Sounds like a new drug, eh? Ask your doctor if Umbrage is right for you.  No, umbrage is my reaction to having created a post and being told that publishing it was an invalid request! So now there’s a critic in my keyboard? Is there an app for that? I’m critical enough for both of us…

  As my cousin Fran has reminded me, when we were kids I drew layouts of houses. Our grandad was a building inspector, and I rode with him sometimes when he went to construction sites. Then I listened when he commented on what he had seen. I remember his complaints when he found stall doors in public…

  Ten days with no bloggery–unthinkable, but true. I warned you that I was hitting the road, but I hadn’t planned on finding no wi-fi over the 2100 miles I drove, nor the absence of it in my sister’s house when I arrived, but yesterday my dear, smart, computer-professional nephew and his wife fixed all…

I am going east for the summer. The suitcases are airing, boxes of writing supplies are full, the car has been tuned up. I still need to do one last load of laundry and pack. Last lunches with friends are fun, but I’m ready to take all my good intentions with me and make use…

  Leafing through a back issue of New Yorker, I found a hero! A writer who interrupted my meander toward the last cartoon. Ian McEwan’s story “Hand on the Shoulder” should not have had this effect, but it shows what even the most banal plot can become in the hands of a master. This piece…