Happy New Year … although nearly a week-and-a-half after making an entrance, 2023 is already starting to feel a little worn. That shiny newness attached to incoming years has a short shelf life. There are still a few holiday clearance shelves left in stores. They’re fairly plucked over by now, mostly littered with ornaments packed…
Books
October is the month when I finally emerge from the hot, humid stupor of summer. Yes, I’ve heard about September; these days it comes littered with too many family death anniversaries to feel like the fresh start it once was. October is when I can breathe again. To me, “renewal” = “project.” This year I…
William McKinley and Dinosaurs
Here’s what I can tell you about my recent visit to the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum in Canton, Ohio: I didn’t visit the dinosaur exhibit, but I did see the planetarium. I know. I didn’t connect that stuff with the twenty-fifth president of the United States, either. Every president since Herbert Hoover has…
Extra!
We are so far behind on movies that we should be embarrassed (we aren’t). You’d think we’d have caught up during nearly two years of semi-isolation, but we were too busy watching Friends for the first time. At least this means that there are always “new” titles out there for us to enjoy. This explains…
Hope Springs Eternal
On a scale of one to ten, I rate about a four when it comes to gardening. I garden like someone who was raised by New-York-City parents, which is probably because I was raised by New-York-City parents. While not every gardener is hampered by having parents who hardly ever saw dirt, apparently it had a…
Ghosts
I’ve been reading sections of my old journals, because apparently I’m masochistic. (There’s nothing like re-visiting a 20-something version of yourself who spouts off assured philosophies that life has yet to test.) Still, despite the general cringe-worthiness, I re-read periodically, usually zeroing in on the same time frame. I’m convinced that there’s a reason I’m…
We Escape
A few months ago, my husband and I decided to walk through the cemetery near our house. We entered the main gates and continued along the winding paths that loop through the grounds. Naturally, our pace slowed — we got caught up in reading tombstones and searching for the graves of people we knew. The…
