While I’m an elder, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to dying, that is until my brother, who’s 20 months younger, announced in...
Thinking About Death
While I’m an elder, I hadn’t given a lot of thought to dying, that is until my brother, who’s 20 months younger, announced in a recent late-night phone call that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. (To preserve my brother’s [...]
Pat Taub
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Two Amazing Films, A Great Read & More!
A New Wonderful Documentary Last night I watched the Zoom premier of Natasha Mayers: an Un-Still Life, an exhilarating documentary about this beloved Maine artist. For decades Natasha has been creating political satire along with amazing three-dimensional images for local protests and 4th of July parades. She’s been arrested numerous times [...]
Pat Taub
Two Sets of Keys
GUEST POST by MICHAEL STEINMAN At the Malt Shoppe, circa 1950, the couple has two straws in the tall glass. Delicious. But what if you want your very own malted? Is that the end of the dream? When I began online dating (2005), I had old-fashioned goals. I’d escaped an abusive marriage and dreamed of a rewarding one while I [...]
Pat Taub
Texas Storm, Molly Ivins, Granddaughter Jane & More
Storm-Wrecked Texas Looking at photos of Texans, standing in the bitter cold, huddled under blankets, forming long lines for water and food, left me furious and heartsick. Have we become a third world country, where only the privileged are taken care of? The one redeeming factor to the Texas storm tragedy is that Ted Cruz was caught flying [...]
Pat Taub
Learning to be Positive in Hard Times
I wake up most mornings vowing to be positive, but it’s hard to maintain a positive mindset when it’s bitter cold out, eliminating a walk, and when contacts with friends and family are relegated to phone calls and Zoom. The longing for in-person contacts sends my positive intentions out the window. It became clear that I needed an approach [...]
Pat Taub
Last Things, New Beginnings
GUEST POST by BARBARA BENGELS Do you remember what you were doing (or planning to do) when Covid shut down the world as we knew it? Were you teaching a class, standing in line at the supermarket, planning on seeing a play? Those were my plans; they’re still undone. How do we respond when taken-for-granted opportunities vanish? Well, [...]
Pat Taub
Rashid Tlaib, Carey Mulligan, Bernie Meme, a New Mask & More!
Rashid Tlaib Yesterday Rashida Tlaib, US Representative from Michigan, delivered a teary speech on the House floor, describing how she has been besieged with anti-Muslim hate mail and threats from her very first day in office. While she wasn’t at Congress during the January 6th coup, she felt traumatized by it, fearing she would have been [...]
Pat Taub
Women’s Circles That Transformed My Life
A recent Facebook posting described how elephants form a protective circle around an elephant giving birth, started me thinking about the women’s circles that have supported me and transformed my life. One circle that looms from the ‘70s was the one that accompanied the birth of my first child. David was born at a time when women were [...]
Pat Taub