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New Article on Jewish Journal

New article up and running on Jewish Journal!

Here's an excerpt below, but if you want to read the full article, go to:

Can you rest in peace while your stuff rests in a dumpster?

When my mom died, I had to find a home for her panther. Not an actual endangered wild cat, a lamp.

Picture a glossy, garish panther base topped with a cherry red, tiered lampshade, exactly like the hats once worn by the members of the alternative, new wave band Devo. I had seen that lamp my whole life on her nightstand and the only thing I ever wanted to do was “Whip It.”

But after she died, I was haunted that I had left the panther in her condo in Las Vegas, to be dealt with by some shady dude our real estate agent knew, who agreed to show up with his pickup as soon as we were done taking what we wanted and remove whatever was left. Where it went after that, I’ll never know, but I’m guessing there’s a decent chance the panther spent some time at the bottom of a dumpster getting the stink eye from the ruddy-cheeked plaster of Paris orange that lived in my mom’s kitchen, cheering me up and creeping me out in equal parts. My mom knew how to put the kitsch in kitchen. 

 

TO READ MORE CLICK HERE!

New Article on The Arizona Republic

I'm back in the writing game with this brand new, highly informative article on why you MUST take your children to birthday parties. ALL of them.

Here's an excerpt below, but if you want to read the full article, go to: THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC

Parents, take your kids to all those birthday parties - here's why

Once upon a time, a million years ago, in a San Fernando Valley far, far away, my mother had a birthday party and nobody showed. Not a single kid.

That is why one of her last wishes when she died two months ago was not to have a funeral.

Here she was, in the “comfort care” wing of UCSF, licking her final See’s chocolate lollipop as I held it to her mouth, and she was fundamentally still that little girl, sitting at her dining room table, chubby hands resting on an old lace table cloth, wearing her wilting paper party hat, staring at a door that never opened.

Parents, its very simple: When it comes to kid parties, always go.

Sunrise, sunset, ashes to ashes, funk to funky, they didn’t show up at my birthday party and now I won’t give them the chance to blow off my funeral. I held up the sucker to give my mom another lick before depositing it facedown in a Styrofoam cup of tepid water on her bedside tray. I hoped for a good song on the “soft rock” cable music channel playing on the TV in her hospital room.

TO READ MORE CLICK HERE!

Sucker for a good Tourist Attraction

I grew up in SF, but didn't ride a cable car until I was 18. Somehow, this makes me a sucker for quaint tourist towns and attractions.

You got salt water taffy on a boardwalk somewhere? I'm in. So Polar Express was up my tourist trap alley and did not disappoint.

Santa, hot cocoa, cookies, kids in pajamas, the North Pole outside our train window, lit up and magical. Kids singing Xmas carols and each child given a tiny silver bell. This illusion rings so true.