News you can use
News you can use
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I have a sticker that says “My Happy Place,” and I kept it for a while, wondering where to put it. In the end, I stuck it near my desk so I could see it while I write. I am usually happy when I’m writing. On Monday, however, I was not happy. I had a major technology breakdown, and I had no idea what I had done wrong. As it turned out, I had done nothing wrong (which is rare, when it comes to technology). Microsoft had a failure that lasted for almost two hours. During the t...
I like taking photos when I’m out of the country. Photographing things in Mexico is effortless. I’ll never understand the nuances of every festival or ritual, but I can enjoy the pageantry and the color and the incredible effort and artistry that goes in to creating so much beauty. Then I come back up north and look at the mud. It’s a big change. The skies were overcast for the first five days after my return from Mexico. The temperatures were unseasonably low. There was s...
The TSA agent looked stern — as they usually do. “I’d like to look inside this bag, ma’am,” he said. “No problem!” I always sound a little too eager when being questioned by an authority figure. I’m trying so hard to prove I have nothing to hide that I sound like I must have something to hide. The agent proceeded to open my carry-on bag. “It’s a bowl!” I told him, with a little too much enthusiasm. My husband, Peter, was supposed to have put the bowl in his checked luggage,...
Our landlord, Jorge, loves his suns. I am sure he loves his son, Jorge Jr., as well, but I am talking about the other kind of sun. This is why there are nearly 3,000 smiling sun faces decorating the hotel where we stay when we are in Mexico. Two more were added yesterday. Much of the time my husband, Peter, and I are in our little apartment in Jorge’s hotel, there is a team of artists working. Fabricio is the father, and usually at least two and sometimes three of his sons w...
I saw the burro wearing pants and carrying a basket filled with paper flowers. “Oh, my gosh!” I said. “That poor burro.” There are several burros with this job in this Mexican town and, as burro employment goes, it’s a pretty easy gig. The burro wears a rustic basket filled with bright paper flowers and is led by a man in a similarly rustic costume, and they follow wedding processions, providing photo opportunities for the guests. The burro is photographed dozens of times and...
My husband, Peter, is trying to impress a local collie. Peter knows better than this. He had a collie for many years. Collies are not easily impressed. They have their own priorities and their own agenda and if it happens to coincide with yours, you can pretend they did something on your behalf — but you’d be lying to yourself. But Peter still loves collies. The current object of Peter’s affection is named Lassero and lives on a road Peter takes every day on his hike. Peter...
Anxiety likes numbers. I only recently realized that a lot of my anxiety fixates on meaningless numbers. I like to know how many there are of a particular thing and then attach meanings — usually sinister, sometimes hopeful, always unreasonable — to these numbers. How many words are in this column? Six hundred exactly. Why are there 600 words? Because I once read that 600 words was a good length for a column, I have always written exactly 600. Never more. Never less. But if...
My husband, Peter, and I are staying in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, which is, according to a lot of folks, a tourist town. Sometimes, the person saying this means it is not a place they would want to spend time. This puzzles me. I’m not sure why a town known for meatpacking or manufacturing would be a better place to spend time than a town known for tourism. But I respect anyone’s right to spend time wherever they want, and Peter and I are happy in San Miguel, in large par...
I spent last week trying to be useful. I volunteered for a writers’ conference in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where my husband, Peter, and I stay. I love writers’ conferences. I love that people will travel from far away just to talk about writing, to meet other writers, to learn about writing, to listen to established writers, and to eat. It was a terrific week, although it was tiring because I ended up as the designated conference sheepdog. Every event of this kind nee...
My husband, Peter, does not believe in Valentine’s Day. I mean, he knows it is a thing. It’s just a thing he prefers to ignore. “Stupid!” That is Peter’s verdict. Peter takes offense whenever there is a big marketing effort aimed at getting him to buy things in order to show affection. He feels this way about Christmas, believing it has become too commercialized. He feels this way about birthdays, insisting that the day of his birth is nothing to celebrate. Buying gifts for...
“The worst thing,” I told my mother, “was when you made us eat venison sausage for lunch. That sausage lasted forever!” I am visiting my parents, and we somehow got to discussing our less-than-favorite foods. My mother always made wonderful school lunches with fresh fruit and a homemade cookie. But memory is fickle. What I remember most clearly was when my father brought home from work what seemed to me, as an elementary-school-age kid, a venison sausage the size of a basebal...
It was snowing hard, the way it almost never does anymore, and I decided I needed to go for my walk, heedless of the weather. “I probably won’t be gone long!” I texted a friend in California as I headed out the door looking like an Arctic explorer. The snow was coming down fast and sideways. Many businesses were closed, and the streetlights had eerily popped on at midday. Once outside, I wondered if this was such a good idea. It was impossible to keep the snow out of my eyes....
“I have to say, that is a very nice hat!” I told the man as he passed me on the sidewalk. The man in the snazzy blue fedora had a serious look on his face, as if he was thinking deeply about something far more important than the indigo-blue hat with the red feather sitting on his head. But whatever less-than-cheerful thought had been preoccupying him (the gathering clouds? The declining stock market? His expanding waistline?), it was whisked away when I complimented his dapper...
I almost threw away my old lace napkins. They have rust stains on them. In order to cover the stains, I threw them in a pot of green dye and boiled them. The dye was not a success. The napkins all came out in slightly varying shades of green, and the rust stains — while less noticeable — were still there. I used them once and was self-conscious the whole time. “People are going to think I didn’t wash the napkins!” I worried. But I washed them again, ironed them and kept them...
“Aren’t you the cutest dog?” I asked the chubby brindle pit bull mix walking down the sidewalk. Objectively, she was not the cutest dog, I suppose. But there is no such thing as an ugly dog, as we all know. She was wearing a brand-new jacket with colorful pockets and a hood and, to top it off, had matching booties. She looked a little self-conscious — as we all are when we get dressed up for the first time in a while — and I thought she could use a little reassuran...
A couple of days ago, a friend of mine posted something written by a friend of his on Facebook. This is what she had to say: “I’ve been contemplating what I really miss in life. Why do I feel this empty space? I have not felt completely full in a very long time. I miss the outdoors ... a good hike, fishing or camping. No radio, cellphone, TV, movies or internet. Just the birds, the river running ... just the sound of crickets. “I miss a good, deep, solid conversation about...
A new year is coming, and I am focusing on the small stuff. It is popular to make big, sweeping statements in a new year about the things that will change and be accomplished. I noticed a few years back that these grand announcements rarely had much effect. What mattered, if I wanted to live a different kind of life, was the little things I did every day. I take my walk. I write a few words. I do my pushups. I’ve gotten used to watching in amazement how a tiny action, done d...
I don’t consider myself a person bound by tradition. Usually, I’m all about change, encouraging people to change and looking for ways to change myself. I generally think that new experiences make life both more memorable and meaningful. Except for Christmas. I want Christmas to remain exactly the same. Nearly every year of my life, Christmas Eve has been celebrated with my father and his family. My dad has only one sister, my Auntie Jo, so this has been relatively easy. My...
I put my feet on the floor, first thing in the morning, and take a look at them. They are not the most attractive feet, that’s just a fact. I have big feet and skinny ankles and it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how much they resemble duck feet, but I try not to dwell on it. The point is, they are good, stable feet. They don’t hurt and they carry me on my daily walk, and I am grateful to have them — even if they are a little bigger and less attractive than they mi...
The fruit lady has my number. One of the things I like in Mexico — and other countries we have visited in the past — is buying fruits and vegetables from a stand, run by a family. I love wandering through the market, looking at all the unfamiliar things and asking questions. “Is this for today or for tomorrow?” I ask in Spanish, wondering if it is ripe enough to eat immediately. The fruit vendors know when something is ripe. I load up my bags with papaya and little sweet b...
It’s an odd experience watching someone fold your underwear. I was thinking this yesterday as I was waiting for my laundry. When my husband, Peter, and I packed to go to Mexico, we knew there would be a wide range of temperatures. San Miguel de Allende is in the mountains, so the days can be quite hot, and the nights can be cold, and the weather changes a lot in November everywhere, so we had to be prepared for anything. We do not have a washing machine in the little place we...
My husband, Peter, and I feel like social butterflies. We certainly are not. But it feels as if we are because we are staying in a new city and finding it is easier to make new friends than any time since we were children. When Peter and I moved back to Minnesota to be closer to our family, we missed our old routines and the friends we used to spend time with. Moving to a new city did not bring with it a lot of new friends. Everyone already had friends. Peter and I saw a lot...
We thought we would miss the festivities, which just shows how much we still have to learn about Mexico. My husband, Peter, and I arrived in San Miguel de Allende on the 2nd of November. “It’s too bad we’ll miss the Day of the Dead,” I told Peter when he made reservations. I knew a little about the Day of the Dead. I’d seen the elaborate skeleton costumes and the cemeteries filled with flowers and families. I figured it would be all over. But when we arrived, the streets w...
I am delighted to report that my mother has come around. I have been lobbying my mother for months to take pity on a little red squirrel who had acquired a great fondness for her, demonstrating his devotion by digging up all her flowerpots and gazing at her for minutes at a time through the window. My mother spent the summer shooing him off the deck and telling him to “scram” when she saw him through the window. “He loves you, Mom.” “I don’t love him!” The little squirr...
My husband, Peter, says they are rushing the season. I’m not sure who “they” are. The Christmas Cartel, perhaps. The vast conspiracy of premature holiday merrymakers. Whoever they are, Peter does not approve. And he does have a point. There are still life-size skeletons scaling the walls of a huge brick house I walk by every day. The remains of jack-o’-lanterns are still sitting on the stoops — although the squirrels have eaten off most of their faces, making them much scarier...
