Laurie Gould -- Midlife Mom Songs

I am pleased to report that during my 10 days in Montana, I was not mauled by a bear.

This happy outcome is not what I was led to expect.  Bear warnings are everywhere in western Montana. This sign greeted us as we drove to Missoula:

There is a bear warning at every trail head:

This second one, to be fair, focuses not on bear avoidance, but on which kinds of bears one is allowed to shoot.

And then there is this throwaway line, in the instructions pinned to the fridge at our VRBO.   The hosts explain that it is…

Midway through our Montana vacation, after a lovely day of hiking, Steve and I thought it would be fun to go out and hear some music.  We searched online and found a brewery about 10 miles outside of Missoula which featured a singer-songwriter from 5:30 – 8:00.  So off we went.

The beer was excellent. The music was awful.   The food was revelatory.   We ordered a “pickle flight:”

All I can say is: if you haven’t tried Pop Rocks on a  pickle, you haven’t really lived.

Steve, whose repartee is usually as…

The central signifiers of a traditional Jewish wedding are the canopy and the glass broken under the heel of the groom.  You probably know this even if you’ve never been to a Jewish wedding because of the wedding scene in the musical Fiddler on the Roof, a revival of which is currently taking Japan by storm (many thanks to my brother, Howie, for bringing this to my attention).   

Here is the wedding scene from the very first Japanese production, featuring the great Hisaya Morishige, who apparently played the…

When Steve and I got engaged, 34 years ago, we had all sorts of ideas about the kind of wedding we’d like to have.  These ideas included a tent in my parents’ backyard, a Klezmer band, and a potluck meal brought by friends.   My parents vetoed these plans one by one.  There were not enough bathrooms in the house to comfortably service the guests (and there’s no way we could ask Aunt Rose to use a port-a-potty).   It would be hard to find a union Klezmer band (and since my dad’s CPA firm served the…

For the first time in my life, I have a handbag that matches my shoes. 

This is because my daughter is about to get married, and I am trying to be a Class Act.

Shopping for a Mother of the Bride dress was an unusual treat:  my life doesn’t offer many occasions for wearing fancy duds.   I started at consignment and vintage shops, which offered some interesting options.   This one was a little dowdy:

This one was not:

I almost picked up this little number on a trip to LA:

In the end, I went to the shop where I buy…

My whole family loved this dish – even the kids, who are terribly picky, and have avowed never to let a vegetable cross their lips.  They didn’t even notice the onions and the garlic!   Will definitely add this to the rotation.   – Aimee from Wisconsin

My Cuban grandmother made this recipe all the time.  Use long-grain rice instead of basmati if you want real authentic flavor!   Also, use green bell peppers instead of ginger, yellow onions instead of scallions, and salt instead of soy sauce.    Perfect.  – J…

This blog post is a plea for guidance.

Like so many people my age, I am swimming in uncharted waters.   Norms have changed.  There are rules of engagement, but I no longer know them.   There is a whole new set of symbols and signifiers, brand new to me at midlife.   I have no choice but to deploy this new language, but I know I do so at my peril, constantly at risk of miscommunication at best, of giving offense at worst.

I am talking, of course, about emojis.

Some time ago, my children patiently explained to…

It is April, and the world is springing into bud and bloom in a way that fills every morning with hope and delight.   Just today, I found that the pea, arugula and broccoli raab seeds that I planted in my garden plot have started to germinate.  The bulbs in the park next door are popping.  

The trees outside my window are the most wonderful shade of brand-new green.  It’s birth. It’s joy. It’s everything good.

But not long ago, it was bleak mid-winter, and I was in a total funk.  I found myself listlessly…

Spring, 2019

All it takes for me to feel good is to walk in and put down my mat. 

I really like my new yoga studio.  It’s small, a single storefront room, with brick walls and limited HVAC (more precisely:  decent H, questionable V, and no AC whatsoever).   A mural fills the studio’s eastern wall.

This mural offers ample opportunities for contemplation, primarily on the topic of why this boddhisatva has no nipples.   Also whether the cobra-as-neck-wrap is really the right accessory choice, especially when…

Here’s the heist:  the perpetrator watches you (with eyes or camera) as you enter a code to unlock your iPhone.   He/she/they then steals your phone, uses your code to unlock it, and further deploys your code to lock you out of your Apple account (so you can’t wipe the phone remotely), capping off the caper by using the passwords you’ve stored on your phone to empty your bank accounts.   

I read about this emerging crime pattern in the Wall Street Journal, and was duly disconcerted: it’s the New York Times…