After 30 years of living in a house in the country, I’ve moved to a small apartment in the city. It’s dorm life all over again, but with bad knees and fewer escapades involving random male stupidity. I grew up in the country, where we boys could run, holler, spit and throw things all we ...

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but now that summer nears, I’m going to get back in shape. Oh, you’ve heard that one before have you? Well, I mean it this time. No seriously. Ah, c’mon, that wasn’t supposed to be the humorous part of this column. I started yesterday. Well, ...

Because I value continued learning, I eagerly studied a series of nature documentaries the other day. One of the episodes featured a rabbit, a duck and a befuddled hunter. “It’s rabbit season!” the black drake spluttered. “It’s duck season!” the gray bunny countered. Duck: ...

Things had been slow around the farm. “You’re always slow,” Cousin Ollie chided. I glared. But Ollie didn’t notice since he was jumping three or four paces ahead of me, as usual. “I don’t run unless a bear’s chasing me. And since there aren’t any bears in our ...

Until I was married, I didn’t know when I was wrong. I needed someone in my life to tell me what to do. To tell me if that shirt goes with those pants. To inform me of what foods I like and which I despise. (I still think she had it backward when it came to beets and Boston cream doughnuts. ...

I froze when I pulled the card out of the mailbox. It was from my sister-in-law, the one famous for packing greeting cards with a fiesta of tiny, shimmering confetti. Open the card without precautions and a shower of shiny cutouts of party hats, streamers and noisemakers, and silhouettes of ...