Do you ever feel like a taxi? I do. I’m now at the stage of parenting that’s 99% driving and 1% everything else. Between soccer, ballet, piano, sleepovers, doctor’s appointments, and trips to Walgreen’s to buy gum, candy, and various other essentials, my car has gotten a lot of...
Crossing the Floor
My 12-year-old daughter has been reading the Shadowhunters Novels, which are fantasy stories about special humans who wrangle demons and other supernatural creatures. When she couldn’t find the next book in the series at school, we decided to try the library. As we had so many times before, we...
In a Warming World
Last week, on the same day that several kids at my older daughter’s Wisconsin soccer camp were ill from heat exhaustion, I had a phone call with my stepmother in California, where the Dixie fire had been spreading. Though it wasn’t yet close to where she and my father...
Cheers to Finding Comfort
After consuming the last slice of peanut butter chocolate ganache pie on Thanksgiving weekend, I felt full. But the strange emptiness of this pandemic holiday season lingered. While connecting with my extended family over Zoom was fun, the experience was a stark reminder of the vast physical space between...
The Loneliness of Grocery Shopping in a Pandemic
A few days ago, I went grocery shopping. On the surface, nothing went wrong. I got my bananas, eggs, the requisite sugary snacks. A bottle of decent-looking Pinot Noir. The store was about to close for the evening, so I often had the aisle to myself. Avoiding the occasional...