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Weekly words on gun control: anticipation

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SONY DSC

For the sake of nothing really, let’s call the school that Miss T and Bun Bun attend Hogwarts.  The other morning, Miss T told me about a site on Instagram or Snapchat or Facebook – some social media site – called “Hogwarts’ Confessions." On it, students can anonymously tell other students that they’re pretty or smart or reveal that they ‘totally’ love someone on campus, or even that Mr. So-and-So is the best teacher ever.  Knowing the full freedom of the world-wide-web, it sounded to me like an … [Read more...]

Monday motherhood: the old sod, Happy St. Patrick’s Day

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the girls moher

The earthquake this morning made me feel spry.  Getting out of bed is generally a slow process but today, I was up and running to the girls’ rooms like I was twenty-four.  Combined with coloring my hair just awhile ago, back to its former red, I feel almost like a leprechaun if leprechauns were women, living in the open, not making shoes or hording gold coins.  If I’m captured today while dancing a jig, I will certainly grant three wishes upon my release. We traveled to Ireland, the five of … [Read more...]

Friday’s five things: Crimea, Malaysian Airlines, the time change, my name, and winter 2014

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crimea copy

1. Many Americans had never heard of Crimea before, much less knew how to pronounce it.  Cry-ME-yah, cry me a river. Ukraine, sure, and protesters and police killed in Kiev got our attention.  Bush probably would have called the demonstrators ‘Freedom Fighters,' though the name would have been somewhat inaccurate.  Ukrainian opposition was unhappy with Viktor Yanukovych, their democratically elected president, when it seemed he was leaning more towards Russia than the winds that tilt at Europe.  … [Read more...]

Wednesday words on the swagger wagon

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the swagger wagon

I’m saying goodbye to the swagger wagon after 12 years. Did you see “Castaway” with Tom Hanks?  He anthropomorphizes the volleyball he names Wilson.  His are reasons of loneliness.  My reasons for turning the minivan into something more than just a car have to do with child rearing.  The denim blue Toyota Sienna I’ve been driving since 2001 has been my co-parent.  Wait, why are you laughing?  I’m serious. Who can say how much the seven-seater influenced our lives?  I’ll try.  Because of … [Read more...]

Teaching kids that failure = success (with help from the Olympics)

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olympic rings copy

The girls are 14-, 12-, and 11-years old.  By virtue of luck, good genes, and effort, there has been little ‘falling down’ in which they’ve needed to get up and brush themselves off.  This is not a result of helicopter parenting either, though I’ve certainly been known to drop off a forgotten lunch and occasional homework assignment to school because I can.  The girls know ‘it should never happen again’ and so it rarely does. As wise participants of life, we know that all the good stuff … [Read more...]

Super Bowl XLVIII (I love Roman numerals)

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Super Bowl XLVIII

First, Philip Seymour Hoffman.  As my sister said, there was nothing he did, not on stage or screen, that wasn’t good.  Hoffman was a favorite actor of mine from the get-go, which for me was 1994's “When a Man Loves a Woman”, one of the better movies to deal honestly with alcoholism.  He played a fellow rehab patient to Meg Ryan’s and now, as we all know, Hoffman was sober himself for over 20 years.  That he apparently died of a drug overdose surprises no one who has fought addiction, even as it … [Read more...]