Mark and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary this month, which followed the 14th anniversary of our meeting by about five weeks. Although I can recall both days as if they happened only a month or so ago, I am well aware that there's been no shortage of water under this old bridge of mine since those stirringly romantic moments changed my life for the better and forever.

Falling in love was an easy, natural process for us, and it truly seemed the only possible and reasonable thing to do at the time. From the first minute we shared company there was a familiar... more

Since I know there are a lot of you out there who are taking care of parents at the same time you're raising little ones, a couple of pieces in today's news seemed like good bits to pass along.

The first is from the UK, but the information works beyond geographic boundaries, although I'll have to do some currency conversion for you. (I don't mind a bit!)

A "Cost of Parent" survey -- yes, how much it costs to take care of aging parents -- was conducted... more

Continued from the previous post where we've been looking at how new circumstances arising during the adoption process should be dealt with, and how some might encourage hopeful adoptive parents to keep information about serious illness to themselves. As I was just about to say ...

Excuse me? All that advice sounded not only shaky, but despicable to me, and I wasted no time before lambasting those who'd offered it up and suggesting strongly... more

Not that there's any warranty I know of that states without equivocation that under a certain age there will be no unpleasant surprises in the health department invading our individual realms, but even I have to admit that the likelihood does tend to increase as the years pass and we put more miles behind us.

Given that and the fact that adoptions these days are taking longer and longer to complete in many cases, it can happen that the rubber meets the road when older parents are waiting ... and waiting, and waiting some more ... to get to the point where... more

The corners around here are clogging up, so I'm taking some time today to sift through the geezer-related stuff for Sunday blog material.

Starting off with a shortage of silver, and I'm not talking hair here, as we have plenty of that, but rather the the anniversary that doesn't make it as often as many would like.

Turns out that more than half of the couples in the US that should have celebrated a 25th wedding... more

Continued from the previous post.

I am well aware that much of the angst over the business of sending my youngest child off to preschool is 100% my fault and my doing. My dithering over the rightness or wrongness, the timing, the implications and consequences of sending my last baby off into the world, setting her tiny feet on a path that will lead her away from childhood, from innocence ... from me ... has rubbed off on all of us. Although Sam is now, at not quite five,... more

After all the drama and trauma I've shared over the past close-to-two-years of blogging here concerning my kids and school, I decided to hold out on y'all in the latest round of tears and turmoil.

With the crushing defeats I've suffered at the hands of my tiny and delicate little flower of a Cj over repeated attempts to interest her in a world wider than our veranda and populated with ever-so-interesting characters of her approximate shape and size, I've been reticent to blah, blah, blog on about another attempt, at least at the outset.

There's no... more

Fellow Boomers, do you ever get the feeling that we're scaring the poop out of the young whippersnappers of the world?

I've been reading this feature from the Washington Post, "Brave New Boomers: Area Officials Plan for a Generation That Won't Call Itself Old And Opts to Stay Put Far From Transit and Health Services" about steps in the DC area being taken to prepare for an onslaught of geezers, and detect just a note of panic.

Calling... more

When my first child was born in August of 1969, her father, all of nineteen at the time, was a long-haired, motorcycle-riding hippy sporting love beads and peace signs. I did a good rendition of the female version of the style-du-jour, complete with flowing skirts, eau de patchouli, a load of questions for authority and lack of trust for anyone over thirty.

After a year or so of partaking in the free love that all self-repecting teens of the times were expected to partake of without benefit of any sort of protection other than some wishful thinking we thought... more

One of the wonders of life on a tropical island just south of the Equator ... and by 'wonder' I mean, 'I wonder why I have to put up with this every day' ... is a sporadic Internet connection.

Lately, it's been especially bad, and it's been up and down more often than a toddler's training pants for the past couple of weeks with no rhyme or reason given ... and a rhyme would be a nice touch when the phone calls to Botched Internet Inc. become a tedious kvetch. Often, part of the no rhyme/reason bit has to do with those three famous links to success... more