The Next-to-the-Last Cat Post (for awhile, anyhow)
Tessie-cat passed away sometime last night. She had been part of our family for almost 19 years. She was being treated for chronic kidney failure, and we expected her condition to irreversibly deteriorate within the next several years. Meanwhile, we all gave her lots of attention in her last months. We discovered her under the […]
A Thanksgiving of Gratitude
So it’s Thanksgiving, and… What are you doing online today?! As for me, my side of the family is getting together for a big holiday bash tomorrow, and my Beloved’s family on Sunday. So that means I have another day to prepare the big Black Friday/Cyber Monday holiday offer I’ve been working on, which I […]

Bits & Pieces 2012-11-08
Links and things that I’ve run across recently. First Snow Or to quote Lorelai Gilmore: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have flakes. Flakes have been sighted. Flakage, if you will, has begun.” Yesterday afternoon and into the night, the season’s first snow in the Boston area (and if I recall correctly, in New England generally). I […]

The Bat-Mitzvah Speech
I am truly humbled by the overwhelming response to my daughters’ bnot mitzvah. We had over 2 dozen family and friends who came out for the service. Firstly, a public apology for the length: 3 hours, a whole hour longer than a normal service— I knew it was going to go longer than our usual […]

Bits & Pieces 2012-10-25
Links and things that I’ve run across recently. Or Maybe I Need to Learn to Talk Like John Moschitta … or Paris Geller. My mind goes back to one episode of Gilmore Girls (“It Should Have Been Lorelai”, season 2, episode 14—and no, I didn’t know that off the top of my head) when Paris […]

Halloween Pumpkins Are Working Overtime
Just a super-quick post today, for my comrade-in-arms and fellow-blogger Jim “Suldog” Sullivan, who reports: “Christmas items have already been spotted on store shelves in the Boston area. GRRRRRRRR… THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!” (Exclamation point added.) So I thought he’d really appreciate this photo, for which I actually searched Flickr with especially him in mind. (And […]

Bits & Pieces 2012-10-18
Links and things that I’ve run across recently. NOTE: I’ve been light on the posts, because I’m working feverishly on the next novel, Ardor Point #2… which I need to come up with a proper name for. Currently, the two top contenders are A Reason to Live and Finding Light. Race Relations on the Internet […]

The Joy of Old Friends and New Family
In early August, while the girls were at camp, I spent a lot of uninterrupted time with Tessie-cat. At almost-19 years, she’s even older (in cat years) than I am. I call her “my geriatric cat,” which is what she is. All she did for the whole week was to sit on the back on […]

Is It Ethical for Me to Use My First Name?
In preparation for my daughters’ bnot mitzvah, I’ve had to order several items from online Judaica stores. When placing the latest order, I realized—in one of those flashes of the obvious that I had previously been blocking from my cognizance… I realized that I had been using my first name, Jonathan, because it’s a good, […]
Bits & Pieces 2012-10-04
Links and things that I’ve run across recently. When a Cat Takes Over Your Life I apologize for being absent this week. We’ve had a small family drama… involving our cat. If you subscribe to my Facebook profile, you know that Tessie-cat got sick and then started acting seriously weird. As I’ve mentioned before, Tessie […]