The Irreverent Widow

No Sugar Added: Put the customer back in customer service There are certain things for which a woman must be in an appropriate mood: visiting with in-laws, attending an elementary school band concert, lunch-time sex – and calling a company to resolve any dispute involving billing or payment.more...

No Sugar Added: Teaching our children to lie Recently, I was presented the opportunity for an exciting business meeting in New York City. Fortunately, my daughter Ophelia was home on college break and available to watch her siblings, thereby saving me the vast and unwelcome expense of a babysitter for two overnights.more...

No Sugar Added: When Yankees swap On Christmas Eve, I once again had the pleasure of being witness to the odd ritual known affectionately (to some) as the Yankee Swap.more...

No Sugar Added: Tidings of comfort, joy and toilet tissue As I drove my daughter home from her first semester of college last week, we both happily noted that this year neither of us feels as if we truly “need” or “want” anything for Christmas.more...

No Sugar Added: Buy local (I dare you) One of the reasons I moved to Maine was because it has coastline. It also has Portland, with a wonderful arts community and fabulous array of restaurants and shops. Particularly the shops in the Old Port. Fancy little boutiques, quaint bookstores and toy shops with finely crafted treasures.more...

No Sugar Added: Money talks, but passion talks louder “Money makes the world go round.” That sentiment once came out of the mouth of my then 13-year-old son, Harold. To which his sister Ophelia sensitively replied, “That’s love, you idiot. Not money.”more...

No Sugar Added: Finding a good medium is rare Have you ever been to a medium? Not a psychic. A medium. I saw a medium once. She told me all manner of fascinating things. And at the end of an hour filled with insights into children, business and family relationships, I exclaimed, “But wait! What about my love life?!” To which she dryly responded: “Three to five. That’s what I’m seeing. Three to five.”more...

No Sugar Added: Making the breast of a sticky situation There are times in every woman’s life when she imagines there are benefits to being a man. One of these times is when she goes in for her yearly mammogram – a procedure that is unpleasant, and akin to having one’s earlobes squeezed between two cold, hard pieces of designer kitchen-countertop quality granite.more...

No Sugar Added: The apple doesn’t fall very far Recently, as I was taking one of my long and meandering beach walks, I found myself enshrouded in fog, and sooner than anticipated – darkness. As usual, I was barefoot (my favorite state of being, although not with the “and pregnant” part attached).more...

No Sugar Added: Unfeathering the nest As one gets closer and closer to labor and delivery, there is a phenomenon that occurs – widely known as “nesting.” I remember this fondly from when I was pregnant with my first child, the lovely Ophelia.more...

No Sugar Added: Any port, or garden, in a storm There’s nothing like a little hurricane to separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls, and the level-headed from the crazy.more...

Trim, clip, mow: A farewell to summertime maintenance Last week I got a note from the guy who mows my lawn. He’s headed back to college, and with him goes my yard maintenance. Sad? Not really.more...

No Sugar Added: Doing the rest-area aerobics Summer means road trips. And, unavoidably, rest areas. I have driven all over the Northeast, and after having sampled a goodly number of rest-area restrooms, what I want to know is this:more...

No Sugar Added: A summer love letter to Maine It’s been six years since I moved here, and I’m ready to confess what I know you’ve been hoping to read: I think I’m in love.more...

No Sugar Added: What I did on our family vacation Everyone knows that the last day of school signals the official commencement of summer, as well as the moment when anxious cries begin to rise from parents everywhere who cannot afford at least a couple of weeks of summer camp for their children, or have merely forgotten to send in the registration forms.more...

No Sugar Added: Whose bed is this, anyway? My mom was visiting recently, ostensibly for the graduations of two of her beloved grandchildren. The real reason she visits, of course, is because she so enjoys the fact that we have no guest room.more...

No Sugar Added: A commencement commentary Forgive me dearest readers, for I have sinned. I realize my maternal emotions have taken over as of late, leading me to share with you the torrent of eldest-child-related-activities which have taken center stage in my life for the past seven months: college searching, prom-dress contemplations, and now, the pinnacle of it all – high school graduation.more...

No Sugar Added: The magic of a prom dress Along with a throng of other parents of high school seniors, I am, this morning, recovering from the prom. And for me, it’s not merely a physical recovery, but an emotional one.more...

No Sugar Added: The trees are alive with the sound of nuisance Spring is upon us, and, even though you know how much I adore the winter, I am as thrilled as anyone to see crocuses popping their little purple heads out of the once snow-laden soil.more...

No Sugar Added: It’s still a Barbie world A couple of weeks ago, my lovely mother, Louise, arrived for a visit. She brought with her a newspaper, with the front page of Section D boasting a Technicolor photograph of a middle-aged woman with a jaw-length hairdo, wire-frame glasses, and a disturbingly startled look upon her face.more...

No Sugar Added: The science of Styrofoam balls and hot glue sticks Next to the words, “I want to get my pilot's license,” few things uttered by a 12-year-old can strike fear into the heart of a parent quite like the phrase, “I need to go to the arts and crafts supply store for my science project.”more...

No Sugar Added: We’re up to our armpits in fruity funny-business Spring is upon us, and I am here with some disturbing news: apparently, our nation’s capitol is not the only locale that will soon be awash in the delicious scent of cherry blossoms.more...

No Sugar Added: Mother hen One day last summer, my daughter purchased a tiny yet thoughtful gift for me. A pin with an image of a white hen. And the word “mother” up above it.more...

No Sugar Added: In defense of snow There are certain things that set my heart aflutter. Some are not suitable material for a public family forum such as this. But the one I’d like to talk about today is filled with childlike innocence.more...

No Sugar Added: Valentine’s Day is not for sissies These are the days that try men’s souls. And women’s. I speak not of our nation’s economic woes, nor of the mountains of snow threatening to collapse our roofs. No, ladies and gentlemen, I speak of the days leading up to Valentine’s Day.more...

No Sugar Added: Putting the sexy back in taxes Recently, I reluctantly purchased something with accordion pleats, reinforced gussets, and elastic closures. No it was not, as one friend suggested, a corset. I bought folders. Legal-sized folders. If you are over the age of 21 and own anything beyond a toothbrush, tickets to a Lady Gaga concert and perhaps a winter jacket, you know precisely the folders of which I speak.more...

No Sugar Added: The agony of the feet If the stock market had the same rate of growth as my children’s feet, we’d really be living large. Today I had the pleasure of, once again, making the annual pilgrimage to the ski shop; to grimace as the ski shop boys (can they really be called men when they say things like “dude” and “that’s a really nice set-up you’ve got there”) placed the foot-measuring devices lovingly under each of my sons’ feet.more...

No Sugar Added: The gift of remembrance As Christmas approached, three things were glued to me. Like additional limbs. No, not my trio of children. Their “wish lists.” They never left my side. Folded up, in my purse, the back pocket of my jeans or between the pages of my Filofax (yes, I said Filofax. I like paper, remember?). These lists remained close at hand at all times, in the event I found myself out and about, with time to do some spontaneous holiday shopping.more...

No Sugar Added: Coming out of the closet (again) I have a confession to make. I’m done living a lie. I’m coming out. Of the closet. No, I am not here to tell you, dear readers, that I am a lesbian. Although, during my seven years of dating, I have more than once considered taking the alternate path. No, when I say closet, I am being literal.more...

No Sugar Added: Admissions, college and otherwise They say you can’t go back. Well, I am here to tell you, as the mother of a daughter who is in the thick of the college search process, apparently, “they” were wrong. Ophelia is entertaining the notion of attending the same college I attended. The same college her father attended. The same college where we fell in love.more...

No Sugar Added: Sleighbells ring I heard the bells on Christmas day. OK, so it wasn’t exactly Christmas day. It was more like mid-October. more...

No Sugar Added: Zero degrees of separation Most of us are familiar with the concept known as “six degrees of separation.” It’s the idea that all humans are within six steps of connectivity. That whole friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend thing.more...

No Sugar Added: The dating hiatus Approximately 6 months ago, being of sound mind and body, I made the decision to go on a dating hiatus. My youngest son, Charles, through a fortuitous misinterpretation, turned it into what friends and family now know as the “date-us-hate-us,” which is actually not a completely inappropriate descriptive phrase.more...

No Sugar Added: The case of the shrinking Saltines The other day, I got a call from the high school nurse. My daughter, Ophelia, needed to be picked up. Apparently, her symptoms indicated that she may have suffered a concussion. Nausea, lightheadedness, trouble focusing on her work.more...

No Sugar Added: I admit it; I love boys Now, if you are privy to my dating history, you may be saying, "Duh." But I’m not talking men here. I’m talking men in the making. Boys. I love listening to them talk. I love hearing them belly laughing down the hall and plotting and planning and scheming.more...

No Sugar Added: ‘Twas the night before school … ... And all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for my 11-year-old, who had decided it was time to clean his room.more...

No Sugar Added: The perfection of imperfection Biologically speaking, had it been possible for Martha Stewart and Julia Child to reproduce, I could have easily been their baby.more...

No Sugar Added: Baby, I was born (not) to run I hate running. My adversarial relationship with the sport began as a freshman in college.more...

No Sugar Added: Christmas in July July 25 reminds me of the “Christmas in July” tradition. I always thought this ridiculousness was a retail marketing ploy, but after further investigation, this is what I discovered:more...

No Sugar Added: The way to this woman’s heart is through your refrigerator Ever since the day in early June that I was asked to write for The Forecaster, I’ve been drifting off to sleep each evening, fully expecting to bolt upright at 2:30 a.m., awakened by some divinely inspired idea for this, my first column.more...

Cape Elizabeth widow (and artist and mother and humorist) shares her life after death CAPE ELIZABETH — Sandi Amorello lost her husband Drew to pancreatic cancer in 2002.more...

MPBN Radio Interview more...