June 22nd, 2023 | Family, General, Matters of the Spirit, Memory, Time Passes
Becoming a widow leaves me with an extraordinary amount of time. The Before Time I knew taking care of Dan was a full-time job: dialysis occupied four hours, four days a week, or a bit more. While the treatment itself, according to the computer in the Cycler, lasted...
September 27th, 2022 | Family, Friends, General, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Time Passes
At the news of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, my mind went so many places. One of those places was my grandparents’ butler’s pantry. On one shelf, among odd sets, had been the set of coronation cups. “Who had them now?” I wondered and emailed my siblings and cousins...
August 3rd, 2022 | Family, Genealogy, General, Memory, Time Passes
Kate contacted me out of the blue. Her email said, I have just been given an old box with a label on the top with “Laura A. Wavle, 11 Story Street, Cambridge, Mass”. I’m wondering if you have anymore information about her and whether she lived her life in MA, or did...
December 5th, 2021 | Family, General, Holidays, Time Passes
Christmas 2021 Dearest All, The box turtles look so surprised, heads withdrawn above the hinged front of the plastron, topaz eyes wide and startled. They are invisible until I yank weeds or scatter fallen leaves; then the carapace, rounded and daubed with orange, is...
March 31st, 2021 | General, Shopping, Time Passes, transportation
It seems you now have to own a smart phone in order to buy a car. I guess it happened after we bought Ruby, our Toyota RAV4 in 2017 and replaced her with Garnet, another RAV4, on March 25, 2021. Four years ago, the cars seemed to function on their own. These days,...
January 2nd, 2021 | General, Holidays, music, the world and Mother Nature, Time Passes
I hate that “thud.” It always means a bird has mistaken the sliders—despite the raptor and leaf decals—as navigable space. The first thud we heard was a male red-bellied woodpecker only a few days after we had moved in. Then there was a goldfinch. Maybe a couple of...