Monthly Archives: July 2009

  • Walking away their way

    Someday when I retire, I’d like it to be on my terms. I’d like not to be laid off or given the “choice” of being reassigned to the e-mailroom at half the salary, or shown the proverbial door in any number of ways companies dispose of older workers while trampling on their dignity.

    So I get Brett Favre just like I understood Michael Jordan, even while I was rolling my eyes.

    I understand how someone who has attained a level of success well beyond their peers has a hard time walking away from what they love to do and just as significantly, walk out of the spotlight. And I understand how when they do decide to go, they want to do it their way.

  • Fan mail and another hot dog blog

    It has been brought to my attention that I am a moron.

    For the most part, I welcome feedback to things that I write, though I prefer it to be of the gushing, fawning variety and anything critical to come from the people I love, such as the above.

    I developed this thin skin when I started writing columns in Cocoa, Fla., in the early 1980s.  I was enjoying myself, learning my craft as I made predictions on the local high school games each week, occasionally being sarcastic and OK, maybe caustic and perhaps even occasionally insulting, depending on your point of view.

  • Family Fun Day

    Lately, parenthood has become a race. With one child going to high school in the fall and the other starting junior high, it’s like we’re trying to pack in all the fun before it’s too late and both kids are too embarrassed to associate with us any longer.

    At least this is what we hear from all the cool, professional parents who have already experienced this. They tell us that eventually, like when they’re 30 or so, your kids come back around to liking you again. But soon, and thankfully my husband and I are not so feeble as to have forgotten going through this ourselves, they will be mortified to do any of the following:

  • Perfect game, perfect day

    I may not have remembered where I was 40 years ago when man first lanced on the moon. And I can pretty much guarantee that by next week, I will have forgotten all the circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson’s death, regardless of the fact that I spent roughly 150 hours watching CNN’s coverage of it.

    But I don’t think I will ever forget where I was when White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle threw his perfect game.

  • Alec, Ernest and other tough guys

    Until about an hour ago, I thought the meanest thing my husband and I had ever done to our son Alec was not buying him a dog.

    But according to an article in Social Science Quarterly – What? You don’t read that? – we have also given him a terrible burden to bear.

    A friend sent me a link to a segment from the Today Show (always on the lookout for new ways to depress us in the morning), which cites the article, saying that giving your newborn boy an “oddball, girly or strange first name may just land them in jail.”