I came home from my most recent Book Group and announced to Sweetheart that I had good news and bad news. “What?” he said. “Book group is going to be here in March,” I told him. I was originally slated for August, but a spot opened up and I jumped. I’ve been wanting to talk … Continue reading Packrats in Love Struggle to clear the Landfill called Home (with a little help from Marie Kondo)
Category: lifestyle
Today is all about taste - good and bad. First, the bad. That would be Brian Williams. It wasn't enough for Brian to be a tall, handsome, white, rich and hugely successful anchorman at NBC News. He had to lie about being in a helicopter that was shot down in Iraq so he could also appear to … Continue reading I’d rather eat homework than words: a shoutout to the culinary arts and a little Brian Williams rant
We were standing in the living room of my sister’s house when my 16-year-old niece (who will never be smarter again in her life than she is now) said, “C’mon, tell me you wouldn’t want to be 16 again.” What I wanted to say was “*#^K NO!!!! ARE YOU CRAZY????” What I said, instead, was … Continue reading A high school high point and why now is better
So, yesterday I took Mom to the neurologist. She’s been having more of these spells where one minute she’s fine, and the next she’s crumpling up like a boneless doll. They’re not pretty. The nurse practitioner at the nursing home where she lives thought it might be the Parkinson’s disease progressing, so we moved her … Continue reading Travels with Mom: a trip to the Neurologist
When Debbie Friedman died four years ago, the whole Jewish world stood up and paid attention. I’d been paying attention to Debbie my whole life, because she was nine when I was born and our mothers are sisters. That first year after she died, pictures kept showing up on Facebook, synagogues were singing her songs … Continue reading Debbie Friedman, number eight of Bubby & Zaydie’s 15
So, it’s been a slightly dismal week here in Flyover Country. That bitter cold that used to live north of us and comes to visit more often is in town and I am unsuccessfully fighting off some sort of winter sinus-related pestilence. Also, my favorite clothing store is going out of business. And of course, there's France. … Continue reading Why France, journalists and the Iliad will always have a place in my kitchen
My father was very fond of books. Naturally, this is a point of pride for my sister and me. Dad read to us all the time when we were children. He instilled a love of books and writing that has outlived him by decades. He was also very fond of breasts. Large breasts. I hold … Continue reading My dad: the rabbi who loved large breasts
Six Decembers ago, Sweetheart & I moved. Along with our physical possessions, I was concerned about emotional baggage. Mine, not his. It was just shy of a month living here, New Year's Day in 2009, when I wrote this essay. Real Estate & Leather Sweetheart and I had just gotten the keys to our new house after … Continue reading Real Estate & Leather: A ‘Throwback Thursday’ post
Like most working people in the US, where Christian culture is majority culture, I’d been looking forward to a couple of days off at Christmas. It’s not my holiday. But I get to partake of its best parts because Sweetheart’s family is a mashup of Lutherans, atheists who grew up as Lutherans & Catholics-by-choice. Sweetheart … Continue reading ‘I’m not big on long goodbyes’ or Death at Christmas
So, last Friday I took a half-day off work because it was Writer’s Lunch. Every December for the past five – or maybe six – years, Annie, Elaine, Judy, Shauna and I pick a restaurant and go out for lunch. We have the best time. We laugh, we drink, sometimes I empty my purse because … Continue reading Dave Margoshes, Ayelet Waldman and what matters
the sentence factory 