Never before has a TSA line seemed to move so quickly. Even without PreCheck, Sophie made her way through the security queue outside Terminal D of Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport with uncommon ease on Wednesday morning. Perhaps it only seemed to move so fast because I was not actually standing in it. The more…

Dear Family, I have now ridden in an ambulance. So we can check that one off. My trip to the hospital, as you might have guessed, was occasioned by an incident involving my bicycle and a car. Inasmuch as the road rash on my left shoulder, left forearm, left hip and right hand has mostly…

Dear Family, “Dude, has anyone ever told you you look exactly like Rick Carlisle?” The question was posed to me as I walked along Ellsworth Avenue in Downtown Silver Spring by a stranger sitting on the sidewalk between the entrances to Ben & Jerry’s and Noodles & Company. “You’re talking to me?” I asked. “Yeah….

Dear Family, [Before getting into the mundanity of my life this month, I should open by expressing my sincere gratitude for what appears to be the gradual recovery of my 17-year-old nephew who has been hospitalized at Children’s National Medical Center for the past week with what I believe can be characterized as a life-threatening…

Dear Family, Sophie is home! Having bid adieu to Heritage Halls on Wednesday afternoon, she spent the night with Hannah & JT, who drove her to the airport on Thursday morning. She caught the 11:45 Southwest nonstop from Salt Lake to BWI (which at certain times of year could probably just be called “the BYU…

Dear Family, Months like this one remind me that Dante may have been onto something in Inferno when he depicts the ninth (i.e., the worst) circle of hell not as fire and brimstone, but as an extremely cold place where Satan is trapped in ice. Worrying about our Texas relatives, I was reminded of the…

Dear Family, Even though I’ve never conducted a proper analysis on phrases like, “I prefer to steer clear of politics on Facebook,” I feel reasonably confident asserting that they are followed by the word but and a political pronouncement approximately 100 percent of the time. Longtime readers of my letters with unusually good memories may…

Dear Family, I bought my first pair of reading glasses this month. And getting them at Costco meant that I actually bought my first three pairs of reading glasses this month. It’s impossible to pick up just one of anything at Costco, and I’m kind of surprised I didn’t have to get a 12-pack. But…

Dear Family, A week ago, the prophet invited us to turn social media into a gratitude journal by posting each day for a week about “what you are grateful for, whom you are grateful for, and why you are grateful.” I did not succeed in following this counsel. I typically post to social media between…