On Tuesdays, everyone fights over who gets to go to the mailbox. Because the winner sees The New Yorker first, which means turning to the last page immediately. We’re not in this for Talk of the Town musings on violincello mute makers or the long-form articles on microbacilli. No, we love the cartoon caption contest, in which readers [...]
My lap top is sick. As I sit here tapping on his frail little keys, I worry about whether he will even live to the ripe old age of three. Little symptoms have been popping up for months. He won’t shut down by himself. He freezes at strange moments. His desktop doesn’t display unless I [...]
Snow day! White out the window, slush on the streets, two kids in their beds, one on the couch (hooked up by IV to the XBox), two parents drinking tea and trying to wake up. Oh, and one unfunctioning computer. So I’m posting this from Chris’s laptop, which is mercifully working. I have to make this snappy [...]
Last week I had an interesting Wall-to-Wall conversation on Facebook. The lovely mother of one of Noah’s friends (who is also MY Facebook friend) commented that she needed a gown for an upcoming party, to which I offered her a foray into my closet which is …ahem… replete with party dresses. She could borrow one. [...]
From the time Ian was born, Chris and I knew we needed to pick a guardian for him, in case, you know, the unspeakable happened. When Hugh and Malcolm came along, we still needed to pick a guardian. But now the job was three times harder, because whoever inherited our kids in the event of [...]
My boys are in a rock band. Nothing brings tears to a Jewish mother’s eyes faster than the six words: ”Meet my son, the lead guitarist”. In all seriousness, I am very proud of their dogged pursuit of the ultimate boy dream and ability to pull their s-t together to try out for the grade [...]
I try to remember that line, uttered by an English monarch during World War II to cheer up the poor bombarded Brits. Hence my choice for a slogan, in my socialist Obama-style poster. To make your own Obama poster starring you or a loved one, go here. Share and Enjoy:
Emily and I talked about starting a new feature once a week, in which we post about a story in the news. I know the real idea is to editorialize about a national news story, but I’m going to start with something sillier. As one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson, has pointed out, true insight into [...]
We all spend a great deal of time and effort teaching our children how to behave. But what happens when it’s your husband who needs a lesson? A close friend of mine recently relayed the following experience to me: Last month, a group of husbands and wives who were all friends arranged for respective boys and [...]
The year was 1980. I was living in Washington DC, working as an au paire for a family headed by a Democratic pollster, a Dungeness-crab-loving Jew raised in San Francisco. He was fascinated by the fact that his young live-in nanny, a junk-food-loving Baptist raised in Missouri, was a registered Republican, and I remember answering pollster-type questions [...]
