Maybe next time I will tell you about the hundreds (or millions, I can’t say for sure, because at some point I lost count) of birthday cards that arrived this week addressed to me and the “Birthday Boy.”
That would be my husband, whose birthday (a big one, as I noted in a recent column) fell 10 days before mine. [Read more...]

It’s interesting, isn’t it, what interests us? Of all the people I’ve written about, no one has sparked the curiosity of readers as much as my brother Joe. [Read more...]

I’m not sure how it happened. It’s not like we planned it. Between my husband and me, our collective five children and their significant others, most of the birthdays in our immediate family fall within four short weeks, January to February. [Read more...]

The flight to Las Vegas, where I live, from California, where I’d been visiting my kids, sounded like tuberculosis ward.
Seriously? Who goes to Sin City when they’re sick? Don’t they know you’re supposed to wait until it’s time to go home, after you’ve partied for days, lost a month’s wages, gotten a tattoo you can’t explain, and suddenly remembered you have to go to work on Monday?
That’s when you get sick _ not on your way there. [Read more...]

When he is older, I will tell my grandson Henry this story. It is his story, mostly. But it also belongs to other children who were, like him, born into a world where one income is seldom enough to support a family, but were lucky enough to have parents who made it work.
It’s a good story. He will like it. [Read more...]

The night was cold, getting colder by the minute, forecast to drop into the 20s. In a rush, I hadn’t bothered to wear a coat, a decision I already regretted. [Read more...]

How will you be remembered? What do you want people to say about you when you’re gone? [Read more...]

I’ve been giving myself what my mother used to call a good “talking to.” It’s a kind of pep talk to remind me to count my blessings, when all I want to do is crawl up under the porch with the dogs and cry. [Read more...]