You Need a License to Eat Here?

You Need a License to Eat Here? MysteryShrink Mexico Short Sonia, a new university friend, and I settled into a high-backed, carved wooden booth at the Gran Ancira Hotel Bar. Monterrey, Mexico, was the first night on our Freedom Trip adventure. The day before Sonia had pulled her application with …

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Love, Boundaries, and the Fastest Way to Ruin a Lovely Dinner

Food, Boundaries, and the Fastest Way to Ruin a Lovely Dinner MysteryShrink Short The couple at the next table at Brennan’s in old New Orleans giggled and smiled like newly weds- which they were. Both widowed in their sixties, they’d met a year ago on a cruise and married six …

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How to Be a Loving, but Separate Person, Hawaiian Pineapple Cake

How to Be a Loving but Separate Self…Otherwise you will drift between faking agreement and hiding anger. MysteryShrink Short: Love and Boundaries FOOD, Pineapple Upside Down Cake The couple had just finished the last meal of their magical Hawaiian honeymoon. The gazed into each other’s eyes. The fragrance of blossoms …

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Little Boys Have Love in Their Eyes

Little Boys Have Love in Their Eyes MysteryShrink Short I’m sitting at an outdoor table along the Plaza de San Francisco in San Luis Potosi yesterday. Weather’s lovely. Colonial churches, cinnamon chocolate in the air, old men hidden in clouds of balloons for sale. A ragged little boy of six …

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Over-Dosing on Back Braces

MysteryShrink Shorts Overdosing on Back Braces “Good afternoon,” I said from the podium a couple of days ago. “My name is Barbara and I’m a back-brace addict.” I didn’t start out as an all-out back brace fiend. Neither of my parents had an unhealthy attachment to medical devices—though my brother, …

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“Me Too” and the Greater Truth

“Me Too” and the Greater Truth First, what happened: The first time I was fourteen and working at a dry cleaning pick-up station inside a megastore. I noticed that the forty-some owner, who was the father of a classmate, seemed to hang a lot while I was working and then …

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Las Vegas Shooter: How Far Will We Go to Get Attention?

Las Vegas Shooter: How Far Will We Go to Get Attention? “Look at Me!” When did we morph into a culture in which seeking attention is a way of life? And death? It’s easy to divide the world into good people (people like us) and bad people (people who aren’t …

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