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My friend’s mother was dying in her living room. I knew that but I didn’t.

She’d told me her mother was terminally ill but it never really sank in. Oh, that’s why you brought her across the country and set up a hospital bed in your living room. I get it now.

My friend told me this on a long walk with our dogs. No one asks how I am doing, she said. No one visits. No one ever brings food for us.

So that night I made a pot roast with potatoes and carrots and onions and I took it to my friend’s door. You’re the only person who brought us dinner, she said A few days later, her mother died.

At work, a colleague’s wife faced a new wave of cancer. He sat in my office and complained that every night they went out to dinner. It was expensive…

I want the cream-colored bike at Target, the one with the old fashioned handlebars and a brown leather seat. It has fenders like the big blue bike I had as a kid that I rode down 10 1/2 Mile Road, a wide dirt road with fat potholes that filled to the brim after a good rain. My ride took me past broad, flat acres of farmland where fires would sometimes break out in the summer and people would come out of their raw suburban houses with shovels to beat down the embers.

I loved my blue bike. Every spring I rolled it out of the garage, parked it on spread out pages of the Detroit Free Press and sprayed the fender and chain guard a new year’s coat of the bluest blue. I can’t explain my love for that bike. No bike since has captured my heart; they have all…

I have become addicted to the sappy Christmas movies on the Hallmark Channel. Somebody please help me.

I’m not kidding. Even as I type I’m watching A Heavenly Christmas starring Kristin Davis (Sex and the City) and Eric McCormack (Will and Grace). Some of the films are good, like this one. Some are predictable. Others are pretty awful. But they all have one thing in common–they’re all about the good things about Christmas. You know: peace, love, and hope.

Now, don’t tell anyone, but I’m even hooked on the advertisements on the Hallmark Channel. Maybe I’m getting in touch with my softer side.

Peace, people.

She shuffles up to me on the sidewalk, paper cup in hand. She speaks so softly, I can’t understand what she’s saying. I ask her to repeat it.

“I’m homeless. Can you spare some change?”

This is an unusual scene on the streets of Saratoga Springs, New York, a refined city known for thoroughbred horse racing, mineral springs, and the arts. While there are homeless people, and a shelter to prove it, panhandlers aren’t typically encountered on the streets.

My arms are full, as I’m delivering my books to a local gallery. “I’ll be right back,” I promise. “I’ll help you then.” She knits her brow; she’s heard that before.

When I return ten minutes later, she’s nowhere in sight. I walk to the fair-trade coffee shop and order an egg sandwich and large chai latte with almond milk. As I wait for my carry-out, I spot her sitting at…

Christmas Eve at Doright Manor
George Bailey found out
When prayers sent up saved him
Life is wonderful

A gift from our daughter!
Although our children
Are far away this Christmas
Their presence is felt

I’m watching my favorite Christmas movie, It’s a Wonderful Life. As usual I began crying when young George Bailey prevented the pharmacist, Mr. Gower, from poisoning a young child. Studly Doright wanted to watch the next episode of Fargo, but I argued that we could watch that any old time.

For once I won the battle for the remote. Studly’s even resisted the urge to flip to another channel during commercial breaks. I love him, even if he did buy me a holster for the gun I received for Christmas last year and still haven’t touched. Love is funny that way.

The cats are both drunk on catnip.

And I’m just content. I…