Remember when you thought your parents had done the dirty deed twice—once to make you and once to make your sister? And then at some point the illusion shatters. Too bad it’s usually far before the whole concept can be, ahem, appreciated.
That’s Noodle. This photo exactly summarizes her personality. What’s with the Angel sticker on the car, you ask? For Christmas, my sister pimped her husband’s ride. A 1990’s era Honda Accord done up in dragon, skull/crossbone, and angel/devil motif is one hot ticket, let…
(answers below) 1. If you take the waffle iron out of the cupboard on a Saturday morning, open it up and discover an old petrified waffle inside, is it misguided to immediately turn an accusatory eye to the only man who lives in the house? 2. Should an (almost) 40-year-old woman really be expected to…
Scenes from our camping vacation to the Redwoods, also the celebration of our ten-year wedding anniversary. — (As we greet a blackberry bramble enveloped in fog and mislabeled by California State Parks as our campsite) Me: Honey! It’s where I always dreamed we’d awake on our ten-year anniversary! — Chicken Noodle: I am afraid all…
I went to a writing conference over the weekend. The chickens stayed home with Captain Daddy. Mysterious incidents ensued. Each time I braced myself and called home, not one person screamed at me from the other end. No one called me screaming. Not once. In fact, at one point, someone sounding a lot like Captain…
Barry Louis Polisar emailed me yesterday. He saw my post here yesterday and sent me a message to tell me he’s glad he cracks me up. It was like my childhood hero turned up on my front porch. I stared at his name in my in-box while my brain did spastic flip-flops between 1978, when…
So, just a few minutes ago I was diving into today’s projects here in my home office—gearing up for some magazine copy editing, prepping for a phone interview with a college prof at 10, trying to think of what the heck I am going to write about fly fishing, when I heard the doorbell. Obediently…
BOUTIQUEHOTELSCROATIA.NET/BCROATIA/WS/ A postcard I sent to my parents from New York City to Oregon in October, 2008, turned up in their mailbox. (Where it has been in the interim might make an excellent plot for a novel. Or not.) My husband presented me with a tube of bacon chapstick. (Note to the manufacturer—An appealing food…
So, I’m trolling through the grocery store. The chickens trail behind me. They bleat. “Mommy can we have this? Can we have that? Momm-meey?” They grab boxes of Pokemon macaroni and cheese and bottles of bubble bath shaped like Cinderella off the shelves. They bonk into other shoppers like poorly-shot pool balls. It’s been a…
Captain Daddy, on the plane over as Chicken Little climbs him like King Kong on the Empire State Building, roaring and kicking: “Kill me now.” — Captain Daddy, night one, 2 a.m.: “Are you going to take her to the ER or am I?” — R (age 6) to Chicken Noodle (age 4), day two:…