And so, I assented. I assented without calling home to consult my partner of 20-something years, a lapse in judgment that would become a sore point between us. In the crowded cafe, I was, perhaps not surprisingly, overcome with thoughts of my own mother, who was preoccupied until her death with the state of my…
How much do you know about bear behavior and avoiding a bear attack? What you know — or don’t know — could determine how likely you are to survive an encounter with a testy bear.
One evening in March 2020, Angeline Disante, 29, was tasting teriyaki steak on a stick to be served at her wedding on April 15. Once the pandemic hit, Ms. Disante and her fiancé rescheduled the wedding for Nov. 28. Not surprisingly, that one had to be postponed as well. Her venue in New Rochelle, N.Y.,…
Eliciting comedy from Steve Martin and Martin Short is usually a simple proposition: You just put the two of them together. Even as they looked back on their years of friendship and collaboration in a video interview earlier this summer, they couldn’t help falling into a familiar rhythm of affectionately zinging and zetzing each other.…
On a Friday morning in October 2018, Angela Braren and Gauri Manglik were riding San Francisco’s Muni to work together when Ms. Braren said she was struck with an urgency to propose to Ms. Manglik — her girlfriend of over four years — on that very day. Ms. Braren found herself writing out the proposal…
Ian Cheng was feeling adrift. It was the start of 2013; he was nearly 30, with an art degree from Berkeley and another from Columbia, but he needed an idea, something to build a career on. Pondering the question one wintry afternoon in the balcony cafe at the Whole Foods Market on Houston Street, a…
About an hour into her first date with Edward Andrews Larkin in August 2019, at a wine bar in San Francisco, Rachelle Louise Soderstrom was ready to call it a night. The couple had matched on Bumble, and although Ms. Soderstrom thought Mr. Larkin was nice, she didn’t see a second date in their future.…
It was an awkward first encounter. In March, 2011, when Jennifer Chu was 19 and the single mother of three-year-old daughter Orianna, she was introduced to Charonton Barber, a 2002 U.S. Naval Academy graduate. Feeling insecure because Orianna’s father had been Ms. Chu’s only previous relationship, she was unusually quiet when Mr. Barber entered the…
The fashion stylist Mel Ottenberg, 45, has dressed some of the world’s most influential celebrities (Rihanna and Justin Bieber) and worked with the biggest brands (Dior, Nike and Calvin Klein). For the past three years, he has also been the creative director of Interview magazine, the jumbo newsprint tome founded in 1969 by Andy Warhol.…
He proposed in December of 2019, inside the house they had just bought together, in Toronto. They set their wedding date for May 29, 2021, at an indoor venue, but like so many couples, the coronavirus forced them to change their plans. They postponed it to summer, moving it outdoors. They were married by Dean…