For many years, like many other moms in Mo’town, I stayed at home with the kids. Before I had children, I worked at a variety of jobs and did not exactly have what one would call a career. My husband DOES have a career that requires that he travel most of the time, so we both felt it was best if I hung with the boys while he earned a living in fabulous places like Las Vegas, LA, and Muscatine, Iowa. I spent many hours at home with my boysies, searching for dinosaurs, pretending to be pirates and playing at what they called “the wooden playground,” Fullerton Park. I also remember crushing …

I cannot explain the creative process. Nor can I attempt to explain why some people have a sense of humor while others wouldn’t understand "funny" if it sat on them and laid a giant goose egg. Humor has always been my savior, helping me through some very difficult times, starting when I was very young. It is no coincidence that I married a comedian, 25 years ago this June. He makes me laugh. Especially when I ask him to hook up the DVD player to the television. Last week, while pretending to exercise at the gym, the television tuned silently to CNN, I saw this zipper crawl at the bottom of …

OK. So maybe mocking the mayor’s folksy, affable tone at the last Town Council meeting (May 2) was not my finest moment. Nor will it be on my Greatest Hits compilation, “Can You Hear Me Now?” This collection includes such memorable hits as “Get a Hearing Aid, Will Ya?” and “Synergy, Shminergy,” my quirky salute to the ludicrous notion that the Rec Center and the Library enjoy a delightful bond. This bond will only be enhanced when the historic, functional Rec Center is torn down then rebuilt and conjoined with the incredibly shrinking Library into one wonderful bundle of shared bathrooms, …

Because I live in Testosterone Town, I have been a bit player in my own B-movie called “Boys Behaving Badly.” It wasn’t until we adopted our abused pit bull, Lulu, that I felt a minute stirring of estrogen in the household. Still, Lulu wasn’t exactly interested in comparing moisturizers or sharing in the cooking duties, so she became just one more creature to pick up after. When complaining about my all-male, all-the-time universe to my mother, she hit me with the first of many parenting clichés and wisely told me to choose my battles. I think I snorted, not fully understanding that she was …

I have often heard seagulls referred to as flying rats. They are scavengers that serve no purpose, except to snatch our sandwiches on the beach or, inexplicably, roam the ShopRite parking lot in search of a good number at the deli counter. Yesterday, after almost driving into a Canada goose while mistaking it for a Smart Car, I sat in my car on Haines Drive, waiting for my heart to slow down. The goose did not have a similar reaction. It looked vacantly at my car then trundled toward a gaggle of its brethren loitering and honking near the cement Teddy Bear sculpture. Branta Canadensis maxima …

By the time one creaks into their fifth decade, one expects to have heard and seen everything. Things don’t have the same shock value that they did when one was younger and less crusty. We’ve maneuvered through our own disappointments and triumphs as well as those of our offspring and come out on the other side where we are not as quick to anger or, hopefully, to judge. Many of us have watched the parents we thought we knew so well become feeble of body and mind. Many of us have buried loved ones, after having made decisions that were heartbreaking. This wealth of experience spanning issues …

As Taylor and I approach our 25th anniversary (28, if you count the three years we lived together but don’t tell our boys!), I have been ruminating on marriage, divorce and every marital state in between, including Delaware. With our senior son about to graduate from Mo’town High, I am no longer looking at an empty nest, I am almost roosting the empty nest, my feathers ruffled, ready to peck anyone who reminds me that next year, I will be pining for both of my sons and eating lots of chocolate … alone. Closing in on the end of our day-to-day parenting, Taylor and I find ourselves reminiscing …

Back in the Mesozoic era, when I was substituting at the UES, I saw the writing on the wall. It wasn’t a chalky, cursive scrawl on the blackboard or medicinal dry erase block letters on the white board, but an indecipherable mess of initials that served to alert me, one more time, that I was old and out of the loop. I was substituting in a sixth-grade language arts classroom for one of my favorite teachers, a true inspiration, Ms. Leeanne Schmidt. The students were writing in their journals. My assignment was to give the journal entries a quick look-see, nothing more. No grammar lessons, no …

I have been waging an internal battle with the Moorestown Education Association all year, and frankly, I’ve had enough. As we approach another school budget election with still no teacher’s contract in sight, I am wondering how many people will vote AGAINST the 2011-12 school budget because they’re tired of the quagmire we’ve been slogging through since last fall. To be fair, it is not all the teachers’ fault. If you’ve never taught, and I would say that the majority of those reading this have not, you have no idea how difficult it is to teach in the 21st century. Our educators are not just …

I’ve always been somewhat of a "job gypsy," flitting from one career to another. All this flitting was necessitated by my bachelor of fine arts degree: The degree that prepares you for no job based in reality. At the time, I remember my mother counseling me to get my teaching certificate. Even then, I foresaw the futility of preparing for a career that offered very few opportunities. I mean, once one lands an art teacher job, one is set for the next 25 years. Besides, it wasn’t until I had kids of my own that I discovered that I liked children, and could tolerate being with them for more than…