Dots and Boxes First published in the 19th century by the French mathematician Édouard Lucas, Dots and Boxes was called La Pipopipette. Credit…Mary Jane Callister How to play Two players take turns joining two horizontally or vertically adjacent dots by a line. The player who completes the fourth side of a square (i.e., a box)…
Welcome. I’ve been measuring the progression of days by the ripeness of my neighbor’s tomatoes. They have a solitary Roma tomato plant on their patio whose fruits look perfect, plump and pale orange, not ready for plucking, but soon. In the absence of a lot of outside stimulus, the tiniest things take on meaning. Waving…
When stay-at-home measures went into effect in March, some new and blossoming relationships were put on pause. Others were prematurely defined as couples hastily began to quarantine under one roof, like Patricia Liu, a rising college senior who moved in with her boyfriend of three months. Their decision to live together led to a deeper…
Travel-friendly food is an essential part of summer. Whether you are spending time away from home or preparing for a day trip to the park or beach, you need those simple recipes to make on the go. When the pandemic first hit this spring, some of us found ourselves buying and eating a lot of…
Besides saving the USPS, there is only one thing I care about right now: camp collar shirts. Already popular on the menswear scene, the Hawaiian/cabana shirt hybrid has finally crossed over to the masses. The open collar style, known as a Cuban collar, was born from ’50s leisurewear. But in true 2020 form, it’s gotten…
Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited. This Bridge Called My Back I work for a successful, fast-growing technology company. There are times when some corporate “crisis” requires that a number of us lean in…
Like many, the model Naomi Shimada has been using the extra time at home during the pandemic as a chance to pause and reflect on what really matters to her. Usually traveling the world for work in a blur of hotels and suitcases, Ms. Shimada, 33, has instead been spending her days in London applying…
He is no longer “Uncle Joe.” Joseph R. Biden Jr., now officially the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, has dabbled in various imagery over the years, including working class champion and regular guy. But the one that has always stuck, and that followed him onto the campaign trail earlier this year, was that endearing and…
For an evening to a month at a time, at prices ranging from about $70 to $4,200 a night, online rental platforms offer anyone a chance to live in places where legends like F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck and Frank Sinatra once lived. These homes are as different as the celebrities they once housed, but…
SAN FRANCISCO — Is this a good time to talk about “enoughness?” It was in long-ago 1973 that the economist E.F. Schumacher first published “Small Is Beautiful,” a seminal (and, to the surprise of some, best-selling) collection of essays critiquing Western economics. Mr. Schumacher was among the first to champion sustainability, localization, small-scale industry and…