Vixen Chronicles

Things in the mirror are closer than they appear. Things on the Parisian landscape are further away than they appear. I know this now without a doubt. You see, someone thought it would be a good idea to walk to the Eiffel tower. It looks so big, how far away could it be, right? Oh, I'd say almost an hours walk. We walked and we walked and we walked some more and we still weren't there. It just didn't get any closer. I walked off all of my lunch wine and wasworking on my morning criossant before we got close. I mean, the durn thing was so far, we stopped in a park to rest. I stalled the kids. They were excited about the prospect of more stairs. I told them of the Parisian grass police and how it was illegal to walk on the grass in here. if you did, a silent alarm was set off at grass headquarters and the paddy wagon (or whatever its called here) would be on its way to swoop you up and spirit you away to the Bastille. "Will they behead you there, Mommy?"

The littlest one is afraid of the dark. So when we decided we wanted to go to the top of the Arc De Triomphe, we had to figure out how to triumph over her fear. A dilemma, we had to navigate an underground tunnel to get to the arc. It sits in the center of an etoile (star) when seven major streets and arondissements come together and crossing the street above ground is not humanly possible, that is of course, unless you are suicidal. I wasn't this day. We settled on snatching her up and running through the dark tunnel as she clawed her way up her father's body like a kitten trying to escape a bath. There's a spiral stairway that climbs inside the arc. The kids wanted to count their way up. I stopped counting just short of delirium (and around stair number 315). We rushed up the steps and the kids were loving it so much McDonald's was jealous. Well, the kids rushed and we followed because as everyone knows, you absolutely cannot go slower than your children, ev

The kids were missing. I could hear them laughing in my dreams. I sat up in bed, panicked, realizing they'd benefited from my jet lag and had escaped from their beds somehow. I was disoriented and it took me a second to recognize my right bank hotel room and to recognize that their voices hadn't come from my dreams but from the bathroom. Both at the same time. Not good. Another kind of panic set in. That could be just as bad as my imagined kid-escape. Groggy, I bumped into a few walls as I made my way to them. I rubbed my eyes. "What are you guys doing in here?" I asked. "Mommy, Look, there's a special bathtub for my dolls in here." It took a second for the object of their fascination to register. "Honey, that's not a doll tub. That's a bidet." I rubbed my eyes. If I wasn't so tired I'd laugh. "We don't put our dolls in there." "Why not?" I just wanted to go back to sleep. "It's not for

I was exhausted by the time I stepped out of the plane, but that quickly dissipated as soon as I caught a glimpse of the Arc de Triomphe.  It was Sunday and tomorrow was a national holiday.  There was some sort of commemoration there, not the usual ceremony  of the unknown soldier and the etoile was filled with bands and soldiers in ceremonial regalia. Our driver whizzed by and I hurriedly snapped photographs from the car and quickly tried to explain the history of the arch to my girls. We'd approached from the same direction as Napoleon's troops, even though he'd marched through an incomplete wooden arch at the same spot where we now saw the soldiers.  They seemed to ignore my tidbit of history, the older one rolling her eyes at her mother, the odd Trivial Pursuit Queen, but I knew they would get something from my babblings. Our hotel wasn't far from there.  I'd stayed at the same place last time I'd visited, ten years ago and I quickly realized how long ago th

We never know how bright a light is until its extinguished. Many of us are in the dark this morning. My friend, Soror and fellow author, Katherine D. Jones passed away last night. We were going to have lunch today at PF Chang's to get together one last time before she moved to Germany with her husband, a career miitary man. Another author friend of mine asked me if she was sick. I paused a minute before answering as an important realization hit me. Katherine wasn't the type to talk about what was wrong with her, instead she would often tell you what was right. She was happily married, witty and fun and showed us how to be a real SuperMom. I'll let you know if they kick me out of PF Chang's for pouring a drink on the floor in memory of my friend. Shine on, Kat.

No way is Melinda going home. Melinda Doolittle was the most talented female vocalist in the dang competition. And I'm not just saying that because she was in Marrying Up either. It's fixed. I'm so done with American Idol.

I read the email twice. My oldest was invited to a rollerskating event. My heart raced. As the hour approached, I licked my lips with anticipation. I think I was more excited than she was. She's not a teenager yet, still un-sure of her rollability. But me, I knew about mine. She didn't understand why I was going crazy looking through the closets for my skates. I found them and she screwed up her face. At the everything must be pink age, black skates were disgusting. I broke it down for her. The skates that I'd artfully slung over my shoulder where not just black skates. They were custom-built-for-my-feet-all-leather-Reidel-with-all-American-dream -wheels,jump-bars-and-dance-plug skates. "You don't understand," I told her. "Mommy was baaaaad! Not just bad, Poetry in motion." "What's that mean?" she asked. I sighed and shook my head. How to explain to a single digit child that I wasn't talking about back when I was a kid?