FULL COLUMN: Giving thanks
…from last week’s Creative Loafing. In a sluggish economy, during a birthday month that means I’m one step closer to adult-diaper-wearing years, it’s easy to focus on the negative. All I have to do is watch our leaders happily ensuring that everything gets worse, in order to make the president’s re-election that much more difficult. [...]
FULL COLUMN: *Happy* Holidays
…from yesterday’s Tampa Tribune. My friends are already complaining about the holidays. They loathe the inevitable weight gain, spending sprees, and parties with people who are drunk and hostile. Let’s skip over the diet advice and austerity measures. We don’t need another protest on our hands! Instead, let’s focus on the intolerable people in our lives. [...]
FULL COLUMN: Things to do in Tampa with your kids this summer
From last weeks’ Creative Loafing… I stayed home with my children until they were almost three years old when, if memory serves, they were ready to graduate law school and run for office. After that, until a few years ago, I taught high school so we would have summers off together. I call that period of [...]
A modern Irish-American-Jewish-and-Everything-Else family
St. Patrick’s Day is here and I find myself thinking of my great-grandparents. Back in the 1800s, when they took a boat from County Mayo in Ireland to Pennsylvania, they also took quite a chance. They risked their lives to make a better one for their children and grandchildren. When they first arrived, my ancestors [...]
Lessons through loss
Having been raised in a family of strong Irish Catholics, funerals are nothing new to me. End of life rituals are strange, sad, important, and sometimes funny events where we mourn the dearly departed and celebrate their memory at the same time. With a drink or two. Paying tribute to these old souls always seems [...]
How to enjoy the holidays without gaining weight or killing your family
It’s that time of year again, where temperatures dip into the low 80s and we get a break from humidity for about twenty minutes each morning. Looking around my family, the signs are everywhere. Dad puts away his fishing gear and breaks out the train set. For about a month, he’ll slowly put together his [...]
Our kitchen table
You might think just because I’ve got a career, happy family, and blue eyes that I’ve got it all. You might think because I scored an agent and the greatest friends known to man that I’m perfectly content and satisfied. You might think that I have no idea what it feels like to be lonely, [...]
How to enjoy a day at the beach with kids
I spent years wondering why so many people enjoyed the beach. Have you ever really looked at those tourists baking like lobsters in the heat of a summer’s day? They don’t look like they’re having fun. My parents dragged me to Anna Maria Island or Clearwater Beach a few times. I’d marvel at crowds of [...]
Home sweet home
Back in 1996, less than a year into our marriage, my husband and I desperately needed a change. Our hometown suddenly seemed old and inadequate. We wanted to escape suburbia and live somewhere exciting. We packed up everything we owned and never looked back, saying goodbye to Tampa without a single tear. Goodbye unbearable heat! [...]
Modern v. old-fashioned parenting
After hearing stories this past week about how my relatives were raised during the 1940s and 1950s, I’m surprised my grandparents and their contemporaries were never brought up on charges. The fact that they weren’t featured in a movie-of-the-week or some best-selling memoir must mean that their parenting styles were accepted and even appreciated. Their [...]
Disproportionately blessed...
Catherine Durkin Robinson
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