by Tanya Ward Goodman According to my daughter, most things are “creepy” or “awkward.” She decided our road trip to New Mexico had the potential to be both. It would be creepy because we would sleep in the mountains where I grew up and it would be awkward because… well, because everything is awkward. (I […]
By Tanya Ward Goodman My bank’s fraud detection department has joined the little village that helps me to be a better parent. It’s thanks to their vigilance that my son’s in-app purchases stayed below the $500 mark. “We’ve noticed some irregular activity,” a kind voice says. “Super Cell. True Axis.” “Can you spell that,” […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman I walked my daughter to school this morning. We left forty minutes early and took a circuitous mile long route from our house to her elementary school. We crossed several big streets including Sunset Boulevard and for a few moments found ourselves darting like small fish in a fast moving school […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman There is nothing I can do about the bombs falling in Gaza, nothing I can do about the spread of Ebola. I can save my bathwater and stop watering my lawn, but the California drought is largely out of my own two hands. I can (and do) pray for peace […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman I ran in the Jog-a-Thon at my son’s school this morning for a bunch of reasons. I ran because this is the first year in a while that I’ve had two kids at two different schools and the boy’s school is getting the short end of the volunteer stick. I ran […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman I was in third grade and it was Halloween. A bunch of people had gathered at our house to eat and drink before heading out to trick-or-treat. My mother was dressed as a gypsy fortune-teller. She swirled around the house in satin skirts and a patchwork vest, dispensing red wine out […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman The mouse is named “Candy Corn.” He is grey on the top and bottom with a white middle. When we first saw this mouse, my daughter proclaimed in very passionate tones that he was “the mouse of her destiny.” In the words of Taylor Swift : “Trouble, trouble, trouble…” “We have […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman My Grandmother’s death has brought the family together, but my daughter’s loose tooth has given us something cheerful to do. We are united by Sadie’s tooth. When she wiggles that darned thing, we stop thinking for a moment about how hard it will be to sell the house and what a […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman Though they couldn’t be less alike, I am lucky to have two moms: the one who spent 36 hours in labor before I was cut from her belly and handed over to the nuns in the small brick hospital where I was born and the one who wore a dress the […]
by Tanya Ward Goodman Way back in college, when I was a theatre major, one of my class assignments was to become an animal. I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo and observed the penguins. Imagining that my feet attached directly to my hips, I cultivated the “penguin walk.” I stood contemplatively with one wing […]
