There are only two ways this sign can be pronounced: “doe doe,” as in the dodo bird (at best), or “doo doo.” As in, doo doo. Read the rest of this entry »

(*Via sensory memory only. Certain terms and conditions may apply.)

In Europe, they like to pick one song and play it over and over and over. That song, and only that song. Read the rest of this entry »

40 doesn’t feel old to me like I always thought it would. Except for a few things:

• This year’s bumper crop of gray hairs.
• The cracking joints – occurring during any and all movements, where they used to be limited to things like deep squats. I sound like bubble wrap. My husband calls me “Creaks.”
• The number of “when I was a kid” stories I find myself telling the young people. Read the rest of this entry »

I started 5th grade in 1979. That’s when designer jeans were “all the rage.”  An expression your grandmother would use, but really – they were the rage.

All the sexy girls in my class wore them.

(Yes, to ten year olds, other ten year olds are sexy.) Read the rest of this entry »

Action Park was a water park in New Jersey that deservedly earned the nickname “Accident Park” or, alternately, “Class Action Park.”

Having gone there once a summer to slide head-first down their uninspected concrete water slides, with some fat kid crashing into us from behind every time, it’s a miracle my sister and I are both alive today. I’ll bet one out of every 20 kids who went there left with a missing finger or a split head.

I was looking for a different version of the Action Park commercial, where my sister, then age 8 or so, appears for a fraction of a second plunging into the water.

I think she’s driving a bumper boat or a “water car” or something that I was too chicken to get in myself. I had this notion that a person was more likely to die on that ride than on my favorite, where a tube shoots you out 10 feet over the water like a human cannonball.

Although I couldn’t dig up the ad with my sis in it, I struck gold with this spot. You can’t beat the old people in the middle, with pants up to their necks. Lordy knows why Action Park makes them feel like they’re visiting Broadway – maybe they ran into Tyne Daly on the Tarzan Swing – but I’d like to point out that they pronounce it the same way my dad does: BroadWAY.

Make sure and watch till the end, or you’ll miss the super-enthusiastic serial killer.

I turn 40 today.

When you reach 40, you get nostalgic for things just because you remember them. At least I do. I was like, “remember Menudo?” and then I was like, “Awww, Menudo!”
ABC used to show them in the Saturday morning commercial breaks during the show “Dear Alex and Annie.”

I went to youtube and found my all-time favorite Menudo video, which also made me nostalgic for shopping malls.  It’s called “Shopping Mall.”

Watching it now, I have to ask:
What kind of shopping mall is this? Read the rest of this entry »