A COLLECTION OF GOOD
*with Extra Good links, too

Hello (last Tuesday) from the Capital One lounge at DFW. I look toward the wide expanse of windows to check for the impending thunderstorm, and my neighboring lounger, who is typing away next to me, looks up and says, “It’s for a training exercise.” My eye then catches the billowing black smoke, and I remember another Tuesday morning in this exact spot: for training purposes, a mocked-up plane at the southwest end of DFW is regularly set on fire, and then emergency teams wo

Air travel can sometimes be good. Granted, it's often not very good, but I'm here today and next time to spotlight its upside, an exercise rooted in growth-mindset, nuance, detail, the big picture, silver linings, and rose-colored aviator glasses. [Positivity alert 🚨: check the breaking news — or the breaking contemplation — at the end of the post. It's possible we could have more frequent good air travel ahead ✈️ 🍌.] If air travel is our One Good Thing for this post and t

I've always wanted to be a tour guide, and that’s no joke: I’d love to be holding the microphone at the back of a tour bus, and I even wrote about this small dream on my About Libby page. The closest I can get to tour guiding these days is through the pics on my camera roll, so please join me on a short journey to a small but spectacular part of the Pacific Northwest 🌊 🚌 🎤. *If you're looking at your watch, this Whidbey tour is not long; we have some Extra Good extra upd

Facing drought conditions in Colorado with the March Madness advice of a leading sports performance coach.

Hi! Did you have time to check out any animal kingdom live webcams from last week? If not, no worries because we are back with more live views today, both under and above the water. Welcome to Live Cams Can: Part 2! [See Part 1 for an intro about what live cams CAN (and cannot) do. IMO, the real-time captivation outweighs any limiting quirks.] UNDERWATER PLACES There is something about being underwater — or gazing at things underwater — that transports a person to a diff

Hello and Happy March! I'm glad you tuned in because today (and next time) we are talking about the technological wonders of live cams. This topic excludes military-grade AI surveillance capabilities or road conditions on the interstate or the kind of streetlight cameras that might have led to Rick getting his first speeding ticket in 30 years last month (in the two pics featured in the mailed citation, you can hazily see C in the front passenger seat holding something whit

Last Sunday’s Super Bowl LX — that epic battle between two hotly-contested halftime shows — also featured an encore Super Bowl meet-up between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. For non-allied fans, it’s fair to say the actual game was a bit of a snooze: a low-drama, dominating defensive show that smothered much of football's snappy pass-and-run action. But in Seattle and within its loyal legion of 12s across the country, no one was snoozing during the game

Well, I am no longer actually live from London, but I did feel very aLIVE in London last week (minus the never-improved time-zone sleep dilemma). Also, we had an extremely fun and strange afternoon in East London that felt both very alive and very much not? There’s much to discuss but even more to look at, as even in January, London is a feast for the eyes. [Suggestion: if you're limited on time or energy after a news week filled with the darkest sort of revelations, you c

We've got 🌟 loads 🌟 of sunny Dolly Parton content ahead, but first, a framework for good in troubled times: It’s been a volatile, disorienting few weeks in national/global events and discourse, and I've gotta be honest: I didn't really know how or when to insert buoyant content into our heavy flood of current events, this despite confidently pledging at the end of my Notes section that I'd keep the show going even on dark news days. However, the days have now turned into

Happy New Year, everyone! Did you all make it through the holidays okay? Highlights? Lowlights? I did not intend to have an extended holiday absence here at Here’s One Good Thing, but amid the many holiday highlights, one lowlight (which happened right in the middle of a highlight) involved knocking over an empty water glass while telling a story, holding a spurt-y hand wound above my heart as directed by my visiting friend who takes first aid training every two years; do

Last week was a dark one in the news — Bondi Beach, Brown University, Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner. It was darker on a more personal scale, too: Rick and I were back in Chicago for a memorial service on Monday, seeing the face of grief on our family friends up close. Several in my circle are managing this first holiday season without a loved one, and I know from experience that old grief rears back up this time of year. Today — December 19 — we are also in the str

Hello! We will keep this post short and SWEET because no one has time for non-essentials this week and next. We are focusing! We are completing! We are enjoying! In last week’s post, I mentioned we had a cookie exchange coming up, which took place this past Saturday. Rick knew one half of the hosting couple and I knew neither. And neither of us really knew where we were going, especially since the invitation cautioned that drivers would probably lose cell coverage on th

In my tightly-packed, overstuffed brain, there's space to give my full attention to just one holiday at a time. In November, I’m all about remaining loyal — maybe annoyingly so — to comfy, reliable, humble-brown Thanksgiving. It's all turkey and pie and pine cones before I'll even think about embracing the bright razzle-dazzle of the Christmas holiday season. That said, as soon as we're home from Thanksgiving in Chicago, I immediately dial up my favorite very-chill holiday

It’s Thanksgiving week! Happy Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is, as mentioned in a previous post, my #1 favorite holiday of the year. It’s all comfort food, all gratitude, all acorns on the table, all kitchen and table talk, all Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and continuous football, all grandpa-y snacks like mixed nuts and Chex Mix. Thanksgiving gives us a LOT of topical material — food, traditions, thankfulness, mishaps and more, but this year's theme is the whole-group tea

Hi! Sorry, very sorry for my delay in posting here: a.) You might have noticed I have not found any sort of rhythm for posting Here's One Good Thing material — it may just always be a randomly-timed inbox surprise! b.) More to the point, I was not home to post this past Friday-Sunday and am not smooth enough yet to pre-post. Rick’s bday was on the 14th, and we headed up to celebrate in Breckenridge, which is the Denver-metro area's closest full-fledged ski town. We hit t

You might say I'm something of a photo person, but that would be something of an understatement. It's not that I'm an especially talented photographer, because I am not. Instead, I am a very eager, memory-oriented, slightly-above-average photographer who is quick on the draw and slow to delete, which gives us lots and lots of ground to cover in the months and years ahead. We'll start with a few categories to frame our future work here: PRINT PHOTO CATEGORY: If you are of a

Happy Halloween! The big day is officially here, and it might seem like the entire early fall season has been building up to this moment. From the overflowing Walmart aisles to the antsy 8-year-olds to the nostalgic empty-nesters like me, it's been mounting buzz and anticipation since the hot, sweaty days of late summer. 👻 HALLOWEEN — RETAIL EDITION: ACT ONE: It’s August, and one minute it’s all squeaky-clean back-to-school notebooks and markers and scissors in store ais

Howdy everyone 🤠! Greeting you from Texas, as we visit our E and experience the usual vagueness of a Lone Star October. It’s fall according to the calendar, but summer according to my shorts. And if it’s summer in my closet, it’s still summer in my heart. While I'm all-in on summer, I’m also a full-fledged fan of fall: all the sharpened pencils, the bus stop kids, the crispy leaves confetti-ing the sidewalks, the blazing yellows, oranges, and reds against a brilliant bl

Hello! Welcome back to the second round / second inning of Here's One Good Thing 😀! So, it's now mid-October, which — among other things — means Major League Baseball playoff season. Are you tuning in? I had two formerly-hometown teams with early, unexpected playoff success: the Chicago Cubs of my WGN-radio childhood and deepest family loyalty and the Mariners of our two-decade Seattle stretch (and of Friday night's 15-inning miracle). Unfortunately, the Cubs faded out o

Hello and welcome to the kick-off post of Here's One Good Thing 😀! To begin our tour of good things in the world, it seems only right that we start with … manatees. In that rare realm of the purely good, manatees humbly glide with comfort and ease. I'd like to introduce you to this friendly floater spotted earlier this year in a quiet Florida canal (low quality pics/high-quality experience): Here is a face (and body) with nearly mystical powers: with one look, your endorp