A day with my mom

I’m getting to a place in life where many of the people I know have lost one or both of their parents. I have to admit to an embarrassment of riches on this front, because both of my parents are still with us, and still physically and mentally vibrant. I don’t usually think in terms

January goes away

If I had to rank the months of the year in order of my personal preference, January would be at or near the bottom. Winter will do that, I’m afraid. So after today, January goes away for a good long time. If all goes well it will come back again, for me and everyone reading

Keeping Winter at bay

Today is the birthday of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who is best known for The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, but who also wrote the following couplet: The love of learning, the sequestered nooks And all the sweet serenity of books There’s another cold day outside, here in Chicago. Keeping warm is essential this winter, more

Springtime in Chicago

I often tell people that the 6 weeks or so of nice weather that we have here in Chicago make the other 46 weeks seem worthwhile. I don’t really believe that, but I keep on saying it anyway. It looks as if we’re starting those six great weeks now. Better go enjoy it while I

Spring at last

This may have been the strangest winter I’ve ever experienced. There was literally no snow at all–with the exception of the Christmas day miracle–from the end of Fall up until early February. Then the groundhog predicted an early spring, and it all went wrong. We had snow, ice, rain, and varying degrees of mixtures between