Bittersweettoast

After seeing the movie "50/50" several years ago, I declared at the dinner table that in my next life I would be marrying Joseph Gordon-Levitt . My family's reaction was surprisingly nonchalant. Granted, I was talking about my "next" life and about a man who is twenty years younger and a wildly successful young actor. These minor hurdles have a way of neatly working out in your next life, a fact I just love about the next life. I've been hooked on Joseph Gordon-Levitt ever since seeing his Glee-like rendition of the Hall and Oates tune "You Make My Dreams" in the movie "500 Days of Summer."  Go ahead, click on that link. I guarantee you'll be smiling by the end. I know, I am setting the bar quite high, but I do have a backup if things with Joseph don't exactly work out.  A few months ago I was listening to Fresh Air on NPR and tuned in midway through an interview with J.R. Moehringer, author of the memoir The Tender Bar . While...

I have been in love with everything French since sixth grade despite my first French teacher's attempts to make all her students dislike the subject immensely. Madame Gishe (pronounce "Geesh")  did not treat us as the sauve debonaire newly-minted middle schoolers that we were. To her we were more like second graders who could be controlled with the help of M&Ms. If we "behaved", we would each receive two (yes, two) M&Ms at the end of the period.  Being the clever sixth graders that we were, it quickly became apparent that this system of rewards was in need of repair. As a class we agreed to present our most angelic side to Madame Gishe and thus convince her that we could help pass out the M&Ms at the end of class. After all, there were a lot of us, and surely she had other tasks to perform. It took her a while to realize how quickly we were decimating her supply, and for those few lovely weeks she actually convinced several of my fellow students tha...

I'm starting to think that maybe I should skip over the month of February. Last year, ironically on Valentine's Day, we spent the afternoon at Children's Hospital and learned that a bump on our daughter's arm might just be sarcoma. A bump she had had for seven years following a run-in with a faulty tree branch; a run-in that resulted in a broken arm. A bump that various doctors assured us was scar tissue. A bump that naggingly hung around, causing pain from time to time. A bump we finally decided to diagnose with an MRI. That's when we learned that life can turn on a dime. For one scary twenty-four hour period of time, we contemplated what this diagnosis would mean. We left the day-to-day world of school, work, chores, activities, etc., and turned inward. Life had been awfully kind to us on the whole. Maybe it was our turn to deal with a curveball. I thought about all those parents who, in times like this, hold steady for the sake of their child. I was not this kind...