It promised to be a busy weekend.  Sally had invited her dad to Oakland for Fleet Week and the dance card was full with things a veteran from the greatest-generation might like: a visit to Alameda Naval Station, the Blue Angels flyovers, a Bay cruise. Read More

Rowboat When I was young my grandmother ran a small hotel on a lake in the Catskills,  and I’ve written about the idyllic summers I spent there with my family.  (See My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel,  My Game Mother, Hotel Kittens,  The Cat and the Forshpeiz,  Playing with Fire, and The Troubadour) One happy memory of those… Read More

I know how lucky we are to own the home that we do on the island of Martha’s Vineyard, seven miles off the coast of Cape Cod. (Holmes Coffin House.) It is well-situated in the Historic District of Edgartown. We walk to almost everything. But getting to the island can be challenging, particularly this season,… Read More

I just KNEW that the idea would have pleased her no end Read More

Ethel and the Turkey Leg  Since my friend Ethel died recently at the age of 85,  I’ve been thinking about what made her such a special soul. Ethel and I met in the 1980s at Jane Addams,  the South Bronx vocational high school where she taught cosmetology and I ran the school library.   Like… Read More

Hermine’s Morning Joe I happen to be a tea drinker,  but I do like the smell of coffee brewing,  and when the coffee smells especially good I think of my wonderful mother-in-law Hermine. My mother was a good cook,  but Hermine was an extraordinary one.   I,  on the other hand,  never prided myself on… Read More

A Cup of Tea in Ireland Twice I travelled to Dublin to study at the James Joyce Summer School.  There we students were housed in a novice nun’s residency while the young women themselves were on summer break,  and yes,  you guessed it,  my husband told everyone he’d sent me to a nunnery!   (See My… Read More

My mother was out on some errand, and Susan asked if she could have a cup of coffee.  That seemed important to her (we didn't understand the caffeine imperative yet), so my older sister and I, who had never actually made coffee, tried to rise to the occasion.  Read More

A sobering episode in the Age of Aquarius, on my first trip out west Read More

It is remarkable how you really could carry everything you needed. Read More