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I could hardly bring myself to write this, but I knew that I must speak up and speak out.  Growing up in the Soviet Union, Irina in Russia and I in Uzbekistan, we were raised on stories of the Holocaust. We were raised on stories of our families being killed. My...

Last year, we hosted a huge regional fencing tournament at the Santa Clara Convention Center, and one of the equipment trucks arrived late, only after the competition had started. I needed to call parents-volunteers in the venue to help quickly set up the fencing...

One day during the pandemic, I took my dog to our neighborhood groomer. This happened at a time when I was actively working on my book. When we arrived, the lady at the reception accepted us, glanced at my dog, and delivered her verdict: "His hair is all matted since...

My kids hate it when I lecture them. It was the same for me with my dad. It seems that I inherited from him the ability to create a lecture from every potential situation, and my children inherited my disdain for these lectures. So, in the end, it all evens out. This...

One of my biggest regrets in life is being afraid to openly talk to my father in his last few weeks on earth. For a month, I sat in hospital near his bed and tried to distract him with talks about everything but him and me. I wanted to ask him about things that were...

I read somewhere that a book is like a baby for an author. This analogy sounds nice, but until you actually write a book and release it, you don't fully get it. Well, at least I didn't, until now. Having four biological children, one non-fiction book published four...