empty nest, refeathered

When my daughter, Emilia, was in high school, there was a TV commercial on the air that portrayed a mother who transformed her kid’s room into a fancy-shmancy spa-bathroom within minutes of his departure for college. We used to tease each other about that ad. “That’s what we’re going to do,” I promised. “Don’t you…

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Yes We Can

Barack Obama and I go way back to May 2004, when he was running for the senate. I met him via a profile by William Finnegan in the pages of The New Yorker. Describing Obama in his Chicago neighborhood, Finnegan wrote, Every few minutes, our conversation was interrupted by passersby congratulating Obama on his primary…

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