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: Misery loves company
…from yesterday’s Tampa Tribune. We’ve all been warned about fair-weather friends. These are the types of acquaintances who want to enjoy and celebrate during good times, but have a tendency to disappear when times get tough. I’ve noticed the opposite trend as we get older. People flock, hover, and make meatloaf during economic disasters [...]
FULL COLUMN: Wouldn’t you like to get away?
…From this week’s Tampa Tribune. It ain’t easy being us. Raising children, succeeding at work, and managing hormone-related mood swings is difficult and time-consuming. Not only do women need a break, sometimes our husbands and children need one, too. Thank goodness someone invented girls’ weekend. Twice a year, my oldest friends and I get together [...]
FULL COLUMN: Ways in which childless couples are a lot like senior citizens
…As published in Saturday’s Tampa Tribune. My closest friends have a lot in common with one another, beyond a fondness for Beastie Boys, inappropriate humor, and arguments that last five years. Another is that few of them have children. These folks are in healthy and happy relationships; they enjoy showering my sons with love and [...]
People say it’s hard to make friends as we get older. Nonsense. It might be harder to *like* people as we get older. I mean, everyone is so opinionated and there’s all the shouting.
We really should be able to make friends as easily at this age as we did when we were ten. For one thing, we know how to properly brush our teeth now. That alone makes talking to people a more pleasant activity. Every year, I manage to add to my ever-growing list of loved ones. [...]
16 ways to enjoy a high school reunion
This past weekend, Husband and I attended another one of those “let’s get together and reminisce about a time when we could bend down and touch our toes” events. Reunions are tricky, I tend to avoid mine, but this particular crew of groovy graduates is terrific. They love my husband and don’t seem to mind [...]
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 prepare for guests who don’t agree with what you say, think, or do…but love you anyway
Friends are like the sweet cream frosting on top of a red velvet cake; they make everything that’s already good even that much more delicious. And then they induce a bowel movement. But they are so worth the trouble, no? As I’ve often said, I look for mutual adoration in every relationship. That’s the best [...]
Who has time between flag football and allergy outbreaks to answer chain emails?
Dear Lovely Readers, Sometimes, when checking my email account, I find messages from Facebook friends and immediately regret joining that destroyer of time and good taste. Creating an account under my real name was a bad call; not only do I have to defend old pictures and what I was thinking at the time (“Coloring [...]
Disproportionately blessed...
Catherine Durkin Robinson
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