Rachel Toor

For 3

A few years ago, an essay in the New York Times’ Modern Love column went viral for a good reason: It provided a recipe for falling in love. The formula is simple.

Walking in as a customer in need of coffee, a drink or a bite to eat, you’d be forgiven for not realizing that this is a place forged out of grief, conceived of need.

Seeing photos of historic sites are often enough for me. I look for experiences with humans.

For a man who traveled the world and ended up back on the farm, it’s all about building and maintaining local community.

Mark Twain said many funny, true, quotable things, but among them was not “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything out it.” He simply repeated the quip of his friend, Charles Dudley Warner. But it’s nonetheless true. Especially during extreme changes in climate, we sure can spend a lot of time talking about something whose outcome we are can affect not at all. Just as some of us can enjoy hours discussing spectator sports. We weigh in with opinions about players and coaches, curse out refs, and bond in good fellowship.

The Holocaust was something I don’t remember not knowing about. The danger of difference is clear to most kids, but I understood that the numbers on great-grandpa Max’s arm had dark meaning.

It was, I think, simply coincidence that on the anniversary of his death, my interest in college basketball revived. It wasn’t because we shared that passion. Spectator sports held little appeal for him, save, perhaps, il Palio di Sienna, an insane, centuries-old horserace around a Tuscan town square that he was always happy to catch when he visited his father. He pointed out the track as we dined above the piazza last February. He talked about wanting to share that – and so much else – with me on a future visit. He would have sat with me during Duke games, if I’d asked. He would have made insightful comments about what he saw; he noticed things others missed. But if he hadn’t died I may not have needed to start following the team again.

We’re living in a curious time. Even those who profess a commitment to issues of diversity and tolerance slip up in their speech and betray old-fangled ways of thinking. It can be hard to remember that we need to be aware of the unintended consequences of our words.

At the Sports Creel, Micah and TJ Genteman pay attention. They notice the things that make people individuals, and they find the right equipment, make the right adjustments. Thanks to that attention, their business is celebrating 65 years this week.

I was a small, angular kid. I didn’t think much about my body; when I considered my appearance, I focused on the two front teeth that dominated my face, my life, my dreams.

My motives are no different from those of my finger-wagging friends: They arise out of a desire to help. Or, perhaps more honestly, to give an opinion about the “right” way to do something.

During the mediation, the officer said that while he had a slightly different memory of the exchange, his hasty words didn’t reflect what he’d meant, didn’t represent him. He wanted to tell me who he was: a father, an athlete, a coach, a 20-year member of the force, the product of an inter-racial family, a believer in justice and an admirer of Martin Luther King Jr., whose words about the content of one’s character he often re-read.

I’d decided to stop eating meat some years before she came into my life, and I had to figure out what would be OK to consume. Only plants? Nothing with a face? No one who runs away?

Veterinary medicine is expensive, and the doctors must be able to lay out options for clients, give them choices and prices. Dr. Greg Benoit is a small business owner, and he’s got to keep things running and make sure everyone understands that even if something can be done medically, it’s always the owner’s call whether to go ahead. Shaming will not work and is in no one’s best interest.

“I listened to the police officer and in that moment had to decide. Who do I want to be in the world?”

Spokane is Reading is bringing Portland writer Amy Stewart to town to talk about her novel “Girl Waits With Gun.”

When it comes to pleasure reading, we gravitate to what we need at the cultural moment. I seem to be in a trench of surrounding myself with female psycho killers.

As a kid, I remember being baffled by the way my grandparents scurried about their Manhattan apartment before the cleaning lady showed up. As a young adult, I couldn’t believe how stressed my mother became while getting ready for her cleaner.

Good men, good fathers, know that even if that can’t silence that ugly inner voice, they can choose not to parrot it. They love their children with generosity and forgiveness, though the sharp edges of their boyhood may manifest in ways that catch them unaware.