Living Off the Grid in Retirement by Christine Tailer There is necessarily a pragmatic side to retirement: how to figure out the nuts and bolts of a fiscally sound lifestyle that does not require a steady paycheck. When my husband and I began to look for a rural weekend getaway—a place to escape from the Read more
The Year I Fell from the Sky by Jude Joseph Lovell The summer of 1991, my big brother was visiting from the Midwest with this crappy, brown pickup truck that he was rather proud of. Having been raised in the comfy New Jersey suburbs by a neuroscientist and a busy working mom, we were not Read more
The Thrill of a Great Find by Marly Bobillier Grosso Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved furniture. From the sensual curves of the French period to the simple country styles of Americana, to Asian screens, Chinese armoires, and everything in-between. Each style holds a very special place in my heart, and examples of Read more
The Bennies of CBD By Tracy E. Hill, Ph.D. CBD has been around since the early 1900’s when chemist Roger Adams isolated cannabidiol compound while researching prophylactics to potential gas attacks during the trench warfare in Europe. Working at the National Research Council in Washington DC a few decades later, Adams presented a paper to Read more
Stories in Old Furniture by Lucy E.M. Black None of the furniture in our house is particularly valuable but each piece priceless in terms of the memories and history it represents, and each has its own story. There’s a stuffed armchair where my brother sat, me curled on his lap covered in a big quilt Read more
The Memory of Pain Book Review by Jude Joseph Lovell If there is anything that unites us all, no matter who we are or where we come from, it is that we cannot pass through this life without pain, sacrifice, even suffering. This is one of our few guarantees. The question becomes: What do you do Read more
Cherry Garcia Daydreaming by Kathleen M. Schurman Mucking horse stalls is an adventure in random and rambling thoughts, and with a twenty-six-stall barn to clean every morning, I have plenty of repetitive, mind-numbing shoveling to take me on imaginary adventures throughout the multiverses. Unfortunately, that’s not what usually happens. My thoughts are typically more mundane Read more
Opera Singing & The Performing Arts by Cathleen McGowan The fear, uncertainty, and grief brought on by these many months of pandemic isolation have taken their toll on everyone. The performing arts have been very hard hit—stages have “gone dark,” performance opportunities have been postponed indefinitely, traveling to gigs has become nearly impossible, students have Read more
A House with Many Rooms Book review by Jude Joseph Lovell Throughout his distinguished career, much has been made of the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro’s “mixed” heritage—the fact that he was raised in England by his Japanese parents. Since his novels tend to raise questions that strike to the core of humanity—who we really are, and Read more
I Love You, Marie Kondo by Grace Ann Stevens I have never had an addiction, at least not until now. But I recently have fallen madly in love with Marie Kondo and her Netflix show Tidying Up. I have known for a long time that I needed to clean out my closets but have been procrastinating Read more
