Life As a Pearl

I know you've thought this at least once while reading my blog: Damn. That Ricka  sure sounds like a cool cat. Well, you're right. And here's reason number 147: the Q & A a Day book. For my birthday a few years ago, she bought me (and herself too!) this nifty book. It's like a diary for people who have absolutely NO interest in journaling at all, but would love to have something to force their children to read after they've passed on. In case the title doesn't explain it well enough, Q & A a Day has one question for every day of the year. It has five blanks for each question; the idea being that you would answer the same question on the same day every year for five years. Then you can look back and see how your answers have changed over the years. It's great. Particularly when you think of the kids. Ayana will be thrilled to know that on  30 August 2012, kisses from her were my simples pleasure, and on 25 January 2013, I thought that what makes ...

Alright, Universe. I have something to say to you. This has been a bad week. I'd let it slide if it was just a personal thing, really I would. My own bad week isn't really your fault--that sits squarely on the shoulders of two men I wish would have just married each other and left me out of it. Them and that smoke detector that started beeping at 4 this morning and wouldn't stop even after unplugging and battery removal. I won't blame you, Universe, for my failure to keep those stupid square batteries on hand. But I might blame you, just for kicks, for even allowing crap like that to happen to single mothers. I mean really. I've had a lot of bad weeks in my life; I'd imagine most of us have. But until recently, I've gone with the Simon & Garfunkel method of dealing with the bad stuff: I am a rock. I am an island. A rock feels no pain, and an island never cries. Turns out, rocks and islands are not happy people. Why, they're not even...

You and I both know there's news, and then there's "news." When I wake up in the morning and am ready to know what's going on in the world, I head to BBC. Everyone has his/her favorite source and I'm not here to make a political statement; I just like the BBC because it acknowledges the goings on of things outside Brangelina's castle walls. American news sources can be hard to wade through, and I find myself getting caught up in conspiracy-theory type thought patterns when I accidentally land on FOX or CNN. In my small mind, American people have dark motivations and Europeans have...lovely accents. It's a well known fact that no nefarious person ever had a British accent. Just ask James Bond. As important as it is to me to keep abreast of global and local happening, I'm not going to lie to you. I love me some "news." So there I was this morning, skipping through a blooming field of bright yellow stories (you're welcome, single re...

I don't know exactly what age one must be to inherently distrust "newfangled" communicative devices to fulfill the communication errand to which they've been tasked, but my dad is most definitely whatever age that is. He's been that age for a long, long time. Such a long time, in fact, that I expect a phone call to accompany any email I receive, suggesting I read said email. If he didn't consider texting and Facebook threats to [his personal] national security, I'd be receiving notices that way as well. He recently decided to use all the antique stamps in his worthless stamp collection, so it's not out of the question that I'll start getting letters reminding me to check my voicemail--there's a message on there about an email. Now it's only fair that I 'fess up. Many years ago, I had to admit to my dad that I don't open any of his forwards. It was a forced confession. He couldn't understand how I wasn't deeply impacted by...

The stuff in my fridge Page 42 of Parenting magazine (actually, that just saw me topless) The carwash on 287 My crappy fan The shower curtain at the Sheraton I mean, that's obviously an incomplete list. And this is obviously a topic that doesn't have wings. But it made you open this post, didn't it? I have to give full credit to Ricka ( allthatscintillates.blogspot.com ). When we were talking about starting blogs, she suggested this as a possible post and I couldn't resist her brilliance. I've got a new FB page for Life As a Pearl (please like it!). If you were feeling awesome, you could go there and post a comment with something that's seen you naked. Make me laugh. Ok, enough fun. There's nothing funny about nudity. Except for the time my elderly next door neighbor asked if she could garden topless if she got her breasts removed. That was funny. If it were up to me, Florence could have skipped the mastectomy and just gone for it. But for whatev...

Today's Headline: [My] Baby Charms Starbucks by Ordering Soy Decaf Latte I'm not really sure there's an article here. It's just that it's only 9:17 and pretty much all that's happened today is Ayana ordering and drinking her usual at the Bucks--a Soy Decaf Latte. A few people usually think that's pretty cute, but today it was like the whole coffee shop wanted to throw a parade in her honor. She drank it all without spilling any on herself, and that  almost is a headline. This Week's Headline: Warrior Way on Lockdown for 12 Hours There is  an article here. There's a lot of them, actually, so I'm not going to reinvent the wheel. Type Centaurus High School in to Google or Bing or that ancient search engine with the dog--remember that?--and you'll read about a boy and his bomb. This boy and this bomb, unfortunately, turned up at the high school seven feet from my house on Monday. No students were hurt, the boy is in custody, and...

I have stuff to do today. Lots of stuff, actually. But that's true everyday, so sometimes I just have to pretend the list doesn't grow with every unencumbered breath I take and shanghai seven precious seconds of me time. Nine times out of ten, if I've managed to trick myself into taking a few minutes off, I'm going to spend that time reading. The good news is, I'm a fast reader. The bad news is, reading makes me want to write, and who has time for that? Apparently, this girl. I worked hard yesterday, really I did. And I rewarded myself with David Sedaris's new book ( http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316154697 ) because I can read one paragraph (sometime two if I have the time) and still feel well read and inspired to write. You don't believe me? You don't think David Sedaris, or any author for that matter, could possibly be that good? WRONG. Allow me to demonstrate: "Never would they [David's parents] have blindly defended me or even asked...