My father’s parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe. Despite the fact that my father topped six feet, his father was five feet two and his mother barely five feet. In fact, all seven children were taller than the parents.

Why do they no longer have music classes in schools? All of us in kindergarten had to purchase a flutophone and learn to play the scales and a few simple tunes.

What is the perfect symbol of the American dream. You got it in one. It’s a bountifully green lawn.

Passing through Oneida, New York, I stop the car where I always stop, in front of the apartment house on Sconondoa Street that bears the name “Paul” on its keystone. Even now I can see my grandfather, with his watery blue eyes, his body bent double due to polio, standing on the stoop, tilting himself backward, waving at me. Would that he were still with us, the man whom I loved with all my heart.

Does anyone else have nightmares about their house? Last night—and may I say I never sleep through the night anymore—I had several fleeting dreams, mostly about the house. I cannot remember most of them. They leave me anxious and forlorn. But the one I do remember is about my garage door. It wasn’t working.

But they’re gone, both Greta and Shelia, and I doubt whether they’ll make a reappearance in any other form. But who knows?

Hard to believe perhaps but I’m a latecomer to the classics. In fact, it was a college roommate my freshman year who introduced me to the “Messiah.”

Our flight from Chicago to Munich went well. All we then had to do was transfer from that international flight to a local flight to Venice. Too bad about the buses Lufthansa had on offer to take us between connections.

I reached the gigantic height of five feet two during the age of my most profusive bloom. Now that the bloom is definitely off the rose, I’m five—uh, five feet nothing. I could really use those two inches back.

Does a single woman living alone in a three-bedroom house really need three toilets with bidet seats? The overwhelming answer to that is—Yes, damn it!

But I remember the rain. The rain on the roof. Lying in bed and hearing the comforting, cleansing rain.

Complaints are what I do.

Let us sing our way into the new year, where a brighter light shines.

I have many failings as a mother.  Could the worst be my inability to produce a decent dinner?  I’ll let my three kids take a vote on that.  Mealtimes with Mama might come up on top.

Note: I will never say on getting old. Why face the truth?

In my walk around my North Shore neighborhood today, I marveled that in this time of pandemic, when people claim to be suffering from isolation, I noted—once again—that the ability to say hello or even nod when one person passes another, even on the opposite side of the street, seems to be an anathema.

I have a neighbor who obsessively waters his lawn during the summer months.  So obsessively does he manipulate his sprinkler—imagery here?—that his lawn is brown in spots because the grass has turned into a muddy field.

What do people have against shade?  Meaning, what do people have against shade provided by trees?  Meaning, people living on suburban plots of a quarter acre.

I don’t have a romantic nature. I suppose the three best words to describe me would be cynic, pessimist, satirical. I do not swoon.

Reading: I can’t remember when I wasn’t reading. The written word surrounded me, not spoken because I can’t remember my parent’s ever reading to me.