About a year ago I noticed a car with a logo I didn’t recognize. Could there be a new car company making a push into this competitive industry? Then I discovered it was a rebrand for the Korean car company Kia. I, along with many others, didn’t see the word Kia in the new logo. After doing a little research, I discovered that at least 30,000 people a month search for the “KN car.” People think...
I came across an opinion piece in the NYT by the writer Tim Urban that had a good news/bad news structure to it. The bad news was called Depressing Math. It means we don’t have nearly the amount of time we think we have to do what we love. The example he used that hit closest to home for me was about spending time with his parents. He wrote: I grew up spending some time with my parents almost...
I was born on Christmas, December 25. My brother, Peter, three years older than me, was also born on Christmas. So right from the start I’m sharing my birthday with both my brother AND baby Jesus. If that wasn’t enough to dilute my birthday, Christmas was a big deal in my family. There was the tree to acquire, the Advent calendar to hang, the decorations to bring out. Every Christmas Eve we’d...
This post contains graphic visual content. We noticed the telltale black droppings under the lazy susan cabinet. Then when I was down in my old basement office where I still keep the printer, I spotted a mouse skittering along the heating pipe. Julia and Owen both reported sightings in their rooms. Never before had the second-floor bedrooms been breached. This was an outrage and an emergency call...
I was fortunate to get away for a long weekend to Florida with Harriet to visit her mom in Sarasota. There are benefits to sunshine and warm temps. There is joy in biking, tennis, swimming, walking on the beach, and seeing loved ones. There is calm in putting aside work and responsibilities for a few days. But about Florida, I’m conflicted. Beautiful beaches—yes. Fine weather—for the winter...
What is it about skating on a frozen pond that makes me feel poetic? There was “Skating on a Winter Night” a few years ago with Owen and my friends when we had sticks and pucks. And then there was this past weekend on Black Creek Marsh. We had to hike a snowy trail down to the windswept ice and we tested its thickness, walking out on the surface, gingerly, one step and then another...
It doesn’t happen often enough but when the sun comes out during the winter, I’m compelled to have its rays upon me. The bare trees cooperate by letting more of the light land on me. Bennett Hill is just fifteen minutes from my house and a favorite hike because of its well-marked trails, a dose of steepness, and its winter landscape of gray and white and brown. Bare trees cast long...
Not to be mean-hearted to the grieving or entirely self-serving, but I’ve discovered an upside when I hear about artists’ deaths. Recently, the American novelist Russell Banks died. Some years back I read one of his novels, The Sweet Hereafter, and found it compelling and intelligent. When I heard of his death, I remembered that his novel, Affliction, was sitting on my bookshelf. I don’t...
I have Harriet to thank for this one. She asked me and a few others in our circle if we wanted to join her in registering for the Helderberg-to-Hudson half marathon scheduled for April. I initially scoffed at the idea. My days as a runner have been dwindling in recent years. Various age, injury, overuse, and motivational factors have taken their toll on my “elite runner” status. It was almost...
Here’s another post from my favorite guest blogger, Julia Klein. It’s a new year. For many of us, that means New Year’s resolutions. People resolve that this year is going to be the one where they “get healthy.” Although striving to improve our health is a worthy cause, it is often twisted by diet culture. Our cultural rhetoric around health has shifted. In recent years, diet culture...
In a previous blog post, I pondered whether New Year’s resolutions are helpful. Most resolutions fail because most are focused on self-sacrifice and self-improvement, and that stuff is really hard. As Arthur C. Brooks wrote in The Atlantic, it makes sense that such resolutions rarely succeed: “If meeting self-improvement goals were so easy, we wouldn’t need to make resolutions in the first...
Dear Cherished Readers: It’s that time of year again: the end. Which can only mean it’s time for all the “best of the year lists.” Best books, best movies, best albums, best hockey goals, best startups, best advice . . . There are a lot of “best of” lists! Did you ever wonder who compiles these lists? Who gets to decide what’s the best? It’s a subjective...
While I was listening to a podcast, an advertisement came on for a company called BetterHelp, offering me 10 percent off my first month’s subscription. Subscription to what? Therapy, delivered online or over the phone. The pitch started like this: Unfortunately, life doesn’t come with a user manual, so when it’s not working for you it’s normal to feel stuck. Therapists are trained to help you...
I’m sitting at my desk hearing icicles break off from my roof edge and crash to the ground during the winter storm that’s passing through, and I’m reminded of the time I almost won a Darwin Award. For those who don’t know Darwin Awards, they are given out to “commemorate individuals who protect our gene pool by making the ultimate sacrifice of their own lives. Darwin Award winners eliminate...
My daughter Julia is one of those people in my life I want to check in with every day. Not to keep tabs on her, or her on me, but because deliberately and proactively thinking of the people I love the most is time well spent. Enter Snapchat, that simple social media platform that claims it’s the easiest way to share a moment. Snap a photo, usually a selfie, add an optional caption, and send...
