First, we survived. Second, it took twice as much time to recover as the length of time that we had nephews K. & D. overnight. The boys arrived at noon last Sunday, carrying in a suitcase, backpacks, and a giant tote bag of assorted child-necessary items. I feared that there might have been a miscommunication …
Experiences
Adventures in Babysitting: Standby, this is not a test
Today, a new frontier. I’ve done all day babysitting, evenings, after-school bus duty for a season, special days out… but this is uncharted territory. Nephews K. & D. are coming to stay overnight. My sister and her husband are off to a wedding, and a kid-free hotel stay. The boys were delivered at high noon …
Adventures in Babysitting: Standby, this is not a testRead More
House Party
It has been a long time since I’ve been awake, fully dressed, and socializing outside my house after midnight on a Friday night. There were crowds of people. There was booze. The cops even showed up. The next morning – which came too quickly and too brightly – found me collecting beer cans and liquor …
Popular: Viral without the vaccine
Apparently, Dive Bar is pretty popular. Within the first day of posting last week, a couple of friends who are frequent commentators on this blog stopped by to comment their reminisces about dive bars – one a reminisce actually including me, and the other a reminisce that I wish included me. Facebook, where new posts …
Dive Bar
If I had the time, resources, and inclination, I’d open a tiny bar and name it Dive Bar. It would be poorly lit, serve mostly bottled beer and well drinks, and the restrooms – clean and serviceable – would be graffiti temples filled with genius insults, beat poetry and psychedelic cartooning. To have visited a …
Christmas Crafts
One Christmas my mother made candy wreaths for our elementary school teachers. She bent a metal coat hanger into a perfect circle then painstakingly tied red and green curling ribbon around the hoop, adding peppermint candies along the way. She was very good at making ringlets with a quick zip of the ribbon between thumb …
Marines, police prepare for mock zombie apocalypse
That’s a real headline that I read in my morning newspaper for an Associated Press article on a counter-terrorism summit being hosted by a security firm. Marines, Navy special ops, soldiers, police and firefighters are attending the training demonstration being held on October 31st at a 44-acre resort island on a San Diego Bay. Um, …
Adventures in Babysitting: Columbus Day
“Good Morning,” whispers my brother-in-law from the dark kitchen. “Morning? This is still night!” I whisper back. It was 6:30 on Columbus Day morning and I had already driven across the county to be here in time for him and my sister to leave for work. I had agreed to watch K. & D. on …