My husband and I have a running joke. At least I think it’s a joke. Every night after he takes Achilles outside one last time, he says, “I took the dog out for you,” as though the dog’s nightly eliminations somehow belong in my… Read full post »

 

I keep this picture on my bedside table. It’s my favorite picture of the kids and I, taken ten years ago, a blurry snapshot from Napa Valley getaway. Real photographers would probably say that it’s not a keeper. The image is overexposed, the baby’s not… Read full post »

 

My dog is under the impression that he is both paralyzed and in big trouble. All it took was a cone.

In the past I have openly mocked dogs wearing the big Cone of Shame as my prancing, handsome dog Achilles trots alongside looking like he is… Read full post »

 

I get approached by a lot of PR people who want me to write about their product or service, and I almost always say no. But when I saw the cover image for this diet book, I couldn’t… Read full post »

 

I enter a lot of writing contests, some of which announce the winners months later, by which time I’ve largely forgotten both that I’ve entered and what I wrote about. Imagine my pleasant surprise when my friend Risa notified me that we’d both been recognized for… Read full post »

 

Last week was Spring Break around here, and many families took the opportunity to augment their children’s education by taking them to brainy places like Washington D.C. or the local science museums.

Not I.

The girls and I headed on down the road to Los Angeles,… Read full post »

That keening scream you heard from the West Coast, two Saturdays ago? It was the collective dashed hopes of thousands of future Mrs. Harrys, Liams, and Nialls wailing their displeasure.

There was a point at which I worried that my children would have unreasonably high expectations around… Read full post »

 

 

Tomorrow is the last day of National Laugh at Work Week, and I wanted to pay homage to all those times I’ve collapsed in mirth at my desk due to spontaneous hilarity.

…

Well. There was one time, when a macho coworker walked into a spider dangling… Read full post »

 

 

The neighborhood bookstore I frequent is owned by and filled with lovers of dystopian Young Adult fiction. Maybe the premise of a post-apocalyptic future seems less fictional to them, what with their daily visits from idiots who ask for book recommendations and then whip… Read full post »

I am the youngest of three and spent an inordinate amount of time in my childhood trying to figure out one trick – JUST ONE – that would give me some leverage over my older brother and sister for all the times they flaunted their authority over… Read full post »

The Band: Of Monsters and Men, March 22 2012. An Icelandic band that is neither Björk, Sigur Rós, nor the Sugarcubes, these indie folk/pop rockers are on the verge of releasing their first US album next month. The six-pack of players (augmented by one on this/… Read full post »

My oldest daughter has attended an all-girl’s middle school for the past three years, and I think it’s fair to say she is ready to the point of bursting to start a co-ed high school next fall. All signs that her romantic clock is approaching High… Read full post »

Lately I have thought I possess the luck of the Irish. That is, the luck of the Irish who were left behind during the Great Potato Famine.

First I woke up on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago to a black computer screen that said, and I’m… Read full post »

 

One of my favorite publications that still features personal essay – skirt! Magazine – has done me the honor of including one of my pieces in their March issue, which has a Time theme.

The piece I wrote, Time Warp, contemplates the way that time stretches out/… Read full post »

 

Have you ever been surprised by the sound of your own voice? The few times I’ve read my work on the radio, I listen to the broadcast with a mix of horror and revulsion. Really? That’s how I sound, like I have pebbles up… Read full post »

 

 

After thinking about all the things that I don’t want to do before I die in Tuesday’s post, I had to consider the things I have done that I’d consider lifetime achievements. Childbirth, times two. My first published (and paid) essay.  Being in Germany wh… Read full post »

 

Here’s the list of ten things I do NOT want to do before I die. So far, so good.

10.) Run a marathon, participate in a tri, or cycle 100 miles in support of disease research. Now before you get judgmental, I promise you that I am all… Read full post »

 

 In about six weeks I’m heading to Mecca – that is, Dayton, OH, hometown of my writerly hero Erma Bombeck, for the biannual Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop. This piece is in my best Ode to Erma style.

I recently learned the word “prinking,” which m… Read full post »

 

The Band: Bob Schneider, Thursday February 23 2012. Schneider, a singer/songwriter from Austin, has a cult following by funny women bloggers, with Laurie Writes and Wendi Aarons leading the “Have you seen him play yet?” charge. He’s a big deal in Austin’s vib… Read full post »

Certain sharp moments remind me to stop and be grateful I live in the San Francisco Bay Area: the sight of the sun setting behind the Golden Gate Bridge, glimpsed as I drive home from the grocery store; a table spread with newspapers, fresh Dungeness crabs, loaves of… Read full post »

 

At my first real job at a tech consulting company in Germany, my boss handed me six boxes of software to install, along with their manuals, and said, “You know what you’re doing, right?” Like I was going to admit the truth and get sent… Read full post »

 

I nearly lost a house over a Bare Naked Ladies concert.

We were living in an apartment in Washington, DC at the time, on the hunt for our first house up and down the streets of Glover Park, Cleveland Park, and Cathedral Heights. One day our… Read full post »

A couple of weeks ago at the dinner table, I was doing my customary “Troops, here’s how the next two weeks are going to go down” speech to the family that outlined upcoming doctor’s appointments, car pool responsibilities, babysitting jobs, and out of town visitors. I summe… Read full post »

I live in a house with two ballet students. There is not a conversation to be had within my home that is not accompanied by two jetés and a pas de bourrée dessus-dessous. My eldest daughter is known at school as “that girl who pirouettes down the hall,”… Read full post »

The other night I served steamed turnips for dinner. No, I was not doing an "Ode to Wartime Rations" themed dinner, although that's what it tasted like. It was yet another failed attempt to identify a vegetable in the box I get every week from a Community Supported… Read full post »