I am a doctor, a writer and Grammy to Edin and Caleb. I live in St. Louis with husband Bill.
In December of 2015, torrential rains caused parts of the St. Louis area to be evacuated. Bill and I were on vacation and saw it on TV. “We made the national news,” I exclaimed. I was dismayed when we arrived home. A great swath of the wall-to-wall carpeting in our basement had been soaked in that […]
Wildfires! Floods! Hurricanes! Heat waves! Droughts! And each catastrophe a record-breaker! Weather news these days sends me into a tailspin of despair and anxiety. And guilt. What is my duty? Do I have to give up air-conditioning to keep the planet from self-destructing? Would I? Reading science journalist Madeline Ostrander’s 2022 book At Home on an Unruly […]
Every night, the sharp rap of mah-jongg tiles being discarded and the clatter of tumbling tiles being “washed” echoed throughout our small apartment compound. The sound carried as every window was open to let in the breeze in sub-tropical Hong Kong. I was only six in 1953, but I already knew that the native Cantonese […]
In his 2021 novel Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr masterfully fits disparate people – across centuries, across continents, across planets – into this story of how humans respond to the fall of empires, to environmental degradation, to civilizational collapse. Twining throughout these episodes or escapades, like a vine girding a tree or like an evocative sound […]
What Matisse and Cézanne taught me about color, pattern and creating order This is Susan Caba’s fourth blogpost for Dr. Bookworm. Her others are “where you headed from here,” “i sleep with other people’s dogs,” and “The Bear on the Stairs: Tales of the Prairie, with Paintings.” Glossy, glamorous and lush with photos and generally sparse […]
You don’t survive medical training without being hard on yourself. You can’t function as an internist without being obsessive-compulsive. Even though Bill and I are retired physicians, we’ve retained previously-useful values: a hyper-vigilant alertness of the world around us and the fear of mistakes. Even though our decisions nowadays are no longer life-and-death, we still agonize over […]
“I don’t know.” “Cain’t get lost then.” Thurmond Watts, Nameless, Tennessee quoted in Blue Highways Guest Essay By Susan Caba My first journey was by car as a bundled infant, through the Yukon, from Fairbanks, Alaska, to the Lower 48, on the roughly paved Alaska-Canada highway. The roadway had been constructed for the military during […]
I do not watch sitcoms. Hence, when I picked up A Heart That Works, I had no clue who Rob Delaney was. He is a standup comic and the co-writer and star of the British/Amazon comedy series Catastrophe (2015 to 2019.) He is also the author of this sweet, sad, heartfelt memoir of his son’s death from a […]
“Just be yourself!” That is horrible advice. The “self” is a moving target. We constantly evaluate and re-define who we are. Our “personality” changes every time we get new input from what we hear from others and from what we tell ourselves in response to events. Usually, we’re not even aware that we’re re-thinking our […]
Should Bill and I continue to guard our Covid virginity like medieval maidens? Do we stay in the tower? I am wracked with cognitive dissonance. One minute, I think, “I am going to die, and take Bill with me!” And then I go, “I should just enjoy my life.” I am jealous of my friends’ trips […]
‘Tis the Season! For forgiveness, generosity, renewal! So, of course, we’re going to talk about A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol is a thin book, a novella really, that has resurfaced in many iterations: the 1938 movie with the Lockhart family as the Cratchits; the 1951 Alastair Sims version; and friend Laurie’s favorite, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas […]
“You! Go up front,” barked the teacher as she pointed with her chin for me to join the half-dozen children milling at the front of the cramped classroom. I shuffled from my seat toward the group. We were the kids who had failed the fingernail inspection. As we faced the class, the seated students broke […]
A guest review by Susan Caba Susan Caba is a writer who has been house – and dog – sitting around the country for the past few years, caring for beloved pets while their human companions travel. She and her son read many dog-focused books when he was a child, including Where the Red Fern […]
“We fed thousands of people. They kept coming, running from the Japanese soldiers. We had to find food for them.” My uncle Zachary Luh (陆德林), Dad’s older brother, spoke with animation, his words expressing excitement, fear, and also resolve and courage. The plight and flight of Ukrainians being terrorized by Russian soldiers, tanks, and rockets have […]
Do I have an Ambien habit? I am twenty years over the “short-term use” recommendation for these sleeping pills. I worry about running out before the refill date. I fantasize about having a stockpile against the day my doctor cuts me off. Ambien doesn’t even work well! I get sleepy, yes, but only for a […]
Who’s ready for a GOOD NEWS review? Yeah, me too!
For my birthday, Bill got me The Metropolitan Opera Murders by Helen Traubel. He knows I love opera, and I love murder mysteries. I have written about both. How did these two loves bring me to write this essay extoling the goodness of libraries? Well, read on!
Scooch over, Lizzie Bennet and Jo March. Make room for Becky Paulson. For decades, my favorite literary role models have been Lizzie from Pride and Prejudice and Jo of Little Women. Both lived in the 19th century, Lizzie in England and Jo in New England. I admire them for their smarts, independence, and if the term is not too old-fashioned, “goodness.” […]
She held tight to the slowly rising rope. When it had hoisted her far enough, she bent her knees to lift herself off the ground. Everyone – family and servants – took a turn. Holding up the rope, and below it, the round scale, was the family cook, and the strongest man in the compound, Shi […]
I feel like a voyeur. On the pond down the hill, Canadian geese have paired off for mating. I watch them from my kitchen window. Couples circle around each other, splashing and bobbing their heads in and out of the water. I do not avert my eyes when he pounces on her back, his beak […]
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” Debate continues about this line from the 1974 noir movie Chinatown. Interpretations include: You are in over your head. Things don’t make sense. You can’t win. In Chinatown. How should Chinese people consider this comment? Are we different? Charles Yu explores the question of being Asian in America in his National Book Award-winning novel Interior […]
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