Suprise Me

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

Parking, never a problem for me at college, but work at Lockheed was different. 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

Behind the counter were two very attractive, serious looking women in crisp white lab coats... Read More

In my mind I played so well. Read More

A. Adriana, my close high school friend. Q. Who do I know who was on Jeopardy!? Read More

Afternoon Tea at Hotel Wales When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012 our Manhattan apartment building was severely affected,  we were evacuated and moved to a Marriott hotel three blocks away for a few days .  (See Cooking with Gas) A few years earlier we also had to vacate when during a renovation the construction dust forced… Read More

...as the ring transitioned from the world of the real and visible to the underwater world of Neptune and Ariel and Moby Dick... Read More

This ole house is afraid of thunder This ole house is afraid of storms This ole house just groans and trembles When the night wind flings its arms Lightning (and thunder) figure in two of my earliest memories — one that formed the foundation of my respect for the tough nature of my grandmother; the… Read More

Where did I go wrong? Now the breakfast dish is left on the counter, The ice cream bowl from the night before put in the sink with no water. The peanut butter knife put in the dishwasher, but not rinsed. I tell him – he needs to rinse dishes before placing them in the dishwasher.… Read More