Cari Oleskewicz's Blog
RSS
Nov.11.2011
I am in no way a military buff. I am a liberal pacifist who would spend a lot less on military budgets and a lot more on education and social services, if I had any real power. So, no one was more surprised than me when I got all choked up and weepy at last weekend’s AirFest 2011, at MacDill Air...
Continue Reading »
Sep.30.2011
In this photo showing three generations of Conforti women on a boat, I am the one on the far left. See that girl in the large, dark sunglasses that are supposed to make her look like Jackie Onassis? That’s me. It was the early ‘90s, and I was a desperate, needy, insecure college student who had...
Continue Reading »
Sep.18.2011
“We didn’t come here for a walk around the dog park,” Maura said.
Maura, my sister’s best friend, is the alpha female of this pack. She has been buzzing around canyons and hopping over mudslides like it’s nothing. She ascended the Angel’s Landing hike, one of the most difficult hikes in Zion...
Continue Reading »
Sep.05.2011
I am not a hiker. I prefer indoor vacation experiences such as spas and boutiques and museums and cruise ships. I was going to add “churches” to that list, but then I remembered that I was once tricked into climbing all 463 steps to the top of the Duomo in Florence (we entered through a side door...
Continue Reading »
Oct.30.2010
Demographically, I do not fall into rap sensation Eminem’s fan base. Middle class white mothers in their late 30’s can be heard listening to adult contemporary and 80’s music, or, if they are a little edgier, Dave Matthews or Jack Johnson. I listen to Eminem a lot, and I find myself impressed and...
Continue Reading »
Oct.29.2009
So, Amelia was all excited to be a witch for Halloween. She was a witch last year, and she liked it so much she wanted to do the same thing this year. Fine with me – it’s an easy costume to buy, and we still have the pointy plastic hat from last year.
And then, I got an email from her Catholic...
Continue Reading »
Oct.12.2009
I am not sure if you’ve ever been booed out of an Irish pub. If you haven’t had this experience, I would recommend you avoid it, especially if your trip to Ireland includes a stay in a small village, where there are limited numbers of pubs which you may frequent. Because once you have to leave...
Continue Reading »
Sep.25.2009
From the pebbled pavement of Oxbow Drive, the house is pretty, but unremarkable. Constructed in the 1970’s, when aluminum siding was all the rage, this house is baby-blanket blue with brick around the door and the downstairs windows. The faded shutters were white at one time, but now long for...
Continue Reading »
3 comments
Sep.22.2009
Amelia, my four-year-old, has had an imaginary friend named Shabalah since she was one. Don’t get the name? Me neither, and it’s always awkward introducing Shabalah to new people in our lives when they don’t know Amelia for the bright, creative, and perhaps emotionally disturbed child that she is...
Continue Reading »
3 comments
Aug.19.2009
Understand that it's remarkable I am blogging. Just saying I am blogging makes me giggle and shake my head. I feel like I'm trying to be something I am so clearly not. Like when I was in Italy for a few months and would answer my cell phone "pronto!" instead of "hello?" - a...
Continue Reading »
About Cari
Cari Oleskewicz is a writer and mother currently living in Tampa, Florida, but longing to return to her days as a traveling writer living in Panicale, a small hilltop village in the Umbrian region of Italy. Her fiction has been published in Epiphany Magazine...
Connections
Causes Cari Oleskewicz Supports
Doctors Without Borders
Planned Parenthood
Sierra Club
EMILY's List
Cari’s Favorite Books
A Moveable Feast (Hemingway), The Rural Life (Klinkenborg), A Winter's Tale (Helprin), A Stew or a Story (Fisher), anything by Jane Austen and Rose Tremain. I...