News you can use
News you can use
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A few weeks before Halloween and many years ago, when I was still married to my former husband, he and I and a couple we knew all decided we would celebrate Halloween dressed as the Midwest. At the time, it seemed like a clever idea. I was from Minnesota, my former husband was from Wisconsin, our friend, Becky, was from Iowa, and her husband, John, was from Illinois. We were all in our early twenties, all living in Oregon, and, as we imagined ourselves dressed as our home...
I love Little Free Libraries. If you don’t have these in your neighborhood, they are little boxes that look like tiny houses — not much larger than a big birdhouse — with a glass door on the front and books inside. People leave books they have read and pick up books they want to read and, somehow, the whole thing seems to work out pretty well most of the time. During the pandemic, I noticed that some little libraries went empty. The regular libraries were closed, and peopl...
This past week we attended the memorial for my husband Peter’s oldest sister, Shelley. Shelley went through a long battle with cancer, and Peter lost his second sister in two years. The pandemic had just started, her husband had just died, and Shelley moved 900 miles across the country to live near her kids. Then, almost immediately, she discovered she was gravely ill. She moved in with her son, Joel, and daughter-in-law, Dani, and never left. Shelley had several operations t...
It’s not always easy living with me. But my husband, Peter, has to. I know it is not easy, because I live with myself every day, and I feel the bits of anxiety and nervousness and occasional emotional overload escape out of me and flood the house that Peter has to live in. Sometimes, I feel bad for him. The problem I am currently facing is a little too much good news. I am well-conditioned to bad news. I know it is like a physical pain that will pass, often much sooner than I...
I met Betty sitting outside on the sidewalk. Betty spends a lot of time there. She lives in the adjacent building. It is a place for older folks who need a lot of help and don’t have a lot of money. Betty lost both legs, below the knee, at some point. She wears a curly wig pulled down low on her head, and she is usually smoking a cigarette, out on the sidewalk, accompanied by a few other residents from her building. I walk by Betty’s building a lot. “How are you doing today...
“I don’t remember you at all!” the portly man informed my husband, Peter. Peter smiled, introduced himself, and reminded the gentleman where they might have met half a century ago. The man shook his head. “Nope!” This was the first high school class reunion I had ever attended, and it was filled with moments like that. I have never gone to my own class reunions. I’m not sure why. I was busy. I lived far away. I never knew more than a tiny fraction of the students in my class...
It wasn’t much of a joke, as far as jokes go. I saw the man wearing two hats, one on top of the other. The second hat may have been for his wife. It was decorated with intricate drawings. He was walking with her, a third hat tied to the handle of a stroller, and the family was making its way through the artisan market, where hats and ceramics and glass and handwoven, hand-carved, handmade items of all types are sold. The man had his hands full, guiding the stroller loaded w...
I was walking down an old street in an old part of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Brightly colored wooden doors line the streets. There is no indication from the outside what might be within. It could be a courtyard filled with flowers and a fountain, or a small business, or somebody’s kitchen. It is a mystery what is behind these doors, and so, when one is open, naturally I look inside. Last week, a door was open, and I saw a few items of clothing for sale, so I stepped i...
The package arrived last week and, I have to admit, I was surprised. I knew what was in it, of course. It was a painting that my friends Angel, Nora and I co-own. I had it for one year 11 years ago. Then I brought it to Paris, where Angel was living. But Angel had no time to hang the painting. She had just moved to a new condo and was diagnosed with cancer. And so it remained rolled up under her bed for two years. That’s when Nora decided her turn had come — and she was rig...
My mother has found the perfect pet. She just doesn’t realize it yet. A clever little red squirrel has been trying to get my mother’s attention for months. “He’s such a pest!” my mother complains. But the squirrel does not give up. He has become quite tame, hanging out below the bird feeder, waiting for seeds to drop. He would much prefer to get them from the feeder himself, but my father has inconsiderately installed a length of stovepipe on the pole that holds the feeder, a...
I’ve been under some stress lately. I’ve written a novel, and now I have to wait to find someone who thinks it’s worth publishing. (I happen to think it is, for the record.) So, while I wait, I get more and more nervous. I know all the standard advice for this, and I try to follow it. I try to get plenty of sleep. (But how am I supposed to sleep when I don’t know what will happen tomorrow?!) I try to eat healthy foods at healthy times. (But how am I supposed to avoid snackin...
I have been trying, for as long as I can remember and with limited success, to learn Spanish. My husband, Peter, says I am good, but that is because he does not speak Spanish, so if I say anything that is understood by anyone, he regards it as a minor miracle. I feel that I have been stuck at about the same level of Spanish for at least 20 years. I can ask where things are and communicate in emergencies and exchange the usual greetings, then I dry up. I’d like to change that....
Verne knows me too well. For the first time in our lives, my husband, Peter, and I live in a building with a front desk. It’s nice to have someone there when packages are delivered, or contractors show up, and this person is usually Verne. Verne is a natural for the job. He knows everything going on in town. He knows when music is playing in the park and where the food trucks are parked and what time deliveries are made. But what interests Verne most is what goes on inside the...
It’s that time of year again. No, I am not talking about bikini season. I’m talking about bunion season. I did not even know I had a bunion until fairly recently and now, every time I start wearing sandals again, I am reminded that I do. I imagine it was growing on the sly for years before my husband, Peter, brought it to my attention. “You have a bunion,” he said. “I do not!” I immediately answered — because I had no idea what it was. “Yes, you do. Right there, on your foot....
"It's a great time to get old!" That's what my husband, Peter, says. He's right. And getting old is — as the saying goes — better than the alternative. I was thinking this while waiting for my father to get a pacemaker. My father had no idea he needed a pacemaker until two days before he got one. They had been monitoring his heart because he was suddenly so tired that he was getting winded going up a flight of stairs. My dad typically climbs a lot of stairs, so this was not a...
“Dress for the job you want!” was advice I heard from an early age. I took this advice to heart. I was working a lowly job in a government office while applying for jobs in businesses around town. I had never worked in business, but I had a freshly minted business degree, so I bought some suits and, every day, I showed up for my job (answering the same boring questions on the telephone) dressed for the job I wanted rather than the one I had. The day I got the call for an int...
Of course, we should have known something was wrong. The nice thing about living in our new condo is that we don’t have the responsibilities of a stand-alone home. There is no yard to rake, no snow to shovel. There is someone at the front desk who will take in our mail and even water our plants. We were so pleased that we could leave for an extended trip to Mexico without these worries. But then, we got a notice from our electric company that indicated our electric bill was v...
The plan was to buy everyone cake. My husband, Peter, and I are finally getting ready to leave Mexico, and we can’t say we are too happy about it. The last two months in San Miguel de Allende have convinced us that it is a place we want to return to, and now leaving it feels very hard — especially when my sister tells me about the freezing rain hitting her home right now. “We had to cancel our trip to visit Uncle Andy and Bea!” she tells me. “The roads were terrible!...
I have a weakness for grouchy people. I have a couple of friends I would describe as perpetually grouchy, and I’m not quite sure why, but I think they are good for me. To clarify, I’m not fond of being around people who are in the habit of deliberately messing up their lives. I think everyone has known at least one person like this, and it’s hard to watch. I see the train coming down the tracks. I hope my friend will alter course. I try not to be too bossy as I suggest it mi...
“What a sweet dog!” I said in Spanish. “She is a sweet dog,” the man walking her answered, in English. He had an Irish accent and was walking the young dog down the street as my husband, Peter, and I made our way home from dinner. “And she has no idea what will happen tomorrow,” he added. “What will happen tomorrow?” I asked. “She will get on a plane and fly to California!” he said. “Really?” “Really.” He sounded a little sad. “Are you going with her?” I asked. “No,” he said,...
“Maybe I’m a little old for this dress?” I suggested tentatively as I made my way to the mirror in the little shop. I was in the artisans’ market in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where they sell everything imaginable — and quite a few things I had never imagined. I was wearing a dress that had been hanging on a rack outside a tiny shop in the market. It was in my favorite colors. I’ve been collecting “my” colors, various shades of blue and green. It started with the bracel...
My great-uncle John never buttered his bread. “I don’t have time for butter!” he insisted. I never knew how much time butter took, but apparently it was more than Uncle John could spare. Time passes so often without notice. A day seems to pass in the time it takes to butter a piece of bread. Last night, my husband, Peter, said that we met seven years ago. “Eight years,” I corrected him. We will celebrate our seventh wedding anniversary next month and, while the romance w...
“I can always sleep in my rain jacket,” my husband, Peter, announced. Vacationing in rental homes is usually a bit of an adventure. We don’t need luxurious digs, and instead look for apartments offering a hefty discount if we stay for a full month. We did this three years ago in Pamplona, Spain. The apartment required climbing six flights of stairs, but it had a great view of the city — because we were right in the center of it. Only at night did this become a problem...
The bells ring more or less all the time here. My husband, Peter, and I are in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a city filled with old churches. Every old church has at least a couple of old bells, and all the bells are rung frequently. Since there is so much I do not understand when I travel to another country, I assumed that the bells rang according to some sort of system that everyone else understood and I did not. (This is an assumption I’ve made about a lot of things over t...
One reason to travel is to discover how things are done all over again. My husband, Peter, and I are in Mexico, and I was thinking this as we stood, confounded, in front of the washing machine. It would not start. There was a dizzying array of buttons and commands. I was pleasantly surprised to realize that I actually understood what almost all the buttons meant. Unfortunately, my Spanish skills were of no use whatsoever in making the machine start. “We need to put soap in i...
