Communicating in the modern world — The days of remembering telephone numbers are over. Your smartphone does that for you. Besides, no one answers their landlines anymore (if they even have one). It’s almost always a robot solicitor. Landlines are a thing of the past. What you do have to remember is how your friends and…

Philosophers old and new — I was lying on my back letting the tiredness drain out of my body after a long day of sightseeing in Innsbruck. I looked up and there was a message printed on the ceiling of the hotel room. Not the Wifi password. …

A brief trip through the Burgundy region of France at harvest time — I’ve known about white burgundies since I was in my twenties. I don’t remember who introduced me to them. I don’t recall having a boyfriend that could afford wine that expensive and I certainly couldn’t, but who knows. Since then, I’ve been a dedicated fan of reds. I poo-pooed whites…

Getting on top of my fears — We rolled over in bed. It was clearly morning. “I’ll go,” my husband said, barely articulating, his voice still groggy with sleep. I’d been awake for a few minutes already, long enough to check my phone and see if I’d missed any major world developments overnight. “No, I’ll go. …

Figuring out how to do summer travel in Europe — “Road trip!” Back in the day, all someone had to do was suggest it and we’d pile in the car and go somewhere. We had more time than money, and carefully planned trips were still years in the future. We’d think nothing of driving all day and night to hear…

Have you ever thought about how much communication is verbal versus what information is conveyed nonverbally? — I moved to France in 2002 at an age where learning a new language (and speaking it convincingly) was hard. But really, what choice do you have if you’re planning to live there? A couple of my similarly situated girlfriends announced that they’d never had any talent for languages or…

Who needs affirmative action? We do! — A few years ago, the company I worked for sent instructions to each of its offices worldwide directing us to hold an “All Hands” meeting to discuss affirmative action. Headed by a forward-thinking Canadian CEO and registered in London, the company was doing some advance planning before a 2022 FCA…

A summer spent under the shade of trees drinking martinis with my girlfriends — “Let’s call them the ‘summer soirées,’” said my friend Rebecka. That sounded pretty exotic to me, but she was a little bit older, more worldly than I was. “Okay.” It was the summer of ’98. We had finally scheduled lunch and I was lamenting how difficult it had been to…

I wondered what she was shopping for — It was the first day of the sales in Paris — and all of France. It only happens twice a year, and while it’s not an official holiday, what’s not to celebrate? Even at the grocery store in our small countryside town, there were racks of clothing marked “30% off.” …