Looking back with Lot's Wife

This year, in the middle of my search for the perfect doll for my six-year-old granddaughter—do I want to get her an American Girl doll pretty much like everyone else in her California village of Santa Monica, or do I want to spend way too many bucks for a Madame Alexander doll like mine which is still tucked safely away in my bottom dresser drawer. The problem with Madame Alexander is that while you can get a doll for $35, what you really want after examining the web site, is the $329.99 special edition bride doll which just makes your mouth water. Anyway, the last thing my husband said as he left for work this morning was, “She doesn’t need a doll that costs that much.” And he was looking at the $35 doll. Humph. Amid this crucial decision making process came an e-mail from Diane saying how much she was missing her dad this year. In fact, she had spent most of the morning, “sitting and crying and typing.” Richard, her dad, died last year right after Christmas and naturally she i

Diane teaches second grade and each and every one of the little munchkins she spends her days with have all gone nuts with what she calls “Christmas-ness.” One of the symptoms of Christmas-ness, according to her, is rolling around on the floor in the aisles between desks. “Courtney, what ARE you doing?” she asked a tiny twirler last week. The answer, says Diane, is that there is no answer; it’s just Christmas-ness. Welcome to my world, Courtney. Christmas-ness in its adult form shows up at first when the victim begins to have grandiose ideas of Christmas past. This year’s celebration, she thinks, will be the one everybody will always remember, filled to overflowing with warmth and sugar cookies and holly and pine. Oh, if I could have just stopped then when I didn’t have all the boxes of decorations out on the living room floor shedding dust from the basement, where they live the rest of the year. (Have you noticed, this is what every good girl says after she gets in trouble, “If w

National Public Radio presented a piece last week that was probably sponsored by Walmart. Apparently, some of the most important Americans spent most of their lives deeply in debt and died in reduced straights, so to speak. For example, towards the end of his life, Thomas Jefferson petitioned the governor of Virginia to allow him to sponsor a lottery to relieve his debts from his addiction to botany. He couldn’t stop spending on plants. In addition, he had catalogued every single one of his expenses, I’d like to point out to my husband, and he was a founding father. Mark Twain continued to invest in venture after venture even after some of the businesses went belly up. In fact, it seems that having Mr. Twain invest money in your project was almost a guarantee of failure. The gist of the story was that the greater the person, the more forgivable the debts. I may be a bit optimistic here in assuming that’s what the reporter meant, but what better time of year to feel va