In preparation for a brighter future, Frank kept a close eye on his finances.  Living in a modest and not especially well-located apartment, he was able to put a fourth of his salary away every month—so far. That was thanks to no medical emergencies and his very generous benefits package.  The money accruing in various investment plans would go toward what he really wanted to do with his life.  Yet, here he was, about to turn thirty and he had absolutely no idea whither he should wander. 

All the advice columns said give yourself a year before you make any rash decisions after a life-changing event. And within that year since the divorce was final, Jerry was dead. Was that another life-changing event? Did she have to wait another year?

Heidi had been married to their father exactly six months and seven days. Now he was dead, with the black widow getting everything. Where’s the payoff for being Dr. Frank’s children? He was there for everyone but not them. Patients came first. That was the lesson they learned very early in life. Hey, Dad, money isn’t love.

She was definitely not enough woman for Jerry. Boy, was he—needy? Up for it? Wanting it?

Dead. That’s what he was. Dead.

I don’t think I ever really meant to be a lawyer. Maybe some people grow up thinking, yes, I want to be a lawyer, crazy as that might sound. But the rest of us just sort of fall into it when our choices are limited. I was an English major in college, University of Wisconsin, Madison, thank you very much, to get away from the East Coast hot house and its rising expectations. And, okay, maybe my parents also. It was four years of freezing my ass off in the winter, but otherwise having an expansive time and finding out how the other half lives, the half in fly-over country.

The upshot of the divorce: I ended up impoverished, what do you think? I was totally blindsided, didn’t get a lawyer immediately because I was sure we could work it out, as we’d always done before, because Heidi wasn’t the first. So-bank account gone, despite court order, house on the market before I could wonder if anyone wanted Grandma’s dishes. (No one did.)

Why is every single day cluttered with things I don’t want to do? Why do the clothes need washing and folding and being put away? Why does the dishwasher need emptying? Why is there crap on the floor that wasn’t there yesterday, and why do I have to get out the vacuum cleaner to take care of it?

Our country was never what you thought it was. There was racism and isolationism and all sorts of discrimination, all those isms we were actually on the path to overcoming. And then— Well, we’re just not anymore, are we?

Happy birthday to me.

Where is the likes of Victor Borge now! Well, okay, we still have Mel Brooks and his brilliant movies and Carl Reiner’s laugh-out-loud “Enter Laughing.” But really, there would be long stretches before I found something to laugh at. Perhaps that’s why I married my husband. He has provided a constant, if perhaps unwitting, source of amusement.

Now, my husband is a rather mild-mannered man. And yet, when he gets frustrated, I recede into the background and pretend I have no idea who he is. Take, for example, our TGV ride from Paris to Nantes.

When I was a young girl, okay, before most people can remember, I used to enter the flower-arranging contest our elementary school held each spring. I wasn’t good at much, but I seemed to have a knack for arranging flowers. Fortunately, I had plenty of opportunity to find the ones I needed.

Squirrels: Are they my least favorite mammal? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on who’s living under my deck at the moment. Raccoons or skunks? One time I had a woodchuck, another a possum. But are any of them as unrelenting as squirrels? Well, okay, yeah, they are. But let’s get back to my “pet” peeve of the moment: Squirrels.

Does anyone else read the New York Times book review section and wonder about the “authors” in the “By the Book” section? I use “authors” in quotes because a lot of the authors the Times chooses are celebrities and not those slogging away, day after day, to create a cacophony of words for your delight.

One day, as all four of her children were sitting around the kitchen table, my mother, smoking her cigarette, announced out of nowhere that she would always love our father more than she would love any of us.

I, the second born, was named Carolyn Ann, the Carolyn after my grandmother Caroline, called Carrie. The year I was born was a big year for everything Carol. In my elementary school class there were four Carols and there was I. I have gone through life being called everything except Carolyn. It’s Carol, or Carol Ann, or Caroline. But I happen to like Carolyn. One time a friend asked me what my Hebrew name was. I told her, “It’s Carolyn.”

I never knew why my father had such an intense dislike of me, but it certainly cast a pall over my childhood and adulthood. He was nasty to me; he was nasty to my sons. I will give him this much. He was nice to my daughter.

When I was four, we moved to Highview Avenue in Nanuet, New York. My mother always assured us it was the best street in Nanuet, possible because it was on a hill and some of the houses were quite old.

Why do I find the desert so appealing? I have no idea. It’s a siren song, calling to my soul. Not to mention its pallete of colors that changes as the light changes. I longed for the desert. But how to get there?

Ahoy, Maties, and anchors away! The bitches are back!