Wash day
Our linen supply is very simple: everything is white. That’s great when it’s new, towels and sheets glow with an almost internal light. The problem is they don’...
Home Moaner
Lazy bones
I am the laziest person in the world. It takes me a lot of effort to switch off the television, get off the couch, and do what has to be done.
As I sit here ...
February thaw
I am writing this last month. I don’t know if it’s me, but it has been really cold this winter. I, who never wear gloves — but have a large collection...
The semiannual houseplant column
Alas, it is that time of year again. I have about eight houseplants that I moved out onto the porch as soon as the threat of frost had lifted last spr...
Vroom!
I bought a truck in 2010. It was the first new car I had purchased since 1984. Unlike how I treated that car two decades earlier, I have been a diligent owner —...
Helpless
The sound of a cardboard box bounces off the porch. Sometimes it is in the form of an impossible to open plastic envelope. Depending on my level of obsessio...
Making good fences
I am lolling about in bed, wasting the day, mentally preparing, at around 2 in the afternoon, to get ready for work. My faithful phone, now an extension of my b...
Mocha latte grande skim whatever
Open the creaky door and once again have a peek into the old nostalgia closet with Uncle Ben, who starts every sentence with “I remember …”
Coffee. A dark li...
It’s in the air
Fall is here! It was here for me, a month ago when I was writing this. Who knows what it will be like outside when you are reading this.
Yet fall is upon us ...
Penury
We nurses write a lot. We type a lot, too, but we sign the bottom of documents all day long. When I was in nursing school, I adopted a signature pen (ha ha), it...
Key party
Just a few words about keys. I seem to collect more as I grow older. As a child, growing up in lower Fairfield County, we never even thought of locking our door...
Extra strength
Now and then I pass a mirror and am shocked by the sight of an old man looking back. I have always theorized that if you look at yourself every day you will not...
Maraca
Had a major birthday a couple months back. Here is what I got: a cardiologist, an orthopedist and a million pills.
I will not go into gory details; after all...
Hang up
We picked up an old steel kitchen shelf unit at the Elephant’s Trunk flea market in New Milford. It was during a period when we were collecting such cabinets, r...
Hand to moth
We were sitting on the couch the other night, minding our own business, when a moth fluttered through the room. It was not one of those large, dusty ones bu...
Stubbly
I had a beard for a few years. It was very unconvincing camouflage for a runaway double chin. A few years later when I was tired of it, I shaved it off.
...