Margaret Thomas had yet to find her people at Imperial Republic. It was highly doubtful she would locate any tonight. Yet here she stood, at a Cinco de Mayo Fiesta, advertised on a photocopied flier, shoved under her door the previous day.

Doris Rosen was excited to see her twin grandchildren. Michael was in his first year of law school at Georgetown. Amelia was in L.A., studying to become a physical therapist in a city where she could use her Spanish.

If you ask me, the Imperial Republic is a weird name for a “retirement community.” Imperial Manor, maybe. Or Shuffleboard Republic, even better.

“I feel like some convicted felon stuck in this little room with a legion of documents to kill,” muttered Jason to the lawyer seated next to him. “We’ve been here all morning.”

Holiday dinners with my husband, Jude’s, family are often tricky, but this Thanksgiving bore true promise for the kind of skirmish that makes my husband effervescent with delight

“Are you practicing your telekinetic powers over there, Madame Electee?”

“What are you talking about?” Julie asked, shutting her laptop when her husband walked past the dining room table into the kitchen.

Everyone’s got one, right? That’s what Julie was thinking as she waited for hers to arrive. A friend you’ve known forever who makes you wish you had a watermelon in your tote so you could break it over her head?

Southwest Flight Number 511 from Chicago hit the runway at Dallas Love Field right on time. Within 30 minutes, the two sisters were hugging each other and exchanging enthusiastic and genuine “You look greats!”

You might say Canyon, Texas was inland , if you consider 720 miles from the nearest ocean to be inland. About 20 miles south of Amarillo, Canyon sits in the eastern part of the Staked Plains llano, once a swampy forest where dinosaurs roamed free.

“What’re you laughing about, Em?”

“Oh, just a study I was reading about ADHD for a school paper.”