Here’s your personal weather report, complete with Doppler 5000-Dow Jones 4,873, bottom of the ninth, two men on, radar.

Summer calendar planning is fun.

I have one of those big desktop calendars I write all my story assignments and deadlines on, in pen.

In pencil, I make notes of things I come across that would be fun to do off the clock. If you read our Entertainment section this past Friday, you saw the bevy of free outdoor music and movies showing throughout the hot months. The best ones are on weekends, not weeknights, because not everyone works and lives right next to venues. Just saying.

I didn’t know what to do with the large flask of after-shave lotion that came in the shape of a baseball glove. And smelled a little bit like one, too.

There’s been a great backlash in the past few years against that notion of there being some battle between mothers. It’s an upper middle class and wealthy made-up problem. Most of it is and was waged on the Internet and in some ridiculous books. All it does is make women look like a bunch of jerks.

Dear soon-to-be college graduates,
Once again, you have chosen me to be your commencement speaker because of the insight I can offer you and because Stephen Colbert was not available.

When I interviewed Clay Aiken this past week, I asked if he was ever surprised at meeting other famous people in person. He doesn’t get starstruck, he said, but added that he had been excited to meet Diane Sawyer, Sen. Tom Harkin and Tom Brokaw.

Just in time for the official beginning of lawn mower season, my lawn mower died. We would’ve buried it in the yard, if we could have found the yard.

“I’m gonna pop some tags, only got $20 in my pocket…” You are either singing the rest of the lyrics or saying “Huh?” If you listen to multiple radio stations, you have heard the rap song “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz. It’s a funny, infectious song that is the opposite of hip-hop music braggery about expensive stuff.

My new homeowner’s property insurance policy, No. 684CBGB, is now in place because the premium on the previous homeowner’s insurance policy, No. 732ACDC, was about to go from ridiculous to outrageous.

We will never forget. What does that mean, really? It’s used often to remember the massacre of 32 Virginia Tech students and faculty at my alma mater in 2007. It may well be used to remember the bombings at the Boston Marathon – two tragedies which will both share an April week in history. What does it mean to remember? What will it mean to remember?

By the size of the rings around its trunk, I estimated the granola bar as dating from the late 18th century. The ingredients, though, were written in olde English on the wrapper, so it may have been older. Also Englisher.

Tomorrow is Tax Day. Have you filled out your forms for Uncle Sam yet? Ours were done and refunds delivered and already spent before the pollen descended on North Carolina with yellow force.

Some last-minute tips on how to fill out your Form 1040. Note: these instructions are also useful for Form 8940, Form 1776, Form 1941-1945, WW II, and Schedules 8812, 9692, 89-83 (three overtimes), A, C, E, F, J and SE as well as Schedules SE, J, F, E, C and A, if you’re reading right to left.

I like antique cars. The kind that have “Hoover for President” license plates (not that anyone wants another Hooverville).

They just look cool. We don’t really need power windows and expensive one-piece bumpers that stopped being able to withstand a bumping long ago.

Cars used to be about getting from point A to point B relatively comfortably. And, if you could afford it, with some style. Like cars from the first decades of the 20th century, before they became floating, climate-controlled couches removed from the road experience.

It’s not that I’m really worried about this pain I’ve been feeling in my right hip. It’s that I’m absolutely certain it’s the Ebola virus.

I felt the same way when I had that sort of ache in my left knee. I was pretty sure it was almost-always-fatal dengue fever. Though there was a chance it was a knee-based cardiac arrhythmia.

When I had that thing on my left big toe there was no question, at least to me, that it was not, in fact, a callus. It was the plague, although I wasn’t sure exactly which plague it might have been. Maybe locusts.