I don't know about you, but my head is spinning from all the studies that come out almost daily about how one food is good for your kids one day, and terrible for them the next. It's become a joke! Jim and I can barely keep a straight face half the time, honestly.

Just a couple of thoughts about the White Plains mom who kicked her two daughters out of the car because she'd had it with their fighting in the backseat. She ended up having child endangerment charges against her, dropped.

I bet there isn’t a parent in the world who hasn’t threatened exactly what this mother did, at least once. True, most of us don’t act upon it, (and we shouldn't) but boy, if you're honest, you know it's something you have been tempted to do on those days when you just have had ENOUGH!

Even my old pal Al Roker, the nicest, most easygoing guy in the world, got to the point that he actually wrote an entire book about it. Called “Don’t Make Me Stop This Car!”

Experts can tell you all these little tricks you’re supposed to use to not get to the point of tossing your little darlings out of the family SUV. Because, let’s face it, that is clearly not a good solution. But what really works?

So now they want us to tweet.. First it was the blog. I thought I got away with just hijacking Jim’s that first time, and that would be the end of it, but no such luck. Then Facebook. Again, resistance on my part. But I crumbled . Didn’t even take long. And now, twitter.

I barely understand Facebook! By the way, I don’t maintain my page well, at all. Everybody tells me that. Our assistant news director took it upon himself to take me aside and whisper in my ear, “For Pete’s sake, Kaity, put a photo of yourself on your profile page! "

"What’s wrong with not having a picture? You mean that grey faceless shadow with the sort of geeky pointed-head hair thing going on, isn’t good enough?"

"No. You look like a LOSER." And he makes the appropriate L sign, with his hand, in front of his forehead.

Boy. I am old school. I am. I like having a day book to write appointments in. I get mine at Barnes and Noble, a handsome thing of lovely faux leather, the Manhattan Diary, a new one every year. I don’t just put appointments in it, either. Oh no. I put EVERYTHING in it. Lists, reminders, things I need to do, things I need to NOT do, calls I have to make, ….all of it, every bit, goes into this 4X9 little book that I carry with me everywhere. This year I bought the dark blue one.

My Number One (and Only) Son is about to graduate from college. I know I am not unique in feeling a flood of emotions at the very thought.

Hurray! No more tuition, room and board!

Oh, right. Also, quite proud he completed four years at an excellent university without ever getting arrested. In fact, this is an exceptional child who freely acknowledges he's a geek (as I was myself back in the day). He doesn't drink, smoke, or do any of the things I always thought were considered almost mandatory (in moderation and legally, of course) in COLLEGE.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. That's just what he TELLS you. But BELIEVE ME, I WOULD HAVE BEEN HAPPY IF HE'D LET LOOSE A LITTLE BIT! I would find myself saying things like, didn't you tell me there was a party next door this Saturday? That they'd invited you and you saw a couple of cute girls? But you ended up not going?!!?"

May I first say, emphatically, that I am way too young to have senior moments. That established, let me share with you something that happened today which really freaked me out.

I, all of a sudden, could not remember my ATM pin number. The same number I have used for years. About four times a week. I know, it seems trivial. But listen.

I decided that on this truly glorious Friday, I would spare you, dear readers, another one of my blogs and take the time to respond to a few of you who’ve left comments on my previous musings! For the sake of time, I am going to talk about responses to only my last two: ”Sayonara Son…Welcome to the Real World and “Help! I’ve Forgotten My PIN and I Can’t Get Cash!”

But first, let me say, I so appreciate all of you who are regular commenters (is that a word, or did I just make it up???). Yes, even you Anonymous! Because every time you go onto my blog to leave comments, I get HITS! So thanks!

I’ve been doing a little more cooking at home these days. How about you? So far, no one has gotten seriously ill eating my cooking, so I am encouraged.

The other day, I dug out an old recipe. Steamed Pearl Balls. There are many variations on this recipe, but this one is my mother’s. She made it mostly when we had company, but I don’t think it’s so hard to make. And it’s quite yummy. As you will see, it’s the kind of thing that can be fun to do with your kids. You can have them do the ‘rolling in rice’ part.

Also, when I was five-months pregnant with my son, I was on the Regis and Kathy Lee show to make this dish for their cooking segment. They could not believe how ENORMOUS my belly was. I stood up and showed the studio audience and folks at home a sideways view of me. I was as wide front to back as I was tall. Scary! Could not see my feet! Regis, naturally, went ballistic. “YOU”RE just FIVE MONTHS ALONG????!!!! Oh My God, you look like you’re ready to drop NOW!!!! Kath, doesn’t she look like she’s ready to drop NOW????!!!!! Classic Reege.

Anyway, I cooked this Pearl Balls dish with Regis on the show and you can just IMAGINE the fun he had with THAT!! But he claimed to love it after I jammed one into his big mouth! : )

I just saw a commercial on the air that I dislike. Okay. Hate. Wondered if you feel the same way, or maybe it’s just me.

I am sitting happily in the makeup chair, having about, oh, forty or fifty pounds of foundation, powder, blush, etc. applied expertly to my face. Suddenly, I glance over at the television and see this commercial come on. Both the makeup artist and I are so startled by what we see, she almost puts my eye out with the mascara wand.

It takes place in the aisle of some supermarket. A grown man is strapped into an adult-size version of the baby carrier, being hauled around by an even bigger man. They are both facing forward, so this guy hangs in the carrier as the other guy walks toward the camera. The man-baby talking in this whiny way, his legs and arms dangling bizarrely.

Watching American Idol makes me hearken back to my days as a child musical prodigy.

Kidding aside, I liked the story the parents of Kris (one of the two finalists) told of how he didn’t like to perform as a little boy, and they would have to bribe him with a quarter to get him to sing.

Flash back to public elementary school, Washington D.C. Me, 7 years old. Had a music teacher that year who encouraged her mostly apathetic students to take lessons in some kind of instrument. Didn’t really matter if we had any talent. So I, of course, decide I want piano lessons. Not the flute, the violin, something easily transportable.

Still would have been fine, except for one small detail. We didn’t own a piano at the time.

Hey, turns out, no problem!

Hanging out happily on the deck of my dear friends’ home this weekend, feasting on steak and salad, gazing up at a nearly cloudless sky, chatting about this and that.

I’ve known Sarah (Wallace of Channel 7 investigative reporting fame) and her husband, Harry (Martin, anchor of Channel 9 AND Channel 5 news….only guy I know who works at two stations and in two states!) for a long time. Sarah and I go way back to Sacramento television days.

Wow, if you read the comments to my blog last night, Nash, the little devil, got most of them right.

Nash, I think you mentioned one time that you are still a student,' 'way young' as you put it! It just proves my point that the farther one gets from those early schooling years when we were actually learning interesting things like "What do you call a group of crows?", the more we forget, the less we know.

The story of Judge Sonia Sotomayor is inspiring. I especially like her memories of growing up poor in the projects in the Bronx. And one detail from that period that truly resonates with me was her love of Nancy Drew!

I, too, LOVED those books, growing up! And that is where the similarities between me and Judge Sotomayor end! LOL

Growing up without much money in Washington, DC, I made the library my haven. We couldn’t afford to buy books. My brother and I borrowed them. Piles of them.

We were latchkey children, so to avoid going home after school to an empty apartment, I would often walk straight from school to the nearest library and just read. Then as the light began to fade outside, and the librarian nudged me gently, to let me know she was closing up, I would check out as many books as my card allowed.

I didn’t care that I could barely haul all these books, and these were hardbacks, not paperbacks. You think I’m small now, you should have seen me then. But never mind. I’d just lug them onto the bus, off the bus, and then drag the bookbag along the sidewalk the rest of the way home.

Dear reader, I am doing something different tonight. Mainly because I have run out of time to write a new blog and yes, I'm feeling a bit lazy. The following is an "interview", if you will, conducted by my friend and political analyst extraordinaire, Nick Ragone. You have all seen his excellent work on many a television show. He was awesome as our commentator for President Obama's inauguration.

In any case, he is posting this on HIS blog tonight, so I thought it would be fun to post same on MINE. Hope you're cool with it, Nick!

A few weeks back, I posted a blog about Pearl Balls, a hearty dish that was one of my favorites as a child.

Well, one of my young readers wanted to know, why are they called Pearl Balls, not just Rice Balls.

To get your attention! No, actually, Pearl Balls is a literal translation of the Chinese name for this dish. The first cook who came up with this concoction must have thought the sticky rice covering the Pork balls (Boy, it’s hard to get away from that!) resembled pearls. Thus, the name!

The Chinese have always had colorful, whimsical names for food. Another great favorite in many Chinese households is a dish called Ants Climbing A Tree. Doesn’t sound too appetizing, does it? But again, the name derives from what the dish looks like. It’s vermicelli noodles stir-fried with ground pork, so the tiny bits of pork that cling to the noodles resemble ‘ants’ climbing a tree! Hence, the name.