Okay, I know. It’s a stretch. But one of the benefits of being a blogger is that you can redeem almost any situation by writing about it. Every experience becomes fodder for a post.

Last week, during a routine visit to my dentist, she discovered that I had some decay under an existing filling. Because it was close to the root, she insisted that I come in right away, which I did yesterday.

Unresponsive people drive me crazy. I hate sending an email to someone and then waiting days to hear anything back. (Admittedly, I have sometimes been guilty of this myself.) This is particularly maddening when you don’t hear anything at all.

Recently I was interviewing candidates to be my virtual assistant. One of the questions I asked was this: “Do you consider yourself a responsive person?” For me, this is a must-have attribute. Naturally, everyone says, “yes.” However, you can tell a lot by how they answer the question.

We’ve all heard the aphorism, “The devil is in the details.” Conversely, Oprah likes to say, “Love is in the details.” But which is it? Actually both. The details matter—more than you might think.

Yesterday, I visited three different retail stores trying to find a pair of shoes to replace a pair I gave away in Africa. I was looking for a fairly casual shoe style. Nothing fancy. Just something to wear with jeans.

Recently, while on vacation, Gail and I saw two movies in the theater. (I’m not going to mention which movies, because whether you agree with my assessment is not the point.) Both movies sounded great. We eagerly looked forward to seeing them.