Imagine that you are a member of the expert class — the kind of person invited to pontificate on television news programs. Under normal circumstances, your expertise might be signaled to the public by a gaudy photograph of skyscrapers superimposed behind your head. But now the formalities of the broadcast studio are a distant memory,…
Dads can be tough to shop for, so we often end up circling back to the same basic, boring Father’s Day gifts. This year, beam internally as you watch him unwrap something he genuinely won’t be expecting instead. Surprise him by creatively tailoring your gift to his interests: a pasta maker so he can make…
Amid the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide shelter-at-home orders, many will be celebrating Mother’s Day apart from their loved ones. Louis Vuitton is stepping up to bolster virtual celebrations with the launch of customizable Mother’s Day e-cards, complete with limited-edition patches. No purchase is required to send the digital cards. Mother’s Day is just around the…
In the six years since they decided to sell their house and move into a 40-foot motor home, Julie and Marc Bennett have crisscrossed the country and become masters of the R.V. lifestyle — all while “still working and saving for retirement,” as they note on their website, RVlove.com. They even wrote a book, “Living…
It was a week before our 25th anniversary, and I wanted out. John and I were sitting in a tent pavilion as women in tiny thongs, platform boots and pasties snaked past us in a line for free ice cream, their behinds nearly grazing our noses. I glanced at my husband. He looked on affably,…
My farmer-florist neighbor Jennifer Elliott’s 15-acre organic operation in the Hudson Valley is like a giant cutting garden from April to November. So it was to Ms. Elliott and another flower-focused friend that I turned for a strategy in a year when having some version of what she has, at least in miniature — the…
My farmer-florist neighbor Jennifer Elliott’s 15-acre organic operation in the Hudson Valley is like a giant cutting garden from April to November. So it was to Ms. Elliott and another flower-focused friend that I turned for a strategy in a year when having some version of what she has, at least in miniature — the…
Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, even if you want them withheld. Letters may be edited. The following questions were submitted before the global health crisis — and yet the advice remains the same. Cherish Your Administrative Professionals The firm for which I work…
Suddenly your wristwatch is running 10 minutes fast. Or 10 minutes slow. Or, inexplicably, it stops entirely. What happened? It could be your smartphone’s fault. At the risk of pitting your personal gadgets against one another, in a kind of crazy electronic “Toy Story” scenario, the high tech tools we have come to rely on…
Watch lovers are an intensely visual bunch: Consider the more than 2.1 million images tagged #wristshot on Instagram. But the rising popularity of horology podcasts also indicates a growing appetite for informed yet casual conversation about timepieces — a hunger made all the sharper by Covid-19. “Engagement is up across all our channels because a…