I didn’t mean to, but I made a grown man cry.
A huge hulking man who wore high-heeled boots.
It all happened on a sunny Sunday in front of a restaurant on a busy Boston cobblestoned street. Continue reading
Boston
A Rough Ride
I take the train from Boston to Delaware to visit my mom. Anything is better than flying, I figure. Plus, I can watch the pastoral East Coast scenery whiz by, in my romanticized notion of riding the rails.
I pack five books, my laptop, and three short story rough drafts. After all, I have more than six hours to write or read with no interruption.
Heaven!
When was the last time you rode a train? Do you remember the bouncing and jouncing, the rolling and jerking one mile to the next to the next…?
Tea Done Wight
My day begins with tea.
A “Pam Latte” it’s been called at the cafes I’ve frequented. A CA friend (who owned a coffee/tea bar) named it “Tea Done Wight” and offered it on her bar menu.
That all changed when I moved from the Bay Area to New England. I had to re-introduce my tea of choice to the new establishment.
In the beginning, back in the fall right after I moved to this Boston suburb, I had to ask for the whole caboodle: Continue reading
Meeting the Boyfriend’s…Spinach
We’ve seen all sorts of movies and stories about the horror of a boyfriend meeting the parents.
But what about a viewpoint from the other side?
I vividly recall when my man and I met our daughter’s boyfriend for the first time. She was so particular throughout most of her 20’s that a guy never made it to the stage of meeting us. But now, she’s invited us to meet someone over drinks and pasta.
My guy is inordinately nervous and drives into the city too fast and too distracted as he asks “what if we don’t like him?”
Continue reading
Tap Me Up, Scotty
Paramount/Everett/Rex Features
I’m not an easy flyer, and I know many of you aren’t either.
So imagine this.
I’m on an airplane leaving the city of love to return to the city of champions, and incidentally, the city where 9/11 began.
I keep my head buried in my book, burying as well memories and misgivings, expectations and excitement on my upcoming re-location. But the fellow sitting next to me (I’m in the aisle, he’s in the window seat, with no one in between), in his early 40s, well-dressed with the requisite 2-day-old beard and unscuffed suede loafers, continually looks at his watch. 
Over and over again. Continue reading
