Life Style & Travel

UNITED STATES—As the youngest of his children prepared to leave the nest—not tomorrow or the next day, but inevitably it would happen—the old vices came back, and a few new ones. The smoking (tobacco mostly) and drinking. Who's fooling whom? Kids see a lot now. In the middle school someone had to call 911 because a kid had overdosed...

UNITED STATES—Like Michael Jackson said, “You got an easement on down the road.”. . . or something like that. In older neighborhoods, that is where the utility easements are usually located. These are zones for utility poles that suspend electrical, telephone and television cables. When electricity first became available, that was the easiest place to put the cables, and...

UNITED STATES—I know I don’t drink enough water. Some of my friends track the amount of water they consume every day, making sure to keep a bottle handy at all times. They take sips regularly and try to drink a specific amount by a certain time. On the contrary, I only turn to water during meals, or if the...

BEL AIR—Becoming deaf as a teenager who adored music wasn't easy...I think I would have accepted blindness if given a choice. Surely, my ears were my biggest gift of life but there was one person who seemed to suffer more than me... my mother. The first year was about seeing specialists, taking tests and getting opinions... 2nd… 3rd…4th…12th from basically...

UNITED STATES—The national holiday fell on a Tuesday. It was not one of the movable holidays, so there was a buoyant Monday, that felt like a second Friday, effervescing with anticipation for good times to come, that many commandeered for good times in the present. Right after it was all over, on Wednesday, Mr. Smith urgently deposited cash at the...

UNITED STATES—Is a prune really just a dried plum? No! A plum is really a prune. In fact, all 'stone fruit' are of the same prune genus known as Prunus. This means that apricot, cherry, peach, nectarine, prune, plum and even almond are all related. So are all their weird and trendy hybrids, such as aprium, pluots, plumcots and...

UNITED STATES—Well, I had an English student named Berta in a class I was substituting. She had a motto that she got from her grandfather: Live and learn. Well Berta was talking about how she already had her five minutes of fame. Somebody with a camera had followed her around for a month in her job and life and made...

UNITED STATES—Flowers have a bigger and better agenda than coloring our gardens and homes. They bloom to get pollinated. Their color and fragrance are designed merely to attract pollinators. Less vain but more abundant blooms take advantage of the wind to disperse their pollen. Once pollinated, flowers fade and deteriorate as resources get diverted to the production of seed...

UNITED STATES—No one would consider me a fanatic of the ever growing Crossover segment. But with nary a sign that it will soon reach maturity and eventually die off, there comes a point where even I have to admit that resistance is futile. It simply isn’t realistic to expect automakers to cater to consumers who can afford a car...

HOLLYWOOD—On a Friday in the spring 2016, after being away for several days, I encountered a group gathered around the bar, glummer than usual. “Did you hear the news?” motorcycle John asked. And I knew. I’d been laying odds for a long time. Would the couple who’d bought the cafe five years earlier stick to their plan of going...