At the beginning of the summer I lost something. I had taken my children for a special lunch with their “bonus” grandma and parked my SUV wannabe across the street from the restaurant because I am allergic to valets. I read the street sign and loaded the meter with two hours worth of quarters. If lunch went smoothly and I returned to my car early, another grateful taxpaying citizen could Read More>

Are you there Judy Blume? It’s me, Adrienne. I hope you’re listening, because I want to thank you (oh, it was so long ago) for giving me and all my tweeny-bopper buddies worlds in which to escape, to be enlightened, and to experience the confusing journey through pre-adulthood. We lived in your books. We were Margaret, new at school, praying to fit in and no Read More>

When I heard that Clorox® had a line of “green” cleaning products, I was in environmental disbelief. Why would a corporation, established for generations as a maker of chlorine bleach, fabricate anything that was safe for our planet? It couldn’t be true. Was it a trendy marketing ploy? My germ-phobic instincts kicked in. Do these products even clean as well as conventional ones? I had t Read More>

Reading a book review is as risky as asking a server in a restaurant how the specials are – what if you have different tastes? What if you long for grilled fiction with a side of thriller and they are serving memoirs? Well worry not. With my new series, The Last Great Book I Read, your brain will not go hungry. You will not find self-important criticism or min Read More>

Look out Kathy Griffin! I know a few five-year olds whose potty mouths make yours look tame!

It happened a few weeks ago. I went to volunteer at my twins’ school, escorting my daughter’s class to the computer lab and working in the classroom afterward. This, like parenthood, is a self-imposed job and I’m happy to do it, to cut into my work/exercise/Netflix schedule to help the kid Read More>

I’m all about garbage - the biodegradable kind. I diligently dump my family’s chopped rubbish into the composter in the backyard – it sinks into the soil and becomes one again with Mother Earth. My life’s food waste will never see a landfill. I believe I am a better person for it.

Ok, I could knead the compost to enrich the soil for gardening and have what we had the autumn afte Read More>

The remarkable novel Push by Sapphire, is a hard read. Not every reader wants to confront a story of an illiterate sixteen year old girl in the depths of 1980’s Harlem who is pregnant for the second time by her father. But narrator Claireece Precious Jones raises tough universal questions. Why do people do the things they do? Are some people just not wanted? Can we give love if we’ve never Read More>

I am here because of a book.

Seven years ago B.C. (before children) an old high school buddy of my husband invited us to meet his girlfriend. They had just moved in together and I was touched he wanted to introduce us. I had known him since he first moved to Los Angeles and felt toward him as a mother hen would: ready to peck out the eyes of anyone who hurt him. My husband and I were th Read More>