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Barbara Falconer Newhall

Veteran journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall riffs on life as she knows it.

  • A CASE OF THE HUMAN CONDITION
  • MY EVER-CHANGING FAMILY
  • WRITING & READING
  • MY ROCKY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
  • WIDOWED
  • FUNNY BUTTON

Barbara’s Riffs on Life

Grace Falconer Perlmutter Kleis — How to Be a Glamorous Gal at Age 98

February 2, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

A glamorous red-head with her great nephew

My aunt was tall, red-headed, blue-eyed, self-sufficient and glamorous at a time and place when most women in her hometown wanted nothing more than to get married, have babies and put up green beans and blackberry jam. Read more.

The Luscious Lip, Skinny Lip Quiz — And the Answers!

January 25, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Oprah Winfrey's lips up close.

My Upper Lip and Other Sorrows

January 18, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Lucille Ball with red lipstick and hair

I feel bad about my lip. My upper lip. Nora Ephron felt bad about her neck, a body part she made famous back in 2006 with her book I Feel Bad About My Neck. Nora also felt bad about her frizzy grey hair, parched skin, incipient mustache, flabby upper arms, and tendency toward belly fat. She was getting older.

 

No Words

January 11, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall I’ve got no words today. I’m out of town visiting a sick — very sick — aunt. And I’m pretty sad. The hospice nurse is not optimistic. My mother and father are gone. Jon’s mother and father are gone. My aunt is the last of the aunts and uncles on both sides […]

Atotonilco, Mexico — High Art, Folk Art, Hot Springs, Food!

January 8, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Interior of Galeria Atotonilco, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, with hand-painted figurines of jaguars. Photo by BF Newhall

If you’re planning a trip to San Miguel de Allende, be sure to budget time for a day trip to the nearby town of Atotonilco.

Confessions of a Nintendo Mom: The Day I Unplugged My Eight-Year-Old

January 4, 2013 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Ten-year-old Peter Newhall with monitor showing Nintendo game he has just won. Photo by BF Newhall

Like any normal person with a job, two kids and a front yard full of weeds, I had been sleeping in on a Sunday morning – until the sound of Jon and Peter playing the new Nintendo woke me up. I burst in on them. “HEY. YOU WOKE ME UP.” No answer. So enraptured were they with their dratted boomerangs and Oktoroks they didn’t care that they had wrecked my beautiful Sunday morning sleep-in. I stomped back to bed, covered my head and cried. Read more.

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LET’S CONNECT

ON THE FUNNY SIDE

What If You Threw a Book Launch — And Everybody Came?

A room full of empty chairs at Book Passage bookstore, California, awaits Barbara Falconer Newhall's book launch for "Wrestling with God." Photo by Jon Newhall

Was anyone going to show up? My author event Book Passage  would start soon, and there were dozens of very empty chairs, waiting to be filled. Read more.

MORE "ON THE FUNNY SIDE"

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  • A Case of the Human Condition
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TO MY READERS

Please feel free to share links to my posts with one and all and to quote briefly from them in your own writing, remembering, of course, to attribute the quote to me and to provide a link back to this site.

My Oakland Tribune columns, btw, are reprinted by permission of the Trib. With the exception of review copies of books, I do not accept ads or freebies of any kind. Click on the "Contact" button if you have questions. Enjoy!

 

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Widowed: Life Goes On — And Some of Us Still Like It

"South Beach Gizzy," $300, by Cordelia De Vere, who worked in glass until cancer struck in 2009. Photo by Barbara Newhall

Holiday Gifts: Fun, Funky Fiber Art — Woolly Scarves, and Down and Dirty Angels

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Do We Live in a Pointless Universe? I Need to Know

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