“Her breath is changing,” a nurse said on the phone. “It’s hard to tell, but I’d come in if I were you.” When I saw my mother-in-law, still and ashen in her bed, I knew she was dying. “It’s Elaine,” I told her, touching her shoulder. “Do you want to wake up?” She opened one […]

When I wake up each morning, I head for the back porch to check the Monarch nursery. First thing. Who will hatch today? Does anyone need a fresh milkweed leaf? Who became a chrysalis overnight? I feed the caterpillars before my dog and I eat breakfast. Most of my thirty back porch Monarchs are in […]

My son David and his wife Liz drove from North Carolina and met my local son Anthony for a beer at Two Goats Brewery on Seneca Lake before they arrived at my house. David and Liz came with three dogs and coolers filled with fruits and vegetables from their garden. The next morning, Liz and […]

Did he really say those words? Did he use that cliché many times, five at least, as we sat knee to knee? “You’re between a rock and a hard place.” I’ve traveled to this hearing center for 30 years. A two hour drive, a walk up wide stairs, a well-lit room often filled with little […]

June 2018 was “Friends Matter Month” in my quiet world. Usually, I crave silence and ample sleep and avoid large servings of chocolate cake and beer. I tossed the rules overboard in a friendship love fest. Richard and Julianna arrived for lunch and a walk on June 10. They’d flown to Ithaca from Colorado to […]

“The world is only as fair as you can make it. Takes a lot of fight. A lot of fight. But if you stay in here, in your little cave, that’s one less fighter on the side of fair.” Libba Bray My boyfriend and I went to our first anti-war protest in 1967. It was […]