Passover 2013
Spring break for my daughter began Friday night with a friend’s birthday party: a sleepover at her family’s beach house out in Malibu. This meant driving out there Friday after school and then again to pick her up on Saturday morning – before my husband and I had to race to an appointment near downtown Los Angeles. Needless to say, come Sunday morning I was a whirling dervish of Passover cooking and cleaning. And I somehow managed to get all the matzo balls, kugel, roast chicken and silver polishing done in time to sit down for our tiny little family Seder. At the ritual’s midway point, when we break to enjoy the result of all that cooking, I realized I had never called my sister in Sacramento, to wish her a Happy Passover. “What are...
Read MoreFriending the Rabbi
I friended my rabbi on Facebook. Should I be afraid of what he will think of me if he actually sees what’s in my timeline?
Read MoreMy Secret Single Behavior
My husband brought work home over the weekend, and it took up most of his time on both Saturday and Sunday. And with midterms this week, my daughter was pretty much in the same boat. This meant that I was pretty much on my own for the entire weekend. This allowed me to engage in “secret single behavior”: a phrase I first heard in that episode of Sex and the City where the gals talk about activities one indulges in only when alone. For Carrie Bradshaw, it was standing in her kitchen and reading fashion magazines, while eating crackers with jelly. For me, it’s getting into the car and taking a drive. As a teenager, I would borrow my mom’s car on a Saturday and just see where the roads took me. I wasn’t allowed to go on the freeway,...
Read MoreA Day Without Orange Juice…
…is like a day without sunshine. Remember that old advertising slogan? Well, substitute “email” for “orange juice” and you know how my weekend was: there was an issue with the mail server associated with the socalmom.net domain and I did not receive any work related email for about 48 hours. And that changed the second half of the slogan, because without the usual continuing barrage of pitches, petitions and plain old spam — I had a rather nice weekend. It’s true I missed some email I actually wanted and I am sorry about that. A few people let me know via other accounts that their messages to me were bouncing, and that’s when I realized that my main email account was down. If you were trying to reach me to let me...
Read MoreNearly Wordless Wednesday: 20 Years
We’re not able to go away to celebrate this year – but I feel the milestone is worth a little extra acknowledgement.
Read MoreLean In, Chin Up and Tune Out
I’ve been thinking a lot about women and our place in society the last couple of weeks. This is appropriate, as it is Women’s History Month and was kicked off at PBS with “Makers,” a three-hour documentary on the “second-wave” women’s movement.I sat down to watch it last weekend and was enthralled. I am old enough to remember all the events portrayed in the film, but was too young at the time to grasp the significance of the earlier events. And while I happily recognize that we’ve “come a long way,” I am terribly sad and frustrated that we’re not even close to achieving true equality.
Read MoreThis Week’s Challenge: Tax-ing Commitments
I finally submitted all my tax information last week and breathed a sigh of relief. The following day, I experienced a bout of unaccustomed efficiency: I wrote, I updated websites, I interacted with people. It’s like this huge taxing weight had been lifted and I was able to focus on doing meaningful work.
One day later, I was back to my usual, drifting, unfocused self. But last week, I showed myself that I CAN cross things off my to-do list. And this week, dawggoneit, I’m going to do it again.
Read MoreConnections
