I have to think my Ukrainian matriarchs would have loved our Easter celebration this year. My daughter Molly gifted me with a Ukrainian Easter basket including traditional kielbasa and Molly-made goodies, my sister in-law Elaine gave me (and everyone else) a walnut roll (the highlight of every visit to my grandparent's house in Colver, Pennsylvania), [...]
Here's December's secret: there's magic in the air. And each sleeting windstorm carries it somewhere. It dusts the ground below your feet to lighten up your step and turns your boots to dancing shoes, your schlep to pirouette. The season can be tricky when folks carry such a load and all their Christmas wishes can't [...]
I have considered the house on the corner of Frances and Drew magical ever since my classmate Max lived there with his 17 brothers and sisters, his mother Marie, a professional softball player who pitched in the 1942 World Series Women’s Softball tournament and his dad Carl, who worked for the FBI under J. Edgar [...]
My daughter Katherine almost missed her first Hanukkah dinner many years ago. She called me from a train following a typically overbooked day. "Mom, I think I took the wrong train!" "Why do you think you're on the wrong train?" "I don't know. I just have a bad feeling and I can't tell if we're [...]
I like to think of New Year’s Eve as a worldwide celebration of the three gifts we all receive just for being human -- self-reflection, opposable thumbs and a fresh start. How lucky are we? Sure, I’ve had some years when I want to take that opposable thumb, wrap it over three fingers, lift the [...]