Suzie is a schoolgirl now. Yesterday was the first day of kindergarten, and we know she is a schoolgirl because when I called that evening and asked, "What did you do in school?" she responded, "I don't remember." It seems that overall she had a good time, though ( Read more... )

I got back from NYC a week ago, and one of the highlights of the trip was my row E seats at Mary Poppins. The musical was a hybrid of the best parts of the movie and new songs, dances and a bit of story line. It still pandered to a modern audience with it's little lesson on how bad nannies are and how it's better to be tended by a stay-at-home ( Read more... )

People in Virginia don't signal their turns. You're driving along and, boom, without prior indication someone just peels off into a right turn. Zap, someone pulls over from the right hand lane cutting you off. Zip, someone decides he didn't want to make a left hand turn after all, and, oh, by the way, he's just going to pull back into traffic; ( Read more... )

Our nephew's fiance, Sarah, has been staying with us for a couple of weeks to be near her internship at the Center for Missing Children in DC. Yesterday was a great day for all of us. We spent the afternoon with the neighbors at a winery in Faquir County (yes, yes, I should remember the name of it, but I don't), and then -- ah, and then in the ( Read more... )

The Glorious Fourth -- we joined friends for the fireworks in Vienna. Due to a couple of injuries in the crowd in years past, the town used a new venue. The park itself offered a broad, fenced in soccer field, and an orange plastic fence added a few feet to the clear zone making the fireworks safe ( Read more... )

My nephew, BEN WINTERS, just got a big fat advance for a two novel set of Young Adult books. I would just like to state here that it is obvious I had a HUGE influence on him during his childhood despite the fact that we lived 2000 miles away and hardly ever saw him. And I'm going to bill myself this way from now on. ;)

My Uncle Gene met Aunt Norma (of course, she wasn't my aunt then) at a YMCA Young Professionals group when they were in their 30s. Norma began attending the activities, and on first meeting her, Gene asked to see her home. He followed her car in his car and walked her to the door ( Read more... )

I attended the American Independent Writers Conference in DC last Sat. It gave me a chance to pitch Jaguar Sees: The Lacquer Box. One pitch went really well so I am enheartened that someone will want to represent me, and Jaguar will get published. Now it's all researching and writing to agents: stuff that's actual work ( Read more... )

Time does it's old march along thing. Got my car back from the auto body place -- seemed to take a lot of discussion. Some time ago I had an altercation with a (low and out-of-sight) piping protecting the end of a gas pump. I had wanted them to fix that scrape while they were replacing the rear bumper. The price went from oh, something to fix ( Read more... )

I was talking to my mother this evening about some business regarding my aunt and uncle, and she told me, "You are very grown up."

!!