• After Fifty Years

    After Fifty Years

    Ernie, my husband, and I are sitting in the living room listening to the heavy rain outside accompanied with bursts of thunder. We are dressed for a dinner out to celebrate my middle grandson’s 21st birthday. My daughter and son-in-law are coming to pick us up. My son-in- law has a Jeep and my daughter…

  • Holding on to the Clothes I Love

    Holding on to the Clothes I Love

    I’m wearing my favorite old T-shirt today. Although it’s dark navy, it’s comfortable in our current humid and hot North Carolina summer. A picture of Louis Sullivan, a Chicago architect, sits across my chest and under his picture is a script: Form Follows Function. I love the material. It’s gauzy but not too light. It’s…

  • Thelma, the Movie

    Thelma, the Movie

    If I watch a movie and am surprised that it’s over so quickly, it’s a great movie. That’s what happened when I saw Thelma in a theater a week ago. When I found out the lead character was played by a 93-year-old actor, June Squibb, and the reviews were good—the web site Rotten Tomatoes gave…

  • The Prediction

    The Prediction

    Predicting the inevitable.

  • Traveling with a Brain Tumor: Beach Trip vs a River Cruise on the Rhine

    Traveling with a Brain Tumor: Beach Trip vs a River Cruise on the Rhine

    Last week we drove to Wrightsville Beach, a consolation beach trip instead of going on a European River Cruise. Ernie wasn’t comfortable traveling overseas with a brain tumor. A two hour drive to the beach seemed more doable than a plane ride over the Atlantic. Ernie’s tumor, subependymoma, is benign, small, rare. The tumor is…

  • Nurse Practitioners Gain Autonomy in North Carolina

    Nurse Practitioners Gain Autonomy in North Carolina

    I was surprised when I read the news in yesterday’s local paper: North Carolina lawmakers passed the Save Act, a bill giving nurse practitioners autonomy over their practice. That is, they are no longer required to pay physicians to “supervise” them. I have been following the Save Act, which has failed to become law, over…