Category: Essay
-
A Sea of Silver
It’s a thin bangle of sterling silver bearing a sliding charm, simple and low-profile like much of my jewelry. Etched into the silver charm shaped as a heraldic shield is a mighty ship, sails billowing in the wind. The bracelet, made by a popular and trendy company, is called Steady Vessel: Journey/Fortune/Change. The card that accompanied…
-
The Big One
It’s my birthday. Not just any birthday, either. It’s the big one. The big 6-0. As in, senior citizen discount at some places. As in AARP stuff in the mail EVERY SINGLE DAY. I had a great day. My classroom was decorated with streamers, lots of little goodies and treats found their way to my…
-
The Sun Came Out This Weekend – Again
The Broadway smash hit musical Annie has a special place in my heart. In the summer of 1987, I met my husband while playing the role of Mrs. Greer in a summer stock production of Annie, working backstage also as assistant director/stage manager. We began dating during that production and after twenty-eight years, it’s safe…
-
To sleep, perchance to dream . . .
On the morning of September 11, 2001, before all Hell broke loose, I was at my desk working on a lease agreement for a tenant moving into one of the shopping centers managed by the company where I worked. As I worked, writing and editing legal language to insert into the document, I could hear…
-
A Salute to Intangible Rewards
On Friday, I was driving my normal route home from school, and as I turned on to this one particular neighborhood street, I slowed down, as usual, on the lookout for the group of boys who sometimes are throwing a football from one yard to another, in some form of ultimate street football, as they…
-
B. C. – Before Crying
I am writing this a day early. I normally write and post my weekly essay on Sundays but I am currently on a non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Baltimore and filled with emotion, so Saturday it is. We have been in LA since Wednesday afternoon, my husband and younger daughter. Upon arrival we had…
-
Scared Skinnier
Almost a year ago, on May 18, 2015, I visited a new medical practice to have an initial consultation as my internist was in the process of retiring. I asked the mother of one of my students, married to a doctor, for recommendations from him of doctors with offices near the school where I teach.…
-
The Elephant in the Room
As my regular readers may know, I have always been a cat person although currently I am the catless owner of an eight-year-old Maltipoo named Puccini. In fact, my very first essay published on Cajun Girl in a Kilt was “License to Carry”, a tongue-in-cheek essay about Puccini’s reluctance to go up and down the…
Michelle Blanchard Ardillo 