“You can’t make them read it,” or some variant thereof, has been an occasional phrase around The Star newsroom over the years. What it signifies is that even though reporters might have covered nearly every twitch of something that is happening, a portion of the local population is always going to be surprised when it finally gets their attention.

There is a tendency among writers and editors to get defensive, as some of us did in the past week or so as the Army Corps began its Montauk project and as objections spread, largely thanks to Instagram and Facebook.

Looking at it one way, we failed as a news organization to get to people where they spend much of their time — on online social media. Of course, this also is a matter of human nature: It is difficult to get upset enough to fight what you cannot actually see.

I like to think of this as more of an opportunity than a criticism of The Star’s massive and sustained coverage of the Army Corps’ plan. The lesson is that we must to the extent possible take our work directly to those not accustomed to reading a print newspaper or visiting its website. This means engaging people in a format, location, and at a time with which they are comfortable.

On Tuesday morning, I awoke to find a text message from a friend who asked how the Montauk hullabaloo (her word) came about in the first place. Had there been a hearing, she wondered, and how was it that such a huge project got underway without everyone knowing about it.

We went back and forth for a while and in the end, she wrote that it was “a real wake-up call to all of us to pay more attention.” I agree. But it’s also up to those of us who make it our jobs to get the word out to do a better job.

“I’ve got no one left to root for,” I said to Rob Balnis during a workout at East End Physical Therapy the other day. “First the Pirates, then the Mets, then the Steelers. . . .”

Then, knowing he’s an ardent Buckeye fan, I added, “Maybe I’ll root for Ohio State. . . .”

“No, no, please!” he said, figuring that given my track record I might well be the kiss of death.

That reminded me of Dr. Astorr, who every now and then would come to Wolfie’s Relics slow-pitch softball games. We’d invariably be winning when he came, and then, as he watched, we’d invariably go on to lose. Hughie King dubbed him “Dr. Dis-Astorr.”

Still, given the fact that we were all in our mid to late-40s at the time, it was nice even to have one fan. Mr. Quigley, a St. Louisan, a writer and friend of Stan Musial’s and Red Schoendienst’s who was beloved there, and who summered on Old Stone Highway, was one too, and Mary, who would always say, “Hit me a triple,” made three. 

Then, Friday, the East Hampton High School boys cross-country team and its top runner, Erik Engstrom won county championships at Sunken Meadow State Park — the first time a Bonacker has ever done so — and my spirits were renewed.

I admit I had hesitated — it’s a long drive to and from Sunken Meadow, almost two hours each way — though such a rare feat warranted full-throated cheering, and I’m glad I was there to do that, with the team and its coaches and parents on that balmy fall day. (It’s been 13 years since Kevin Barry’s last championship team.)

Goose shit dotted the broadmeadow where the races began, though Kevin assured me, when I asked if he weren’t worried about his charges slipping, that his runners had cleats.

Erik — his stamina keeping pace with his ambition — won by a mile.

Then came his teammates, each placing high enough so as to best their chief rival, Bayport-Blue Point, in the aggregate by 8 points, according to their coach’s running count.

There were smiles all around then and fond embraces, and the quiet joy that caresses you when you have given it your all.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Thursday mornings at The Star are a time to regroup. The prior week’s news and features have been neatly filed, edited, printed, and bundled. The slate is clean. And although the editorial meeting to discuss the following week is only minutes away, there is a sense of relief, ease, and release, a calm before the next approaching storm.

In this climate, more wide-ranging discussions than the local focus we take during the early part of the week often develop. Last week, David Rattray, The Star’s editor, and I were discussing a story we had heard on NPR about how scientists had genetically modified brown fruit flies to become blond and how the application could be used in the future for eradicating Lyme disease in deer ticks, malaria in mosquitos, and in other momentous ways.

It was great science-nerd stuff and fascinating, too. But then, my eyes settled on the coffee cup he was holding, or, more precisely, the lid. It was flat, one of the ones that have the pull tab that is supposed to fold down but generally sticks up in the air, hitting your nose when you go to sip from it, and that also doesn’t close again all the way, leaving puddles of coffee in the car cupholder.

My thoughts turned to my own raised lid with the tiny hole cut out of it and something a man told me in Tate’s Bake Shop a few years back when I was pouring my coffee. He said that women always choose the domed lids and men the flat lids.

Since I often go to Java Nation on my way to work and David does too, I interrupted to ask where he had bought his coffee. It turned out both he and I had stopped at the same coffee shop, were confronted with the same decision, and he had gone for the flat lid, while I had chosen my usual, the raised.

Until that moment, I hadn’t really thought about the observation of that man at Tate’s. When I asked David why he chose the flat lid, he said he just liked it better. I told him the story. He said, “That’s great. You have to write about it.” (Note to self: Do not bring up quirky observations on Thursday mornings.)

I’d like to say I’ve done extensive research on this matter and have devised some perfectly random sample for a definitive survey of this thesis with a 95 percent confidence level, but that is not so. During the editorial meeting that followed, only one other male in the office had a coffee cup. His lid was flat — a good start.

Starbucks, which determined long ago that only the raised lid would do for its coffee cups, is such a big player that it was difficult to collect much data outside of its loyal following. It really came down to just a few conversations I’ve had over the past week with local baristas and coffee merchants who provide both types of lids.

One female, who hadn’t thought about the connection until it was proposed, agreed that men tended to reach for the flat lids when there was an option. As for a reason, she suggested that women like the neatness the raised lid provides with sipping and in the car. She joked that men tend to make the same ingrained choices over and over again. The flat lid was good enough for their first cup of coffee, and that’s what they’re sticking with. After that conversation, I was sure I was on to something. The next day in Java Nation, however, both men in the store had cups with a raised lid.

Now, when I’m around town, in stores, lines, or wherever I see anyone holding a coffee cup, I look at the lid. I’d say the guy in Tate’s has a point, but there will always be outliers, creative types, lone wolves. To them and to those of any gender who make those lid choices everyday, I say vive la difference. And feel free to let us know your preference and why, because now I am intrigued.

A friend with a bad cold handed me a sheaf of papers the other day, and although I was pleased to receive them, I was secretly thrown into a panic. I wasn’t in a place where I could immediately wash my hands, although when I eventually did, I sang “Happy Birthday” to myself — twice.(That’s an old trick for figuring out how long you should wash for it to be effective in removing germs.)

Actually, I wasn’t just thrown secretly into a panic; I was aghast. That’s an overdramatic word, but I had gotten over a cold only about three weeks ago, and have been sneezing and blowing my nose ever since.

As I write this, I must admit that, if indeed a cold is what we’re dealing with, it was more than likely I and not my friend was responsible for passing the germs around in the first place. But I wasn’t in a mood to admit it: This sneezing has goneon so long that I am feeling the need to find someone to blame.

Now, my husband hasn’t had a cold this autumn at all. We sleep in the same bed and are apt to share a spoon over dessert and he hasn’t shown the slightest sign of catching this never-ending cold. So maybe it’s allergies, after all. But how could it be allergies? We had at least one frost recently, and frost is supposed to kill whatever pollens are flying around. Isn’t that what they say?

Okay, yes, I know, there are many other nuisances you can be allergic to — mold, for example, or plain, old-fashioned dust. I don’t think I’ve been around much mold, and whatever dust is near my workspace or home has been there, well, forever. (I think it would be excessive to do an extra-zealous cleaning of the house and office just because I sneeze a lot. And, besides, this cold has left me in no mood for overzealous bouts of house-cleaning. Have I mentioned my mood?)

You, like me, might also have been sneezing a lot lately. It seems like everyone’s got it, whatever it is. What allergens are in the air in October and early November? Isn’t it a bit late for ragweed and goldenrod?

Along with a mild but obnoxious illness of this sort comes a certain civic responsibility. Do you venture out among strangers, friends, and family? If they are thrown into a panic by your sneezing and nose-blowing, do you explain that the cold-versus-allergy question remains unresolved? Are such symptoms sufficient excuse to stay home and read a good book under a blanket on the couch?

Google has plenty of suggestions for how to stop a sneeze — many of them on the painful side. You can pinch your upper lip, your earlobe, or the fleshy place between thumb and forefinger. You can squeeze the tip of your nose, clench your teeth as if in anger, or bend over and hang your head while sticking out your tongue (in the privacy of your own home, I’d suggest).

A few of the remedies sound more pleasant. You can inhale peppermint oil or lemon oil, drink fennel or chamomile tea. But the one I like best, maybe because it sounds strong and just nutty enough to conceivably work, is to crush four or five garlic cloves into a paste and to inhale the fragrance. Tonight at supper, maybe. At the very least, it might discourage my husband from poaching my ice cream spoon.

There haven’t been a lot of cranberries in the bog down our way in Amagansett lately, and there haven’t been all that many foxes either. It is probably related.

There had been a frost or two out on Cranberry Hole Road, a sign that it was time once again to go gathering. Since Sunday was a pleasant day, our son, Ellis, and I walked over from the house to a spot that in my own childhood memory was always full of cranberries.

With our trousers tucked into our knee boots, Ellis and I avoided getting wet as we pawed among the grass to expose the plants and look for the ruby-hued fruit. We found a few handfuls, enough for a small dish of turkey-side relish, I suppose. But more interesting, as we crept about, we noticed tiny, winding trails in the mud.

Walking a bit farther into the bog, I flushed a deer mouse, which dashed off toward the edging pines. It was gone by the time Ellis ran over for a look. That got me to thinking.

If mice eat cranberries and foxes eat mice, then fewer foxes might mean more mice, which would mean fewer cranberries, all other things being equal. There were more foxes around when I was a child and my father took us to get cranberries in advance of the Thanksgiving meal. Maybe it made sense.

Of course, plenty of other factors might be at work. There is an absolutely prodigious acorn crop this year; both the red and white oaks have been dropping them like so many tan hailstones. Ellis and I were at the town youth park on Abraham’s Path the other day, and the bike track there was studded with them.

I offered up my idea about the relative lack of cranberries to Russell Bennett, who lives about a half mile to the west of us on the road. His take, considering the number of rabbits and pheasant he has seen lately: “Next year will be a very good one for the foxes.” He might have a point.

I bought recently for our 6-year old granddaughter “D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths,” and then started reading Robert Graves’s encyclopedic version of them, only to realize that while vastly imaginative they are bloody as hell too, to put it mildly.

I presume the D’Aulaires took the rough edges off for young readers, so as to inspire wonder rather than fuel phantasmagoric fears.

In this connection, I remember starting to read to my son, who was then about 5 or 6, “Le Morte d’Arthur,” and then, with his ready approval, putting it down early on because of the gore.

Yet, despite the rapes, incest, castrations, flaying of flesh, and cannibalism (some of that albeit inadvertent), you can’t help but be fascinated by the Greeks’ vivid storytelling and by how at one with nature they were, to such a degree that gods, demigods (my wife sometimes puts me in that category), and humans often metamorphosed into swans, kingfishers, crows, cows, she-goats, ash trees, serpents, lizards, doves, mice, quail, myrrh trees, anemones, laurel trees, hyacinths, olive trees, spiders, owls, golden cicadas, poplar trees, nightingales, woodpeckers, snow-white bulls, eagles, ants, mushrooms, stones, and so forth (though, fortunately, no ticks).

Nature was so much with them. (This was before malls.) It is still somewhat with us out here: I showered outdoors this morning and later parked under The Star’s mulberry tree, like the one where the starcrossedlovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, were to meet, its white berries dyed red by his blood.

Persephone’s about to rejoin Hades for a while. I wish she hadn’t eaten those pomegranate seeds, but a third of the year in the underworld is what the gods decreed for having done so, and so we must have winter.

May it be a time to reflect upon who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. E.O. Wilson, the antman, thinks there is yet time (though not much) for our “Janus-like species” to work toward restoring the inheritance we’ve largely spent. Will we evolve to that point, or will we remain at war with each other, ourselves, and nature?

What will we metamorphose into?

This month marks a year since I last set foot in Manhattan.

A lot has happened.

Last December, at seven months pregnant, the diagnosis of an “irritable uterus” rendered me unable to lift anything remotely heavy. A brisk walk, a gentle yoga class, even picking up my 2-year-old son, resulted in hours upon hours of painful contractions followed by more than a few panicked trips to the emergency room to make sure that I wasn’t going into early labor.

Needless to say, my movements became more restricted and solo trips into the city seemed absurd.

Flash forward to March, when our daughter, Violet, arrived during the last snowstorm of the season.

People often ask, when ostensibly making polite conversation, if we’re considering a third child. My response, followedby a long, uncomfortable pause, is “absolutely not.”

Two kids is no joke. With one kid, you can sort of fake it. Your body quickly adjusts to sleeping again. Your old life eventually comes back into focus, at least somewhat. But with two children, life seems altered irrevocably, and most days still seem a puzzle whose pieces I have yet to make fit.

My husband and I live in perpetual fear of illness. We’re essentially one bad head cold away from the whole thing falling apart.

I often wonder how people go about deciding exactly how many children to have. As the only child of my parents’ marriage, I reveled in the attention it afforded, but as the years wear on, I also feel the burden of it.

For my son, Theo, I wanted him to have the experience of growing up with a sibling close in age. It’s a wonderful thing to pick up the phone as an adult and reach someone who has the shared trauma of growing up in the same household. As parents, we obviously can’t dictate their degree of closeness, but it’s my hope that Theo and Violet will, at the very least, look after each other.

Shortly after our daughter’s arrival, a friend of my husband’s sent the following note: “I hope this finds you well. I know it finds you exhausted. The thing I miss terribly going from one child to two children was the nap. It was difficult to coordinate two nap schedules and as a consequence the Dad Nap was eliminated. The Dad Nap is an essential part of parenting and sadly with two dependent children, it is a very rare thing.”

My only amendment is the Mom Nap, which has similarly fallen by the wayside.

He ended the note by writing: “Remember, and I say this to truly comfort you, your next good sleep will be in your grave.”

Exhaustion aside, we’re still finding our rhythm among who, exactly, does which increasing number of domestic chores. To his credit, my husband nearly always pulls his weight and seems, for the most part, not to mind it.

Still, I keep having the same nightmare, in which something terrible has happened to me and my children no longer have clothes that fit or fingernails that have been trimmed (I buy their clothes and clip their nails).

My generation is a funny, in-between one. While it was never a question that I would have a career and work outside the home, the roadmap to getting there seems to work a bit differently for each mother I know. Despite being told to Lean In at all costs, we also haven’t figured out basic things like paid maternity leave and child care subsidies to ensure full workplace participation, but maybe that’s a separate conversation altogether.

Shortly after becoming a mother, an old therapist told me that I couldn’t accomplish everything I wanted to do at exactly the same time. Essentially, that if I wanted a big career while my son was still little, I needed to come to terms with the necessity of someone else raising him.

I’m recently back to working part time, but I’m still saying no to more assignments than I’m saying yes to, mostly because my plate feels overwhelmingly full. Having done this once before, I know these early years pass by in a flash and that the time spent with these little people feels like the best work I’ve ever done.

Finding that elusive thing called balance has proven tricky — since the target, well, it keeps shifting. A dear friend who lives in London and is also a mother of two young children, runs a nonprofit and recently departed on a weeklong trip to Africa.

For a month prior, she composed a detailed list of what was to be done each day — when extra pants needed to be packed in case of accidents at nursery school, which frozen meals could be reheated on which nights, and so on.

In all, six people were brought in — her husband, two grandmothers, one part-time nanny, one dog walker, and one housecleaner — to cover for her. By contrast, when her husband leaves town (he travels extensively on monthly business trips), he simply packs a bag and leaves town. A similar phenomenon exists in our household.

We obviously have a ways to go.

My dream is to wake up in Manhattan, childless for a few hours, and a morning filled with exactly nothing to do.

Amanda M. Fairbanks, a reporter for The Star, is recently back on the job after maternity leave.

My husband and I live with tunes of the past. He’s worse than I am, or is it better? He wakes up almost every morning with a song and his repertoire is vast. He’s got Broadway tunes, folk songs, camp songs, and even old radio commercials — like one for G.E. lightbulbs — rattling around somewhere waiting to be unleashed. And he never can explain why a particular song comes forth

On the other hand, I don’t start waxing musical until I’m wide awake, and then I tend to wander around with bits of melody in my head that won’t go away. Today, for example, it was the first line of a song Jenny sings in “The Threepenny Opera”: “There was a time and now it’s all gone by. . . .”

You might be inclined to think that, given the lyric, this song came from a deep, if unconscious, melanchony feeling about time having fled, and you might be right. I am also apt to hear a Noel Coward song that begins with “Where are the songs we sung” or “Long Ago and Far Away” by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin.

But the truth is that there’s some fun and pretense going on. “There was a time and now it’s all gone by” when I used to fantasize about performing in this or that musical, and at least Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s “Threepenny Opera” is among the best.

At other times, the music in my head brings a sense of satisfaction rather than longing. Chris and I try to see every live performance from the Metropolitan Opera that is screened in high definition at Guild Hall. Two weeks ago, the opera was Verdi’s “Otello,” with a stunning performance by a young Bulgarian soprano, Sonya Yoncheva. Her “Willow Song” was heartbreakingly beautiful. “There was a time” when, as a voice student, I learned the “Willow Song” and I remember just enough of it now to enjoy the memory.

“Tannhauser” is coming up this Saturday, and I suppose I could offer to sing a bit from it, too. In high school, I auditioned with three others for the New Jersey All-State Chorus, singing part of “The Pilgrims Chorus” from the opera. I still remember with pride that a judge not only gave us good marks but said I held the group together.

Truth is, I used to be called on in (was it?) third grade to come to the front of the room to belt out “Oh What a Beautiful Morning” if the morning assembly at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School ran short and the bell hadn’t rung, and I’ve sung in choirs and choruses ever since. But it is the slow ballads that continue to reverberate.

But enough. You don’t have to imagine what any of the songs in my mind would sound like if you could hear what I hear. Just go to YouTube and listen to the greats.

This week, amid juggling pre-election stories, it has been project time in the Rattray household. Evvy, our sixth grader, volunteered to make one of the party games for a school Halloween party, and so, after spending Tuesday trying to make sense of campaign finance reports, I raced home with a slab of builder’s blue foam.

We were to have started on the project Monday evening, but Evvy got the green light to go with her grandfather to see the pumpkins at the Bridgehampton Lions Club contest then get dinner. Instead, we set to it a day late. Truth was, her celebration was not for a couple of days, but she said it was due early.

She is calling the game Poke the Ghosts and Pumpkins, and, as best I understand it, kids in the lower grades at her school will choose from among a grid of 50 paper-covered

plastic cups, each ripping through one to discover a prize. Other sixth graders are filling the cups and capping them; our part is making a large foam grid to hold it all.

As I write, I am waiting for her to get out of bed to see about painting it. After spending about two hours the night before helping her mark out lines on the foam and then cut 50 holes with a drywall saw, the enclosed porch where we went at it was filled with tiny pieces of blue debris. Ellis, our 5-year-old, who lost a first tooth later that night, took each of the leftover circles of foam and assembled them into a rectangle by the front door. It was an “app,” he said, as in something one would use on an iPhone.

One of the pleasures, if hectic after a long day, of being a parent is helping with school projects. Of course, the eternal question is how much to do and how much to leave to the child. Evvy, to her credit, sawed at the foam board until her arm got tired. I took over then and finished up. And Ellis never stopped taking the pieces for his app.

Then I vacuumed. And I’ll probably end up driving the thing to school. That will be part of the project, too.

There is nothing new under the bun,” I said in my best Ecclesiastes manner as my sister, who’s rehabbing a back injury in Pittsburgh, and I peered down at the health care facility’s limp culinary offerings.

“Maybe they think that by serving up such awful stuff you’ll be all the more determined to make a speedy recovery,” I said, before I alit on a gambit of my own. “I know,” I said, “I’ll read you some of my columns.”

At last, a captive audience! I had brought several years’ worth in a manila envelope, and before she could say, “Don’t speak,” I began, of course, with the one about Gary Bowen’s and my recent men’s B doubles championship at the East Hampton Indoor-Outdoor Club.

And then I segued into the Memorial Day one, the one, you know, that begins with my saying to Jen Landes that “all of a sudden, our chances of being in an accident have just increased a thousandfold. . . . Honk if you love peace and quiet.”

I spared her the column about the fascinating lovemaking of slugs — no slam, bam, thank-you ma’ams there! — in favor of one about me telling the historical tourists that my time at The Star dated to the Late Paleolithic period, or perhaps to the Early Cretaceous.

Turnabout, of course, is fair play. So, the next day she read me three Psalms, the 131st, the 26th, and the 23rd, her favorite.

But this was no green pasture in which she was lying down — it was a hospital bed in a dreary place, the type of place from which, whenever I find myself in one, I instantly want to flee. Having suffered a compression fracture of a vertebra, she can’t do that yet. My mission, then, was to cheerlead — or to bore her so with my readings that, without any seeming agency on her part, she would leap from her bed and walk.

We talked of the old house, which I had driven by one morning on my way to see her, its bricks pink in the sun on the hill. It seemed a blessed place. Though parents and grandparents are no longer within, it lives on, stolid and upright, as they were.

Of God my sister is fond, but I said to her in taking my leave last Thursday, “I’m putting my faith in you.”