Category Archives: Month in Review

Buckets, Knuckles, and Hex Codes

Humor, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Parenting, Writing, , ,

December (Not Quite the End of the Month) Month-in-Review

It’s been a year since I’ve done a month-in-review post. I’m sure you are all very excited to have me draw back the curtain again. Well, joke’s on you. Behind this curtain is a trove of canned goods and a mysterious bucket no one remembers buying and no one is willing to throw away. “Never discard a mysterious bucket” might be some sort of unspoken family rule. THAT joke is on me.

After this reasonless hiatus, I’m resurrecting the month-in-review because sometimes it’s useful to return to a familiar container and rattle around inside it for a bit. Will the month-in-review posts continue in 2026? MAYBE.

Before any sticklers jump into my mentions without even offering me a cookie, I am well aware that the month is not over.

However, many of you mentally end the year sometime in mid-November, based on how many “Wrap-ups” and “I’m ready for 2026” comments are floating around out there. Look, you do you, friend. I was taught to run through the finish line.

But, sure, we can call this the “Not Quite the End of the Month Month-in-Review.” Not fussy at all.

ANYHOO, Happy Holidays. Let’s begin with an injury.

Earlier this month, I busted my knuckle open (not a euphemism). A few people noticed and asked how it happened. “Fighting crime,” which no one believed. Then I said the untrue but plausible, “I was just walking around.” Everyone believed that. Thanks, people who know me.

(Between you and me, I used a little extra oomph putting on a sweater and slammed my hand into the door jamb after successfully locating the arm hole.)

Please don’t be freaky and ask for photos of my (admittedly sexy) busted knuckle. It’s hard to photograph your own hand while recovering from getting dressed all by myself vigilantism.

There were wonderful parts of December, for sure, despite my ability to get hurt by doing nothing and also by doing things. (See: colliding with furniture in my own house, ambient exhaustion, December.)

One of my sons has begun making Jeopardy! games for the family. In the last five weeks, he has made three.

These are not casual games, nor intended to make us feel good about ourselves or our inability to quickly access our knowledge base. These are utterly lawless events fueled by a natural understanding of humor that routinely takes us out.

The categories alone injured me once because I rolled off the couch laughing. (Note to all of my ex-boyfriends: I still got it!)

We’ve had Prehistoric Fish, Former FBI Director James Comey, and Shades of Red (a block of color labeled with its hex code). This so thoroughly aggravated my husband that the next game had the category Tints of Red. In one game, he created a category called Who’s That?, which involved identifying people from photos. The first image was of Millard Fillmore. The second was Dilbert. Two questions later: the same picture of Dilbert.

We considered ourselves lucky that the Dilbert questions were straightforward. Half the fun this kid has is in figuring out the most obtuse ways a question can relate to the category. And I will add that at least once each game is a question that simply says, “Touch the dog.” Which, yes, that is not a question, but we all run to Buddy like maniacs. He likes it. It’s got this vibe.

For my birthday, he shamelessly calibrated the game to some of my alleged areas of expertise, including Kurt Vonnegut, the family dog, Danish Butter Cookie Tins, as well as an entire category based on photographs of his school lunches.

Somehow, I lost.

Somehow, my husband won with a final score of –2400.

This game has it all: Intellectual chaos, hostile specificity, everyone yelling “WHAT IS GOING ON?” while the dog enjoys his celebrity and hopes Final Jeopardy is “Belly Rubs.” (It is not.)

So December has been largely survived up until this moment, and my knuckle is healing.

Does anyone know what that bucket is for?

Until we all figure it out, here are some

Splashes of Marvelous from December 2025:

  • Fellow Snarkians, I had no idea this was still a thing. I am delighted to be wrong. Entire stretches of my childhood were spent drooling over these guys.
  • If you ever have a chance to go see/hear the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, do it! I went to the Holly Dolly Christmas show and remained in an excellent mood for 2-3 business weeks.
  • It might technically be too late to prep for Jolabokaflod, but every day can be Jolabokaflod if your heart is pure. Or you feel like it. I’m making the rules now. If you need some ideas, I’ve got you.
  • Related, I would like to formally propose an evening where we gather around a fireplace, eat treats, and read. Silently. Shhhh. Let’s make this introverted bibliophile’s dream a reality. And if you talk, I’m cramming one of these in your mouth, and not gently.
  • This is the only type of “conversation piece” I’d ever want to wear.
  • The Best Simple Stuffing Recipe | Bon Appétit Trust me.
  • I baked three dozen cookies for school, another 900 dozen (give or take) for home. Emergency preparedness is important. This is why I have a small bag of sprinkles in my purse at all times. (True!)


After I sent those cookies off to school with my boys, one of them came home and brought me…a cookie. Not one I made, but a snickerdoodle. And before you have a problem with that, NO YOU DON’T.

  • The “two inches that were actually six” of predicted snow on 12/7. Insert jokes as you wish.

Well, what do you want? A cookie? (I may have several hundred dozen.)

Enjoy your week and watch your knuckles. (Maybe a euphemism).

Strange Geese, Space Force’s Lost and Found, and Good ol’ Whatshisname

Creative non-fiction, Humor, Month in Review, Parenting, Surviving Summer Funtimes, Under 750, Writing, , , ,

…Or I Could’ve Just Taken the Week Off

A few weeks ago, I picked up my daughter from sports practice at a neighboring town’s park, which is very much like our town’s park, except with different geese. This is a public park, which means the public is allowed in. That is the problem with public parks.

I had to intervene when a pack tween twerps cheered on as one kid had another kid in a headlock. The second boy’s face was red, his eyes were streaming, and he was silent, which, if you know children, is a sure sign that something isn’t fun. Oh, hello, Trouble. There you are.

It was an easy read.

My “Hey!” stopped almost all of them.

One prepubescent Cobra Kai decided to test his standing with the gods and said to me, “Bro, this is none of your business.”

“Bro” is apparently a word that activates me like some sort of verbose sleeper agent. You can imagine how things went for all of them after that.

It was over quickly, but the kid in the headlock had enough time to walk away, which was really the main thing here.

No tween twerps were harmed in this interaction.

Joke’s on me, though (when isn’t it?) because little did I know that August was warming up in the corner, waiting to see if it could take my household two falls out of three.

All of that was once a Facebook post I left up for an hour before deleting, presumably to protect national security or because I pressed the wrong button. I tried to find it later (deleted posts, archived posts, etc.) but couldn’t. Alas, it’s gone, filed somewhere in the Cloud, or the shelf in Space Force’s Lost and Found where they store embarrassing mom anecdotes. I recreated it here, with slightly more effort than the 0.2 seconds I give most Facebook posts.

I had planned a proper post this week as I’ve been trying to post weekly, but then everyone in the house got sick. Like really sick, where after a few days you think you’re okay-ish then you lie down and wake up 5 hours later feeling groggy and not much better, if not a little worse.

Then I got sick. Which was technically covered under “everyone,” but I tend to assume “everyone” means “everyone else.” I usually avoid household contagion, possibly because I move through life in the equivalent of John Travolta’s bubble in that film. Except my bubble is made of grumpiness.

Here’s how I’m doing: for 5 minutes just now, I was trying to remember that actor’s name. Couldn’t retrieve “John Travolta” but pulled up “Vinnie Babarino” like a coin from behind your ear. I had to Google “Who played Vinnie Barbarino?” to complete a joke that, in retrospect, did not warrant the effort.

Everything’s fine.

Now we’re digging out, staggering toward the end of summer with what feels like 100% potential energy, in the physics sense, like we’re all little balls in a slingshot (Google Search: “What is that v-shaped thing made with sticks you pull back and shoot a ball out of?”)

Big Moves are on my to-do list, meaning working on building community and also giving myself ample space and big chunks of time to work on my novel.

I am mildly loath to get back to it all — the hustle and/or the bustle — because “big chunks of time to work on my writing” is an idea the universe finds particularly hilarious.

Also, can one be mildly loath? MAYBE. You know who could probably pull off being “mildly loath?” John Travolta, but only in his role in Pulp Fiction (Google Search: “What was that movie where the dude who played Vinnie Barbarino played a gangster” — which, incidentally, first pulled up Gotti, and that dude was not mildly anything.)

*EXTREME CARRIE BRADSHAW VOICEOVER* And just like that, this August was much like that tween headlock situation: too hot, too loud, the geese are unfamiliar, somebody’s turning red, and the only thing you can do is yell ‘Hey!’ and hope everyone walks away in one piece with a modicum of dignity.

Bro.

Hopefully, a new piece next week.

Anyway, please accept this in lieu of structural integrity this week:

Be/wilder (With/standing)

Cooking, Creative non-fiction, Inspiration, Life and Other Existential Problems, Month in Review, Recommendations, Writing

January Month In Review

SHORT STUFF

  • I am keeping a list of the Top Ten Days of 2025. So far, January has failed. The only (weak) contender is January 26th, when we ate decent nachos. A tasty moment in an otherwise indifferent stretch of time.
  • “It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.” — Fyodor Dostoyevsky. What is the “something more”? Patience? Instinct? Juice? Is it juice? I don’t like juice.
  • Sleep is a flirt. I am a willing fool. I chase, I lose, I am tired. Who else belongs to the 4 AM Club?
  • December’s cozy hibernation exited stage left when January hit like a brick, and suddenly I’m expected to make responsible choices again. Terrible system. Do not recommend.
  • Seth Godin says slow down. I am listening. But also I am not. But also, I should be. This may be why I am in the 4 AM club.
  • My January 2025 had a soundtrack. It is, as my kids would never let me say, “a bop.” 

LONG STUFF

I cried at the dentist.

Not because of the scraping. Not even because of my idiotic need to be LITTLE MISS FUN PATIENT. (Let’s be clear, I am fun because I am hilarious.)

It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t fear.

Perhaps it was inevitable.

The night before, I forgot to season my vegetables (not a euphemism), which is not like me. I know how to cook and how to make things better. But I didn’t. And so we ate them, joyless.

When the body runs on fumes, you stop doing the things that make life taste like something.

Maybe it was inevitable because I haven’t listened to much music lately. This is also not like me. Normally, music is everywhere in my life. A soundtrack, a story, a signal. But now? Silence. Or just enough ambient music to fill the spaces, to keep the walls from pressing in.

Music is its own kind of story. And I cannot absorb another story right now. Certainly not while eating sad vegetables. Not while being Little Miss Fun Patient. Not while *everything else.*

Anyway, remember how I cried at the dentist because I just told you I did a few paragraphs back?

It happened when the next song came on. My dentist tries to calibrate the playlist to the patient — something generational, something soothing, something that says, “Pay no attention to the tiny metal hook scraping your bones.” Do I need Megadeth blaring while I’m power-washed in the mouth like a neglected patio? MAYBE. But probably not.

In the lonely space between cleaning and exam, a song came on.

And I cried.

Okay, yeah, it was “Chariots of Fire.” On the cornball scale of tear triggers this, ranks up there with a screensaver or a commercial about butter substitutes. Or “Bubbles” by the Free Design.

There are plenty of respectable reasons to cry, including being at the dentist, practically flipped upside down in the chair, mouth agape, and drowning in the indignity of it all.

Perhaps, though, it was not that.

The world these days is very “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”

On the other side of the mountain is Mount Doom.

After that, Mount Crumpit

And then the tiny sledding hill in my backyard where my kids, without fail, would somehow manage to steer directly into a tree even though the closet tree was about 20 yards away.

Climb one mountain, find another waiting. That’s how it works. So you throw the grappling hook and reach down to pull others up. (Am I a seasoned mountain climber? No. Do I like looking at mountains on Toblerone wrappers? Yes. Same energy.)

I also cried because my heart is with New Orleans, California, Las Vegas, and every neighbor who feels alone and helpless. My heart is not enough and tears unhelpful after a point, so we choose and we do. Because we see what we can see.

“Look for the helpers,” Mr. Rogers said.

Try to be one.

My background and expertise are scattered —  writing, education, social policy, the arts. A hodgepodge, but a purposeful one. A toolkit.

The goal now: Help fully. Help precisely.

Say “yes” carefully, but say it generously. 

Everyone’s capacity is stretched thin. I’m no exception, but am seeking and finding good community. Lord love a duck for that. (It is not a duck community, though perhaps it should be.)

Still posting my dumb little jokes (Are we connected on Bluesky?). Still writing the blog, working on the book, and seeking joy as we withstand and work.

A photo of Mel Brooks with his quote “Laughter is a protest scream against death, against the long goodbye. It’s a defense against unhappiness and depression.”

We can choose to be wild through actions and care, through public voice, through fiercely defending our peace, through a combination of those.

Also have some nachos if you like them. They help.

(Despite it all,) Here are some splashes of marvelous from January 2025

One of the stories in mass circulation today is a very old one, but it’s taken on a new vigor: women in general are out of control and feminism in particular is to blame… men are no longer in control, mothers are not what they used to be, and it’s the fault of Germaine Greer, Cosmopolitan, and headline stars.

  • An excerpt from Rumi’s “Where Everything is Music” Because sometimes you need Rumi.

Don’t worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn’t matter.

We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.

  • Sometimes my 70-pound screw-loose pitbull mix gets the zoomies. It is short-lived because he has zero stamina and the spatial awareness of a potato. But he tries. He is all heart and demolition. I will try to film it.
  • Need a corny cry break?

Until next time, here’s a combo I ask you to consider: books, pen, paper, us.