July 17th, 2016 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Genealogy, General, Memory
Dinner time in Cleveland Heights was always a well-orchestrated event. Ma had dinner well in process by the time Dad arrived. My sister and I set the table. After dinner, while my mother wrangled my brother into bath and bed, my father washed the dishes, which is to...
March 7th, 2016 | Education, General, Memory, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Women
It was August 13, 2015, exactly six months and twenty-one days ago as I write this, that I published my anxiety about the campaign of Donald J. Trump for the Republican nomination for President of the United States of America. I was told not to worry, that he was a...
January 12th, 2016 | Gardens and Gardening, General, Memory, Travel, United States, visual arts
Planes roar down from the west, above Balboa Park and I-5, to the runways at Lindbergh Field about every minute or so during the day. The first plane seemed loud but in a familiar way—I did, after all, live here in the 1980s. We woke to a pearly Monday sunrise and the...
January 10th, 2016 | General, Memory, the world and Mother Nature, Travel, United States
Ranks of palm trees, beyond the baggage carousels at the San Diego airport, slender trunks curved like a scoliotic spine, confirmed that we were back in southern California. We expected rain, floods even, and landslides. We arrived to blue skies, temperatures in the...
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...