My mom is selling a rental property in Dallas. 

Great timing -- we’re in a seller’s market where bidding wars are normal. Still, selling real estate is a hassle, so we were thrilled that the sister and brother-in-law of our 20-year tenant offered to buy the condo for him.

On Valentine’s Day, Japanese women give men chocolates.

You can thank a 1960 ad campaign by confectioner Morinaga and Co. for this Japanese twist on a tradition invented by Richard Cadbury in 1861. Cadbury realized he could sell more chocolate in fantasy heart-shaped boxes.

For years I had math anxiety. 

Germany lost to England in the UEFA European Championship today.

I watched the game at The Boot, a soccer bar nearby. My son, who played Division I soccer and now lives in Germany was rooting for Deutschland. I hadn’t watched a soccer game in years, since so many weekends were pre-ruined (as my ex put it) by soccer when the kids were little.

The sweet bliss of a caramel melting on the tongue.

That was the moment of conception for the Morinaga & Co., the Hershey’s of Japan (~$2B in 2020 revenues). On a day when founder Taichiro Morinaga was struggling to make ends meet and feeling blue, someone gave him a caramel. California was racist and inhospitable to Asian immigrants in the late 1800s, making it all but impossible to find work. That gift of candy brightened his day and gave him hope.

You’d have thought I was judging the Miss Universe Pageant.

As I drove, I took my “job” of appraising front yard magnolia trees seriously. Tall and elegant, magnolias have large, glossy, and evergreen leaves. Their white flowers, the size of dinner plates, unfurl in a slow striptease, as glamorous as a ’30s Hollywood starlet. They’re gorgeous trees.