A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel The title of this book is a quote from “Emma” by Jane Austen. Like Emma, it is a book about the upper crust (but not ‘royalty’) and a book about the subtleties and manners and do’s and don’ts that such society requires. It isn’t action packed,…
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I went to sixth grade orientation last week. My actual sixth grader didn’t go and wasn’t oriented because she was still at camp. I admit that I did a pretty poor job of orienting myself, under the theory that I am not going to have to be able to find the classes, nor will I be able…
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My Mom is not that old, considering how old I am and how old her grandchildren are. I won’t tell you how old she is, for fear that she reads this and cuts me out of the will, but suffice it to say that it has not yet been a decade since she threw herself…
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I’ve had a longstanding rule at my lake house. The house, located in the muddy armpit of Lake Oconee, is designed to be an oasis. Nothing stressful is supposed to happen there. We have no television access, so you can’t watch the news to find out who was brutally murdered or who was maimed in…
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There are two basic ways in which brains are wired in the Duff household. One way is the way my son and I think of the universe. Jacob and I? We like the box. We find the walls of the box comforting. We like rules and lists and limits and structure. There are plenty of…
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Recently, my family took a road trip to visit my parents in Ft. Myers, Florida. We’ve taken this trip many times. It is about six hundred miles, door to door, mostly on long, boring stretches of I-75, with not much to look at but billboards offering vasectomies, strippers, religious salvation, and outlet malls. There are plenty…
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My mother’s mother’s sister, Aunt Pearl, had an old guitar that used to belong to her son, Jeffrey, that she wanted to give my daughter. Aunt Pearl, an admirably independent nonagenarian, lives alone in a two story house near the beach in New York, and, if you had to pick a celebrity she resembled the…
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One of the great joys of being a parent is the chance to drive to East Bumblefudge on your weekend to watch your children participate in whatever sporting/academic/competitive event is going on that Saturday. This past weekend my daughter had an archery tournament in a location a little over two hours from our home. We were…
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Decades after the test, how would you do taking SAT Practice Questions? My son took the SAT the other day. He’s only in Seventh Grade, but he took it for the Duke Talent Identification Program. His theory? I’m only in Seventh Grade. I’m not going to study. I want to just see how I do.…
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Pinterest: do you love it or hate it? On the one hand. I don’t really like Pinterest very much. It is full of recipe and craft ideas that seem specifically designed to make me feel like a complete and total loser-slash-slacker who has failed her children in every imaginable way. If all the other women…
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