For my big fat vacation  This won’t be just any vacation.  My husband, my younger son, his wife, and her parents will meet up next week in Nairobi. After a couple of nights to let our internal clocks catch up, the six of us will then embark on a 10-day tour of some of Kenya’s…

As a straight woman of a certain age, you may not find this surprising. But still . . . Having grown up in an era of stupidly rigid norms, I absorbed through my pores the notion that commercial establishments were gendered. Some were targeted toward females — dress shops, obviously, but also shoe stores, fabric stores, and…

Six Reasons I Won’t Date Younger Men To be clear, I don’t want to date anyone, period. I’m happily married to a man my age. Actually, he’s eight months older. That means that for half of every year, he gets to be married to a younger woman. And for six months of each year, I…

Learning to live past grief: a podcast episode not to miss 1 Whether or not you believe in a soul that survives physical death — some form of consciousness that moves on to another realm of existence, or perhaps diffuses into a higher, unseen plane of the one we already occupy — is a matter…

But you might not know that from the expression on my face “Are you mad at me?” my husband asks. I look up from my laptop, blinking at him in bewilderment. “What? No. Why would I be mad at you?” “It’s just, from the look on your face,” he explains, “I thought I’d said something…

But it’s a journey we all take one day. So let’s talk packing tips  Here’s a snippet of an article I read once: A cardiologist gave a speech to a room full of health professionals. “One-quarter of the people in this room will die of heart disease,” he said, and then waited a beat before continuing.…

But not like this Let’s not do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLBQpsQ8zQU It was a long, hard winter in the Northern Hemisphere this year, and spring took its dang time in coming. When it finally did, it brought with it stuff we’re not supposed to have to confront for months.  Epic wildfires in Canada spewed a miasma of…

Another gift of the aging process I wish I could return It’s happening more and more often. I come in from doing yard work, take off my gardening gloves, and there it is. A spot that I swear wasn’t there this morning.  It could be the size of a pea, or a quarter, sometimes a…

A battle for life in a strip mall parking lot We were heading home from a graduation party, along a route we’ve driven a thousand times before, past gas stations, car repair shops, a supermarket with its satellite storefronts ranged around a yawning parking lot.  On the opposite corner is a drugstore, a deli, and a…