Suprise Me

As workers, we used what tools we had easily at our disposal to save: IRAs. But other than that, we enjoyed being DINKs (dual income, no kids). We didn’t have children until we’d been married 11 years. At that time, we set up a college fund and started to set aside serious money each month.… Read More

14 years old, out of braces, in contact lenses…I had arrived! The ugly duckling had blossomed. 1967, my first summer in High School Division at the National Music Camp (now the Interlochen Arts Camp) and I thought I was BIG STUFF! I got to wear powder blue knee socks, designating HSG, no longer red socks… Read More

Add a land line phone and a black-and-white TV with a coat hanger for an antenna, and my décor was almost complete. Read More

Looking back at August-September 2001 brings to mind the opening of A Tale of Two Cities, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The two weeks prior to what we now just refer to as 9/11 contained some of the best times of my life, and then, of course, the… Read More

My daughter and my teenage grandchildren spent the pandemic in Israel where things were a lot more comfortable than here. While the boys went to school virtually, they were free to see their friends after school. When vaccinations became available, my daughter and her husband got them immediately, but the 16 year old called me… Read More

I already knew how to read when I got to kindergarten. I could write my first name in capital letters. I also knew colors and numbers and days of the week. This was partly because my sisters thought it was fun to teach me, and partly because, as the third child in the family, I… Read More

The night after my father died I received a call from an older first cousin, trying to console me. He remembered that I was a serious little girl who LOVED jewelry. Funny, but not a surprising combination, since my maternal grandfather owned a jewelry store in Toledo, OH and when we visited, I would press… Read More

In Canada, new programs were suddenly in place for the unemployed and businesses. Schools closed, gatherings were progressively smaller.  Everything was changed, reminding me that “normal” can dissipate overnight. I harbored a guilty thought—could world-on-pause be something good? Read More

A big part of aging is coming to see it's not as bad as you thought it was when you were young. Read More

The meaning of Altered States brings to mind a drug familiarization lecture I once attended, presented by a DEA Agent. To gauge our beginning level of knowledge, he asked a few questions of the group.  One was, “What is a narcotic?”  Several answers were shouted out, all met with a short explanation of why they… Read More