On a slushy Ottawa night last week, I tromped into the Officer’s Mess of the Royal Canadian Air Force, here to attend the 513th meeting of the Arctic Circle. When I moved north to Yellowknife ten years ago, my Aunt Diana wrote that her husband Graham would have been pleased I was living in the land he […]
Month: February 2016
Last year, I abandoned a story. It happens, journalists don’t write every story they think they might. But this one I still think about. It started innocuously enough. A paper caught my eye about looting and archaeology. The premise was somewhat counterintuitive: the author argued that in places where the economic situation was particularly dire, […]
My husband died. He wasn’t young any more and was sick and weak but we weren’t expecting his death to come as quickly as it did, within a few days, almost overnight. He just went away. Maybe there are worse things than a quick, quiet death. Here’s what happened next. My brother and sister-in-law (who […]
I’ve owned only one copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, and I’ve owned it since high school. It’s a 1980 Signet Classic paperback, original price $1.75. Inside the creased front cover, in ballpoint pen, a long-ago student has scrawled, “I want to go to sleep. I’ll never last 1 hr + 20 min reading!” I wasn’t that student—I […]
There is a blue velour–covered box in my house marked with the face of a pirate and the word “Plunder.” Like any piratical treasure trove, there are golden coins inside. There are also marbles, leftover buttons, and crow feathers. Sometimes, I’m not quite sure what makes some of the things inside the box so valuable. […]
February 8 – 12, 2016 C’mon, Hollywood, get real, says Erik. Even a 12-year old can get out of those rope knots, let alone some grownup damsel on the railroad tracks, let alone Indiana Jones. New era, new climate, so we need some new words. Michelle makes up some of such quality that they rival […]
Last fall, Krista Hall and her fiancé decided on a destination wedding in the Dominican Republic. Planning a wedding can be a monumental task. Flowers must be chosen, food ordered, cakes tasted, dresses fitted, vows written, music selected . . . the list goes on and on and on. That’s why Hall hired a wedding […]
Eleven years ago this week, my 67-year-old mother died from a brain tumor. It was Glioblastoma multiforme, an insidious fourth-stage cancer that, without treatment, usually kills within three months. Treatment options are miserable for the patient and not terribly effective; for those who opt for surgery and radiation/chemo, the cancer almost always returns within a year […]
