“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.” ~~G.K. Chesterton Djurdja admits that she is at least 80 years old, but I believe that she is somewhat conservative. She complains constantly of her back pains, leg pains, head pains. She wobbles when she walks, but when no one is looking she straightens up [...]
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 [...]
It’s 7:30 Friday night. I am in my parents’ bedroom in front of the full-size mirror. I have a minute or two before my friends ring the bell. Did I cover the fresh-from-this-morning zit between my brows? Does my oversized shirt borrowed from Father cover my hips? Is my hair positioned just the way it [...]
I cannot recount how many times throughout my life I stated that my parents should not have ended up together. They are both very strong, intelligent, well-read (on different subjects, of course) and as a consequence extremely opinionated, stubborn, and uncompromising. I wish I could write a fairy tale about two complementary souls who, while [...]
I never thought I would have children. I felt somewhat detached from my siblings in our early days, even though all three of us were born within four years. I learned to read when I was four, and was drawn to books more then to the kids my age. I was shy and awkward around [...]
When I was four years old, I got the mumps. Father was a physician, but the remedy did not come from a pharmacy. Instead of reluctantly ingesting grape-flavored syrup or being force-fed pink gel antibiotics, my neck, jaws, and cheeks were enveloped in smoked, thickly sliced ribbons of bacon, and wrapped with a bandana tied [...]
Cleveland, Ohio, was our home for over a decade. I moved there from Michigan, Husband from Georgia, and we met in the early fall of 1997. The city’s “emerald necklace”, the Metroparks, served as our courting grounds. Surrounded by hues of burnt orange, sienna, ochre, crimson, and sunflower, spectacularly revealed in ancient oaks, elegant maples, [...]
Once upon a time, in my previous life, we had a nice house with a big expanse of grass sloping down towards the lake. A wooden fence separated us from the neighbors on the right and in front. Along the “L” shape that fences formed, I had my father, a retired Ob-Gyn, turn the dirt [...]
When I was growing up in Serbia, during the 70s and 80s, eating locally grown, seasonal food was not a matter of choice. That was the only choice we had. Not that anybody spent numerous sleepless nights pondering the reasons. We bought our bread and pastries freshly baked every morning. When rye bread became available, [...]
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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