Christmas

On Christmas Eve Day, I felt a little blue. Maybe it was the rain and fog. Maybe I longed for Christmases past with my children, now adults with lives of their own. Maybe I was just feeling sorry for myself. Betsy Lerner’s snarky humor spoke to me. “The holidays...

Approval

Our dogs look to Keith and me for approval. “Good girl, Freya,” we say, “good boy, Heathcliff,” when they’ve obeyed a command. We often stroke them, too, even when they haven’t done anything, just because we love them. Heathcliff likes approval but loves routine....

A Christmas Carol

Perhaps you’ve seen an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ novella A Christmas Carol, a ghost story of Christmas. Last year, my daughter, son, and his partner visited us at Christmastime. As part of our festivities, we attended the American Shakespeare Center’s...

Two Daughters

Last Friday afternoon, I stopped by our local grocery store to pick up a baguette and tomatoes—grape, slicing, and canned—for a soup-and-salad lunch I planned to make on Sunday after church. The checkout girl excused herself, saying she needed to run to the bank for...