Remember Dark Willow on Buffy? Right before she killed someone with a creepy, black-eyed snap of her fingers, she’d say “Bored now,” in that sweet Allison Hannigan voice, and you know what? Bored now. Okay– not really. I just took a look at the roster of my friends’ blogs that I HAVE NOT read and… Read More

I should have more pictures of her. But I got the cell phone two years ago, and she’s been part of my life for fifteen– somewhere in this computer, I’ve got pictures of her from the very beginning, but not now.  (There are actually more in my phone, too– but I was not in the… Read More

One day a mother took her two children to a small urban zoo.  The zoo was getting crowded– it had, in fact, been around for quite some time, and was built back in the days when people used to dismiss or marginalize the amazing creatures inside.  It was growing now, in leaps and bounds, and… Read More

 Okay– looking back at my blogposts, I realize that I went from running screaming out of the damned hotel to “Hey, it was great, and look, ALLIGATORS!” to, “My family sucks!” and I bypassed some seriously fun moments. Sorry about that! But the fact is, between “RUN AWAY!” and, “Oh crap I’m back and I’m… Read More

So an interesting thing happened with my family.  I was asked (at the last moment) to write my grandmother’s obituary, and for a whole minute, I was really proud.  This was something I could do.  I wanted to use a few brief words and paint a picture of my grandmother as an extraordinary woman.  I… Read More

Okay– so it’s Valentines Day tomorrow, and I spent all day running around doing… well, unpleasant tasks.  Laundry.  Lawyer shit.  Son’s dentist appointment.  My own dentist appointment.  Writing an obituary.  Taking a nap because, in spite of all the stuff I had to do, I was still recovering a bit from my trip. Anyway– but… Read More

So I left these people, looking sweet and adorable and fun, and came to Florida. For the record, I like North Florida. Not a soul here has not been kind, with a big smile and an earnestness to help.  (We will not discuss the Bird-Bates Hotel– but even those people are nice.)  To the right… Read More

Okay.  I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that getting an invasive pat down in an airport because one’s maxipad apparently looked threatening on airport security X-Rays pretty much levels out the weirdness scales of bad travel stories, right? Yeah. I thought so too. Of course, when I sat next to Michael from Mourning Heaven… Read More

Mate:  You know, this new Ninja Turtle show is pretty good. Me:  Right?  The dialog is fairly entertaining. Conclusion:  Maturity is for the weak Me:  Yeah, the Art Docent lesson plan called for oil pastels and watercolors.  I had them make dots with markers instead. Squish’s Teacher:  Oil pastels and watercolors?  IN A CLASS WITH… Read More