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A friend asks, “What’s your week like?” and you answer:  “All I do is wait, mostly in doctors’ offices. I wait for the bus, a taxi, or the subway, or in traffic to get to the internist on Monday, the podiatrist on Tuesday, an MRI on Wednesday (for that bunion, ouch), the dentist on Thursday, and the gastroenterologist on Friday. In between, I have my psychotherapist, another wait, even if we do a Zoom.”    Yes, we’ve reached that age, and we’re hanging out more in doctors’/dentists’ and other healthcare professionals' offices. We try to beat the system by scheduling...

Got a problem with corporate America? Take your complaints to the top. We’ve gone up the food chain, starting at the bottom by complaining to a salesperson, the wait staff, or a telephone caller—and getting nowhere. They’re merely doing their job. The top brass is where the buck stops. So that’s where we’ve decided to start, sharing with humor some of our biggest complaints about three companies: Williams Sonoma, Anthropic, and Tinder. Our letters represent our attempts to be heard; one we did write, and we never heard back. We’re happy if you want to copy our template for any...

You get a medical report with troubling results. A friend gets very ill or dies or has a life-changing accident. You hear that someone close to you has been blindsided and is getting a divorce. You learn that a neighbor made a major financial mistake and will need to move and change their lifestyle fast. These are all wake-up calls.  Life does not go in a straight trajectory; it can meander and change in a nanosecond, as Joan Didion wrote in her book, The Year of Magical Thinking, after her husband’s sudden death.  It happens all the time, and sometimes...

As we begin to plan late spring and summer trips here, there, and everywhere that are exotic, adventurous or beautiful, what about staying put and exploring all we can do in our own city, suburbs or even neighborhood? Each of us can be a tourist in our own backyard. It’s close, easy to get to, less costly and conveniently right under our noses!  Recently, Barbara, new to Baltimore, went to see the blooming cherry blossom trees by Ft. McHenry and within view of the former, now damaged, Key Bridge. There weren’t as many trees as in Washington, D.C., but there...

Spring awakens our senses. Many of us step out into the longer, brighter days with greater enthusiasm. We spend less time on our phones or watching the oft-depressing news. We find good reasons to get up and get outdoors. The smell of flowers and freshly cut grass is intoxicating. The sight of trees with buds, shop doors flung open to let in fresh air, people on park benches reading articles, talking or drawing, people eating outdoors after long winter hibernations and taking longer strolls or even running, the jingle of an ice-cream truck and the sound of water trickling in...