“And here fresh from her performance in Dark of the Moon is our own Christine, type cast as the “Dark Witch!” A burst of laughter erupted from the high school students I knew so well. The thought I would be considered a true “Dark Witch” was beyond them. They had known me for years and would never believe I could change so drastically after just a few months away at college. This joke, coming from my beloved drama teacher, produced my expected response of mock indignation. In

“I’ll do it!” My husband, after our many years of marriage, wasn’t all that surprised I had volunteered to be the “weather reporter” on our NBC studio tour. It wasn’t as if I was pushing my way into the opportunity. Our tour guide kept urging our reluctant group to join in, and I wanted to help out. That’s just me. Today I have a DVD of myself waving my arms in front of a weather map while reading from the prompter. And I look quite the part too! We are warned throughout our

“Eww! What’s with the sour milk? It’s not even the due date yet! Pour it down the drain and then run some water for awhile so the smell gets washed away.” I poured as fast as I could to eliminate the offensive odor. Not just a splash but an overflowing stream of spoiled milk pulsed from the container into the sink. In most other situations, pouring brings to mind a picture of abundance. There’s more than enough. Don’t hold back. Take all you want. Pour it on! Personally, I li

“Please don’t touch!” I snatched my hand back as if the ice-glass sculpture had turned to fire. Dale Chihuly's glass creations invite the forbidden touch. They are always displayed just a touch away. But this was my first experience with his fascinating works of art, and the Jerusalem museum guard firmly set the boundaries. Here I was, a mother who had trained her own children to enjoy but not touch beautiful things, humbled by correction and laughed at by her husband in the

“So you take one of these trays of metal plates and tip them into the feeding channel. Start the machine and you’re ready to go!” I was learning the ins and outs of my new position as secretary to the company president. One of my random duties was to print the addresses on the customer bills and send them to the accounting department. The woman I was replacing had just started this monthly task, and the huge Addressograph machine was chugging and clanging along. THUNK! “What