Jennifer Parello
Everyday Drama: In Death, There Is Life
Photo courtesy of BigStock/azur13 I’d like to tell you about the day I learned my mom was terminally ill. It’s not nearly as dreary as it sounds because my mom was not a dreary person. On this day, a doctor who had never examined her before entered her hospital room and said, “You are going…
Everyday Drama: Heartbreak Hotel
Photo courtesy of BigStock/ilixe48 My spouse didn’t realize that she hated people living on top of us until after we bought a two-flat and had people living on top of us. For the past few years, we’ve rented the apartment above us to small families who do what most small families do best: make noise….
The Block Party: Final Episode
(In our first two episodes, my spouse and I were invited to a block party organized by our neighbors, but I mistakenly contributed to the rental of a bouncy castle for a competing block party down the street. To make up for my blunder, I also contributed to the rental of a bouncy castle for…
Everyday Drama: The Block Party: Episode 2
(In our first episode, my spouse and I were belatedly invited to our neighborhood block party. We suspected that homophobia was at the root of the delayed invite. But, in actuality, it was because our neighbors are terribly disorganized.) We live in an urban suburb that’s just the right mix of fancy-bohemia to be home…
Everyday Drama: The Block Party – Episode 1
The invitation to the block party came late at night. I woke one morning to find it slipped under our door. “I guess we’re finally going to meet our neighbors,” I told my spouse as I handed her the invite. We bought our house three years ago and have had almost no contact with the…
Everyday Drama: Day of the Dolphin
About a year ago, I started reading a book about attempts by human researchers to communicate with dolphins. Most of these experiments—in typical human fashion—have been stupid and dangerous to the dolphins. In one famous incident in the 1960s, NASA funded a project to force a dolphin to live with a woman in a small…
Everyday Drama: The Will
“I’ve had it! I’m calling my lawyer and changing my will!” That’s how a close friend started a phone conversation this morning. I get an I’m-cutting-my-ungrateful-relatives-out-of-my-will call from her once a month. I settled into a comfy chair with a cup of coffee, happily preparing to goad her into redlining her will. I know she’ll…
Eulogy For A Good Boy
He wasn’t the type of heroic and selfless dog you’d see in a Disney movie. He was a coward—except if you were a hamster. Then he was brave. He killed two hamsters, not by attacking them but by barking at them. They died of heart attacks—one right after another. He seemed pleased with himself…
Everyday Drama: A Day In the Life of a Step Parent
You wake up and make your lunch. Hide your lunch on the back porch so the kid doesn’t grab it by mistake. He once took your lunch shortly after you entered his life four years ago. It was a terrible surprise for him. At school that day, he opened it to find a salad, instead of the food…
Everyday Drama: Dog Park Diary
We leave for the park at 7 a.m. We used to go much earlier—between 4 and 5 a.m. Before coffee. I’d hustle my little pack out of the house and into the car. But this was before the skunk attack of 2016. A skunk managed to spray all three dogs in one blast before we…
