Flowers on the Windshield  After more than a year together I knew our marriage wasn’t working.   As we had no kids,  no communal property to speak of it,  and little contention between us,  it was a relatively simple divorce.  The grounds Alan and I agreed on were irreconcilable differences – which I guess is… Read More

Mr Skeleton  Every Halloween when my son was young he and the other kids in our 17 story apartment building would start on the top floor and work their way down ringing doorbells. And for the kids who rang our bell,  we’d set up a spooky tableau with a floppy plastic skeleton we kept for… Read More

Body and Soul Our generation may indeed be the last to remember when family doctors made house calls with their little black bags and really got to know their patients.  Nowadays with HMOs and PPOs,  and pre-authorization,  and all the other health insurance red tape and rigamarole,  it may seem harder to find a doctor… Read More

Poke-Nook,  the Lost Glove,  and My Cousin Isly Our late friend Arnie Reisman was a poet and filmmaker,  and also a regular panelist on Says You,  a witty NPR radio show about words.  Over the years I learned a lot from Arnie and his literate pals.  For example,  did you know that the dark,  cavernous… Read More

Don’t Know Much About History I’m sure most of us with birthdays inching up to four score haven’t gotten this far in life without chalking up some regrets. Did I pursue my early aspirations for an actor’s life?  I didn’t – a reget.  (See Theatre Dreams) On our honeymoon we met a lovely couple from New… Read More

Tennis Woes I’ve written recently about my pickleball addiction and also about my long,  and rather lackluster tennis career and my parents’ unforgivable role in it.  (See Pickled) Here’s more about that disappointing chapter in my sporting life. My parents were both athletic,  in facf my father was a really good tennis player in his… Read More

Carving Mr Pumpkin It seems just yesteryear,  in our kitchen Noah at age 5  (did I really let him wield that sharp knife?)  and Sarah at 6  (my friend Celia’s sweet niece,  now a mother herself). Me with a headache  (“Dana’s famous migraines”,  I once heard Celia call them). “Go lie down,  I’ll watch the… Read More

Ferdinand “Once upon a time in Spain there was a little bull and his name was Ferdinand.” So begins one of the most cherished children’s books of our time,  and my own childhood favorite.  The Story of Ferdinand,  written by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson,   was published in 1936 while across the… Read More

Art Imitates Life I don’t remember my mother Jessie saying  “When life gives you lemons,  make lemonade.”  but it certainly was her modus vivendi.  (See My Game Mother) Coming of age during the depression in New York’s Far Rockaway,  my mother’s parents were necessarily frugal.   But although money was tight,  her lawyer-father was able… Read More

Distracted I’m a big reader –  or at least I was.    (See Book Slut, or Why I’m in Six Book Clubs) Actually a therapist once questioned whether I had an attention deficit because I told him I was easily distracted. –  I invariably forget pots on the stove,  and my son is not the only… Read More