“Over the years I’ve developed the self-image of a shopkeeper. Mainly it’s my business to open the joint at a set time, to sit and wait. If I have customers, it’s a blessed day. If I don’t, well, I’m still doing my job.”...
Back to the Beginning
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Age Appropriate
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I’ve taken great pleasure in watching my grand-daughter Dalia’s many way stations between the new-born in swaddling blanket and the bat mitzvah girl jumping around with abandon with her invited friends to the instructions of the obligatory MC. I hope to be around for some more of these growing-up markers, but nothing is given. There was no guarantee that we would be around for this much of her...
October cleanup
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Appropriate to the season, today I’m raking up some loose leaves as I wrap up Year Five of my blog, so I won’t be playing off one single topic. First, I wanted to return to last week’s entry which was frivolously titled Social Butterflies and Hermits. (Actually has a better rhythm if you reverse those two.) After I posted that piece, Rosellen brought me a fascinating piece from Harvard Magazine...
Hermits and Social butterflies
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A friend came by this morning for what has become a monthly catch-up ritual, featuring very strong coffee. We broke an unofficial record by going on for two delightful hours that covered, among other topics, grandchildren, religion, national and local politics, Chicago schools, weddings, operas and South American opera houses. We take great delight in these visits, but this one ended on a...
For every season turn turn
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The notice arrived from the committee that keeps things running smoothly in our community garden that it was time to start thinking about cleaning up our plots and putting them to bed for the winter. That’s a hard message to take seriously when there are still tomatoes ripening on these near 70-degree days and a hard frost feels still a month away, but climate change or not, the number of...