California Sunshine - Luxury No More: Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice

  I am standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. A coffee maker is gurgling just to the right, and a few feet behind me there is a skillet with onions and potatoes cut in small cubes, destined to become a diner-worthy accompaniment to the eggs and toast. It’s cold in our small 70s kitchen [...]

The Night We Came Home

It was already dark when Husband picked me and the girls up at the Cleveland International Airport after our summer vacation in Serbia, and drove us to our new house in the western suburb of Strongsville. There was a hint of autumn chill in the late August night. The kids were tired and drowsy, cranky [...]

First Call for Alcohol

Once we were past the age of uttering two repetitive syllables as means of conversation, our parents bestowed upon us a Maleficent-like gift: the burden of trust. We were never forbidden anything and had to be mature enough to make our own decisions. A lot of days had to pass by before we knew for [...]

Oct 122010
Anya Saves the Day

Today was not a good day. I knew it when the phone rang the night before, right when we were finishing our dinner of grilled ribeye steaks, mashed potatoes, and mushroom and leek gravy. I knew it as I climbed into the car to go to work. I knew it when I met my manager’s [...]

To Dragana, With Love

My Serbian neighbor and friend for many years, Dragana, moved away today, for good. They had moved to California from Ohio in 2005, and we stayed behind. Our frequent telephone conversations consisted mostly of her trying to explain how wrong we were to cling to ice and snow, when we can have the land of [...]

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