Did your child or grandchild recently develop an interest in slime? Of course they did; it’s 2018 and playing with a stick and mud is last year’s trip.

There are five stages for dealing with slime in your life. Here’s how you can expect it to go.

First of all, what is Alexa, and how can it help streamline my daily routine?

Alexa is a virtual assistant program that operates from a tabletop smart speaker system and responds to your spoken commands. You can ask Alexa to help you organize your music playlists, pay bills online, or even order your favorite pizza, all at the sound of your voice.

Alexa also has the ability to access and control your in-sink garbage disposal, and will wait with cold, reptilian intent until such time as you have to reach in there for a dropped spoon, or similar items.

I am a lifelong liberal of good standing, with impeccable credentials. On one issue, however, I am an unabashed Goldwater conservative. If there’s one thing that raises my ancient hackles, it’s whenever I see the names Cathy and Casey defiled with a K. Why do parents of the newborn err so egregiously? Why favor the fraudulent over the authentic, particularly in matters of enduring importance?

20:47: I arrive home from a friend’s family party with an army of dessert. Despite my declarations that “fifteen cookies is really too much,” I was assigned a slice of peanut butter cake intended to feed three grown men, two rainbow cookies, two cheesecake brownie squares, and a chocolate chip cupcake with cream cheese frosting. In the confusion, I also volunteered to bring home a loaf of French bread.

The First Annual Honesty Day was a complete bust. Yes, even I acknowledge that. We all lived through the turmoil, so we all know of what I speak. No one foresaw the tsunami of crushed dreams and ruined marriages and prosecutions.