Category: Hartford Courant
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It happens at least once a year and I can almost always tell it’s coming by the anxious and questioning look on his face when he says “Hon…?” I wait for it. “Why am I sick?” After nearly three decades together, I’m still not sure if my husband actually wants me to answer this with…
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The late British actor and comedian Norman Wisdom perhaps said it best: “As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes … and I can’t remember the other two.” It’s an amusing quote, but one that also hits home for any number of older adults who, along with needing reading glasses…
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Do you take your daughter, the future bride, and promise to love her, honor and keep her, in sickness and in health, as long as you both plan for this wedding? Yes? Great. Then, with the power vested by the engagement, you are now pronounced Mother of the Bride. Weddings are both exciting and stressful,…
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We’ve all the seen the disturbing photos. Like evidence from some sort of fashion crime scene, they are images of women wearing frozen grimaces, shellacked hair, and uncomfortable bouffant dresses in cotton candy pink, some even with matching lace umbrellas. For years, bridesmaids just had to grin and wear it, no matter what gown the…
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It’s lunchtime on a warm day and “Abby” is seated in a booth at an upscale West Hartford restaurant. She scans the menu for dishes she hasn’t already tried before a waiter, who has no idea that she’s anything but a casual diner, comes by to take her order. Like many of her restaurant visits,…
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Most days I enjoy going to the grocery store about as much as I like scooping the litter box. With both, I’m required to use cheap, plastic bags that allow everything to dump out of the bottom, and whatever I end up picking out is almost always something I don’t want. That probably explains why…
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It’s around lunchtime at Ocean State Job Lot in Bloomfield and Bill Haley & His Comets are rockin’ around the Christmas tree as holiday shoppers push their carts up and down the aisles. Most of them appear grimly determined to accomplish whatever it is they’ve come for. But a few others seem to be in…
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As chilly November days give way to snowy ones, it signals the start of ski season. For a lot of folks, that means rummaging through closets and basements to break out gear that hasn’t seen the light of day in months, sometimes years. If you’re one of them and you’ve owned your equipment since VHS…
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Like riding a bike, skiing just seems to be one of those things you either learn as a kid or you never learn at all. But that doesn’t have to be the case. Plenty of people successfully learn to ski later in life, including Ginny Ludwig, who picked up the sport for the first time…
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The tires of my Ford Escort crunched on snow-packed roads while the defroster rattled in a futile attempt to melt the fractal ice collecting on my windshield. It was close to midnight on Christmas, 1985, and I was returning home after dropping my boyfriend off at his house. The welcoming smell of a wood stove…
Sarah Lemire 