Ralph Gardner Jr.

But Fogo de Chao is different, as both my brother and our waiter explained to me. The way it works is that you grab a plate and help yourself to the sprawling salad bar; smoked salmon, Caesar salad, hummus, black bean stew, and fifty other dishes.

Crossing the border leaving and entering the United States is no slam dunk these days, or so news reports would have you believe.

Uncharacteristically, last week I attended a major league baseball game, and a day game, and a Yankees game at that, with my friends Bruce and Mike.

I really ought to buy some art, I told myself recently. I can’t recall what prompted the thought. Perhaps I was looking for light amid the darkness. I remember when my grandfather, our family’s pater familias, died unexpectedly half a century ago. He and my grandmother had a lovely art collection and it offered solace and beauty in the days after his passing.

Embracing the well-worn metaphor that life is a road, there are certain mileposts that one can see from a great distance away. As early as second grade I used to marvel that in the unfathomably distant year of 2000 I’d be forty-seven ancient years old.

I’ve always been impressed by WAMC’s triannual fundraising campaigns. Perhaps this pegs me as a nerd but I listen to them for fun. Not all day, mind you. But an hour here, an hour there. If you’ve ever listened to other public radio stations’ exhortations for money their strategy seems to be to bore you to death until you cough up some dough, just so that they’ll return to regular programming.

Baltimore orioles began to alight on the white clouds of Callery pear trees blossoms lining our driveway on April 26th, more than a week earlier than they have in the past.

Every once in a while I take time out from my busy day to wonder what’s happening to us as a nation. I mean I know what’s happening. I read the news. Way too much of it. One of the blessing of writing is that while you’re writing you’re not reading. It doubles as a form of mediation. But you can’t write all the time. Nor would my constitution allow it. After several hours I’m exhausted.

Often, on the way to and from New York City riding the Taconic State Parkway I think of my grandparents. They would travel from their home in the Hudson Valley, the house we still own, to visit my parents, my brothers and me. I found something idyllic about their leisurely retirement lifestyle — the way they were free to come and go, seemingly without a care in the world, while my young life was bracketed by school, homework and my failed attempts to be popular.

My friend Aris, who died in December, made clear what he wanted done with his ashes. It’s on my to-do list for this spring. He wanted them sprinkled around the tree that stands in front of our house.