We grandparents love to spend time with our grandchildren. My grandchildren range from age 7 to age 22, and each of the six is special in his or her own way.  Five of them  are Generation Z or “Zoomers”, between 14 and 29 years old, the first true digital generation, knowing and living with smartphones and social media attached to them at the hip, and finding anything that will grab their attention otherwise is a miracle. Enter the miracle of American Mah Jongg!  And auspicio

I have just returned from a memoir writing workshop retreat, called “Write By the Lake,” at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala, with Joyce Maynard. A long (we never say old) dear friend, Valerie, went exactly one year ago and told me to immediately sign up. I did.   As I learned at the retreat, I am making a list of the words that describe the experiences of spending a week in rural and rugged Guatemala at Lake Atitlan and with Joyce Maynard, surrounded by thirty- four varieties of bird

I was very moved by an editorial by the columnist, David French, in The New York Times, February 10, 2026, entitled, “The Already and The Not Yet,” in which the first paragraph is, “I couldn’t stop blinking back tears, and I couldn’t understand why,” after seeing the movie called the “Testament of Ann Lee,” the founder of the Shakers religious movement, which fled to America shortly before the American Revolution to escape persecution. And found persecution here in America. S

As many of you may have experienced, when the first grandchild is born, you cannot wait to take them to the circus and other experiences. It is joyful to watch their eyes light up as they see things for the first time. And of course, you take them as soon as you can. We took our oldest grandchild when he was close to four.   Please read the blog post, “ Of First Born Children and First Born Grandchildren: Benefits of Loving The First the Longest.” Especially those of you wai

In my family, eating a bagel for breakfast is a staple of our diet. On holidays, such as break fast after Yom Kippur ends, we celebrate by eating bagels. When I found out that there is a National Bagel Day in the United States, and bagel bakeries are now a big business everywhere here, I thought I would share the following with my grandchildren and all of you! What is a bagel? Bagels are ring shaped bread rolls, one of the few breads that are boiled and then baked, which crea

My mother, a Holocaust survivor and daughter of a Kabbalist rabbi from a small town in pre World War II Poland, had a unique outlook on life. It is not unusual that looking back on my childhood and younger adulthood that I realize now her wisdom was rooted in Kabbalah. I just did not know then. I wrote a previous New Year’s blog about my mother and feelings of gratitude. Rereading it reminded me of the wonderful generational life lessons she instilled in me every day that she

Within the last several months, I have felt a sudden compulsion to address the Holocaust in my life and write a memoir of how the Holocaust impacted my family and me. Until this point, I could not see movies about the Holocaust, I could not read books about the Holocaust. I could not deal with the Holocaust as a child of Holocaust survivors. This turnabout has perplexed me. Because of this new compulsion, I just returned from a Jewish Heritage tour to Eastern Europe, visited

October 27, 2025, the Wall Street Journal, in “The Big Danger of Microplastics: the tiny bits of plastics that are polluting the globe and posting health risks,” by Simon Constable, joined the growing LOUDER VOICES of the BIG DANGER of microplastics and neoparticles or nanoplastics. I noted that I first started this blog post and collecting articles about microplastics and neoparticles in February, 2023. I am a Bill Maher fan. I saved, among dozens of articles, that, on his M

Whenever a couple near and dear to me tells me that they are entering into a committed relationship, getting engaged, or getting married, I first recommend premarital counseling, which I learned builds a strong foundation for the new committed relationship or marriage. There will be three entities, each person as an individual and as a separate entity, the committed or marital relationship. Combining the entities in a safe, expert setting eases the transition. Why not make g

All of a sudden, or not so sudden with the domination of social media, and everybody in a group sitting on their phones rather than talking to each other, studies about everything about friends and friendships are everywhere. But are they helpful? The Why I was raised by two Holocaust survivors who believed that friends were those who turned you over to the Nazis, and only family members were the people you could depend on and with whom you should surround yourself. Leaving o

His name was Jihad Al-Shamie. He was 35 years old and a British citizen of Syrian descent who entered the U.K. as a very young child, and...

I recently learned at age 78 that age 78 is the third critical age when the human body experiences a significant biological aging burst,...

Having teenage grandchildren is an education. Not necessarily an education that I expected nor that I desired. I did teach middle school...

Having been a judge and a lawyer, I am a rule follower. Actually, I’ve always been a rule follower, so it was easy to be a lawyer and a...

There is a new trauma for the parents of our baby grandchildren and we grandparents have the key to alleviate the angst. The controversy...

As I reflected in Part I, regarding the doctor dilemma we Boomers pass on to our children and grandchildren, it took this Grandma one...

It took this Grandma one year to get an appointment with a well-regarded ophthalmologist who specializes in cataract surgery at Bascom...

Some of us are of an age where our baby children and grandchildren are no longer, and our children and grandchildren are heading off to...

This Grandma’s favorite tip about hugs is that you should never be the first to let go when you are hugging your grandchild. I learned...

When interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Warren Buffett, now 94 years old, was asked, “how did you know the day that you became old?”...