September 27th, 2020 | Europe, General, Health, Society at Large, Travel, United States
As of 8:00 pm March 30, 2020, Governor Hogan’s “Stay At Home” order went into effect. This is a deadly public health crisis—we are no longer asking or suggesting that Marylanders stay home, we are directing them to do so. No Maryland resident should be leaving their...
September 19th, 2020 | General, Politics, Women
The howl of fuck fuck fuck that tore from my heart and mouth on the morning of November 10, 2016 echoed again as I saw the headline on my cell phone. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was dead. The Best on the Bench She died on the first night of Rosh Hashanah. I...
August 14th, 2020 | Family, General, Politics, Society at Large
One of my favorite books when I was a child—one of my cherished books still—is a collection of stories by Hans Christian Andersen. “The Snow Queen: A Tale in Seven Stories” was one of the most ghoulish and frightening, and one of my favorites. A Fairy-Tale Pandemic A...
August 3rd, 2020 | Family, Friends, General, Health, Politics, Popular Culture
The Baltimore Sun provides a daily update of COVID19 infections and deaths across the state, breaking them out by counties and also by age and race/ethnicity. I look for that long, horizontal gray box and the Harford County numbers in my paper, without fail....
July 30th, 2020 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, General
There seems to be heightened attention to all matters culinary in the Time of COVID. That’s a good thing, I think. Keeps people out of restaurants and other enclosed spaces and builds skill that we should all have anyway. Dining Chez-Nous We are people who cook and...
July 26th, 2020 | Europe, General, Politics, Travel
I so want to leave. It doesn’t matter where we might go, just get in the car or take a cheap flight to some place we’ve talked about visiting, like Nashville, Tennesee, or Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Such domestic destinations are apart from our desire to see the lochs and...
July 18th, 2020 | General, Health
For the first time in sixty-three years, I can see the world with a certain clarity when I open my eyes in the morning, and yet I still reach for the glasses I expect to be on my nightstand and I fumble at my face to take them off at bedtime. The sight in my left eye...
June 10th, 2020 | General, Memory, Politics, social media, Society at Large
The phrase “police brutality” has been part of my vocabulary since at least 1968. That is the year that the Democratic Presidential Convention faced immense political challenges inside the International Amphitheatre and protesters clashed with literally thousands of...
June 2nd, 2020 | Family, General, Politics, social media, Society at Large
A while back I received a cryptic email from one of my brothers, J. I have some information that is very important for you to hear. I am pretty sure you won’t like it but your health depends on knowing what I now know. I’m giving you this initial heads up to see if...
May 22nd, 2020 | Gardens and Gardening, General, Health, Politics, the world and Mother Nature
This morning, I found an ear of deer corn dug into one of the pots of newly planted begonias. We are assuming the culprit is Elvirus, but it could have been a squirrel. We have a lot of squirrels and they plant acorns all over the place and make a mess of containers...
