Wishing for Rain on the Vineyard We’ve spend many lovely summer vacations on Martha’s Vineyard and I’ve written about some of my memories of that idyllic island.  (See Menemsha Sunset,  and Carousel) Of course we reveled in sunny days when it was glorious to be at the beach or on the water,  and just as delightful… Read More

Les Halles I went to Europe for the first time in the late 1960s with my husband Alan on a belated honeymoon.  We spent a few days in Copenhagen where we saw Victor Borge in concert in Tivoli Gardens.   And then a week in Paris where our hotel room reeked of garlic –  thanks,… Read More

Doctors Hospital and the Very Sharp Cheese Plane Until it closed in 2004 and the building was razed to make way for a new luxury high rise,  Doctors Hospital stood on East End Avenue two blocks from our apartment. Opened in 1929 as a small, private hospital,  originally for maternity cases,  it was soon favored… Read More

Doing My Civic Duty I’ve been called for jury service four or five times over the years,  and once was even appointed forelady and tasked with announcing the jury’s verdict to the judge. One case I remember was about an accused shoplifter charged with taking clothing into a department store dressing room,  removing all the… Read More

The Pavilion  In March 2020 on the cusp of the Covid outbreak my husband was scheduled for surgery,  but the prospect of him spending even a few days in a large New York hospital was worrisome.  Luckily his doctor discharged him one day post-op,  I took him home,  and the next day we left Manhattan… Read More

The Elevator By New York standards our apartment building is not very big with 16 floors and 187 apartments,  and over the years we’ve come to know many of our neighbors altho certainly not all. One day I was in the elevator when  a women I’d seen in the building – but didn’t know –… Read More

Good Neighbors – for David K  Writing once about the passage of time, I urged you to seize the day.   (See Time and the Taxi Man) I thought of those words recently at the funeral of our neighbor David K who had died suddenly the week before.  For decades my husband Danny and I… Read More

Breakfast in Bed Many years ago we spent a spring weekend with friends at their beach house a few hours from the city. That Sunday was Mother’s Day and our young son and our hosts’ two young kids had planned a lovely surprise.  Early that morning our bedroom door burst open and the three kids… Read More

Early Session Commute I like to stay up late at night and sleep late in the morning.  (See Night Owl) But of course I couldn’t indulge those preferences during all my years working at a school,  especially the semesters I was on early session and had to punch a time clock at the ungodly hour… Read More

Boycott As a child I don’t remember  questioning the authority of my teachers,  I loved school and remember no run-ins there. My parents were easy-going and so neither do I remember much contention at home,  although as a teenager I had the usual adolescent battles with my mother,  and remember storming out of the house… Read More