I drove out to visit my Great Aunt Anne today. She is 88 years old and is still living on her own. For that last few years, her situation has been less than ideal, but workable. However, these days it’s not going well. She’s essentially stranded in a suburban ranch house with nothing around but [...]
I spent the evening with my family out in Plymouth Meeting tonight for round two of Thanksgiving dinner. I brought half a gallon of gravy and there were three kinds of sweet potatoes and no regular ones. The food was delicious, although it was a little chaotic getting everyone seated and settled at [...]
Last year this time I was out in Oregon, getting ready to cook dinner with my parents. The celery, mushrooms and onions were chopped and bagged, ready for the stuffing. Multiple heads of garlic had freed from their papery skins and the defrosted turkey was resting pertly in the fridge in my mom’s [...]
As most of you know, my younger sister is a folkie singer-songwriter. However, what I don’t mention too often is the fact that she came to her love of music honestly, because our dad is a long-time singer/songwriter/folkie in his own right. He learned to play right around the time he went through [...]
I’m heading to Ames, Iowa in about seven hours to teach a Unitarian Universalist campus ministry workshop to a bunch of folks in the Prairie Star District. I’m looking forward to getting off the east coast for just a bit and am hoping against hope that I’ll get a chance to eat some fresh Iowa [...]
I’ve discovered something about my writing process lately which is that if I can’t see it, I can’t write it. So much of my writing is about evoking a feeling of time and place, of creating moments that are described with unusual details in order to make them feel both totally personal and universal. But [...]
I have spent large chunks of my day reading letters that my mom wrote to my grandmother. They mostly date from the early years of my parents’ marriage, but some go as far back as late fifties. Those are primarily requests for clothes, pistachio nuts and woolen pajamas that my mom wrote from [...]
I parked my car on the street last night as opposed to its normal nocturnal resting place in the parking garage. I did this in part as incentive to get out of bed a few minutes before 8 am (it’s amazing how the threat of a parking ticket can jolt me out of bed [...]
I’m in the midst of writing my masters thesis right now. It’s a rambling collection of essays about one of my great loves, cooking paraphernalia. I’ve always been attracted to the tools of cooking, even before I was allowed to turn the stove on by myself. When I was seven, my grandmother gave me a [...]
My mom is an expert in the field of laundry. Some may mock her skill and dedication, but if you have ever had the opportunity to benefit from her careful sorting, eagle-eyed application of spot remover and precise folding, you will quickly change your tune to one of appreciation.
I learned to do laundry by watching [...]
