The blog has a new character! !!! Grandson 1 has arrived. Grandson 1’s parents (Son 1 and Dear Daughter-in-Law) do not want photos posted of him. I get it. I specifically recall the origin of this insistence. Son 1 was a teen. I showed him that when one wrote stuff online, people for years to […]
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It’s a Sign (2024 Edition)
This is a beautiful ballad from the Eagles, released in 1975, “Take It to the Limit.” Listen here. All alone at the end of the evening And the bright lights have faded to blue I was thinking ’bout a woman Who might have loved me I never knew You know I’ve always been a dreamer […]
Chapter X, In Which LK Realizes She is Not The Little Match Girl
While we are in the troves of children’s literature, here’s a story about another tale that I reflect on. The key reason that my current work transition is so painful is my lifelong struggle with feeling like an outsider. There have been some moments in my life, most notably the college years, that I felt […]
Unbouncing
Excerpts from Chapter 7 of A.A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner, “In Which Tigger is Unbounced,” or, as I like to think of it right now, an allegory for the modern workplace. [Rabbit:] “Tigger’s getting so Bouncy nowadays that it’s time we taught him a lesson. Don’t you think so, Piglet?”Piglet said that Tigger […]
Matthew Barney
When I think of Matthew and Barney, here’s what I see in my mind’s eye. But the two names together are something entirely different: an avant-garde artist, Matthew Barney. He had a show at the Guggenheim museum in NYC when my family—mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law, DH and I—visited in 2003. Touristy activities over […]
Runcible
One of the themes in my remarks at my dad’s memorial was his love of poetry. He always told us, “poetry was meant to be read aloud.” Last week I traveled to Bloomington, Indiana and had breakfast at a restaurant called Runcible Spoon. The reference felt like a wink from dad: Edward Lear’s “The Owl […]
And Now
Heartrage is exhausting. I am not done raging, but I do take breaks. Here’s one of them. DH and I are watching Blue Bloods. Blue Bloods is a police family show with an ensemble cast. “Police family” in the sense that all the adults in the family are in the police, except the district attorney […]
Heartbreak
My heart is breaking! My new boss told me last month that he is not renewing my associate dean contract when it concludes on June 30. To be clear: I am not unemployed. I am a tenured professor in marketing, and I will return to teaching and research. But I have really loved my administrative […]
Furry Bear
Furry Bearby A. A. Milne If I were a bear, And a big bear too, I shouldn’t much care If it froze or snew; I shouldn’t much mind If it snowed or friz— I’d be all fur-lined With a coat like his! For I’d have fur boots and a brown fur wrap, And brown fur […]
Waste Not, Want Not
I wrote a few months ago about my dad’s passing. Mom is doing really well. My sister and I have been visiting her to help with some of the team projects. Last summer, I helped find a home for the 1980s electronics assemblies that my dad used in building Gamma Instruments (his thickness gauge business). […]