Shopping's traditional too

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t's all so trivial. I recognize this. It doesn't matter that Christmas is a week away and I have so little done. No gifts for my son, my daughters, my husband. Not a present under the tree. No cookies baked. Only a handful of cards written.

Who cares. Is everyone healthy? Yes. Is everyone going to be home for Christmas? Yes. Do we have a roof over our heads, heat, lights, running water, a telephone and cars that start in the morning? Yes, yes, yes, yes!

Then why am I feeling great waves of get-me-a-paper-bag-I-can't-brea

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No more noodle necklaces

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My daughter, the 21-year-old, calls them "noodle necklace gifts," the Christmas presents you open every year that you have to pretend to like.

"You know how in school little kids make necklaces out of noodles and bring them home and wrap them up and give to their mothers on Christmas day and mothers act as if they're the best present ever?"

I know. We all know. A noodle necklace from a child is a great gift, a combination of ziti, glue and love. But a noodle necklace from a boyfriend or a husband, a grown man who's supposed to be perceptive and warm and considerate - this is a whole other story.

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Happily ever after is make-believe - even for a prince and princess

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You read the statistics and look around and count the number of couples who are no longer couples, who live miles apart or in the same house, who pledged to love one another but are now indifferent strangers, and you know there is no happily ever after.

But you believe in it anyway. A lifetime of love songs and fairy tales can't be undone by other people's unhappy lives.

"It'll be different for us." That's what every bride tells herself as she walks down the aisle. "Our marriage will always be loving and romantic and ideal."

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Safe streets everybody's fight

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It wasn't fear this night. It was more subtle.

It was dark and late and I didn't know the neighborhood. I was in Providence. What did I know about Providence? The walk from the theater to the parking lot was just two blocks, but who knew what lurked on those blocks?

So I asked someone to walk me to my car. I felt foolish making the request. And yet, I wouldn't have walked alone.

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A miracle that came too late

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A miracle that came too late

My friend Anne's daughter died of cystic fibrosis eight-and-a-half years ago. Amy was 11, in the sixth grade, and my daughter Lauren's best friend. We knew Amy was going to die, everyone knew, but we knew it intellectually the way we know that someday we'll grow old, and someday babies not even born yet will have gray hair. We didn't believe it, couldn't imagine it. Someday was theory. Amy's death was an eternity away…

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Well-behaved kids give back what they take in - respect

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I met them the first time when they walked into my mother-in-law's house with their parents on New Year's Day four years ago.

"My brother's daughter, Jeannie, is coming with her family to visit all the way from New York. Won't you stop by and visit, too?" my mother-in-law phoned to ask.

I bet I groaned about having to visit someone I hardly knew. I bet I complained about all the things I had to do: take down the tree, vacuum up the pine needles, get my life in order, ready the slate for the new year.

I know I went to my mother-in-law's intending to stay just a little while. But that was before I met Jessica, Tabitha and Xena.

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Mr. C sings for her - always

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"Is he still handsome?" That's what people always ask. That and "How old is he?" and "Can he still sing?" and "Is he really as nice as he seems?"

Yes, he's handsome. He has thick gray hair, twinkley eyes, a great smile and a younger man's trim build.

How old is he? He's 30-50, my sister-in-law would say. Eighty is how the world translates it. But the number deceives.

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Even a miserable cold couldn't dim the joy of Thanksgiving

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It begins with a tickle in the back of the throat. Nothing to worry about. Just a tickle. Probably a dog or cat hair lodged in the esophagus. There are dog and cats hairs all over this house. I drink orange juice and hot tea to dislodge it. I say it is nothing, that it will go away.

"No it won't. You're getting a cold," the chorus around me sings. "There's a terrible cold going around and you're getting it."

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Even a Miserable Cold Couldn't Dim the Joy of Thanksgiving

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It begins with a tickle in the back of the throat. Nothing to worry about. Just a tickle. Probably a dog or cat hair lodged in the esophagus. There are dog and cats hairs all over this house. I drink orange juice and hot tea to dislodge it. I say it is nothing, that it will go away.

"No it won't. You're getting a cold," the chorus around me sings. "There's a terrible cold going around and you're getting…

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Guys, offer a holiday hand

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t arrived in the mail, compliments of a good friend. "Christmas Ease -287 Top Tips for a Delightful Stress-Free Holiday" by Michelle West, certainly piqued my interest, but it was, I thought smugly, just a bit premature. It was only October when I found it in my mailbox. The days were still balmy. Leaves clung to the trees. Roses bloomed on the vine. Christmas was eons away.

I stacked the book on top of another my friend sent, on how to get rid of cellulite. I realize now that if I'd opened both when they arrived I would not be in the shape I'm in today.

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Fisher Price people don't kill kids; guns do

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Usually I read these things and take them for what they are: a warning that once I would have memorized, but that now I just peruse. I don't have little kids anymore. I don't need to worry about toy safety.

But the story was about Fisher Price's Little People and though it has been years since I picked up the cow and put him back in his barn, and arranged the plastic children in their swings, I finished the article because of all the toys my children had, Fisher Price Little People were my favorite. Even the words on a printed page evoke nostalgia.

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`CARETAKERS' ALWAYS ON CALL

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A social worker would call her the "primary caretaker." You probably know someone like her.

She's the one daughter in a family of five, six, ten who, when her mother gets sick, packs up her pre-school kids - even if they have colds, even if they're in the middle of a birthday party - to drive her mother to a doctor, pick up a prescription, stop at a market, then go back to her mother's house and whip up something for dinner.

Or she's the one with the full-time job who visits her father every day on her way home.

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Report calls for abolition of DSS

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The state Department of Social Services should be dismantled because it is "inherently conflicting" for one agency to provide both child protection and family support services, according to a new report.

The report, issued by a committee of child advocates, academics and citizens, recommends the state establish a new Department of Child Protection to investigate child abuse and neglect.

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Money doesn't buy manners

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So there you are at the theater, with your family, having spent a couple hundred dollars for the privilege of sitting in the rear of a balcony, now called a mezzanine, because at $55 a seat, mezzanine has a far sweeter sound. The French word is elegant - and also deluding.

But you don't care, because this is a Special Occasion. You're here to relax, to enjoy yourself and become immersed in the performance.

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Look how sensitive we have become to the sounds around us

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The noise has stopped, finally. Or is it only an intermission?

I look out the window and see the men across the street, talking together. Half the yard is still covered with leaves. They and The Machine have been working for hours. The whining, unremitting drone awakened me early, far too early on a non-work day. The sound was like pain. I wanted to run from it. But I couldn't. It filled the house. It filled me.

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Molly at 13: It's Just a Stage

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Molly at 13: It's Just a Stage

If she were a person, she'd be 13 now, a teenager, seeking her identity, testing boundaries, being a bit of a pain in the neck. Her behavior in human terms is, therefore, perfectly normal. She is just going through a stage, I tell my husband who didn't buy the stage bit for his kids and now refuses to accept it for a dog. She is totally out of control, he counters. And guess whose fault that is?

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This rape no crime

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You have to see this through three sets of eyes.

There's Frankie Rodriguez, 19, hot stuff, a right-handed pitcher last season for the Red Sox' Single-A Carolina League affiliate in Lynchburg, Va. Scouts look at him and see the majors. His career prospects are soaring. He can taste success.

Of course, he attracts fans. Young, pretty girls cheer him on the field and wait for him after the game. He has his choice. On the night of Aug. 24, he gives a pair of girls who've followed him from game to game all summer long, a ride home. One of the girls says she doesn't want to go home, that she'd rather go to Rodriguez's apartment instead. When she gets there, she asks her friend to leave Rodriguez's bedroom so that they can have sex. Afterward, he drives both girls home.

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Sorry, can't make that meeting. I plan to hibernate this winter

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We are talking about going to bed early and pulling the covers over our heads and closing out the world and hibernating until May.

Only it's just talk. We can't hibernate. Morning comes; the clock says it's morning, but it's hard to tell. The day is gray. Our mood is gray. The trees are bare, black, bone thin. We are bone-weary. Burdened.

It's cold. It's damp. Thanksgiving looms. Then it's Christmas with all the shopping, spending, racing. For what? For whom?

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Faith sustains those Lacey left behind

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I expected him to be angry, furious, out of control. I expected him to be screaming and yelling "Why."

I should have known better. I have never seen him angry. Wounded, puzzled, defeated, yes. But I have never seen hate in his eyes.

Not the first time I met him, shortly after his daughter's death, when I drove to his house and sat on his couch and looked through albums filled with photos of a beautiful, smiling little girl.

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