Jan Bono’s Blog

I love the smell of lilacs. When I was a kid, we had a whole row of the light lavender-colored bushes growing in the backyard. I used to burrow in underneath the heart-shaped leaves and sit with my back against the wooden fence, reading a mystery novel and immersing...

If you’ve ever watched “MacGyver,” you probably think most everything can be fixed with whatever materials you happen to have on hand. And perhaps there’s a kernel of truth to that. Yet so many of our “broken” things reside in the feeling domain, where no band-aid or...

At my age (rapidly approaching the legal highway speed limit), I have quite a bit of potential baggage that I could potentially carry into any potential new relationships. And I imagine I’m not the only one on the planet who is in this position. In order to start...

A few days ago I had dinner with four friends of mine. Although our gathering was originally slated as nothing more than grabbing something to eat before attending the theater, we had a woman in our midst celebrating her 75th birthday. Since I’m always up for a party,...

I was taking a car trip with some good friends of mine last week when I mentioned that lately I had been experiencing a high degree of unaccustomed serenity. “I don’t know how to behave,” I told them. “What will I do without my two faithful side-kicks, Chaos and...

Maybe I should amend that title. For the last xix weeks I’ve had no covert sugar. As in no cookies, no candy, no cake, no pie, no donuts or other bakery goods, and none of my beloved nemesis: Ice cream! In other words, traditional dessert items are no longer on my...