Trolling dog rescue sites like they were dating apps — My husband walks into the room, and I close my browser tab “You told me you’d stopped,” he says, and I know he knows what I’ve been doing. “You said you wouldn’t again.” I scan Google News as though that’s what I’ve been looking at all along, but I’m not fooling anyone. “I didn’t say never again,” I say, my eyes on…

Popular trends that leave me out, thank God — I have not taken up residence on the dustheap of history Not yet, not by a long shot. In certain dimensions of life, I’m just getting started. As a confirmed and happy late bloomer, I aim to be the floral centerpiece nobody can overlook. One discovery of aging is that there are actually few things to which the tired phrase, “I’m…

FGM, “The cut,” is illegal there but the practice hasn’t gone away — There was a time I would have asked, but I’ve grown wiser Visiting a foreign country is a lot like being a guest in someone’s home. As a guest, your job is to appreciate the hospitality you’re offered without demanding that things be run or arranged the same way they are at your house. That’s easy enough when it comes to the…

I’m grateful. But haunted by questions — The day before I left on a long-planned, dream trip to Kenya, a blogger friend sent me a bon voyage message. In part, it read: Let it change you. Indeed it has, in ways I’m still discovering. A wildlife enthusiast my whole life, a former docent who once led tours…

Let’s see how they match up once I get back home — This won’t be just any vacation. My husband, my younger son, his wife, and her parents will meet up next week in Nairobi. After a couple of nights to let our internal clocks catch up, the six of us will then embark on a 10-day tour of some of Kenya’s…

I’m a straight woman of a certain age. Maybe you’re not THAT surprised, but still . . . — Having grown up in an era of stupidly rigid norms, I absorbed through my pores the notion that commercial establishments were gendered. Some were targeted toward females — dress shops, obviously, but also shoe stores, fabric stores, and for the most part, grocery stores — while places like hardware stores…

Not that younger men are asking me out, but if they were — To be clear, I don’t want to date anyone, period. I’m happily married to a man my age. Actually, he’s eight months older. That means that for half of every year, he gets to be married to a younger woman. And for six months of each year, I never tire…

Learning to live again after loss: a podcast episode not to miss — Whether or not you believe in a soul that survives physical death — some form of consciousness that moves on to another realm of existence, or perhaps diffuses into a higher, unseen plane of the one we already occupy — is a matter of faith or philosophy. No matter how…

At my age, I can no longer be responsible for its expressions — “Are you mad at me?” my husband asks. I look up from my laptop, blinking at him in bewilderment. “What? No. Why would I be mad at you?” “It’s just, from the look on your face,” he explains, “I thought I’d said something to upset you.” I’m not upset. I’m…