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Family Archives - All The Single Girlfriends

To Grit or Not To Grit

Aug 3, 2012 by

To Grit or Not To Grit

As a Yankee living in the South I quickly learned there are certain foods that one is suppose to like. Like grits. Whenever I think of grits I can’t help but but remember the scene from My Cousin Vinny when Vincent Laguardia Gambini, played by Joe Pesce, and his girlfriend Mona Lisa Vito, played by Marisa Tomei, first encounter a grit. Not unlike my own experience I must admit. Today I met a colleague for breakfast at one of Atlanta’s trendy morning meeting restaurants — the West Egg Café.  As I was about to take a bite of my grits I stopped mid fork and said to Mathilde, “I hated grits until I tried these (stone ground grits).” She looked at me and said, “That’s a pretty strong statement.”  My thoughts turned to other...

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Girlfriends Helping Girlfriends...

May 21, 2012 by

Girlfriends Helping Girlfriends

Girlfriends Helping Girlfriends is an All The Singles Girlfriend series that shines a virtual spotlight on amazing women who have been supporting women and girls over a period of time. For so many of our All The Single Girlfriend community there is a very, special role that we play that is often over looked or simply taken for granted by much of our culture especially in the western world.  We are called: ThIa. Tía. Faster. Moster. Teta. Täti. Tante. Emtë. Teze. Ciocia. Tia. Aunt. Auntie.  Melanie Notkin knew first hand the the precious joy and value of being an aunt. In 2008, she launched an online community, Savvy Aunties, to bring awareness and celebrate the value of the modern aunt. From that platform Melanie went on to create an influential lifestyle brand that resulted in something even...

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Table Set For One

Apr 10, 2012 by

Table Set For One

I didn’t always live alone. I grew up in a home with a mom, dad and sister. Then there were college roommates, the boyfriend, after college roommates and now of course Max .. do you count your dog? In between there was living alone .. which can be quite wonderful and no more lonely than living with people. Last week I said good bye to a special roommate, my nephew Scott. Scott moved in with me and Max last March when his job took him from Boston to Atlanta. I must admit I had a few concerns about sharing a house with a 21-year old. However, more often than not, life takes you down roads unexpected. The year with Scott was a delight.  It was fun sharing day-to-day living, watching the Food Network, playing...

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Photo Opportunities

Oct 31, 2011 by

Photo Opportunities

Remember back to the days when we took photographs with a single-function device? Perhaps you still have one from before we all went digital and you still produce actual photographs to hold and look at. Over the years I accumulated hundreds of photos and fully intended to put them into albums. I had been a diligent mother of a young child, documenting my daughter’s baby and toddler years, affixing the school and birthday party photos  into dated albums up through the Third Grade. But the rest of them:  me, my friends, the holiday celebrations and vacation, were still in their yellow Kodak envelopes, with the negatives neatly tucked in front and stashed into a large bin to await the eventual transfer to the appropriate album.  Most of the envelopes were labeled although there were...

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The French Toast Throw Down

Aug 26, 2011 by

The French Toast Throw Down

Or as we called it .. Duel of the Spatulas!  Kaye insisted her French toast souffle recipe, with caramelized pecans, was the best. But Sandy was sure that chocolate chips that melted into her oven baked French toast had the “omg factor!” Note: In the photo .. Sandy on left & Kaye on right. This summer my cousin Kaye  and her husband David hosted a family party for about fifty of our cousins and close friends. Their home, in Hull, MA, a block from the beach, was a perfect location to reconnect with people who I hold dear in my life. Of course there was lots of wonderful food and drink including jello shots (are jello shots food or drink?). My niece Jessica spent weeks making 8 dozen different kinds of jello shots .....

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My Grand Pup, The Model

Aug 10, 2011 by

My Grand Pup, The Model

I often write about my wonderful daughter Erika.  She is a Hospice Social Worker in Bellingham, Washington, and has been happily married for 3 years to a man she met on Match.com. She is beautiful, smart and funny and absolutely dotty about her two Chihuahuas, Ginger and Lulu.  They make her laugh and she admits she loves them to distraction and makes no excuses about it. Ginger, my first grand pup, led the wedding processional in my garden 3 years ago. Dressed in fetching pink organza with a flower on her back, she pranced down the garden steps, her matching pink leash held high by one of Erika’s friends. She set the tone for the whole affair and everybody agreed it captured the lightness and love that permeated the whole event.  My daughter declared...

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The “Thing Thing” (Clean your cabinets!)...

Aug 1, 2011 by

The “Thing Thing” (Clean your cabinets!)

I recently moved my mom, aka “The Momster” to Albuquerque.  As such things go, I couldn’t move most of her material possessions. Too much stuff. Too little time.  Too many and higher priorities. And, as I spent hours digging through drawers, closets and cabinets…much of it appeared to not have been touched, much less used in years, if not decades. ALL of it coated in multiple layers of deep, deep brown nicotine (Hey, wasn’t this white when I sent it as an Xmas present? Ack. Ack.)  So, what the hell to move??? –  especially given Mom’s directive to “do the best you can.” Still, I tried…digging out old family jewelry…sifting through piles of paper… trying to get the things that would really (I thought) mean something to the Momster.  All while breathing in decades...

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I Hope Happiness IS Contagious

Jun 29, 2011 by

I Hope Happiness IS Contagious

Friends and regular readers of my writing here and at Lipsticking know that I’m going through some major adjustments with my mother.  Fiercely independent. Unwilling to ask for help. Unwilling to accept help. Well, that explains me…but it also explains why my mom ended up where she is…in an assisted living home here in Albuquerque, with multiple major ailments. So sad. Too late. She simply can’t live alone anymore. (She’d HATE my telling you this.  She considers someone asking her where she went to high school a major invasion of privacy (!?)  More about that – generational differences and various conceptions of social interaction in another post.) All that said, Mom is doing amazingly well, adjusting to living with seven other women, in a city she never liked, in a home she didn’t choose,...

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A Dad For Daughters

Jun 18, 2011 by

A Dad For Daughters

There are dads who were meant to be fathers to boys and dads who were made for girls. My dad, Lou Bloomberg, was a dad for daughters. Perhaps that’s why I love dads & daughters. He was the oldest child in a family with 4 sisters, so I suppose he grew up with an added dose of sensitivity. With my mom, my sister Susan and me he continued to be surrounded by girls. When people asked if he regretted not having sons in his life he’d look at them as though he felt sorry they were missing something extra special. As with the story of my mom, my dad took joy in being a father, however, his first love was being Anne’s husband and soul mate. (But that’s a post for another day.) I...

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It’s Raining Men

Jun 17, 2011 by

It’s Raining Men

It’s Father’s Day , the time of year when we celebrate our Dads. Saw a card in the store the other day, Said something like…”Want to know why Father’s Day is in June? A bunch of dads were sitting around about a month after Mother’s Day and said Hey! What about us!!” Hallmark outsells Mothers Day cards 9:1 over Fathers Day. According to all the ads, every man alive wants a big screen TV or power tools (OK, a few fashion conscious men want golf shirts and madras shorts) If you believe Madison Ave, every man will be grilling something this coming Sunday, usually huge hunks of beef. Seems a bit limited and stereotypical to me. Fathers should be every bit as celebrated as Moms! I’m lucky to still have my Dad. He’s an...

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I Almost Married My Father Three Times [that’s why I never married]...

Jun 17, 2011 by

I Almost Married My Father Three Times [that’s why I never married]

There’s a platitude which, like most platitudes, turns out to be mostly right.  And that’s that most women marry their fathers.  Peek in at anyone’s family reunion and it’s almost ludicrous to observe how many women have spouses or boyfriends who are dead ringers for Papa Bear. Both my sisters married men like my passive, dependent, self-pitying father.  After therapy, the younger sister stopped all that and hooked up with a go-getter who was grown up enough to stand on his own two feet. Me?  Three times I became seriously involved with mirror images of dear old dad.  The man I actually became engaged to physically resembled my father, right down to the shuffling way of walking.  Wisely, I never married.  In 2003, I finally did have the kind of therapy I needed.  Since...

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Making Dreams Come True

Jun 17, 2011 by

Making Dreams Come True

My Dad Carl will turn 88 years young this year and he is my biggest fan and supporter. He is the father of four girls with no sons. With five women in the household including my Mom, a strong and powerful women in her own right,  was 100% behind all of us women pursuing our dreams and goals professionally. He was an enlightened man on equality for women way before it became popular for men to do so. I am so grateful to my Dad for this fact as he was way ahead of the times on supporting non-traditional professional careers and roles for women. Thank you Dad, I love you most for ALWAYS supporting me on pursuing my dreams!...

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