It’s Christmas Eve, a night during which I still think I should be prepping to go to my grandparents’ house, then church. It’s been more than two decades since both of my dad’s parents, whom I considered the absolute King and Queen of Christmas, have been gone, and almost as long since I attended Midnight... Continue Reading →
After my big brother David fell from a mountain peak in Colorado eleven years ago, I became consumed with the loss, with his life, and especially with extreme sports and outdoor adventure stuff because it was what consumed him — and what killed him. It haunted me. It haunts me still.
Yesterday, while walking our dogs around the lovely esplanade a block from our house, my husband and I said hello to a young couple coming out of their house for a stroll with their baby in a carriage. Just a few hours later, their house had burned to the ground. Police had barricaded the neighborhood... Continue Reading →
I've always had an aversion to the word precious. It sounds fragile and cloying in my mouth, like the way it's used to talk about cute babies: “Isn't she presh-uss?” There is something nose-raisingly snobbish about the word when it describes jewelry: “Made with only precious stones...” But the adjective is defined by Merriam-Webster as... Continue Reading →
“Really get your nose down in there,” the presenter said as he demonstrated, tipping the glass and inserting his proboscis into the globe. Our pony-tailed, bespectacled connoisseur instructed us to swirl the wine around the glass swiftly to introduce oxygen and “open it up.” With a mind that whirls madly churning through worries, to dos,... Continue Reading →
Anne Pinkerton 