Allyson – and “You’re really good at that.”
I will never forget the first day I met my sweet friend Allyson. I was a new (to her) teacher in a new (to me) school at the start of a brand-new school year. After one particularly rough day that first week or so, I went up to the vending machine after using the restroom […]
Chocolate Tasting — and 8 flavors of anger.
In 1929, at the age of 13, Roald Dahl attended Repton School, a prestigious boys’ boarding school in Derbyshire, England. It was during his time at Repton that the Cadbury company sent sample chocolate bars to the school for the boys to taste and evaluate. “It was a tradition that Cadbury’s, the great chocolate manufacturers, […]
Robert Frost – and 7 things that make decisions feel harder.
I have more than once in this space told you of my love for the book (and movie — and now musical!) The Outsiders. And part of what I love about it is the poem Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost. When I read it in the ’80s, it was my first introduction to […]
Asking for the Can — and Other Reasonable Things
I’m sure there are so many examples of this, but both of mine have to do with Diet Coke.(Insert your own questioning hands emoji here. I don’t mean for Diet Coke to show up in so many of my stories — but here we are.) First example:If you’ve been on a plane anytime in the […]
Chopped chocolate and the version that stuck.
Ruth Graves Wakefield, a trained dietitian and accomplished cook, was 27 when she and her husband purchased an old toll house and turned it into the Toll House Inn in Whitman, Massachusetts. It was 1930 – the heat of the Great Depression. Despite such risky timing, the restaurant was a success especially among travelers, thanks […]
Driving on autopilot.
I don’t know if you’ve ever done this, but the other day I was driving to see my sweet mom, who lives a few towns away from me. I was listening to an album I know well. Traffic wasn’t horrible. The weather was good. And when I got to her house, I realized I didn’t […]
“We’ll get one more.”
I like really good food. I like really good food at really good restaurants. The kind of restaurants with white tablecloths and dim lighting. The kind where the waiters place your napkin for you and come get the crumbs off the table between courses with those cool crumb scoop things. The kind where the menu […]
Pyracantha and ‘Good for Nothing.’
On the west side of the lot in the house where I spent my teenage years, was a huge row of this hedge-type bush called Pyracantha. (Yes, I had to ask my mom what it was called.) The specific kind we had is officially named Teton Firethorn, but our name for it was a little […]
Graduation Season – and other spaces.
For many (many!) years, Memorial Day weekend was super stressful for me. It was usually the final push before high school graduation. Graduation – at least back then – was always the first week in June. And my whole job was graduation – making sure every last kid who could walk, did. There were parents […]
A little thank you – and something new.
In 2018, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania set out to understand how social norms shift – how real change happens, not just in theory, but in groups of people living real lives. They designed an experiment where participants were asked to label a simple image. But midway through the task, a small group of […]
