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Do you believe in serendipity? I do. In fact, I have had so many serendipitous moments in my life that I have become a firm believer in what I call the theory of cosmic design. Do not confuse cosmic design with predestination. I do not believe that God has foreordained all things in my life (Seriously, with wars, famines, floods, hurricanes, terrorism, and diseases, I doubt God has the time to plan out whether I will have bran cereal or left over pizza for breakfast on March 23, 2012), but I do believe that some things are just meant to be. For those of you who are not familiar with my concept, cosmic design is the idea that there are unseen forces in the universe pushing us along the path to self-discovery and fulfillment. In other words, I don’t believe that every happy accident is an accident. As I write this, I realize that my theory is at odds with serendipity and that perhaps I should leave the deeper thinking to philosophers and theologians. What I really am trying to say

I love shopping for souvenirs. I put a lot of thought and effort into finding just the right gifts that will make my loved ones feel included in my trip, or, in some cases, appease my guilt for not including them on my trip. I thought it would be great to get my husband, who is a pilot in the USAF, a T-shirt from a Royal Air Force Base. I went to an Army Surplus store in London, but couldn’t find one. We had just finished touring Alnwick Castle, where they filmed two of the Harry Potter movies, and were wandering around the ancient market town when we saw a man in an RAF uniform walking down the street. I approached him, introduced myself, and asked if he knew where I might purchase an RAF t-shirt. It turned out Steve-O, as we affectionately would come to call him, worked in the Search and Rescue division at Boulmer RAF. He offered to escort us onto the base the next day, where we could meet his “mates” and buy the t-shirt. Steve-O’s mates were thrilled to meet a couple of Americans a

After a difficult year filled with work and family demands, my best friend and I decided to reward ourselves with a trip to the United Kingdom. The plan was to spend eleven restful days touring Shakespeare’s London, meandering through Jane Austen’s countryside, and exploring Brontë’s haunted moors and gothic ruins. Truth be told, I think we envisioned ourselves as two characters from a Jane Austen novel, swathed in muslin, perched prettily atop a phaeton, frilly parasols shielding us from the sun, occasionally yawning behind our hands, as the rolling green hills passed us by. We had been in London for three hours when we decided to shake off our jet lag with a brisk walk through town. We made a right out of the lobby of our hotel, walked past Buckingham Palace, and eventually came to Hyde Park Corner, a vertigo-inducing roundabout that puts the NASCAR speedway to shame. Vehicles whiz by at breathtaking speeds. Strap the average London cabbie in a NASCAR and I bet he could out-pace

The Bitchiness of Women Why aren’t relationships between women easy? What happens between the time we play with our Barbies and giggle about boys to the time we chat over coffee and gripe about our husbands? As girls, we willingly share our secrets and our toys. Then, some miraculous transformation occurs and we become bitchy. We nit-pick, gossip, compare and compete. We tear each other down when we should be building each other up. We put ourselves on a track when there is no race. Crushing the Joneses My friend, Mary, is a dear woman but she has a serious problem. She has a pathological need to keep up with the Joneses. If one of her friends buys a new couch, she is suddenly redecorating her living room. If another buys an outfit by a particular designer, she buys the entire collection. She copies recipes, hairstyles, outfits, manners of speech, gardening techniques, decorating ideas. The list is endless. At first, I found this very annoying. I did not like to meet her for lunch onl

I wanted to be the perfect mom. The mom who sent her children to school in stylish outfits, volunteered at every PTA event, baked homemade oatmeal cookies for after school snacks, and made super-cool Halloween costumes. I wanted to be a McGyver Mom; unruffled under pressure and always prepared, carrying spare band-aids, children’s Tylenol, duct tape, Legos, and an assortment of healthy snacks in my purse. For awhile, I actually thought I was the perfect mom. Okay, maybe not the perfect mom, but close. From the time my squalling, pink, precious bundles were placed in my arms, I made it my number one priority to be the person to tend to their every need, to nurture, educate, mold, and love them. I made the decision early-on to be a full-time, stay-at-home, hands-on mom. When they were toddlers, I took my children to playgroups, sat Indian-style beside them during story time at the local library, and swayed and sang with them in music and motion classes. I read “Goodnight Moon” so ma

My dog is neurotic. I am serious, Molly Muffin, the ten pound schnauzer-poodle mix I have written about in other articles, has issues. I told you that she thinks the ravens that live in the trees in our backyard are her mortal enemies, right? When she sees one, she does this odd Bruce Lee-like vocalization, a high-pitched, warbling “waaaaaa” that can frighten the breath out of someone (especially, let’s say, if they are home alone, at night). Well, after months of fruitless chases across the yard, ending in the ravens flying to the tops of the trees and Molly barking madly, she has adopted a sneakier tactic. She half buries herself in a snowdrift and lies in wait. So far, none of the ravens have fallen for her commando act. Though she is white and blends in with the snow fairly well, I think her long, scraggly, wagging tail gives her away. She’s like a soldier decked out in camouflage, standing in the jungle, waving a flag. I confess, it is great fun to sit on the porch and watch

I have a confession to make: crazy dog people always frightened and confused me. You know the ones that speak to their pets in baby-talk, carry photos of Fido in their wallets, or dress their poodles in pink parkas? Honestly, they just used to freak me out. Don’t get me wrong, I have always liked dogs. I just never really bonded with a dog, not on a human level anyway. I mean, you can’t take your schnauzer to the spa or your Newfoundland to Nordstrom’s, can you? Dogs are not allowed in hospitals, grocery stores, movie theaters, or the local Panera Bread Company. This is America, not France. Although the canine-crazy French might disagree with the finding, according to the Coalition for Living Safely with Dogs, “most recent estimates indicate that there are more than 60 million pet dogs in the U.S., more per capita than any other country in the world.” If that is the case, why don’t we revere Rover the way our French counterparts do? In Paris, they even have special street and side

I first saw the photograph, Kiss by the Hotel de Ville by Robert Doisneau, when I was fourteen years old. I was slumped in an uncomfortable plastic chair in a hospital waiting room, flipping through an old Life magazine, and wishing the doctors would bring the news that my beloved grandfather would defy the odds and recover from the lung cancer that was ravaging his body. I was a typical fourteen year old girl: angry, rebellious, childish, romantic, hopeful, and a bit confused by life. I couldn’t understand why a great man like my grandfather was being made to suffer, and, more importantly, why he would be taken from those he loved after having lived a heroic, generous life. My grandfather had been one of six children born to a poor, hard-drinking Irishman and a sweet-natured German immigrant. I don’t know much about his youth, except that he achieved high marks in school and was considered kind-hearted by his siblings and friends. He enlisted in the Army when he was

A friend of mine recently posed an interesting question. She said, “If you were stranded on a deserted island and you could take one painting with you, which one would you take?” Before I answered her question, I made it clear that if I was to be stranded on a deserted island there were several things that I would want to slip into my Louis Vuitton overnighter, and a painting would not be one of them! For instance, I would want to take my makeup (no surprise there), a bottle of L’Occitane Sweet Almond Firming Lotion (dry skin is so icky), a pair of Christian Louboutin’s (to look fab when they finally rescued me), a volleyball (Wilson!), a satellite phone (so I could call for help when the whole Survivor scenario got a little too intense), and plenty of 100 calorie snacks (because, though I will eat fish when someone else prepares it and serves it with garlic butter, I am not the backwoods, catch, kill, and skin my food kinda gal. Seriously, I get a little queasy at the butcher’s sh