Holy smoke, I’ve been gone to Las Vegas to a convention of city and regional magazines, and so glad to be back! I took along my laptop with the intention of blogging my way through the dull seminars, and found that A) there was no wireless Internet to be had at my hotel (though I could have plugged in for $11 per hour), and B) the seminars were not boring — a delightful discovery. Anyway, no wireless, no $ to blow on the other, and no time. So I’m lagging instead of blogging. And carried that laptop to Vegas and back for…(say it with me) absolutely nothing. I sat down…

I am beat but it has been a Mother’s Day to remember. After a lost weekend, as it happens. I’ll see how far I get before drooling off to sleep. Started off the weekened with a bang Thursday night, dashing home to Patrick’s for our Cinco de Mayo party. Big whoopee — it was much fun for all. Moments to savor: the look of horror on the kids faces as I danced with Stella in the living room to salsa music. (Savanna: “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the worst thing you could do as a mom, that was a 7 if you were joking, a…

Posting a few other Muses from the past while I wrap my brain around Mother’s Day…more to come. The Naked TruthIt’s my birthday next week — time to renew my driver’s license. The past two times I renewed the license it was by mail, so this time I have been kindly invited by my good friends at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles to pay a personal visit, give a thumbprint and get my photo retaken. Which is a blessed relief because I look like a psycho bank robber on my driver’s license.My current photo was taken just after my 12-year-old was born. I had the “Mom” haircut – that nondescript…

FYI, these are old Modern Muse columns that did not make the blog but were published instead in 20,000 newspapers in Alameda. Read through these few columns for Pure Reading Pleasure!

This ran in our holiday section, 11/18/04 I remember the last meal I had in Paris. I was with my sister on a two-week tour of France and England in 1998; we’d been visiting our friend Mia who was from our hometown but had since left to live the lush life in the City of Light. We met Mia and her boyfriend at a chic “resto” called Homo Sapiens somewhere near the Eiffel Tower. The napkin rings were sections of oxtail bone. There were abstract skeleton paintings on the walls. My sister the attorney looked around the basement restaurant with no fire exits, with just the one circular iron staircase…