Sunday, May 19, 2013
When it comes to friendship, men and women differ.
Last Saturday night, the hub and I found ourselves doing what many married couples do on a late spring evening: walking toward an informal gathering on someone’s porch. What made this so unusual for me is the fact that my husband works on weekend nights, so I’m rather out-of-touch with the whole schmoozing scenario. The get-together was a quick “wine and dine” before a group outing to Marlton to watch my husband perform. While I’ve always known just the right thing to say to young’uns, walking into a gaggle of grown-ups I barely know makes me feel as if I’m wearing a Depends on the outside of my control-top mom jeans. We were all about the same age—fiftysomething—and pretty close to being in the same stage of life, with most of our active…
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Spring cleaning avoidance is just one of the many important lessons my mother taught me.
According to the calendar, we are now officially in the midst of spring. And, because it is spring, many of you out there are contemplating a massive, dust-disrupting, whole-house shakedown also known as “spring cleaning.” This is something I haven’t done in years, although I do feel qualified to write about it because at last count, I have wiped the kitchen counter approximately three hundred and sixty-three thousand, four hundred and eleventy-two times. My husband has never willingly wiped a counter. This is one of the fundamental differences between men, women and lower forms of life: neither the former nor the latter do much, if any, cleaning. Women still do 80 percent of the household chores—but that’s a whole ‘nother column. Mine was…
Sunday, April 21, 2013
'Our children learn their most important lessons from us ... If we want them to be compassionate people, they must see us performing compassionate acts.'
Most of the time, he played the trombone in the Navy Band, a handsome dark-haired young sailor sitting behind the trumpets and saxophones. Every once in a while, he’d be asked to step to the mic, where he would transform himself into a singer of his own creation, Larry Wilder. Into his seventh decade, my father could still remember, vividly, what it felt like to sing and to swing, to be that slick crooner, making the girls swoon. Although he never said as much, I imagine he wished on many stars to become a professional musician. Instead, he went to college and made a vocation of insurance, bending to the will of his father, the history professor from Alabama, who dictated his son do something “respectable.” I have no idea where my father’s…
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Why is our columnist so cranky? Blame dishonest groundhogs, school cheating scandals and Memorial Field canoodlers (among many other things).
As I write this, I’m a bit cranky. Everyone agrees it’s been a very long, very dreary winter with lots of rain, endless gray skies and no big snow events. Those who believe a rotund furball named Punxsutawney Phil can predict an early spring were ecstatic when the li'l guy didn’t see his shadow, thus encouraging us to think sunny, spring thoughts. Alas, Phil is like many meteorologists in that his forecasts are wrong 99 percent of the time, yet he still has a job. This is not spring, people! This is a continuation of winter that probably won’t end until the day before Memorial Day when the weather will abruptly morph from quasi-winter to sultry summer. So, let’s start with the weather. I’m still stuck on Sandy. I realize most of the world …
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Hair coloring is a personal choice, but more and more women—including our own Mayor Stacey Jordan (and our columnist)—are going the au naturel route.
I don’t think it’s a gross generalization to say we all remember the first one. I was in my late 20s, auditioning for the part of "Cheery O’Leary" in a never-got-off-the-ground ad campaign for Chicago tourism. With brown hair and brown eyes, I didn’t look the part of an Irish lass, but I had the brogue down pat, and I was cheery—in a maniacal, desperate sort of way. We wannabe lassies were waiting in a muggy ballet studio with mirrored walls, each one of us reciting lines to our silver selves while using peripheral vision to scope out the competition. As I leaned in closer to flick a wayward eyelash from my cheek, I saw IT. It resembled a tiny lightning bolt, zigzagging crazily from my scalp. It was all I could look at. Where mere hours …
Monday, March 11, 2013
Adopting an abused dog is not without its risks ... or its rewards.
Marley (of Marley & Me) was the first best-selling hero of what I call the “bad dog” memoirs that have flooded the market over the last six or seven years. In an effort to jump on this gravy train, I have been feeling the urge to commit Lulu’s story to paper. With all the treacly life lessons I’ve learned from our dog, I could make zillions of dollars and retire to a life of leisure, or at least provide for my canines after my demise, a la Leona Helmsley. “Trouble,” Leona’s Maltese terrier, was awarded $12 million dollars when Leona passed away, which means Trouble could buy all six liquor licenses at the mall, a pretty groovy McMansion on the east end of town, and still have a pocketful of chump change for Milk-Bones. Okay. Back to Lulu, …
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Have women changed that much in 50 years?
Last week was the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s groundbreaking work, The Feminist Mystique. I’m sure you were all celebrating like crazed peahens, weren’t you? I know I was! My first reaction to this milestone was to try and remember if I had ever read this very important tome. I started to keep a reading log not too long ago because I read a lot and, after a while, it all runs together. But 50 years ago I was only 9 years old. I’m pretty sure I was more interested in candy necklaces and Nancy Drew back then. Later, I had a college boyfriend whose mother earnestly pressed the book into my arms and told me I MUST read it. But with lipstick smeared on her front teeth, I couldn’t focus on the significance of the book. Plus, the romance …
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Dems and Republicans are working together on immigration reform. What's next? Gun safety?
Living in Mo’town, you might have brushed off the recent immigration reform news saying, “That has nothing to do with me.” We do live a rather sheltered existence here in leafy suburbia, but if you eat Jersey tomatoes, cranberries or blueberries, seasonal workers probably harvested them. If you employ a lawn service, you are probably helping the economy of Guatemala or Mexico. Going out to dinner? Depending on where you go, there’s a good chance that many in the kitchen crew, dishwashers and busboys are here illegally. Immigration reform affects all of us. Just ask Mitt Romney. At the Florida Republican Convention, Romney said he would make life so miserable for undocumented immigrants they would “self-deport.” Instead, and largely because…
Monday, February 11, 2013
Our columnist gives her take on a busy week in Moorestown news, from the SRO issue to a reassessment battle over the town's (and the state's) largest home.
Even though I love my job at the library, I am always happy when Friday comes and goes, leaving me with several days of less structure and more junk food. And how delightful to wake up on Saturday morning to a blanket of snow! Who doesn’t love a good "snow event"? I was almost envious, texting with my younger son who is hiding out in his dorm room in Boston. Two feet of snow is an invitation to partake in Hot Pockets and sloth—two of his favorite things! After spending three years in Southern California, we moved back to New Jersey in 1994, specifically to East Oak Avenue, where we rented a home recently vacated by Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams. We had missed the ice storms that plagued Moorestown for several winters, but were there for the …
Monday, February 4, 2013
Our columnist says goodbye to Sally Starr, Philly's beloved cowgirl.
She was my first crush, my first hero. The Webster's Dictionary definition of a hero is “any person who has heroic qualities and is regarded as a model or an ideal.” Some heroes, unfortunately, are not particularly heroic. Yes, they look fearless up on the screen, 20 feet tall with their nostrils flaring or their fists flying. And yes, we idolize them as they cycle through the Tour de France or hit one homer after another. But the true measure of a hero comes when the game is over, or when the cameras are gone and it’s just fan and idol. Are they brusque or are they kind? Do they seem to really care, or do they just want to get it over with, sign your baseball card and jump into their limo? My first hero was a gun-totin’ cowgirl who rode …
Carla McIlmail
2:18 pm on Tuesday, May 21, 2013
You would and have done the same for me, BFF!!! more ›