The Burrow

BlogHer wants to know how makeup, dressing up and strutting your stuff help you feel fabulous, confident and ready to rock the world .  The first time I read the prompt I laughed and clicked on through.  Then I became The Mother of The Bride. The event belongs to my little girl.  My outfit is much less important than her guest list and her smiles and her wedding dress.  Watching her try them on, in the warehouse carnival get me out of here atmosphere of David's Bridal or in the more subdued environment where we found the one she loved, I began to get the feeling that, perhaps, I might be able to respond to that prompt after all. There won't be any pictures of the clothes we selected; those will wait for 15 more days before they are revealed to the world.  What I can share is the wonder of putting them on. Neither of us is a shopper.  Neither of us dresses up that often.  We're t-shirt and sweat pants girls, though our guys tell us that we cl...

Life Well Lived wants to know about my favorite relaxation techniques for this week's expert's panel discussion .  I had to laugh when the invitation arrived in my inbox.  Relaxation and I have an interesting - some would say antagonistic - relationship.  No one who knew me before I got shot could have imagined that I would be capable of lying still on a couch for 12 weeks.  No one.  You didn't even have to know me.  You could have watched me from afar and made the same deduction: this is not person who sits still. My mother-in-law, the world's most wonderful mother-in-law whose example I aim to follow scrupulously, Nannie, called it sucrrying .  " Just listen to her scurrying around up there," she'd smile at TBG as she listened to my feet racing down the hall from the bathroom to Auntie Em's bedroom in which I sought refuge, thanking G'ma for insisting that I bring a bathrobe along on my first visit to his parents' house .  I carried h...

Do you know how happy you make me, denizens?  Do you have any idea how powerful a force you are in my everyday life?  Life Well Lived asked me to write about how blogging increases my happiness quotient; I couldn't have asked for a better prompt. I'm sitting in the living room of the Arizona Inn, typing to you from a big red leather armchair.  There's a game table with 8" chess pieces on an inlaid board and a glass fronted library case with leather sets of the classics.  Each seating area has its own Tiffany style lamp shining brightness to match the scorching sun outside. I've never been so glad to have read the Wall Street Journal as I am this morning.   Alina Dizik wrote a piece last week   extolling the virtues of the hotel lobby as public office space.  Hoteliers seem to like the buzz that locals create and the locals enjoy the environs, several steps above a metal table at Starbucks.  Since I had a meeting across the street a...

Whenever someone asks me to explain the thinking behind a Jewish ritual - think Kosher or No Work on Sabbath - my brain heads right to Passover.  I'm not the only one.  About.com, as secular as it gets, tells us this when searching for cleansing the house for Passover: Before Passover, the house needs to be cleaned so that all chametz (leavened products) are removed. Don't forget the bag of baby crackers in your diaper bag. What about the Purim treats your 3rd grader has stashed away in her desk? Gotta lift the sofa to get all that popcorn vacuumed up. While you are at it, you might as well throw some Spring cleaning in there - get out the summer clothes and put away the winter blankets and coats. Do you think there was Spring Cleaning in the shtetl? Here in the desert, with a winter that lasts about 6 weeks if we are lucky, the need for quick access to lighter clothes comes suddenly.  Last week Amster froze at Mr. 6's soccer practise; today it will be in...