A recent sleep study – and misperception.
When I was a student teacher in Psychology, I led a large group of juniors and seniors in high school through a dream experiment. For 2 weeks I asked them to keep a notebook by their beds and record the events of their day before they got in bed at night, and any remembrances from […]
Spaghetti Sauce – and Borrowed Capacity.
When I was a junior in high school, I had a job as an afterschool ‘nanny’ for a well-to-do family across town with 3 children – ages 11, 9, and 6. My job entailed running family errands, getting the kids from school, helping them finish their homework, doing some light housework, and starting dinner. At […]
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 […]
“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 […]
Olly Olly Oxen Nope (the fish follow-up!)
Exactly a year ago, I wrote about a childhood game of hide and seek – and about a belief I wanted to let go of: “I can’t change.” To make it tangible (and a little silly), I gave myself a goal:Learn to like seafood. More specifically: become the kind of person who doesn’t automatically say […]
Frequently Asked Questions.
A couple weeks ago I was sitting in a restaurant next to a woman from Texas and we struck up a conversation about what we ‘do’ for work. We actually had a lot in common. After I answered her, she asked who I help and I gave her my familiar schpeel. She continued to ask […]
Answering back.
When my brother Jack was engaged to his wife some thirty-ish years ago, she remembers that they had a hard time being apart. As such, Jack would sometimes fall asleep at her parents’ house when they were watching TV after a date and get home in the wee hours of the morning. My Dad was […]
Synaptic Pruning.
When I married my handsome, smart, funny, comforting, hard-working husband, my dog Scout and I moved into his house, 2 counties away. It was NOT a hard decision to marry him. Obviously. It was, however, very hard to decide which of our houses to sell. I loved my house, my neighborhood, my church community, my […]
