Alexandra Vaillancourt

Dateline Boston — My future father-in-law died a couple of weeks ago. I cried like a baby at his funeral, yet I never even met the man. “Dad” had Alzheimer’s for the last 10 years of his life. His wife, “Mom,” told me he was a wanderer. He used to go out walking in the neighborhood, not knowing where he was.

Dateline Boston — The circus is in town! I went with my preschool, as I’ve done for the past fifteen years. We always get good seats. This year was no different. I sat to the left of the performers’ entrance so I could see when everyone came out.

Dateline Boston — Last week I spent the afternoon with one of my preschool boys, a five-year-old named Liam. Liam’s family doesn’t take the subway very often, so I thought it would be fun to take him on a train ride to get ice cream. My plan was that we’d take not just one, but two trains – the green line trolley that starts above ground but then goes underground, and then the red line subway that mostly goes underground.

Dateline Boston — My wedding is in two and a half months. My mind is buzzing with all the stuff we need to do to get ready—it’s almost crunch time.

Dateline Boston — I want a cat. No, wait. I want a kitten. If I’m going to go down the path of pet ownership again, I’m going to start with a cute little ball of fluff.

Dateline Boston — Yesterday I went to a makeup store with my friend Barb for a trial run of my wedding look. Barb said to me, “We’ll let a professional do it, then buy the stuff and I’ll recreate it.” Sounded good to me.

Dateline Boston — I’ve been thinking about death lately. This week marked 22 years since my mom died. I’ve now known her longer in death than in life. Surreal. Alcoholism sucks.

Dateline Boston — I couldn’t take it anymore; my hairstyle just wasn’t working. More times than not, I’d look in the mirror and stick my tongue out. Not a good sign. I started obsessing about platinum blond pixie cuts.

Dateline Boston — It took four people to make dinner last night. A couple of days ago, S.O. announced he wanted to add some variety to our meals—he came home with a pork tenderloin. I looked at it in our fridge, sitting in the packaging. It looked disgusting. I am a tried and true meat lover, but detest the task of preparing it.

Dateline Boston — How is it that I’ve completely missed the beginning shows of American Idol this season?