It was at least 200 degrees under the shade trees of Central Pennsylvania, where I had just arrived to spend four glorious days at Writer Camp. Despite sitting on the Allegheny Plateau a thousand feet up, the temperature was high and the air felt soupy. Like it would be faster to swim than walk from one end of camp to the other. Either way, I'd end up soaking wet.  In the shared bunkhouse where I would sleep, it was a hundred degrees hotter. Cool air blowing from the window unit in the sitting area rarely made its way up to my top bunk beneath the slanted ceiling. I knew this going in, but I was still offended at the heat that blew back at me when I tossed my pillow, portable mini fan, and phone charger onto the bed. I hung a white towel, furnished by the camp, on the wooden post of the bunk, knowing it would never fully dry between showers. The problem Becky, camp coordinator extraordinaire, had kindly left two Andes chocolate mint candies on the bunk of each camper as a welcome g...

Once upon a time, on the zippered edge where two cities meet, there was a bra.  It was a bra of unremarkable color - darker than beige but lighter than mocha - whose cups stood proud if lonesome. It was a bra of indeterminate size - bigger than an A cup but smaller than Milwaukee. It was a bra with a story.  *Actual bra not pictured One May afternoon this bra suddenly found itself lounging in the westbound lane of Center Ridge Road, not far from a Taco Bell restaurant. Its hook-side pointed to one zip code; its eye-side, another. It was out of place in so many ways. But how did it get there?  Did it take flight from atop a load of laundry traveling in a cracked plastic hamper in the back seat of a 1998 Toyota Corolla, soaring through a rolled-down window to exciting lands unknown?  Had it been hastily stuffed into the cup holder of a late-model Mercedes during a moment of stolen passion, after which incriminating evidence had to be hastily discarded? Was it torn from...

It waits. In January, my sixth-grader missed his first middle school dance. He had really wanted to attend this masquerade-themed party for three local parish schools. I confirmed with his friends' moms that they would be there. He designed a mask made to look like a monster character he has written about for a Young Authors book. I helped him bring it to life.  The plan (top) and the execution (bottom) He was all set to have a great time. And then: the flu. On the Wednesday before the Friday dance, he came home early from school feeling queasy. By dinner time he was dealing with nausea, a stuffy head, runny nose, a slight cough, and a 102-degree fever. He hardly moved off the couch for the next two days. When he asked through a fatigued haze if he could still go to the dance, I had to break the bad news that he could not. Tears dripped down his flushed cheeks. My heart ached for him, because I had wallowed through that kind of disappointment. But mine has an embarrassing story att...

At the first Thanksgiving I celebrated with my future husband-to-be, my future in-laws whom I love dearly served turkey, mashed potatoes, and corn. And maybe rolls. That's it. And I said, "That's not Thanksgiving. That's just Thursday." Where were the exotic, calorie-laden dishes that only appear once a year? The puzzling mincemeat pie, the savory dressing, the sweets like cookies and chocolates and pastries? That's more like it. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. Perhaps it's an unconventional choice, but one that makes sense given that I grew up playing jump-rope with the poverty line . My family didn't host or attend cook-outs on Labor Day or Memorial Day, and never bought fireworks on Fourth of July. Christmastime was often excitement tinged with disappointment and forced merriment I didn't enjoy. But Thanksgiving Days were full of delicious once-a-year foods, thanks to community pantry donations that made our food stamps go farther .  Leadi...

  Don't. I really mean it. You think it will be fun, but it won't. You think it will be all family bonding, laughing while inexplicably wading through a vat of uncooked corn kernels, sipping cider on an outlandishly oversized, rough-hewn wooden swing while gazing at one another lovingly. It will not be like that. It will be hell on a farm, which is already a kind of hell, with goats scream-bleating at you and children getting rub-burns on snot-slick plastic slides after losing their squares of scratchy carpet and expensive small-batch caramel corn flying everywhere and $50 for a lumpy pumpkin you have to hack off the prickly vine yourself and someone will cry. Someone is always crying. Sometimes that someone is you. And there is no alcohol for purchase at this farm. Stay home and stream a movie instead. Microwave popcorn is fine.

Almost five years ago, I gifted the world a list of Things I Never Thought I'd Have to Say , an ongoing collection of utterances that made me pause and think, "WTF did I just say to my child?"  Gems included please don't lick the dog , we don't cook our friends , and  don't high-five him in the face. Since 2020, I have said dozens more of these bizarre sentences to the two small humans who live in my house and follow me around, asking for snacks and screen time.  Because parenting is weird. Any time you try to teach another person what shouldn't be eaten, how to be kind to others, and also how to act in public, things are bound to get muddled. It's time for an update of what I've said.  Strange sentences about food Please don't put Goldfish in your ears Don't hit yourself in the face with carrots. You have cranberry sauce on your glasses. Please don't put hot dogs inside your pockets. There's no reason to ever take syrup into the ba...

It's spring.  The world is rubbing its sleepy eyes and stumbling out of bed. The birds are singing from budding tree branches and (when it gets a little warmer) the bees will begin their rounds.  It's time to talk about sex.  Not how babies are made. As has been tradition at least since I was a child, in the spring of fifth grade students gather together at school to sit in uncomfortable silence while a teacher explains the basics of puberty and human reproduction.  Body hair, growth spurts, and menstrual periods, oh my.  I knew my son would get these lessons this school year, and I wanted to get ahead of it. By talking with him beforehand, I hoped to make him more comfortable while also giving him solid, fact-based information before he could hear rumor, innuendo, and falsities from his friends or classmates. Unfortunately, I held a lot of untrue and unhelpful ideas about sex and sexuality when I was young. And I didn't know all the parts of my own anatomy unti...

I want to live on the edge, but with a 401K and a black minivan where I can blast Snoop Dogg. I want to have a wedge-shaped yard chock full of outdoor accessories, to buy in bulk, and hear the latest gossip about who got an HOA violation for her grass being over the 8-inch limit even though she measured it and it was only 6 inches, thankyouverymuch.  I want my kids to ride their bikes in circles until they get dizzy and fall down, and then go set up a lemonade stand on the main road to snare homeowners who aren't lucky enough to live in our spherical utopia. I want to live that cul-de-sac life. Upper class of the middle class. There's something extra special about a suburban street terminating in a bulbous dead-end. It sets apart residents of that circular community-within-a-community while also bringing them closer together. Closer than those aloof residents who enjoy seemingly unlimited street parking, anyway.  Translated literally from French, cul-de-sac means "arse of ...

Into every family vacation, a little misfortune must fall. Here's how to tell when it's time to end your beach vacation: 10. A wave steals husband's sunglasses  9. Backs of your hands get sunburned 8. Found a tick in the 6-year-old's hair 7. Somebody mentions the alligators at the state park, "but they don't bother you none" 6. Husband loses his hat 5. 9-year-old throws tantrum that we never let him do anything (while holding a boogie board, standing in the ocean, on vacation) 4. Sprained your ankle 10 minutes into a trip to the beach 3. 6-year-old gets stung by a jellyfish, has complete freak-out melt-down screaming on the beach 2. You run out of Blue Bell ice cream 1. Electricity goes out at the resort when it's 93 degrees outside These, my friends, are sure signs that it's time to pack it up, at least until next year. 6-year-old: "Are we going to take any ice cream home?"  

Calling Poison Control was not in my plans, yet here I am. People rarely use rubbing alcohol yet everyone keeps a bottle, typically in the back of a medicine cabinet or under a sink. Yours is probably covered in a layer of dust to rival the ruins of Pompeii, with a label that was printed in a font discontinued when laser printers were invented. That's the way of domestic afterthoughts. Several years ago the bottle I was probably gifted at my christening ran out, and I moseyed up to Target to buy another dusty, leftover bottle from the bottom shelf of the health and beauty aisles. As soon as I got it home, that brittle plastic bottle gave up the ghost and began leaking from its side seam. It threatened to ruin the other forgotten things buried in my linen closet, like the rectal thermometer from when my kids were babies (RECTAL written on it in permanent marker), a pair of eyeglasses missing one screw, and a set of hot rollers that survived the 2001 flash-flood of La Nana Creek whic...

For the last week my oldest child has been talking about a classmate from school who he says lives in our neighborhood. This is news to me, because he's rarely mentioned this child before and never asked to play with him. He says they have agreed to meet at the neighborhood pool so they can synch up Roblox user names and play together. I'm excited to get him out of my hair, and also for him to have a new friend. Twice now he has gone down to the wide parking lot in front of our neighborhood pool, and stood and waited for this friend. And stood. And waited.  Twice his friend never shows up. Twice he trudges home despondently.  Finally I asked for his friend's last name. In that moms-are-superheroes mentality, I think I can somehow make this situation better. My son says it's Bird or Burn or something, he doesn't remember. Who needs last names anyway? I look up both names in the school directory as well as our neighborhood Facebook group...and find nothing. "Are...

I was told there'd be handbaskets. I'll concede that no one promised me a rose garden, but I distinctly remember the mention of handbaskets. Since, clearly, everything is going to hell. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what a handbasket is. Is it similar to picnic baskets of yore, made of smooth woven wicker with two hinged lids and a sturdy handle? That doesn't seem like the best choice of vehicle to transport me through the eternal fires of damnation, being that it's wildly flammable, but at this point I'll take what I can get. This nicely apportioned doom buggy can be found on Amazon . I'd like my handbasket to be woven of rattan imported from Indonesia, preferably an idyllic hilly countryside amid a lush tropical forest. Source the vines from trees near a turquoise lake or Hindu temple, please. Imagining those picturesque scenes will help pass the time while I float in my handbasket down the river, like a modern-day Moses, except to my destruction rat...

In the epic battle between a 41-year-old female with zero plumbing experience and a Bradford White 50 gallon electric water heater, I have been triumphant.  This was a war I never intended to fight, a battle brewing for more than four years.  Beneath the glare of a single bare lightbulb, the beast waits in its lair. In the first days after we moved into this beautiful house, I noticed our hot water was measly. Wimpy. Unimpressive. It was very warm at best, never up to the challenge of being truly hot. On the advice of our builder, I cranked up the water heater's two heating elements over and over until they were set hot enough to boil us, but the water temperature at our faucets and showerheads was still unexceptional. I was vexed, but thought it was a minor inconvenience we'd just learn to live with. Yet the thorn in my side slowly festered. About two weeks ago, the hot water inexplicably became even less hot. Now I was taking daily showers with no cold water added whatsoever...

Just before 2 p.m., I was gathering my things for a school pick-up run. Bag? Check. Sunglasses? Check. Mask? Check.  Suddenly, multiple smoke alarms in my house started blaring simultaneously. I froze in fear. There was no explanation, there was only the ear-splitting screech of dire warnings in stereo. DANGER! Like a thousand pigs squealing Weird thoughts go through your head during a perceived crisis. My first panicked thought was our security alarm was going off, but 1.) I hadn't turned it on yet and 2.) I was the only one in the house, definitely not intruding. My second thought was I wasn't currently cooking, so it wasn't a burned dish smoking in the oven or a pot holder I accidentally set on fire like that one time in college. (PSA: Do not leave unattended pot holders on the stove, lest you turn on the wrong burner and they go up in flames.)  I frantically rushed around two floors and a basement while sniffing the air like a bloodhound, but I couldn't see or smell...

Some people collect comic books, or vinyl records, or refrigerator magnets. I collect words.  In the fall of 1998, my first semester in college, my best friend urged me to start a quote book. We shared an infatuation with the first two Counting Crows albums, dripping tortured lyrics that, in the throes of early adult angst, spoke to our souls. Adam Duritz sings words you can't help but pay homage to by writing them down for yourself. Suddenly I saw the world was full of words I needed to keep. So I dug out an old hardcover journal I had been gifted in high school. With the inspirational Footprints poem on the cover, it wasn't really my style, but it had 168 lined pages ready to absorb meaningful, beautiful words, and I obliged. I wanted a list of expressive and evocative quotations that said I wasn't alone, and snapshots of the memories I might someday forget. The very first quote I wrote down was, "Your past is where you came from, not who you are." It told me, i...

I didn't think it would happen to us. Not to *my* friends. We were smart. We were practical. We knew the risks. We had read articles from doctors advising against it, heard about the struggles of other parents, and agreed that we would never turn into Those People.  But when December came, one by one they fell victim to the contagion. They bought Elves on the Shelf. Enemy of the people I didn't understand what was happening. These are otherwise level-headed, rational parents who for some reason looked at their lives -- working from home, schooling from home, navigating a pandemic, plus taking on the load of Christmastime -- and thought, " You know what would be great? If we added even more daily responsibilities in the name of enchantment! " I wanted to talk them off the ledge, shake them into sensibility, take their temperatures and suggest bedrest. But it was too late -- the elves had already been named. It had begun. Oh, my dear friends, what have you done? Even my...

It turns out there's not a lot of logic involved in parenting. There's bravado, confusion, joy, and exhaustion, but very little logic. Sometimes I hear the words coming out of my mouth and think, "WTF did I just say?" I'm not sure what else I expected. After all, children are snack terrorists who have no filter and feel everything at 11. If it pops into their little brains, they do it. Or somebody does it. Because both of my children disavow all knowledge of the majority of the things that happen around here. So I began compiling a running list of Things I Never Thought I'd Have to Say. Things that make me shake my head and deepen that wrinkle between my eyebrows. Things that make me wonder if there's something wrong with me, with them, or both. In the early years, it was mostly about things that shouldn't be in the mouth. Please don't lick the dog. Please don't lick the trashcan. Stop letting the dog lick your tongue. We don...

Me: *clicks new message icon" "Hello again, Karen. I hope things are going well for you. Our giveaway contest is going extremely well. Thanks again for helping get that set up. I'm reaching out for two reasons" 3yo, in the living room: Momma! Me, from the office: What? 3yo: The dog won't stop licking me Me, yelling: Chappy, STOP LICKING HER "After this current lickaway"  backspace  " giveaway is over, we're going to run a second one for Q4" 3yo, suddenly in office: Momma! Me, startled: ACK. What? 3yo *hands me a lavender ball of tulle and fake velvet*: Will you put on my princess dress Me: Okay, but then you have to go have quiet time so Momma can work *struggles to find dress's neck hole, which won't fit over child's head because she's trying to put her head and arms through the neck hole at the same time while also holding her dolly* 3yo, muffled: Ma dis dresh doeshnt fet Me: *forces head t...

This morning in the preschool drop-off line, there suddenly appeared a snake in my car. I knew this because of the (suspiciously preschooler-sounding) hiss emanating from behind my seat. Without warning, another snake joined in from the passenger-side back seat too. I was surrounded. "OH NO! A SNAKE! A SNAKE" I called out. "Quick! What would scare a snake? ...A dog!" So I started barking furiously, even growling, but it was to no avail. Two silly snakes were still coming after me. My dog made fearful whines and ran off. "What else would scare a snake?" I said. (The snakes laughed at me. They laughed!) "A bear!" And so I started growling, albeit not very convincingly. I even swung my best paws in the air in the general direction of the snakes' reflections in my rear-view mirror. Did it scare them? Not even a bit. My bear lost its bluster and ran to hide in the bushes. I was running out of options. "OH NO! HELP! What will sca...