We wanted our porch to fit in. We were conformists like that. We didn’t want the other porches pointing and laughing at our porch, causing his will to plummet, his joists to give way, and his boards to sag from lack of inclusion in the porch gossip sessions, and never getting invited to a porch sleepover. Porches are pretty important in the scheme of life and privacy. They’re the place you run to when you get a real phone call and you don’t want four other people acting as t

“And Peleg lived thirty years and begat Reu.” It turns out that most of the guys were having babies at age thirty in the book of Genesis. Serug, Reu, Eber, Salah – they were all thirty-something. Nahor was twenty-nine when he had his boy, which raised eyebrows I’m sure. Yeah, it just seems kind of normal, even thousands of years later, that they were having babies in those “thirty years” when the men were picking fantasy cantaloupe-throwing teams, eating hot wings right off t

“I don’t know, what do you want to do?” “I can hold my breath longer than you.” “I can stare longer without blinking.” And so went our summers when we were kids. We didn’t think we could stand another day of school. You would have thought we were getting out of the state pen to go on a cruise boat with roller coasters and endless cotton candy. And then this is what we ended up doing. We thought we had to plan our own summers, and it turns out we were really bad planners. The

“Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel” (Numbers 14:5). I can relate. In fact, I feel that deeply. I am truly in my “falling on my face before the entire assembly of the congregation” era. On March 14, I was speaking at a ladies’ event in front of – yeah, that assembly thing – and someone forgot to warn me that the stage was rounded. This is a great practical joke to play, building a stage so tha

Are sugarplums dancing in your head? I think they’ve been rocking it so hard in mine that they’ve knocked over a few vital components in there. Everybody has those holiday visions - whether sugarplums are dancing or nutcrackers and mice are involved in a ballet. That’s another article, but suffice it to say I think someone spiked Clara’s eggnog before she went to sleep. Me? Christmas conjures for me endless strings of Christmas lights which are tangled beyond the point of ret

I’ve coughed so many times this morning my lungs are asking for more overtime compensation, and I think I heard the right one whispering about severance pay. But I know one thing; I feel better than I did 29 years ago today. That was Mattianne’s due date. Back then, that meant absolutely nothing. A doctor circled a date on a calendar which meant he was guessing when the thing was conceived and when the kid would arrive based on - I don’t know, stuff like science and everythi

“Restaurants near me.” It’s what I’m texting in the search bar when everyone else in the car is looking at the fall foliage or counting cows. I look for the mom-and-pop restaurants you can’t get at home. But the near-me part of “restaurants near me” is pretty relative. The good ones aren’t going to be right off the interstate exit. In fact, the contestants in the “counting cows” game are about to boost their scores. There are levels of good when it comes to the non-chain ea

I mean, admittedly, they do sound alike. Especially in a busy taco factory. “Hun, could you hand me a taco?” And instead, you get cocoa. It’s feasible. And probably appreciated. The recent recall on taco kits because the seasoning packet inside turns out to be hot cocoa mix has me puzzled, and slightly sympathetic to the factory workers. In fact, I’m questioning if I was there that day. I don’t recall that. It just seems like something I would so much be a part of. Not that I

Not trying to live in the past. Not. I generally try to focus on important current issues in articles such as what’s going on with...

“Why is there a woman in our car?” I wasn’t even listening. I was staring down at the bunless filet-of-fish – I ordered it that way – but...