Cooking is a touchy subject for me.  My mother did not love to do it and only out of obligation did she have a hot meal for us every night.  When I began college, I didn't even know how to boil water for pasta.  

  Once… Read full post »

When I was in my 20s and living in Manhattan, I thought I could save the world.  I truly believed that by not eating meat or wearing leather products I was sparing the lives of specific cows, chickens, turkeys, and pigs.  I was certain that by substitute teaching in a… Read full post »

   "Do you mind if I look at your tattoo?"  I asked.   Without hesitation, she gingerly rolled up the sleeve of her black sweater, revealing the five faded blue-black numbers ingrained into her left forearm.  They were smaller and more grave than I'd imagined.  Underneat… Read full post »

Most people don't love the smell of body odor.  All over the world, people bathe to stay clean and fresh.  Here in America, however, it seems that we have become a bit obsessed.  Americans use more soap than any other country.  Interestingly, we also stand farther apart--an avera… Read full post »

             our wedding day:  July 30, 1994 

Will Smith; Mick Jagger; Ashton Kutcher. . .

They're the fake sexy, as in air-brushed-magaine-picture-back-ground-movie-music-sexy.  Don't get me wrong--I love that kind of sexy.  … Read full post »

From the time my 13-year-old son was an infant, he had a peculiar relationship with food.  He nursed like a fiend and couldn't get enough of my milk.  As soon as we started him on solids at six months, however, he was not shy with his aversion to them.… Read full post »

When my mother was selling my her house several years ago, my brother, sister and I came across a childhood's worth of memorabilia.  Among the treasures were my lime green record player; pink psychadelic record box  (holding singles such as Conway Twitty's Don't Cry Joni, Shaun Cassid… Read full post »

  On Friday, my son told me that all of the boys in his class got in trouble for talking in gym.  Their punishment was to sit against the wall for most of the 40-minute class.

"I just don't understand why he has to tell us all the rules for… Read full post »

I was lying in bed on this lazy, rainy Saturday morning when my 10-year-old came into my room.  He sat at the bottom of my bed and began petting the dog, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Mom, do you have springs on your mattress?" he asked. 

"Yeah,… Read full post »

"Awesome!" my son screamed as we all came to a a skidding stop, our skis cutting sharply into the packed snow.  

"That's so cool!" exclaimed my other son, looking up towards the sky.

"Whoa!" my husband blurted out as he stared in wonder.

I was the only one of… Read full post »

 Sunday 

I don't know what's wrong with me!  S had a birthday party at 3:30 at the roller rink today.  I was positive it ended at 6:30.  I looked at the invitation five times and each time I thought to myself, "three hours--that's a long party.  I wonder why she… Read full post »

                   Frank Buckles as a boy 

As our country honors its veterans, we look back on the various wars that America has been a part of.  Of the 23.2 million veterans in the United States today, 12.6 million served du… Read full post »

Nana's banana bread baked by me this morning 

Nana and Pop-Pop--Jones Beach, 1935 

Nana and Pop-Pop with their children in 1974 

  When I walked into my kitchen this morning and saw three over-ripe bananas, I knew they wouldn't last the… Read full post »

  After reading all day about the 20th anniversary of the destruction of the Berlin Wall, I dug up photo albums from my travels in Europe, where I lived for 6 months during my junior year of college.  During a 3-week backpacking trip in early 1990, I stopped in Berlin, and… Read full post »

I recently came across an old picture of my son and me taken at a local amusement park.  His chubby two-year-old hand rested on my arm, his legs bent against my body, and his cheek was brushed by the top of my t-shirt.  I was sitting on a park bench,… Read full post »

                     Halloween caterpillar 

When I opened my back door this morning, a burst of warm, fall air enveloped me.  The chill of an early November Sunday hung around, but there was a hesitancy, as if aut… Read full post »

After reading Kathy Riordan's beautiful poem today, I was inspired to go back to my college days and take a shot at it:

I Thought I Could Remember How to Write a Villanelle

I thought I could remember how to write a villanelle

The bird perched on top of… Read full post »

I just read Publisher Weekly's 2009 Top Ten List of Books.  All of them are written by men.  With the exception of Cutting for Stone, which I am in the middle of (and loving), not one of them has made its way onto my reading list.  Though I have read… Read full post »

"I'm not using 'love'.  That's so GAY!"

My son was writing thank-you notes for his recent Bar-Mitzvah.   He was not happy with my suggestion to replace "from" with "love" before signing his name.  

"What does GAY have to do with it?" I asked him.  

He was used to… Read full post »

           rocks around my father's headstone 

my daughter saying happy birthday to Grandpa 

Dear Daddy,

Happy Birthday.  

Some things that have happened since you've been gone:  

Princess Diana died (a few weeks after… Read full post »

A small square on the bottom of today's New York Times caught my eye as I shuffled around the kitchen getting the kids ready for school.  Claude Lévi-Strauss had died in Paris at the age of 100.  Levis have always been my most comfortable jeans, and I turned to page… Read full post »

Gourmet vegetable wraps, fancy cheese and avocado quesadillas, eggplant parmagian heroes---nope, not for me.

I'll take PB & Fluff over those any day.  Read full post »

I read an article over the weekend that harshly criticized Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid book series.  The author claimed that the protagonist of the book,  Greg Heffley, was a terrible role model for young children.  According to the article, his rogue ways (which include steali… Read full post »

Stab a Knife in my 

Heart

and let the blood flow

fast

over the broken pieces of my daughter's

50s poodle skirt

so the shattered shards float up from her

Saddle shoes and

come together

again.

Stab a Knife in my

Heart

and let the lovely liquid love

cover my… Read full post »

It's Halloween.

Take off your mask.

Stop hiding behind that thick layer of rubber.

Or that thin sheet of plastic.

It's time you look yourself in the eyes.

Without something buffering the image.

That elastic is giving you a headache.

After all those years of digging into your skull.

It's… Read full post »