I’ve always been the salad chef at home, opening the refrigerated  vegetable drawers filled with green onions, (I learned not to say scallions back in the old country), tomatoes of every size and plumpness, celery stalks that could use a little more head room, cucumbers on their way to pickledom bursting with little bumps, and so on. The “and so on’s ” should be growing in our garden but they don’t get enough attention these days and I can’t pack them up and take them with me on my daily mountain walks. And they don’t come in plastic bags like our store-bought...

Maybe the routine would change if we made the first move and invited the roaming pigs to stop by at an assigned time for a nibble.  Enough of this sitting back and waiting for them to take charge without confirming dates … Yes, you might sense already that we’re a little fed up with their boycott on courtesy.  There’s no “let’s check the calendar and see what’s open” dialogue that might make their visits awaited drop by’s. They prefer to visit quietly (we’re guessing usually at night or while we’re eating dinner and cataloguing the sunset)....

For a starter — oh, my incredible English teacher, Mrs. Goldman at Riverdale JHS 141, oh-so-secretly invited me to help out at school, one hour early, so, that with the the dawn’s early light, I could secretly help her mark my classmates’ essays… No, maybe it was Miss Rau in ninth grade. (Your guess is as good as mine!) I was never a hard grader — besides, everyone in our class was so smart to begin with — and Miss Rau was forever conscientiously looking over my shoulder to be sure I didn’t give my friends any special benefits. Longtime cohorts like Peter (Dr....

“No secrets between us,” he whispered. “Wait a second … none at all?” “Non, ma cherie.”  His how shall we say French accent was Collegiate perfect. “But if this is going to be a Significant Romance…. shouldn’t there be a little left unsaid?” I said practicing my coy Music and Art tongue. “Significant — where did you ever get the notion this would ever be significant,” he asked me, after chasing me for four months  — spurned opera tickets and one or two rejected motorcyle ride invitations. Singing the theme from...

Whenever I start a new romantic comedy, I allow at least a week or so to concoct my characters’ names.  (Exception: Elliot Recounte, my male lead in “Much Ado at the Mauna Kea,” cooked and cooked throughout the summer of  2014.) Meanwhile, I’ve just revised my working title to: “Mostly When I See A Rolls Royce,” (previously: Mostly When I See Rolls Royces.) I’ve wanted to write this story since 1979 — it’s my first enhanced roman a clef! Set in NYC and surroundings. Late 70’s. Locations: East Hampton beach house smack on the ocean Two...