My ex married a university president and lived in a historic house where leaves were raked by others and fireplaces crackled picture-perfect below important art and the table was set with Lenox and Steuben.  My sons usually spent Thanksgiving at that table.

I adapted to that reality. In the… Read full post »

Stuffjournalistswrite/wordpress.com

With all the bitching and flouncing and analyzing going on around here lately, I’ve thought about why I've stayed on OS for over a year.

This rings true for me. We all have different reasons, and it would be interesting if you… Read full post »

freewebs.com

(Exactly as I remember, on awakening, with my analysis/comments/questions in parentheses.)

I was at a rehearsal of a Broadway show like Bye Bye Birdie or Grease. A retro show, in color. People were… Read full post »

wpclipart.com

October 7, a humid, hot morning in South Florida. I was flying solo to NYC to see my children. The plane was delayed at the gate for about an hour due to windy conditions in New York. But after an extra half an… Read full post »

Yesterday, dumb as a brick, I changed the status on my Facebook page from single to “in a relationship.” It was the truth. I would gently edge into my new identity.  I thought no one would notice.

Ha. Within minutes I received… Read full post »

When I bought my Miami condo almost 10 years ago I decided to redo my bathroom and remove the bidet (pronounced bee-DAY).

But the cost of removal was too expensive, as I’d have to change the floor as well. So I decided to keep… Read full post »

When you were born in Miami we lived in the bougainvillea-covered bungalow on Sheridan Avenue with the kitchen floor like frozen confetti. Grandpa was sick and needed his own room so you slept in the bedroom with mommy and daddy (but half the year daddy was gambling at the dog track… Read full post »

  Membersvirtualtourist.com

We’ll get to the famed fellow who gifted me with good jewelry an hour after we met (24-carat gold, thank you very much). But first, a few other reflections of two trips to Rio, that heartbreakingly beautiful and beautifully heartbreaking city,/… Read full post »

I twirl around you.

Your hands guide my hips from below.

Slow … yes … faster.  Yes!

  Read full post »

Failure to repent is much worse than sin. One may have sinned for but a moment, but may fail to repent of it moments without number. Chasidic saying

Today on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, Jews around the world repent for the past year's sins, wiping the… Read full post »

 solitude, overlooking a herring weir, off a cliff in the Bay of Fundy

I’ve been reading  BuffyW ‘s posts of coping with her beloved husband’s passing and AtHomePilgrim’s series about his brother’s death. And many of us are dealing with lo/… Read full post »

another blind one, at sarahhandicaps.org

I was visiting a donkey sanctuary in Aruba, and I saw a week-old donkey who couldn’t get up, and whose mother seemed disinterested. Chickens were pecking around in the dust, and a turquoise lizard scurried by.  A tall man in a/… Read full post »

theredbelt.com

It’s the flu season and breaking news is that the H1N1  (“Swine Flu”) virus can be moderated with one inoculation. But the ever-present UR1HTR  virus (also called “hate flu” or “Republican flu”)  h… Read full post »

Hello,
My name is suzy, In search of a man who understand the meaning of love as Trust and faith in each other rather than one who sees love as the only way of fun, but a matured Man with Nice Vision of what the world is… Read full post »

This summer was weird, including an affair in Argentina (not on the Appalachian trail), a Michael Jackson death probe as strange as his life, and moments when men brought guns to Presidential speeches and bit a finger at town meetings.

Thankfully Labor Day marks a turning, when school starts,… Read full post »

 (Several pieces lately have alluded to blogiversaries on OS, including ones most recently by Chuck Stetson and Padriag Colman. Each reflection adds its own take on what OS means to us and how it's evolved during our time here.

 I wrote this last week, but on that day… Read full post »

As I read the obituaries about Edward Kennedy's death, I feel great empathy. My late husband, Chaim Stern, was diagnosed with glioblastoma in July, 2001-- the same type of aggressive tumor that killed the senator. And so I'm moved to post again a tribute to my brave Chaim.… Read full post »

 (astoriedlife.com)

I’m so disappointed about the tenor of the healthcare debate, worried about Afghanistan and other hot spots and generally pessimistic about the sanity of many of our congresspeople and their constituents.

So what do I do to further the public discourse? Well,… Read full post »

rd.com

Many of us who grew up in the era of "Mad Men" can look back at similar office experiences. (Silkstone wrote a vivid portrait of her office days: here.)

After watching the first episode of Season Three,  I reflected back on two of… Read full post »

President Obama says the worst might be over. The market is rising and unemployment has stabilized. But for many of us, it will be a long-haul back to recovery.

I’ve had a roller coaster financial life: well-off (early) and scrappy and single (later) and everything in-between.&nb… Read full post »

The movie Julie & Julia, and my recent trip to Paris where much of this movie is set, reminded me of how huge a role Julia Child played for those of us who learned to cook in the 1960s and 70s. Her Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volumes/… Read full post »

Manhattan's only Frank Gehry-designed building, from the High Line

No, it isn't cocaine.  The High Line is a flower-filled ribbon of new parkland created from the unused elevated freight lines that ran downtown along the Hudson. I recently strolled there with my granddaugh… Read full post »

 my front door in Somers, NY --see my reflection in the glass?

Many in this awful economy, and on OS, are suffering more than I, but because of poorly managed fixed-income equities I’ve just had to sell the Westchester County condo that I bought when my husband… Read full post »