Like most kids I had a yearly birthday party,   and then like many girls of my generation a Sweet Sixteen. In later years we had a wonderful celebration for my son’s 13th birthday at his bar mitzvah.   (see Ghostwriting in the Family) And later a fun party for my husband’s 60th at Yankee Stadium.… Read More

My grandparents emigrated from eastern Europe,  and my parents lived through a world war – my father sent overseas while my mother worked for the Army on the homefront.  (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home) And like all families there were skeletons in the closet,  and there were suicides on both sides that were whispered about,  and… Read More

I’ve always been a night owl,  but once ready for bed I don’t remember having trouble falling asleep – until lately. Blame it on aging,  or Covid concerns,  or worrying about the fate of the planet,  but lately there are nights I toss and turn until the wee hours. So what do I do? Well,… Read More

I wear reading glasses, and have had the requisite cataract surgeries,   yet over the years I haven’t given much thought to my eyeglasses or to my changing vision.   But I have thought about the color of my eyes. In Rogers and Hammerstein’s musical masterpiece Carousel, the carnival barker Billy Bigelow soliloquizes about his unborn baby,… Read More

“Don’t cry,” she said to me days before she died, “I’ve had a full and very happy life.” Read More

Danielle Mailer In her studio  –  Goshen, CT I love art but I don’t think of myself as a real collector,  although I do have 3 Danielle Mailers! Several years ago we were invited to an auction fundraiser by our friend H.  At the time he was director of Wellspring,  a residential treatment center in… Read More

I read banned books – to protest their banning of course,  but also because they’re invariably such good reads! As you may know,  countless modern classics have been banned or challenged at one time or another,  among them The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,  As I Lay Dying,  Beloved,  The Catcher in the Rye,  The Color Purple,… Read More

HANNAH & HENRY  circa 1915 In the early 20th century there was an influx of East European Jews coming to the States seeking refuge from troubled times at home.   Among them was my maternal grandfather Henry who came with his widowed mother Gertrude,   his younger brother David,  and Gertrude’s elderly and blind widowed… Read More

The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine is heartbreaking as millions flee their homes and we watch helplessly on the TV news. At the turn of the 20th century,  with the Jewish influx of the time,  both my maternal and paternal grandparents emigrated to the States from Eastern Europe,  my father’s parents from Ukraine. They all came… Read More

We live in Manhattan and we will love the hustle and bustle of our city life,  but we also love communing with nature on weekends at our woodsy retreat in the Connecticut foothills.  (See Country Living, Wisdom in the Weeds,  and  Pickled) On one recent country weekend I came home from the market with a load of… Read More