I had in my mind that I would make some pies. Around Thanksgiving I made some and people at work have been entreating me for more ever since. The family pie dough recipe makes five crusts so I figured why not make pie for people I like a little better than just to work with, and bring leftovers in to Read More

“‘You and your sister have the worst-looking shoes I’ve ever seen,’ Jeff said.” One of the things that has changed in my family over the years is that this observation is no longer so overwhelmingly applicable to us. But part of my memory of my family is trapped in how things used to be, when you would be lucky to Read More

I bought a shredder. A Staples-brand shredder, by the way, and it died after a few uses. I swapped it for a different model, which has been in (very infrequent) operation for several months, and doesn’t spit out the paper it chews up very well, so you must frequenty pull the debris from the bottom of the shredder to keep Read More

I’m bad at poetry. I bought Lissa Schneckenburger’s CD of the same name and began playing it frequently. One of the songs, “The Irish Girl,” has the chorus Let the wind blow high and low my boys let the seas run mountains high It is the seamen’s duty the helm to stand by After a month or two–maybe three–I realized Read More