Archive for December 2010

Enjoying them enough while they're around

“I just hope I enjoyed them enough when they were around.” An empty-nester friend of mine I work with said those words to me about six months ago and I swear I’ve thought about what he said almost every single day since.  The last of his kids had just left for college and the way... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 30, 2010 at 8:53 am • 

Training Fish

I have a trained fish.  I know this brings up an obvious question: Why? Mel is my writing companion. (After Herman Melville. Get it? Moby Dick?) Mel’s a mostly pink Betta fish that lives on the bookshelves next to my writing desk.  (And don’t get any ideas just because he’s mostly pink. He’s still a... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 27, 2010 at 5:44 pm • 

Christmas Cookie Call of Duty

How do you make Christmas cookies with thirteen year old boys? Violently.  Baking Christmas cookies together has been a holiday tradition of ours since the boys were old enough to say “artificially colored sugar.”  It’s been great fun, sometimes even for me.  As the years have gone by and they’ve gotten older, it’s even become... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 24, 2010 at 10:26 am • 
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A Birthday Promise

My daughter has wanted a cell phone since she arrived here a little over a year and a half ago. (In case you’re new here, I don’t have an especially precocious one-and-a-half-year old; we adopted Tanya from Russia when she was ten.)  We told her she could have one the day she turned twelve and,... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 21, 2010 at 2:40 pm • 

Getting "Lanced"

It seems maybe that Do-Gooder Graffiti I wrote about last week is having an effect! My sons and I went for a run along the lakefront this afternoon and for the first time in a long time I didn’t get “Lanced.”  If you’ve ever run the lake, then you know of what I speak.  “Getting... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 19, 2010 at 2:40 pm • 

A Christmas Eve Carol - When a Family Tradition Comes to an End

For over fifty years my eighty-nine year old mother has been hosting a Christmas Eve party at her house, and while my husband and kids and I will be heading over there this year, we are the only ones who will. It seems this family tradition is coming to an end. I have fond memories of this... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 17, 2010 at 11:19 am • 
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Do Gooder Graffiti?

Love. Be good. Do right. These  words are graffitied on the boarded up and winterized concessions stand down at the lakefront just south of Belmont harbor.  It looks like someone tried to clean off the words Do right and Be good at some point and then someone else came along and spray painted Love over... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 16, 2010 at 10:02 am • 

I am a pilot, but I don't play a cardiologist on TV

I’m not a cardiologist, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night… I am a pilot, but I don’t play one on TV. Did you hear about this guy?The airline pilot who was pretending to be a cardiologist? How would you like to find out he’d done your by-pass surgery? (Although there’s... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 13, 2010 at 10:23 am • 

The E-End of Borders on Michigan

After I’d finished some Christmas shopping at Water Tower Place earlier this week, I walked across the street to the Borders on Michigan Avenue to say farewell. The store is closing, everything is on sale (except calendars, as I was secretly hoping) and there was quite a throng of people there. But there’s always been... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 11, 2010 at 10:28 am • 
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Two-Do List

Has your To-Do list become a Two-Do List? Scatological inferences aside, it feels like everything I try to accomplish these takes two steps (or more) instead of what I think should be one. And, well frankly, this makes me feel like number two. For example, I can’t remember the last time I made any kind... Read more »
By Kim Strickland,
December 7, 2010 at 1:05 pm •