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In exactly four months, I’m going to have to come up with a name for our first (and only . . . really) child. The first name will be no problem. Despite my abhorrence of organized religion, I love Old Testament names, and dozens fit the bill. The child’s last name will be my husband’s because on rare occasions when I just don’t care that much, I follow tradition. The middle name, though, is something with which I’m having great difficulty. For some time, I’ve considered dispensing with the middle name altogether. My parents and grandparents don’t have them, and I have two middle names (that’s one too many), both of which I dislike.

I want my money back. What I thought I was getting has turned out not to be as advertised. It seems like years ago that I oh-so-naively sent more than $1,000 to Barack Obama’s campaign of hope and change. And many, many people whom I assumed were mean spirited – or just plain wrong – told me I had lost my mind. They called then-candidate Obama an empty suit, with lofty rhetoric. A short-term Senator, he was labeled, who wasn’t ready to govern.

I hold a grudge.

An elephant has nothing on me.

My memory of slights and poor service is impeccable.

What do western Europeans do with all of their free time? The last twenty-fourhours of my life have been filled with calls to doctors, and insurance companies trying to get my insurance company to authorize pay for a non-invasive diagnostic screening in lieu of an invasive, expensive one that I’d rather avoid. Needless to say, in our fee-for-service medical marketplace, the doctor (I hesitate to call him my doctor – let’s just say he’s the only specialist available to request the proper authorization) preferred the more expensive one, at, oddly, the potential expense of my personal health.

It’s official. President Barack Obama has broken my heart.

I know, I know – I was warned.

I have only myself to blame.

The reactions to Michael Jackson’s death have perplexed me. As did people’s reactions to Farrah Fawcett and Ed McMahon’s deaths. But the endless coverage of Jackson’s death is in a realm all its own.

The definition of irony: About half the audience for a packed screening of “Food, Inc.,” this weekend, had a large tub of sunflower oil-popped popcorn, and thirty-two ounces of high fructose, corn syrup-infused carbonated water.

It could be any large city in America, any day of the week, any week of the year. Last week it was New York City. A white police officer, Andrew Dunton, shot (six times, mind you) and killed a black police officer, Omar Edwards, who had just gone off duty. The white cop’s excuse: It was an armed black man. Last time I checked, any police officer who’d just gone off duty would have been – well – armed.

Bill Clinton broke my husband’s heart.

A year before I met him, my husband was still a registered Democrat, and voted for the man from a place called Hope.

There are many things I love about California. I love that it’s sunny almost every day. I love that I can plant almost anything in my front and back yards, and it will thrive. There is abundant, local produce at the farmer’s market if I’m too lazy to grow my own. I can go to the beach one day, the desert the next, and the mountains another.