It’s Wednesday of last week, and I’m writing this to you from a pool deck along the ocean in North Carolina. We’ve turned an idea to get away over Columbus Day weekend into a week-long stay in an oceanfront home in Corolla. We took the kids out of school for the first extended time ever, because David found this house, a re-book, through an internet ad, and it came with a pool and a private walkway to the beach and clean linens already on the beds when we got here, and we didn’t have to go anywhere else but where we are, right now. As I write this, on Wednesday of last week, I do not know that this time next week, we will be sequestered in our own house for fourteen days because Pennsylvania will have added NC to its quarantine list two days before our return, and I’m glad I do not know this, because right now it’s a sunny 78 degrees and Quinlan is on her dad’s shoulders dunking a basketball into a poolside hoop while Saoirse and Cian try–…
Hi! It’s Pub Day, here again! There are some INTRIGUING new books being released into the world today, everybody. Shall we take a look? Fiction The Bell in the Lake: A Novel, by Lars Mytting Just Like You: A Novel, by Nick Hornby Non-Fiction The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World that’s Pulling Apart, by Noreena Hertz Memoir The Meaning of Mariah Carey, by Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis Spirituality/Faith The Rhythm of Prayer: A Collection of Meditations for Renewal, edited by Sarah Bessey Poetry Swimming Lessons: Poems, by Lili Reinhart Whale Day, and Other Poems, by Billy Collins Happy reading…
As I type this, there is an estate sale company in my mother’s house, sorting through her belongings. The estate manager called me from where she stood in my parents’ dining room this morning to ask me some questions, and when she looked outside, she paused our conversation. “It’s just beautiful here!” she said. “This is a lovely home.” I hung up and cried. I need to tell you about this past weekend. We’d decided to do some sort of Fun Family Fall Activity, and Quinlan really wanted to go to a place with a corn maze, so after we finished cleaning the house Saturday morning (Cian: “Why do we hafta keep cleaning the house all the time? It’s just going to have to get cleaned AGAIN.”), we drove to an apple orchard about thirty minutes south of us. We handed over the bonkers-expensive entrance fee, donned our masks, and made our way to the corn maze after dodging a small handful of social media influencers in their Instagram Hats as they teetered out of a pumpkin patch. All Quinlan wanted to do was…
