Category Archives: Grown Ups

The Recital (Part One)

I started this blog six years ago, when Elder Girleen went off to elementary school. Last night, she “graduated” from fifth grade. I could attempt to wax eloquent about the passage of time, because that’s what we parents do, but to paraphrase Benny, a character in Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad — nostalgia isContinue reading “The Recital (Part One)”

The Dance

At the gym, the soundtrack of my younger days is spilling so loudly from the speakers it erases thought, and everybody seems to be running in place.  Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time, Nirvana’s Come as You Are, and then — Good God Almighty! —  the theme song  from Friends. I am lifting weights, but really,Continue reading “The Dance”

Treading Water: or, The Deep End

This is it, then.  The lovely nutmeat of the summer.  The musty smell of tomatoes pulled from the vine; the scent of sun-baked dirt before the afternoon’s rain storm.  Sweat that teases the hair at the nape of Elder Girleen’s neck into tendrils; the beautiful, enveloping ache of refrigerated air when we finally get theContinue reading “Treading Water: or, The Deep End”

Coffee Break

The NYTimes Happy Days: The Pursuit of What Matters in Troubled Times blog always makes interesting reading; the most recent post, by Tim Kreider, contains this funny gem of a paragraph (among others): Most of my married friends now have children, the rewards of which appear to be exclusively intangible and, like the mysteries ofContinue reading “Coffee Break”

In the Trenches

Mildly (it’s to be hoped) entertaining anecdotes about squirrels and cupcakes set in playgrounds aside, I’ve spent a heck of a lot of time in City of Atlanta parks this summer, and being in such places has made me think. About what? Oh,  among other things …  littering; our tax dollars; how children socialize andContinue reading “In the Trenches”

Possibly the Shallowest Post Ever

It’s probably jumping the gun just a little to start referencing the dog days less than a full week after the official onset of summer, but hey, it’s my blog, and I’ll call things whatever I want.  Besides, these are the go-go years:  everything’s accelerated these days, and if elementary school starts on August 10,Continue reading “Possibly the Shallowest Post Ever”

That Time of Year Again

Oh, mothers of school-aged children, those odd disheveled creatures! (the mothers, I mean, not their offspring).  Unless they work really really hard at it (or take Adderall) they’re usually a day late and a dollar short.  Their cars are filled with crud and crumbs.  They’re forgetful. They wear ugly sensible shoes.  They are the faintContinue reading “That Time of Year Again”