Author: Steve Ainslie

Every winter I go into hibernation mode during the coldest, bleakest weeks. I sleep longer. I eat more and gain a few extra pounds. My workouts, swimming and walking all drop in intensity and pace. Things takes longer to do. Every winter I try to fight this. This morning, as I was slogging through a…

This year, my sister and I forgot (or intentionally skipped) sending each other “Merry Christmas” texts. I realized this when my mother was recounting her Christmas dinner at my sister’s home and said to me, “We all missed you”. My first thought was “Yeah right. You missed me so much that nobody even bothered to…

Lately, Trump has been sounding like a grumpy old man complaining about the kids running across his lawn. Whenever he decides he wants to grab attention, he blurts out some blather that’s sure to make the headlines. So I pay no attention to when others dissect his speeches, “Truths”, and tweets. What he says is…

Back when I tried dating again after my 29 year marriage and the death of my wife, I had several friends who regularly offered me dating advice and checked in to see how it was going. After a few months, a half-dozen mediocre dates and a lot of wasted time trying to find matches online,…

My mother sent me a surprise Christmas gift. It is a device that emits high frequency sound to interrupt and (supposedly) stop your dog from barking. It’s called an “ultrasonic anti-bark device”. My dogs bark a lot. They especially bark when they see kids riding bikes, scooters and electric minibikes, which unfortunately for me, is…

My friend and I were talking about Christmas last month. He had explained to his girlfriend that that he had no Christmas spirit nor any desire to have one. It isn’t that he hates Christmas or begrudges anyone who celebrates it – it was never a special time for him due to his chaotic childhood…

I think about death every day. I have constant thoughts about my wife. I dream about her several nights a week. I see pictures on my wall every day that remind me of how much I loved her. I think about my little sunshine puppy who died 18 months ago. My heart still aches for…

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about Elon Musk having undo influence over the US Government because he backed Trump, donated $250M-500M to his campaign (reportedly) and is now in an unelected but quite powerful position of influence. It’s clear that many other high-dollar donors to Trump’s campaign and inauguration ceremony are buying their way…

This holiday season I updated my Will and beneficiaries. The last time I did this was in 2020 at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. That was nearly 5 years ago. Some things haven’t changed much: Other things have changed a lot: It’s kind of sad not to have my wife to leave everything to….

Sometimes it feels like all am I doing is closing another chapter of my life that was once brought me great joy. The chapter that closed this week is playing the drums. After suffering from a chronic foot/ankle injury for several years, I realized that the cause (or the cause of it never healing) was…