ArcaMax

I'll start by making a few things clear:

I love my father, I love cooking and I love Thanksgiving.

And now that the throat-clearing is done, I can move on to the complaining.

Because of all dishes in all the holidays on the calendar, there's nothing like the Thanksgiving turkey for getting under your skin. And last year, it got under mine ...Read more

I'm forming a new political party.

No offense intended to the two major ones we already have, but they stink. OK, well, if I'm being honest, some offense was intended. Currently, we're at "invading Venezuela to distract attention from the Epstein files" levels of incompetence, so a bit of change seems warranted.

I'm going to call my party ...Read more

I once met a man who claimed to make up his mind who he wanted in presidential elections only after stepping into the voting booth.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked, aghast.

How could anyone, I marveled, not know who they were planning to vote for? What were they waiting for, a message from beyond the grave?

"Yep," the guy said, kind of ...Read more

Menopause is so hot these days.

All the cool kids are doing it, a coincidence that marks the last time I will be counted as either cool or a kid.

I suppose I'm not, technically, in menopause. I'm in the preemptive stages -- something I have learned is called "perimenopause," from the Greek word "peri," meaning "around," and "menopause," ...Read more

Are you, like me, kind of freaking out a little bit?

Do masked men patrol your city streets, snatching people up and throwing them into vans headed for overcrowded detention centers where they will be held incommunicado and pressured to sign self-deportation orders that abrogate their rights to a fair trial?

Have your lawmakers all seemingly...Read more

My two boys recently got new passports. The little books are gorgeously designed.

On thick paper, drawings are etched of wheat fields and farmers, statues and monuments. Quotes from great Americans - former Presidents George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, as well as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., -- top each page. The ...Read more

I'm told that ours is a market economy -- driven by supply and demand, or end-stage capitalism at its finest.

But I find that around this time of year, as plastic skeletons hang from suburban rooftops and air-stuffed Jack-O-Lanterns droop in the October wind, things get a bit more banana republic. Or, more of a Banana Laffy Taffy Republic, I ...Read more

The secretary of defense opens his laptop late at night on Sept. 29. He logs on to his favorite AI chatbot. It greets him.

Hi, Pete. What can I do for you tonight?

Pete? I thought I asked you to call me Major Tough Guy.

You're absolutely right. You did. Thanks for setting me straight, Major Tough Guy. How can I help?

I'm trying to write a ...Read more

I got called "Georgia" by one of my son's friends the other day.

I wasn't insulted -- I know from firsthand experience that kids nowadays have a startling familiarity with adults. My own son and his cousin, both 6 years old, once walked up to my husband's 70-year-old uncle when they saw him smoking a cigar and lectured him on its dangers.

"...Read more

A 99-year-old woman died yesterday. Though I'd never met her, I cried as I read her obituary.

Her name was Marilyn Hagerty, and even as a nonagenarian, she was still writing the same gentle restaurant reviews that had made her briefly but brilliantly famous.

She wasn't famous in the new way -- she wasn't on TikTok, and she didn't have a ...Read more

There's a guy at my gym who works out in jeans.

They're not baggy jeans, either, jeans that would give him enough room to do squats or jog on the treadmill with ease. They're the regular, no-stretch, no-fun, no-frills jeans. They're the kind you'd wear to the hardware store to pick up a new garden hose.

The man's in his late 50s or early 60s...Read more

Now that Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles have been invaded, the Trump administration is threatening to make Chicago its next target for federalization.

The Department of Homeland Security this week asked Naval Station Great Lakes for "limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS ...Read more