Candles lit on the dining room table, chatter of grown-ups talking, peals of laughter echoing through the house, the delicious scent of potato pancakes frying in the kitchen where my mother and grandmother stand over the hot stove… I remember being 7-years-old, wearing a party dress with wool tights and shiny black Mary Janes. It… Read more »
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“I, Take you, To be my (wife/husband); To have and to hold, From this day forward, For better, for worse, For richer, for poorer, In sickness and in health, To love and to cherish, As long as we both shall live.” Once the marriage vows have been exchanged, once the gifts are opened, the monogrammed… Read more »
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Hello darkness, my old friend. Like a bridge over troubled water. That’s me and Julio down by the schoolyard. Music takes us back to a formative time, to a younger potentate version of ourselves. Music reminds us of who we were, who we are, and who we still want to be. Music captures a zeitgeist,… Read more »
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What does it mean to be happy? It is the most elusive of questions, and permeates much of our daily lives. While we toil away, we secretly pray for happiness. “I just want to be happy,” so many people say. But do we even know what happiness is? Recently, a science of happiness has cropped… Read more »
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The world is a competitive place. That is why it’s important to remember the value of kindness and compassion, or we might be taken over by a will to succeed at all costs and never have any fun or experience true joy. There is a quote from the Dalai Lama: “If you want others to… Read more »
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Throw away all the extras and show your boyfriend the real you. If you don’t: if you choose instead to hide behind fake eyelashes and reinforced hair; if you pump and prod in order to look as much as you can like Meg Ryan or Beyoncé, or Rihanna, remember that … if we’re lucky and… Read more »
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Listen up. Marriage is hard work. As trumpeted in I Do. I Did. Now What? Life After the Wedding Dress, by Jenny Lee, “There are always plenty of friends to argue the finer points of engagement rings, prenuptial diets, French bustles, and tiara vs. headpiece.” But, the author warns, “Once the band stops playing and… Read more »
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Kermit the Frog was right – it’s not easy being green. When the famous Muppet and Sesame Street star performed his hit song, “Bein’ Green,” he described a lonely path of self-discovery. Kermit sang: It’s not that easy being green; Having to spend each day the color of the leaves. When I think it could… Read more »
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The news isn’t very promising. Less than two out of five married couples describe themselves as happy while the rest are either somewhat satisfied or living with spouses in quiet desperation, experiencing little intimacy, passion, romance or sex. Enter the Johnsons, Melva and Jesse, a handsome baby-boomer couple with two grown sons, who appear to… Read more »
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Crystal is a power shopper. She arrives at our lunch wearing a $2,300 white, billowy Donna Karan shirt for which she paid only $180. She tries to play down the label “shopping addict,” which her friends accuse her of being. She is, she says, a collector – a collector of fine clothing. The whole obsession… Read more »
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