Hiring a friend’s kid & Anonymous greetings
You’re not obligated to do something that goes against your own interests unless perhaps her father is in the Mafia. If she’s not a good match for the job, don’t hire her. That’s an easy call. The harder call is figuring out how to break the news to both parent and child with minimal damage.
Grieving in public
Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.
MV $, selfies with celebs & retake on (not) hospitalized neighbor
It’s generally considered poor taste to talk or write about money, but money is weird on the Vineyard in ways that it isn’t weird most other places. There is often zero relationship between one’s income, class, educational/cultural/financial background, social standing and innate hipness. It’s part of our cultural make-up that people from totally different financial realities casually cluster together and feel good about it.
Piping Puppies and Hospital Privacy
I’ll go even farther: let’s say you and your dog have a special mystical relationship with the plovers and they actually consider you a part of their tribe. They have asked you, during a vision-quest, to please walk around the dunes with your dog at the start of their nesting season.
Potluck and politics
If it’s a small gathering, where you know everyone personally, feel free to send out an email letting people know you have a gluten sensitivity, in case they are vacillating between, say, pasta casserole or kale casserole.
Ancient rights; friends on a budget
Bemused readers ask novelist Nicole Galland for her take on navigating the precarious social landscape that comes with living on the Vineyard. Nicole, who grew up in West Tisbury, is known locally as the...
Shopping Cart Valet
Are people prickly or what? I feel like I can't breathe without someone snapping at me to stop. Yesterday, I got yelled at by a friend, a co-worker, and someone I didn’t know in a store. I got honked at twice. Even my dog growled at me.
“Ex” expiration dates and when dates ≠ dates.
"Ex" expiration dates and when dates ≠ dates.
Doctor in the produce aisle; ex at the dinner party
The doctor in the produce aisle and the ex at the dinner party.