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Herein My Former Dean and Always Friend, Jim, Gives Me A Guest Blogger Assist During a Week Where I Might Lose My Mind Otherwise
Sometimes helping a friend and engaging in public navel gazing are the same thing. In this case, I offered to write a guest blog for Jocelyn because I know she’s just started school, has all her junk all over the house, and can’t find her Triscuits. Recently I was remembering an annoying woman I met
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Hypertension in the Key of D
Sometimes, if your house is already in chaos due to a kitchen remodel, and then a new crew comes in to start refinishing your floors (one half of the house at a time, which means all possessions in two rooms get shoved into the other two rooms, and then the next week, everything from that
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No Matter How High Their Heels, My Boots Never Rate a ‘Strongly Agree’
As the new semester revs up this week, my thoughts drift back to an adjunct instructor whom I mentored last year. A cool, lithe blonde, she shared with me how difficult it had always been for her to get valid, helpful student feedback in end-of-semester evaluations. “Sing Hosannah to the choir, Sister!” my enthusiastic phantom
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Crumbs Under the Mini-Van Seat
This photo–of someone elses’s trashy mini-van–is one of the few things that makes me feel better about my own. Our mini-van is a pit, littered with popcorn, Goldfish crackers, granola bar wrappers, toys, and books. It’s a random place that, I fear, may never feel organized or tidy. The second that it does, we’ll know
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Translating Candyland to Concrete? You Know It’s August, and You Still Have Almost a MONTH Until the Kids Go Back to School
How would you use up four buckets of sidewalk chalk?
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Friends Without Benefits
For a variety of reasons, I caved and joined Facebook recently. Since then, the barrage of friend requests has been interesting—bringing me up to date with people I actually have ongoing relationships with, but also, yes, causing me some bemusement. Several times now, I’ve had requests from people I don’t remember at all. I stare
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A Day at the…
Hark and sunscreen! We visit the beach. Look, I have a mother who visited from California. Look, we have sand here (“here” being Park Point, the longest freshwater sandbar in the world) and not just pebbles. Look, we pose carefully for the nice lady from Minneapolis who asked, “Do I push this button?’ We shriek
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Obligatory Kitchen Remodel Update, To Satisfy My Sister, If No One Else
The notion of remodeling our kitchen first took root five years ago (namely, the day we moved in to our current house and recoiled in horror at the dark, run-downedness of that room…which, strangely, implies moving-day was the first time I ever spied the kitchen–as though I hadn’t known the previous owners, eaten dinner
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He’s Making a List and Checking It Twice: For Only With Such Careful Reviewal Can He Be Certain No One Named ‘Pedro’ Gets a Train
“That’ll be $1.50,” announced the parking lot attendant from inside his air-conditioned box. Eyes twinkling, cheeks rosy, beard fluffy, he followed up with a jolly, “So…what’s new at the zoo?” It was hard not to grin back at this Santa Claus look-alike, especially because I haven’t exactly been a good girl this year, but I
