My blog has migrated to a new host and is being painstakingly reconstructed here. Please bear with me as I iron out wrinkles, hammer out the dents, and apply enough spit and duct tape to hold it all together.— Karen
After the earthquake last Saturday night, as soon as the couch stopped shaking, I turned to Rich and said, “So it’s true. Mother Earth really is trying to kill us.” It wasn’t Her best effort; a mere 4.2 on the Richter scale, just enough to startle. By the time I realized it might be wise…
OK, 2021, the hour of reckoning has come. Yes, already! You can’t deny we performed all the proper rituals — red underwear, grapes, buckets of water out the door , 360 million glasses of champaign in the US alone. Frankly, we gave you the most enthusiastic welcome of any year in the history of time.…
I no longer make New Year’s resolutions — which only 8% of people keep anyway — but this time around I’m making an exception. And I’m serious. No matter how desperate I am for something new to watch, I will not stream the movie Songbird . Haven’t heard of it? Here’s the premise: It’s the…
In a non-pandemic year (remember those?), I often skip New Year’s Eve. By the time I’ve partied my way through Halloween, Thanksgiving, Winter Solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and our wedding anniversary (December 27th, 34 years ago), I’m usually longing for a night in with my feet up. But not this year. I am staying…
When Ernest Hemmingway was writing A Farewell to Arms , he asked F. Scott Fitzgerald to critique the manuscript. Fitzgerald’s thoughtful, nuanced analysis ran for ten pages and suggested changing the ending. Hemingway’s reply? A succinct, “Kiss my ass.” This story appeared in my horoscope this week, followed by, “I suggest a different approach for…
Navigating the holidays requires every bit of wit, grit, and gumption we’ve got. Take shopping, for instance. Fun at first, it quickly degenerates into a morass of doubts: “Is this enough? Too much? Did I give this to them last year? Did they give one just like it to me?” When David Niven was an…
“Who is that glamorous couple?” I asked Bill the Printer one long ago snowy day in Ohio. He’d just run off a stack of holiday cards featuring a gorgeously lit photo of a handsome couple in evening dress. “Are they actors? Millionaire philanthropists?” Bill laughed. “That’s what they want you to think. They’re Joan and…
Many of my Spanish friends are firmly convinced of two things: 1) Thanksgiving is the most significant holiday in the US calendar, and 2) all American women spend their leisure hours sewing quilts. In vain have I protested that I’ve never quilted in my life. Equally impossible is convincing them that the prevalence of Thanksgiving…
I come from a family of light sleepers, and my ability to snooze for eight solid hours — a slippery goal at best — has not improved during the jittery pandemic months. Has anyone’s? Sleep experts talk of “a second pandemic of insomnia” and “coronasomnia.” But I’m resting a bit easier now that I’ve learned…
Merriment Turns to Mayhem When Halloween Prank Goes Wrong! Every year we see headlines about practical jokes taken too far. Like the October 31st my friend returned from college to find the family home empty, furniture overturned, the kitchen splashed with what looked like blood. She freaked, fled, and called the cops, who tracked down…
CELEBRATING GOOD NEIGHBORS These days I’m writing about Good Neighbors, exploring how the people around me are working to help each other get through these challenging times. My weekly posts appear on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on my travel and research schedule.
THIS BLOG IS A PROMOTION-FREE ZONE. As my regular readers know, I never get free or discounted goods or services for mentioning anything on this blog (or anywhere else). I only write about things I find interesting and/or useful.
