After running into the aftermath of a snowstorm in Arizona, we made it home from our vacation to California, where we enjoyed three days of Disneyland and California Adventures and one very windy day at Newport Beach.
I never thought I'd do the Disney thing; I'm no fan of amusement parks per se. I hate crowds. But the kids have wanted to go for years, and they've been saving a portion of every allowance for as long. After conducting some preliminary research, I realized it was now or never. With Max at 14 and Bella at 6, the age spread of the kids was perfect. And the price was right. Our family of six enjoyed five days in California plus a spontaneous day trip to the Grand Canyon (which set us back a day a required an unforeseen hotel stay) for $2800. This is an amazing price when you consider the cost of gas right now and the cost of...
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...
While enjoying a Bloomin' Onion with Wes and the girls at the Outback Steakhouse last weekend, six-year-old Bella made an announcement. "I know a man who has a LOT of testicles coming out of his head." Nearly choking on my onion, I turned to her with what must have been a confused--or perhaps, horrified--expression. Since her birth, Bella has seen that exact expression on my face at least 436 times. And without exception, she has been the root cause of its genesis.
She didn't miss a beat. "Davy Jones," she explained. Two things you must know about this child. One, she has a loud voice. It's, well, it's just loud. So I'm sure those dining in our vicinity also had the good fortune to vividly imagine a visual of a grown male sprouting testicles from his skull. And two, she likes to play tricks on anyone gullible enough to fall for them. I'm usually that fall guy. "From 'Pirates of the...
A community-wide meeting was held earlier this week at the high school to discuss the teen drug/alcohol issue that has many of us concerned. The turnout was better than I expected, though less than it should have been in a town where the high school population exceeds 900 students, the middle school, 700. I don't know how many folks attended; my guess is between 60 and 75. Could've been more.
At any rate, the meeting was productive in that it gave people a chance to voice their concerns and ask questions. A high school student council rep was on hand to speak, and she cited two reasons for the higher-than-average number of kids in this town who drink and drug. One, there's nothing else to do. And two, no one's stopping them. The first reason, I think, is as old as the hills. Don't most kids feel there isn't much to do in their hometown? That doesn't give them an excuse...
According to a Greeley nurse (I'm not naming names and that doesn't mean I'm relying on gossip; it just means I know when to keep my mouth shut to protect people), Shelly Donahue recently gave a presentation to a Greeley church in hopes of bringing her program to the youth group. Donahue is a national trainer for WAIT (Why Am I Tempted) Training, that disturbing abstinence-only-until-marriage program that tried to take over our schools' healthy sexuality curriculum not long ago. If ever there was a program with an agenda, it's WAIT. Its curriculum would be laughable if its developers weren't serious. But seeing as how they are, the contents pass beyond laughable to dangerous. Beyond dangerous to deadly.
Anyway, Donahue reportedly told the congregation that the new HPV vaccine for girls will leave them sterile. The vaccine, Gardisal, helps protect females from four forms of HPV, a sexually transmitted disease that can lead to sterility (maybe Donahue was just confused between...
Unreasonable women may yet save the world.
~ Molly Ivins
Molly Ivins was a woman I admired. A liberal columnist who wielded the written word as mightily as a warrior brandishes his sword, Ivins was the epitome of the unreasonable woman. And when a teacher here in Windsor called me the same after I stirred up a ruckus with my column, I knew he meant it as the highest compliment. I was honored.
Molly died yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Seldom does the death of someone I've never met leave me in tears, but hers did. If you're a fan, you already understand why. If you're not, Google her name and read some of her syndicated columns. Then you'll get it.
She was the best thing to come out of Texas (though she was a transplant). And she referred to her fellow Texan, our president, as Shrub. If for no other reason than that, the woman earned a special place in my...
