Jane Roper's Blog, page 10

Back when my daughter Clio was in cancer treatment and I’d get together or chat with friends, there would inevitably come a juncture in the conversation where the friend would start complaining about one thing or another, in the way that friends do with each other—some headache at work or challenge with the kids or […]

In which a man explains to me why I like post-apocalyptic books and movies. (And why this is not like that at all.) So, last time I wrote I confessed that I have slight prepper tendencies. This has served our family well—at least in the toilet paper and canned goods department—during this current disaster. (Although […]

If you’ll indulge me, I want to talk to you about toilet paper. AKA Gold on a Roll. 2-Ply Platinum. Under-the-Sink Silver. (I just made  those up—feel free to use.) I have a confession about TP. Actually, it’s more like a brag: I started buying an extra pack here and there starting way back in […]

Two-and-a-half weeks and change at home, no change whatsoever.  (See what I did there?) Yesterday was the day I started really feeling it, by which I mean the sense that time is stretching out in front of me like a vast,  hostile desert a la Mad Max (one of the few post-apocalyptic movies I haven’t seen in […]

A few days ago, I mentioned that one of our cats, Opie, singed his fur by walking too close to a candle. (Idiot.) What I didn’t mention was 1.) How pungent the smell of burned cat hair is. (We had to open the windows) and 2.) Why we had a candle lit in the middle […]

Oh yes. It will be blogged. That is, when I’m not (remote) working / homeschooling / reading the news / watching inspiring videos of Italians singing from windows  / building a  smokehouse in my backyard a la Pa Ingalls for the day when shortages force us to resort to subsisting on raccoon jerky and pulled […]

I’ve never been a fan of celebrating the New Year—not the one that starts in January, at least (September is another story). It feels like an arbitrary division of time into then and now, and, coming right on the heels of Christmas, Hanukkah and my kids’ birthday—the yearly, exhausting triple threat—it’s a holiday I wish […]

On a recent trip to Maine, my parents gave me a big box  of stuff from my childhood that had been living in their attic ever since they moved out of my childhood home 17 years ago. It contained many a gem, including teen heartthrob magazines from 1986 and 1987, Michael J. Fox pinups removed […]

I spent this past weekend at a camp reunion at Hidden Valley Camp in Freedom, Maine. I spent every single summer there between the ages of zero and thirteen, as a “staff brat” (my mom was the  program director) and then camper. It was and still is a magical place—an elemental ingredient of my childhood […]

Happy September! We recently got back from an epic vacation through Colorado, Utah and a slice of Navajo Nation in a rented RV.  (Pics over at Instagram) So I’m tempted to devote a whole post to that, and maybe I will at some point.  But in the meantime, in honor of Ye Annual Back to […]