How Would You Grade Your Partner In The Kitchen?
My husband often says “Honey, I emptied the dishwasher for you” which really means that he took the dishes out of the dishwasher and piled them on the counter top for me to put away. For years I thanked him although secretly I thought he was using the wrong pronoun in announcing he emptied the dishwasher for me because I never laid claim to the dishwasher. Read more 
Do You Prefer To Be Called A MILF or a Grandmother?
A few weeks ago I was speeding through the parking lot in my 6 cylinder station wagon (which my daughter thinks is the most uncool car in the world) when I saw the big brown UPS truck come around the corner. I quickly pulled over, jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran over to ask if there was a package for Paddock. There were 2 UPS guys in the front seat , both of whom looked to be in their 20’s, one obviously training the other. Read more
“F in Exams”
My daughter was in a French school from 1st – 4th grade and a bilingual French/English school from 5th – 8th grade which used an International Baccalaureate grading system of 1-7, where 1 is the lowest score, 4 is passing, and 7 is a perfect score. When she came back to the US to attend a high school school where the primary language was English, she had to abandon the metric system of measurements, adjust to the language, and adopt a letter grading system which led to this conversation: Read more
New Jersey’s Gas Pump Problem
New Jersey has always enjoyed favored status with me because I grew up in the northeastern part of the state – an area known for farmland and as a bedroom community for those who worked in New York but wanted to escape the intensity of life in an urban city. Through the years, numerous jokes about New Jersey – the accent, the “joyzey shore,” the Cherry Hill water tower – have been repeated along with the question that always perplexed me: “What exit are you from?” as if New Jersey was a narrow state where all residents could claim an exit off the New Jersey Turnpike. Read more
Facing Consequences
Several months ago I received an e-mail from my daughter’s school alerting me to contact the school should a pair of crutches turn up. Seems someone stole an injured student’s crutches from the gym. At first I thought this was a prank but then I realized the crutches had to have been missing for a while for the school to send out a community-wide e-mail. Who on earth would steal a pair of crutches from an injured student who couldn’t walk without assistance? Read more
You Know You’re In The USA When…
Forty years of my life were spent primarily in the United States and so the culture of this great nation is at my core even though there seems to be more cultural diversity in the US than any other country in the world. Read more
You Know You’re In Madrid, Spain When….
Four of the best years of my life were spent in Madrid, Spain and there isn’t a week that goes by that I don’t think about the capital city, especially the climate, culture, and the food. The weather is incredible: there are four sunny dry seasons which means every day is a good hair day. Writing about hair attributes can sound shallow and frivolous but a city with a “hair ease of maintenance” grade of A+ is worthy of page space. Read more
Exploring Masada, Israel
On a family vacation to Israel, we decided to take a day trip from Jerusalem to Masada, an archeological ruin in the Judean Desert overlooking the southwest coast of the Dead Sea. The concierge at the hotel made arrangements with a local tour company and we were picked up very early the next morning. The driver had a large van and after picking up several other small groups of tourists at local hotels in Jerusalem, we set off for Masada – a roughly 60 mile trip southeast of Jerusalem on the southern coast of the Dead Sea. Read more
You Know You’re in Switzerland When…
My great-grandmother was born in Soulalex, a village located in the French-speaking canton (similar to a US state) of Valais (section 23 in the map below) in Switzerland. Located literally on the side of a mountain, Soulalex was a small farming village a hundred years ago when she left and immigrated to Illinois in search of a better life. She was 16 years old. Read more
Adieu to 2011: The Year of AARP and Paul Anka
2011 is going to remain in my memory for a long time because two significant things happened: I joined AARP and went to a Paul Anka concert – yes, the Peter Frampton groupie of 1975 admits to attending a Paul Anka concert. These events may seem quite normal to some people but for anyone that knows me, joining a club for “seniors” and attending a concert that isn’t considered “rock and roll” borders on breaking the faith of my rebel generation. Read more
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