ArcaMax

My husband is a Honeycrisp snob.

If you're not familiar with this, Honeycrisp is a kind of apple, and according to him, it is a superior apple. All other apples are lesser apples. He will not eat a Fuji, Gala or Pink Lady. Only Honeycrisp will do. My son will also only eat Honeycrisp apples. So, I guess in this case, the apple really doesn't ...Read more

Are you OK?

How did you fare?

Storm victims woke pelting impossible questions into the ether, texting, posting, gathering debris and fishing furniture from toxic waters. Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 behemoth, plowed into Florida's Big Bend last week. The storm's impacts amounted to what experts in the lead-up kept calling...Read more

Not that I'm obsessive or anything, but years ago when my kids were little, I would carry entire kiddie wardrobes around with me so that when my kids got dirty, I could strip them down on the spot and change their clothes.

Of course, this started to become pretty embarrassing for the kids by the time they hit 20, so I stopped.

It also meant ...Read more

Recently I noticed that the shallow lines on my forehead had started to morph into wandering rivers. Since I wear my hair very short, there wasn't really any way to cover them up, and I complained to my husband that I was starting to look old.

"How old do you think you look?" he asked.

"Around 60," I replied.

"You are around 60," he said.

...Read more

The following is an only slightly modified account of a recent attempt to sever internet and cable over the phone with a customer service agent.

Hi. I need to cancel my service.

OK, may I ask why?

We moved and are cutting cable and have gone with a new internet provider.

Mmhmm. Did you get the little white box ...Read more

At 1 a.m. on a Sunday, I woke up to hear the new robot vacuum vacuuming. The next night I heard it whirring around again at 1 a.m., then Tuesday it was the same thing.

"What the heck is going on with that thing?" asked my husband as we heard the vacuum banging on our bedroom door to get in.

"Obviously, it wants to clean in here," I said, ...Read more

Imagine being a cat right now.

One minute, you're minding your own business for 12 hours in a closet, confident in your superiority and uninterested in haters. You've accepted that the dopey, drooly dog is the all-American archetypal household pet. A ridiculous choice, you think, but caring is beneath you, and you've got biscuits to make.

...Read more

Every year around this time, I get inundated with emails telling me about the latest fall trends and what I should buy and what I should toss. Having been down this wardrobe rabbit hole before, I didn't want to make a fall fashion faux pas, such as I did last year, when one trendsetting site told me the "it" shoe was a pointed witchy boot that...Read more

I stood inside 7-Eleven on my way to the office, staring dead-eyed at the drink case and reaching for yet another Celsius to patch in the cracks of exhaustion. A disembodied voice emerged from my left temporal lobe, whispering:

Water.

I bought the dumbest bottle of water. It was Icelandic, or Norwegian, or from some other place ...Read more

"Hey honey, I just found out I can make a meatloaf in the slow cooker," I told my husband.

"No offense," said my husband, "but we don't even really like the meatloaf you make the regular way."

I frowned. I couldn't be mad at him because I knew it was true. I did not have the greatest meatloaf reputation. When it came to making a dish as ...Read more

I am moving to a new house a few miles away. Apologies to my neighbors who are finding out by reading this. When you live in the suburbs, I suppose the proper thing to do is stand on the stoop a la Tony Soprano and be belly-forward with personal news, but I'd rather disassociate by lining up hoarded hotel shampoos like a glass menagerie. Also,...Read more