Clubs are an interesting cultural phenomenon, changing with the times. One of my grandmothers was a member of The Friendly Club, which got together mostly to eat. Another was a member of the Homemakers Club, which convened to discuss housekeeping and crafting tips. I would gladly join the first, but not the second. Luckily for [...]
Yesterday I got a run-of-the-mill question via email from a woman whose path I cross every spring, when we work on a project together. Her email caused me to flash back to the first time I met this woman. Let’s call her Leona, as in Helmsley, because there are similarities between the two. Both [...]
Yesterday sucked. Here is proof. At breakfast, I sat at the kitchen counter, watching The Today Show, when a commercial came on for a smoking cessation device. The voice-over said “Stopping smoking sucks. Make it suck less.” I thought, “Huh! That seems pretty daring for daytime TV.” Half an hour later, puttering around and putting off [...]
Upon learning I was pregnant with Ian, the first thing I bought was What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It helped pass the time during those interminable 9-and-a-half months. When he was a few months old, we borrowed Dr. Ferber’s sleep book to “Ferberiz” him and he dutifully learned to sleep through the night. The same techniques [...]
For some time now, Chris and I have been pointing out to our boys that “kids nowadays” say “theenks” instead of “thanks.” They hotly deny it. “Nobody says that!” We tell them they’re wrong, and cite which teenage clerks at which local shops say “theenks” when we hand over our money. They remain deniers. But then [...]
Like an Olympian, I have met my goal…very dramatically, with only seconds left! On Tuesday we went to the YMCA where I checked in, got my ID card scanned, and dialed the Insurance Batphone in the lobby. This goes straight to the automated voice of the Blue Cross lady in charge of the the metrics. She robotically [...]
By Day 5 of our Six Day Weekend, everyone was going a little stir-crazy. Too much TV, too much computer, too much texting, too much shoveling, too much rattling around the house. When the boys were little, this sort of scenario always meant getting them outside and letting them run. A playground, a field, even a sidewalk and a [...]
So there I was, stuck inside the house. A blizzard fell around us. The world outside was a magical, mystical scene, the snow transforming our usually dull state, with a flick of two letters in the final syllable, into the sparkling land of Pennsylnavia. A fire crackled in the grate. A batch of sugar cookies awaited [...]
When I handled PR for a law firm in Philadelphia, one of the lawyers on the marketing committee could be counted on to say the following buzzwords at every single meeting. “low-hanging fruit.” “aspirational” “we don’t know what we don’t know” and my favorite: “metrics.” Everything with this guy boiled down to freakin’ metrics. By which, I finally figured [...]
We got hammered over the weekend – not during the Super Bowl, but by a snowfall of 28.5″ from Friday night into Saturday. It was the second biggest snowstorm since 1996 when 30″ fell. That year, we plopped toddler Hugh down outside in the drifts and he burst into terrified tears. This weekend’s snowfall was of Biblical [...]
