Rants & Reflections

A week ago Friday as I was on my way out the door to run errands, the phone rang and I could see it was the Middle School. I answered the call, and Zack’s homeroom and science teacher introduced herself. I reflexively went to that “oh sh*t” place, although I quickly rationalized that being Zack’s teacher, she was more likely calling to report an errant homework assignment than any kind of misbehavior on Zack’s part.

Instead, she told me that even though she’s so busy that she rarely gets the opportunity to make positive phone calls, Zack was such a special kid she really wanted to make the time to let me know. She went on and on about what…

Category: Rants & Reflections

The funniest thing just happened. I was organizing a bunch of digital photos of Jake and Zack when they came up behind me and started watching over my shoulder. One of them pointed to a photo and said, “That’s me.” Except it wasn’t. It was his brother. This happened over and over, each incorrectly identifying himself more than half the time. They have no idea what they look like – because they spend more time looking at the other!

I never really stopped to think about it. When you see a photo of yourself, you generally know it’s you because there’s no one else who looks so much like you. But not these guys! Even though they’re genetically fraternal,…

Category: Rants & Reflections

Today was not a very good Monday. It started out as any ordinary day, but in short order it turned into the Monday from Hell.

At 7 a.m. I climbed into the car I sent in for service last week and found that none of my problems was remedied. I had complained that the sound system sounded like crap. They chuckled at what they assumed was a silly girl and said I must’ve had the headphone button pushed in. Didn’t sound much better when I picked it up, and this morning I figured out why. Sitting in bumper-to-bumper high school traffic, I played with the balance and found that all the speakers on the right side of the car aren’t…

Category: Rants & Reflections

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Category: Rants & Reflections

Did you ever wake up with the uncontrollable urge to organize your house or office? Not the banal daily kind of cleaning and straightening. I mean projects you always mean to get to: going through piles of stuff that have been cluttering your desk or your countertop for months…cleaning out your closet…organizing your underwear drawer…matching up your socks…alphabetizing your cookbooks…cleaning out your handbag…refolding your linens…tagging all the photos in your digital albums…dumping the moldy contents of the Tupperware in the back of the fridge…writing out a bunch of notes or cards you’ve been meaning to send…running errands with sleek efficiency…shopping for and cooking a scrumptious gourmet dinner from a bunch of magazine recipes you’ve dog-eared and meant to try….

Category: Rants & Reflections

Either I’ve got a face that somehow makes strangers feel compelled to confide their innermost troubles, or someone snuck in one night while I was sleeping and wrote “Tell Me What’s Wrong” on my forehead in ink that’s invisible in the mirror.

Don’t misunderstand – lending an ear, a shoulder, encouragement and a big hug is one of my trademarks as a good friend, and it has been at least since my days at Boston U when my friends identified me as the least screwed-up and made me, de facto, the go-to problem solver. Whether I’ve actually ever felt that way or not, I’ve always been perceived as the one who has her sh*t together. And while I don’t honestly…

Category: Rants & Reflections

It’s high time I talked about the mailmen in my life. Calm down, it’s nothing lascivious or scandalous. The very first day we moved into our new home in Barrington back in ’99, the mailman came all the way down the long driveway to the door to introduce himself. Jim was his name. An older guy with white hair and a mustache, Jim would’ve been a perfect extra on the Cheers set. He proceeded to tell me how many years, months, weeks, days and hours it was until he would retire. Nothin’ like loving your job.

Over the years, Jim did as little as was required to deliver our mail. He told me he had the most enviable route because…

Category: Rants & Reflections

Happy birthday to me…or at least to part of me. It was exactly one year ago—March 6, 2007—that I underwent my life-changing preventative mastectomy and came out with my new breasts. Sorry to disappoint, but there are no “before-and after” shots linked to today’s entry. Best I can do is report that while I have slight incision scarring, everything has healed up quite nicely, and the biggest aesthetic upside (literally!) is the gravity-defiance factor. Quite simply, silicone rocks! And while so far I’ve stuck with these adorable C’s, which were the largest implants the surgeon felt he could prudently insert at the time for my best shot at complete skin and nipple healing, I may swap…

Category: Rants & Reflections

The Talmudic rabbis way-back-when figured that at 13, a boy was old enough to know right from wrong and therefore become responsible for fulfilling the mitzvot (commandments) that are part of being a Jewish adult – in other words become a bar mitzvah. While it’s a pretty dubious concept today that a teen knows enough right from wrong (Jamie-Lynn you ignorant slut!), the unintended yet fortuitous benefit of the rabbis’ proclamation is that modern parents of a 13-year-old are given an invaluable opportunity – to connect (or reconnect) to their faith in a more reflective, spiritually meaningful way.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve seen a lot more life go by since the day we stood with our tiny eight-day-old…

Category: Rants & Reflections

S’top chef! As a dedicated viewer of Bravo’s Top Chef, I am now seriously questioning the critiques decreed upon the contestants by head judge Chef Tom Colicchio. That’s because I ate at his restaurant Craft over the weekend, and if the food we were served is any indication of Chef Colicchio’s top standards, I’m not wowed.

I had been delighted to score a four-top on Saturday night at 8. We had arranged plans to celebrate the recent engagement of a darling young cousin of mine and meet her fiancé, so I had been checking Open Table for a couple of weeks to find something special. I had reserved tables at two other restaurants (one was a great restaurant but the…

Category: Rants & Reflections