Archive for December, 2006
Wednesday, December 27th, 2006
End of the year breakdown
I am sensing that my possessions are fomenting a revolt.
My laptop has suddenly gotten so sloooooow that you can practically hear the pixels lining themselves up and arguing about who has to appear on the screen first. Now when you click on a file you’d like to read, you have time to go take a bath, [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in inanimate objects,real life by sandi
Tuesday, December 26th, 2006
Uh oh, we postponed Christmas
It seemed like such a good idea at the time: hold Christmas this year when everybody could be together at once. So when one of the older kids had to use up some vacation time from work–and, okay, had to go to 80-degree Aruba with her husband, the poor things–we decided we’d just hold Christmas [...]
No Comments » - Posted in kids,real life by sandi
Monday, December 25th, 2006
Speaking at the Guilford Senior Center
[ January 12, 2007; 12:45 pm to 1:45 pm. ] Hey, I will be speaking about my new novel, A Piece of Normal, at the Guilford Senior Center at 12:45 p.m. on January 12, attempting to explain how a person can possibly take seventeen years to write a first novel…and then get assigned to write a second one in just twelve short months.
When you subtract [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Events,writing by sandi
Friday, December 22nd, 2006
Decorating advice you must never, ever try
I’ve been talking to my mother on the phone a lot lately. It’s Christmas, after all, and she doesn’t want to get on a plane and travel to the far reaches of North America, which is how she thinks of Connecticut. So instead, we’re talking on the phone enough to make us feel as though she’s taken [...]
No Comments » - Posted in crazy mothers,real life by sandi
Wednesday, December 20th, 2006
So you’ve got questions…
Anyone who’s spent any time at all with a kid at home knows there are plenty of unanswerable questions in the world. My friend Diane, the mother of 3-year-old Maisie, has lately been forced to ponder the existential questions of scarecrows. As in, why aren’t they scary?
Ha! you think. (I can hear you thinking this.) That’s [...]
1 Comment » - Posted in real life by sandi
Tuesday, December 19th, 2006
Before you get married…
The New York Times in its helpfulness has come up with a list of questions couples should ask each other before they get married. Very sensible things–like should we have kids, do we agree about kids, finances, religion and sex, what’s going to happen if one of us gets a job elsewhere?
These are good enough questions, I suppose, [...]
3 Comments » - Posted in real life by sandi
Monday, December 18th, 2006
So the empty nesters finally get a Christmas tree
Along with getting to sleep later in the mornings, take a shower whenever you want to (it’s always free), and go to bed without worrying that your teenager isn’t home yet, it turns out that there’s another advantage to being an empty nester.
You can get a Christmas tree as late as you want to.
Usually–in our child-populated [...]
No Comments » - Posted in kids,real life by sandi
Friday, December 15th, 2006
How to lose 5 pounds! Even at the holidays!
Okay, so I have a couple of eating issues:
A pound of toffee arrived in this morning’s mail, and there was no one home but me.
I am going out to a party tonight at the best pizza place in East Haven, which may be the town that makes the best pizza in the whole world. This pizza is so [...]
2 Comments » - Posted in friendship,real life by sandi
Thursday, December 14th, 2006
The Santa Claus terrors
It just wouldn’t be Christmas without toddlers freaking out on Santa Claus’s lap while their well-meaning parents snap photographs to blackmail them with in later years.
The Chicago Tribune a few years ago collected photos of kids being terrified by Santa, and to get yourself in the true holiday spirit, I recommend looking at their collection. [...]
No Comments » - Posted in kids by sandi
Wednesday, December 13th, 2006
Elegy for a father
We live a whole continent away from the forests of Oregon, but back when I was a Californian, I spent some summers camping there and walking through the dense, deep, quiet woods.
And so when I heard the news stories about James Kim, the young father who was missing there after he’d gone to search for help [...]
