So I have Lyme Disease, apparently. A perfectly obvious follow up to my wild woodland traipses this summer, in Maine and Michigan before that, two of the globe’s tick hotbeds. But the symptoms of Lyme deferentially forbore to reveal themselves until after my husband and I returned home from our 30th anniversary trip to Detroit. […]
I knew I was back in Hyde Park when I heard the irritating squawk of a monk parakeet through my open window as we drove east on 55th street. I always felt so at home returning from Midway Airport down the boulevard, past the Mexican markets and the carnitas places, the more or less permanent […]
This past weekend I had occasion to make, once again, the absolutely foolproof, endlessly adaptable, and (almost) always delicious Hope Cake in honor of a friend who is leaving our Orthodox parish community to get married and move to another state. In this particular instance I made it a titch weddingy, two-tiered, filled with whipped […]
Happy Easter Monday to those who celebrated! I hope you had a joyful day. It is not Orthodox Easter yet; we mark the day one week after everybody else this year. Somehow, resurrection, the defeat of death, and the subversion of imperial power all seem so timely this year, more necessary than ever; the celebration […]
As I was staggering through my dog walk yesterday morning on newly icy, slushy sidewalks due to a freakish mid-March snow, and a blast of wind slammed a nearly blizzardlike wall of ice flecks into my face, I wondered why no one ever told me that pet ownership in Chicago is so hard. Oh, I’ve […]
I am really throwing a lot at you here today. Read this in bits and pieces as convenient. Three essays plus commentary on Cuba’s current situation? Who has time for this! But here it all is, in honor of a frigid February escape some years back, and a country that’s still stuck in my heart, […]
Full disclosure, this is an old essay that I’ve trotted out for several Arizona Statehood Days. That is, Valentine’s Day. They’re the same. Arizona became a state on February 14, 1912, having suffered some delays in attaining entry to the union because its state constitution was just a titch too progressive. Arizonans were distrustful of […]