This week’s reader dilemma: “I am allergic to all pet hairs, I usually feel like I have the flu when I am around pets too long. With the holidays coming, I am sure I will be going to visit family, most of which have lots of pets,” SaraFC wrote. “When I stay with them, there is always pet hair in […]
more about: family
Heartbreak Serenade
I come from a family of four children: a constellation of daughters born first, three years separating each one from the next, enough years to harden us into being inventions of our owns. And then this boy, gentler than any of us. My brother John was twelve when he had his first heartbreak. I was twenty; I had already had […]
Have you been “BOO-ed?”
Legend tells of a a phantom ghost which comes to town to leave goodies at the door of girls and boys around Halloween . . . in the form of treats and treasures from the Dollar Store. For those unfamiliar with the tradition of “BOO-ing” or “ghosting” around Halloween, someone in our neighborhood starts the BOO rolling, leaving a bucket […]
Holidays or HOLYdays?
“Ms. Slatalla, your advice on holiday hosting is not only wrong, it’s rude. First off, the holidays are HOLYdays, based on religious celebration and ritual.” This week, a reader named loschinchi wrote to say it’s not OK to skip the prayer before Thanksgiving dinner just because praying might make guests uncomfortable, disagreeing with my Modern Manners column in Real Simple‘s November issue. […]
Modern Manners: Family Food Fight
“I have relatives who will bring raw meat to a family barbecue without being asked, and then insist on having the host cook it,” writes a reader named laureltanner. “They don’t like the patties the hosts use. I feel this is insulting. “Am I wrong?” laureltanner asks. ”BTW, these are the same people who will serve homemade, but pre-frozen, chicken parmigiana […]
Bake Sale Recipes for a Good Cause
Looking for some bake sale inspiration or just feeling nostalgic for sweet treats from your childhood? Gretchen Holt-Witt’s Cookies for Kids’ Cancer: Best Bake Sale Cookbook is here, just in time for all those back-to-school sugar bonanzas. When I was little, I was a sucker for anything involving cheesecake. So I was always willing to plunk down a few quarters […]
Are These Shoes Genius or a Complete Horror Show?
One of the things that is both most amazing and most maddening about Middle is that when he fixates on something, he never lets go. He is like a pit bull, or at least what I think pit bulls are supposed to be like, since people describe this sort of I’m-not-letting-go-till-I-get-my-way as acting “like a pit bull.” (Which makes me […]
