Dear 18, It has been 35 days since life grounded you without cause, and we just want to say thank you for the elegant way you’ve risen to this challenge. Your senior year ended just as you were getting to the best part. Then this weird, dangerous virus shrank your social circle like accidentally microwaved [...]
We celebrated three birthdays this weekend, including my own, and each one offered us the opportunity to witness the kindness, creativity, humor and love that thankfully thrives in troubled times. Our nine-year old neighbor Sami, for instance, chalked me a cheerful birthday greeting on the sidewalk in front of her house and it made my [...]
I have Jumped Around on multiple occasions at Camp Randall, including football games and graduations. But, one of my favorite Jump Arounds to date happened Saturday afternoon on Pondview Court in Appleton. Led by my mother, we joined her neighborhood in a celebration of all that is great and virus-proof in Wisconsin. Laughter, for example, [...]
Our talented friend Linda Verboomen kindly whipped us up enough cloth masks to cover our entire family as we ramp up our efforts here in Wisconsin to protect ourselves and everyone else from COVID-19. Our other friend Linda Drezdzon has been happily sewing masks for weeks. Alerted to the crisis early on by her daughter, [...]
We tried to socially distance ourselves Sunday afternoon at the Navarino State Wildlife Area, but we ran into a loud bunch of amorous Anura amphibians -- frogs for those who aren't making a pretentious, alliterative jump. We heard them before we saw them and I found myself thoroughly charmed, until our resident biologist pointed out [...]