Dear Kid Whisperer,

I know a certain 11-year-old who doesn't want to do anything in the shower but wash her hair (because she likes how soft and pretty it is when it’s clean). She will go as far as turning on the shower to make us THINK she's bathing, and then just wash her hair in the sink. She stinks. What do I do?

Answer: Gross!

Don’t ...Read more

There are two kinds of people in this world: Do it Yourself People and Hire Someone to Do It For You People. Wisdom is knowing which category you fall into.

We are Do it Yourself People. Unless it involves plumbing. Then we are Hire Someone to Do It For You People.

Experience has taught us that nearly every home plumbing project can and will ...Read more

Q. I have tried to talk to my co-parent about some concerns I have, but she immediately gets defensive. It turns into a shouting match, and I end up the bad guy. I’m not trying to call her out, I just want to talk about the kids. How can we change this? What’s good ex-etiquette?

A. You may not think you are calling her out, but she may feel...Read more

Every 10 years, my internal clock, which I inadvertently swallowed while eating Jell-O, reminds me to have a colonoscopy.

Unfortunately, the sulfate solution I took to wash down the Jell-O and everything else I ingested on my one-day liquid preparation diet would have lost to sewer sludge in a blind taste test.

That’s the sacrifice I made to...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Chicks have been flying off the shelves — figuratively, of course.

After a recent nationwide spike in egg prices, local agriculture stores have seen a surge in demand for chickens as Twin Cities residents rush to establish their own backyard coops.

Last Friday morning, around 100 customers hoping to buy baby chicks lined up ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- It was Tom Rose’s 82nd birthday recently, which meant something for his cousin Richard Rose – time to mail the card the men exchange each year.

The cousins have been mailing this card back and forth, between Tom who lives in Sacramento and Richard who is 78 and lives in Colorado Springs, for close to 20 years. Prior to...Read more

Remember All Lives Matter?

It began as a rejoinder, invented to strip power from the Black Lives Matter rally cry born after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a Black teenager killed on his walk home from a convenience store.

As a phrase, Black Lives Matter was almost immediately twisted by critics to ...Read more

As you are planning this year’s mixed container designs, The Garden Guy wants to give you some ideas to "punch up" your verbenas. I fear your first question is, "What verbenas?" The verbena is that flower your grandparents grew in long beds at the streetside. At least mine did, in Merkel, Texas, west of Abilene.

Today verbenas are the darling...Read more

There’s an important period in a relationship that’s often overlooked in online dating: the point between finding an interesting profile and actually meeting in person. While there is certainly an art to crafting an interesting opening message — although anything more exciting than “Hey” or “How’s it going?” will often suffice, ...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- The bell dinged and the University Charter High School students gathered their things and headed for the door. As students flooded from classrooms, a strange, new sound filled the long hallway: the din of hundreds of students talking.

To each other.

Before the Los Angeles Unified School District cellphone ban took effect in mid-...Read more

PITTSBURGH — Gregg Behr's family had four channels to choose from while he was growing up in the 1970s. Though there wasn't much to choose from, one program in particular would play an outsized role in his future.

One of the few channels was PBS, meaning the Pittsburgh native regularly watched Fred Rogers appear on his television screen when ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I’m a 35-year-old woman currently in a relationship with a wonderful man (44) who has a complicated family situation. He shares custody of his young daughter with his ex-partner, who has a history of emotional abuse and manipulation. She actively tries to drive a wedge between him and his daughter, fights every single parenting ...Read more

Q. I have been married to my husband for four years. My husband’s ex has an annoying habit of texting him on his birthday every year. They are flirty texts, not just “Happy birthday” and I find them way out of line. My husband and his ex have been divorced for more than 10 years and the kids are in college, so they have very few co-...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

My question has to do with family plans. If our 9-year-old doesn’t want to do what the family is doing (going to visit grandparents, going out to eat, etc.) he complains and argues, or asks for constant explanations for any plans that are not exactly what he wants to do. My wife feels that he needs to have input on our ...Read more

I was one of the first to complete the family NCAA bracket this year. There’s not a chance I’ll win and I’m good with that.

Our son-in-law started the family bracket challenge, which includes his side of the family and our side, 15 years ago.

His side of the family loves sports. His dad even refereed for years.

When you love sports, you...Read more

You can make book on the fact that I’m not a guy to sweep things under the rug. But you may be floored to know that I brought the hammer down on our latest home improvement project.

That’s why I had to clean my office of enough books to bury Moby-Dick so new flooring could be installed with the help of yours truly and my trusty hammer.

...Read more

LOS ANGELES -- Four weeks after the Eaton fire claimed his home, bladesmith Nicholas Berkofsky was back at work in his East Los Angeles studio. His first project? A hand-forged pizza cutter to benefit his neighborhood pizzeria, Pizza Venice, which was destroyed in the fire that swept through Altadena.

As he walked back and forth between the ...Read more

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Beneath the towering concrete trunks of the Rockridge BART station in Oakland, Pleasanton resident Dr. Robert Holland dons chain mail and plated armor as he takes up his alter-ego, Prince of the Mists, a title he’s claimed through combat.

Holland is one of the longest-tenured members of the Society for Creative Anachronism,...Read more

Playing music for plants can help them to grow, and it turns out that the same might be true for humans.

In a new study published in the peer-reviewed science journal Chaos, researchers played classical music for third-trimester fetuses using headphones on the mothers' stomachs and measured the fetuses' heart rates.

They found that the ...Read more