Alexandra Vaillancourt

Dateline Boston — Here’s a story about an encounter I once had with a bug. My cat Shelby was looking up at the ceiling, something she never does. She prefers to keep her center of gravity and her eyes close to the floor. Things with six legs do not interest her. Things that fly are slightly more interesting.

Dateline Boston — My local CVS is full of entertainment. There are so many characters who work there — there’s the early man pharmacist, the depressed cashier, and a new manager who reminds me of the “bad” brother in “Slumdog Millionaire.” He’s very nice, but just a little too slick. Here are some stories from CVS that I’ve collected over the years.

Re “Imagine the Horror!”

Dateline Boston — I’m a preschool teacher. I’m patient, kind, loving and creative. The motto at our school is, “Have Fun, Be Safe, and Use Your Imagination.” I take it to heart. Sometimes a little too much with the imagination part.

Dateline Boston — Here’s the thing. You can’t plan life. That’s a lesson I’ve been working on for the past few years. I’m a major planner. I plan my day, my week, my summer, what I’m going to write in this column.

Dateline Boston — Last Saturday there was a water main break in Boston and surrounding towns. Seems a coupling on a seven-year-old pipe broke, and untreated water had to be drawn from local reservoirs. A boil water order was put into effect; two million people were affected. It was described in the news as “catastrophic.” The governor declared a state of emergency.

Dateline Boston — This week I celebrated my birthday. We had tofu “ice cream” sandwiches at my preschool. I went out with my Significant Other and a bunch of friends. We had a lovely dinner with lots of laughs, gifts and a resounding edition of the birthday song. It was great.

Dateline Boston — I am very sentimental; I enjoy the little interactions in life that are often taken for granted. Whether it’s watching a spider spin a web, talking to a small child or giving up your seat on the bus, life is full of simple pleasures that make the world go ‘round.

Dateline Boston — This week I thought I’d give myself a little creative writing assignment. I’ll list my life in alphabet form. At first, I figured I’d come up with a word for each letter, and that would be it. When I started the list, however, I found that I often had more than one word per letter to describe my life. It’s turned into more of an essay than a list. It’s a good exercise—try it!

Dateline Boston — Whenever conversation turns to beaches, I cringe and go on and on about how much I don’t like the beach. I hate the smell, the seaweed, the black flies, the wind, the hot sun. The weird thing is, I have lots of pictures of the beach, from vacations in California and trips to Cape Cod, Mass. There must be something I like about the beach; I have the pictures to prove it.