Mad Hatter: What’s the matter my dear, don’t you care for tea? Alice: Why, yes. I’m very fond of tea. March Hare: If you don’t care for tea, you could at least make polite conversation! —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland cup and saucer I found a few years ago at the Adelphi Hotel estate sale, … Continue reading Coping With COVID: A Lifetime of Stories in Teacups and Coffee Mugs
Communicating
New Real Friends: A (Hopeful) Lamentation
Our parents serve as eternal reminders of every ‘cute’ thing we said and did in childhood, however stridently we might wish to forget: it’s a parenting privilege. I find myself doing it to my own twenty-something these days, even across the miles that separate us. I need my bref-kass, I mutter in the early morning … Continue reading New Real Friends: A (Hopeful) Lamentation
You Can’t Sit With Us: Reflections on a “Mean Girls” National Policy
Find someone who looks like they need a friend, and be that person's friend: it was my mama's mandate to me on the first day of third grade, a tall order for an eight-year-old kid at a new school, but the outcome for me that year was a tight friendship with a sweet, third-generation Scot. It … Continue reading You Can’t Sit With Us: Reflections on a “Mean Girls” National Policy
Talk to Me, Dammit: A Lamentation
A wise friend once observed she could live life without ever, or at least rarely, leaving her house if she chose. She could buy groceries and other goods and have them delivered to her, arrange for her car to be serviced, set up play dates for her children, and manage countless other tasks from the … Continue reading Talk to Me, Dammit: A Lamentation