The Gelato Diet

It was a typical day.

Or so I thought.

Wandering the aisles of the grocery store, I glanced dispiritedly at the contents of my cart: cat food for the stray, milk, bananas, cold cuts.

Then I remembered that my parents had half committed to coming over for dinner and I considered buying a pint of ice cream so my father would have something he liked for dessert.

The Dreadful Perry Mason

Peri-menopause has not been kind to me. Being in my late 40s (not an appealing word—“late”), this harrowing and unpleasant condition has dogged me for years. Far longer, according to my bemused and yet overly earnest doctor, than is typical.

What a thing to say to a woman who has suffered enough.

One Good Meal

Loaves & Fishes is a soup kitchen run by the Catholic diocese. It is located in a not-so-pretty part of Sacramento, just north of downtown. They serve one substantial meal a day, 364 days a year, and only close on Thanksgiving because so many other groups offer meals that day.

The Road to Nowhere

We’d learned from the guidebooks that no visit to Maui was complete without experiencing the Road to Hana. It was strongly recommended that we leave at 7:00 in the morning because 2000 vehicles traveled the road each day! Cars cruised bumper to bumper all along the road and it took several hours to reach Hana. It was a one-lane highway that was too narrow to even allow two cars to pass each other, and it had 600 sharp turns!

Clearly something miraculous took place on the Road to Hana, and we wanted to know what it was.

Aloha Madness

We hadn’t even completely taken our seats on the flight to Maui when I caught the older woman sitting next to me (I had an aisle seat) staring at me longingly—or staring at my seat longingly.

Singing with Dario

When I was 22, I signed up for a 6-week singing class. Unfortunately, the only thing I learned over the six weeks was that none of us could sing; not even the instructor.

At our first session, we learned that the instructor’s name was Dario Vanni. Of course it was. When he introduced himself, we nodded knowingly as though we had guessed as much.

Four Trains to Windsor

At the Earl’s Court tube station in Central London, my new best friend, the underground worker, explained (speaking with that adorable British accent) how we would reach Windsor Castle. We would travel on four trains! It would take 90 minutes (one way) but it would be worth it.

Countdown to Midnight: New Year’s Eve on the Thames

After days of sightseeing from morning until night, I felt a little wobbly but didn’t have the heart to squelch the excitement felt by the rest of my family. They wanted to see the fireworks show over Big Ben.