Innocents At Home

by December 11, 2008 » Add more comments.

It snowed the other morning north of Boston. It was the first, early snowfall of the season, if you take a very literal view of the term “snowfall,” because the flurries that fell didn’t amount to any real accumulation. They stuck tentatively to the ground, in clusters, like they Read more »

I Can Haz Hoomin Hart-aik

by December 1, 2008 » Add more comments.

Maybe it’s because the onset of the holidays always puts me in something of a melancholy mood, or maybe because I’m again staring down the barrel of six bleak months of winter, but I can’t help but read lolcats these days without glimpsing at something of the heartache of Read more »

Four Diary Entries

by November 17, 2008 » Add more comments.

Barb Chamberlain is the Director of Communications and Public Affairs at Washington State University in Spokane. She was also the youngest Representative and (later) Senator elected to the Idaho State Legislature–which I didn’t know until she tagged me in a post she wrote on her blog: Five things you don’t Read more »

Punk’d

by November 8, 2008 » Add more comments.

When the flight attendant advises that passengers place the oxygen mask over their own faces before assisting those seated nearby, I always interpret this imperative more broadly—that I should take care of my own needs first, whether or not I’m strapped into an airplane seat, 10,000 feet in the Read more »

Relax and Open Wide: Dentist vs. Doctor

by October 30, 2008 » Add more comments.

Sometimes when I’m bored and have neglected to tote some reading material—like when I’m standing in line at the supermarket, or waiting for a movie to begin—I indulge in a debate I have with myself: Which do I dislike more: a visit to the dentist, or a visit to Read more »

A Toast to Cancer

by October 20, 2008 » Add more comments.

A small, red wound—no bigger than a poppy seed—appeared mysteriously on the bridge of my nose a few months ago. At first it sat there quietly and behaved itself, and I assumed the strange bump would heal steadily and vanish as furtively as it had arrived. Only it didn’t, and Read more »

Sarah and Me: Junior High with Sarah Palin

by October 12, 2008 » Add more comments.

On the surface, I should like her. Sarah Palin is 44, precisely my age. We were born three months apart. And like me, she’s a mom and works full-time. We should hang out, clink our highball glasses, and salute the kind of kismet that competent women often need Read more »