This past week, instead of writing, I’ve been dealing with contractors — the retaining wall beside our house has fallen in and our roof is leaking. The guy building our new wall — and it is a beautiful wall — is fascinated with the fact that I’m a writer. He says he wants to write a book. Instead of working on my new book, I stand out in the cold…
My name is Anna and I am an exercise addict. In terms of addictions, it could be worse – I should know, because I have all of them. (I have what they call an addictive personality.) With exercise, however, I’m not planning to get into recovery. See, considering the fact that I’m also addicted to chocolate (an obsession I seem to share with my fellow Deb Mia), my need to…
This just out: if you can make it through a 6.7 earthquake (including a 5.8 aftershock and some), then you are entitled to some chocolate. Or, at least, to write off-topic. “The hairy thing that lurks under my bed” suddenly seems harmless when compared with your entire house rocking and rolling like nobody’s business. “The hairy thing that lurks under my bed” could be a science project gone bad, a…
My name is Tish Cohen and I am an Unfoodie. I am completely devoid of culinary instincts and can practically guarantee that no one in Canada messed up yesterday’s Thanksgiving dinner worse than I did. Should you, too, be an Unfoodie wishing to muck up a family occasion of your very own, read on. To really blow it big time, it’s best to ignore your Foodie sister’s plea for a farm-fresh turkey…
I was thrilled when, at the age of 16, I was given a white Volvo sedan, one of my dad’s company cars, to drive — thrilled mostly because my other option was an ages-old Hyundai, a sort of puke-colored thing that always reminded me of a Flinstones-type of car with two running feet in lieu of an engine. The Volvo was reliable, a cool color, and, people often reminded me,…
I’m sitting here on St. George, a tiny island off the coast of northwest Florida, feeling lethargic and yet sort of cute in my new pink bikini with a little skull and crossbones on the bum. There is nobody else on this beach except for my husband, who is dozing silently beside me, the smile on his face only slightly faded by sleep. The warm water of the Gulf of…
Travelers fall into two different categories: a) Planners b) Anti-planners My Dad is a planner. Family vacations were undertaken with the same level of care as the Allied Invasion, although it’s an unfair comparison as General Patton had far more support staff. My Dad was stuck with my mom and me. During family vacations we woke with the sun, there was a lot to see. If my mom or I complained my…
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve been doing pretty well these past couple of decades without Disneyland. This is not meant as a criticism in ANY way to those who you who frequent the 160+ acre playground/fantasyland/shopping mall, but I’m just saying that planning a trip to said place takes, well, a lot of work, even if your in-laws are picking up the tab. It…
Last week, I announced to my family and friends that I was “on vacation”. “But what does that mean?” they all asked. I explained that people who had regular nine-to-five jobs took vacations all the time, so I was going to spend a week away from anything having to do with writing. I had just sent a draft of my latest work in progress to my agent, and I still…
