Suprise Me

My grandmother had given up cooking by the time my mother lived at home with her parents after her year studying dance in New York in 1935, so she didn’t learn to cook from her own mother. After she married at age 32, she learned a few basic recipes from her oldest sister’s housekeeper. That… Read More

He took a bite and chewed it, slowly and deliberately, as the rest of us talked. Then another. Read More

The French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal is reputed to have written words to the effect that  “This letter would have been shorter if I’d had more time to write it.” Perhaps if he’d had a reliable watch, a relatively modern invention, what short time he had wouldn’t have gotten away from him. For years,… Read More

The Naked Emperor As a young kid I’m sure when The Emperor’s New Clothes was read to me I was delighted by a boy much wiser than the grownups,  and unafraid to laugh at the foolish and naked ruler. And later when I was older and read the tale myself I surely appreciated the clever satire,  the… Read More

That August, Veronica walked out on me. 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

My parents had very different attitudes towards gratitude; at least that was my perception as I grew up, after we moved from Detroit to the suburbs in 1963 and my mother’s mental health issues surfaced. She was a “glass half empty” sort of person. Nothing ever pleased her or made her happy. Despite all sorts… Read More

I needed a car my senior year at Brandeis, as I would be student teaching at a local public high school first semester. My parents arranged to “sell” me (for one dollar) my mother’s seven year old Valiant (similar to the car in the above photo). Dan, my steady beau, flew out to Detroit to… Read More

My first horse auction turned into a lifesaver in a time of painful and life-changing events. Read More

I find myself walking into a room and saying "What did I come in here for?" This happens more often than I care to admit. Read More