Big Little Wolf's Daily Plate of Crazy

A fine wine, a conversation
Deep crimson color. Full-bodied taste. What could be better than a wonderful Côtes du Rhône in hand, and conversation shared with a friend in France?
That friend is a journalist who writes with a refined eye and wicked wit on all things stylish and oh-so French. And what subject comes [...]

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Last weekend I ventured out. On Date Night. It was… interesting. An enjoyable dinner. And a strange dénouement. Then I waxed winsomely on the subject of body language and touch, and interpreting non-verbal communication. Not quite one week later, here’s my take: I suck at dating.
How to determine your dating prowess
Care to know if you, [...]

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Do you know what you’re worth? How do you ascertain your value – as a worker, a creative, a woman, a man, a spouse, a parent? As a member of society?
I’ll state this up front. This isn’t the usual morning musing. But hang in. It may be useful.
What is your job worth?

In layman’s terms, in [...]

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Relationship deal breakers
You’re on a first date. He’s polite, he’s interesting, he’s easy on the eyes. But he makes slurping noises – loudly – over potato leek soup. Deal breaker?

You stumble on each other through an internet site. Your email exchange is sparkling. You speak on the phone. She rambles. In an interesting way, [...]

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Kids will be kids
Care to go for a truism to start your day? In the name of world peace and global inter-connectivity? Then start with kids.
And in that light, here’s my oh-so-self-evident observation, based upon 36 hours of hosting a teenager from Latvia in our hybrid little American homestead.
The bad news is: kids will be [...]

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So my kid is up at 4:00 am, Friday morning. Yes, this morning. In the kitchen. Which of course wakes me up, after four blissful hours which possibly could have extended into five. I’m a light sleeper no matter what, and these days, that’s an understatement.
So I pad out to the kitchen (10 steps [...]

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Vegetative states
While it was an article on French Yahoo several days ago that alerted me to this story, CNN Health is now reporting the news that for the first time, a man in a persistent vegetative state (since a car crash in 2003) was able to respond to questions about his life, by thinking yes [...]

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It’s Friday. Where’s my paycheck?
I am a divorced, full-time parent, who also seeks work and has been doing so for more than a year, since the most recent layoffs – two, nearly simultaneously. I was working a corporate full-time contractor job (marketing writing) and a freelance journalism job. I managed both around parenting my boys. [...]

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I was a reading a news report this morning, a serious one, about a young man who died on the rails of the French metro system, in a freakish incident. He was grabbed from the crowd at random, and pulled in front of an arriving train by a crazy man who took a complete stranger [...]

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Are your dreams on hold? Are you floating in a perpetual state of waiting? One more number? One more indistinguishable face in the crowd, chasing through an exhausting schedule that seems like nothing more than clocking time?
You’re following the hour hand and the minute hand with your eyes, listening to the slow ticking of [...]

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