That's right. In the middle of my third Norwegian winter, I'm ready to call myself a pro. (Which is a little ridiculous, but let's go with it anyway. It's my blog.) A couple of my closest friends recently moved from sunny, drought-addled California to Malmö, Sweden. In January. (What, are…
La Vie En Rose: A Mom & Daughter Trip to Paris
Paris is widely acknowledged as a city for lovers, but this September I visited with my mom. She flew in from San Francisco, and I flew down from Oslo for the rendezvous . Experiencing Paris with a gal pal is vastly different from visiting the same city on the arm of…
Our Christmas Card ~ 2013
I delegated the writing of our Christmas card to Crypto this year, and she was full of her customary snark, but hopefully it will give you a giggle, dear friends. That's what this season is all about. Warmth and fun and friendship and making sure we don't forget to cherish…
Shivers: When Life feels like Fiction
Maybe it's because I'm a writer, but I love it when life looks, smells, tastes, sounds, or feels like fiction. When I stumble upon something (or someone) so perfectly proportioned, so quizzical and memorable, that it couldn't be coincidence. Or fate. Or chance. Or anything true. No. When the hair…
Mad Libs Christmas Edition
Tonight, I couldn't remember all the words to the famous Christmas poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas . I tried to recite the thing from memory and failed. When I looked for help from my husband, his answers cracked me up--so far were they from either the truth or, in some…
Advent Time: 12 Christmas Jokes to Break the December Blues
Do you wake up, gaze out your window into the cold pre-dawn, and think, Bummer. Not Christmas yet. Just another ho-hum December day ? If so, I've got a remedy! Observe the season of Advent with a calendar crafted to help you count down the mundane days of this long, dark…
Vengeance & The Law
In Oklahoma yesterday, a man named Ronald Clinton Lott was executed by lethal injection. He was convicted of raping and killing two elderly women in 1986 and 1987. He bound them, beat them, raped them, and suffocated them. Two old women who each lived alone. Evil exists in this world,…
Thankful for Luck
My brother, Curtis, has a new blog, which I just discovered this week. Those of you who know Curtis won't be surprised that he has a lot to say about certain things, mostly regarding topics philosophical and/or political. I love that he's begun writing these things down and putting…