Silly Me

When I was young, if someone labeled me stupid, my self-confidence would be ripped to shreds, leaving me feeling worthless and undesirable.  But this time, I deserved to be called out.

 

On June 28th, I went in for what was deemed a mere procedure on my knee: nothing major, nothing life threatening, just a little tear in the meniscus. Having already undergone two hip replacements, I was sure my recovery would be easy-peezy.

 

Fearless, I Ubered to Stanford Hospital for my 7:00 am surgery and woke […]

Little White Lies

As the tall silver fox from Sausalito chatted on, I found my breath taken away. It isn’t often I meet a handsome stranger at a Sharks ice hockey game, but as the fans began to scream; we knew it was time to go inside. Saying goodbye, we exchanged business cards with the promised to meet again.

 

For the next several days, we flirted via text and email.

 

“Finally someone normal,” I thought. “How fun to meet a cute guy organically and not on the Internet.” Feeling […]

The Good Mother

With her frail, pencil-thin body lying on the living room couch, I held my mother’s eighty-five-year-old hand as she asked the same question, again, “Honey, was I a good mother?”

Bending over the shriveled frame that once held the sophistication of Coco Channel and the unconditional love of the Blessed Mother, I kissed her cheek feeling impatient. Then, looking into her pleading eyes, I reassured, “I don’t know why you keep asking this. You’re the best mother a girl could have.”

When I was a child, […]

Out of the mouths of babes

Drowning my sorrows in a stiff glass of Cabernet, I sat alone in the dark late one evening and moaned, “God, what am I doing wrong?”

 

After seven years of coaching both fall and spring league, you’d think I’d have the softball gig down, but that was not the case. In 1992, I was given the task of herding a group of 7-9-year-old kittens that couldn’t catch a fly ball or connect with the bat. We weren’t just bad, we stank, and I’d lost all […]

Inside the lines

Curled around my down-feathered pillow, as Chicken Pox created a polka dot motif all over my body, my father stood at the end of my bed with the best pill for relief – ever.

 

“Honey, I have a gift for you,” he smiled. “I know how much you love to color.” Then, handing me a Shirley Temple coloring book, along with a fresh box of Crayola crayons, I instantly forgot the feeling that a thousand mosquitoes had just attacked my body.

 

“Thank you, Daddy!” I squealed, […]

A Story to Tell: Preserving Family Stories

Its come to my attention that very few people write anymore. Our society has become about “read and delete” communication. Even our birthday cards, sympathy notes, or just to say “hello” notices have found their way to the online version. While the sentiments are lovely, more often than not, after read, they are thrown into the cyberspace trash rather than copied and preserved for safe keeping. This needs to change.

 

One of the saddest things I hear over and over is, “I wished I asked […]