Potsticker Soup

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Everybody has their own version of comfort food. Sometimes it’s something you make because it’s what your mother made. Other times, you buy it from a favorite store or restaurant. Occasionally, the best comfort food comes about sheerly by accident, something you make up from random ingredients that are hanging around in your refrigerator and freezer.

Potsticker Soup is one of those recipes. Continue reading

Good Things

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Long ago, there was a beautiful movie entitled Mask. It is a biographical drama about Rocky Dennis, a boy with lionitis, and his free-spirited mother. In the final scene, we hear a voiceover of actor Rocky reciting a poem written by the real-life Rocky: Continue reading

Olivia and the Present Strangeness

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To say this is an odd time is an understatement. Better adjectives might be strange, bizarre, or surreal.

Exhibit A: Olivia is sitting on my desk. The last time she sat here voluntarily was at least a decade ago. Granted, I lifted her up since she can no longer make the leap, but she’s stayed. Continue reading

Lessons Learned about Working From Home

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I’ve been working out of my home since 1997. Last year, I applied for a job that would have required me to work in a regular office. You know, the kind where you dress like a professional, show up at a particular time, and deal with co-workers.

This was not a selling point. Continue reading

On Turning 60 Without Having Published a Book (Yet)

Yes, friends, it’s true: I shall reach the exalted age of sixty soon. Very soon. Very.

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Recently, I watched an episode of “Sex and the City” in which Charlotte announced that she was not going to turn 36 on her birthday because “I’m just not where I thought I’d be at 36, so I’m sticking at 35.” Granted, she was in a tough spot: her marriage had crumbled under the stress of infertility, and her efforts to resume the career she’d paused for babymaking had proven fruitless. Still, it set me to wondering: am I where I thought I’d be at 60? Continue reading

Feeling Like It

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(Magnet on the whiteboard over my desk)

* * *

There are at least a dozen things I need to do today, but I’m writing this blog post instead.

Why?

Because I feel like it. Continue reading

Cat biographies

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Recently, a biography for a shelter cat named Perdita went viral after the shelter described her as the “world’s worst cat” and “just a jerk.”

Luckily, the shelter was flooded with applications from people wanting to adopt this cat, and they’re in the process of reviewing them. Apparently if you can strike the right tone, maybe that kind of a bio works. Continue reading

Blithe Traveler

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I have come to the conclusion that there are two kinds of travelers.

First, there are the Blithe Travelers. These are the folks for whom traveling requires barely more thought than a trip to the grocery store. They pop online to make their reservations at a reasonable, though not excessively long, time before the scheduled trip. Once they’ve confirmed their flights (which took them about ten minutes to select), they return to their normal lives until the night before they leave, at which point they toss a few items into a carryon bag. Continue reading

Remembering George

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December 21. The shortest day of the year. The longest night. The greatest darkness.

How fitting that this day is National Homeless Persons’ Memorial Day. Across the country, memorial services honor and remember those who have died in the past year while experiencing homelessness. Continue reading

A Tree of One’s Own

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One of the first Christmas specials I remember was Charles Schulz’s classic, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” The centerpiece of the story is the tree Charlie Brown picks out to decorate the gang’s Christmas pageant. Continue reading