About noon on Thursday, pain stabbed through my kneecap.

Oh crap! What's that?

I tried to shake it out. Walk it out. It wouldn't shake.

Damn!

My mother has terrible knees. She's 76 now, with two artificial knees. My mother has not ever been the picture of vigorous or active. She… Read full post »

My son is a fencer.

It's a weird sport, all white stretchy pants, funny hats, bendy swords, and French words for everything.

But that's not why I've come to love it.

School has always been hard for my son. He's passionately social, too social. Like a lot of kids with… Read full post »

Last week, I posted the view from my window for Emily's open call.

Today, I had more friends come to visit, and I thought I'd share them with you.

It's still raining here. Cold, wet, and dark. But these guys make me laugh all day. I waded out into the back… Read full post »

In light of the current cruise ship disaster off of Italy, I thought I'd re-post my musings on cruise travel from my one and only cruise last year.

I know some people love them. I just don't. Here's why.

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We took a cruise with family after Christmas. It was fun. I'm…

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My office window looks out the side of my house, at the neighbor's house. No great shakes as views go. Suburban cedar fence. Boring.

So I added some enticements to attract friends. This view is from a rainy day last winter.

 

 

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The first part of this story starts here.

So we had our quiet Christmas at home, presents waiting until Dad came home from work. I let the kids pick what they wanted for breakfast--fried ham for one, a bowl of coveted, once-a-year Stupid Cereal (sugar-covered neon-colored things) for the other. Coffe… Read full post »

Our christmases have all been like clockwork. Always Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma's, with the china and the silver and the crown roast of pork. Home, kids in pajamas, and to bed, nights up late stuffing stockings and wrapping. One year assembling a play kitchen, one year building a train table.… Read full post »

I suffered the indignity of trying to find a Christmas dress.

Entire Canadian forests' worth of fashion magazine print (and pictures) have been devoted to the Little Black Dress. The staple, we're told, of a woman's wardrobe. Except that I don't have one. And I'm not exactly little any more. Neither… Read full post »

Torman's excellent blog post today made me think. What are my Christmas wishes? Something as poignant and beautiful as Torman's wish for 20 more years with his wife?

The last couple of months, since September, really, have seen every spare minute of my life supervising middle school homework. Times t… Read full post »

I had 18,000 pieces of paper in my living room this weekend. The number is slowly dwindling as the volunteers come to get their share. They're going out, in neatly labeled stacks, making their way from trunks of cars to school secretaries, to teacher's inboxes, to kids' backpacks, and home, to… Read full post »

Great OC, fernsy.

My very first post evah was here on OS, and it got an EP. I was very proud of it, and the story still makes me cry.

It's the story of Cassie, our beloved golden retriever mix, who still lives in our hearts.

Here it is: Cassie, our… Read full post »

TAG stands for Talented and Gifted. It's another label to put on kids in my district, and I've had a love-hate relationship with it for years.

I live in the kid-obsessed suburbs, with a Kumon math center just down the road, Intel engineers in every other house, and at-home moms with…

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Excellent OC, Alysa. I love these.

My local farmer's market. I love it. It makes me happy to wander around and buy overpriced organic strawberries off a truck, and handmade German bratwurst from an old round German woman who counts my change back in German. It just makes me happy. It's… Read full post »

I thought I'd repost this in honor of Father's Day. Have a good one, Dad.

 

 

 

My son is asking for a white canvas jacket and his own sword.

I didn’t know a thing about fencing until two months ago.

He's been trying since first grade to belong. Basketball,… Read full post »

 

 

I'm a band geek. And I never went to a band camp at all, let alone the racy one immortalized in American Pie.

I loved band. I fit in the band in high school, and again in college. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't a cheerleader. I tripped over… Read full post »

Guess what?

We're in another war.

In the same week I'm getting dire emails of possible cuts to my children's already pared-to-the-bone school district, we've suddenly got enough money to bomb another country.

How much money are we really spending in Libya?

According to the National Journal, "Costs of… Read full post »

We took a cruise with family after Christmas. It was fun. I'm glad we went. We had some great family times, the kids played with their cousins, we put our feet in the sea and enjoyed the sun. This Oregonian left her gore-tex and wool socks behind, in January, no less,… Read full post »

I have two kids.

They're both smart. Off the charts smart. They're both hopelessly disorganized. They're both underachievers. 

I would be a rich woman for every conversation I've had with teachers. They blow away the IQ tests, then get Cs.

I push. I shove. I help. I buy a computer. We… Read full post »

My son came home from seventh grade
With a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"How was your day?"
"OK."
"What did they do for Valentine's Day?"

"The girls brought candy for the boys.
Charlie had about seven bags and Jack had
eight and Connor's spilled on the floor he
had so many."

His shoulders slumped.
I di… Read full post »

I wanna be in The Band.

I've watched them for years.

I had an audition.

Now I have to wait for a letter in the mail.

This could be me, this spring.

Getting down with my bad self.

In all my Band Geekiness.

 

I bought my fifth-grade Tadpole a pair of skinny jeans with holes already in them, a purple flannel shirt, and a pair of black Converse with pink laces.

Damn that felt good.

I remember my own fifth grade year. I felt like an eyesore. I was my own personal… Read full post »

In my Sunday morning web-surfing, guess what I found?

A link to an interview with Liza Donnelly on the FRONT PAGE of CNN.com! And a video interview with a TED talk. Wow. Color me impressed.

Woot woot! I love to see an OS member get the accolades they deserve. Please… Read full post »

I'm easily distracted.

I never finished my novel.

I can't cook (but damn, I can bake. Just don't ask me what's for dinner. I do dessert, not dinner).

I yell at my kids.

I am a packrat.

I blame everything on kids and a husband with ADHD. It can't possibly be… Read full post »

(This is a continuation of my first installment of ten days on a cruise ship.)

The whole cruise thing is odd. It's an unruly mass of people, all ostensibly going the same place. It kept occurring to me, day after day, that we were all having entirely separate vacations, in parallel.… Read full post »