ArcaMax

"Hi! Would you like to try a delicious, gluten-free, dairy-free ravioli?" asked a woman standing behind a small table in the pasta section of the grocery store. The table was set with a dozen small cups that each contained one ravioli. She raised one of the cups and thrust it at me with a fork. The ravioli looked innocuous enough, and I had ...Read more

You may have heard about a sudden rash of newspaper editorial boards, including the one at the company where I work, declining to endorse a candidate for president. Let's talk about it. With days until this most consequential election, we're going deep on matters of life, death and drowning.

Editorial boards represent the voice of an ...Read more

When I decided to color my hair, it was not because I suddenly had a desire to be a blonde bombshell or a foxy redhead. As a fifty-something-year-old, I would need more than a bottle of hair dye to transform into a bombshell or a fox. I suspect it would have taken full-body liposuction and a stupendously gifted fairy godmother. Fortunately, ...Read more

For all the obsessing I've done about my body parts, the one area that has always escaped the harsh glare of my overcritical eye is my feet. Certainly they are not perfect feet, and Manolo Blahnik would never beat down my door to have me model his shoes. But as feet go, they are fairly unassuming; I would even go so far as to say cute. I ...Read more

The mattresses. They're so sad.

I keep sharing this thought with people who scrunch up their brows. When there is so much to be sad about, why the ennui about an abandoned bed?

Because it's not natural to see mattresses piled along the road, three, four, five at a time. A mattress is a sanctuary, a piece of personal polymer where our bodies ...Read more

"When's dinner?" my husband asked me when he got home as I stood in the kitchen stirring a sauce.

"Pretty soon," I replied.

"Do you mind if I close my eyes for a minute?" he requested, putting down his bag and taking off his jacket.

I nodded. When most people say they're going to close their eyes for a minute, they actually mean more like ...Read more

Driving across Florida in the middle of the night after a hurricane, that's one way to make peace with your God. Or start to try.

My husband and I look up from our evacuation hotel in West Palm Beach after the storm and know, in a deep, bone-and-soul kind of way, that we can't stay one minute longer. We have to cut a line through this state ...Read more

My husband is a Honeycrisp snob.

If you're not familiar with this, Honeycrisp is a kind of apple, and according to him, it is a superior apple. All other apples are lesser apples. He will not eat a Fuji, Gala or Pink Lady. Only Honeycrisp will do. My son will also only eat Honeycrisp apples. So, I guess in this case, the apple really doesn't ...Read more

Are you OK?

How did you fare?

Storm victims woke pelting impossible questions into the ether, texting, posting, gathering debris and fishing furniture from toxic waters. Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 behemoth, plowed into Florida's Big Bend last week. The storm's impacts amounted to what experts in the lead-up kept calling...Read more

Not that I'm obsessive or anything, but years ago when my kids were little, I would carry entire kiddie wardrobes around with me so that when my kids got dirty, I could strip them down on the spot and change their clothes.

Of course, this started to become pretty embarrassing for the kids by the time they hit 20, so I stopped.

It also meant ...Read more

Recently I noticed that the shallow lines on my forehead had started to morph into wandering rivers. Since I wear my hair very short, there wasn't really any way to cover them up, and I complained to my husband that I was starting to look old.

"How old do you think you look?" he asked.

"Around 60," I replied.

"You are around 60," he said.

...Read more

The following is an only slightly modified account of a recent attempt to sever internet and cable over the phone with a customer service agent.

Hi. I need to cancel my service.

OK, may I ask why?

We moved and are cutting cable and have gone with a new internet provider.

Mmhmm. Did you get the little white box ...Read more