The Holiday is Over: Back to Blogging – Old School
My daughter’s three-week holiday break ended today with the start of school. My husband also returned to work after being on holiday hours, too. So after the shock of 6:30 AM carpool, I got the desktop computer — and the house — to myself, and had no more excuses for getting DOWN TO WORK.
Except…
…WHERE DO I BEGIN?
Read MoreAnd Yesterday, We All Took a Bath
This is one of a series of old blog posts I’m re-publishing in honor of my 9/10′s of a decade writing SoCal Mom. This was posted December 29, 2006 while on another Christmas visit to England and Wales.
I had a good laugh Christmas Eve, while watching the weather report on the BBC News channel.
“Today was cold and gray all over the country,” the weather reporter intoned. “Tomorrow we’ll have more of the same. Frankly, we don’t foresee anything different until later in the week, when we will see a drastic change…”
I held my breath, hoping for the announcement that we would finally have a sunny day.
“…when the gale winds return, bringing colder temperatures and rain.”
Read MoreWhat happens in the Olive Garden Stays in the Olive Garden
This is one of a series of old blog posts I’m re-publishing in honor of my 9/10′s of a decade writing SoCal Mom. This was first published in December 2005.
Each December, our PTA holds its last meeting of the year in conjunction with a holiday dinner. Sometimes it’s held at a member’s home – but last night, it was a no-host affair at the Northridge Olive Garden.
I imagine that the restaurant employee who booked our reservation for an elementary school PTA, pictured a nice, sedate gathering of teachers and mothers enjoying a nice holiday meal together.
That picture would be wrong. At least this year.
Read MoreHair Raising Problems
When I finally realized my hair was thinning, I got bangs. I hate bangs, but I cannot go out in public without them. They are my version of a combover. I wonder if Donald Trump feels the same way about his hair, which is now a reliable laugh line for every comedian in the country? Of course, Trump could choose to forego combing his hair over the front of his head if he wanted. Bald is acceptable on men, and can even be sexy. (Ask Bruce Willis. Or my husband.) Read the rest of this post over at my lifestyle site,...
Read MoreLast Minute Shopping is The Only Kind I Do
Christmas is six days away and I bought my first gift yesterday. This is an improvement over Chanukah, when my last minute shopping was even worse: everything purchased on the day the holiday began.
I have not always been this much of a flake.
I was not a huge procrastinator when I was young. I carried a DayRunner and I used it — but my memory was so good back then that the mere act of writing something down ensured that I would remember. I rarely needed to look up the phone numbers of my family and friends; I just knew them.
Read MoreAfter Newtown: Holding Them Close
Friday was a minimum day at my daughter’s school, as she wrapped a week of finals before the annual holiday break. I usually bitch and moan about having to quit work at 12:00 to drive to school and get her, but not this time. By then, I knew what had happened in Newtown, and I could not wait to see my kid and hold her close — which has been my inclination whenever the nation has been touched by tragedy.
It is what I did after Columbine, when she was just a toddler, and what I did in 1999, when white supremacist Buford Furrow shot women and children at the Jewish Community Center a couple of miles from our home (after we got the hell out of the neighborhood while the police were conducting a manhunt). It was how I handled my shock and disbelief after the fall of the World Trade Center her second week of kindergarten. I hugged my daughter after each and every report I heard of a child who was abducted… or harmed… or killed. I held her close and I wondered if there was any way to ensure that she would always be safe.
Read MoreBreakfast with a Beatle
The Beatles were in the news this week, with Paul McCartney headlining the 12-12-12 concert benefiting victims of Hurricane Sandy. And last weekend was the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. So I was reminded of this post I wrote back in 2005, describing my meeting with another member of the seminal band of my youth.
It’s obvious that you guys love the show biz stories. So in a pathetic attempt to get you all to keep coming and commenting — and even come back to read my posts about how boring and mundane my life is now — I’m going to honor a request and expand upon one of the items I mentioned in yesterday’s post: My interview with Ringo.
Read MoreConnections
