Author: ruhlwrite

At the mention of ice cream, a smile beams like a rising sun on Dolma Yangchen‘s solidly serious face.Dolma came to New York from Tibet seven years ago. In Tibet, where she comes from, people don’t eat much of the cold, creamy treat. The food is spicy, not sugary. When she was a little girl, she had the good fortune to taste it a couple of times, and its sweetness lingered in her vanilla life. Dolma, the production manager for Fal Foods, which makes DF Mavens non-dairy ice cream, Brazilia…

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There’s music playing when Marc Gross opens the door. Cara Samantha, his wife, is sitting on the sofa. She’s not singing, merely speaking softly, but her sultry voice relegates the famous one on the CD to deep background. Marc is a lawyer with Condon & Forsyth. Cara, a singer/songwriter, and Marc, a litigating lawyer, are recently wed. Circumstances forced them apart geographically for three years — an eternity for true lovers — and this is the first apartment that marries…

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There was a pole and a pulley at the end of my driveway when I moved in. This cave-man apparatus was tethered to the back of the house by an ancient umbilical cord.Letting it all hang out. I cut this lifeline to the past without a second thought. Its significance didn’t dawn on me until months later when my neighbors heralded the warm weather by letting their laundry flap in the wind, sending celebratory semaphore signals to the spring sky. The only time I had ever seen such a contraption…

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At the door that separates the formal living room and dining room, there’s a basic-black chin-up bar. Erin and Eldar Spahic are having their morning coffee; he’s gulping his out of a super-size-me beer stein, and she is sipping hers from a round mug that doubles as a soup bowl.Erin and Eldar have entered the 2014 Death Race. Caffeine is their training fuel of choice, and they really need to chug-a-lug jolts of java because this weekend they are going to participate in the 2014 Death…

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When the outdoor table is empty, Vincenzo Vaccaro takes a break and a seat. He lights a cigarette and in between smoke rings pours black coffee down his throat. Vincenzo’s the owner of Vaccaro’s Italian bakery. Soon, he’ll be doing what he does every day. He’ll be making pizzas and sandwiches for Vaccaro’s bakery, which he and his father, Francesco, own. Don’t get the wrong idea. Vincenzo isn’t going to do this forever. Yeah, it’s true that he was…

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