Bonnie Henry: Mickey and Minnie, the rodent billionaires

Just about every day now, I send up a silent hosanna along the likes of: "Thank you, Oh Great One, for allowing me to raise my children before texting, sexting, Facebook, rap music and 'Gangnam Style.' " To that I must now add, "the exorbitant admission price for theme parks."

Bonnie Henry: Some days, teachers are first responders

Some took a bullet for the children. Months later, others would shield them with their own bodies under an avalanche of brick and lumber. They were the first of the first responders: the teachers of Newtown, Conn., and, later, Moore, Okla.

Bonnie Henry: 'Comfort animals' make me a bit uncomfortable

Think flying with a squalling child in the seat next to you is hell? Try flying with a goat. Or maybe a monkey. Could happen, thanks to the animal's status as a certified emotional-support animal, or ESA, as it's known in the lingo.

Bonnie Henry: The, er, sole of good service: knowledgeable clerks

Hey, I put my new shoes on - thanks to what may be a dying breed.

Bonnie Henry: We mark seasons of year, of our lives, through trees

It is a great, gnarly beast, its roots burrowing deep beneath the caliche, its boughs reaching up to the heavens.

Bonnie Henry: 2+2=4. Really. Is a calculator essential for that?

OK class, today's math problem is: Joe is buying a bottle of water that costs $1.97, total. He gives the clerk a five-dollar bill. Joe's correct change should be:

Bonnie Henry: Life with a semifunctional proboscis is no bed of roses

I'm a drip. So are you, and you, and all you multitudes of miserable souls who dare not stop to smell the roses, lest your nasal passages begin to hydrate in some socially unacceptable way.

Bonnie Henry: There's only 1 password for me: thisisridiculous

If you are reading this without first having to remember a password, congratulations - and may the printed word never die.

Bonnie Henry: Making eye contact a lost art - let alone actual conversation

Just about every day I give thanks that I am no longer the mother of teenagers.

Bonnie Henry: Why dogs bark, or don't, and other great mysteries

Some time back - OK, it was 20 years ago - a couple of researchers posited, as researchers are prone to do, that dogs can and do bark "at everything and nothing, anytime of the day or night."

Bonnie Henry: Stop, look, listen for these drivers

Ah, it's that time of year again. Time to welcome all those who come to the desert seeking its warmth, its mayonnaise- and jalapeño-slathered hot dogs, and its gargantuan array of "Old West" souvenirs - quite possibly the largest assortment ever seen this side of China.

Bonnie Henry: Yes, in ways that matter, there is a Santa

The question I knew would eventually come arrived the day after Thanksgiving, halfway between the movies and the walk to Santa's workshop in the mall:

Bonnie Henry: Thanksgiving memories: not exactly what Rockwell envisioned

Every year, someone trots out that Norman Rockwell painting showing a family from the 1940s gathered at the Thanksgiving table. Centerpiece, of course, is the turkey, all fat and golden, waiting to be carved.

Bonnie Henry: Down by the sea: Zonie drawn to peaceful shores

We come from the sea. We return to the sea. It's a draw I've felt nearly all of my life, mainly in the San Diego area. For years we camped along its beaches - beaches in some cases soon to be smothered in golf courses and fancy resorts.

Bonnie Henry: Return of avocado kitchen surely a sign of end times

What?!! Are you out of your minds?!! A few weeks ago, an article ran in this very paper promoting a young, obviously delusional couple who had remodeled their kitchen back to the Avocado Epoch.

Bonnie Henry: When summer was for Archie, Jughead - and Dubble Bubble

Summers, not winters, are what I best remember about being a kid. Winters were sensible shoes and scratchy sweaters, multiplication tables and trudging to school.

Bonnie Henry: Journey into family history begets a long list of begats

They are the sturdy, no-nonsense names parents once bestowed upon their sons. Names like Elijah and Elihu, Johannes and Gustavus. And they are all father to me - many generations removed.

Bonnie Henry: If you sound mad, scornful, here's the job for you

It is a voice that would never sell diapers. Or cosmetics. Or remedies for erectile dysfunction. Yet we know it instantly, dripping with sarcasm and scorn.

Bonnie Henry: C.E. Rose made it happen for me, too

You done good. When I read the other day that C.E. Rose K-8 School had won a national education award for excellence, I just about busted my buttons.

Bonnie Henry: 'Mommy wars' weren't even a soft rumble back in my day

I was a stay-at-home mom. I was a working mom. I was lucky. Both were by choice. If there were any "mommy wars" out there, they raged far from my consciousness.