It has been said that baseball breaks your heart, and it’s designed to do so. The game begins in spring, when everything else renews again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings. And then, as soon as the chilly rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. Ironically, this distressing analogy is attributed to A. Bartlett Giamatti, the actor Paul’s father and former commissioner of Major League Baseball, who served only five months in his term before dying of a heart attack. This is the same man who refused to reinstate “Shoeless Joe” Jackson (the outfielder remembered for his association with the…
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Just dribble
The key to writing memoir — a form of creative nonfiction — is honesty. Readers of the memoir genre demand authenticity. They want the raw, unvarnished truth. Otherwise, they would just read fiction, right? As writer Steve Almond signed in his book, This Won’t Take But a Minute, Honey, to a struggling creative nonfiction writer in 2012: “Jennifer, run toward the darkness and shine.” Yeah, that was me, absorbing the concept of radical disclosure. I had no idea what that meant back then. But a dozen years later, I’m much more open to it. Here goes nothing, my dear demanders of brutal honesty: For some unknown reason, since my partial knee replacement surgery, whenever I…
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Summer FLiRT
After five full summers among us, COVID-19 has settled in once again and become, well, a FLiRT. That amusing technical acronym is the name given to the latest variants, which now account for more than 75% of the new COVID-19 cases in the United States. There’s consistently been a bit of a seasonal uptick in summer and winter, kind of like our property taxes. For the last year or so, it’s the same symptoms but different variants, yet still COVID-19. Called FLiRT due to the technical names for its spike protein mutations, which include the letters F, L, R and T, FLiRT is a subvariant of last winter’s dominant strain Omicron, and…
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Driving joy
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy Fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high Oh, your daddy’s rich and your ma is good lookin’ So hush little baby, don’t you cry” ~ The first verse of “Summertime,” composed in 1934 by George Gershwin for the opera “Porgy and Bess.” Summertime, and the livin’ is … easy breezy. I’m feeling more like myself and walking less like a toddler with a loaded diaper. As proof, in the past few weeks we’ve gone to three classic car shows (including the Woodward Dream Cruise!), visited our good pal Gayle at her lake house and watched the Detroit Lions lose to the New York…
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Don’t worry
It is the last Saturday in July, and I’ve got to say that I’m feeling much better than I did the last Saturday in June. And not just because I’m off pain meds, which you may question after reading this blog post. Thankfully, I’m walking without a cane, climbing stairs and driving. (The new knee’s healing nicely, thanks. And the left one feels great, too, because I’m never doing that again. Hella no. Ask me in six months.) As I was saying, I’ve been a little worried this week because since last Sunday afternoon, I’ve stopped being very worried, and that concerns me. Honestly, I swear to you I drafted…
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Twenty
A tiny white heart marks a handful of photos on my phone in an album named “Us,” followed by a red heart emoji. It holds a funny Bitmoji of us driving in a car, a fan pic at a Detroit Tigers game, a family shot with Madison in her “guncles” pool and another taken somewhere on Anna Maria Island. We look happy in all of them, except for that silly “Are we there yet?” cartoon. The first photo catches my eye. It’s a professional shot from the mid-2000s taken around Christmastime about 10 years ago. Maybe longer. Simpler times, fewer worries. At least that’s how it appears now. Those were…
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New parts
It’s been a minute, my esteemed blog subscribers. Sweet Jesus, it’s good to be back among the living, breathing and semi-walking, as I type this on my painfully slow, AI-averse 10-year-old MacBook. Like me, it probably needs new parts and a good sanitizing. Nearly three weeks ago, on June 3 to be exact, I had a partial right knee replacement. My surgeon used MAKO robotic arm-assisted technology, a procedure that provides precision joint alignment and conserves more healthy tissue. This often means there’s less pain and a faster recovery. And you can walk more naturally, sooner. A partial’s not as bad as a full replacement, people said. Less painful and…
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Beautiful boy
I don’t have children. At least none that I know of. It’s honestly my greatest regret in life. But, heck, maybe I wasn’t cut out for motherhood. I’m still trying to figure out the difference between size 24 months and 2T. They should be the same, right? Wrong. Apparently, size 24 months includes features specially designed for babies. Baby bottoms (as in pants) in a 24-month size feature a curved design to fit diapers. Relaxed fit, if you will. The 2T size won’t have extra room, appearing slimmer and feeling snugger than size 24 months. Sort of like “Baby Spanx.” So for me, not having kids was perhaps a blessing…
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The chair
It’s been a rough couple of weeks since our beloved dog left this earth. We miss her so much that sometimes it’s hard to speak. We’re quieter than usual, staying up later and sleeping longer than we probably should, trying to fill the void of not having her around 24/7. There were lots of cards, calls, texts and well wishes. (Thank you all.) Lately, we’ve managed a few solitary afternoons sitting on the patio watching birds build nests, along with some visits from supportive friends and family to fill our minds with something other than Madison. Much to my dismay, grief doesn’t have an expiration date. You can’t toss it…
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Madison 2008-2024
Her left ear was the color of latte, a soft creamy caramel beige. A spot the very same color covered her lower back in the shape of a semicolon. Even though she had me at “woof,” this punctuation birthmark was the clincher. She stole my heart. She was ours. And we were hers. We met when she was just hours old, eased into this world by my middle sister, Sandy, whose small but mighty dog Annie had three healthy Havanese puppies in a litter of four. Sadly, one male didn’t make it. But two females and another lucky boy survived. They were all spoken for, except one. It was May…
