Suprise Me

I grew up in Belleville, New Jersey (1960 population 35,005), in a house on Washington Avenue, the main street of town. Directly across the street was a movie theater, a Shell gas station, and a drugstore. The featured image is the drugstore, and you can see a little bit of the Shell sign on the lefthand… Read More

January, 1981: “Ladies! Listen up! It’s ‘Team Time with Deanna!’ Grab your buddy and head to the center of the floor where we’ll meet and greet, dance and prance, and burn away that winter blubber.” Deanna is a thirty-five year old exercise instructor and seasoned resident of Queens. I am a twenty-three year-old out-of-work actor/pianist… Read More

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

Feel it, Smell it, Own it Read More

My mom loves to tell a certain set of stories about me over and over. This is one of them: on my first day of first grade I came home from school and drew a diagram of the classroom. My mother already knew I was the smartest kid in California, but this was honest to… Read More

  Alright, settle down everyone, I am here to dismantle the dramatics of our everyday anxieties. We all have fears, that much is a given. From the perfectly reasonable (stepping off a skyscraper) to the downright debilitating (spontaneous human combustion, a fear of mine, I haven’t slept well with since I first dreamed about it… Read More

Holiday in Limbo It’s hard to believe but with the passing of the generations I’m now the family matriarch. It’s not my great-uncle Sid leading Seder but my husband,  not my aunt Babs cooking Rosh Hashanah dinner but me,  not my dad carving the Thanksgiving turkey but my son. But will he this year?  A… Read More

Reflecting on radio, I remember my father and my middle brother, both of whom depended on it to survive. Read More

I remember her funeral Read More

A litter of kittens frolicking in the California sun, named by my teenaged aunt Susan:  Peanuts, Schroeder, Linus and Charley Brown. Left behind when his family moved, we inherited the tawny pai dog.  Feral and battle-scarred, a forever stray who one day vanished.  Bishkar. Gray and white cat, clawing, meowing, rubbing, always knowing how to… Read More