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: Wakefield's closing doesn't mean it'll be forgotten

We used to call them junior highs, reserved for kids who'd reached the seventh, eighth, and - in earlier days - ninth grade here in Tucson. None of that middle school or K-8 stuff we largely have today.

Bonnie Henry: Pay attention now: Here's what'll happen in 2013

Here in the Old Pueblo - also known as 50 Shades of Beige - the last tamale has finally slid down the old gullet and all that remains of Christmas are the 347 needles (fake or real) that you'll be vacuuming out of the carpet until our first 100-degree day.

Bonnie Henry: Email notes can't match thrill of green, red envelopes

Every year, I drag out the list, dog-eared and faded - and so ancient that it originated on a typewriter, rather than a computer keyboard.

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: Everyone has a political take, so why not me?

No matter who wins on Tuesday, there will be cries of impending doom, along with a great gnashing of teeth, rending of clothes, and a run on sackcloth and ashes down at the local "dollar" store.

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: Sweet smell of bacon cooking under the pines makes this camper happy; no glamour required

My first "tent" was a bedspread. My first "bed" a blow-up mattress with a leak of undetermined origin. No need to ask why I no longer go camping.

Bonnie Henry: We won't return to bad old days before the pill

Maybe it's a good thing. Was it just a couple of years ago that women of a certain age were lamenting the fact that young women had little idea - or appreciation - of the battles that had been fought for equality?

Bonnie Henry: Granny, Gramps want security for their kids, too

Timing is everything. As the first swell of what has now become a tsunami of retiring baby boomers, we've enjoyed the benefits of Medicare for a couple of years now.

Bonnie Henry: One of childhood's joys has melted away in Scottsdale

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Well, except for Scottsdale, that is.

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: It needs work: America can't rest on laurels

Come Wednesday there will be parades. There will be watermelon busts and pie-eating contests. And there will be bombast - both pyrotechnic and oratorical in nature.

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.

Bonnie Henry: Wastin' away in kitchen-gadget heaven - or hell

My mother was a wonderful cook. She used four electrical kitchen "gadgets" that I remember. One was a toaster - the heavy chrome kind that was worth repairing if it broke. The other three were a small hand mixer, a turkey roaster that she only used once a year, and a waffle iron so heavy it …

Bonnie Henry: Distant train, coyote's howl, Johnny Cash: sounds to treasure

Johnny Cash sang it best: "I hear the train a comin,' it's rollin' 'round the bend."

Bonnie Henry: Tide in the drug world: 'Getting clean' has new meaning for addicts

Tide? Seriously? I thought my husband was joking when I came home from running errands and he said, "Lock up your Tide." Then I heard the news.

Bonnie Henry: Let's talk about what 'skin in the game' means for students

I grew up on Tucson's south side, in one of the town's poorest neighborhoods. But it was a working poor neighborhood, filled with fathers who worked with their hands, and mothers who raised kids but often worked outside the home as well.

Bonnie Henry: A Penney for my thoughts? Don't even get me started, friend

I should be used to it by now. Once again, a store I patronize on a regular basis is ready to throw me under the bus, hoping to woo a younger customer.

Do you have what it takes to be A Zonie?

Some say you're an Arizonan if you've spent one summer here. Others say: Whoa, not so fast, pardner. You've got to prove you've absorbed not only some of the knowledge about our state, but also its culture.

Bonnie Henry: No matter how old Arizona grows, some things will likely never change

I get a little cranky trying to predict what Arizona will be like 50 years from now, considering I will no longer be part of the scene. Face it: No way will 116 be the new, um, 86.

Bonnie Henry: Sorry about glitter bombs and fairy dust I'd soon forget

It preys upon young and old, rich and poor, liberal and conservative alike. Yea, verily, even the independent voter is not immune. Resistance is futile. I am talking, of course, about glitter.

Bonnie Henry: Keep 'Claire,' 'Timothy' happy - at home

I'm not exactly sure when it was that dogs finally became people. Maybe it started when people - as in humans - started naming their dogs Claire or Timothy, as opposed to Rover or Spot.

Bonnie Henry: Size of house doesn't matter; there's room for all

You can't see the star anymore unless you're lying on the couch - or the floor.

Bonnie Henry: Granny knows best: Don't stick your head into McDonald's slide

Black Friday came and went without my participation this year. I don't think I was missed. All the same, I and legions of others who answer to "Grandma," "Nana," or the ever-present "Waaah, I'm telling," do serve a purpose on what has become capitalism's most revered day.

Bonnie Henry: I'm thankful no eviscerating, entrails involved in bird prep

Four days hence, I will arise from my bed before dawn to confront and eventually conquer the cold, pale corpse of Thanksgiving future. I will tenderly bathe its goose-bump skin, rinse its body cavity, then stuff, baste, cover and cook.

Bonnie Henry: Yearning for the simple public restroom of yore

I call it the hesitation two-step, though it has little to do with dancing. Then again, it takes some mighty fancy footwork - and sometimes sleight of hand - to figure out how to use a public restroom these days.

Bonnie Henry: Don't just photograph life's roses - smell them, too

Glum. Stiff. Perhaps a tad suspicious. This is how my ancestors approached the photographer for a family portrait. Side by side they sit, hands folded across their laps, lips pursed, eyes squinting straight ahead. Young, old and in-between, they calmly await the flash that will capture that …

Bonnie Henry: Ah, London and Paris: herewith, my personal tale of two cities

Call it "Innocents abroad meet the bucket list." For a dozen days late last month, we skipped across the pond to visit London and Paris, two cities I had long yearned to see. Our trip began with a direct flight, Phoenix to London, steerage class.

Bonnie Henry: Class me with Packer, Donner, Happy Feet the penguin

When Christopher Columbus landed in what is now the Bahamas, he thought he was in India. Pioneers Alfred Packer and George Donner both thought they were on the right track, too. Then we have Happy Feet, the emperor penguin that somehow landed in New Zealand.

Bonnie Henry: Most fearful threat may not come from outside our borders

The airwaves are awash with remembrance this week. We watch, we cry, we pay homage - both to the dead and to the survivors.

Bonnie Henry: Old-fangled workhorse still rules with Baby

Four o'clock, Christmas morn, he runs into our bedroom wearing a police helmet, siren blasting, lights flashing. Far as I can remember, that was our son's first battery-operated toy.

Bonnie Henry: Technophobes not the only ones who want human touch

Yessss! In what has to be seen as a blow to mindless technology, Albertsons grocery chain, which owns 200 stores, including seven in Tucson, announced that it was pulling its self-checkout lanes in all its stores that had them.

Bonnie Henry: Anthony has 1 friend - but may not know it

The lights have dimmed, the press and paparazzi long scattered in search of the next scandal. But for one woman, the heartache will never subside. For the rest of her life, Cindy Anthony, mother of Casey Anthony, will mourn not only the loss of her young granddaughter, but also the loss of h…

Bonnie Henry: Color me nostalgic for my beige-and-white world

I once saw a beige Corvette. Not "Gold." Not "Dusk." Not "Incognito," or any of the other names we've substituted for the plain old colors we used to know. Just beige - like the color of the shawl your granny's granny used to wrap around her shoulders.