Recent Essays
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Keeping Covid Fit With My 5-Inch Personal Trainer
When my NYC gym closed in March due to Covid-19 I figured the break was a sign to relax. Heck, my grandmother lived to 98 and she never lifted more than a six-pound brisket. After the WHO rudely placed me in the “Older People” category, (at 61!) I sat on the couch surfing Netflix, stress-eating salted caramels and Trader Joe’s peanut butter pretzels. For a couple of weeks I binged on My 600-lb Life which should have scared me into starvation mode but weirdly made me want to eat even more. I had…
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QUARANTINED AT “GOOGLE HOME”
I wrote this conversation with my Google Home last week when we both still had a sense of humor. Wish I hadn’t smashed it with a hammer – didn’t know I’d be in desperate need of conversation! Hey Google: What is the weather today? The weather is cloudy with a high chance of virus. Well, I have to brave the food stores in search of garlic and toilet paper, so I guess I’ll substitute a mask for an umbrella. Hey Google: What kind of mask will protect me from contracting the Coronavirus? A…
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Girls Playing Cards Drinking Coffee…and Rosé
Excited to share my first piece for The Girlfriend, a fun weekly newsletter for women over 40 from AARP https://www.thegirlfriend.com/girls-playing-cards-drinking-coffee-and-wine I was on my phone making plans with a friend. I hesitated before I blurted out the embarrassing truth. “I can’t make it Wednesday I’m playing canasta.” I thought to myself – have I turned into my Grandmother? I hadn’t even become my mother yet! Grandma Alice had a weekly card game in her Jackson Heights apartment. I remember sleepovers there where I’d watch her play with her best friend Hannah and “the…
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Handy Schmandy…. Happy to share my latest essay on Kveller…
Just a few of my Dad’s vintage tools https://www.kveller.com/my-jewish-husband-is-no-handyman-but-i-am/
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My Parents Will Be Spending Eternity in a Costco urn. (KVELLER)
https://www.kveller.com/my-jewish-parents-chose-their-final-resting-place-an-urn-from-costco/ In an episode of The Kominsky Method on Netflix, Sandy and Norman, played by Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, planned a funeral for Norman’s deceased wife, who’d specified a coffin made of driftwood, or timber from a sunken ship. Fortunately, my elderly parents’ requirements were way simpler: They wanted an urn from Costco. In spring of last year, I received an email from my mother with a picture of a burial urn from their website. Apparently, Costco really sells everything! “What do you think of this?” she asked. Thankfully, I inherited my sense…
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I had ambivalent feelings about an impending empty nest — here’s my essay about it on a great site – The Woolfer.
UNHINGED “You’re losing it,” my friend Lori said. “I think you need help.” She was right. I was driving friends and family crazy with my obsessive behavior when they staged this mini-intervention four years ago. It wasn’t a dangerous situation. I wasn’t drinking too much or using prescription painkillers. What caused them to question my mental state was an inability to make up my mind on a simple decision. I recalled this predicament as I recently binge-watched the charming Israeli show Shtisel, on Netflix, about a Haredi family in an Ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem. I was…
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A Visit from CPS Changed How I Parented My Teens – Grown and Flown
Grown and Flown is a wonderful website and blog about parenting older kids. In this essay I wrote about a frightening visit from DYFS and how it changed my parenting style A VISIT FROM CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES CHANGED HOW I PARENTED MY TEENS https://grownandflown.com/visit-child-protective-services/
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How do you feel about Gender Reveal parties? Too revealing? Here’s a link to my latest piece on Kveller.com.
https://www.kveller.com/no-one-cares-about-your-gender-reveal-party/?utm_source=kveller_maropost&utm_campaign=kveller&utm_medium=email&mpweb=1161-6883-76104
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Hope you enjoy (and relate to) my new post on Grown & Flown… What to Expect When Your Kids are in their 20s
https://grownandflown.com/expect-when-kids-are-20s/
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The Upside Down Turkey … my recent post on Kveller
Kveller is a wonderful parenting website for those who want to add a Jewish twist while raising their families. Please click on the link to read my recent essay which appeared on their site for Thanksgiving (and again in 2018) We Accidentally Cooked the Turkey Upside-Down — and It Was Strangely Fitting A dripping, cooked turkey was lifted out of the trunk of my sister-in-law Susan’s Lexus instead of a hot oven on Thanksgiving 2014. I helped Susan carry trays of food into my mother-in-law’s Manhasset, Long Island kitchen trying to figure out…
