There are a few things I'm sure about and a lot I'm not.

I only turned my attention to the summer a few weeks ago, when my own situation started to become clear. Yes, in April I realized I needed six weeks of serious childcare--and the two weeks of camp which were all I'd signed E up for only overlapped with one of those weeks. But once again, luck and the kindness of friends have prevailed, and I have managed (KNOCK WOOD) to construct just the kind

I must confess I had no idea Myanmar was on an ocean. I think I was imagining it where Bhutan is.

I'm interested in this report on daycare centers and preschools not taking kids outside. Like the first few commenters, my kids went outside every single day in preschool--but my kids also went to high-quality, progressive preschools.

One of the things I love about E's afterschool program is that they go outside for an hour every day and the rules are much looser than at school. They have

I have thrown in the towel and joined Facebook. I had to, for work reasons (and that really is true). I am taking the fact that the words I had to type to join were "Maurice daily" as some kind of positive sign that E.M. Forster and Samuel Pepys would have approved, or at least accepted. The apocalypse has arrived. (Speaking of the apocalypse, for more information, or non-information, alas,

or We're So Liberal Elite We Might As Well Just Move to France and Be Done With It

S thinks it's great that Barbara Walters had an affair with Edward Brooke. I think it's fine, really none of anyone's business, especially given that he was separated from his wife at the time, but I question the timing of Walters' revelation--well, really I question her revelation altogether...why does anyone

This morning I quit a job I just got that was already proving impossible. I'm pretty pleased: I agonized for about a day, S told me I had to quit, and then I just did it, with significant grace and pleasantry on both sides. And then I was glad I'd done it, though it means significant financial loss. Then again, getting the job was a pleasant surprise, so really I'm right back where I was a

We can't possibly be the only people in our corner of the Greater East Coast Big City Area who want to have more than 100 people at a bat mitzvah and refuse to have it in a hotel. There must be a pretty place with nice food that seats 140 people (no tent, we're talking early April), only we can't seem to find it.

I've always been a firm believer in the more the merrier. We were inviting people

Though it's miserably cold and rainy again, last week was so warm and sunny we could watch spring arrive like a time-lapse film, each new bud, flower, and leaf appearing, and then moving right to the next stage, even as we paused to appreciate it. This morning I saw a dogwood tree just opened into flower, the notched petals still curling in, barely greenish. Of course dogwood makes me think of

I know there's been much discussion of the ethics of stealing your friend's babysitter (basically bad karma--I had a friend who did it to me, and I was not happy), but what if your babysitter recommends a friend when she can't make it, and then your kids like the friend better than the original babysitter?

There should be some kind of joke that can be produced out of the chiasmus of friend's

Actually, I love all newspapers, which is quite tragic, given that newspapers will disappear within the very near future, and I will be the one remaining mourner. But British newspapers are particularly excellent, first because there are so many of them and they so thoroughly satisfy all desires, from the lowest of low to the starchiest of starch (OK, went here and here, and I guess none of them

I'm totally down with topless sunbathing, skinnydipping, and wandering around the house or field naked, but nude yoga? I have to say, that has approxiately zero appeal--both the doing and the having it done around me.

The Winona Ryder version.

- The unnecessary rearrangement of scenes, addition of superfluous scenes, and intrusion of Jo's first-person narrative are unnecessary.

- As is turning Marmee into Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

- Winona is woefully miscast, Trini Alvarado looks all wrong (was she a miniature Andie MacDowell, or what?), Claire Danes is not what one would expect but really quite plausible,

The commenters here are much more articulate than I am. The bottom line is, as Rebecca Traister said last week, in another intelligent article about which I believe I wrote a blog post which I then deleted, because, well, I don't know, probably because I have been feeling the superfluity of my input into all things blogospherical: It is possible to see very clearly how much sexism Hillary has

but I just read Linda Hirshman's latest bashing-younger-women screed at Slate (I know, I'm a few days behind the times), and, god, I'm just so tired of all this (see previous post). Lots of older feminists are remarkable, ground-breaking heroines, and yet, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has personal experience of older feminists who seem determined to eat their young, that being us (and my

How can a new imprint call itself Every Woman's Voice and open with a stable of authors that looks like this?

(No need to answer the question: obviously any imprint that would call itself Every Woman's Voice in this day and age would have a stable of authors that looked like that...)

(Can I tell you how hard it is, sometimes, to defend feminism and all that it has come to stand for?!) (By which

Lately I've been dealing with people who have the best intentions in the world but screw up and, you know, I'm kind of over it. At a certain point, results matter.

Except, I'm hoping not in the Passover arena.

We are kind of casually hardcore when it comes to Passover. We put all the chametz in the basement, we drink wine instead of beer, and, within our self-chosen confines (and believe you

I'm big on separating needs and wants, but I do believe that I NEED an extra bowl for the KitchenAid, because when you have to beat both yolks and whites, and then fold, you end up using both the KitchenAid and the hand mixer, as well as three bowls, though I can't quite explain the three bowls, and it seems like it would make so much sense if there were just two bowls for the KitchenAid, though

I don't know why I persist in baking new cakes, despite the accumulation, by now, of a substantive repertoire of chocolate deliciousness for all occasions. Perhaps that persistence is related to my penchant for new projects, new running routes, and new vacation spots. Ironically, the one arena in which I am prone to repetition is food: I could eat nothing but bread and butter for weeks in a

Picked up E on way home from work, walking. Both of us in t-shirts. She complaining that it was too hot on the playground. Me limping from wearing my shoes over bare feet.

Went for a nice run with M, despite blisters. Wore shorts and t-shirt (different t-shirt) for first time this year.

Fields filled with kids playing soccer and baseball. Bike path filled with bikes.

Left M at baseball

Way back in the day, we used to drink by the river. There were lots of other things to do by the river, and we did most of them, but I have particular physical and visual memories of the drinking, perhaps because I was so bad at it. We drank by the river because it was a nice place to drink, dark and away from things and pretty, in the darkness, but also I suspect, because it was near the liquor

You know when they ask the presidential candidate how much a gallon of milk costs and the candidate looks blank and guesses $1.78 and then gets slammed for being out of touch with ordinary people's lives? Hmm, I guess they haven't tried that one in this campaign because they're too busy with Bosnian lies and incendiary preachers. But it used to be a staple, and I always used to think, man, I

[Given that I have vowed to eschew blog angst, I want to make it perfectly clear from the start that this is a blog analysis post, not a blog angst post.]

I was searching through my archives the other day, trying to remember which Passover cake was so good, and I realized that a lot of people who used to read my blog appear no longer to do so. I felt kind of bad, but then I realized that I used

My name is pretty unique--if you google me, you find me. For a long time there wasn't another, but now there is. She's 24, blond, and British, a little artsy and definitely a party girl. I don't feel much of a connection with her, though I'm unduly pleased, in a slight and pretentious way, by the artsiness. I wonder if my much larger internet presence bothers her.

It's (obviously) the last

but if I still went to clubs, and I was in a club, and this song came on, I would be pretty happy, and if someone gave me a ticket to see Madonna at Roseland, I would be there in a minute, and I'm trying to remember the last time I was at Roseland, and I'm thinking it might have been to see the English Beat DECADES ago, and I'm thinking David Byrne was standing right next to us, but maybe not.

Lately the Sunday Times has gone pretty much unread, sitting in a stack on the living room table or the floor next to the bed, only to be recycled on Saturday, to make room for the next day's arrival.

Last night, however, I actually read some of it, and it was actually good!

My recommendations:

Frank Rich--who usually bores me, despite our shared impeccable liberal credentials--is excellent on

Because it's all become too depressing, both here and in Zimbabwe.