Musings from my driveway, my home and my heart
My students grappled with some tough topics in their college application essays this year, often centering around timeless themes of love, death and money – and lighter topics such as late-night Taco Bell runs with friends and their favorite playlists. Their writing helped to launch them into prestigious undergraduate and master’s programs in systems engineering,... Continue Reading →
When the kids running the lemonade stand down the street started accepting Venmo, the mobile payment app, my grandkids looked crestfallen. Their lemonade stand was primitive in comparison. The eight-year-old and five-year-old made change with a few coins rattling around in a tiny basket that used to hold raspberries. Their hand-lettered sign had a misspelled... Continue Reading →
My mother poses next to my dad’s two-tone 1958 Ford Thunderbird in the driveway of our home in northwest Detroit. She’s dressed in a shimmery gold outfit with a quadruple strand of white beads and a wide-brimmed hat trimmed in colorful cabbage roses. Her outfit is the perfect complement to the coupe’s aqua-and-white exterior. Clotheslines... Continue Reading →
I’m staving off the pandemic blues by throwing myself into a home-improvement project that includes a bookcase shaped like an elephant and several gallons of Benjamin Moore’s First Light pink paint. The idea is to transform a guest bedroom in my house into a magical kid’s playroom, one that will delight my three grandchildren once the... Continue Reading →
When I was in the second grade, my friend Patrice asked if I could come home with her after school to play with Barbie dolls and meet her mother. Even before I saw the iron lung set up in the living room of Patrice’s house, I could hear the rhythmic “whoosh.” Her mother, a polio victim,... Continue Reading →
After stress-baking, grooming the schnauzer, and endless rounds of the card game Exploding Kittens this weekend, my husband and I decided to quit squandering our time. We signed up for edX, the massive open online course provider that serves a worldwide community and offers thousands of free classes. Our dining room table became our classroom... Continue Reading →
Most weekends, I head over to my granddaughter Eleanor’s house loaded down like Mary Poppins with books, games, Calico Critters and all of their accessories. The coronavirus quarantine wasn’t going to interrupt our routine. So we live-streamed “Nini’s Story Time” on our iPads on Saturday, with three of the Calico Critters standing in as “teachers.”... Continue Reading →
My 13-year-old sister Claudia became something of a celebrity stalker in 1968, when every kid in my family and on our block was obsessed with baseball and the Detroit Tigers, who were in a heated pennant race and would go on the win the World Series. One summer afternoon, she jumped on her purple Schwinn... Continue Reading →
As soon as I spotted the brown tick on the white comforter on my bed, I texted my neighbors Jeannie and Stacey. “Ugh. Ticks are back,” I wrote. “Damn it,” replied Jeannie. “I thought about them the last couple of days and wondered. Was it on you or Rosie?” The tick likely came from my... Continue Reading →
My 14-year-old niece Julia has been absorbed by the story of St. Genevieve, a Catholic nun who lived in the fourth century and successfully faced down Attila the Hun as he and his hordes threatened Paris. Julia chose “Genevieve” as her confirmation name, a Catholic tradition that is part of Confirmation, a sacrament that signals... Continue Reading →
Anita's Way 