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Weekend Wanderer: Do I Want to Live Somewhere Rural?
Something disturbing happened to me last week. Wait. That’s not accurate. I did something disturbing last week. Yes. That’s better. I did something disturbing. Something I don’t understand. You see — well — you guys know my husband’s family has a cabin. And you know how I feel about that cabin. It’s not that I…
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Weekend Wanderer: Spending a Week with Thailand
I promise this isn’t another column about scuba. But. Given my aquatic adventures of late, I am obsessed with two cinematic genres. The first is scuba and scuba-adjacent horror movies. “Should you be watching this?” my husband sighed as I watched Blake Lively’s battle for survival against a shark oblivious to any food that wasn’t…
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Weekend Wanderer: Getting on a Parent’s Bad Side
I’ve entered a new quadrant of the Willie Universe. The likelihood that someone I know could wind up living in the apartment next to Willie has got to be slim, right? But the likelihood this situation could ruin my life is a guarantee. It all starts with my daughter. Wasn’t I just saying last week…
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Weekend Wanderer: The Cold Shower Trend Became More Than a Trend
I think having kids made my life better. Wait. Do I? Yeah. Yes. I do. Made my life better, made me a better person. Yeah. Sure. Take this summer. I drove my kids to New Jersey on 31 separate days this summer. One day, I drove to New Jersey twice — two entirely different directions. …
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Weekend Wanderer: Your Day Is Not Your Own. Get Used to It
Is it possible to say I got Willied without it sounding sordid? Because there was really nothing sordid about it. It was, however, a typical day in the Willie Universe. It started when Willie told me she needed to make a Staples run. Someone would have to take her. Someone. Meaning me. Instead, I suggested…
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Weekend Wanderer: Don’t Make Me Scuba Dive, The Conclusion
I think scuba is a metaphor for life. Also, I think scuba doesn’t really exist. Like the idea that humanity is just a simulation, so too, I feel, is scuba. See, every lesson in scuba settles on one edict — slow, focused breathing powers your dive. Focused breathing keeps divers neutrally buoyant — the desired…
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Weekend Wanderer: My Daughter Is Applying to College, and I’m Not OK
I was driving down Street Road in Bucks County recently when I saw — Sorry. I have to take a deep breath or this story will be peppered with four-letter words. And one seven-letter word. And two eight-letter words. I saw a kid — a teenager — sitting in the open window of a car…
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Weekend Wanderer: Road-Trip Car Games … to Play by Yourself
So there I was, driving eight hours to drop off my kid at camp. Then driving eight hours home by myself. Three days later, I’d embark on that same trip in reverse — eight hours alone in the car, then eight hours with my daughter on the drive home from camp. The eight-hour drive didn’t…
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Weekend Wanderer: I Left My Kid at Camp
So my kid is at sleepaway camp. Yep. I drove through four states to leave my kid with strangers for five days. Are you guys having trouble breathing? Because I’m having trouble breathing. Strangers! I left my kid with strangers! I thought leaving my dog in a kennel was hard. But this? This is a…
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Weekend Wanderer: Indiana Jones, by Way of Maryland
What do the new Indiana Jones movie, my spiraling refrigerator, and Indy’s Maryland property have in common? The answer is a story and then some. I would start at the beginning, but I don’t know where that is, exactly. It might start in the ’50s, when Indy bought the Maryland property. It might start with…
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Weekend Wanderer: I’m Too Picky About My Showers
Now that my husband is all Buddy the Elf about making friends in his outdoors organization, I have met many people. Many, many people. I have friends all over the country. And one acquaintance in Canada. Or maybe he’s just from Canada. I don’t know. But he makes me look like a better cook so…
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Weekend Wanderer: Why Does My Mom Keep Misplacing Checks?
It’s been a bit since we had a Willie story. We should probably check in on her. Our check-in begins this morning when I was recounting to my husband the plot of Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. He was, as you might imagine, enthralled. If there is one thing better than watching a ’90s…
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Weekend Wanderer: The Death of the Refrigerator, Part Two
When I last left you, I had saved my fridge but decimated the freezer. But I made a bet I could save that freezer. And I had come this far in my quest to avoid pronouncing the refrigerator dead. I wasn’t ready to quit. When I originally pulled the refrigerator from the wall, finding a…
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Weekend Wanderer: The Refrigerator Is Trying to Die
One day in 2017, Indy pulled my fridge from its kitchen nook. I was in trouble. Upon discovering my failure to periodically clean behind and beneath the fridge, Indy told me he’d be over to be sure I got the job done. I should have been able to get that fridge out myself. But I…
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Weekend Wanderer: (Not) Planning a Family Vacation
I fly to Scotland in 72 hours. Sealed in a metal tube 30,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean. Where the Titanic sank. You know how I feel about sunken ships. I feel no less animosity toward them when they’re beneath my plane. Or, you know, next to it. Throw in some snakes and that situation…
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Weekend Wanderer: Springtime Pests, Part Two
The dead mouse was bad enough. But the critter situation is so much worse than one long-dead mouse in the crawl space. You might remember the skinks living beneath my house. I thought they were snakes when they first showed up because really. Am I getting close enough to the serpentine thing slithering up from…
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Weekend Wanderer: Cleaning Led to a Terrible Discovery
I made a gruesome discovery last week. It was Friday. The day yawned beautifully before me. Nothing hinted at the evil lurking in the hours to come. Rather, it was — to quote Bill Withers — a lovely day. Temperate. Gentle breezes. Puffy clouds floating through the sky. And I was alone. I am finding…
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Weekend Wanderer: My Family Can’t Get Their Holidays Straight
You might remember Thanksgiving, when my aunt had designs on attending dinner at my brother’s house. A dinner my brother wasn’t hosting as he planned on having dinner with our parents. They just didn’t know he planned on having dinner with them. It was like a Thanksgiving surprise party. I was the only one who…
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