I don’t remember the first time I voted,  and altho a knee-jerk liberal,  I’ve never been particularly savvy about politics.  But my mother was very much so,  and I’m sure on my first Election Day  I took her advice as I usually have ever since   – “Vote Democratic;  and if candidates run on both… Read More

We were still newlyweds when my husband’s company offered him the chance to work in their London office for a year and of course we took it!   (See Valentine’s Day in Foggytown,  Kinky Boots,  and Laundry Day in London) I took a leave of absence from my job,  we sublet our apartment,  and since taking our… Read More

Back in my grad school days I was studying in New York and my boyfriend was upstate in Buffalo,  a good eight hour train ride away. Many weekends I’d catch the train at the Harlem 125th Street station to make the trip.  Then one Friday afternoon I was waiting on the platform when the train… Read More

When our son Noah was 4 or 5 we took him on his first plane trip to Aruba for a week’s vacation. I bought a set of matching suitcases on wheels in three sizes –  the big one for my husband,  the middle one for me,  and the small one for Noah,  and once we got… Read More

As a young kid I’m sure when The Emperor’s New Clothes was read to me I was delighted by a boy much wiser than the grownups,  and unafraid to laugh at the foolish and naked ruler. And later when I was older and read the tale myself I surely appreciated the clever satire,  the pomposity and the… Read More

Our first living room couch was really a sofa-bed –  we bought it thinking when it wasn’t being a living room couch it could double as a guest bed – and it did,  legions of our friends have slept on it over the years with no complaints. And as I remember it was originally covered… Read More

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As you may know a bowl of chicken soup without knaidelach is like a day without sunshine. For the uninitiated let me explain that knaidelach is the German-derived Yiddish word for matzo balls,  and knaidel the singular.   And as I’ve said,  without knaidelach chicken soup is just soup.  (See The Matzo Ball Spelling Bee) And as you can guess chicken… Read More

When our son was 12 we took him to New Jersey’s Meadowlands Arena to his first rock concert – a stop on Bon Jovi’s  Slippery When Wet Tour. Later he told us Bon Jovi wasn’t really a cool band,  and going to a rock concert with your folks wasn’t cool at all.   In fact… Read More

Nude on Blue Rug  1970 One weekend many years ago Danny and I visited friends in Pittsburgh and they took us to a local art gallery. We had no intention of buying anything but one lithograph  – Nude on Blue Rug – caught our eye,  perhaps partly because we had a very similar rug in our… Read More