News you can use
News you can use
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The fact is, I am spoiled. I never get sick. I’ve never spent a night in a hospital since I was born (and then, my mother stayed with me). I’ve never broken a bone. I’ve never had a major operation. I am absurdly healthy, and I can take no credit for any of this. So, naturally, when I get sick, I am insufferable. It always starts in the same way. I get a sore throat. First, I ignore it. I have found this is the best way to deal with imminent disasters. When I used to drive...
I was lying in bed the other night in the little apartment my husband, Peter, and I rent in Mexico, and thinking that things were perfect. Then I wondered what that meant. Because, without trying very hard at all, I could come up with things that were far from perfect — in the world, in the neighborhood, even in my body if I really started digging. But it did not prevent me from feeling that — at that moment, lying in bed, listening to the distant cacophony of noises out...
We have had our adopted Mexican street cat, Felix, for a month now. “Has he bulked out?” I asked my husband, Peter, as we watched Felix, standing on his back legs and walloping the tattered mouse hanging from his sisal scratching post. Felix looked like a boxer, beating the remaining stuffing out of his helpless little toy mouse. Bits of fur and mouse innards were strewn around the kitchen. But the carnage was not limited to the kitchen. Living with a cat, you start to eye gra...
I had a discouraging day yesterday. I don’t expect anyone to keep track — heck, I can’t keep track half the time. But I got another rejection of my book from another editor with another publishing house. I’ve read the stories of how long it has taken well-known authors to sell their first novel. A publisher has to put a lot of money into a new book, and the odds are slim that a writer’s first book will ever earn that money back. Publishers know this and so they are understan...
“I like your hair!” a woman at the party said. This is always nice to hear. My hair is my least endearing feature, primarily because there is not much of it. But since my husband, Peter, started cutting it, I worry a lot less. “How does my hair look?” I ask as I head out the door. Peter always pretends to take this question very seriously. (He should, as my hairdresser.) He scrutinizes the top of my head for a long moment. He asks me to turn all the way around. Then he reac...
“I’ve been reading about cats,” my husband, Peter, tells me. Peter has never had a cat before. “Oh, yeah?” “Salt is not good for their kidneys. We have to give Felix unsalted fish.” Felix is our adopted street cat here in Mexico. He is coming back to the U.S. with us in a fancy backpack carrier I found online. It has mesh on either side, with one big plexiglass bubble in the back, so Felix can watch his fellow passengers in comfort. He hasn’t flown yet, but our trips to an...
My husband, Peter, and I were surprised that two plates were missing. We stay in our little apartment in Mexico and, while we’re gone, all our dishes and glasses remain in the cupboards. We pack away most of our spices, but we leave the vegetable steamer and the pressure cooker and all the art on the walls. We leave it all in the apartment which, we assume, is rented out to other people while we are gone, although it is hard to know for sure because everything is always r...
Last night was surprisingly calm, all things considered. I told my husband, Peter, that he should not plan to get a good night’s sleep. I told him this because Peter has never had a cat, and yesterday, we adopted one. I have had several cats over the years, but my last cat, Lucy, died just a few months before I met Peter, 10 years ago. Peter has had dogs all his life and knows nothing about cats (which means every cat who has ever met him finds him fascinating). So we d...
While a person may buy a cake here in Mexico seven days a week from early morning to late at night, getting any other kind of dessert is more challenging. There is a bakery I walk by every day. Everything is fresh and in bins. Customers pick up a metal tray and tongs and select what they want, then bring it up to the counter. The tray is returned to the pile. The tongs are hung neatly with the other tongs. It is a great system, except that the tray holds a lot of baked goods...
My husband, Peter, and I landed in Mexico again, and we did what we have done in the past. We bought an enormous cake. It’s nice to have a cake in the house. I have discovered it is not necessarily a good idea to eat cake every day, as it eventually makes my clothes too small. But I do like cake, and I especially like Mexican cake, and more than anything, I like giving cake away. We love the folks who work at this hotel. When I say “hotel,” you might be thinking of some swank...
My husband, Peter, and I are headed out to Mexico again, and before we do, I thought it was a good time of year to check in with some folks I care about, to see how 2024 had been treating them so far. First, I had dinner with my oldest friend, Andrew. He told me about his mother, who lives alone and has been feeling her 92 years. Her activities are becoming more limited, and she may move into a smaller place. She’s figuring out what she is still able to do, and how much is e...
My dad turned 90 this weekend, and we were all set to drive up north to celebrate his birthday. He’s a hard one to buy a present for. My dad does not need more things. He likes using the things he has until they are completely worn out. He already has a line of slippers on his top shelf, queued up for when the pair he’s wearing is threadbare. He wore his last pair of hiking boots until his socks showed through. Besides, he said “No presents!” in a very persistent way. So my s...
“Perfection is the enemy of progress,” according to Winston Churchill. It’s the time of year when we try to do too much, change too quickly. Already expectations are lowering, and reality is setting in. The sky is gray, the temperatures cold, and I am coming to grips with the fact that I cannot eat toffee every day. (At least, not a lot of toffee every day.) It’s the mid-January new year letdown. More people die this time of year than on average. I imagine they make it through...
My nephew, Beau, keeps me on my toes. Keeping on my toes is a good way to develop balance and agility. It is also a good way to fall on my face and embarrass myself. But since I don’t spend a lot of time with teenagers — and not nearly enough with Beau — I am trying. Right now, he’s trying to convince me that I need a mechanical keyboard for my computer. I am old enough to remember typing class in high school. The “thunk, thunk, thunk!” sound of hitting keys is not a pleas...
I drove my parents to their cabin this week. My mom is having some terrible pain in her jaw and wasn’t sure she was up to the drive, and my dad doesn’t see well enough to drive anymore. I felt lucky to spend time in the car with them, driving north. There was almost no snow. It was strange to drive so far north in the winter and see the floor of the forest bare. The first thing I did when we got to the cabin was look for Stubby, my mother’s pet red squirrel. Of course, Stubb...
It’s the time of year when I look back and see where I’ve been and wonder where I’m going. On the shortest days of the year, I like to do a little recalibration. I take a look at what I had hoped to do and ways in which I want to change my thinking. Some years I have had major changes in the works — going back to school or starting a new career. Other years, my biggest ambition has been to finish off the last of the Christmas cookies before the year’s end in case they have...
The children were in the pew in front of me. We had not arrived early enough at my sister’s church for the Christmas Eve service to secure a seat in the back, so we were in the fourth row. The first row is never used by anyone; the second row is only for people who arrive impossibly late. The third row is, for all intents and purposes, the front row, and that’s where these two wild-looking children were. The children were provisioned with colored pencils and drawing paper but...
I tend to be a Christmas maximalist; at least if you ask my husband, Peter, that’s what he would say. Peter would dispense with the tree, the presents and most of the outings. He’d hang a few ornaments on a houseplant, have a nice meal and go to bed early. But Peter cares for me a lot, and he knows how much I love Christmas. I want a live tree. If I can’t chop it down myself, I’ll haul it home from the hardware store. I want lights on the balcony and a little present for eve...
I tend to be a Christmas maximalist; at least if you ask my husband, Peter, that’s what he would say. Peter would dispense with the tree, the presents and most of the outings. He’d hang a few ornaments on a houseplant, have a nice meal and go to bed early. But Peter cares for me a lot, and he knows how much I love Christmas. I want a live tree. If I can’t chop it down myself, I’ll haul it home from the hardware store. I want lights on the balcony and a little present for eve...
We had dinner with friends last night. There is nothing unusual about that, except these were all people I did not know; people my husband, Peter, had met while taking his daily hike in Mexico. This was not the first gathering of Peter’s friends we’ve had. My self-professed introvert of a husband has become something of a social butterfly outside of the U.S. He goes to the same botanical nature reserve to hike every day and he meets new people and forms new friendships. Pet...
I have always liked Thanksgiving. I know its origins are dubious. I cringe a little when I think about the construction paper American Indian costumes and the happy story I learned as a child about that first Thanksgiving. I cringe a little more when I read about people missing their holiday meal so they can work at retail jobs where customers trample one another at the store’s entrance to get in and buy things. I don’t understand this, I have to confess. I have never bee...
It’s important to have a good coffee cup. My husband, Peter, makes the coffee, and has since we were married. We will be celebrating nine years of marriage this spring, so you might not be surprised to hear that I no longer remember how to make coffee. This is called “learned helplessness” in psychology circles, and is certainly true in my case. Peter makes the coffee, and I drink it. This seems to me like a fair division of labor. And having the proper cup is essen...
I just spent a wonderful long weekend with my sister and her son, Beau, “up north” at my parents’ cabin. Stubby the red squirrel is doing well. Since the tragic loss of the end of his tail (and his subsequent unofficial adoption by my mother), he has flourished. The end of his tail, while still cut off at a sharp angle, has sprouted an impressive line of dark fur, and he looks dapper, sitting on the railing, shaking his tail and showing off his new plumage. Mom still dutif...
My Auntie Jo gave me a beautiful pair of gloves yesterday. They are elegant, with embroidery on the top, and I immediately did what I usually do — I put them away for safekeeping. “I’ll wear these to something special!” I told myself. I have a date to go with my niece to see “Peter Pan” in December. I decided I would wear those gloves when I go out with my beautiful 20-year-old niece before she heads out to Spain to study for a semester in Madrid. That will certainly b...
I have always loved Halloween, and I love it now more than ever. I love to get in costume and have fun with other people in costume. People seem freer when they are dressed in different clothes. They seem to have a little more fun. I like the challenge of making or putting together elaborate costumes but, as the years passed, I’ve done less and less of it. Costume parties seem to be less common, and I don’t spend time in bars, so the opportunity to celebrate the holiday has...
