Of all the different roles that come with being a parent, I think my dad enjoyed the teaching responsibilities the best. It didn’t matter if the task at hand was eating an ice cream cone or how to build a drip-style sand castle, he was ready to show me a good way to approach [...]
When I was a kid, I was really terrible at handling change. I couldn’t stand it when activities and events would alter from the path that I had been ready for. Unexpected moments would send me into teary conniptions. My mom would often have to prepare me when we’d go out, [...]
Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting at my computer at 2:30 pm, still in my pajamas, when the phone rang. It was my mom’s cousin Amy, who moved back to Philly last week after about 40 years away. She was in lobby with her sister Angie, and they wanted to know if I was interested in [...]
I have found that there are certain things in life that I only eat alone. Take the dinner I made myself tonight when I got home from class. I sauteed a very small onion with a few roughly chopped cloves of garlic (that by itself keeps the non-garlic lovers away). When they were starting to [...]
In addition to the many boxes and suitcases of books, personal memorabilia and assorted ephemera I flung across country recently, I also brought something living and fairly fragile. If airport security had deemed me a great threat because of my tofu pate and had needed to inspect my carry-on, they would have discovered a small [...]
Yesterday around noon I found myself walking north on 18th Street on my way home. The day hadn’t gotten dark or breezy yet, and so people were everywhere, draped over all available Rittenhouse Square real estate and occupying every outdoor table at Devon and Rouge. As I approached those two restaurants, a thought flashed through [...]
One of my favorite things about flying in and out of Portland during the daylight hours is the amazing views you get of the Cascade Mountains. When my parents were first looking for a place to live that wasn’t Southern California, my mom had a dream about living someplace with a view of a [...]
I’m in Portland, OR right now, on the week off between the end of the spring semester and the start of my summer class. However, it isn’t really a vacation. I’m here to go through the stuff that’s mine in my parents’ house and do something with it. For the last two days I’ve been [...]
My confessional post about my white bread purchase yesterday stirred some emotions about white verses whole wheat bread, and so I thought I’d continue the conversation by posting a poem my mom wrote about my grandfather (her step-father) and the bread he served with dinner every night.
The Bread and Butter Gap
by Leana McClellan
“It’s good food,”
my [...]
A couple of days ago, Raina spent the night with some folksinger friends in Western Mass who are friends from way back with Dar Williams. They presented Raina with a picture of Dar wearing a “Raina Rose Loves Me” button. A very cool thing for those of us who adore Dar.
***
I feel like [...]
