Being self-employed has its benefits, like sneaking out to see a movie during the morning. This is the kind of impulsive, madcap adventure Chris and I thought we would frequently do when we started our own agency, and yet I think we’ve seen exactly two movies during a workday in the last 26 years. Friday was one of [...]
See the headline? That’s August in Philadelphia. It’s the way you’ll hear weather described on the radio and by people in the grocery store. Around here, folks pronounce “humid” not with an aspirated H at the beginning, but as if there’s no H at all. This is also true of the way my middle son’s name is pronounced. [...]
On Sunday, while Emily was doing her death-defying Tri, I was delivering Malcolm to his favorite place on earth, Camp Woodward in central Pennsylvania – mecca for skateboarders, BMX bikers, roller bladers, and gymnasts. Question: What’s wrong with these pictures? Answer: You don’t see anybody skating! Even Malcolm is WALKING to his cabin, CARRYING his board. [...]
Sadly, we needed expensive studies and elected officials to tell us that texting while driving = bad. This report comes straight from the Ministry of the Bleeding Obvious (hey, have I just quoted a Monty Python reference?). The conclusion is painfully self-evident. Do we really have to be told not to take our eyes off the road and look [...]
Finding this beloved book from my childhood remains a holy grail. I know it has been reprinted in paperback form, but what I really covet is the mid-century hardcover version, exactly like the one my mom checked out of the Gardner, Kansas public library over and over, to read over and over to my brothers and [...]
Despite the fervent arguments made by nurture-over-naturists in the 1970s, I think it’s clear to everyone now that yes, Virgil and Virginia, gender differences definitely do exist, and to deny this basic fact is to invite mockery from even the most liberal of your friends. Having been a girl in guy-land all my life, here is a [...]
That’s my beautiful niece Logan, age 13, who grabbed every spare minute during the family reunion to read Memoirs of a Geisha. She even sat in the car while everyone else went on a quick shopping trip so she could finish it. Logan highly recommends this book, as does my dad. And speaking of being [...]
Little kids run all the time. It’s their preferred pace. Around age 12, one study said, kids start slowing down. The upside? They help carry stuff! Here are the same two kids, Hugh and his godsister Hollis, along the same shoreline. They used to be so short. Now they’re so tall. There is nothing like time [...]
For today’s Friday News Flash, I considered writing about the 69 year old Spanish woman who moved heaven and earth to conceive at age 66, only to die when her twins were two years old. But as news stories go, that one is just too depressing and screwed-up to even get into. Instead, I picked this amazing and uplifting [...]
Today’s headline is my favorite palindrome. As a Philadelphia-area-resident who has a son who hates bananas, it resonates. One great feature of family reunions is that you find other people with the same likes/dislikes as you. Banana-hating has been found on the 18th chromosome of our DNA. It is expressed most clearly in the forms of my [...]
