#local_realities My guess is my first thought after being born was room service is efficient, but the personal touch is lacking. I was born six to eight weeks preterm and spent my first two weeks in a neonatal incubator. Incubators in 1948 were not the marvels they are today. They weren’t downtown upscale hotels, they were cheap motels...

At the age of 34, I watched a PBS TV special on Aikido, and it was love at first sight. I was astounded and drawn by its graceful dance-like movements. I crafted a careful plan to overcome my anxiety over entering a martial arts dojo for the first time. I would fall in love, move from the Bay Area to Seattle, get married (yes, it did h...

How do you learn something new about your life mate* after being together for decades? Undertake a big project together, for example, write a book. In our case,How to Be a Care Consultant and Care Manager: Working With Elders and Their Families With Compassion and Respect. Most of our collaboration did not yield a whole lot of learning...

There’s an old joke: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not all after you.” In these times of widespread surveillance, you don’t have to be paranoid to believe they’re all after you. As usual, I do the research to satisfy my own needs and curiosity. I do the essays to pass that information on to family, friends, and who...