Since it’s the season of blizzards, I thought it timely to repost this. My thoughts go out for the safety and fun of those hunkered down braving the Blizzard of 2015. As I hold down a house with two sick … Continue reading
TV when I was a kid was a different animal than today. Sure, it had its detractors and proponents, but what it didn’t have was 24-7 programming—anything you can imagine watching and then some—at your fingertips in your pocket. We’ve … Continue reading
Why has just dropping by to visit someone fallen by the wayside? Is it a generational thing? Something that my over-studious, YUPified,* helicopter-parenting,* research-before-purchasing* generation nixed? (*guilty as charged) That said, being on the receiving end of a mid day … Continue reading
Sometimes I come home to find something foreign in my home. Usually that means my father is in town. The grandfather clock he dragged from my neighbor’s garage sale on a dolly is–less a found object than–a “how’d-you-get-that-around-the-neighborhood-and-into my-house object?” … Continue reading
I have a holiday secret. A how-could-you-forget kind of bad mommy secret. This might be the first year my German friends didn’t accidentally alert me that I missed St. Nikolaus Day. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe I found the freshest marzipan or … Continue reading
Grandmother’s Kitchen Sometimes I’m paralyzed by the idea that I can recall so few specifics about my grandmother. She was a cook undaunted by crowds lining up outside our church—serving three hundred or more in a night with her massive … Continue reading
Walking into the backyard this weekend, I was intrigued to see my thirteen-year-old kneeling under the grapefruit tree, digging. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m planting a time capsule,” she said. I smiled at the word “planting.” It seemed … Continue reading
“…[a]lluding to the snows of that season, the Germans say that “St Martin comes riding on a white horse.”[1] Mid-November marks one of my favorite adopted holidays. Why adopted? My husband is German. And while we Americans share many holidays … Continue reading
What is it about air travel that strips you of something of yourself? That allows you to open up with a passing stranger that otherwise wouldn’t happen? What is it? On a recent flight, I sat next to another woman … Continue reading
My eyes locked on the hot white streak in the sky in front of me. Saturday morning. Up before the birds, I was walking to the south. I couldn’t believe it: the streak grew into a fireball rimmed with brilliant … Continue reading
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