Garage Sale of a Lifetime

 
Hosting a garage sale is one wicked-ass test of emotional fitness. I discovered this over the weekend after displaying all the tangible evidence of my life on the driveway for strangers to come pick through and haggle over. I barely survived it.
 
I watched this one woman scrutinize my daughter’s little navy dress with the white polka dots.  Elizabeth wore it ten [...]

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A Brief Aside on Tim Russert

 
 
 
 
I need to put my small-town business aside for a moment to talk about the passing of Tim Russert.  I’m so sad about it. I seem to really be taking it personally — and it’s not just because he’s one of those familiar TV personalities that you feel you actually know, it’s more than that. 
 
I come from [...]

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Some Summer Things to Do

 
 
 
School is out.  Thank god.  I can’t take any more crazy school-mom mania.  The overachieving moms get me all worked up with their uber involvement and super fabulousness.  The closer we get to the last day, the harder they organize, schedule, and plan.  I am so not made that way, and I get really grumpy [...]

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A Tale of Two Gardens

When we first moved here, I didn’t know what a Hosta was.  My new neighbor, Karen, told me.  That first spring, still stunned by the loss of my career, I looked out at my new yard and felt helpless and stupid. I was lonely, bored and completely overwhelmed with all the little green shoots popping up, taunting [...]

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One Mother of a Playdate

There’s this thing about a mother’s intuition. We’re supposed to listen to it right?  
  
Not too long ago, a young family moved into JCrewville. They’re really nice and have two really cute kids. I’ve talked to the mother several times. She seems sweet and church-going.  I’ve been careful to watch my language around her.
  
Other than a little small talk however, I haven’t made the best [...]

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Beware of Killer Deer

My daughter Caroline recently informed us she was adopted.  Apparently she used to live with her “First Family” until they were “killed and eaten by a deer”.  Now, she’s announced, she “has to live with us”.  I think she’s mostly okay with this fate, although occasionally we’ll be going somewhere and she’ll comment nostalgically “Yeah, I used to [...]

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See Stick Run.

My daughter, Caroline, has a new pet stick.  Denied any real pets in our house, she now takes inanimate objects under her wing to nurture and to love.  This week, it’s a big stick.  Her benevolence is adorable as she cuddles her orphan stick broken off cruelly from the mother tree and left alone in the [...]

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