I wish I could say – and so does my late mother – that I am utterly shocked at the decline in today’s manners.

She would applaud my disdain – if I could guiltlessly express it – for cell phones in restaurants, unanswered RSVPs and thank-you notes that have been written only in my imagination.

Until last month, I’d never in my adult life had a meaningful encounter with a bean sprout. Usually, I wolf them down, a healthy afterthought crowning the spring mix. I hadn’t noticed the jauntiness of the leaves and the stems. Like most things, I’d caught them out of the corner of my eye, on the way to someplace else.

Our meeting occurred at a Buddhist meditation dinner. I’m no Buddhist, but I am highly curious. And I couldn’t resist test-driving the dinner in silence offered at a local church auction.

In June, with weddings and graduations and travels, at least one day a week deserves to be called National Train Wreck Day. That’s when events collide like so many locomotives barreling north and south down a single track.

Thanks to the third toe on my left foot, I’m finally following the experts’ advice and giving multitasking the boot.

I owe this bit of wisdom to the clunky black Velcro’d one the surgeon handed me after a 30-minute procedure to straighten the demon toe.

“No weight on the foot,” he said soberly, and left me to figure out the details.

Nine months have passed since my husband’s death, so a couple of weeks ago, I made the inevitable announcement:

“It’s time to put my personal stamp upon the house.”