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Articles written by Carrie Classon


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  • The Postscript: Rod Stewart hair

    Carrie Classon|Updated Mar 12, 2024

    “I like your hair!” a woman at the party said. This is always nice to hear. My hair is my least endearing feature, primarily because there is not much of it. But since my husband, Peter, started cutting it, I worry a lot less. “How does my hair look?” I ask as I head out the door. Peter always pretends to take this question very seriously. (He should, as my hairdresser.) He scrutinizes the top of my head for a long moment. He asks me to turn all the way around. Then...

  • The Postscript: What cats like

    Carrie Classon|Updated Mar 5, 2024

    “I’ve been reading about cats,” my husband, Peter, tells me. Peter has never had a cat before. “Oh, yeah?” “Salt is not good for their kidneys. We have to give Felix unsalted fish.” Felix is our adopted street cat here in Mexico. He is coming back to the U.S. with us in a fancy backpack carrier I found online. It has mesh on either side, with one big plexiglass bubble in the back, so Felix can watch his fellow passengers in comfort. He hasn’t flown yet, but...

  • The Postscript: A borrowed plate

    Carrie Classon|Updated Feb 27, 2024

    My husband, Peter, and I were surprised that two plates were missing. We stay in our little apartment in Mexico and, while we’re gone, all our dishes and glasses remain in the cupboards. We pack away most of our spices, but we leave the vegetable steamer and the pressure cooker and all the art on the walls. We leave it all in the apartment which, we assume, is rented out to other people while we are gone, although it is hard to know for sure because everything is always...

  • The Postscript: A new life for Felix

    Carrie Classon|Updated Feb 20, 2024

    Last night was surprisingly calm, all things considered. I told my husband, Peter, that he should not plan to get a good night’s sleep. I told him this because Peter has never had a cat, and yesterday, we adopted one. I have had several cats over the years, but my last cat, Lucy, died just a few months before I met Peter, 10 years ago. Peter has had dogs all his life and knows nothing about cats (which means every cat who has ever met him finds him fascinating). So we...

  • The Postscript: Donuts in the middle of the day

    Carrie Classon|Updated Feb 13, 2024

    While a person may buy a cake here in Mexico seven days a week from early morning to late at night, getting any other kind of dessert is more challenging. There is a bakery I walk by every day. Everything is fresh and in bins. Customers pick up a metal tray and tongs and select what they want, then bring it up to the counter. The tray is returned to the pile. The tongs are hung neatly with the other tongs. It is a great system, except that the tray holds a lot of baked goods...

  • The Postscript: A piece of cake

    Carrie Classon|Updated Feb 6, 2024

    My husband, Peter, and I landed in Mexico again, and we did what we have done in the past. We bought an enormous cake. It’s nice to have a cake in the house. I have discovered it is not necessarily a good idea to eat cake every day, as it eventually makes my clothes too small. But I do like cake, and I especially like Mexican cake, and more than anything, I like giving cake away. We love the folks who work at this hotel. When I say “hotel,” you might be thinking of some...

  • The Postscript: Enough

    Carrie Classon|Updated Jan 30, 2024

    My husband, Peter, and I are headed out to Mexico again, and before we do, I thought it was a good time of year to check in with some folks I care about, to see how 2024 had been treating them so far. First, I had dinner with my oldest friend, Andrew. He told me about his mother, who lives alone and has been feeling her 92 years. Her activities are becoming more limited, and she may move into a smaller place. She’s figuring out what she is still able to do, and how much is...

  • The Postscript: Still singing

    Carrie Classon|Updated Jan 23, 2024

    My dad turned 90 this weekend, and we were all set to drive up north to celebrate his birthday. He’s a hard one to buy a present for. My dad does not need more things. He likes using the things he has until they are completely worn out. He already has a line of slippers on his top shelf, queued up for when the pair he’s wearing is threadbare. He wore his last pair of hiking boots until his socks showed through. Besides, he said “No presents!” in a very persistent way....

  • The Postscript: Making progress

    Carrie Classon|Updated Jan 16, 2024

    “Perfection is the enemy of progress,” according to Winston Churchill. It’s the time of year when we try to do too much, change too quickly. Already expectations are lowering, and reality is setting in. The sky is gray, the temperatures cold, and I am coming to grips with the fact that I cannot eat toffee every day. (At least, not a lot of toffee every day.) It’s the mid-January new year letdown. More people die this time of year than on average. I imagine they make it...

  • The Postscript: Sharing a story

    Carrie Classon|Updated Jan 9, 2024

    My nephew, Beau, keeps me on my toes. Keeping on my toes is a good way to develop balance and agility. It is also a good way to fall on my face and embarrass myself. But since I don’t spend a lot of time with teenagers — and not nearly enough with Beau — I am trying. Right now, he’s trying to convince me that I need a mechanical keyboard for my computer. I am old enough to remember typing class in high school. The “thunk, thunk, thunk!” sound of hitting keys is...

  • The Postscript: Red squirrel thoughts

    Carrie Classon|Updated Jan 2, 2024

    I drove my parents to their cabin this week. My mom is having some terrible pain in her jaw and wasn’t sure she was up to the drive, and my dad doesn’t see well enough to drive anymore. I felt lucky to spend time in the car with them, driving north. There was almost no snow. It was strange to drive so far north in the winter and see the floor of the forest bare. The first thing I did when we got to the cabin was look for Stubby, my mother’s pet red squirrel. Of course,...

  • The Postscript: Year-end ambitions

    Carrie Classon|Updated Dec 26, 2023

    It’s the time of year when I look back and see where I’ve been and wonder where I’m going. On the shortest days of the year, I like to do a little recalibration. I take a look at what I had hoped to do and ways in which I want to change my thinking. Some years I have had major changes in the works — going back to school or starting a new career. Other years, my biggest ambition has been to finish off the last of the Christmas cookies before the year’s end in case...

  • The Postscript: Wild children

    Carrie Classon|Updated Dec 19, 2023

    The children were in the pew in front of me. We had not arrived early enough at my sister’s church for the Christmas Eve service to secure a seat in the back, so we were in the fourth row. The first row is never used by anyone; the second row is only for people who arrive impossibly late. The third row is, for all intents and purposes, the front row, and that’s where these two wild-looking children were. The children were provisioned with colored pencils and drawing paper...

  • The Postscript: Dressing up for Christmas

    Carrie Classon|Updated Dec 12, 2023

    I tend to be a Christmas maximalist; at least if you ask my husband, Peter, that’s what he would say. Peter would dispense with the tree, the presents and most of the outings. He’d hang a few ornaments on a houseplant, have a nice meal and go to bed early. But Peter cares for me a lot, and he knows how much I love Christmas. I want a live tree. If I can’t chop it down myself, I’ll haul it home from the hardware store. I want lights on the balcony and a little present...

  • The Postscript: Dressing up for Christmas

    Carrie Classon|Updated Dec 5, 2023

    I tend to be a Christmas maximalist; at least if you ask my husband, Peter, that’s what he would say. Peter would dispense with the tree, the presents and most of the outings. He’d hang a few ornaments on a houseplant, have a nice meal and go to bed early. But Peter cares for me a lot, and he knows how much I love Christmas. I want a live tree. If I can’t chop it down myself, I’ll haul it home from the hardware store. I want lights on the balcony and a little present...

  • The Postscript: A few words

    Carrie Classon|Updated Nov 28, 2023

    We had dinner with friends last night. There is nothing unusual about that, except these were all people I did not know; people my husband, Peter, had met while taking his daily hike in Mexico. This was not the first gathering of Peter’s friends we’ve had. My self-professed introvert of a husband has become something of a social butterfly outside of the U.S. He goes to the same botanical nature reserve to hike every day and he meets new people and forms new friendships....

  • The Postscript: A Thanksgiving prayer

    Carrie Classon|Updated Nov 21, 2023

    I have always liked Thanksgiving. I know its origins are dubious. I cringe a little when I think about the construction paper American Indian costumes and the happy story I learned as a child about that first Thanksgiving. I cringe a little more when I read about people missing their holiday meal so they can work at retail jobs where customers trample one another at the store’s entrance to get in and buy things. I don’t understand this, I have to confess. I have never...

  • The Postscript: A perfect cup

    Carrie Classon|Updated Nov 14, 2023

    It’s important to have a good coffee cup. My husband, Peter, makes the coffee, and has since we were married. We will be celebrating nine years of marriage this spring, so you might not be surprised to hear that I no longer remember how to make coffee. This is called “learned helplessness” in psychology circles, and is certainly true in my case. Peter makes the coffee, and I drink it. This seems to me like a fair division of labor. And having the proper cup is...

  • The Postscript: Dietary choices

    Carrie Classon|Updated Nov 7, 2023

    I just spent a wonderful long weekend with my sister and her son, Beau, “up north” at my parents’ cabin. Stubby the red squirrel is doing well. Since the tragic loss of the end of his tail (and his subsequent unofficial adoption by my mother), he has flourished. The end of his tail, while still cut off at a sharp angle, has sprouted an impressive line of dark fur, and he looks dapper, sitting on the railing, shaking his tail and showing off his new plumage. Mom still...

  • The Postscript: Fancy new gloves

    Carrie Classon|Updated Oct 31, 2023

    My Auntie Jo gave me a beautiful pair of gloves yesterday. They are elegant, with embroidery on the top, and I immediately did what I usually do — I put them away for safekeeping. “I’ll wear these to something special!” I told myself. I have a date to go with my niece to see “Peter Pan” in December. I decided I would wear those gloves when I go out with my beautiful 20-year-old niece before she heads out to Spain to study for a semester in Madrid. That will...

  • The Postscript: Celebrating Halloween

    Carrie Classon|Updated Oct 24, 2023

    I have always loved Halloween, and I love it now more than ever. I love to get in costume and have fun with other people in costume. People seem freer when they are dressed in different clothes. They seem to have a little more fun. I like the challenge of making or putting together elaborate costumes but, as the years passed, I’ve done less and less of it. Costume parties seem to be less common, and I don’t spend time in bars, so the opportunity to celebrate the holiday...

  • The Postscript: Our devices

    Carrie Classon|Updated Oct 17, 2023

    My sister sends a text, telling me she is making lasagna, and asks if I will bring a cake. “Sounds great!” I readily agree. “When?” There is no response. I know we are celebrating my mother’s birthday early, but I have no idea when, so I don’t know when this cake will be needed. I could call my sister, but that sounds difficult. Will she be busy? She is a teacher, and she is busy a lot. She gets up early and seems to be in constant motion from the time she gets off...

  • The Postscript: Talking to dogs

    Carrie Classon|Updated Oct 10, 2023

    It’s no secret that I love dogs. I love dogs, and I don’t have one right now because, traveling as much as my husband, Peter, and I do, having a dog makes no sense. We know this. We have discussed this. There are times I would like to have a dog so much it makes my heart hurt. And then I realize how easy it is to get on a plane without worrying about the welfare of a dog, and I know we have — at least for now — made the right decision. And so my solution is to talk to...

  • The Postscript: My story

    Carrie Classon|Updated Oct 3, 2023

    I’ve been thinking about forgiveness. A lot has been said on the subject by people a lot smarter than I, so I don’t have anything valuable to add to the discussion at large, but I’ve been thinking of how it affects me, and what a powerful thing it is. I’ve had very little to forgive compared to most people. People have always been kind to me. I am always astonished by how kind people have been — for no reason. As a young person, I received help and advice from...

  • The Postscript: September sunshine

    Carrie Classon|Updated Sep 26, 2023

    He was sitting outside his home on a tiny patio, wearing a fedora and smoking a cigar. He had a portable music player sitting beside him, and he looked as if he was enjoying the September sunshine about as much as anyone could. “Good afternoon!” I said as I passed. “Good afternoon!” he agreed. I don’t smoke, but I like the smell of cigars. My grandpa smoked a cigar occasionally, and the smell of cigar smoke reminds me of my childhood. In fact, all of September...

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