The only people who were really happy about our August 6th, 1983 wedding were Jay and I, my mother, my sister Susan, and Jay’s best man, Carl. That’s why, on our wedding photos, we are the only ones smiling with our eyes. My son and daughter are scowling at the camera, as much as to…
A year ago my husband Jay and I were going to sell the house on the lake in New Hampshire. It’s really too big for us. Mostly, there are only the two of us there, and the house will actually sleep 10 or more, so you can see the logic. I don’t really want a…
You remember the lions, right? Those gigantic marble thingy’s that protect our house in New Hampshire from harm? And who am I to argue with that? After all, nothing dreadful has happened there since we got them. Except. My ever-shopping spouse bought another house, the way you do. This one’s in Phoenix, and he’d seen…
I know you’ve all been pining for an update about Ernest and Mabel, the two marble lions that my husband Jay bought in a mad moment in Vietnam. (Click here to read that post if you missed it.) When last seen, they were standing among a forest of other white marble flora and fauna (not…
When I first started writing this “Christmas” letter it started “It’s November, and…. Then it morphed into “It’s December and…” Fact is, you’ve probably noticed that, in fact, “It’s January and…although I’m sitting here looking at a deceptively placid and sunny lake, we’ve already had at least a foot of snow here in New Hampshire….
I entered this piece in a contest called ‘Tis the Season, and came second. So much fun (and there was a cash prize…). Every word is true, I swear. Hope you like it! And you can read the other winning stories here: http://echook.com/ ‘THE OUTFIT’ by Gabi Coatsworth It had been at least thirty years…
You may have been wondering where I’ve been for the last month. I was writing. I wrote a perfectly horrible first draft of a novel. 50, 000 words in 30 days. And you know what? I don’t even care that it’s horrible. Because a horrible first draft can become an OK second draft and then…
We reached Hoi An in the early evening and checked into our riverside hotel. But before we reached there, our guide stopped in a courtyard with a large open storefront. “Here we make clothes,” he announced. It goes without saying that the CS (Chief Shopper) was agog at the prospect of a new jacket, though…
