Were your holidays magical? The stuff of Disney and Hallmark movies, only more so? Ah, good on you! I'm tickled. As for us? Well, My sister and her crew gave me the best Christmas present I could ever want and spent the holidays with us, here in our house, all of us together for the … Continue reading A few things: December 2019
A neighbor stoops to pet my dog (our dog, the littlest of our three), greeting him by name. It is a cool, but not chilly, late fall afternoon, children playing in their yards, lights beginning to turn on behind windows, streets laced with dog walkers out for a pre-dinner stroll. One of the children, a … Continue reading Many happy returns.
He thought his third wife was "the one," and for a while she was. But, to be fair, so were wives one and two, as would be four (and probably five; I wouldn't know, we lost touch). "The one" ultimately had nothing to do with the wives and everything to do with him. But wife … Continue reading Farewell, Bob the elf.
Because Christmas falls on a Wednesday this particular year, the boy wakes on Monday without any particular plans. On Sunday they had done their Sunday things – church and lunch at Nana’s house. On Tuesday they would do Christmas Eve things. Monday, the day in between, begins empty. It will be a long time, a … Continue reading Christmas, 1940.
This story will be less risqué than you might fear, or hope: I bought myself, sort of by accident, a purple lace bra for Christmas. We were out looking for stocking stuffers and standard Santa fare, my daughter and I, trying to get it all done in one single open-air-mall expedition because I quite hate … Continue reading Warning.
The day after Thanksgiving, my friend Lela, whom I love and who I think loves me back, talked me into joining her for a sadomasochistic form of torture known as Body Pump, followed by 45 minutes of spinning, an activity I had theretofore managed to avoid entirely. I went with her because she asked me, … Continue reading For Henry.
Because it will never get old for me, and because maybe you'll feel the same way, and because my daughter is exiting the Santa years, and because - this most of all - we could all always use a bit of love and magic, today I offer a repeat posting of Martha Brockenbrough's great letter … Continue reading Finding Santa.
My grandfather, my father’s father, and his sister Julia lived next door to one another from the mid 1930s, when they built their houses, until they died decades later. Their yards were connected by a garden path, their lives communal. My father was an only child, and his four cousins living next door were more … Continue reading Are you my family?
