This is just a moment. It’s an ordinary ….and yet extraordinary moment. And I want to capture it here. I’m standing in the kitchen cooking dinner, listening to some jazz. Bob hears a song he likes, and picks up his guitar to play along. I’m so taken with this. With him. It’s so easy to […]
Fashion Forward Farmers
We couldn’t send our fashion-loving daughters down to NYC for a month to study clothing design and construction without taking a few field trips into the depths of one of the fashion savviest metropolises in the world. New York doesn’t just do new fashion. It does what Saoirse and Ula love best, which is second-hand, or vintage, […]
Everyone Else’s Expectations
It was the hardest lesson I had to learn as a writer. If people who never met me liked something I wrote, they somehow got it in their heads that I was….well…likable and admirable. But every person has different qualities that they find likable and admirable. And I couldn’t possibly have all those qualities. So when […]
How the Sausage Gets Made
No. This is not pornography. This is artificial insemination. Winter is a time of intimacies….and not just for humans. This week we separated the rams from the ewes, their breeding cycle complete. And we’ve been monitoring the pigs for when they come into heat so that we can artificially inseminate them. In January, my […]
Red Sky at Morning
Photo by Pixabay “You can’t miss it if you don’t know it’s gone.” Mom remains her pragmatic, equanimous self as we sit by the tree on Christmas morning after doing chores. She lost a chunk of her memories after a major heart surgery back in 2016. This fall, she’s been in and out of […]
Blessed be.
The shortest day, the longest night. It doesn’t matter what, if any, religious affiliation a person ascribes to. It is the reality of the earth and the seasons. And for our family, it is our most sacred night of the year. Tomorrow, the sun begins it’s slow journey back up into the sky, where it […]
The Holiday Bill of Rights
Meet Norbert. He’s a Norfolk pine, and he was the first houseplant I dared buy for myself that wasn’t a succulent. Prior to his entry into my life, as much as I loved houseplants, I didn’t dare acquire anything that couldn’t endure neglect. He entered my world during my perimenopausal years, a time when I […]
Thanks Matters
Like so many traditional holidays, Thanksgiving has a dark origin story — Colonialism. Slavery. Epidemics. These are all important issues to consider as we work to build a socially just, kind world. Gratitude is equally important. I reflect on both sides of the holiday this week. But I cannot let the dark history over-shadow […]
Home again.
“If I wanted to stand in sheep shit in the rain, I could’ve stayed home!” That’s Bob’s favorite quote from me from the trip. The tourism website’s description of October in Ireland was “cool and crisp…with plenty of daylight.” I’d add soggy and windy to that description. Like most Irish Americans, my “immigrant story” begins […]
The Exception Proves The Rule
We were in the city for Bob’s latest appointment at the Proton Center, but as part of our journey to keep the cancer dance as pleasant and upbeat as possible, we visited the butterfly vivarium at the Museum of Natural History. You should know that I’m not very patient in art museums. Nor in science […]
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