Day #267 Could’ve, would’ve, should’ve: thankless parenting choices

Sep 28, 2017

SCENARIO A: This morning should have gone something like this: get up at the usual time and stumble through my morning routine come back into the bedroom to help get toddler dressed, ready for creche, and out the door with daddy finish getting dressed for work in peace and quiet. The end result would have been:…

Day #265 Autumn (and piglets!) come to the zoo

Sep 26, 2017

So… that zoo trip over the weekend that I casually alluded to a couple of days ago when talking about getting up close and personal with a duck. Here are the highlights, because I can’t get over how much I’ve gotten invested in keeping track of the animals we see. And it was beautiful to…

Day #262 Up close and personal

Sep 23, 2017

We were at the zoo again today. I’ll spare you the details write about the details in another post, but there was one thing on our way out that deserves its own story. We were on the way out at the zoo’s main entrance and exit, which is a wide platform with a deck-like extension…

I was discussing my post on my childhood memories of Russia with my mother the other day when she said to me "I have no recollection of Mama cutting up brown paper to use in the bathroom. Are you sure it was brown paper?"

"Yes," I replied. "It's one of my most vivid memories."

"Strange," my mum said. "I remember her singing while cooking, and sitting at the sewing machine, but not this."

"But surely you remember extended periods of not having any actual toilet paper available, right?"

"Oh, yes!" she assured me. "That was definitely the case, especially toward the end when we were there, it was very hard to get toilet paper anywhere. In fact, toilet paper was considered the best gift you could bring with you to a dinner party at that time. Much more appreciated than alcohol or cake!"

Postscript for Day #255 “Childhood Nostalgia”

Day #259 He said, she said: the gender wars

Sep 20, 2017

A friend’s post on Facebook knocked a few thoughts loose in my head on the topic of language and gender. This guy is a friend from my college days. He’s very erudite, well educated, well travelled, and has lived in various places that range from the highly cosmopolitan to the middle-of-nowhere. We are not in…