It’s snowing down south. Not really. The phrase just popped into my head.  It's something my mother used to say.  For the first few years, memories were painful.  Nowadays, I am happy whenever something tweaks recollections of her. The white pelicans have returned, as...

If you’re not from Newfoundland, you may be wondering, “What is a capelin?” This is like asking “What is a grit?”  (Cousin Vinnie made that mistake) I have never seen a single solitary capelin.  They only come in throngs—nay, droves!  It looks like the sea water has...

Anthony Bourdain.  Kate Spade.  Young doctors plunging from towers.  Such high profile cases grab our attention, but they are merely tips of an iceberg:  the epidemic of suicide.  What’s going on?  What were these people thinking? I wasn’t.  Thinking, that is.  I was...

An old medical joke compares the strategies that different types of doctors would use to stop a closing elevator door.  The internist would use his hand.  A surgeon, would be more leery of a hand injury, and so he would block it with his foot.  An orthopedist would...

May 17, 2018 Dear Dad, I had a nice trip up to Baltimore for Susie’s retirement party.  As you will recall, retirement is a bittersweet process, unplugging from a career that provided purpose and friendships.  I was so proud of my little sister.  People said so many...

I have not seen the movie, THE SHAPE OF WATER.  It wasn’t on the airplane playlist.  But It’s a very catchy title, so I have adapted it for my purposes. I’m not talking about the icky mess that requires a plunger.  The floaty ball in the tank failed to shut off the...

The open road beckons:  a six-week odyssey, wending our way from Florida to the east coast of Newfoundland.  We travel in a Tahoe towing a trailer, in the company of two dogs and a cat, visiting friends and family along the way. I admit to mixed feelings about this...

“Want to go to Jordan with me?” This was September, 2013, and so my answer was swift. “Are you crazy?  We just invaded Iraq.” Her answer was equally swift.  “So?” Linda is a New York Speech Pathologist.  She had been invited to lecture at a conference in Amman.  The...

Dusk and dawn are two sides of the same coin—sunlight refracted by the atmosphere, the same colors and intensity of light, but in reverse order of appearance. I have long been a fan of sunsets.  We hear a lot about rainbows—the Bible says they are a sign of God’s...

Why do we impute intent to machines?  We curse the lawnmower when it won’t start, plead with a sluggish car that won’t turn over… Case in point:  my new robot vacuum cleaner.  Let’s put aside, for the moment, the propriety of a husband giving his wife a household...

My favorite Christmas wasn’t the one when I got the Tiny Tears or the Chatty Cathy, or even the Barbie Dream Kitchen.  It wasn’t the time we visited cousins in Iowa and I saw snow for the first time.  It was my father’s last Christmas. We didn’t know at the time, or...

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”  I grew up with this aphorism, and it makes a lot of sense.  The African version of this philosophy is a bit more extreme.  I will articulate it as, “If you can tape it, don’t toss it.”  If the Formica is chipped or warped, it can...

I heard the news On September 9, 2016, just before six in the morning.   I was parking my car in the basement of the hospital.  North Korea had successfully tested a powerful bomb that could fit on a missile and the missile could be deployed on a submarine from...

I was born in the year 8 BAC: 8 years before we had a window unit air conditioner in our home—a window unit in my parents’ bedroom.  We lived in Southeast Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico where hot and humid summers lingered into early October.  So how did we manage...