When I was eight I decided to run away from home and live with my grandmother where, I assumed, life would be simpler. I was undeterred by the fact that I lived in Fort Lauderdale and my grandmother lived in Cleveland. Using the logic I employ to this day, I figured the details would work […]
My mother-in-law, Duckie, is 90 now, and she spends a lot of time watching cable news and reading the newspaper, and since she has the mind of a healthy 30 year old — she remembers everything she sees. Everything.
Dinner conversations with my family are quite confusing for Ryan who comes from a family of logical, structured New England Puritans; this is why he was delighted when my middle sister married Judson. Since Judson is a CPA, Ryan was certain he would bring a sense of logic and order to our table talk. Ryan
Of Elephants & Avocados Read More »
At a recent dinner with my two sisters, it occurred to me that their conversation would mystify anyone with a working right brain. Of course, it may well be that my middle aged, male brain is simply not agile enough to follow their discussion.
Mid-life crises come in many shapes and sizes. My younger brother’s came after he had his second heart attack before the age of 45 after which he quit his job, sold his South Florida house and bought a double-wide outside of Ocala where he can commune with nature and listen to the dueling banjos.
Even after 25 years together Ryan is still mystified by my emotional, expressive family, and I am equally mystified by his reserved, stoic family of New England WASPs. This caught up with me again on our holiday trip to visit his 90 year-old mother, whom we had not seen since last New Year’s.
My older sister recently cleaned out the storage shed in her backyard, although to say it was “cleaned out” is kind of an understatement. Her exterminator reported that he found what were undeniably rat droppings in her shed, and that shed was emptied, dismantled and hauled away by the end of the week. My
A friend who has a PhD in Psychology is considered the underachiever in her family. Her father is a cardiologist and her mother is an OB-GYN. Her sister, to whom she does not speak, is an anaestesiologist and her brother, to whom she also does not speak, is a brain surgeon. “I’m the black sheep,”
Does A Chicken Have Lips? Read More »
It was November, 1969 and there was a grey cloud over our house because Auntie Rose and Uncle Frank were coming to stay with us for the long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Things were simple when Mom cooked Thanksgiving dinner. She said “Dinner is at 4,” and her guests showed up on time. There was the expectation that she would cook a turkey and bake a pie. The guests brought wine, complimented her on the juiciness of her turkey and the richness of her stuffing. The guests
Thanksgiving Dinner, 2015 Read More »
