Category Archives: Random Stories

The Melameds

Posted on September 14, 2023 by advicefrommarta

This is Feige and Moshe Melamed. Feige was the sister of my great-grandmother. In the picture they are standing on the balcony of the hotel they owned in Kremenets, which at the time was Poland, and today is Ukraine. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Life, Random Stories | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Elon Musk Is Everyone’s Bad Boss

Posted on November 19, 2022 by advicefrommarta

Once in my early 20s I quit a retail job because my boss called a mandatory staff meeting on an evening that I had a date. When I think back on it, I realize how privileged and possibly foolish it … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

It Tolls for Thee

Posted on September 12, 2022 by advicefrommarta

I did not have strong feelings when Queen Elizabeth II died. I understood the people who celebrated the end of the last remaining vestige of the British Empire. I understood the people who mourned the end of an era. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Tagged | Leave a comment

Bearing Fruit

Posted on July 27, 2022 by advicefrommarta

Once, when my grandfather was a little boy, he walked with his grandfather, the exquisitely named Shlomo Zalman, from one shtetl to the next. On the way there, Shlomo Zalman gave my grandfather half a banana and then carefully wrapped … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Life, Random Stories | Tagged , | 1 Comment

An Early Summer Night’s Dream

Posted on June 17, 2022 by advicefrommarta

(fiction) There is a kind of summer evening, just after the sun starts to go down. Children run around looking for fireflies. Neighbors slowly move away from their airconditioned houses, eager to feel the air while they can. They sit … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Tagged | Leave a comment

Three Women on a Train

Posted on November 30, 2021 by advicefrommarta

I rode the El yesterday. It was the first time in a while. When I first moved to Chicago and worked downtown, the El was my reading time. It was part of my fantasy life of living in a big … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Tagged | Leave a comment

People in Stories

Posted on February 11, 2021 by advicefrommarta

When I was a little girl, we lived in Tanzania. I was only four when we went to Tanzania and so the house in Tanzania and the house in Louisville that we lived in before merge together in my memories. … Continue reading →

Posted in Family Life, Random Stories | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Of Deadly Importance

Posted on January 24, 2021 by advicefrommarta

Lately, I have been thinking about the dead. Not my own personal dead, the people I carry with me, and write about, but all the dead. I have been wondering if the dead are too much with us, or not … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Tagged | Leave a comment

Going Gentle Into That Good Night

Posted on November 14, 2020 by advicefrommarta

Having only two children, neither of whom was fathered by either Frank Sinatra or Woody Allen, I have never felt that I had much in common with famous actress, famous mother, famous wife, famous daughter, Mia Farrow. But this week, … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Tagged | Leave a comment

A New Old World

Posted on November 8, 2020 by advicefrommarta

As always, I think about Mark today. No wait, that’s a lie. For the past few years November 8th has snuck up on me. A vague feeling of unease, a feeling that I was forgetting something, maybe someone’s birthday? Maybe … Continue reading →

Posted in Random Stories | Leave a comment