Tag Archives: family

Sexagintennary

Today my parents marked 60 years of marriage. Only six of their kids made it “home” to help celebrate (all nine made it for their 5oth anniversary). What’s that? Yes, they’re Catholic. But we like to think there’s more to their marital longevity than the fear of eternal damnation. “1 4 3 — 7” they would [...]
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Autobiograffiti

Not only am I getting tired of Facebook (after a mere 13 months of use), I’ve started wondering how much time I’ve already wasted there. It didn’t take very long for me to get fed up and shut down all applications, so if a Facebook bot sends me an egg or kidnaps me or asks [...]
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Sundries

The year is rapidly drawing to a close, and activity here has dwindled to a trickle. The world outside continues to undergo sundry shocks and transformations, while life in the basement has become more inward. After all the excitement and anxiety of the presidential campaign, Barack Obama is off to a solid start. He has already [...]
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Felicitaciones

Congratulations, Gabrielle and Alejandro! (The rest of you—beat it!)
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Equanimity

As the son of a nurse and brother of a doctor (and brother-in-law of two more), this squib in the latest University of Chicago alumni magazine caught my attention: “Why Doctors Don’t Feel Your Pain.” Brain scans show that physicians apparently learn to “shut off” the portion of their brain that helps them appreciate the pain [...]
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Resolution

On December 31, I thought about resolving to be even lazier in 2007 than I was in 2006, but I never got around to it.
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Homer

I was at work in Virginia, chatting with my kid, who’s in college in Massachusetts. That in itself is wondrous. (I think I averaged two phone calls per quarter to my parents while I was in school. She talks with her mother and me four or five times a week.) She mentioned in passing that she [...]
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Unjinxed

The kid is home for the summer and she has been attending my Sunday softball games, thereby doubling our cheering section. She was beginning to get a little spooked, though. After starting the season 5-0 before she came home, we dropped three straight with her watching. Well, we took the first game of a doubleheader yesterday. In [...]
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Pomes

The conversation went like this. We were walking back from lunch, and I noticed the grass getting long (and remembered how ours needs cutting). I said to Ken: “So, have you cut your grass yet?” It turns out he hasn’t needed to, for reasons involving lack of sun in the front yard and kids running [...]
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21

Twenty years ago today, Gabrielle turned one, and the weather was exactly like today: sunny, breezy, and unseasonably warm (77°F, as we speak). We had a picnic on the grass in front of our apartment building on 40th Place. I won’t say it seems like yesterday, but it doesn’t seem like 20 years either. The weather is similar [...]
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  • Proverbs for Paranoids, 3: If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.
    Gravity’s Rainbow

    ‘Is it about a bicycle?’ he asked.
    The Third Policeman