Tag: parenting

Recently my mom realized it was the 21st Century and did something that literally a billion people have done before her: she joined Facebook. Now, if you believe this isn’t a tragedy in the making, you clearly do not have a mother on Facebook.

The last weeks of summer are what I like to call “Christmas for Grown Ups.” Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year when all the kids go back to school. Seriously, it should be a national holiday. It would be awesome. We could have traditions like buying new clothes, new books and pencils and rulers…and countdown calendars to the big day so that parents don’t miss the best day ever.

The last time I wrote a column for a newspaper, I was a mere 38 years old. My daughter, The Girl, hadn’t graduated high school yet, and my son, The Boy, wasn’t even a twinkle in the metaphoric eye of Gilroy’s South Valley Middle School.

Recently, a friend who has a teenager brought up concerns about the prevalence of digitally enhanced, or Photoshopped, images in the media. Indeed, barely a day goes by without some celebrity or magazine causing a frenzy for publishing a picture that Photoshopped an already beautiful human being.

As a busy mom, attorney and writer,

When retired pastor Earnest Brooks receives a box of rocks for Father’s Day, he’s a happy man. As he puts it, “I’m probably the only man around who gets a box of rocks for Father’s Day and appreciates them!”That’s because they’re Coquina rocks, collected on a Florida beach by Earnest’s middle daughter, Carol, along with husband, Jeff, and their daughter, Hailey, a student at the University of Denver.

It’s summer and parents of college students know one thing: it’s the time of year when your little birds find their way back to the nest, hauling a trailer full of stuff they collected over the last two semesters.

On a warm spring afternoon 22 years ago, my dad and I sat chatting on the lawn outside a clinic where my mother, who suffered from early onset Alzheimer’s Disease, was having an MRI. My dad had been her caregiver for nearly 10 years. During a lull in our conversation, he took his worn leather wallet from his pocket and, from between two old photographs, he pulled out a lock of hair. “I think it’s time I told you about Helen…” he began.

Last week, Elon Musk announced that the Tesla would soon be able to drive itself. This is so exciting. I mean, for people who own Teslas…which obviously doesn’t include me.