Kauffman Stadium Open House Originally uploaded by smysnbrg At 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, Christian and Alex left for a Kansas City Royals game. (Baseball, the quintessential boys’ date.) Left at home with two little ones, I had plans of my own. They involved novel revision at naptime and a whole lotta scrapbooking—in front of…
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Making Peace With Average
Crozet Archipelago – King Penguins Originally uploaded by ¡WOUW! Movie stars. World-famous scientists. President of the United States. Dreaming big is programmed into us as children. As we get older, the dreams shift a bit, according to our interests. In high school and college, I planned to be principal flutist…
Read MoreObstinate
The Super Kiss Originally uploaded by Mild Mannered Photographer I’ve been reading a lot lately as part of my major summer writing project—namely, to get my novel submission package in order and start sending it out. This involves a lot of market research, which means reading a lot of novels. As enjoyable a job as…
Read MoreThe Buck Stops…where?
It used to be that you went to the movies so you could see Good Guys cream the Bad Guys. Robin Hood vs. the Sheriff of Nottingham. Superman vs. Lex Luthor. US vs. USSR. But these days we like our villains to have a reason for their bad behavior. In entertainment and in real life,…
Read MoreThe Determination of Dandelions
[picapp align=”none” wrap=”false” link=”term=dandelion&iid=87178″ src=”0083/e9465b66-4b51-487b-9247-7dca2981e7bb.jpg?adImageId=12404365&imageId=87178″ width=”380″ height=”253″ /] I am at war with dandelions. I know, go ahead and laugh. Project your shaken heads over the e-waves, passing me subliminal messages about futility. I know it’s futile. At noon, I pick off every yellow head within a three-house radius of my yard, and by nine the next…
Read MoreMother Bear Tamed
The day after Julianna was born, an acquaintance of a relative, a physician who works with kids with special needs, stood at the foot of my hospital bed and told me, “You need to be prepared to be an advocate for your daughter. Because nobody else is going to do it.” Although at the time…
Read MoreConflicted Parenting
Someday I’m going to write a book called “The Conflicted Parent.” No matter what parenting Bible you follow—Babywise or attachment, Love & Logic or Rosemond—no matter how religiously you stick with it—you will always find yourself chewing your fingernails and second-guessing yourself. Any parent who claims otherwise is either a liar or delusional. Having a…
Read MoreEasy as…Pie?
The cliché says, “easy as pie.” But long ago I came to the conclusion that whoever came up with that truism was completely nuts. Pie crust is one of the trickiest, most uncooperative things I’ve ever tried to make. Give me a cake any day. But I really like pie, so one visit, I asked…
Read MoreToad Rescue
Okay, so it wasn’t a toad. It was probably a tree frog. It had been sitting on the outer sill of our upstairs window all day, its little toad chin pulsing, a brownish lump in the corner of the glass. Alex was out playing, so it wasn’t until evening, when Christian discovered it, that Alex…
Read MoreGod is in the middle
It’s tempting, because it’s so easy. We live in a culture where everything is reduced to sound bytes. A writer has one sentence to hook a reader or listener; going “in-depth” on the nightly news takes two minutes; each movie shot lasts two seconds, tops. In a sound byte, there is no time for detail,…
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Kathleen M. Basi 