I’d been watching the vacant former home of my favorite place to buy bread for months.Rumors started to spread about an ice cream store moving into the empty space. And then the rumors were confirmed, which turned out to be very good news indeed. While I missed the bread place, I had high hopes for… Continue Reading
Hat Tip
My mother made hats. She took some night classes in hat-making back in the 60s, honed her millinery skills there, and started cranking out the hats. She made hats out of feathers, fur, fabric, and straw. She used velvet, felt, sequins, colorful fabric flowers, and added stiff veils made with netting. The feathers were the… Continue Reading… Continue Reading
How did we manage to raise kids without these?
Top 9 Things We Didn’t Have But Managed to Raise Our Kids Anyhow #9. Strollers the size of a Smart Car with speakers, cup holders, and phone chargers #8. Gluten-free anything #7. White noise machines that look like sheep #6. Hypo-allergenic, chlorine-free, organic, shade-grown disposable diapers #5. GOOP #4. Super Hero sippy cups #3. Potty… Continue Reading
Sorry You Missed It
“You should’ve seen the Atlantic Ocean in those days.” It’s Burt Lancaster’s line from the movie Atlantic City, and one of my favorites. Why? Because I think of it whenever someone tells me about the best thing ever– that we just missed. Let’s say we’ve arrived in New York (or any other city) and we hear… Continue Reading
What it Takes: College Edition
For over fifteen years, I worked in high schools as a college counselor. I read applications at UC Berkeley for about ten years.In that time, I’ve worked with scores of kids and have read thousands of essays. While there are no set formulas for getting into the most selective colleges, here are some ways students… Continue Reading
And in the end. . .
My best friend in elementary school and seventh grade was, by anyone’s definition, a princess. She was the cool blonde girl with attitude and I was her frizzy-haired comic sidekick. Each September she started school with a new fall collection of dresses, none of which came off the sale rack at Macy’s. Her luxuriously appointed… Continue Reading
In which our plucky heroine triumphs over her arch nemeses
Actually, this post is about eyebrows. My eyebrows, to be specific. It’s the saga of one woman’s struggle to get these damn things looking right, finally. Here’s my story: The evidence was there all along. Looking at the old photos, it seems inevitable: my eyebrows would become the bane of my existence with their propensity… Continue Reading
Rain!
My little Angelino grandson hasn’t had that many chances to get down-to-his socks wet by splashing in a rain puddle. We really need more rain here in California. I hope that perhaps this image will jog some cosmic memory about what should be happening in our much-too-dry state these days. Rain, rain, rain. . .come… Continue Reading
A true friend, a good choice
I’m participating in a blog hop today. The subject is “The best advice you ever received from a friend.” A little background first. I met Carol when our kids were in kindergarten. Her daughter and my son shared the same classroom, and we met on a day when the parents had been assigned to… Continue Reading
Let us now praise headstrong women
I first met Erin Lindsay McCabe at Saint Mary’s College of California. We were both in the MFA writing program; she was in the fiction group, and I was in creative nonfiction. Because we were in different disciplines, and she was in her second year when I came into the program, our paths didn’t cross… Continue Reading