Here's to Happy Women...

It happens all the time. We think we know someone and then we find out we don’t—or at least not as well as we thought we did. I’ve decided that we may not know someone at all until we know what he or she does during the lunch hour. Life is full of surprises, and we may d iscover that a friend’s plat du jour may not be at all what we expected and that he or she has a taste for something different—something we may never choose from the menu in a million years. This happened to me recently. I found that a friend of mine spends her lunch hour in another state of mind...and most definitely in another world. The title of this article purposefully alludes to the lunch hour—specifically the hour between noon and 1 p.m . You might be thinking “nooner” at this point…and you wouldn’t be wrong. It’s actually my friend Su-Z-Q’s nooner to which I allude. It’s an almost daily event that I had no idea took place—and continues to take place Monday through Friday. Let me clarify this statement. I ...

I'm convinced that no sentence uttered aloud should ever begin with the phrase “Watch out,” unless it involves a life or death situation. I recently came to this conclusion and communicated it quite clearly (and loudly) to my husband as I escaped death (or at least severe injury) by a tiny little woman in a big black SUV. She was talking on her cell phone and checking out her eye makeup in her rearview mirror. My husband told me to “Watch out.” I told him afterward to never (ever) do that to me again. Even now, my heart races as I think how close I came to being parking lot road kill. It’s like Woody Allen says, “I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens”—to which I add—I’m just a little picky about how, when and where it happens. Seriously...my near (and potentially very messy) brush with death aside, I'm pretty sure you’re thinking that my husband told me to watch out because he saw the diminutive diva barreling toward me. You're thinking t...

At the grocery store recently, an older “gentleman” checker took my basket from the line I was waiting in and pulled it over into another line. There was a backup with several customers waiting and only one check stand open. He was doing the right thing by bringing the next person in line over before he opened his register. I was in a hurry and grateful for his consideration. As he ran my items over the scanner he asked if I were having a party. I replied, “Yes, just a small gathering with my girlfriends.” What came next made me laugh. He asked if we were having a bridge party. I told him no, and explained that I play cards a lot, but not bridge. I said that the get-together was to watch the season premiere of Nip Tuck . It was his turn to laugh, and he did. Then he said, “Boy, I got that all wrong, didn’t I?” As this friendly checker went on t o explain that he asked about the bridge because that’s what his mother and her lady friends used to do years ago, I laughed again. He al...

Saturday evening my husband and I had some friends over. It was a small and intimate affair—with many laughs all around. It was also special because we toasted someone from my life—from all of our lives—on the sad occasion of her death. Before we began our meal, we all lifted our glasses in a toast to Beth Levine. It didn’t matter that I was the only one at the table who knew who Ms. Levine was...and how she influenced our culture so long ago. Each person obligingly repeated her name and clinked glasses, no doubt curious to see where this was going. After the toast, my guests looked at me expectantly, with the same look of confusion that I imagine is clouding your vision now. I told them that Beth Levine had played a big part in my youth—helping to capture many memories of me dancing around and laughing—every moment caught on film by my father, to haunt me all the days of my life. As I waited to see if anyone caught on, I saw my husband smile. He knew where this was going. Next, I ...

Curiosity killed the cat…or so I’ve been told. And I can bet this unfortunate kitty was an insecure and meddlesome cat, the kind of cat that just has to be right in the middle of everything—stirring the proverbial pot and doing everything he or she can to seem important. These cats are demanding and annoying. Why does everyone always pay attention to these insecure cats? The confident and secu re cats just sit back and mind their own business—diligently plodding away, doing their work and enjoying life in general—until rudely disrup ted by the incessant yapping and silly, shrilly and bothersome screeches of these catty, insecure felines. These noisy cats throw a fit until everyone is worked into their frenzy—and they're never happy until they get their way, which means that the secure cat is locked up…or at the very least, his or her reputation is in question. Why does confidence get you a bad rap—or incarcerated inside the misperceptions of other people? People are a lot mo...

She was born a peacekeeper, but not a born peacekeeper. She was simply handed this role without any experience, talent or other qualifications for the job. From the time she was a toddler, she found herself trapped between her mother and father and their issues, including arguments and disagreements. A common theme for their disagreements involved the manner in which to reprimand and deal out punishment for inappropriate behavior between her brothers and sisters and of course, herself. Did her peacekeeping role involve negotiating between the separate parties, including her parents, and getting them to sit down and talk things through rationally? No. Did this involve weighing in with her opinion on how things should be handled? No. Her peacekeeping role involved keeping quiet when she witnessed an injustice, or an injustice was dealt her. Her peacekeeping role involved maneuvering behind the scenes to keep the other shoe from dropping. She lived her entire childhood trying to fl...

We’ve all encountered bad news bears. I’m not talking about bad people who do bad things, and I’m not referring to the movies about the Little League misfits. I’m definitely not talking about Yogi and Boo-Boo stealing “pic- a-nic” baskets in Jellystone Park. The bad news bears that have splattered my radar are people who love to be the bearers of bad news — and not necessarily their own bad news, but the bad news of other people. I guess another word that fits the bill is “gossip,” as a noun, a verb or simply add a "y" for an adjective. When I was a young girl, I remember that whenever a specific elderly aunt of my father called, hours were spent afterward dissecting all the bad news she delivered. So-and-so was getting divorced, great uncle Thomas’s brother-in-law’s sister’s nephew had leukemia, or her friend’s cat had kittens and all but one died because a nasty little neighbor kid stuck them in a mayonnaise jar. For a child, these phone calls didn’t provide food for thoug...