Eggs were a serious matter to my grandmother. She had strong opinions about what color the yolks should be, how the whites should perform, and how they should “set up.” She was famous for her angel food cakes, and even had a small side business baking them for others. I was always glad when there […]

Thirty years ago, I was in Danville, Indiana getting ready to be married for the second time. It was going to be a small event, because I had been divorced some years earlier, and my parents wanted to keep everything discreet. David and I didn’t mind, because neither of us wanted a big wedding with […]

My grandmother had a little side business baking angel food cakes. She used to send me to the creamery, which was right up the street and around the corner from her house. I didn’t have to cross a single street, so I could go alone, the coins in my pocket to pay for the eggs […]

When my kids were young, my daughter described her dreams as “night movies.” I liked the term, and tucked it away for future use.
 I usually don’t remember dreams, but I have had a couple that were more revelations than post-pizza epiphanies. Last night’s will remain with me for awhile.
 Somehow, I had ended up somewhere far […]

Friday Lunch
We bought a sandwich today, to send off the threadbare week. I needed the break more than the food, and we picked a run of the mill place to sit for awhile.There were two women — sisters, I think — and one very young little boy seated between them across the room from us. What […]

We observed the holiday for two days this year — on Sunday and Monday. Joe was able to get home for the weekend, and we all spent time in the pool and sitting around talking and eating. It was an informal, virtually unplanned, and absolutely organic period of time.
I thought about Memorial Days when my […]

I prefer small cafes and neighborhood diners to ”good” restaurants, and David knows this. So we celebrated Mother’s Day at a local place that is a short drive from where we live. It was a sunny day, and it was heating up fast.
On the bus stop in front of the cafe was an entire family, including […]

When I started college in the 1960s, birth control was not available anywhere from anyone for any reason, unless you were married. Period. The pill had been released to the public, but the public needed to be in conventional unions sanctioned by society in general. And the pharmacist had to agree to fill the prescription, […]

Death is a fact of life, especially for those of us in middle age. Although a few of us may wrestle with the issues of mortality on a personal level, it is more likely that we are traveling final roads with parents. The past few years have been filled with goodbyes for both my extended […]

He has been sober since late summer, a result of finally being jailed — not for drug use as we had all expected, but for excessive noise and property damage. The irony is that he was not under the influence when he finally lost it. He had just emerged from a haze that was years […]