The still young-ish couple and their month-old baby are sitting in the small neighborhood Chinese restaurant on a chilly, dark October night. The restaurant is mostly a take-out and delivery hub, so most of the tables inside are empty. They have come here, this couple and their new baby, because it is close to their … Continue reading Happy family.
There are probably a hundred or more things I could tell you, right now, right this minute, were it not for the haze of weekend-away-in-an-un-air-conditioned-cabin-sleeping-on-a-top-bunk fatigue. I could start by telling you: how one of our dogs beat the tip end of his tail to a bloody pulp while we were out of town because … Continue reading 20 things I could tell you.
The third thing she told me was that life begins at 50. She said this just to me, out of earshot from my traveling companion, as she was tucking me back into the driver's seat, right before she said, "I love you," which is what she always said at the end. We had been together … Continue reading Life begins at 50.
The first hint that something was wrong came from a friend's Facebook post, sharing another friend's status. The gist of the post was this: A splinter group had broken through the security blocks that prohibited web traffic, and they wanted to world to know that terrible things were happening and being hidden, covered up. "People … Continue reading A rose for the boy in Aleppo.
It's a conspiracy, you know, the whole birthday thing. A long, long time ago Egyptians celebrated the anniversary date marking when the Pharaoh became Pharaoh, transforming from him a man into a deity. Pharaoh was the only one who got a party, and the party wasn't on the day he was actually popped out of … Continue reading On birthdays, Facebook and #FirstSevenJobs
If there is a dish more emblematic of my cooking story than cheese soufflé, I can't think what it would be. By now you've heard this tale, or bits of it, many times: my mother, who trained herself first by watching and later by reading, trained me to cook by virtue of the fact that … Continue reading Inhale, exhale.
From the moment we master basic locomotive skills, we humans begin to pursue our independence and separate from our parents. It is as natural and ordinary and miraculous a process as any other in the animal kingdom - which is not to say that it is easy, for either child or parent. No matter how … Continue reading Letters from camp.
What began with The Shining, released on Memorial Day weekend, ended, a week after Labor Day, with Ordinary People. In between were Caddyshack, The Blue Lagoon, Airplane!, Brubaker, Urban Cowboy and He Knows You're Alone. It was the summer of Luke and Laura, of Funkytown, Magic and Sailing. The United States led a 65-country boycott … Continue reading Summer 1980.
