The Balance Between Giving and Getting

Yesterday Flipper became an unwitting participant - as she is so many things - Buy Nothing Day, also known as Black Friday. Or, My Personal Version Of Hell. I was beyond appalled to read about the poor man that was killed when he unwittingly and inadvertently UNLOCKED the doors to a Wal-Mart at 5 a.m., only to be rewarded for his efforts to let consumers rush madly in to buy something that they pr…

• Posted 11 mon. ago.

Dr. Freud, I presume?

One of my father's friends has a firm belief that regardless of whatever job you end up with, you never DON'T use your education.

• Posted 12 mon. ago.

Just Do It Already!!

Many things make me crazy, and/or fill me with rage. And today at the grocery store, I was simultaneously almost pushed to create a scene and suddenly filled with a mixture of old, leftover-from-childhood shame. I mean, how often does that happen??

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

Hope

Last week I headed to Carrboro Town Hall to cast my (early) vote and was eager to take Flipper along for a lesson in her (future) civic duty. Perhaps foolishly, I thought she would be THRILLED to go along with me to engage in something so very, very grown-up. HOWEVER ... I was wrong. After my admittedly fumbling attempt to explain what a president does, let alone what "voting" is, she denied me by…

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

Fall: The New Social Season

When, magically, the happy day arrives in which I'm made In Charge Of The World, my first act will be to ban all petting zoos, and THEN I will move onto the tough stuff: Redistribution of not wealth (I'll leave that to Obama), but something equally (more?) important: the redistribution of my calendar. Or, should I say, our calendar, since Flipper's social life is remarkably humming with activity f…

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

Little Chips

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

Hope, one teenager at a time

Stock market and financial news notwithstanding, I have found myself becoming increasingly hopeful over the past few weeks for several different reasons. The main one is that I have a new job, as the high school secretary/office person at my daughter's school. When I was, as they say, "with child," I feared and resisted accepting the reality that one day my little clump of rapidly-dividing cells w…

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

Saved! By a Little Perspective ...

I often feel like Margaret Mead, observing a culture utterly unlike my own. Except I am not in Samoa, and the observee is my own child. She loves all things girly, she loves hair (both her own and anyone else's), she loves anything that seems grown-up and adult and female. She still loves to dress up, squeezing herself into her ballet costume from 2 years ago and shoehorning her feet into her red …

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

The Lonely Only (Sometimes)

Recently, Flipper's only-child status has been causing me a bit of angst — angst that until now has not reared it's unattractive head.

• Posted 1 yr. ago.

Sick ... but not really

Flipper is ... not sick and not well. The fine line dividing the two -and consequently, when to send or not send to school - is much blurrier than I ever thought it would be back in those carefree, BC (before child) times. I thought it would be easy: You are so sick that you should, indeed you MUST stay home from school, and you are completely well and therefore leaping out of bed, ready to race …

• Posted 1 yr. ago.