We had quite the lovely 4th despite a rather dubious start to the afternoon. Everyone had the idea that hanging out with friends would be a better evening than eating Mom's brisket and seeing the fireworks. Fortunately Mom (that would be me) has the final say, so we piled into the car with the chairs, blankets, food, and various entertainment sources and headed off to the park. Arriving early, we ... More ...

It's bullet points for you today: DICK Cheney was in town early this morning to get a special ride on the USS Constitution and to watch a bunch of people sworn in as new American Citizens. Damn, nobody bashed into his motorcade or anything. What a bummer. Jesse Helms died. WAHOO! It's about frigging time. My God, what a blight on the American political scene. When I lived in North Carolina I ... More ...

So now that I've posted that I do show the good, the bad, and the ugly about my kids, here's a bit of all those emotions. The Girl and I did a LOT of shopping today. First a trip to Russo's where she picked out some zinnia plants she loved, and then helped me buy an amazing amount of fruits and veggies. We are stocked up! Second was a trip to the grocery store, where we got the stuff you can't ... More ...

Today, in fact this very post, marks my 1667th post on this blog. To me that seems like a whole lot of words. Looking back at my archives, I see that there are some diatribes, some love letters, some really funny posts, and some political analysis of both local and national politics. There are recipes and helpful hints, plenty of photographs, and a lot of personal information. The blog has become ... More ...

Summer school started this week. It's being held at the other high school, the one that has caused this city so many headaches. The one that is, thankfully, being replaced by a new building. A new building designed by an egomaniac and his architecht and could possibly become the most expensive high school in the Commonwealth's history. So the first day of school we drive up and I drop off the ... More ...

Five ingredients? FIVE? That's hard. At least for me and my huge bank of recipes. I had to search long and hard for something that only had 5 ingredients, and finally came up with this delicious and refreshing drink. Non-alcoholic, good for you, and something most kids will love. Mango Lassi. Can you go wrong with that? Lucky for you, I even added an alternative, the Mango Shake. Aam Ki Lassi ... More ...

Well, maybe not. More like it's a snarky day in the neighborhood. Not that I have anything against snark. I don't. I just like my snark private and not on very large social networking sites. Ahem. I don't really need to recap what happened, but here goes. Basically one rather embittered iconoclastic and self-absorbed blogger thought it would be such a great idea to attack another, much sweeter ... More ...

Living in the heart of suburbia, albeit only a mile or so from the Boston city limit, you would think that our wildlife would consists of skunks, squirrels, and perhaps a raccoon or two. You would be wrong. For some reason, the wildlife around here gets more and more prolific each year. In our quiet little burb we've had moose, coyotes, more wild turkeys than could feed the town at Thanksgiving, ... More ...

We've had a really tough couple of weeks. I mean really tough. I've worked hard to be positive through it, but I'm wearing thin with the positive stuff. I'm certainly not able to share everything, but these are the highlights: The phone company shut off the phone because I couldn't pay the bill. I sent them a check, but don't have the money in my account to cover it. Thus, we haven't had a phone ... More ...

I'm a wicked insomniac, which I've documented about 10 million times. Believe me, there is little more to say about the fact that my sleep is so screwed up that I can barely function much of the time. You don't want to read it and I don't want to repeat myself ad nauseum because really, what is there to say besides "I didn't fall asleep last night." Last night was one of those nights but I ... More ...

I've never been enamored of the Girl's boyfriend. He hasn't given me much cause to adore him, and frankly, he's given me plenty of cause to worry about her safety and health. He's just not what I envisioned when I thought of her first serious boyfriend. At all. But there's no accounting for taste, is there? He was over last week during the last segment of the long-running Insane Dad soap opera, ... More ...

Last night the Girl came home with something a little extra. A very large, very sick, very old Border Collie she found wandering around at the bottom of our hill. The dog almost got him by a car so she coralled her and caught her by the collar and brought her home. Now, that seems like a fairly normal thing for a kid to do, but there's one thing you probably don't know. The Girl? Not a fan of ... More ...

Longer summer days means dramatically more time spent outside in the sun with our kids: from hanging out on the beach or at the pool, to running in the yard, to hiking through the woods. Amidst these summer activities, safety issues lurk from insects to sun burns to keeping hydrated. Mom Central, The Clorox Company and the MommyDocs have joined together to get the word out about these important ... More ...

One of my blog idols! Yup, I did. I totally did. And I'm so happy I could dance on the rooftops. Tonight I got to meet the gloriously funny and absolutely gorgeous Jen Lancaster of Jennsylvania. What? You don't read her blog? You don't read her books? FOR SHAME. For shame. Jen's on a book tour promoting her latest book, which is on the NY Times Best Seller List. Oh yes it is! Isn't that totally ... More ...

We're big library users. HUGE library users. We go at least once a week, and most weeks we're there more often. Our library is the busiest library in our state, and one of the most used libraries in the country. We have an incredibly wonderful library with a huge inventory of books, media, tools (yes, you can take out tools!), and large halls for art shows and presentations. One of the problems ... More ...

I've been seeing such weird things lately, maybe I ought to get out more often. Today's sighting was pretty darn funny. We're driving down Huntington Ave right by the Brookline line when it starts pouring. Torrential rains, an absolute downpour. We drive under the bridge as Huntington heads into Mission Hill and there are not one, but two Boston motorcycle cops standing around chatting each ... More ...

You know how people go through bloggy angst and start posting the "I don't have anything to post because I'm in a non-interesting phase" posts? Well not me! I've discovered that all I have to do to make my blog extremely successful is to post stuff about the Boston Celtics. Like sightings of Celtics players at the RMV. Why? Because I have never ever had the kind of traffic I've had over that ... More ...

Today was my 5th trip to the registry of motor vehicles to get my car registered. And guess what? They finally registered it! I guess the fifth time is the charm. I could tell you the reasons why they finally decided to register the car, but who cares? Because the real news is that we ran into Kendrick Perkins at the RMV. He walked in when they called his number and I was all "Wow, that guy is ... More ...

We're at the first weekend of our school vacation and I'm ready to get in the car and drive away. Far far away. Let's see now, we've got one kid grounded for stealing money out of my wallet and one kid that thinks that this is a place to stop and occasionally sleep, but otherwise isn't relevant to her life. I feel like we're ships passing in the night. Years ago I saw an article about how ... More ...

I promised a post about money a few days ago and then life got in the way. Boy, did it get in the way. However, what I've been thinking about besides the craziness of life around here is the whole money situation with blogging, bloggers, and blogher. The question is, how come it's perfectly OK to post an appeal for money to get to blogher and nobody gets all up in arms or preachy about how you ... More ...