Those ugly blood-red snapdragons are gone from our front yard. I pulled them out, and my rock garden is the better for it.
My Ever-Changing Family
Meet my changing, shrinking, growing family. Here you'll find stories of married life, little kids, grown-up kids, the empty nest, cousins and ancestors, aging parents, and the view from the second half of life.
A Case of the Human Condition: I Did It — I Offed Those Frightful Snapdragons
I yanked those ugly maroon snapdragons out by the roots. My front yard color scheme has been restored, and all is right with the world.
A Case of the Human Condition: I Want to Kill My Snapdragons
Those maroon snapdragons in my front yard are ugly. But they’re alive. Can I rip them out? Read more.
Early Late Youth Gives Way to Middle Middle Age
When I was twenty, I didn’t want to be thirty. When I was forty, I considered fifty a disaster. And now that I’m sixty-seven I don’t want to even think about sixty-seven, let alone sixty-eight.
A Case of the Human Condition: Long-Distance Mothering
Peter is fine. His appendix was twice the size of normal. But it’s gone for good.
A Case of the Human Condition: Would My Husband Like to Add My Name to His?
Jon and I had been married nearly 12 years. It was time to pop the question again. I had taken his last name as mine. Would he like to add my maiden name to his?
What’s Rhetoric? Let My Two-Year-Old Enlighten You
My daughter Christina discovered the art of rhetoric when she was being weaned from baby bottle to plastic cup. She’d say, “I want milk and I don’t want it in a cup” — an elegant illocutionary statement that usually got her what she wanted, her bottle.