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When you are someone who manages to get along with practically everyone, it’s unnerving to meet a person that you just can’t seem to budge. The other day, a good friend and I were having lunch in a local cafe, and the subject of dealing with impossible people came up. A couple of years earlier, she’d had a fluke accident after her Rhodesian Ridgeback dog had spotted a deer in the backyard, lunged at it, and dragged my friend along with her. Sylvia ended up with a broken hip, and in the hospital and rehab for months. During her stay,...

Tag sale season is right around the corner.  My inventory is low, and I am hungry.  As the ads start to appear on Craigslist, as well as the occasional sign stapled to a telephone pole, I feel stirrings inside, and get ready for the hunt.  But not all sales are created equal, and as the season slowly begins, I have to be careful not to race right out to everything I see, no matter how tempting.  There are the wonderful sales, and the ones that are a complete waste of time.  Here is a general guide to a few types...

Date someone after you've been out of the country for a year and starved for intellectual companionship. Even though he's kind of dumpy, wears the same pair of too-tight black Levis for weeks on end, and sports a hairpiece at the age of 30, convince yourself that he’s attractive enough.  When you first take a shower at his house, ask for a towel.  When he gives you a shredded orange rag from the floor of his closet, pretend that it’s funny. Ditto for the t-shirt covered with dog fur.   Pretend the pyramid of dirty tissues you find is amusing...

My son, Izzy, was not quite ready to succumb to the nap sandman this morning, so I did what any intelligent breastfeeding mom would do: I shoved a boob in his mouth. Grabbing the nearest magazine soaked with baby drool, I found an article I’d meant to finish two months ago. We had 20 minutes before I had to leave the house. If Izzy fell asleep, I could tuck him into the car seat and avoid a wrestling match. No such luck. You know that bridge between sleeping and waking, when babies seem totally peaceful and relaxed-until it’s time to...

I found myself (not so) suddenly single – technically, “without a partner” is more accurate – in the summer of 2014. Those who have gone through something similar know about all of the stress that goes along with a rather ugly end to a marriage that lasted more than a decade. It was a deep shock to my system, without question the worst thing I had ever had to deal with in my life, though I would soon come to see that it was better than continuing to struggle in a relationship that had become severely toxic.   I was...