Lee died three years’ ago this week — on July 2 to be precise. This year the date fell on a Sunday. This year, when I awoke, Robyn was with me. I felt no ambivalence about this circumstance. On the contrary, I was happy she was with me. *** According to the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale, […]
Just Another Birthday
This week I had another birthday – my 72nd. This year, no cargo shorts and Hawaiian shirt combo in a box. This birthday gift tradition ended when my sister passed away a few months ago. My mother and I share the identical birth date. While she was alive, she made a point to present me […]
Selfish Thoughts
The New York Times recently published a fascinating and mainly hopeful guest essay by Kate Pickert dubbed “Is a Revolution in Cancer Treatment Within Reach?,” (See https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/16/opinion/cancer-treatment-disparities.html (June 16, 2023)). In it, Ms. Pickert describes nothing less than a paradigm shift in cancer treatment away from a long-held medical assumption “that many early-stage cancer patients […]
Dos Urban Cantinos
Paul texted me Tuesday morning. He said that he wanted to see me and would come by my place. He suggested that we should have dinner together. I strongly suspected Paul’s message had not arrived entirely out of the blue. After all, this past Monday marked what would have been another wedding anniversary for me […]
Lee to the Rescue
Ordinarily Tuesdays and Wednesdays are busy days. Not only are these the days when I craft my posts to this site, but on alternating Tuesdays, including this past one, it’s also when I clean my house for Julia, the biweekly housekeeper. (I would not want Julia to discover how I really keep my house most […]
June Arrives
The calendar confirms that today is June 1st. Anticipating June’s arrival, I feel like a veritable human rollercoaster about to take a stomach-churning plunge. *** Our Wedding Anniversary Lee and I were married in June. By then we were both middle aged, however, it was Lee’s first marriage. She happily planned every detail of our […]
Form 632
I am not one of those people who is tethered to a cell phone, so, while the call had come in around 1 pm., I didn’t notice the message until nearly five o’clock. As soon as I saw it was from the “310 “area code, I assumed it was the Los Angeles law firm that […]
Tackling Loneliness
As a widower, I make the effort to cultivate my friendships and acquaintances. By doing so I hope to avoid the loneliness and disconnection that seems to be pervasive. The unfavorable outcomes of loneliness are numerous. Loneliness is associated with depression and other forms of mental illness, of course. It also is a risk factor […]
Mother’s Day Reflections
My mother will have been gone nearly twenty years come this Mother’s Day. I can tell you that she loved her family unconditionally, and me most of all, I think. Come Mother’s Day I will think about my mother’s generous spirit. I will recall her stubbornness. I will remember that my mother was highly principled. […]
The Importance of Staying Connected
Robyn and I are going out of town on Friday to visit my old and dear friends, Donna and Craig, whom from time to time I have mentioned in these posts. Yet, as a result, I won’t be attending Joe’s upcoming show at a prime music venue here, also scheduled on Friday. Joe, who is […]
Can an Old Dog Learn New Tricks?
My older sister was one of the smartest people I ever knew. She was so good at solving certain puzzles that for many years it was rumored that a representative of a 3-letter government intelligence agency once came around to inquire whether she might be interested in going to work there. Much later in life […]
Taken for Granted
As is my custom, my first waking act was to raise the shade covering my rear door and survey the yard. Just this past week I’d taken advantage of favorable weather conditions to ready the yard for the growing season. And quickly, signs of new life were appearing everywhere. Happily, I saw that the red […]