Karen Galatz, at The Blogs

Jul 19, 2023, 8:02 AM

Memories of a Short-Order Cook… and My Father

When I was 12, I had a terrible chronic ear infection. We had just moved across the country to a new town. I didn’t know anybody, couldn’t go to school, was in constant pain, suffered balance problems, and had...

Dec 5, 2022, 10:55 PM

The Matzo Chronicles: A Rose Is a Rose Is a Challah

My friends are all busy planning New Year’s Eve celebrations. But not me. I’m still savoring this year’s Jewish New Year which was made especially sweet thanks to my non-Jewish husband. I had been feeling under the weather for a...

Oct 14, 2022, 12:57 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: The Bearer of Bad News

I called my 30-year-old son the other day. His first words were, “What’s the matter? What’s wrong now?” Ouch! Does he perceive that I am always the bearer of bad news? Worse yet, am I always the bearer of bad news?...

Sep 4, 2022, 7:12 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: Slow Cookers are My Cooking Salvation

My grandmother was a great cook. My mother was a great cook. So were my sisters-in-law and my husband too. I, on the other hand, was a cooking klutz. My mother and grandmother tried to teach me to cook, sharing...

Jul 1, 2022, 12:14 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: My Almost Bat Mitzvah

After 12 years of glittery Christmas trees, but no menorahs, no Shabbat candles, and no Friday services, I suddenly got religion. I wanted to become a Bat Mitzvah. And so, with no prior religious studies, but with all the...

Jun 10, 2022, 12:33 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: The Power of 50 in the Bible and in My Life

The number 50 has symbolic and practical significance in Jewish thought. It spans the days between the exodus from Egypt and Shavuot when the Torah was revealed to us at Mount Sinai. The number, in the form of 50...

Mar 9, 2022, 5:34 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: Diners, Delis and Golden Memories

A beloved neighborhood restaurant is closing. It happens all the time, but when it’s your neighborhood and your beloved restaurant, it makes you sad, doesn’t it? In this case, the one feeling sad and nostalgic is my husband — and...

Feb 10, 2022, 5:32 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: Balaboosta or Bust

Woman superhero flying through the room with a mop

I could kick myself. I pride myself as a writer with a knack for timing and clever ideas. Yet I’ve just missed out on a golden opportunity to pitch a winning TV show. It’s too late. The train has...

Jan 11, 2022, 7:28 AM

The Matzo Chronicles: Family was everything to me. Now friends are too

Some children are precocious, spouting clever insights one after another. I wasn’t one of them. I had only one illuminating insight at the not-so-early age of 12. It came as I looked at my family sitting at the dinner...

Dec 6, 2021, 11:59 PM

The Matzo Chronicles: My Annual Cemetery Care Conundrum

It’s that time of year. Not Thanksgiving. Not Hannukah. Not even Christmas or New Year’s. Rather it’s that time of year when I’m asked about providing “perpetual” care for my grandparents’ cemetery plots. These annual cemetery solicitation letters cause profound...

About Me

Karen Galatz is the author of Muddling through Middle Age, which provides women (and men) of a certain age a light-hearted look at the perils and pleasures of growing older. An award-winning journalist, her national news credits include The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and the Nightly Business Report. Her fiction and non-fiction writing has been published across the U.S. More of Karen's writing can be read here: muddling.me A native of New York City and Las Vegas, Karen now lives in Reno, NV with her husband, two children, and one neurotic dog named Olga, rescued from Florida’s Hurricane Erma. It all makes for a lot of geography and a lot of humor.

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