I find it’s easier to be frugal when I avoid shopping malls, shopping catalogs, shopping websites, and (most of all) Target, the place where willpower goes to die. (Seriously what is up with Target? It’s like the consumerist tempting sorcerer peering into my American soul and wheedling me into purchasing that Clearance decorative vase. Target…
Category: Navel Gazing (and I Don’t Mean Oranges)
All Boy
A couple of weeks ago, a friend who is an ultrasound tech offered us a free gender ultrasound. (Technically, should be called a sex ultrasound, shouldn’t it?) “Make an appointment for when you hit 15 weeks, and I’ll make sure it’s recorded as No Charge,” she said. “Think Pink!” I called out, after I’d thanked…
Changing the Metrics
In February of last year, on the last day of my trip to Rio de Janeiro, I had the entire day to myself. I spent the morning riding skycars up to the Sugar Loaf Mountain and traipsing around a series of fetching wooded paths populated by tiny monkeys the size of squirrels. In the afternoon,…
Excerpts from “Blue Nights” and My Own As-Yet-Unwritten Memoir
Joan Didion wrote “The Year of Magical Thinking” after her husband, John Dunne, died of a heart attack at the dinner table, and her daughter, Quintana Roo, collapsed into a serious illness from which no doctor could retrieve her for 20 months. Shortly after The Year of Magical Thinking went to press, Quintana died as…
Extracting Light
I am struggling a little bit, just a little bit. A couple of tears slipped down my cheek when our church children’s choir sang Away in a Manger at our Lessons and Carols service this week. Afterwards our preacher read a stock prayer – dear Lord, be with the sick at heart. Dear Lord, comfort…