I was 40 when I moved to Italy and determined to learn the language. First stop was a 6-week intensive, 20 hours per week. More work followed. No kidding, a big job. But there are little triumphs along the way. …
Blog Archives
Lost wallet, moonshot
Recently, I noticed my husband’s wallet on the cutting board in the kitchen. This was clearly a one-off for someone who pretty much never loses, misplaces or forgets anything. How very odd. But that event reminded me of another lost…
Chemist looks for trouble
My father loved problems. He looked for them in a good way. He was an organic chemist, doing process research in pharmaceuticals for Merck. He worked on the Sinemet, for Parkinsons, which he later took himself, on some of the…
That dude, Othello
After years of protesting military interventions, life turns had me unexpectedly teaching literature and writing at a U.S. base outside Naples, Italy. It was my first up close encounter with soldiers, albeit in peacetime. I wasn’t prepared for what I…
Savior drives a Cadillac
Years ago, I was living in California and my father in New Jersey was diagnosed with advanced non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, likely to be fatal in four months. I flew home and my mother picked me up at Newark Airport. Befuddled and exhausted,…
’Twas the Night Before Christmas: Textual issues
I’m fine with flying reindeer delivering presents to every earthly child in one night. However, Mr. Clement C. Moore has imbedded some serious textual inconsistencies in “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The reindeer and sleigh are clearly diminutive: “miniature sleight…
Tagged with: Christmas, Clement C. Moore, Santa, St. Nick, willing suspension of disbelief
Posted in Just life
Posted in Just life
Recipe for a bestseller (says Robert Graves)
In 1929, Robert Graves needed a best-seller to fund his plan of cutting out of England, buying a house in Majorca, and never having to work again in his life (aside from pumping out 120 books). In eleven weeks, he…
Tagged with: Bestseller, Good-bye to All That, memoir writing, Robert Graves, Travel, World War 1
Posted in WWWS
Posted in WWWS
Flipping on Anna Karenina
In the summer when I was sixteen, I read great gobs of Anna Karenina with my feet over my head. I had been somberly informed that you retain information better if there is more blood in your brain. This seemed…
Perils of Childhood Reading
If you read a lot in private as a kid and listen to Big Issues on TV, life can get confusing, sometimes scary. Here are some examples. An Id in Your Pocket? Slipped into the young people’s shelves of our…
Things I wanted as a kid
To find whole new chapters in favorite books, as if the pages stuck together on earlier readings were now magically revealed. A secret passage from the outside of the house straight into my room, so if I was on the…
pamelaschoenewaldt.com 