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Weekend Wanderer: Don’t Invite the Introvert
I’m fully vaccinated, which for me means one thing. I can’t avoid socializing. As an introvert, the thought of hitting parties, joining the swim club, or finally agreeing to that road trip with the girls overwhelms me. I’m no fan of the pandemic, but I did enjoy not talking to people. Socializing on any scale…
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Weekend Wanderer: When In-Person Learning Gets Prehistoric
Tyrannosaurus rex teenagers were calamitous. Their presence altered any ecosystem unfortunate enough to host them. It’s possible they had a role in whatever freaky biology made dinosaurs so big. They were so different from their parents some argue they should be classified as a different species. A different species. For further research into adolescent T.…
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Weekend Wanderer: Don’t Be So Quick to Clean That Damned Spot
There is pen ink on the living room lampshade. Oil paint is ground into the family room carpet. A weird goo is crusted into the hallway floor. And a throw pillow is missing. A year into the pandemic forcing us home, my house is battered. Even our outdoor space has seen better days. The garage…
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Weekend Wanderer: Feeling the Squeeze in the ‘Scam-wich’ Generation
The long and short of this story is the scammer got my parents to purchase $2,000 worth of Best Buy gift cards. And they gave him access to their bank accounts. And let him move in with them. My mom baked him her famous cheesecake tarts, and my dad turned over the remote control. OK.…
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Weekend Wanderer: Bear-ing False Witness
I was married under a falsehood. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. My intended had employed treachery and trickery to get me here. I’m too far gone to be saved. But, like Jacob Marley, I am here for your sake. What has my betrayal got to do with you? You’re not…
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Weekend Wanderer: Home Is Where the School Is
I have shared a few controversial positions, writing for this publication. I don’t like the shore. I don’t find Disney World magical. The outdoors are just the worst. You probably don’t like me. You don’t find me magical. You maybe even think I’m the worst. Well let me throw another log onto that fire. I’m…
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Things That Go Bump on TikTok
In a time when we’re so fractious, the internet appeared to unite on one opinion: The video was creepy. The series of TikTok posts is a 60-second horror movie. An icy wind in her bathroom led New York City resident Samantha Hartsoe to discover an entire room behind her mirror. Let that sink in. She…
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The Seniors in School
I suppose the announcement last month from the CDC, the one nudging schools to get kids back full-time, should have given me that same gush of relief my first slug of caffeine gives me each morning. It did not. The Philadelphia Inquirer recently discussed the indifference kids, particularly teenagers, have towards going back to school.…
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To Chore or Not to Chore?
I’m not sure where, exactly, my son’s sheets went. I know I handed them to him. I know I told him to make his bed. And I know he has spent every night since sleeping on his bare mattress. I would look in his room. I would. But my kids’ sloppiness is legendary. An accidentally…
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Don’t Shovel That Snow Just Yet!
I heaved the box into my parents’ house. My mom stared at me in alarm. “You’re out of breath!” she exclaimed in horror. You’d be out of breath too if you had carried an overpacked moving box up two flights of stairs. But my mom doesn’t carry moving boxes up flights of stairs. She has…
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Let the Good Times … Stand Still
They’re turning their houses into Mardi Gras floats in New Orleans. The pandemic has forced the cancellation of the traditional, annual parade of bright floats, so iconic to the city. But New Orleanians, in their perpetual embrace of laissez les bons temps rouler, engineered a COVID-safe Mardi Gras. I’m not as resilient as New Orleanians…
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Twenty-Four Hours In Pandemic Parenting
In the end, it was the smartwatch that sealed my fate. It started 2:30 Tuesday morning when I let my dog into the yard. He does this some nights, always between 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning. I think, in these moments, of The Amityville Horror, of Margot Kidder waking up screaming – every night,…
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Put Down That Screen. Well, Maybe.
Let me be clear. I hate hiking. But we all know time spent outdoors is good for us. And the Parenting Rule Book mandates we embrace outdoor time. Encourage it. Enforce it. I have made a pact with my husband to get the kids outside more in the new year. Two problems interfere with my…
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Don’t Move To The Country Just Yet!
I’m here to knock some sense into you. You’re thinking of moving somewhere bucolic. Somewhere sparsely populated. Somewhere, to quote Tom Petty, into the great wide open, under them skies of blue. Jonah Bayer, writing for Travel and Leisure, offers a practical, optimistic view of such a move. I’m going to give you the pessimistic viewpoint. …
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So You Own A Business. Do You Mandate Vaccines?
Once, my dad hooked our collapsible camper to the back of our 1980 Datsun hatchback. Needless to say, when we drove through that puddle the camper whipped our Datsun around like they were in a do-si-do. Seatbelt laws didn’t exist, so us kids were snuggled in sleeping bags in the aforementioned hatchback. The accident concussed my brother. The Datsun was totaled. We were out of state, so we spent…
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15 Ways to Holiday Virtually, Montco Style
There is just one Ebenezer Scrooge for me. Well, two. It’s George C. Scott. And whoever is playing Scrooge at Walnut Street Theater. I’m inclined to stay home this December. No Walnut Street Scrooge. Fortunately, I’ve found ways to fill December with COVID-safe events. The Year Without A Santa Claus? Never! Visit Santa virtually through King of Prussia Mall here. Or find a few ways to get your…
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“Holidaying” at King of Prussia Mall: Making the Most of America’s Largest Mall in the Oddest of Christmas Seasons
I married an honest-to-goodness, true-blue Grinch. Well, true-green Grinch. My Grinch doesn’t enjoy Christmas carols, holiday shopping, or A Christmas Story. I tell him his heart is two sizes too small. He says my heart is enlarged. Last week, my middle-schooler told me he always detested sitting on Santa’s lap. So I’m also raising a…
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WSJ: Develop Your Own “E-charisma” to Break Through on Zoom!
I was looking for an opening, a way to wedge in my story. Each month, my friends and I hold a Zoom chat. And each month, I can never get in more than a few words. But my beagle had dug up my dead cat, rolled around on her corpse, then brought the stench of feline cadaver into the house. At three in the…
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