I admit it: I shed a teeny, tiny tear this morning as my only child rode his bike out of the backyard on his way to the new adventure in his life: middle school.

This morning, he actually told me he “appreciated” the breakfast I made… Read full post »

Police say 4-year-old Dominick Calhoun was tortured to death by his mother’s boyfriend in the spring. 

At the end of March, Dominick’s 25-year-old mother moved with him and his 8-year-old brother into the apartment of her boyfriend, a 24-year-old ex-con who was a couple mo… Read full post »

 
I sat outside with a cup of coffee last week, soaking in the early summer sun and pondering the greater meaning of the not-so-perfect perfect baseball game pitched by Detroit Tiger Armando Galarraga. For those of you unfamiliar with the baseball call heard ’round the world, Galarraga&rsqu… Read full post »

I lost my newspaper job a little over a year ago. It was a job I loved, but a job that could, at times, leave my psyche stressed and my shoulders sore. Cradling a phone on one shoulder and hunching over a computer on deadline wreaks havoc… Read full post »

I had my first (and only) child at an age at which my contemporaries with children were shooing theirs from the nest. I was asked, “Are you happy?” more times than I care to remember.

Oh, happy I was. Fueled by hormones, the likes of which I never… Read full post »

As I watched the snow falling outside, my thoughts turned to big snowstorms of the past. I remembered the winter I was pregnant with my son, when it snowed a few inches every day for three weeks straight. We all moved slowly through the kind of hard, dreary winter days… Read full post »

Wound round, twisted, rolled,
Handed down, a story told.
Deep desire, sweet gold.

“If only my dad could be here to see this,” I told my husband… Read full post »

“Da, da, da, da-da, da-da-da,” my 10-year-old son sang the other night as he played with his Legos on the dining room table. His singing was a counterweight to detailed work, a pleasant way to add a constructive distraction to the task of building a tiny rebel spaceship out of… Read full post »

He has a new one now, courtesy of me: Nog, which is likely additional proof of the parental depravity that caused Santa to bring me 12/… Read full post »

 
I got a blue note today.

True blue; not gray

“Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” it said, though my eyes are green. “My love is blue. I must have you. What do you say?”

It was from this guy, Harold Melvin.

His eyes like blue moons.… Read full post »

Nine months.

I’m moving forward, really and truly. I put one foot in front of the other every morning, and I shuffle through my days. I am busy, busier than I ever felt when… Read full post »

 
On the night before President Obama’s speech at West Point, my 10-year-old son, Will, padded downstairs long after he should have been asleep.

“What’s the matter,” I asked as he sat beside me on the couch.

“I keep having bad dreams,” he said. “I drea… Read full post »

But that’s the… Read full post »

Losing your job opens your eyes in many ways: you consider your place and future in the employment universe; you realize that it doesn’t matter how well or hard you work; and you finally understand how fiscally irresponsible and greedy corporate America is.

Finding yourself unexpectedly and… Read full post »

Bruce Springsteen got snubbed. So did Bonnie Raitt, Elvis Costello, Elton John, Patti Smith, Nancy Wilson, Helen O'Connell, Tom Petty and Grace Slick.

These amazing artists didn't make the final list of nominees for National Public Radio's project to explore what listeners and music experts… Read full post »

After scrubbing up like a surgeon and donning an old apron to protect his clothes, my 10-year-old son is ready for action. He’s pounded the chicken and beaten the eggs and he’s ignited the gas stove with a little help from me.

He’s ready to cook.

Me? I’m enjoying… Read full post »

In life, there are always winners and losers. I don’t know why that is, only that it is. For someone to win the lottery, a lot of someone elses — always including me, it seems — have to lose. For sharks to stay alive, they’ve got to eat smaller fish or… Read full post »

 “Born  in Michigonia.

Moved to Babylonia! King Tut!”

As a follow up to my last post, I thought you might enjoy seeing the result of my last-minute costume making.… Read full post »

I sat at the dining room table, stitching together the King Tut toga I had promised my kid for Halloween, when I burst into tears.

We bought the Egyptian pharaoh hat at the King Tut exhibit in Indianapolis this summer on one condition: that it be Will's Halloween… Read full post »

Having lunch with Soupy Sales every day was a way of life for kids my age growing up in the Detroit area. There's not a one of us who hasn't stopped to remember him oh, so fondly as we learned of his death. And in remembering Soupy, we feel nostalgic for… Read full post »

I found myself having to explain to my son the difference between being “fired” and being “laid off” after I lost my job on April Fools Day. (Some corporate overlord has an ironic sense of humor, eh?)

“You get fired for doing a bad job,” I told him. “Don&rsq… Read full post »

On Sept. 27, the Detroit Lions won a game after a nearly two-year losing streak.

On Sept. 28, the newspaper that “eliminated” my job for budget reasons reported that it spent nearly $500,000 on upgrades to beef up color reproduction at its printing plant — a story… Read full post »

There isn’t enough room to keep a lot of CDs in my car, so I rotate them in and out. My musical whims are like Michigan’s mercurial weather: they change from moment to moment, mood to mood.

When I was purging my household for my annual… Read full post »

I planted sunflower seeds along my backyard fence a few years ago, hoping for a bounty of the flowers that always make me smile.

Nothing grew.

As time passed, I forgot I had ever planted the seeds.… Read full post »