December 29th, 2015 | Genealogy, General, Holidays, Memory, Travel, United States, visual arts
Dearest all, whoever and wherever you may be: Newscasts from Paris in November would cut to Brussels and all we could think was, “We were just there in April.” We recognized streets, buildings, monuments. We thought about our little apartment on rue Potagère...
August 22nd, 2015 | Friends, Genealogy, General, Health, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Time Passes, Travel, United States
A Facebook friend inquires, “Is death always sad?” The comment followed former president Jimmy Carter’s announcement that he has terminal cancer. A number of people from NPR’s Diane Rehm to ordinary friends have found the news “sad.” My FBF continued: “Although I...
May 29th, 2015 | Europe, Genealogy, General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Travel
Everyone has the right to live by the River Vilnelė, and the River Vilnelė has the right to flow by everyone. Everyone has the right to hot water, heating in winter and a tiled roof. Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation. Everyone has the right...
May 17th, 2015 | Europe, Gardens and Gardening, Genealogy, General, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, the world and Mother Nature, Time Passes, Travel
It was possibly the best day of the trip. Or maybe not best. Maybe it is the one most firmly nestled into my visual cortex, the collection of images most likely to reappear when I am asked about Lithuania, what I experienced, what I remember. In television programs...
May 2nd, 2015 | Europe, Genealogy, General, Memory, Travel
Researching my Dear One’s Family Tree has been, shall we say, a slow process. Facts and documentation, though, when found, bring a thrill, a surge of excitement that renews belief that the project isn’t fundamentally doomed. The problem is two-fold. Records pertaining...
April 25th, 2015 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, Friends, Genealogy, General, Travel
We reached out to Audrius about fifteen years ago as we jumped into the quagmire that is the genealogy of Lithuanian immigrants to the United States. He shares a surname with my Dear One and a rather random Internet search turned him up in Kaunas. We grasped at that...