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The first time I saw the film "Shakespeare in Love," I was fascinated by the inaugural performance of "Romeo and Juliet" at the fictional Rose Theatre. The audience knows Juliet has concocted a plan with the friar to fake her own death so she can avoid marrying Paris and reunite with Romeo. The friar will write to Romeo of the plan. The love story will have a happy ending. Instead, the message goes astray. Juliet wakes up to find Romeo has poisoned himself after finding her...
The alarm went off at 4 a.m. I hadn’t slept all that well in the AC Marriott in Fort Lauderdale, but I woke up quickly. We needed to get the 4:30 a.m. shuttle to the airport for our flight. But even before I had the chance to get out of bed, Dan delivered the bad news. “Our flight’s canceled,” he said. We were stunned. A day earlier it had seemed like a good idea to change our Saturday flight — originally scheduled for 4:30 p.m. but delayed to 8:30 p.m. — to a Sunday morn...
Almost four years ago I wrote a column detailing how a trip about Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas - at that time the largest cruise ship ever built - was not my cup of tea. "The thought of spending my vacation on a floating skyscraper (OK, OK, it's only 18 decks) with 6,679 other passengers and a 2,200-person crew leaves me feeling a little jittery," I wrote. What an idiot. Last week over spring break I spent six nights on a cruise to Mexico and Honduras aboard Royal Ca...
Thirty-one years ago on a Thursday afternoon in late March, I finished my English senior seminar essay (with about 30 seconds to spare before the 4 p.m. deadline), walked back to my sorority house and was greeted with four words: “Get in the car.” Seven of us were driving to Florida for spring break. My suitcase was already in the trunk, and I barely had time for a bathroom stop before we left. Some 18 hours of driving later, we reached our destination, Bonita Springs. The...
I celebrated my 55th birthday on Monday. I remember distinctly when my mom turned 55. At that time, drivers were not allowed to travel 65 mph on the highway, and we joked how she was turning the speed limit. That year — 1996 — I was a college graduate who had been working for eight years and married for three. This year, my daughter is in seventh grade and won’t graduate from college for another nine years. In some ways, having a kid late in life allows you to remain in denia...
We stood in the green room Saturday night before our final performance of "Hinsdale Unmasked" and talked about all that's happened since our last Community Revue in 2020. We've lost three longtime cast members - Dick Johnson, BJ Chimenti and Ly Hotchkin. We've dealt with individual losses and unwelcome diagnoses and other challenges. Oh, and there's been that other little thing: the global pandemic. It was the most emotional pre-show gathering I've experienced in the eight...
Tomorrow night is opening night. I am certain I can speak for all of the cast of "Hinsdale Unmasked" - the 2022 Community Revue - when I say we can't wait to perform for an audience. We've had our fill of applauding for each other and laughing at our own jokes and are ready to share this hilarious show with you, dear residents of Hinsdale. Before I proceed, I should let you know that all of us have been SWORN TO SECRECY about the show's contents. I wrote a column 18 years ago...
I first discovered Charles Mackesy in November 2020 when CBS Sunday Morning was doing a piece on him and his book, "The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse." We were enjoying our annual Thanksgiving weekend getaway in Saugatuck, so I had time to sit down with my coffee and enjoy the show. "In a quaint barn in the English countryside, there's a man, with a dog, documenting the human condition in its simplest form, through sketches about kindness and empathy, as we all...
I have been so inspired by the athletes competing in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Here are a few of my favorites: • Colby Stevenson, the silver medalist in the men's big air competition, who almost died in a 2016 car accident that left him with a broken skull in 30 places. He had been driving from Oregon to Utah to see a friend who broke his leg when Stevenson fell asleep at the wheel and rolled his car six times. Doctors weren't sure he'd walk again - or even live -...
On Valentine’s Day, most people are thinking about romantic love. I always think about Valentine’s Day my sophomore year in college. My boyfriend made me a homemade card and asked me to wear his lavaliere (a step before getting pinned). He was smart enough not to buy it in advance, as I had rejected this idea previously. But once I said yes, he walked a mile and a half in the snow to buy me one. He’s now my husband and has done many nice things for me on Valentine’s Days over...
Growing up, I didn't know a soul who was adopted. As an adult, I find the opposite is true. Adopted people are everywhere. At a 2020 Community Revue cast party, I learned that two of my castmates were also adopted and that all of us either had met or hoped to meet our birth parents. A fellow cast member came up and asked us what we were discussing so intently. "Finding our birth parents," one of us offered. She promptly turned around and headed back to the bar. One of the folk...
While editing Lisa Seplak's column (facing page) and checking whether "Gen Zers" requires any punctuation (it does not), I stumbled upon some interesting facts about Generation Z. They are more racially and ethnically diverse than any other generation and on track to be the most well-educated generation yet, according to the Pew Research Center. Gen Zers are more likely to have a college-educated parent than previous generations. Most Gen Zers live with married parents and,...
I've spent a lot of time thinking about 2021 lately. It's not because I'm stuck in the past. Like many of you, I was ready for a new year (and the hope that it would be our last with COVID as a pandemic!). I've been immersed in 2021 for two reasons. 1. We are preparing our "Year in Review" special section, which will be inserted in next week's paper. So we've been looking for quotes and photos to include on the pages of this annual retrospective. 2. We are selecting our entrie...
I blame my timing. I didn't finish my list of "21 for '21" nonresolutions until February of last year. Had I had the month of January to work on them ... Of course, when I wrote about the suggestion by Gretchen Rubin, author of "The Happiness Project," to consider writing such a list as an alternative to resolutions, I was impressed with her laissez faire approach to her own list. The things she did were marked "DONE." The things she did not do were marked "no." There were no...
In three days I will be the mother of a teenage girl. While I’ve had 13 years to prepare for this moment, I still find it taking me by surprise. Each December as Ainsley has gotten older, I’ve wondered whether I’ve reached the final year of what has been an annual tradition since she was little. On the issue before her birthday, I use this space to pen her a letter. I thank her for her patience in letting me write about her — and yours for your willingness to read about h...
My Christmas card this year is an homage to Christmases past, with a collage of my favorite shots of Ainsley visiting Santa over the years. I’ve been thinking a lot about Christmases past this year, from the little cuts my mom and I would get assembling our aluminum tree (remember the ’70s?) to our annual Christmas Eve celebration at my grandparents’ house in Dolton. My aunt, a mere 18 months older, and I would wait anxiously until it was time to go downstairs and open prese...
After covering Hinsdale school districts for almost 30 years, I didn't realize how exciting the job of superintendent is until last week. "It is really, really, really, really fun and cool," said Megan Monteleone, a sixth-grader at Hinsdale Middle School whose parents won the "Superintendent for a Day" item at an Elm School fundraising auction last year. "I knew he did a lot of stuff in the district, but I wasn't really sure what he did," said Megan, who spent the day with...
From the moment I realized Dan and I would have only one child, I've worked very hard to not be too nostalgic about Ainsley growing up. I've heard parents talk about the last diaper they will change, the last first day of preschool, the last elementary school concert they will attend. With just one child, every time a stage ends, it's the last time. I was so determined not to get caught up in looking back that I forgot to pay attention to the present. I think I've been fairly successful. But I find the older Ainsley gets -...
Every year when the broadcast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade begins, I tear up. This is a great source of amusement at my house, with Dan and Ainsley eager to supply their annual admonition of what a dork I am. I agree it's ridiculous, but I can't help it. Every year, I try to figure out what it is about the parade that hits such an emotional chord with me. I wonder if it's memories of watching the parade on the black and white television that sat on a cart in the...
The jury is still out - literally - on the fate of Kyle Rittenhouse as we go to press Wednesday afternoon. I've been angry with Rittenhouse since I first saw the videos of him roaming the streets of Kenosha with his AR-15 rifle after he killed two men and injured a third. He became, for me, a sort of symbol of all the terrible things that had been happening the summer of 2020. Lives were being destroyed by police and protesters and a worldwide pandemic. As I watched the clips...
I was talking to my next-door neighbor, Judy, over the weekend, and somehow we got on the subject of her husband George's death in July 2017. She had been very worried in the days after he died about holding some type of event so family and friends could gather to remember him. She really wanted to have it at her house but didn't think she had enough room for everyone she wanted to invite. We had the space at our house, so we offered to host it for her. She promised it would...
I got the call a year ago this morning. It was a Wednesday - deadline day - and I had a lot to do before the next day's paper could go to press. So when I picked up the phone and the woman from hospice said my mom was nearing the end and suggested I come over, I said I couldn't. I would be over after we finished the paper, I told her. I'm not sure if I didn't think my mom would pass away before I got there or I didn't want to be there when she did. It might have been a little...
I have mixed feelings about Facebook, but sometimes I can't help sharing the memories that pop up in my news feed. Just this week, Facebook presented a photo of Ainsley dressed as a Precious Pink Wabbit for her first Halloween. I couldn't help but share it. A lot has changed since Ainsley's first Halloween. Most importantly, I am no longer in charge of her costumes. This year, she is going as John Lennon (she can pull that off easier than her favorite Beatle, Paul McCartney)....
I’ve been very interested in Buddhism of late. I blame this on Teri Goudie. She turned me onto Dan Harris after I complained that Eckhart Tolle’s book, “A New Earth,” was a bit too esoteric for me. Harris’ book, “10% Happier,” offered a more pragmatic approach, she told me. So I read the book, started listening to his podcast and got hooked. Buddhists like lists, and so do I. I especially like the Buddha’s first list, the Four Noble Truths. They are, as translated by H...
Ainsley and I took advantage of having Columbus Day off to do some back-to-school shopping. We headed to Yorktown, primarily motivated by the bubble tea store there. (We had visited the same spot Sunday, but misguided ordering had left Ainsley with a thick, sludgy drink rather than one filled with tiny bubbles that burst when you bite them. She wanted a make good.) A neighbor who also is the mom of a tall girl had given me some recommendations on stores we might visit. At our...
