Last week was the first since the inception of this blog in which I didn’t post. I could make some excuses about being preoccupied by traveling with the baby, spending time with family, meeting some article deadlines. But the truth is I was too busy eating. It started when we arrived at my parents’ house…
superstitions
Beauty from Birth
At our childbirth prep class on Sunday I bravely asked the visiting pediatrician the question my husband wanted answered, but was too shy to articulate: When is it appropriate to pierce the baby’s ears? We had already covered how soon a baby can fly in an airplane, and spent 10 minutes on the pros and…
Burn, Baby, Burn: Folklore Inferno
It’s going to be a long day. And I mean that literally. Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Twice a year the sun goes to extremes as the Earth tilts on its axis, tilting away from or towards the sun and giving us the longest night of the year at…
Math is Hard
That’s a misquote of the elusive “Teen Talk Barbie,” which was recalled by Mattel in 1991 after public outcry deemed her shallow drivel (which included “Party dresses are fun! Do you have a crush on anybody?”) antifeminist and damaging to children. What Barbie actually said was not “Math is hard” but “Math class is tough!”…
It’s the End of the World As We Know It…and I Feel Fine.
So, tomorrow’s my nameday. But I wouldn’t rush out and pick out my gift just yet. Because tomorrow is also, according to some, the beginning of the end of the world. So you probably won’t live to see a thank you note. If you don’t know what a nameday is, it’s the day the saint…
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May Madness
When I lived in a small Greek village in 2002, I was informed that on May first I should rush out and pick a wild plant called mai–which sounds much like the word for May–so I could “catch the May” and gain control over the month. Apparently, it’s an unruly month, full of wild, powerful,…