A blank page waves from a single flag pole propped in the vast subcortical network of my mental workspace. When I zero in on it, a hint of color leaches through, teasing me with thoughts of surrendering to the barrage of images suddenly cascading from above. But I’m not ready to abandon the hunt in the recesses of my brain for that perfect sparkling idea on how to proceed with sharing my recent experience in the arctic. Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but I’m not inclined to yield to that cliché just yet.
In answer to my stubbornness, another flag flaps from the middle of the mêlée and suggests that I jump the timeline and skip ahead to the day of our departure on the sleds.
When I bumped into Benjamin Franklin yesterday, he told me to have a seat and tell him what was new. Not wanting to saddle him with the troubles of our time, I showed him the best writer’s resources since Roget’s Thesaurus. Then I mentioned the vault brimming with prizes connected to the celebration of these newly released gems. Well, he nearly jumped out of his bronze skin. “Blazes, my fair lady!” he cried. “Thou must go forth and help spread the word!” And so, I am. Not because he insisted on it, but because I already love using the duo’s other thesauri. Now, read on, and then I’ll race you to the vault. Last one there is a fetid egg…
At the end of 
At age seven, when the only thing on my bucket-list was a red plastic beach pail, the Encyclopedia Britannica introduced me to a boy whose life was literally the polar opposite of mine. I was captivated from the moment I saw Moseesee displayed on a narrow metal rack sandwiched between a row of Cheerios and stacked Bumble Bee tuna cans at the 
Once I’d heard 
Ittoqqortoormiit is a long way from California – 4,007 miles as the crow flies. For the rest of us, 
may not leave you drooling in anticipation for the next course, a look at dinnertime in Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland might foot the bill… 
I am honored to have been included in the latest 
Of all the things I expected to find in my tomato soup, this wasn’t one of them. A few seeds so small they’d slipped through the strainer unnoticed? Perhaps. A bit of chopped onion that had stuck to the pot and avoided being puréed by the processor’s whirring blade? That I could understand. A pinch of pepper flakes secretly snatched, sprinkled, and stirred into the mixture by some sly son-of-a-snicker-doodle when I turned to rinse my hands of a splash of garlic oil that stuck to my fingers was even a likely find. But this? No.
Donna Gwinnell Lambo-Weidner 