When Retirement Comes Too Early

Joey Himelfarb estimates that in his 25 years in sales, hawking everything from Hewlett-Packard computers to cars and swimming pools, he has been laid off or downsized at least a half-dozen times. The most recent occasion came in April, when he got a call from the chief executive officer of the start-up in northern Virginia…

Massage Therapy Without the Touch

After the coronavirus lockdowns took hold in March, Suzanne Kwasniewski, a licensed massage therapist in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., began calling her regular clients every week or two, at first just to see how they were doing. “When I spoke with some of my regulars, particularly those I’ve known a long time, I picked things up…

You, Me and 53 Dogs

Liz Raines was three years into her first on-camera job as a political reporter at KTVA, the CBS affiliate in Anchorage, when a chance to cover the Iditarod, the nearly 1,000-mile dog sled race, landed in her lap in March 2018. Winning the coveted assignment was “a shocker,” she said. “I never got to do…

Finding Hope and Their Own Magical Moments

By the time the singer and songwriter Alexi Paraschos married Chelsea Holmes in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square on July 26, he was feeling pretty good about the odds of avoiding the wedding-in-a-pandemic blues. Credit belongs to a musical project he assigned himself weeks before the couple decided to make good on a marriage certificate due to…

Spicy Sign of Love and Family History

Karolle Malalatiana Rabarison and David James Rose were married Aug. 16 in the hemlock grove at Woodend Nature Sanctuary in Chevy Chase, Md. Rabbi Hannah Spiro officiated before immediate family including Mr. Rose’s grandparents who live nearby, and a close friend. Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the sex therapist, who is a close friend of the groom’s…

Taking a Liberated Plunge, Twice

Vermont has always been a significant, go-to getaway for Lucia D’Agostino Foulkes and Nicholas Spencer Dorf, particularly a tiny stone chapel in the woods at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt. On Aug. 1 they were married outside the chapel, where Mr. Dorf had also proposed in February 2019 while they were snowshoeing through…