When my father passed away in 2015, my sister and I took on the laborious process of going through everything that he and my mother had left behind in the apartment where they had lived for 40 years. (You can read more about that experience in Home is Where the Heart Is.) Among the few things I brought home were two pieces of jewelry that I had never seen before. One was a tie clip that my teenage mother had…
Read more →I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve just emerged from a 16-month hibernation. When New York City shut down in March of last year, it was such a shock to have all of the hustle and bustle grind to a screeching halt. My daughter asked me how long I thought it would take before we were back to normal. I told her that the flu epidemic of 1918 lasted two years, so we should expect at least…
Read more →You get too many e-mails. I may not even know you, and even if I know you, I may never have seen your inbox. It doesn’t matter, I still know. That’s because we all get too many e-mails. You may have signed up for newsletters that you were really interested in reading but never have time for. You may have neglected to click the checkbox next to “Send me marketing messages and offers” when you bought something online. Or you…
Read more →In New York City, where I live, a law went into effect on March 1 of last year banning stores from giving out plastic bags. In preparation, we all stocked up on reusable bags, including those distributed by our city’s elected officials. I started to note which bags served my purposes better than others. Like many in NYC, I don’t own a car and I get around on foot or via public transportation. It’s helpful for me to have a small reusable…
Read more →Six years ago, I wrote about how I changed the way I listened to music when I installed Sonos speakers all over my house (see Let There Be Music). I’ve recently expanded my Sonos network in a fun way. My Sonos speakers work with my wifi network and are plugged into standard electrical outlets. I have two speakers in the living room operating as a stereo pair, one in the kitchen, and another in my bedroom. Because I can control…
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