Poker prophets
When our poker party convenes every Thursday evening, the discussion inevitably involves the seductiveness of gambling and games of chance. [...]
NBA Playoffs odds — and ends
The 2025 NBA Playoffs are scheduled to get underway today, and the field looks to be wide open this year. [...]
The perfect travel companion
Years ago, I stumbled upon a Peanuts cartoon that really stuck with me. It showed Charlie Brown briskly walking across [...]
From Alezio with love
Emigrants convey their native culture to every far corner of the world where they move in their quest for jobs [...]
On quitting
I come from a family that does not condone self-pity or taking the easy way out, which is why, when [...]
Feeling very gezellig
Gezellig is a Dutch word for which there is no real English equivalent. The Dutch use it to mean comfort, [...]
Review: The Shipping News
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1994, The Shipping News is an enchanting yet unconventional love story of [...]
Film: “No Other Land”
A film cannot, of itself, save the world. But sometimes a film can go a long way in holding the [...]
Food memories
I remember food, or I think I do. Tastes of raspberries in Wales, picked fresh that morning on the farm [...]
Anatomy of a dream
In mid-January, I became a doctoral candidate. Formally, this means that I passed the dissertation proposal, plus the qualifying exams [...]
Goodbye, my little princess
My mom thinks time stopped when I took that plane. But it hasn’t. I’m closer to my mid-twenties than to [...]