May 6th, 2024 | Boston, Changes, Family, General, Time Passes
A young cousin Helen paid me a supreme compliment this past January as I laid out my plans for moving from Aberdeen, Maryland, to Boston, Massachusetts. She was thrilled to hear that we’d be, for all intents and purposes, neighbors and she described me as “the fun...
April 24th, 2024 | Changes, Family, Genealogy, General, Loss, Memory, Time Passes
It is April 8th. This morning I meet with Dan’s estate attorney, Bob Blue, at 10:30 am to finish up details. This afternoon, Turning Leaf ladies come by to “stage” the house for the estate sale that will take place this coming Friday and Saturday. And, of course, the...
March 13th, 2024 | Family, General, Loss, Memory, Time Passes
No one asked me, but if they did, this is what I would say. “On your 50th birthday, stop collecting stuff. Immediately. Tell friends and family members that from here on in, you only want comestibles or donations made in your honor. No stuff. No tchotchkes. No...
November 30th, 2023 | Family, General, Holidays, Loss, Time Passes
The most difficult change has occurred, as I have pondered for the last six months in this blog. Dan’s struggle with kidney failure and other chronic illnesses came to an end on June 6. It wasn’t something unexpected. I had a sense of being ready. I don’t think,...
November 21st, 2023 | Education, Friends, General, Memory, Time Passes
Let us now praise those who keep their ephemera in immaculate order, fully identified and thoughtfully edited. Okay most of us aren’t people of particular cultural or historical import. Our scraps of paper, tchotchkes, photographs and whatnot are unlikely to be the...
October 22nd, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, General, Loss, Memory, Time Passes, Travel
Vilnius—in fact, all of Lithuania—is a constant experience of déjà vu. Or perhaps more accurately, jau matytas. Every day seemed a trip down Memory Lane. October 6 I hadn’t planned to be ensconced in my room at Bookinn B&B by that day, but I had fled the pas...