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
They say you never forget your first time. I was a newlywed, newly arrived in Ohio, and felt enormously flattered when a kind acquaintance invited me to join a prestigious book club that had been meeting for more than a century. That month’s selection was Madame Bovary, in which a bored 19th century housewife has…
It’s never easy being different, especially in high school. Just ask the much-bullied Josh Duff, a neurodivergent free-thinker who was dreading his upcoming prom, which he planned to attend alone, in an outfit sewn by his mom. Then his dad reached out to some pals he rode motorcycles with, and the response was astonishing. On…
“One day when Troy was four and Scott was two,” my friend Ginnie said during a Sunday picnic, “Scott came running in, tears pouring out of his little eyes, with a big red bite mark on his cheek. ‘What happened?’ I asked. Troy came in after him and said, ‘Scott bit himself!’ I said, ‘Oh,…
It seemed like such a no-brainer. Two harassed parents, four of us kids under the age of ten, a long drive, a hot day, and a glimpse of an empty white sand beach on the California coast. “Let’s stop for a swim!” my mom said. We pulled over, tugged on our bathing suits, and dashed…
Rich has always had a firm grasp on life’s essentials. When I mentioned the Puppy Ice Cream Social, he said, “You had me at ice cream.” For me, the irresistible draw was the chance to play with puppies. In these challenging times, there seems to be greater truth than ever to Charles de Gaulle’s famous…
Remember when you were little and would do anything to avoid eating vegetables? I vividly recall being eight years old and watching in awe as a toddler of my acquaintance had the bright idea of getting rid of unwanted mashed potatoes by spooning them into their diaper. (Not surprisingly, this ploy did not escape adult…
There is something about walking into a prison and hearing the inner gate clang shut behind you that really makes you think about life choices. I had no phone, no money, not even a pen to use as a shiv. I’d been told that if an alarm went off I should freeze. If there was…
In my California village, just across from the park that has the statues of Yoda and Indiana Jones, there’s a huge mural emblazoned with the words “Choose Kindness.” Whenever I feel overwhelmed by current events, I wander over and gaze at it awhile, reminding myself that despite what we read in the headlines, most people…
There’s a famous urban legend about a woman vacationing in Tijuana who adopts a stray chihuahua puppy. She takes it home and discovers — surprise! — it’s actually a sewer rat. (Why she doesn’t notice this until she gets home is never quite explained. Maybe she’d forgotten to pack her eyeglasses.) National Geographic reported an…
A teenager taking a selfie with a squirrel in the woods. What could possibly go wrong? “I approached it making a clicking noise with my tongue, phone drawn,” Brian Genest, 17, told Buzzfeed . “When I got close enough, the squirrel actually tried grabbing my phone. I shook it off, then snapped this photo.”…
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.
