Of course, “sexy” can be defined in different metaphorical ways. If by “sexy” you mean “important or exciting,” then there’s plenty of sexy to go around on this date in history.

It took two accidental scar-kisses upon that table to remind me daily of how blessed I have been in love.

I don’t remember what I did for that stranger — it was some little kindness any thoughtful person would do for another. Maybe she dropped a dollar and I called out to her. Or maybe she struggled with an armful of groceries and I offered to carry some out to her car. It was some kindness so small and commonplace, I don’t recall it.

What you don’t expect to learn is that an old friend of yours has died.

That’s what happened when I watched the Netflix documentary “Sr.” created by actor Robert Downey Jr as he interviews his father, filmmaker Robert Downey Sr, over a period of about three years.

We had taken little Jenny to the Woodfield Mall to see Santa Claus so she could sit on his lap and tell him about all the toys that were on her Christmas list. She had heard of Santa all her short life, of course, and had seen him on television and on posters at the store, but she had never met him in person. This would be her first time.

I refer, of course, to the suit filed by the Jack Daniel’s Whiskey company against an Arizona company named VIP Products, which makes doggy chew toys.

The nest was tucked six or seven feet up into the crook of a maple tree, and Dandy, filled with puppy curiosity, enthusiasm, and energy, would leap into the air to go nose-to-nest. Then she would sprint around the yard and do it again.

The occasion was the sudden death by stroke of the love of my life, Carol Felvey, a death that came completely out of the blue on Labor Day weekend this year.

How much — or how little — a student achieves is directly proportional to a teacher’s trust in their ability to master difficult lessons. Students will usually live up to — or down to — your expectations of them.

Buoyed by your trust in them, students will usually reach a level of achievement far higher than even they imagined they could reach. But if they sense that you have low expectations of them, they will almost always fall to those low levels, and often even lower.

Oh, I know that there’s plenty of warm weather left before the air chills and the leaves tremble orange and red, but when you’ve spent your life hopping from square to square on a school calendar, the start of August means the beginning of the end of summer.

The grand prize, of course, was the cherry bomb. Its waterproof wick meant that it could be used to sink the ships of yuletides past.

Every Christmas we asked Santa for plastic model kits of the great ships of America’s proud naval history. We assembled them through the dark, dreary months of late winter, and by summer the kits had been built, played with, and abandoned to the back of the closet.

I know that’s a crazy thing to say, unless you’re an ambulance-chasing lawyer or a psychiatrist who sees dollar signs in other people’s misery. But I’m neither of those things, so go ahead — call me crazy.

The statement raises important questions on all sides, regarding what, exactly, our Founding Fathers meant by it. By “Arms” did they necessarily mean “guns,” or would swords, knives, and spears suffice as arms? If they were talking specifically about guns, did they give any thought to what type of gun might be a bridge too far, given the horrors future technology might bring?

When I was little, my philosophy was “Let someone else break it.” It worked like this: If I was tossing a ball around in the house and broke a lamp, I would painstakingly reassemble the pieces and then tiptoe out of the room. The next time somebody walked through the house, the lamp would rattle apart, right before their eyes. Son of a gun. And I was nowhere in sight.

Because it turns out there are more than 50 varieties of Ken dolls out there — Cali Cool Ken, Tropical Vibes Ken, Hip Hoodie Ken, and more. And now they come in a variety of skin tones and body shapes that include slim, broad and original.

A few weeks ago, Carol Pavlik wrote in this paper about her attempt to adopt a cat, only to be thwarted by a woman sitting behind a desk who peppered her with stern questions. What was her policy on declawing? Did she have a vet? What would the cat be fed? She answered carefully and thoughtfully, because she had “nothing but good intentions for our hypothetical kitty!”

“Wow,” he said, “you still do that old-school.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, which is pretty much par for the course for me when it comes to conversations with members of generations that are less vintage than mine.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

The Florida man who told police he couldn’t be arrested for drinking and driving because he only gulped his bourbon at stop signs.

The Florida man who stole a Walmart mobility scooter so he could drive his date to a sports bar.

The Florida man who fast-tracked an effective vaccine against Covid, but then told America to inject bleach into their veins instead.

When my friend Carol and I met him in early March, he told us he had just celebrated the 36th anniversary “of the day that put me in this chair.”

No, it’s that when she talks to her 16-year-old granddaughter, she’s astounded at how Ella’s modern-day Catholic upbringing is so different from her own old-school Catholic upbringing.

Mary DeVoto, a Mother McAuley High School teacher of 41 years, was fired for violating a zero-tolerance rule of ever speaking a word that I assume I can’t print here for the same reason. (I won’t test that theory and put my editor in the uncomfortable position of deleting the word — or its writer — from this publication.)

Because if you’re OK with all of that, this show is a don’t-miss gem.