Lori Duff Writes
My hall bathroom looks like someone tasted the rainbow and it didn’t agree with them. Pink, blue, green, bleach and black stains have seeped into the marble and tile and long outlasted the hair for which the colors were originally intended. Both of my children, the boychild and the girlchild, have decided that the color…
When I was but a wee babe, the Partridge Family was a hit show. I loved it for many reasons, not the least of which was the existence of “Lori Partridge,” who justified my name as a cool-girl name. I still hold a grudge against the Romper Room lady for never saying she saw “Lori”…
Some other Moms of pubescent girls and I have been talking, and we think we’ve found a solution to our problems that will not only make our lives easier, but possibly make us a metric ton of money. I’m talking about a reality show, Tweenage Drama Island: Where EVERYTHING Is Personal. Imagine this: twenty-five 12…
The other day, my daughter was sad for reasons only truly understood by another 12 year old girl. It was a Saturday, one of the few days in which I had nothing in particular to do, and to celebrate planned on doing laundry and scrubbing the grout in the bathroom. Marin moaned something pitiful and…
Everything old is new again, they say, and just like you can actually find legwarmers for sale, and real live fashionable teenagers wearing them, other 80s things are making a comeback. After we decided that earrings were a no-go for my son’s birthday (click here to read more about that parenting dilemma) he decided he wanted…
My thirteen year old son wants his ears pierced. My sunny little blonde haired blued eyed smiling little boy wants to poke holes in his head and decorate himself. Ok, his hair isn’t clear yellow anymore: it has become a light brown/dirty blonde, and he isn’t little so much as 5’9”, but his eyes are…
The seasons are changing now, from summer to fall, from eyeball melting heat to mere hotness, and here in Georgia that means that on any given day it might be 85 degrees out or 50. Or both. This is a recipe for illness in the Duff household, with my son and I generally bearing the…
THE BILL OF RIGHTS, AS APPLIED TO PARENTS FIRST AMENDMENT:FREE SPEECH The fact that you have given birth to a child, adopted a child, or in some other way claimed a young ‘un for your own in no way shape or form limits your right to free speech. If you spill the pink drink in…
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,…
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…