“When you’re trying to do deep thinking work, it’s nearly impossible to maintain a cogent train of thought when you’re getting bombarded with interruptions.” — Forbes magazine

Sean Dietrich is in some ways a man out of time.

Doodles were in the news this week. Not the things you scribble on the side of a notepad during a boring lecture. Not the Google doodles, those special occasions when Google changes up its logo. No, we’re talking about doggie doodles.

Since there’s a big ol’ story about Ken Burns’ new “Country Music” PBS series on this page over there to my left (your right), I thought maybe we could play a game of country music trivia. Here are 10 questions, with answers at the bottom.

Last week, I was talking with a friend about something that had been put together in a slapdash fashion, and I opened my mouth to say the word “jury-rigged,” but then I panicked and thought maybe that wasn’t right so I said “jerry-rigged” instead.

The son is leaving for his first year of college, and I spent his last week at home making his favorite foods. Parmesan-garlic chicken with penne pasta. Homemade meatballs. Pancakes. Bacon. A different kind of ice cream every day. (Oh wait, the ice cream was for me.)

Most every afternoon at work, I tuck a dollar and a quarter in my pocket and head downstairs to the break room to get a $1.25 pack of peanut M&Ms out of the vending machine.

When I look back over my long history as a homeowner, sometimes all I can see is a string of broken relationships.

Barbie turns 60 this year, which is causing a certain amount of hoopla.

The other day I had to look up how to spell “hip-hop.” Not the “hip” or the “hop” parts. I could handle those, thank you very much. But was there a space or a hyphen in the middle?

Jumpin’ juniper! It’s the last day of June already! I thought this month would never end.

Back when spring was new, I kept hearing a strange tapping, tapping outside my bedroom window. It sounded like a woodpecker pecking on the side of the house, except that we have vinyl siding.

I do love me some ice cream, but I have some concerns.

I try hard not to hate anybody or anything, but I am having some very unkind thoughts about housework.

Like most people, I need to set an alarm in order to wake up in the mornings.

Many years ago, I had what we used to call a “desk calendar.” I had a choice of weekly or monthly pages. There was only one cover choice: fake black leather.

This is the story of how I met the devil.