Suprise Me

Rick was alone with our mother for almost 5 years. I was not welcome when I came along. I was a hairless creature. He thought girls should have hair, so I must be a boy, right? He called me “boop-de-boy” and tripped me as I learned to walk. But as I became more fun to… Read More

I walked into my college alumni party on my birthday last month; a cold day in December, which also happened to be my 65th birthday. I was greeted by many from the Brandeis administration whom I knew. While chatting with one, she said, “Do you recognize him from your class, Betsy? He’s doing an interesting… Read More

applying for med school while female Read More

December 14th, 1997. One of the longest droughts in California history ended the night my daughter was born. The rain started sometime in the afternoon. I couldn’t tell you when, exactly. We were waiting to find out what was wrong with her and why she had failed her first test: the Apgar. One of the… Read More

It is so true that, as Andy Warhol famously said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” During the summers of my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I indulged my interest in theater by becoming an apprentice at Northland Playhouse in the newly built Northland Mall in a suburb of… Read More

I still have a stack of some of the books that sat on my shelf as a child. I just can’t part with them. My very favorite was Heidi by Johanna Spyri. There are a few others I no longer have but still remember vividly…a Hopalong Cassidy book that you read while listening to the… Read More

A picture is worth a thousand rounds. Read More

I do not relate to the idea that group photos are no longer in vogue. For me they are a constant in my life! Read More

We were recently on a deluxe cruise around Italy and Croatia with some well-heeled travelers on a beautiful ship, 600 passengers in all. We certainly didn’t meet most of them, so could make up stories about the lives of people we only saw in passing. Several evenings we had to wear formal attire. On almost… Read More

Bone of Contention  My mother never made much of a fuss over mealtimes,   nor did she take much pride in her own cooking – although I never remember a meal at her table that wasn’t delicious.  (See My Game Mother,   Still Life) She was a high school art teacher,   and came home every afternoon,… Read More