Has lugging loads of (soaking wet) laundry led to your developing the muscles in your arms (though not as much as this Olympian mom)? Imagine if you had an iBasket, a combination laundry basket/washing machine, rendering the lugging-laundry-basket step unnecessary—-now, how about automating the next step, hoisting the cleaned but still wet items into the dryer………

Jim and I were running to catch a D train under the Port Authority bus terminal on Friday night when we heard the drumming: “Those guys are always here,” Jim noted of two men playing upside down white plastic buckets with sticks. One man wore a black cap; his drumming involved some acrobatic footwork (”$5 per photo” said a handwritten piece of cardboard). A large circle of people were watching as I glanced back. The train screeched in; the strong fast beats kept going.
Would Charlie have stopped and stood, shoulders scrunched up and eyes squinting, to take in the …read more

Charlie’s long had a liking for ketchup and when eating French fries, asks me about every other minute “Mom, I want ketchup, ketchup please!”. But I think we could do without this device—–Charlie also likes relish and talk about something a mother doesn’t want to see splatted on the wall! (Or even the table, or a certain boy’s shirt.)

There was a time when I never was sure my alarm clock would go off to wake me up for work. I had a digital alarm clock and Charlie, starting when he was about six years old, loved to post himself on his knees in front of a digital clock and change the numbers. At first he just stared at the blinking red lights that turned into numbers when he pushed the buttons; eventually he figured out how to change the numbers. 0, 3, 5, and 8 were the ones he favored, and in different patterns. Charlie had learned his …read more