speak softly, unless it's time to rant

"Be still when you have nothing to say;
when genuine passion moves you,
say what you've got to say, and say it hot."
- D.H. Lawrence 

the joys of car-parenting

Thanks to Michelle Icard at Michelle in the Middle for inviting me to be a guest blogger on her excellent website. I wrote about how the car has replaced the kitchen table as the family's favorite place to tackle the big issues. Michelle in the Middle is brimming with wit, wisdom and resources for those who either have middle schoolers or have flashbacks of being one, so be sure to look around. Enjoy!

"Parenting from the Driver's Seat," by Lisa Rubenson

small comforts

Whenever there was trouble in the family, there were always Saltines. My grandmother kept the crackers in a pock-marked tin that she’d bought about twenty years into her marriage. It was round, with a brown top and actual-sized pictures of crackers all around it. Aloof and imperious, the adjective, “Oven-fresh,” hovered in italics above the name of the product, promising a hollow, impossible warmth inside. The tin stayed behind the chipped veneer of the middle cabinet, ready for any disaster.

Aunts and uncles, my dad – eventually my cousins and I – would come into the kitchen in various states of distress. We’d search for the tin like it was something holy. Holding it against our chests, we’d grip the lip of the lid and pull it with a desperate force. Then we’d fumble for the freshest cracker – often ripping open a new sleeve to take the one in the middle. The act of smearing on the peanut butter, as thick as the cracker could hold, gave us the necessary courage. We would walk and talk in circles around my grandmother, unburdening ourselves, while crumbs of worry and guilt fell to the floor.           

My father was the oldest, so when my grandmother died, he tucked the tin under his arm and put it in the back of his car. The others teased him about taking it, but no one smiled when he drove off with all of the family’s secrets.

a little alliteration anyone?

From the word nerd files: Saw this walking along San Francisco's Embarcadero en route to the Ferry Building. The editor in me wanted to get out my red pencil and turn this quote into something a little less...hyperbolic. But the word-lover in me reveled in the alliteration and the onomato-poeticism (yuh-huh, I can make up words on my own blog) of the cable cars' "clangor" and the "symphony" they created in the "cosmopolis." It's impossible to read this quote out loud without getting all mellifluous right there on the city sidewalk. Extra points for the clangor of cars in the background. 

days of wine and wordplay

I bought these bottles based soley on the label-writer's nod to English majors everywhere.