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Tag: Advice

  • Asking Eric: After years of moving, widow doesn’t know where to go in retirement

    Dear Eric: I’m 61, widowed, and still work full time as a registered nurse in a very busy hospice house.

    I lost my husband four years ago, and since then went through a medical scare twice, diagnosed with cirrhosis, sleep apnea and chronic anxiety, have bought and sold two homes, purchased a new car and created significant credit card debt twice.

    When I retire, I won’t be able to afford my house, so I will need to move (again). I understand and admit these poor financial decisions were possibly my way of dealing with grief, but now I am at a crossroads where I have an opportunity to retire next year and finally be able to decide how and where I spend my time.

    You see, during my 36 years of marriage, we moved 13 times. I really don’t have roots.

    My problem is that I don’t know where to land during my retirement years. How do I go about figuring this out? Because of my medical issues, sometimes I need help and probably should live near my family. But who? I can’t wrap my head around this. But I need to decide soon because I will need to move when I sell my current home next summer.

    I think I’m afraid to make another financial mistake. I also fear that this decision will be somehow final. What are your thoughts?

    — The Next Move

    Dear Move: The first thing you’ll want to do is talk to a financial adviser, who can review your assets and debts and give you a concrete plan that will keep you financially solvent and help you get some peace of mind. Medical issues and money woes can create a fog of anxiety that obscures the path forward. It’s hard to make wise decisions or to feel confident you haven’t made a mistake.

    If you don’t know where to look for a financial adviser, ask friends or relatives if they work with someone they trust, or reach out to the National Association of Professional Financial Advisors (napfa.org). Your local senior center or public library will also likely have financial counseling resources available.

    Also, talk to your family members about the upcoming decision and the options you’re weighing. They’ll be able to give you insight about the places they live, and their capacity for showing up for you when needed. This will give you a sense of what your post-retirement life can look like and give you better information to help you make your decision. Talk to your doctors, as well. If there’s specialized care you need, they’ll be able to advise you on how to connect with it in other areas.

    Lastly, talk to friends in retirement communities about their experiences. You may find that one of those is an attractive and affordable option.

    You don’t have to make these decisions on your own; indeed, it’s wiser not to. Keep asking for more information until you feel more surefooted. I understand that perhaps you feel that you’re backed into a corner right now. But I want to assure you that you can find a next chapter that brings you happiness and gives you a sense of freedom.

    Dear Eric: This is in reference to the letter about giving gifts to adults from “Feeling Bah-humbug” who wrote: “My significant other and I are at the stage in life where we really do not need more ‘stuff’ and would rather not deal with gifts that are generic at best and usually are re-gifted promptly via donation or gift-economy communities.”

    We had the same problem. Solved it! Instead of buying gifts, we determined a monetary amount we probably would spend on a gift. We picked $50. Could be any amount.

    Every year one person was in charge of collecting the money from everyone. That person donated that amount to their favorite charity. Next year, the next person collected the money and donated it to their favorite charity. Worked great!

    — Regifting

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Mark Cuban says he doesn’t do calls and prefers email because ‘if we do it by phone, I’m going to forget half the stuff that we talked about’ | Fortune

    “No, I don’t do calls,” said the former Shark Tank star and Dallas Mavericks owner in a TikTok video posted by Masterclass. “You know, I’ll engage with you via email, and trust me, I do this all the time. I’m really good at it.”

    But Cuban’s logic for his proclivity toward email over the phone is very different from younger generations. He said conversing over email gives him more time to craft a thoughtful response. 

    “I’ll give you more comprehensive responses than if it was via phone,” said Cuban, who’s worth an estimated $6 billion. “And if we do it by phone, I’m going to forget half the stuff that we talked about because I’ve got so much going on.” 

    While Cuban is no longer starring on Shark Tank and sold off his majority stake in the Mavericks, he’s still plenty occupied running Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Company and serving as an investor and advisor to the dozens of companies he invested in during his time on the show.

    Meanwhile, Gen Zers prefer email or text because they are anxious about talking on the phone. A 2024 study shows nearly a quarter of the generation is so hesitant about talking on the phone that they never answer calls. A college in the U.K. last year even launched a class aimed at helping Gen Z overcome its fear.

    While it’s always easy to poke fun at younger generations for their professional-life quirks, the hesitancy for some is actually a deeply rooted fear called “telephobia.” This form of phone anxiety can lead to increased heart rate, nausea, shaking, and trouble concentrating, according to Verywell Mind. 

    “It speaks to a broader fatigue with immediacy and urgency, where people have grown tired of the hassle culture and obsession with efficiency,”  Zoia Tarasova, an anthropologist with consumer insight agency Canvas8, previously told Fortune. “People are quietly rebelling against this immediacy by taking their time to respond to those calls.” 

    Other business leaders even told Fortune that this telephobia trend has hurt their bottom line. Casey Halloran, CEO and cofounder of online travel agency Namu Travel, said in the 25 years he’s been in business, management has “never seen anything quite like the generational divide” between older and younger travel agents in how they make phone calls. He also said combating telephobia has been a “frequent, uncomfortable topic” at his company, as management has recognized that his younger travel agents register fewer than 50% of the calls compared to older employees.

    “As to solutions, we have been doing extensive training, incentives, call observing with our veteran reps, and even hired a business psychologist,” Halloran previously told Fortune. “After more than two years of this struggle, we’re nearly to the point of throwing up hands and embracing SMS and WebChat versus continuing to fight an uphill battle.”

    Still, for his own business purposes, Cuban says he prefers emails over phone calls because he can go back and reference what he’s said. 

    “If we do it via email, I can search for it, always,” he added. 

    What research tells us about communication styles at work

    Just like most business approaches, emailing instead of talking on the phone has its pros and cons. 

    Research by recruiting firm Robert Walters shows more than half of younger-generation professionals find instant messaging or email, instead of calls or meetings, is the best way to “get things done,” showing how they believe talking over the phone can be inefficient. That’s the “it could have been an email” mentality.

    “Younger generations are less inclined to spend hours in a restaurant or cafe when they can have a quick discussion online,” Emilie Vignon, associate director of Robert Walters California, wrote in the 2024 study. To be sure, Vignon also said there are also “downsides” to only conversing via email or text.

    “Face-to-face interactions allow for meaningful connections and provide an opportunity for non-verbal communication cues, building trust and rapport with clients and colleagues,” Vignon added. “The subtleties of body language, facial expressions, and tone of voice contribute to a deeper understanding and connection that often cannot be fully conveyed through text or even video chats.”

    To be sure, other research from the University of Texas at Austin (UT) and the University of Chicago, as well as studies by McKinsey & Co., show calls can help resolve issues more quickly than an email, especially as workers spend nearly one-third of their time on email. A 2022 study from DePaul University researcher David J. Bouvier also shows that email enables easy information sharing and can reduce stress.

    Sydney Lake

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  • Family Recipe Box: The dinners of a past New Year

    “May not the trouble with New Year’s Resolutions be that they are so largely negative whereas they ought to be positive?” — Barbara Allen, Fitchburg Sentinel, December 30, 1925

    I recently came across the work of Barbara Allen, who wrote the page “Women’s Interests” in the Fitchburg Sentinel of a century ago (and longer). It is always exciting to come across a female journalist hitherto unknown, especially as newspapers were well underway in creating  separate departments so familiar to us all today: news (global, national, local), sports, entertainment (listings for classics of the silent screen, and cartoons), and, of course, advertising, which then expanded in the winter months leading to Christmas.

    Now that New Year’s is on our doorstep, you and yours may have plans to put on some sparkly apparel and go out dancing. Or put on some sparkly feet pajamas and  curl up on the couch, although that prospect is less appealing since WSBK stopped airing the traditional “Three Stooges Marathon” back in 2021. So let’s see what our options were for going out a century ago.

    “Special Collation”

    Perusing old Fitchburg Sentinels online turned up one of our favorite establishments: Brooks Restaurant DeLuxe, Main St. which offered a “Special Collation New Year’s Eve, 11 to 1.” Brooks was beloved  for banquets and always bought a big ad to advertise every last item.

    On the Sunday before New Year’s, you could have enjoyed one of their  “Famous Dinners,” which cost just $1.25 (23 bucks in today’s coin). This started with “Stuffed Eggs a la Brooks,  Saltines, Celery,  Chicken And Okra Soup,” continued with “Roast Spring Duckling With Sage Dressing”, or “Grilled Sirloin Steak With Mushroom Sauce.” My eye was caught by “Hearts of Lettuce with Russian Dressing.”

    The “Red Scare” era was yet to descend on the U.S. and a perusal of magazines and newspapers of the era show that Russian dressing was as ubiquitous as Honey Mustard or Italian Vinaigrette is today.

    How exciting — to enrobe your everyday cabbage cousin in an exotic mix of spices interspersed with a complex creamy dressing straight from the twinkly dark eternal night of Mother Russia!

    Not so fast — history agrees on one surprising fact: that a grocer named James E. Colburn of Nashua, N.H. owns the credit for Russian dressing. He got there first — even before the Russian Tea Room in New York City.

    According to Tastingtable.com, Colburn began his career in the meat industry, and then opened his own grocery store in 1906 which included catering. Between 1906 and 1914, “he created a successful mayonnaise, as well as the now-famous dressing, which he called Colburn’s Russian Salad Dressing.

    “Some say that he named it this as it was created to top a Russian Olivier Salad. Others suggest that Colburn put caviar (an expensive ingredient exclusively associated with Russia at the time) in the original ingredients. Another theory is that the Russian moniker came simply because of the inclusion of pickles — a Russian favorite.”

    As you read down the menu — remember, you get to have all this food! — notice “Toasted Crackers.” Huh?

    I’ve heard of toasted cheese, but cheese and toasted crackers? New to me, but a little research revealed that in the 1920s “toasted crackers” were an accompaniment to everything from tomato soup to “shrimp wiggle” and could be created in that sensation of 1928: the Sunbeam Flat Toaster (think “close and play” style waffle iron).

    And since it’s deep mid-winter, we may as well complete the picture by imagining ourselves in raccoon coats hustling in from the cold, each with a flask of bathtub gin in our pockets (it’s still Prohibition). I’m sure, at Brooks Restaurant DeLuxe, we wouldn’t be the only ones.

    Cheese Crackers (c. 1925)

    INGREDIENTS:

    1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese

    1 teaspoon ground mustard

    1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

    2 tablespoon olive oil

    1 tablespoon vinegar

    1 box of soda or saltine crackers

    DIRECTIONS:

    Mix grated cheese with other ingredients listed in order. Arrange cookies on a baking sheet, put a spoonful of mix on each cracker. Bake at 400 degrees for 5 minutes or until the cheese bubbles. Serve immediately.

    Notes: These can be made on flavored crackers, and are surprisingly filling. You can also top with sliced olives.

    Russian Dressing (c. 1920s)

    INGREDIENTS:

    1 tablespoon finely minced onion

    1 cup mayonnaise

    ¼ cup chili sauce

    3 teaspoon prepared horseradish

    1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

    ½ teaspoon paprika

    DIRECTIONS:

    In a small bowl, combine the onion, mayonnaise, ketchup, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, paprika, and salt. Refrigerate until ready to use.

    Notes: I read a lot of recipes of the 1920s and the difference between Russian and Thousand Island dressing is hot vs. sweet. The horseradish and chili sauce are spicy, and the original Russian dressing was topped with caviar.

    New restaurants in 2025

    Congratulations to us! And the fine folks who have opened restaurants and other eating establishments this year. In Leominster, Ace’s Diner, 65 N. Main St. with diner specials like “Fish Friday.” Benito’s Grill, 14 Monument Square offers homemade pasta;  Meetinghouse Bar & Grill, 435 Lancaster St., offers casual dining. The Main Squeeze Connection, 43 Main St. offers a rainbow of “fresh cold-pressed juices” and will happily put together a special drink for your health enhancement.

    We look forward to visiting — and paying cash for our meals. Yes, plastic is convenient, but businesses can pay three percent or more when they offer credit. That’s three bucks for every C-note; 30 bucks for a thousand dollars, and that can add up to an additional several hundred a month on top of the cost of rent, utilities, staffing, and of course inventory.

    Local businesses lose business when customers use plastic — sometimes hundreds of dollars a month. Be kind, and give them paper, not plastic!  My new year’s resolution is to completely eliminate using plastic for all local stores, restaurants, and services.

    Next week, we salute Fitchburg restaurants and toast our Nordic neighbors with glögg.

    Sally Cragin would love to read your family recipes and stories. Write to: sallycragin@gmail.com

    “Toasted Crackers” were all the rage in the 1920s and 1930s as an accompaniment for soup or as an appetizer. (COURTESY SALLY CRAGIN)
    Sally Cragin is an award-winning writer/journalist and Fitchburg City Councilor-at-Large. (CHERYL CUDDAHY)
    Sally Cragin is an award-winning writer/journalist and Fitchburg City Councilor-at-Large. (CHERYL CUDDAHY)

    Sally Cragin

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  • Behind the Bylines: Meeting them where they don’t want to be

    In the final week of my journalism class, I asked my students a simple question: If given what they now know about how social media platforms are designed, should news live there? Almost all of them said no.

    When I asked where they actually get their news, almost all of them said social media.

    A recent Pew report on young adults and the future of news. U.S. adults under 30 are the least likely to intentionally follow the news and the most likely to get it from social platforms, usually by accident rather than choice. And yet, when you talk to them one-on-one, many will tell you plainly they feel more trapped by those platforms than empowered by them.

    We often characterize young people’s news consumption as if they had packed their bags and moved to TikTok in protest against traditional news outlets. The reality is much less intentional. My students are remarkably honest about not actually wanting to spend their lives in these feeds. They are not there because they made a deliberate choice to replace reported news coverage with vertical video. They are there because those platforms are quite literally engineered to keep them there.

    Nearly half of U.S. teens now say they are online “almost constantly,” despite ample research about the mental health effects and massive shifts to lessen access and dependence, including phone bans in schools, and even Australia’s recent move to ban social media for those under 16 (a move many of my students largely supported, though with some disagreements about the exact age).

    Newsrooms and journalism schools should be honest about the impact and trajectory of designing strategies that tap into the same compulsive systems that many of them feel trapped by. Should we celebrate that a clever explainer finally went viral without asking why we are so comfortable hitching civic information to the same slot machine that is burning through their time, attention, and mental health?

    It is unlikely that we will collectively abandon social media. Any journalist or media scholar who insists on that as the solution will lose this generation entirely. But we should focus on the harder and slower process. That is not creating new journalistic content that bolsters news influencer culture or vertical video for the sake of fitting into a feed, but rather collectively dedicating ourselves to news literacy and carrying habits of skepticism, verification, and context into the platforms where people are already immersed.

    Ultimately, we have to decide if journalists are educators or communicators. If they are simply communicating information by any means possible to convey the message, they are communicators, and a devotion to vertical video is warranted. But if they are educators, then sharing information by a means that best preserves its fidelity (and that includes consideration of the public’s ability to receive it) becomes paramount. This is perhaps one of the most critical factors in determining the future of journalism.

    That work, however, will not feel as immediately rewarding as watching follower counts go up on a newsroom’s TikTok. It will feel, many days, like digging a path with a spoon. My fellow journalism professors likely have more than a few bent spoons in their desk drawers. Still, this is what true literacy requires.

    Young adults are the future of news because their habits will decide whether any form of accountable, verifiable reporting still has a place in public life. So when news organizations say we have to “meet people where they are,” we should be honest about what that sometimes means. In this case, it could very well mean building civic information into systems that we are collectively starting to realize are bad for us. And if we keep chasing attention by tapping the vein that keeps us scrolling, we shouldn’t be surprised when they look up and find ourselves in a zombie-like trance, mindlessly salivating and groaning through our daily doomscrolls.

    Meanwhile, the industry continues to chase a moving target. In meeting after meeting, we talk about news influencers, vertical video, and “engagement,” as if the only problem is that we haven’t yet cracked the content format that will finally unlock the algorithm. We change our strategy every time a platform tweaks a feature. We design whole campaigns around metrics such as watch time, shares, and followers.

    Our pursuit of engagement metrics ultimately leads us down a well-trodden pathway toward civic disengagement. Anecdotally, my students represent those social media audiences who feel overwhelmed, mistrustful, and too exhausted to do anything with what they’ve just consumed.

    This is where the whole enterprise starts to feel futile for those of us teaching journalism or trying to practice it locally. We know that trust in news is low, that civic engagement is fraying, and that communities feel unheard. So we build classes and partnerships and local reporting projects to address that. Then we’re faced with the confounding reality that the only way any of it will “reach” people is if we pour it into the same platforms that helped hollow out attention and trust in the first place.

    It is not realistic to expect young adults to collectively abandon social platforms. Nor is it responsible to withdraw journalism from spaces that are already saturated with misleading or false information. “Meeting people where they are” still has value. But we should take seriously the fact that many of them are telling us, in different ways, that they do not actually want to stay where they are and that they experience these environments as constraints on their agency rather than expressions of it. The point of a social media company is to keep us on the platform. The point of journalism is to give us enough understanding that we can act in the world off the platform.

    That means two things.

    First, in classrooms and communities, we need to confront this contradiction. When my students say they get their news exclusively from social media but don’t actually want it to be there, and that they increasingly no longer want to be on these platforms for mental and cognitive health, as a news scholar, I’m inclined to pay attention to what this means in terms of their relationship with information, and knowledge-based journalism, and the fact that they’re less obsessed with where they will be next congregating. Their capacity to congregate at all remains in deep need of repair.

    Social platforms are not neutral delivery systems but environments with their own logics and harms. Media literacy cannot stop at “how to fact-check a post.” It has to include the ability to recognize when an environment is degrading one’s own capacity to think clearly and when novelty and outrage are eroding the skills we claim to value in “informed citizens.” In my classroom, this has meant asking students not only where they get news but also how those spaces make it easier or harder to do the intellectual work necessary to function within society.

    Second, newsrooms and educators need permission to stop chasing every metric that platforms dangle in front of us. Judge our work by whether it deepens understanding, strengthens local connection, and leads to real-world engagement, not just “engagement” that registers as a like or follow. If we say that our goal is to support informed participation in public life, we must be willing to judge our work by outcomes beyond platform metrics and to routinely assess whether people feel more capable of following an issue or can distinguish between assertion and evidence.

    This matters for all of us, within the journalism industry and beyond, because the skills we ask of ourselves and the conditions we impose on ourselves are increasingly misaligned. To navigate public life, we need to be able to sustain attention, weigh evidence, follow a complex story over time, and tolerate ambiguity. The digital places we “live” in, increasingly and overwhelmingly, incentivize almost the opposite. Addressing this is a collective responsibility.

    Wafa Unus is an associate professor of journalism at Fitchburg State University.

    Associate Professor of Journalism at Fitchburg State University Wafa Unus, Ph.D. (Courtesy Wafa Unus)

    Wafa Unus

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  • Asking Eric: Messy housemate gives host silent treatment

    Dear Eric: I allowed the daughter of a cousin, with whom I am not close, to move in with me while she finishes college. When she moved in last January it was supposed to be for a semester, but this is the longest semester I have ever seen.

    We had an incident where she left gobs of hair all over my bathroom, which I had to clean up. I told her via text I didn’t like it.

    She walked around my house for weeks so angry with me, and when I said something to her as she was leaving the house, she slammed the door in my face.

    There were other incidents. When she moved in, she had at least nine big boxes in my living room. I have been asking for around seven months for her to move them, and she won’t.

    So, we had a big blow-up because of that and now she is walking around sullen. She said she has to keep her peace; she won’t speak. She won’t do her chores anymore, either.

    I want her to leave. She’s just plain rude. Am I wrong?

    — Bad Housemate

    Dear Housemate: It seems like she’s fallen into the pattern of being the sullen teenager, making you the nagging parent. But you’re not her parent and, if she’s finishing college, she’s probably not a teenager either. She’s a guest in your home and she needs to treat the home and you with respect. If she won’t contribute to the order of the home and won’t communicate with you, then it’s not working, and you should tell her that. She doesn’t get a free pass.

    If you want to give her another chance before asking her to leave, then it’s time to have a “state of the arrangement” conversation where you lay out what your expectations are and ask her if she can accept those. Also state that there are consequences to the agreement not being honored, namely that this wouldn’t be a place where she was able to stay any longer. Lastly, get a timeline. How long is this degree going to take? How many credits does she have left?

    From your letter, however, it sounds like you’re fed up and that’s fine. We’re coming up on the end of another semester. This may be the right time for her to find another option. Because your cousin made the arrangement, you might also loop her in so she’s not blindsided and so she can help her daughter to take responsibility.

    Dear Eric: I recently spent the night with an old friend. We had a 50-year anniversary visit. We are thrilled to be reunited. My friend went out of her way to make me welcome and comfortable in her home overnight. That included washing the bed linens having used fabric softener and/or dryer sheets. The bed was overwhelmingly perfumed by these products to the extent that I was coughing and effectively lost a night‘s sleep.

    The opportunity exists to spend more time in the future in her home, however, I cannot sleep in her guest room with those chemicals in play. How do you suggest I approach this one?

    — No Aromas, Please

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Family Recipe Box: Remedies for coughs ‘n colds

    Whatever sniffles and coughs come our way, Lord knows it’s not as bad as some of the deadly bugs that have plagued humanity since time immemorial, such as smallpox. Speaking of which, did you know there is a local hero in North Worcester County who probably saved hundreds of lives from this dread disease?

    Among the events worth celebrating in our country’s 250th year will be a local hero: Dr. Thaddeus Maccarty, Fitchburg’s first physician. This brave soul was appalled by the death toll of small pox — but intrigued by what was called “the Sutton method.” This practice meant inoculating the patient with the disease, and Dr. Maccarty travelled to a Great Barrington hospital and presented himself as both patient and doctor.

    He survived the disease, and returned to Fitchburg. There, a fearful populace was ready to tar and feather the young clinician, but fortunately, Dr. MacCarty was able to meet with Deacon Ebenezer Goodridge, a member of the “Committee of Safety.” According to Doris Kirkpatrick’s masterful “The City and the River,” because of MacCarty’s ability to explain the brand new idea of inoculation, and his “open and fearless frankness the doctor succeeded in quieting the Deacon’s suspicion and avoided a coat of tar.”

    By August 15, 1776, Fitchburg built a hospital for the care of people suffering from small pox and this hospital continued for several years and built a strong reputation. More than 800 residents from all the area towns came to the hospital where they were charged one pound, one shilling, or 10 days labor, or 10 bushels of corn for treatment.

    This was a hospital with security — there was a guard at the gate who made sure no one entered without paying, and no one left without a “certificate of cleanliness.” The full treatment ended with the patient receiving a bath in a solution of rum and vinegar.

    ‘There’s a cure for that’

    For most of human history, getting from zero to age two was a struggle, but it was only until 1802, and the Paris-based Hôpital des Enfants Malades, was there a hospital designed exclusively for children. The Brits soon followed suit, and the famous Great Ormond Street Hospital opened in London in 1855, the same year as Philadelphia’s “Children’s Hospital” opened in the US, the first in our country to do so.

    Children’s hospitals emerged out of volunteers’ efforts and were independent from other hospitals. If you were a member of the “undeserving poor,” you’d end up in a workhouse infirmary. Locally, Fitchburg’s beloved Burbank Hospital opened in 1901 with 16 beds atop Prospect Hill in the site known as Nichols Farm. By 1912, there was a children’s ward on-site. The tradition for hospitals treating children was to admit those with short-term, rather than long-term illness, for fear of contagion. Records do not reveal ingredients or medicines used for children at the hospital. However, during the late 19th century, the patent-medicine world was forever expanding.

    These well-trained nurses were ready to care for you at Burbank Hospital in Fitchburg in the earlier part of the 20th century. (COURTESY FITCHBURG HISTORICAL SOCIETY)

    A particularly noxious product became infamous: “Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup.” Touted as a medicine to help soothe an infant during teething pain, the bottle contained alcohol and morphine (unlabelled) and caused many infant deaths. The Prohibitionists took up these “medicines” and public protest created a fertile ground for legislation.

    Local suggestions

    Family Recipe Box put out the call across North Worcester County and the suggestions poured in: hint, if you don’t have lemons and honey in your pantry, consider yourself understocked.

    For sore throats: Several readers suggested: gargle frequently with salt water, as much salt as you can stand, as hot as you can stand.

    For ear aches: From Leominster, Donna Dap suggested “Put on a hat — your body heat is soothing,” while Rachel Rhada swears by putting garlic oil in your ears as it  “works every time!”

    For random ailments: Cramps — a heating pad, or soaking towels in hot water and laying over abdomen. Rachel Armington suggests: “for headaches or eyestrain: a few drops of peppermint oil on a folded tea towel that’s been run under warm/hot water and wrung damp. Just hold over the area until the towel cools.”

    For “the bug that’s going around”: Barb Boraski Vosburgh of Fitchburg urges all readers to consume “homemade chicken soup. My grandma, my mom, me, and now my daughter believes it is the best for colds, flu, etc.”

    Bring on the honey

    Rum has been the basis for curatives for centuries (and not just bathing in it). So has honey. But it’s the exotic spices that draw interest in the world of Ayurvedic and Holistic healing. Finally, after two weeks, I became higher functioning after the “back to school bug.” And so I decided to crank up my anti-oxidant and Vitamin C game. Couldn’t hurt, right?

    I did some experimenting, and came up with the following — this recipe makes enough to last in the fridge for about a week  — and I’ve been drinking this every day for the past two weeks. And washing my hands — a lot!

    G & T Shot

    INGREDIENTS:

    2 tsp ground ginger powder

    2 tsp ground turmeric powder

    1 tsp Fresh ground black pepper

    1/3 cup honey

    Juice of one lemon

    DIRECTIONS:

    Put a couple teaspoons of honey into your storage jar (I like a one-cup jam jar). Mix in your spices until you have a thick syrup. Add the lemon juice and honey, mix thoroughly. It’s really thick, and I used a small milk-frother. Store in the refrigerator, add 2 teaspoons of syrup into a cup, and pour in water that’s hot, but not hot enough for tea. This brings out the aroma. You can drink this hot, or let it cool.

    Notes: I like to make the Shot hot, but then let it cool in an Atlas jar, and then put the lid on and refrigerate. When it’s cold, shake it up vigorously — that’s your “G & T Shot.” Happy healing!

    Sally Cragin would love to read your family recipes and stories. Write to: sallycragin@gmail.com

    Sally Cragin is an award-winning writer/journalist and Fitchburg City Councilor-at-Large. (CHERYL CUDDAHY)
    Sally Cragin is an award-winning writer/journalist and Fitchburg City Councilor-at-Large. (CHERYL CUDDAHY)

    Sally Cragin

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  • Asking Eric: Neighbor’s vacant home threatens property

    Dear Eric: The home next door is vacant. I think it is a rental property. There is a huge tree in the front yard that is coming over my property. A tree from this property fell on my house a few years ago. This caused my homeowner’s insurance to be canceled because it was considered to be an act of nature.

    I need to see if this can be avoided because the tree is old and the dead branches are falling on my car. Do you have any idea what can be done?

    — Neighbor Dilemma

    Dear Neighbor: Start by collecting information. Your local tax assessor’s office will have a record of who owns the property and what their address is, if the house is not their primary residence. Be sure that if you search online, you’re on the state or local government’s site. There are many data-harvesting sites that will try to charge you for this free information. Don’t click on the first link you find in a search; scroll until you find a city, county or state site.

    With this information, you can reach out to the owner directly, or you can reach out to the housing authority. Many housing authorities have task forces specifically charged with monitoring code violations. Even if yours doesn’t, a phone call to the housing authority will alert you to other options that might be available to you.

    Dear Eric: I just can’t come to grips with the new style phone etiquette where you send a direct question or comment to someone (texts mainly, or emails, messenger, etc.) and it seems now optional to answer or respond, or at best get a “liked…” or a smiley face wearing sunglasses in reply.

    My communications are important, take thoughtful effort to compose and like in the old days, you’re supposed to call the person back. I’m not talking about silly status posts on Instagram; this is two-way conversation and so many people interpret a texting response as optional!

    Is it just me or is this an epidemic that is killing courtesy and good manners in modern society? What should I do, fire my friends and family? It’s tempting.

    — Text Back

    Dear Text Back: Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to label it an epidemic. But it’s true that texting etiquette — and texting practices in general — can lead to miscommunication and frustration. Because it’s relatively new, at least in comparison to the telephone or, say, writing letters, we’re still iterating on it as a culture.

    All that to say, don’t fire your friends and family. If you want a text back about sometime specific, include that request in the text. Or consider having a broader conversation with friends and family about how you’d like to communicate. It’s good to ask for what we want. They may not always be willing or able to comply, but they won’t know this is something you’d like unless you tell them.

    And, when all else fails, just don’t text. If you have something to say, you can initiate the phone call, thereby sidestepping any emojis.

    Dear Eric: I read with interest the letter from the woman who had rooms in her house painted in colors other than what she’d specified (“Painted Over”). She wondered where the fault lied.

    How about this: I placed a cookie order with a new local bakery. My husband picked up the order. Well, the order was botched – not even close to the cookie flavor I’d ordered. When I notified the baker, he apologized, saying that my email address was similar to that of someone else who had also placed an order. He offered to do the correct order for me for a “discounted” price. Huh?

    Why should I be made to pay again for an error that was not my fault? Needless to say, I have not done business with this bakery since.

    What are your thoughts on this? I did not agree to this resolution. Instead of paying again, I just kept and used the incorrect order, despite my disappointment. Some customer service!

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Why are birds perching on only 1 set of power lines in Newark?

    DEAR JOAN: There is something that I have noticed for years, and I finally decided to ask the only expert I know.

    Joan Morris, Correspondent

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  • Epstein emails reveal enduring ties with influential figures even after his sex crime conviction

    By the time Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he had established an enormous network of wealthy and influential friends. Emails made public this week show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the billionaire financier.Thousands of documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday offer a new glimpse into what Epstein’s relationships with business executives, reporters, academics and political players looked like over a decade.Video above: Lawmakers react to newly released Epstein emails, Trump connectionThey start with messages he sent and received around the time he finished serving his Florida sentence in 2009 and continue until the months before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019.During that time, Epstein’s network was eclectic, spanning the globe and political affiliations: from the liberal academic Noam Chomsky to Steve Bannon, the longtime ally of President Donald Trump.Some reached out to support Epstein amid lawsuits and prosecutions, others sought introductions or advice on everything from dating to oil prices. One consulted him on how to respond to accusations of sexual harassment.Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019, and killed himself in jail a month later. Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and online sleuths seeking proof of a cover-up. The emails do not implicate his contacts in those alleged crimes. They instead paint a picture of Epstein’s influence and connections over the years he was a registered sex offender.Epstein emailed current and former political figures on all sides, sending news clips and discussing strategy or gossip often in short, choppy emails laden with spelling and grammatical errors.In several emails in 2018, Epstein advised Bannon on his political tour of Europe that year after Bannon forwarded Epstein a news clip that the German media underestimated Bannon and that he was “As Dangerous as Ever.”Video below: Epstein emails fallout”luv it,” Epstein responded. Epstein wrote that he’d just spoken to “one of the country leaders that we discussed” and that “we should lay out a strategy plan. . how much fun.” Several months later, Epstein sent some advice: “If you are going to play here , you’ll have to spend time, europe by remote doesn’t work.””its doable but time consuming,” Epstein continued in a follow-up email, “there are many leaders of countries we can organize for you to have one on ones.” Just a few months earlier, Epstein was insulting Trump — whose movement Bannon was a representative of — in emails to Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Ruemmler sent a message to Epstein calling Trump “so gross.” A portion of that message was redacted, but Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”In other emails with Ruemmler, Epstein detailed a whirlwind of well known people he appears to have been meeting, hosting or speaking with that week, including an ambassador, tech giant, foreign business people, academics and a film director.”you are a welcome guest at any,” he wrote.Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler now works, declined to comment.The financier emailed often with people in the upper echelons of wealth around the world, brokering introductions and chatting about politics and foreign affairs.That included Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who Epstein sent an email to in 2014 saying “that was fun, see you in 3 weeks.”Four years later, Epstein asked if Thiel was enjoying Los Angeles, and, after Thiel said he couldn’t complain, replied “Dec visit me Caribbean.” It’s unclear if Thiel ever responded. In emails with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman, Epstein complimented Bannon, saying in 2018 that “We have become friends you will like him.””Trump doesn’t like him,” responded Sulayem.A year earlier, Sulayem asked Epstein about an event where it appeared Trump would be in attendance, asking, “Do you think it will be possible to shake hand with trump.””Call to discuss,” Epstein wrote back. In January 2010, biotech venture capitalist Boris Nikolic was attending the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Epstein emailed to ask, “any fun?” Nikolic replied that he had met “your friend” Bill Clinton, as well as then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy and “your other friend,” Prince Andrew, “as he has some questions re microsoft.”But then Nikolic said he was getting sick of meetings. Later, he wrote Epstein that “it would be blast that you are here.” He mentioned flirting with a 22-year-old woman.”It turns out she is with her husand. Did not have chance to check him out. But as we concluded, anything good is rented ;)” Nikolic wrote.The theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laurence Krauss was among them. In 2017, Krauss reached out to Epstein via email for advice on responding to a reporter writing a story about allegations of sexual harassment against him.”Is this a reasonable response? Should i even respond? Could use advice,” Krauss asked Epstein.In an explicit exchange, Epstein asked Krauss if he’d had sex with the person in question and then suggested he should not reply to the journalist. “No. We didn’t have sex. Decided it wasn’t a good idea,” replied Krauss, who has previously denied all allegations of sexual harassment and assault.In an August 2015 email exchange, Epstein told Chomsky, the famed linguist and social scientist, to only fly to Greece if he feels well, joking he previously had to send a plane for another “lefty friend” to see a doctor in New York.In the same exchange, which dipped into academic arguments about warning signs on currency collapses, behavioral science models, and Big Data, Epstein offered his residences for Chomsky’s use.”you are of course welcome to use apt in new york with your new leisure time, or visit new Mexico again,” Epstein wrote. The emails also show that Epstein kept up a friendly relationship with Larry Summers, who was the treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and former Harvard University president, and bantered about the 2016 presidential race and Trump.Other emails showed a closer relationship. In 2019, Summers was discussing interactions he had with a woman, writing to Epstein that “I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are.” Epstein replied, “you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring. , no whining showed strentgh.” Summers issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life.” “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” the statement said.Chomsky, Thiel, Bannon, Krauss and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to requests for comment, which were sent through email addresses available on their own or their organization’s websites.Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

    By the time Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he had established an enormous network of wealthy and influential friends. Emails made public this week show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the billionaire financier.

    Thousands of documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday offer a new glimpse into what Epstein’s relationships with business executives, reporters, academics and political players looked like over a decade.

    Video above: Lawmakers react to newly released Epstein emails, Trump connection

    They start with messages he sent and received around the time he finished serving his Florida sentence in 2009 and continue until the months before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019.

    During that time, Epstein’s network was eclectic, spanning the globe and political affiliations: from the liberal academic Noam Chomsky to Steve Bannon, the longtime ally of President Donald Trump.

    Some reached out to support Epstein amid lawsuits and prosecutions, others sought introductions or advice on everything from dating to oil prices. One consulted him on how to respond to accusations of sexual harassment.

    Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019, and killed himself in jail a month later. Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and online sleuths seeking proof of a cover-up.

    The emails do not implicate his contacts in those alleged crimes. They instead paint a picture of Epstein’s influence and connections over the years he was a registered sex offender.

    Epstein emailed current and former political figures on all sides, sending news clips and discussing strategy or gossip often in short, choppy emails laden with spelling and grammatical errors.

    In several emails in 2018, Epstein advised Bannon on his political tour of Europe that year after Bannon forwarded Epstein a news clip that the German media underestimated Bannon and that he was “As Dangerous as Ever.”

    Video below: Epstein emails fallout

    “luv it,” Epstein responded.

    Epstein wrote that he’d just spoken to “one of the country leaders that we discussed” and that “we should lay out a strategy plan. . how much fun.”

    Several months later, Epstein sent some advice: “If you are going to play here , you’ll have to spend time, europe by remote doesn’t work.”

    “its doable but time consuming,” Epstein continued in a follow-up email, “there are many leaders of countries we can organize for you to have one on ones.”

    Just a few months earlier, Epstein was insulting Trump — whose movement Bannon was a representative of — in emails to Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel under President Barack Obama.

    Ruemmler sent a message to Epstein calling Trump “so gross.” A portion of that message was redacted, but Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”

    In other emails with Ruemmler, Epstein detailed a whirlwind of well known people he appears to have been meeting, hosting or speaking with that week, including an ambassador, tech giant, foreign business people, academics and a film director.

    “you are a welcome guest at any,” he wrote.

    Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler now works, declined to comment.

    The financier emailed often with people in the upper echelons of wealth around the world, brokering introductions and chatting about politics and foreign affairs.

    That included Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who Epstein sent an email to in 2014 saying “that was fun, see you in 3 weeks.”

    Four years later, Epstein asked if Thiel was enjoying Los Angeles, and, after Thiel said he couldn’t complain, replied “Dec visit me Caribbean.” It’s unclear if Thiel ever responded.

    In emails with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman, Epstein complimented Bannon, saying in 2018 that “We have become friends you will like him.”

    “Trump doesn’t like him,” responded Sulayem.

    A year earlier, Sulayem asked Epstein about an event where it appeared Trump would be in attendance, asking, “Do you think it will be possible to shake hand with trump.”

    “Call to discuss,” Epstein wrote back.

    In January 2010, biotech venture capitalist Boris Nikolic was attending the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Epstein emailed to ask, “any fun?”

    Nikolic replied that he had met “your friend” Bill Clinton, as well as then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy and “your other friend,” Prince Andrew, “as he has some questions re microsoft.”

    But then Nikolic said he was getting sick of meetings. Later, he wrote Epstein that “it would be blast that you are here.” He mentioned flirting with a 22-year-old woman.

    “It turns out she is with her husand. Did not have chance to check him out. But as we concluded, anything good is rented ;)” Nikolic wrote.

    The theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laurence Krauss was among them. In 2017, Krauss reached out to Epstein via email for advice on responding to a reporter writing a story about allegations of sexual harassment against him.

    “Is this a reasonable response? Should i even respond? Could use advice,” Krauss asked Epstein.

    In an explicit exchange, Epstein asked Krauss if he’d had sex with the person in question and then suggested he should not reply to the journalist.

    “No. We didn’t have sex. Decided it wasn’t a good idea,” replied Krauss, who has previously denied all allegations of sexual harassment and assault.

    In an August 2015 email exchange, Epstein told Chomsky, the famed linguist and social scientist, to only fly to Greece if he feels well, joking he previously had to send a plane for another “lefty friend” to see a doctor in New York.

    In the same exchange, which dipped into academic arguments about warning signs on currency collapses, behavioral science models, and Big Data, Epstein offered his residences for Chomsky’s use.

    “you are of course welcome to use apt in new york with your new leisure time, or visit new Mexico again,” Epstein wrote.

    The emails also show that Epstein kept up a friendly relationship with Larry Summers, who was the treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and former Harvard University president, and bantered about the 2016 presidential race and Trump.

    Other emails showed a closer relationship. In 2019, Summers was discussing interactions he had with a woman, writing to Epstein that “I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are.”

    Epstein replied, “you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring. , no whining showed strentgh.”

    Summers issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life.”

    “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” the statement said.

    Chomsky, Thiel, Bannon, Krauss and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to requests for comment, which were sent through email addresses available on their own or their organization’s websites.

    Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

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  • Asking Eric: Daughter’s clutter keeps getting her kicked out of apartments

    Dear Eric: My 40-year-old daughter and spouse live in an apartment with their children. Both were raised in clean, tidy homes.

    I know they have always paid the rent on time wherever they live. The issue: they’re both nasty slobs. They’ve been in their current apartment less than six months. Their patio is full of trash, unused plant pots, vacuum cleaner, patio furniture and kids toys, the only unit like this in the whole massive complex. I know the inside is just as bad.

    In the past I’ve offered to clean up with them, but they were so offended, they wouldn’t communicate for a month because I was judgmental, and then they withheld the children.

    Every year the landlord won’t renew their lease. Happens every year. They get angry and say they don’t understand why. Don’t landlords issue warnings for fire hazards, pest control? The expense and kids changing schools can’t be easy for them.

    Is there any way to approach them without raising their ire at me? It’s difficult for me to even look at it (can’t avoid it, it’s a front patio) when I pick up the kids weekly, but we’ve clashed before so I must be extra careful.

    — Trash Clash

    Dear Clash: It sounds like they’ve got to learn how to clean up their own mess, literally and proverbially. Your offer of assistance was really kind and, from your telling, did more than just point out the problem. But if something like that is going to raise their hackles to the point of cutting off communication, I fear there’s nothing you can say that won’t prompt a similar conflict.

    There are two options, then. First, if you believe the mess is harmful to their children, you can reach out to 311 to get them help for their hoarding tendencies. Many fire departments have members trained at intervention. They can pay the apartment a visit. You could also reach out to a social worker, but it doesn’t seem from your letter that you think the children are in danger and so this option might be too extreme.

    The other path is just letting it be. They obviously have a sensitivity to even the mention of the mess. And, as you wrote, their living habits are impacting their ability to find consistent housing. They could benefit from counseling and coaching around this issue and any emotional underpinnings that might be getting in their way. But they have to be willing, and you may not be the right person to step in.

    For now, take a step back, reach out to 311, and see if they can help get the ball rolling without implicating you.

    Dear Eric: I am writing because I don’t know where to start and how to begin getting out of horrible depression. I can’t turn my mind off. I’m afraid of dying and what’s after death. I’m afraid of being alone for the rest of my life (I’m 54 years old). I go to work and come home, or I’m watching my grandkids (who I just adore). I can’t lose weight. Nothing is positive and/or worth getting out of bed for. I feel so blah, yucky and worthless. Please, where do I start? And how do I start?

    — Cure for Sadness

    Dear Cure: I understand how overwhelming this constellation of feelings is. And even making a small start can feel like a huge task. So, don’t be hard on yourself and keep in mind that feeling better is a series of small changes, efforts, trials and practices that can snowball.

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • The CEOs of Apple, Airbnb, and PepsiCo agree on one thing: life as a business leader is incredibly lonely | Fortune

    Being CEO has its many perks: Business leaders get to command the world’s most powerful companies, shape their legacies as pioneers of industry, and enjoy hefty billion-dollar paychecks. But in the steep climb up the corporate ladder, many won’t notice all the peers left behind until they’re looking down from the very top. It can be a lonely, solitary job.

    Leaders at some of the world’s largest companies—from Airbnb and UPS to PepsiCo and Apple—are finally opening up about the mental toll that comes with the job. As it turns out, many industry trailblazers are grappling with intense loneliness; at least 40% of executives are thinking of leaving their job, mainly because they’re lacking energy and feel alone in handling daily challenges, according to a Harvard Medical School professor. And the number could even be higher: About 70% of C-suite leaders “are seriously considering quitting for a job that better supports their well-being,” according to a 2022 Deloitte study. 

    To ward off feelings of isolation, founders and top executives are stepping outside of the office to focus on improving their well-being. Toms founder Blake Mycoskie struggled with depression and loneliness after scaling his once-small shoe business into a billion-dollar behemoth. Feeling disconnected from his life’s purpose and that his “reason for being now felt like a job,” he went on a three-day men’s retreat to work on his mental health. And Seth Berkowitz, the founder and CEO of $350 million dessert giant Insomnia Cookies, cautions bright-eyed entrepreneurs the gig “is not really for everyone.” 

    “It can be lonely; it’s a solitary life. It really is,” Berkowitz recently told Fortune.

    Brian Chesky, cofounder and CEO of Airbnb

    Eugene Gologursky / Stringer / Getty Images

    Airbnb’s cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky is one the most outspoken leaders in the business world waving the red flag on loneliness. Chesky described having a lonely childhood, pulled between his love for creative design and sports, never really fitting in. But his mental health took a turn for the worse once assuming the throne as Airbnb’s CEO. His other two cofounders—who he called his “family,” spending all their waking hours working, exercising, and hanging out together—were suddenly out of view from the peak of the C-suite. 

    “As I became a CEO I started leading from the front, at the top of the mountain, but then the higher you get to the peak, the fewer the people there are with you,” Chesky told Jay Shetty during an episode of the On Purpose podcast last year. “No one ever told me how lonely you would get, and I wasn’t prepared for that.”

    Chesky recommends budding leaders actually share their power, so no one shoulders the mental burden of entrepreneurship alone. 

    “I think that ultimately, today, we’re probably living in one of the loneliest times in human history,” Chesky said. “If people were as lonely in yesteryear as they are today, they’d probably perish, because you just couldn’t survive without your tribe.”

    Indra Nooyi, former CEO of PepsiCo

    Jemal Countess / Stringer / Getty Images

    Leaders at Fortune 500 giant PepsiCo face constant pressure from consumers, investors, board members, and their own employees. But it’s also tough to vent to peers who may not relate to—or even understand—the trials and tribulations of running a $209 billion company. Indra Nooyi, the business’ former CEO, said she often felt isolated with no one to confide in.

    “You can’t really talk to your spouse all the time. You can’t talk to your friends because it’s confidential stuff about the company. You can’t talk to your board because they are your bosses. You can’t talk to people who work for you because they work for you,” Nooyi told Kellogg Insight, the research magazine for Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, earlier this year. “And so it puts you in a fairly lonely position.”

    Instead of divulging to a trusted friend or anonymously airing out her frustrations on Reddit, Nooyi looked inward. She was the only person she could trust, even if that meant embracing the isolation. 

    “I would talk to myself. I would go look at myself in a mirror. I would talk to myself. I would rage at myself. I would shed a few tears, then put on some lipstick and come out,” Nooyi said. “That was my go-to because all people need an outlet. And you have to be very careful who your outlet is because you never want them to use it against you at any point.”

    Carol Tomé, CEO of UPS

    Kevin Dietsch / Staff / Getty Images

    Before Carol Tomé stepped into the role of the CEO of UPS, she was warned the top job goes hand-in-hand with loneliness. The word of caution didn’t phase her—at least, not at first. But things changed when she actually took the helm of the $75 billion shipping company. 

    “I would say, ‘How lonely can it really be? It can’t be that lonely?’ What I’ve since learned is that it is extraordinarily lonely,” Tomé told Fortune last year. 

    “When you are a member of an executive team, you hang together…Now, my executive team will wait for me to leave a meeting so that they can debrief together. It’s the reality and you have to get used to it. But it is super lonely.”

    Tim Cook, CEO of Apple

    NurPhoto / Contributor / Getty Images

    Apple CEO Tim Cook isn’t immune to the loneliness that often comes with the corner office. More than 14 years into his tenure, he’s acknowledged his missteps, which he called “blind spots,” that have the potential to affect thousands of workers across the company if left unchecked. Cook said it’s important for leaders to get out of their own heads and surround themselves with bright people who bring out the best in them. 

    “It’s sort of a lonely job,” Cook told The Washington Post in 2016. “The adage that it’s lonely—the CEO job is lonely—is accurate in a lot of ways. I’m not looking for any sympathy.”

    Seth Berkowitz, founder and CEO of Insomnia Cookies

    Courtesy of Insomnia Cookies

    Entrepreneurship can be a deeply fulfilling and rewarding journey: an opportunity to trade a nine-to-five job for a multimillion-dollar fortune, if all the right conditions are met. And while Insomnia Cookies’ Seth Berkowitz loves being a CEO and all the responsibilities that come with it, he cautioned young hopefuls about the weight of the career. He, like Cook, advises aspiring founders to counter loneliness with genuine, meaningful connections.

    “It can be lonely; it’s a solitary life. It really is. [During] the harder times, it’s very solitary—finding camaraderie, mentorship, some sense of community, it’s really important,” Berkowitz recently told Fortune. “Because I go so deep, it’s sometimes hard to find others and let them in.”

    Emma Burleigh

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  • Asking Eric: Niece grows distant from family after wedding

    Dear Eric: My 35-year-old niece married a 45-year-old man with two teenage kids in a small ceremony. I have always been close with her. My sister and my niece have had a somewhat up-and-down relationship. They are each strong-willed.

    But over the past 18 months since my niece met her now-husband, she has pretty much turned her back on her family who have always been there for her. While my relationship with my niece has always been great, lately it has just been OK. There is an underlying tension within the family that she is creating.

    She is not an easy person to discuss things with. For a wedding gift I gave them a check for $3,500. I still have yet to receive a written thank-you note. To my knowledge, none of the other 50 or so wedding guests have received thank-you notes, either.

    I know they are busy, but between the two of them, they should be able to take a couple of hours to send out this small number of thank you cards if they truly appreciate their friends and family.

    I am not a person who gets his feelings hurt easily. If I do not receive a note from them before Christmas, would I be wrong to not give them any Christmas gifts this year? I hate to make the situation worse, but I also don’t want to be made to feel like a fool going forward.

    — A Hurt Uncle

    Dear Uncle: Here’s my quarterly exhortation to the universe: thank-you notes are not a lost art. Send a note, a text, a card — something. Even if it’s later than you wanted it to be. Communication! It matters to people.

    Now, that said, I think you have two courses of action with regard to your niece. First, try to find a way to talk about the state of your relationship. “I love you and I care about you. I feel we’ve grown distant in the following ways. [Give one or two examples.] I’d like to be closer again, if that’s something you want. [Make one or two suggestions.]”

    Your objective is clearer communication with your niece, something that, when achieved, can make questions about the family distance or the thank-you notes easier to answer.

    The second course of action: send a Christmas card in lieu of a gift. Sometimes we use gifts to express our love and appreciation. And they can be great at doing so. But in a situation where a few wires seem to be getting crossed, it’s best to save yourself more frustration and find a simpler, more cost-effective way of sending your love.

    Dear Eric: I’m a big fan of your column and really enjoy hearing your responses to readers. (Here it comes, though.) I do feel that you missed something with “Grandma On Hold”, who was frustrated that her son and daughter-in-law let their children interrupt adult conversations. When children visit someone’s house, it’s a really good time to instill that they need to be polite and respect the rules of others. When you’re at home it’s totally different and you can expect to be much more relaxed, but when going to Grandma’s, or a restaurant, or the grocery store, it’s a great time to reel it in and practice our social skills.

    Our mother would give us a brief talk on the way to our destination about manners and my brother and I found it to be valuable, because we learned social skills that made people like us and want to invite us back.

    I think you underscored Grandma’s feeling of being undervalued by telling her to sit back and allow the kids to interrupt. Thank you for your time.

    — Manners Matter

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Fear Not! You Can Live With a Cat Even if You’re Allergic

    From dietary supplements to cleaning advice, we’ll teach you how to live in harmony with cats (and dogs!), even if you’re allergic.

    Molly Higgins

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  • A judge told Gov. Jared Polis not to comply with an ICE subpoena. Polis’ attorneys say he still wants to.

    Gov. Jared Polis is still trying to find a way to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, four months after a Denver judge ruled that doing so would violate Colorado law.

    In repeated court filings, including one submitted Friday, Polis’ private attorneys have said they intend to turn over records on 10 businesses that employed several sponsors of unaccompanied children to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    They’ve asked a Denver judge, who previously prohibited some state employees from complying with ICE’s subpoena, to dismiss the case and clear the way for them to turn over a more limited batch of records.

    The recent filings represent the second attempt by Polis to comply with the April immigration enforcement subpoena. The governor’s first attempt was blocked by District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones in June, after Jones sided with a senior state employee who’d sued Polis earlier that month to stop the state from fulfilling the subpoena.

    The employee, Scott Moss, argued that providing the requested records would violate state laws that limit what information can be shared with federal immigration authorities.

    But though Jones preliminarily sided with Moss, his ruling is complicated. He prohibited Polis from directing a specific division of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment to comply with the subpoena. But he said he couldn’t prevent Polis from directing others to comply with the subpoena, even though Jones said doing so would still likely violate the law.

    The records that Polis now says he intends to turn over to ICE are in the custody of another labor department division not covered in Jones’ order.

    In an email Tuesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman declined to comment on the case or why Polis is still seeking to provide records to ICE. She pointed to the administration’s recent legal filings.

    The administration has previously said it wanted to support ICE’s efforts to check on unaccompanied minors without legal status, though the governor’s office has not provided any evidence that it has sought assurances that ICE wasn’t seeking the information purely for immigration enforcement efforts.

    David Seligman, whose law firm has supported the case, criticized the governor’s decision to seek the lawsuit’s dismissal while indicating his intention to turn over records to ICE. While ICE wrote that it wanted detailed employment records so it could check on the well-being of unaccompanied children, Seligman and Moss, the employee who brought the lawsuit, have argued that the agency only wants the information so it can arrest and deport the children’s sponsors.

    “It is absolutely absurd that this governor would be going out of his way to comply with and cooperate with ICE in light of everything that we’re seeing right now,” Seligman said.

    Moss has since left the department, and Polis’ lawyers now argue that no one associated with the case has a legal standing to challenge compliance with the subpoena. They’ve also argued that they can turn over the records because the employers’ addresses and contact information can be found online.

    The records are only part of the broader swath of personal details that ICE initially requested, and they cover only six of the 35 sponsors for which ICE first sought records. The sponsors are typically family members of children without legal status, who care for the minors while their immigration cases proceed.

    The administration has similarly told ICE officials that it intends to comply with part of the subpoena once the lawsuit is concluded. In a July 11 email, Joe Barela, the head of the Department of Labor and Employment, wrote to a special agent in ICE’s investigative branch that the agency planned to “provide your office with the names and contact information for those 10 employers.”

    The labor department has already complied with three ICE subpoenas this year, including in one “erroneous” case that apparently ran afoul of state law.

    Jones must now rule on whether to dismiss the lawsuit or let it proceed. Between June and early September, Recht Kornfeld, the private law firm Polis hired to represent him in the lawsuit, has billed the state for more than $104,000, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a public records request.

    The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has said it was unable to represent Polis because of legal advice it provided to the governor related to complying with the subpoena. The office has declined to characterize the nature of that advice.

    The subpoena was sent to the state labor department in April as part of what ICE described as essentially a welfare check of unaccompanied minors in the state. The subpoena sought employment and personal records for the children’s sponsors.

    Initially, administration officials decided not to comply with the subpoena because of the state’s laws limiting such contact. But Polis abruptly changed course and decided to turn over the records, prompting Moss to sue.

    Seth Klamann

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  • Family Recipe Box: Eating healthy and avoiding plastics

    Harvest season is underway, and if we’re not eating more healthy food right now, lord knows how we’ll fare in February and its cavalcade of mealy citrus and wilted greens. I’ve written about salads in previous columns, but this week’s Family Recipe Box takes a strategic view towards that collation which can range from iceberg minimal to smorgasbordian.

    The “Salad Bar” was an innovation of the 1970s and an offshoot of the “back to the land” movement. As women entered the workforce during the second wave of feminism, restaurant owners hit upon a dining opportunity to attract them: the bistro featuring a “light lunch.” Whether it was crepes (remember The Magic Pan in Boston?) soups or salads, restaurants for mid-day weekday dining began to expand from the classic steakhouse model (two martinis, french fries and steak flopping over the platter).

    Decades ago, there was a delightful chain called “Souper Salad” in the greater Boston area. I used to go to the restaurant in Harvard Square. The central attraction was a 30-foot long banquet table with dozens of bowls of greens, veggies, fruits and fixings.

    Coming to the big city from little old Lunenburg and beholding this masterpiece was mind-boggling. The centerpiece of salad bars back home was an aluminum platter of chopped up iceberg lettuce, rough cut cucumbers with the skins left on, and fridge-stiff tomatoes alongside beakers of Italian and Roquefort dressing.

    The Souper Salad presentation had many items I’d never seen before such as chickpeas, and varieties of lettuce. So many colors of pepper — diced red cabbage, and tiny florets of broccoli, plus add-ons like hard-boiled eggs and bacon bits. This is the era when “macrobiotic” was an extreme form of vegetarianism, and the health benefits of brown rice versus white rice were starting to be discussed.

    What I loved about Souper Salad (which was not cheap, by the way) was that all the salad components were washed, peeled, chopped, and ready to be combined. It’s very satisfying to contemplate a colorful array of raw vegetables that need only to be scooped into a bowl. But that’s always 20 minutes — or longer — after the time one gets the urge for a salad.

    A little work, a lot of sides

    Thus, Family Recipe Box presents the “Three Day Salad,” where you do all the work, but get at least a couple of meals, or a few days worth of sides. The trick is making the salad for a container of a specific size — and remembering to eat your salad on sequential days, so it doesn’t sulk in the fridge and turn brown.

    We like the 1.5-quart rectangular glass boxes with snap-plastic lids which can be found at Ocean State Job Lot for under $10. These will keep your salad crispy, and reduce the amount of plastic involved in meal preparation.

    Speaking of plastic — are you as anxious about the unseen and deadly world of nano-plastics as I am? For those just tuning in, news about the detrimental effects of nano-plastics has been going on for a few years. In 2024, National Institute of Health reported that “Researchers developed an imaging technique that detected thousands of tiny bits of plastic in common single-use bottles of water.”

    The study continued to explain that “plastics are a part of our everyday lives, and plastic pollution is a growing concern. When plastics break down over time, they can form smaller particles called microplastics, which are 5 mm or less in length — smaller than a sesame seed. Microplastics, in turn, can break down into even smaller pieces called nanoplastics, which are less than 1 μm in size. Unable to be seen with the naked eye, these are small enough to enter the body’s cells and tissues.”

    Now if that isn’t plot fodder for a Stephen King novel, I don’t know what is. What’s more ghastly is that the nanoplastics can apparently migrate throughout the organs, blood, and body, and can cross the blood/brain and placental barriers.

    So last year, I reviewed the worn collection of faux-Tupperware in the larder, and a dinged-up collection of water-bottles and purchased some small thick-walled glass bottles and snap-top glass containers. These may weigh a little more, but not as heavily as nanoplastics weigh on my mind.

    Three-Day Salad for 1.5 quart container

    INGREDIENTS:

    6 leaves Romaine

    2 plum tomatoes

    Half a cucumber

    radishes

    peppers

    hard-boiled egg diced

    toasted walnuts

    1/4 cup Craisins

    diced orange

    ripe avocado

    DIRECTIONS:

    Wash your greens, and slice cucumbers and radishes into half-circles. Put together, and take out 1/3 for the salad you are eating right now.

    Notes: If you are adding avocado, make sure you eat it on the first day. The philosophy of the three-day salad is that you do not need to make a salad on the second and third day because you have a salad. And by the fourth day, you’re probably ready to have cooked vegetables with your meal.

    You don’t need fancy lettuce either — romaine does just fine. (SALLY CRAGIN)
    Having a pre-made salad is literally money in the bank. (SALLY CRAGIN)
    Having a pre-made salad is literally money in the bank. (SALLY CRAGIN)

    One helpful household hint

    When you are making a salad, whether a “Three Day” or other variety, tear, rather than slice your greens. They will not go brown as quickly.

    Sally Cragin would love to read your family recipes and stories. Write to: sallycragin@gmail.com

    Sally Cragin is an award-winning writer/journalist and Fitchburg City Councilor-at-Large. (CHERYL CUDDAHY)
    Sally Cragin is an award-winning writer/journalist and Fitchburg City Councilor-at-Large. (CHERYL CUDDAHY)

    Sally Cragin

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  • Asking Eric: After medical miracle, daughter is angry about mom’s travel

    Dear Eric: I’m in my 60s and have a crippling disease that kept me housebound for nearly five years. My daughter moved back home around that time after her sister took her life and left behind a young son, whom we have been raising together.

    A new medication for this disease was recently approved. I’ve been taking it for two years, and it has led to incredibly impressive improvements. I have a new lease on life!

    The manufacturers of this medication invited me to be a patient ambassador for them this year. I receive a good stipend for traveling once every other month or so to talk with physicians, pharmacists and other patients struggling with this condition. The trips are very short (one to two days), and my physical needs and limitations are respected and accommodated.

    My daughter is angry about this and wants me to stop. She gives a number of reasons: That I’m shilling for Big Pharma, the time it takes for me to recover from trips, all the “what ifs,” (nonexistent) financial burdens, leaving her behind to cope with a recalcitrant teenager, et cetera. She refuses to participate or support my efforts in any way.

    I suspect there’s something else going on. Could she be worried about the time I will leave her behind permanently?

    What’s the best way to discuss this with someone who refuses to talk about the fact that I will not always be around, no matter how safe I try to be? I intend to grab this chance to provide a patient perspective and support others struggling with this disease. It matters to me. Yet I also want my family to accept and support me just as I support them.

    — Patient Patient

    Dear Patient: I’m sure you’re right: there are probably a lot of other emotions and triggers influencing your daughter’s position. This is understandable, but the first thing to remember is you don’t need her permission to live your life. Every family system is interconnected, and yours is no different. Collaborating to raise a child, who is surely still grieving the loss of his mother (as you are also still grieving) makes that interconnectedness even more complicated. Communication is key here, as is compromise, but I don’t see your daughter’s demands in that spirit.

    For the moment, table debate about your trips. You needn’t stop them, especially if they are helping you feel you’re living your purpose. But you, your daughter, and your grandson should participate jointly and individually in family therapy. Focus initially on the grief and the new dynamics of your family. Sometimes, when a loved one dies and life has to be dramatically rearranged, we make the first or most immediately available choice. After some of the initial shock has subsided, it’s good to revisit those early choices to make sure they still work for us. I’m not suggesting that your co-raising arrangement needs upending, instead therapy can be an opportunity to process what your shared goals are, how you’re working toward those goals, and any places where those goals don’t align.

    Your daughter may never be fully comfortable with your trips. Much of that is her work to do. But by continuing to have conversations that acknowledge how much has changed, you give each other the opportunity to keep changing and growing, too.

    Dear Eric: I wanted to respond to your advice to “Lonely At Night”, whose marriage was in trouble and whose husband refused to be physical. The letter writer wanted to get a dog for company, to which the husband was also opposed. You stated if the wife wants to get a dog and the husband does not, she should get a dog anyway. This is a dangerous recommendation for the dog.

    I have worked in dog rescue and adopt my own rescue dogs.

    I have seen way too many times that when one person wants a dog and the other does not, that poor dog suffers from neglect and quite often physical abuse from the party who never wanted the pet. Then they end up kicked out of the home, given to dangerous shelters or just suffering from the stress of moving to a new home.

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Asking Eric: Good Samaritan gets hefty reward for first aid

    Dear Eric: I am the mother of a wild child. The other day, she ran into our house and asked for a Band-Aid because her friend scraped his knee. The boy had what I would describe as “the most gnarly gash” I’ve seen since I left the military.

    The cut missed major blood vessels, but at least partially severed a tendon. We sent a messenger to his mom, treated him for shock and covered the wound, but didn’t really do anything medical. When mom showed up, I did the magic trick of distracting the boy while showing mom how bad it was. I offered to watch her other kids until she could get a family member or sitter they knew. Turns out they had grandma over, so I wasn’t needed.

    The next day, we found a thank you note and a $100 gift card in our mailbox. I don’t think I did anything worthy of that. I think I did the bare minimum required of a human being and did not expect anything from it.

    My question is, when my own daredevil scrapes her knee this way, is there a reference guide on how to express gratitude to the bystander or first responder? Does the dollar amount of the gift card change depending on the severity of the injury?

    — Mom of a Wild Child

    Dear Mom: Try as I might, I haven’t found a price list for “treatment of grievous bloody injuries” outside of an insurance company’s website. You mention your service in the military, and I wonder if you’re downplaying the comprehensiveness of the care you gave to your daughter’s friend. The gift card may be a reflection both of the mom’s appreciation and also an expression of how impressed she was by your levelheadedness and competence. Neither is a guarantee. Her gift is a kind gesture and not required.

    After a quite scary emergency department visit for a food allergy reaction, I sent an Edible Arrangement to convey my thanks, but that reflected my emotions (“thanks for snatching me back from the jaws of death; food is weird, right?”), rather than a repayment of a debt. It really is the thought that counts, so a card with a genuine note can be just as meaningful should your daughter need the aid of a bystander or EMT.

    Also, if you feel uncomfortable about the amount of the gift card, consider using it to treat your daughter, her friend, and maybe the friend’s mom to a fun lunch or day at an activity center (maybe one of those pad-covered ones where they’re less likely to get hurt).

    Dear Eric: My 15-year-old grandson moved in with me about seven months ago. We are fine together but his mom refuses to allow him to go to a “brick and mortar” school. He has Marfan Syndrome and must be careful of his heart. But he was removed from public school and really wants to be a more normal kid.

    My daughter apparently gets her medical for her whole family covered under my grandson. She wrote to him saying if he goes to a school here where I live then he’d have to use my address and he’d be responsible for her dying, her dad going mental and his older sister hemorrhaging all because they’d lose their medical if he lived with me.

    My daughter says my grandson and I are both selfish to want his “social life” over his family’s health.

    Might I add that there are four adults in the house and when my grandson was there, he slept in a closet! Is there any option besides turning her in to CPS?

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Behind the Bylines: A simple invitation to share your take on local news

    As a journalism professor, I spend a lot of time talking to the future generation about local news. Sometimes, it’s exciting and motivating. But there are those days when it feels like I’m just not able to make the connection. The cognitive biases appear to be too ingrained to overcome. I can’t help but feel a little defeated in those moments, as though I’ve failed to make a meaningful connection or build enough trust to get them to rethink using social media as their only source of information. I catch the glazed-over look that says, “We know. And now what?”

    It’s easy to push forward with the lesson plan and move on to the loss of civic engagement that follows the local news, or examine data on media ownership, but that rarely does any good. In those moments when we look at each other in a quiet resolve, I try to take a step back and truly listen to what they have to say.

    Sometimes, no lecture can do as much good as understanding the root of their disengagement. And, in all truth, for local journalism, there’s little that’s more important than understanding what motivates the next generation to engage.

    All that to say, I want to take a moment to do the same thing with this column. I’ve been doing a lot of talking, and it’s about that time for me to turn off my PowerPoint presentation, move away from the podium, and sit down for a real conversation.

    Local news isn’t just a product to consume. Done right, local coverage connects neighbors and fosters a sense of community. But that only works if we’re building coverage around real questions people have, not guesses about what might interest them, or worse, what is profitable.

    So, I want to know what challenges you about local news and what you feel it does right. What do you wish there was more coverage of? What do you want to learn about your city that you can’t find easily? What is missing, and what do you cherish?

    If you stopped regularly engaging with local news, tell me what pushed you away. If you are a regular reader, please let me know what keeps you coming back.

    In part, this is for my own edification. I like to know who I’m talking to and what they are about. But I also think this is an important media literacy exercise for us all – to reflect on why we engage in certain things and why we don’t. And sharing our concerns with each other, instead of screaming them into the ether, might challenge our cognitive biases and perhaps lead to solutions.

    I will read your responses and explore ways in which I can improve my approach in my roles as a journalism scholar and educator, as well as my work as a partner to local news organizations. I will also unpack some of your concerns here, in this column, in the hope of sparking a broader conversation.

    Help me start it.

    Share your thoughts and concerns about local news. Send a short note with the subject line “Behind the Bylines: Feedback” to wunus@fitchburgstate.edu

    Associate Professor of Journalism at Fitchburg State University Wafa Unus, Ph.D. (Courtesy Wafa Unus)

    Wafa Unus

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  • Asking Eric: Girlfriend loves whiskey and other men

    Dear Eric: I’m a 64-year-old male and I have a 59-year-old girlfriend of a couple years. My perception is that my girlfriend is constantly seeking attention from other men. For instance, we were out on an ATV ride with another couple and a third man. Our ride brought us through many miles of back country. We stopped at a bar/restaurant to use the facilities.

    My girlfriend goes into the bar, and she’s in there for a while. I stayed outside and talked with the other guys we were with. She finally comes out and admits that she was talking to a couple of guys and had a shot of whiskey “to check market prices.” Seriously? I’m supposed to believe that she couldn’t have just asked the price?

    Later in the day, we stopped, just the two of us, at another bar/restaurant and had something to eat. After I settled the check, I decided to use the restroom. I leave the restroom, and she is nowhere to be seen, so I go outside and interrupt a conversation between her and some random guy on the deck by himself drinking. There was an immediate awkward pause on the guy’s part, and she blurts out “That’s his bike.” My tastes run to Harleys. which I have a couple of, and his bike was just another cheaper imitation race bike.

    Then on the way home she tells me how her niece has been trying to set up a girls’ night, including her at a local bar, kind of letting me know, presumably so she can say “I told you…” Clearly, I have a problem with this but I’m trying to keep an open mind. You know what they say: intimacy doesn’t begin in the bedroom. So, I know what I think I should do but I’m looking for an outsider’s perspective.

    — Being Taken for a Ride

    Dear Ride: Look, there may be something else going on here that I’m not seeing, but I think the message you need to take away from this gut check is not that your girlfriend is necessarily doing something inappropriate but that you’re not feeling secure about the relationship. This isn’t a personal failing; you’re allowed to feel the way you feel. But the response may be a different one than you’re thinking of.

    While you can end things, as you seem to be suggesting, consider first talking to her at a neutral time about the state of your relationship and what you think it might be lacking. Try to use “I” statements, like “I would like to be closer” or “I don’t feel like we’ve been in sync recently.” Then try to lay out what happened and how you felt about it without accusations. “You were talking to guys and ‘checking the market price’ of the whiskey, and that was confusing to me.” Ask her if she can see where you’re coming from and why it might make you feel less uncertain. But also listen to her response and see if you can see where she’s coming from.

    You don’t have to be OK with how things are going, but from the instances you’ve described, it may be less that she’s interested in other men and more that she’s interested in other drinks.

    Dear Eric: I just had my 93rd birthday, so have been on Medicare for some years. But I recently ran across something different. My newest doctor — a podiatrist — told me first that she would give me only token care since she got only a token payment. Then a second time she said I could pay her the difference and get full treatment. Is this right morally and legally?

    R. Eric Thomas

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  • Asking Eric: After missed birthday party, friend stops calling

    Dear Eric: I’ve been friends with a girl for at least 10 years. Recently she had a birthday and our circle of friends planned on going to a local bar to celebrate. I decided not to attend because I wasn’t able to afford a $10 cover charge. I told her that and she seemed to be OK with it.

    But then I noticed that I wasn’t hearing from her like I usually did. I asked another friend, and they said they were under the impression that she was upset and disappointed with me because I didn’t go out for her birthday, so I sent her a text apologizing and saying that I really couldn’t afford it and that I live from paycheck to paycheck and I thought she’d understand.

    She responded by saying she understood because she lives from paycheck to paycheck and also that she considered me a close friend and that she was upset and disappointed I didn’t then come out for her birthday and she went on to say that if it hadn’t been on her actual birthday she wouldn’t have minded as much, which never made any sense to me.

    She also said she needed time and that she should eventually get over it. Well, it’s been three months, and I haven’t heard anything. I feel like texting her again to say if she doesn’t consider us friends anymore then I would like to know because I have some stuff, she asked me to keep at my house, and I would give it back.

    I told two of my other friends and they feel she’s being childish about the whole thing. What are your thoughts?

    — Weary Friend

    Dear Friend: She’s being more than childish; her response is unfair and uncaring. She’s allowed to make whatever plans she wants for her birthday — and everyone deserves to feel special — but she’s also an adult and adults understand that sometimes we can’t afford to do things we want to do. Adults also understand that special occasions can happen anytime. After the age of, say 16, missing a birthday party is not a reason to sever a friendship.

    If she’s not serious about wanting to rebuild this friendship, then returning the items you’re holding for her and wishing her well is the best option.

    Dear Eric: My younger brother (54 yrs) is a chronic alcoholic. He’s now developed Cirrhosis and he has little time left.

    I’m his older sister, who realized more than 30 years ago that binge drinking and alcoholism seemed to affect us siblings, so I stopped, completely.

    I never got on his case about his drinking, but we drifted apart due to his excessive drinking and the erratic behavior it brought out.

    Sadly, this diagnosis is what has brought us back together. I call him weekly, talk about funny stories from the past and try to keep his spirits up.

    We lost a sister years ago, when she was 7 years old, to a childhood illness. My parents were devastated as it was sudden and unexpected. My mother is gone, but my father, still going strong in his 90s, is still with us.

    My father lives too far away to visit my brother and they only rarely talk on the phone. There are four adult children in our family.

    There is a disagreement as to whether we should tell my father. I believe that a parent has the right to know. They have been through more than their adult children give them credit for and should be able to say goodbye. Others are saying we shouldn’t say anything because “it could kill dad.”

    There is no question my brother will pass before my father. Do you think a parent should be told that their child is sick and passing?

    — Sad Sister

    R. Eric Thomas

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