Because yesterday was not only Thanksgiving but the start of Hanukkah, per my usual style, around midnight on Thanksgiving-eve, I had an epiphany to change what to bring to our friends’ houses for Thanksgiving dinner. Knishes! I had heard on NPR that there is a nationwide Knish shortage because of a factory fire in NY, which prompted me […]
The holidays are the perfect time to review basic CPR. It’s a matter of statistics, more people eating and laughing simultaneously means a greater likelihood that someone will inhale a melon ball or a hunk of pie and go down next to the Thanksgiving buffet. If you are the one in the family who is […]
“What does it mean?” is entirely the wrong question to ask of poem. It would be just as silly to ask of a grapefruit, “What do you plan to study in college?” Grapefruits don’t go to college; poems are not written to mean something. This is a particular peeve of mine. Poetry serves a myriad […]
Negative ten degrees. Six now that the sun is up. It is time for some serious soup. And poetry. “One has to keep looking for poetry as Renoir looked for colors in old walls,” wrote Wallace Stevens. This, I think, is an apt motto for those facing Minnesota winters. A poetic sensibility can turn misery […]
So I absolutely loved psychiatry. It was my favorite shelf exam to study for because of questions like: “A nun is found in a distant city working in a cabaret. She is unable to remember anything about her previous life.” No joke, a real question stem. Don’t you want to know this ex-nun? The problem […]
Maybe Robert Plant will want to come sing with me, I could be his next Alison Krause. I just can’t quite land after the high of singing all last weekend with the band. Our final gig was in the Rochester Art Center and a professional videographer took really sweet pics/film of us playing against the […]
God Bless the Child who’s got his own. Mm. I think I might have made Lady Day proud with the recording we laid down last night of her signature song. It was like a dream. One take; nailed it. After the radio silence, the saxophone player from Boston looked at me through the studio glass […]
Could you please keep your voice down? I’m currently in an intense love affair with pancetta. I’ve used it twice in dinners this last week and I just have to tell someone. I find it incredible that it has taken me 28 years to meet pancetta, but now, everything is different. Pancetta is bacon, basically, […]
This really could be the perfect weekend. It began with a bouquet of my favorite smells—which in itself was the undoing of what had been a slow passing of my least favorite smell: Izzy’s dumping her displeasure thrice around the house (once in my favorite grey suede boot!) to let us know she does not […]
On our last day in Berkeley, our dear friends the Warrens took us out to eat for vegan cuisine at Café Gratitude. In the foyer to the restaurant, there were numerous books championing attitude as the key to a positive life experience. I would tend to agree, but to a point. I do not think […]