Looking back with Lot's Wife

I hope when I die my Judgment Day moment will turn out to be like those pictures of me in ninth grade when I thought I looked so horrible, and in retrospect turned out to look pretty much like all the other ninth grade girls in the world. Not The Ugliest Ninth Grade Girl In The World, which is what I thought I was. That’s all I’m hoping for, I just don’t want to stand out as a sinner. I’m hoping that in comparison to say, Jack the Ripper, who hopefully will be right in front of me in the Judgment Day line, they will say, “Good job. You don’t have to spend the next ten thousand years shoveling coal,” or whatever it is St. Peter's helpers say to Moms Who Didn't Do All the Things The Other Moms Did When They Compared Themselves To Other Moms Who They Thought Were Perfect, Which They Did Constantly. (If that's a category, which it should be.) I’m thinking about this because it’s my birthday and I have a physical coming up soon and, honestly, I feel like I’m get...

This is a column about fear, cream, and New Year’s resolutions. A very wise woman once said to me…actually it was a teacher in a class I went to with a friend at a graduate business school in France, just outside of Paris. Which, of course, is another story entirely. Anyway, she said you should never make a business decision based on fear. So let’s say you want to open a candy shop, but you’re afraid your candy isn’t good enough or that you won’t be able to market it well enough. Or your friends might think you’re an idiot to go into business for yourself “in this economy.” Or, or, or, or. You should really decide whether or not to open a candy business based on what kinds of candy you make well and what you think people will want. You should have confidence that you can make a good business plan and follow through with success, or that you have the good sense to recognize where your plan should be tweaked to make it a success. Maybe you should sell rainwea...

I’m coming right out and saying something about myself as a grandma that my kids have long suspected. I fed three grandkids cookies all day one day last week. I wanted them of my hair and we’d been out of town and there wasn’t a fruit or vegetable to be found anywhere in my kitchen and I was trying to get cookies ready for the neighbors. So there. Now their parents know for sure that what they suspected all along was true. I’m a bad influence. I also kept them up late, and I mean REALLY, seriously late two nights and let them sleep in until 10:30 the next morning. It couldn’t be helped. We had Christmas parties and we were having fun and it took awhile to home and get jammies on. (I almost said it took awhile to get their teeth brushed, but that would be a lie.) I know, the fires of heck are waiting for me. I don’t know how I raised five kids without killing them all. I’m a bad, bad person. On the bright side, no one was hit by a car. Partly becaus...

This week I’ve been trying to think about what I’m grateful for that isn’t a total cliché. Yes, I’m grateful for autumn leaves and snowy air, living in America AND Happy Valley , a double whammy of goodness. Hot chocolate brownies covered with vanilla ice cream. Cough drops when you need them. I’d be more grateful for a dogs and cats—except our cat left a dead mouse under my husband’s pillow and the way I discovered it was I rolled over to snuggle his pillow, he has a great pillow, after he got out of bed and I SMELLED something awful. Euewww. I know you’ll eat anything when you’re hungry, but this guy told me one time about visiting a country where they offered him something on a plate that was still crawling. I’m just saying right now, I’m grateful I don’t live there. You can’t tell me there’s not some little girl there screaming, “Please, Daddy, don’t make me eat the worms!” I’m grateful not to live in China where I hear the language has a component of tones to it. That...

In this day and age when one of the number one adult complaints is that kids are on their cell phone or computer all the time, what’s the deal with teaching them that getting the maximum amount of candy with the minimum amount of interaction is a good deal? Yes, I speak of Trunk or Treat, Satan’s plan to take out possibly the only redeeming quality of a day devoted to skeletons and witches: time spent going to the neighbors with your parents in the dark in one of the best seasons of the year. Honestly, I feel like our neighborhood is as full of drug dealers and pedophiles as any in America (with the possible exception of everywhere else in America), and I am as confident as anyone that death lurks at every corner. But when I read about kids in New York and Chicago who get to go Trick or Treating, I get jealous. My friends in Denver and LA are walking their kids up and down their block teaching them that their neighbors are ordinary people, not treacherous goblins that nee...

If you are involved in law enforcement, you might want to avert your eyes now. I’m here to say I go seventy on I-15. I slow down for the work areas because that “double the fine” sign impresses me a lot. And I go sixty-five at 11 at night because I’m tired. But, occasionally, I go more than seventy. I know seventy is counted as speeding because I have a good memory, and I’ve had to take those classes that take points off your record when you get a ticket. I’ve taken them three times. One time I took it twice in a year and a half. I’m not sure how that happened, but I was glad not to have to discuss our insurance rate with the Big Boss. The one I’m married to who drives his truck like it was a covered wagon. Did you know that if you take the two-hour class and get another ticket, you can take a four-hour class? You would not believe the people at the four-hour class! They are creepy. Except for me. And the other lady my age who kept telling the cop ...

You hear men sometimes say their wives are their best friends. This is just crazy. It implies that a man would actually have a best friend with whom he shared intimate conversations about his feelings, men he would go to lunch with and spend afternoons wondering if, among other things, other people really like him, or if it’s okay to buy that cute three button jacket. But any wife who calls her husband her best friend is not being completely honest with herself, although she may think he’s swell. Men are wonderful companions and fathers, confidants of the highest order, and capable of great understanding; they’re just not that particular animal known as A Girlfriend. The most obvious quality of a girlfriend is that she always knows you’re right, even when it’s a different right than it was yesterday or last week. The fluid nature of women’s understanding of the ups and downs of life are part of what makes them so able to solve problems sensibly and quickly. Girlfriends see that how...