PinnedMember-onlyThe Year That Wasn’tIn 2021, we didn’t go to visit my sister for her birthday, because the numbers were high and no one wanted to risk it. None of us had had the vaccine yet. I went in June by myself and saw my niece and my new nephew. …Despair4 min read
Jan 28Member-onlyJunior Year of the PandemicHow I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Quarantine — Been a long time since March of 2020, and yet here we still are. In March of 2020. March the 699th. Tomorrow will be March 700th. Everyone is tired. The people with jobs are tired. The people with kids are tired. People with both are REALLY tired, I bet, because…Covid Diaries6 min read
Jan 4Member-onlyPuzzles, Popovers, and Physical TherapyThis week we are doing a new puzzle, because January is puzzle month now. It is cold, and no one wants to go anywhere anyway. In our house, there is a puzzle, and central heating, and I have made popovers three days in a row. There’s something supremely satisfying about…Food3 min read
Jan 3Member-onlyA Dog at 6 degreesThe dog is not enamored of the weather, which will go down to six degrees tonight. That’s Fahrenheit, for those of you from civilized nations who aren’t still measuring your distances using a measure derived from the length of your average barleycorn in 1024. …Dogs2 min read
Jan 2Member-onlyThere is light in dishesThere is an incomparable solitary beauty in the sheen of light that reflects from a spoon new-cleaned as you dry it.Homemaking1 min readPhoto by Anna Kumpan on UnsplashThere is light in dishes----1
Oct 31, 2020Member-onlyDonald Trump has decided to take the Republicans down with himThey have decided to take the United States. — First of all, we all need to admit that Donald Trump is losing this election. Even he knows it. This man has gotten up on his hind legs in front of scads of people and told us all that he is planning on losing, because he doesn’t know how to…US Politics4 min read
Oct 31, 2020Member-onlyThe Point is CrueltyIn which I blow up my own neutrality I have tried, very hard, to keep this page non-political, at least in the capital-P US electoral politics sense. I know it’s a cliche by now, but I really do still have friends (and family!) …Politics7 min read
Sep 17, 2020Member-onlyIt’s Still Not Normal NowTen years from now, I will describe this year as painful, exhausting, and intermittently terrifying. Hopefully, I will be describing it that way. I plan to be alive 10 years from now, even though just lately the 1930s-Germany cosplay makes me pretty nervous. The thing our country reminds me of…Mental Health7 min read
Aug 2, 2020Member-onlyOf Ants and ChopsticksThis morning, at 7 am on a Sunday, I emptied two drawers and threw out 100 chopsticks because I wanted to make a pie. I don’t have a lot of time during the work week, this time of year, but I often have solitude on weekends — I can’t sleep…Life6 min read
May 10, 2020Member-onlyParenting in PlaceA story from the pandemic. This story was presented as the sermon for the James Reeb Unitarian Universalist Congregation on May 5, 2020. Last year, in August, I wrote an essay about my grown son, who was leaving for college the next day. It talked about how, in leaving, he…Family6 min read
