Suprise Me

"Can I help?" a woman's voice asked from behind me. A young woman had appeared with a shovel. Read More

This was originally published in Retrospect on October 12, 2019 under the prompt Hacked and Scammed. Although I have been hacked other times, it is still my favorite story of being hacked. The screen froze. A red, pulsing light covered QuickBooks, accompanied by a loud, persistent beep. I froze in horror, as this old laptop… Read More

The second the music began, it was transcendent. Read More

In the tapestry of human existence, there are filaments that bind us together, threads that weave through the fabric of our days, shaping our experiences and defining our routines. Among these filaments, there is one that is often overlooked, yet undeniably present: the thread of laundry. Laundry, the humble chore of cleaning clothes, may seem… Read More

And he cooked with a smiling twinkle,/His paring knife a-twinkle,/ His graters and ladles a-twinkle, as he prepped an amazing potage. Read More

Mom showed the German part of her heritage when instead of telling us to sit down she would say, “Sitzen Sie.” Dad showed the I Don’t Know What part of his heritage when he would randomly interject, “Rowdy dowdy dowdy dow.” You don’t often hear this term anymore, but on a couple of occasions he… Read More

Skinny Dipping For several summers in our early,  married-without-children years we rented a beach house in the Hamptons with our good friends J and K.   After a few years our friends – serious fishermen by then –  opted for the mountains instead and bought a house near a trout stream.  (See Catskill Weekend) And… Read More

Nearly every winter, it seems, my wife and I engage in a friendly feud about how many pets are enough. Read More

I didn’t notice when Suzanne first showed up. We unloaded the stage, carried it into the theater, and assembled it behind the proscenium, a stage upon a stage. First came the wine barrels, then the interlocking frame, and finally the wooden platforms. We lashed the backdrop to the uprights and, with a shout from cast… Read More

My parents didn’t keep baby books, but they did keep photo albums. The kind with the black construction paper pages. They pasted the pictures in, or else sometimes the pictures were held by those photo corners with adhesive on the back. They made an album for each of their three daughters. At some point, after… Read More