• Forever 21

    I went to a birthday celebration this weekend for a friend who turned 40.  She is smart, funny and a pediatriac emergency room doctor.  For a hypochondriac like myself that is a gift from God.   The shindig started at a restaurant with cocktails and h’orderves.   It was a delightful grown up party.  Gone are the days of celebrating your day of birth by twerking in the club.  Dinner was at a local country club.  Yes, they actually let me in.  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t intimidated.  In these situations I always feel like Molly Ringwald in “Pretty in Pink.”  I’m waiting for Blaine to…

  • Competition

    “Please don’t hit it to me, please don’t hit it to me, please don’t hit it to me! ” The same thought went through my head every time someone stepped up to the plate when I played softball as a kid. I was usually stuck in right field and for good reason. I am not athletic.   I tried out for a lot of different sports in school, but never made the team. The only time I was on a roster was when my parents paid for it. The summer league can’t cut you from the team. I wasn’t really concerned about winning games. I only cared about the free…

  • Bad boys, bad boys…

    I got pulled over this morning by a cop on a bike.  This was not an episode of “Chips.”  He was on a bicycle.  A police officer on a mountain bike  stopped me in my vehicle.   He made the siren noise with his mouth.   No, not really, but that would’ve been funny.  I was at a stop sign, about six cars from the crosswalk, waiting for the crossing guard to guide some young lads to the other side.   When I grow up I want the confidence of a crossing guard.   She has no fear.   She wears that neon jacket with pride and stops cars like…

  • Funny farm

    I am not perfect.  I know, it may come as a shock to many of you.  I forget things.  If you ask my children’s teachers they will tell you that I forget a lot of things.  I just remembered that I signed up to be chaperone for a school field trip to a farm.  I’m sure that is real comforting for the parents of the children I will be guiding around a large tractor and hay bailer.  Perhaps, I blocked out the trip because of the location. Don’t get me wrong,  I appreciate a hard working farmer.  I appreciate food that comes from farms, but why in the hell would…

  • Rock, paper, scissors 

    I have a new hatred for the paper gowns at a doctors office.  I sat in an exam room with an 8-year-old patient for 45 minutes.   My son was scheduled for a checkup.  It would have been a stress-free appointment had it not been for the constant rustling of the gown.    Like most children, he cannot sit still.   It’s no secret that I suffer from Misophonia.  A crisp apple can send me over the edge.   Being in a 10 x 10 room with a child in a paper gown is pure torture.  I was on the verge of ripping the damn thing off him when the…

  • Mother’s Day is over

    “You know Mother’s Day is over right?” My 8-year-old son made that clear first thing this morning.  The egg, drums and golf are celebrated for an entire month. Even vinegar gets thirty days.  The person responsible for bringing a life into the world gets 24 hours and that’s it.  Sure, for about a week, we try to use the holiday to guilt our children into behaving. Unfortunately,  the uterus doesn’t have the same magical power as an imaginary obese man in a red velvet suit.   Television ads give us such false hope about Mother’s Day.  The pretend mom in the Kmart commercial looks so relaxed on her new patio…

  • Surprise!

    Some friends come and go in your life.   You make friends at the playground when you’re a toddler.  The relationship lasts until your mother decides it is time to leave.  You think someone is your best friend in kindergarten because they sit at your table.  In third grade you asked someone to be your best friend.   The friendship is legit if you walk around with “St   End” around your neck.       In grades six through eight you make additional friends, but struggle fit in.   Many of those people will be in your circle throughout high school.   Some will fade from the picture when you…

  • What the PARP?

    It is PARP Reading Month(s) at my child’s school. Until one minute ago I had no idea what PARP stood for.  According to Google, it means “Parents As Reading Partners.”  Basically, the idea is to encourage parents to read with their kids.  We do that everynight, but I have to play along.  The children are supposed to bring in a slip of paper, about the size of a credit card, everyday indicating how many minutes they read the previous night.   The school sends home a booklet of these ‘reading slips.’  It is up to the parent to cut them out and place in their folder each morning.     The…

  • Razor-sharp battle

    I recall, as a teenage girl, the embarrassment I felt when I got hair on my legs.   I was like an overwatered Chia Pet.  I’m certain that if my mother didn’t finally give in and buy me a razor I would’ve looked like a Yeti by the  8th grade.  Women will and do spend a lot of money to get rid of unwanted hair.  Men, however, come up with any reason possible to grow it.  A playoff beard?  The only game you’re playing is “Game of War” on your iPhone 5s, hoping to get a sneak peak at Kate Upton’s animated breasts.  You’re not even going to the playoffs…

  • Lordy, Lordy

    I can clearly recall being a kid and reading a classified ad in the newspaper that read “Lordy, Lordy Suzanne is 40!”   For those of you in your twenties, a newspaper was where we got our news before the internet was invented.  Articles, cartoons and even an advice column were printed on paper.  The print was bold and perhaps something like Sans Serif.  No, a newspaper did not have Siri.      Below the cheesy birthday poem was a grainy black and white photograph of a woman named Suzanne.  Let’s just say the years were not good to her or she wasn’t good for forty years.  At the time,…