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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

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.

‘Read Me a Story, Mommy, But Not That One You Wrote’ (Or,The Nicest Thing My Husband Ever Said to Me)

December 28, 2012 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

1986 home office with computer monitors, toddler and sleeping cat. Photo by BF Newhall.

To save money, management had cut my hours back to one day a week. I did what every self-respecting writer does when she’s ticked off at the world. I sat down at the keyboard – and wrote. Read more.

My Mother’s Last Words to Me Before She Died

December 21, 2012 By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Barbara Falconer Newhall and Tinka Falconer at Nordstrom Cafe, Stanford, for lunch. Photo by BF Newhall.

My mother’s last words to me were nothing much. No parting words of love. No heartfelt messages to the grandchildren. Read more.

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LET’S CONNECT

ON THE FUNNY SIDE

Widowed: Are Tears Recyclable?

widowed are tears recyclable  budapest-market

A tear-drenched tissue — do I put it in the trash? Or into the recycle bin? I wondered, I’m widowed: are my tears recyclable?  Read more.

MORE "ON THE FUNNY SIDE"

CATEGORIES

  • A Case of the Human Condition
  • My Ever-Changing Family
  • On Writing & Reading
  • My Rocky Spiritual Journey

 
Need some levity? Push my Funny Button!

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!

 

DON’T MISS!

feral-plum-tree-blossoms

Not Dead Yet. That Feral Plum Tree Lives On

old-man-working-out-at-gym

Widowed: It’s Jon the Old Guy I Miss the Most

Red, red berries in a garden in autumn in the upper midwest. Photo by Barbara Newhall

Autumn in the Garden, When Sensible Plants Pack It In for the Winter . . . And a Healing Ankle

A plastic angle with a blue gown plays a golden flute. Photo by Barbara Newhall

Advent: Witnessing to the Light – With Tinsel and a Plastic Santa

MORE DON'T MISS!

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