In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when a vaccine hadn’t been discovered and people were dying by the thousands each day and social distancing seemed our best bet, but also, potentially, our great unraveling, I remember searching hard — and finding — signs of unity.

Signs that we had it in us to come together to protect what's...Read more

The Garden Guy has had the best time following the Pantone "Color of the Year," which is Cloud Dancer. By following, I am talking about the color gurus verbalizing on social media. I’ll not call any out by name lest they come after me.

Cloud Dancer as you might expect is white. Now I admit while I will always hope for Electric Orange, I know ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Growing up in South Jersey, my siblings and I were often reminded by our mother to seek a college education to better our chances of landing a good job.

My sister Andrea and I heeded her advice and obtained bachelor’s degrees with honors a few years after high school and began working in our professional fields.

It took my ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Sandwich Man lives.

These days you can find him in a wheelchair or leaning on a walker, his body and mind slowed by decades of overnight work feeding and serving people living off the streets of Minneapolis. Now, that work continues, in slightly different form.

Allan Law has been hailed as an urban servant, a hero and a ...Read more

ST. LOUIS — The class started the way classes normally do. Students filtered into the room, sat down and set their backpacks on the floor.

Instead of pulling out textbooks or notepads, however, the students pointed iPads at a QR code projected on a whiteboard at the front of the room. Within seconds, they were inside an "AI space" — a ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The remains of the original Griffith Park Zoo are imbued with memories of the past. Forgotten animal pens, decaying cages and stony backdrops now sit in various states of abandonment.

It is, in other words, a prime location for a haunted narrative.

"Ghost in the Machine: The Old Zoo" is just that, a site-specific interactive ...Read more

Dear Anna,

I’m a 38-year-old woman and recently reconnected with my ex-boyfriend from college, who’s now 40. We dated for two years when we were 22 and 24, and it was intense and meaningful before life pulled us in different directions.

We’ve been back together for about five months now, and he’s everything I remembered, except for one...Read more

PHILADELPHIA -- Chris Summers was born in South Philly and raised by her grandmother and her mother. She knew she was supposed to get married, but she never felt exactly like the people around her.

The main sticking point was sex: she didn’t want to have it, yet she still longed for romantic companionship.

”I really crave connection and ...Read more

If you’ve ever wondered, when dating someone, “How do I express my needs and then decide if it’s a relationship I still want to be in?” I have a framework I’d like you to consider: The Tree of Needs.

You’ll have to use your imagination for this one and picture a tree. At the top, we have your need, whatever that may be. On the next...Read more

Q: My son's father and I actually get along pretty well. When our son cut his last class at school and was caught skateboarding at the park, I told him I was calling his dad. He begged me not to, but I called anyway and let his father yell at him on the spot. It definitely got his attention. Wasn't that good ex-etiquette?

A: In essence it was ...Read more

Dear Kid Whisperer,

I teach in a PK-K Montessori room. What do you do for children who are hitting/hurting others or saying and doing unkind things on a consistent basis? Parents are involved in this, we’ve had meetings, the student has been assessed, etc… but it just keeps happening to the point that other parents complain about their ...Read more

You know winter is knocking on the door when the go-to topic of every conversation is windchill. You know winter has moved in and made itself at home when the house settles with loud cracks, the hardwoods creak and kitchen cabinets along an outside wall have the interior temperature of a cave. Winter soon becomes an uninvited houseguest with no ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Of all the things Betsy Kenney thought she might go viral for, whispering about Wawa wasn’t one of them. But the 38-year-old comedian’s Philly “ASMR” videos have taken off on TikTok and Instagram, turning Kenney — who spent more than a decade pursuing a comedy career in New York City — into an unlikely local ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — Imagine the Grinch as a porch pirate, stealing to feed a drug habit. After he’s shunned by fellow thieves, he has a change of heart and returns one of the stolen packages. Another Grinch answers the door — the father he thought had abandoned him.

This was the retelling of the classic tale that was staged last month in the ...Read more

If it weren’t for Venetian blinds, it would be curtains for me. It also would be valances, drapes, shutters and other coverings for windows that I haven’t washed in two years, which is why my wife, Sue, has been throwing shades at me.

We recently got new blinds in the family room because the old ones, which came with the house when we ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Charlotte Ipsen, a longtime north Minneapolis resident who is 84 this winter, usually relies on a kindhearted neighbor to shovel her sidewalk, as many senior Minnesotans do. But the neighbor is getting older and has disabilities that cause him to limp behind his snowblower.

With money tight — Ipsen’s health insurance, food ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Wildflower expert Naomi Fraga was excited about the prospect of an extraordinary bloom this spring, after a winter of near record rainfall, but this week's unseasonably hot, dry weather has dimmed her hopes for a superbloom year.

"Superblooms are not guaranteed every year, even after lots of rain," said Fraga, director of ...Read more

Dear Anna,

My girlfriend and I have been together for four years, and we’re constantly fighting about alone time. We both work full time but on different schedules. When she gets home from work, she immediately disappears into the bedroom for at least an hour — sometimes longer — to “decompress.” She insists this isn’t personal and ...Read more

Win or lose, this Chicago Bears season has been an absolute blast. Unexpected. Joyful. Resilience in action. A comeback story for the ages. A foundation to build upon.

A couple days after the Bears sent the Green Bay Packers packing, I bonded with a guy on the sidewalk about Matthew Stafford’s cold-weather stats for the Rams. The week prior, ...Read more

Yogi Berra, the beloved New York Yankee, was as famous for his sayings as he was for his baseball prowess. One of my favorite sayings was "It's déjà vu all over again." When it comes to Senorita Rosalita cleome or spider flower, it is déjà vu again and again.

Senorita Rosalita has been chosen as the Proven Winners "Landscape Annual of the ...Read more