Month: March 2007

One of my fondest memories from the early days of my marriage is Sunday mornings. My husband and I would make a pot of coffee and settle in to read the Sunday paper. With no distraction save a cat kneading our laps to make a bed, we could enjoy a leisurely hour or two reading and talking, debating and commisserating. Then we had kids. Sunday mornings were no longer leisurely. Then we divorced, and Sunday mornings pretty much ceased to exist except in terms of time. Until noon on Sunday, it was Sunday morning. And I was the only adult on the scene, so sipping hot coffee and reading quickly became a thing of the past. Which was probably all for the best, because I could no longer afford a subscription to the Sunday paper. My ex took the car and closed our joint checking account; my thoughts were always focused on how to get by. Reading book reviews and the...

Just want to let everyone know that Borders Bookstore is giving 25% off purchases for retired, current, full-time, part-time, even only-kind-of educators from March 21-27. Not all merchandise qualifies, but most does. I do only volunteer work in the schools, and they give me the discount. So now's the time to stock up on those books you're wanting to read but know you can't finish in the time the library lends them to you!...

Max is reading "Romeo & Juliet" in his freshman English class. He's pretty tired of the story, since this is something like the fifty-sixth time he's had to read it for school. But he came home with an assignment I thought was interesting. He had to list traits he would look for in a partner (lover just sounds too creepy for ninth grade). Without looking at what he wrote, I had to do the same. Then I had to make a list of traits I would want his partner to have. Max isn't too demanding: he wants someone who is "smart" and "funny." "Other than that," he wrote, "it doesn't really matter." I included those two traits in the list I made of what I believed was important for him to find in someone as well. His list for what he anticipated I would choose as important included "being poor." "What does that mean?" I asked. "Well you always say that money...

Ann Coulter, the conservative mouthpiece and all-around darling, called John Edwards a faggot last week. In public. In front of lots of people. Even her fellow conservatives cringed. What will it take for them to realize the old gray mare, she ain't what she used to be? Put me in a room with that foul woman, and I can't think of any issue on earth we couldn't disagree on. She is the epitome of all that I do not stand for. And yet, in the past, I was able to admire her ability to stand up for her beliefs and rally for those commitments she embraced. My admiration has turned to disgust. Coulter has morphed from an intelligent, loud-mouthed conservative to a vengeful, trashy media whore. That woman will say anything--hurt anyone--solely for shock value. And it's getting old. I suppose we were warned when she labeled Joe McCarthy a hero. That comment merely reflected her own bias and narrow thinking. Her homophobic remark...

Back in the summer of 2006, I wrote in "The Family Room," which was featured in the Windsor Trib, an editorial about Windsor Auto. I praised them for their amazing and beyond-the-norm customer service. And boy, did I catch hell for it. From Tom Fasano at the Trib, because some reader (who turned out to be a friend of the owner or something like that of Pike's Auto) complained that what I wrote was an "advertorial." What a joke. My column is an op-ed piece...I'm allowed to say what I think. I wrote that column to share with readers in town the fact that there is a place to go for capable and trustworthy car repair. And Fasano ran that piece without changing a word of it. But he apparently couldn't take the heat, and that's when he demanded that I consult with him before writing my columns so that he could approve whatever topic I chose. Another joke. Windsor Chamber of Commerce just...