My grandmother died this week. It was expected; she’d had Alzheimer’s for years and finally forgot how to eat, taste, swallow, drink. She’d long forgotten my name, or how to walk, or that she once worked in the U.S. Senate. She was ninety-four, a half-century older than me.
Read more...Saturday night I took my twins to see The King’s Speech. The only thing remarkable about the event is that my children are nine and the film is rated R, although only for the curse words. Call me a bad mother, but my children have heard four-letter words—sometimes in the home, and sometimes not. In third grade, they are sponges for slang of any kind, even though most of the time they have no real sense of the words. They whisper and titter because they know the words are naughty, and this, of course, gives them a thrill.
Read more...I can’t remember how the conversation started but in the midst of a family dinner, my sister-in-law’s brother, Eric, began to talk of strange dreams about flying.
“Tell me more,” I asked him.
Read more...I’m a lucky woman. I’ve got so many friends.
This holiday season I’m feeling especially blessed by the people in my life. You know who you are. You’re my old friend who I played dress-up with and pretended to speak a foreign language called Limerick Gibberish. You’re my high school friends who cheered over my first boyfriend and exposed me to life in a far broader sense than I’d known. You’re my college and New York City
Read more...This past Friday I took my eighteen-year-old stepson, Dylan, to tour the University of Colorado (CU) at Boulder. He’s a high school senior and hoping to go to CU next year, which, apart from being a great school, is also Ralphie the buffalo’s turf. No joke, they have a real buffalo that leads the players onto the field at the beginning and second half of each football game.
Read more...Every once in awhile you see a sight so jolting it changes your perception, sometimes instanteously. This happened to me on Sunday. I dragged myself to the gym – and I do mean drag – and while half asleep lying on the cushioned weight bench, feeling
Read more...The other evening I saw Davis Guggenheim’s powerful documentary, “Waiting for Superman.” It’s about the failures of the public school system and how we as a society fail to reward outstanding teachers. Yes, the film has a point of view — that charter schools are superior to public education. I don’t necessarily agree with this premise but I do believe that every child has the right not to attend a failing school. See it for yourself.
Read more...Today I put a half-gallon of milk in the cupboard, stacking it alongside the mismatch of coffee mugs, some of which date back years.
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