Suprise Me

This story may or may not turn out to be about cooking. Mainly it is about my mother, who, as I write, is lying in a hospital bed holding on to life by only the slenderest of threads. By the time you read this, the thread may have snapped. But she will always be a… Read More

I wondered if they would have been just as happy going to a resort near home that had a pool. Read More

My first real apartment, not counting the college one with mean notes posted on the refrigerator to clean the bathroom and the dial removed from one roommate’s television so no one else could watch it, was the basement unit (AKA Garden Apartment) my new husband and I inhabited right after our wedding in August of… Read More

My tried and true approach to all problems with technology: Turn it off and turn it back on. Nine times out of ten, the problem is mysteriously fixed. Read More

(I keep updating this story as I learn new information about my long-lost, but still fascinating cousin.) The last time I saw him was in October of 1980. He’d called my office a day earlier. “You’ve got to come up over the weekend. It’s fantastic here.” Trying to get a room in Woodstock, VT over… Read More

Miss Burdett, you’ve changed the color of your lipstick! Read More

Sadly, many people who need care and supervision end up as part of the homeless population living in the streets. Read More

Readers of Retrospect may recall my maternal grandparents from two other stories, No Way To Say Goodbye, about my grandfather’s death, and Which Side Are You On?, in which I discussed their flight from the Cossacks and their search for the American Dream. They were a significant part of my childhood, living with my parents, my sisters, and me in our… Read More

in a lowered voice, Kyle said, “we don’t do that thing anymore.” “What thing?” I asked. “You know,” Devon jumped in. “That thing we was drawing on the ground with our fingers.” Read More

I always liked the way my dad played the piano, inventing arrangements from a fake book and not just playing scripted sheet music.  He loved interesting chords, with a just enough dissonance.  There were certain tunes he played often, refining the sound over time, drawing heavily from the Great American Song Book and jazz standards. … Read More