she should be laughing.

04/13/2008

Donna Fielder: Grapevine is Bermuda Triangle of North Texas
The devil lives in Grapevine, Texas. Either that, or Grape­vine is a perverted joke played by a psychotic road engineer. Maybe there is not even a real Grapevine. Maybe it’s just a mass of jumbled-up highways with fake signs pointing to nonexistent areas of a fantasy town. Sort of like Oz, only with 18-wheelers instead of Munchkins on the yellow brick road that doesn’t lead to the Emerald City at all, but doubles back on itself and changes names.

04/06/2008

Gift sparks memories of kitchen catastrophe
Obviously times and gadgets have changed since I used to actually cook meals. I was wandering around the small-appliance department of a large store looking for something to cook asparagus in. I used to have some sort of double boiler, but it apparently left home with one of my children. Admittedly, it’s been a few years since I had a need for it, but Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe was generous enough to bring me some of the bounty from her garden, and I wanted to see if fresh vegetables had changed any since the last time I saw a black-eyed pea in its natural state.

03/30/2008

Donna Fielder: Neighbor helps solve mystery of missing mail
Who knew that the handsome brick mailbox in front of my new house was just yard art? I’d always wanted a brick letterbox, and when I bought the older house and saw the mauvy pink edifice, I was thrilled. I did everything just right. I filed a change of address form. Stop dropping my bills at the tacky old black metal box on March 10, I told them. Take it to that pretty box that matches my house across town.

03/23/2008

Donna Fielder: Treats at Easter can be a bit of a gamble
I was paying for my sinful car­amel macchiato at my favorite coffee shop one day last week when I no­ticed an item placed on the counter for impulse buying. It was a chocolate Easter bunny on a stick. And I realized that it’s time for my annual ode to Easter goodies. Someone has come up with a good idea, I think. By impaling a cocoa-flavored bunny on a stick, they have tried to avert that whole sticky, smeary-fingers Easter syndrome. They should know that tiny yellow fluffy dresses and adorable toddler sports jackets are not ready for Sunday school without a chocolate smear down the front.

03/16/2008

Donna Fielder: Neighbors make new house a true home
It wasn’t the best way to meet my neighbors, but it showed me what a great choice I made when I moved into my new house. I found it with a little luck and a lot of driving around looking for a place to live that felt like home. I’d been wanting to downsize from the four-bedroom house Richard and I bought to rear our children in. I decided I was finally ready to find a home that fit my taste.