There was a period in my early adulthood — just after college until I was right around 30 — when every year, I could count on attending a couple of weddings. Like turning pages in the calendar, every few months, I’d decide what suit to wear, whether or not to bring a date (going solo…
Perhaps my favorite quote from any book is towards the end of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods: He sat down on a grassy bank and looked at the city that surrounded him, and thought, one day he would have to go home. And one day he would have to make a home to go back to.…
When I first started writing here — nearly seven years ago — I had little idea about the topics I’d blog about. In a pre-everyone’s-on-Facebook era, I thought that it might be a good way for my family to keep up on things together. Of course, blogging and social media evolved and now I mostly…
When I think of my mother two versions tend to predominate. The first tends to be the Mom of my most recent memories – the last several years of her life after my father had died. She’s the mom that I visited either at home or at my sister’s, or the mom that came out…
I’ve posted before about our family’s weekly summer trips “down the shore” to visit my grandmother while I was growing up in New Jersey. Every Sunday, we’d fill the car, drive to The Villas, and then head to the beach. Like most kids, I loved the beach. I loved playing in the sand. I…
I was born and raised in New Jersey. Now, I am a Californian. If I look back over the last decade I can observe some changes in behavior that might be difficult to reconcile with my younger Garden State-self. Things like drinking wine over beer and being able to toss around adjectives like oaky, earthy…
With getting back from the big trip over the holidays and getting things back up and running at The Aerie, I haven't had much chance to do something that I have enjoyed in the past couple of years — reviewing some of my favorite things from the past year. Now, I know that in this…
For months leading up, the Beloved would ask me, “What are your family traditions for being at the beach?” And I would tell her that we had zero experience with spending a week together at the beach as a family (PLENTY of experience with day-trips) but very little in extended stays. In some ways, we…
This past weekend the Beloved and I were off the grid (so to speak) and headed back to the Ancestral Betz Home (The Garden State of New Jersey) for a surprise 50th birthday party for my brother and his wife – both of their 50th birthdays are this summer. Surprise! The surprise was orchestrated by…
When I was growing up, we had a summer family tradition – no tradition isn’t quite the right word – "ritual" seems more correct. Every (and I mean damn near every) Sunday during the summer, we would pack up the family and head “down the shore”. Specifically, we would drive down and visit my grandmother…
Stevil 