I spent yesterday afternoon trotting in and out of stores, picking up an item or two here and there, nothing major dontcha know, until I froze with a little lamp in my hands.

It is normal, of course, to shop at this time of year. It is probably also normal to shop for oneself during the holidays. But all the stuff I bought yesterday was for me, and it's not as though I need any more stuff.

I'm already working hard to find places to put the stuff I already own. So what was I doing?

I looked at the lamp. The price was right and it would fit nicely on my nightstand (right next to the one I already have, I suppose) and it was a cute little thing, decorated with palm trees. Reminded me of home, the one I just moved back from, that is.

So that's what I was doing.

I've mentioned the geographical cure, the belief that changing your place of residence can fix what ails you. Yesterday I faced its cousin, retail therapy. 

I thought I was holding up pretty well, chugging through my first holiday season as a divorcée, newly moved away from the place where I had spent the last 20 years. But if I was seriously thinking about buying a lamp I don't need because it has palm trees on it and doesn't cost very much — and I was — maybe I'm not quite as okay as I thought.

And buying a lamp, or anything else, certainly won't fix it.

I put the lamp down and walked away from it (with a backward glance). I remembered what AA teaches you to do when you don't feel so cheerful, which is to do something for somebody else. Stop thinking about yourself and your little problems.

So I spent some extra time with my elderly parents last night, trying to be especially attentive to them and remembering to be grateful that they're still around. The urge to shop has left me, at least temporarily.

And if it comes back, I'm sure I can find something else to do for my folks, or for someone else. It's that time of year.

I’m as traditional and nostalgic as anyone, and a damn fine cook. But even though l love setting a beautiful table, and making Thanksgiving dinner, my Thanksgivings have been a series of unpleasant experiences. When I think back, this is what I remember:

● I was a child at my grandmother’s house in Minnesota. The uncles hung out in the living room, watching TV. The aunts worked in the overheated kitchen. My mom and dad both came from families of seven, so there were lots of aunts and uncles and cousins, only one of whom went to prison, later, for killing his stepfather. The Thanksgiving meal was served, with all of its strangeness: green and black olives, or that odd cylinder of cranberry. Dinner over, the Canadian Club whiskey would come out so the men could relax. The women cleaned up as my uncles, red-faced and swearing, played poker at the kitchen table. They were loud and scary and we were devout Methodists, who didn’t believe in drinking, smoking, gambling, dancing or going to see movies (except The Ten Commandments). The aunts, armed with leftovers and sleepy children, had to drag the men away. Result: Fear of drunken uncles, fear of drunks.

● I was older, a teenager, and I helped my mother at her grocery store, open seven days a week, 12 hours a day, except for Christmas Day. We closed on Thanksgiving, too, but only between noon and four. Thanksgiving meant racing back and forth between the store and the house, tending the turkey, making sure the house hadn’t burned down. My half-brother, brother, uncle, dad, mom and I would eat around 3. Then we’d race back and open the store, so other people could get ice cream, sugar, pickled herring, coffee, pies, Tampax... whatever it was all those Scandinavians needed for Thanksgiving. Result: Class resentment.

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Welcome to my recipe for disaster. On Thanksgiving Day this year my daughter will be 21. I am trying to combine a milestone birthday, a holiday, the umpteenth anniversary of my father's death and a tentacled divorce. I can't even tell you the half of it because doing so here would compromise the privacy of people close to me. I'm leaning toward Jet Blue. I will focus instead on stuffing.

My favorite stuffing story was the year I decided to make the bird at my house and transport it to my late brother Stephen's home. People were not relaxed. I was never known as the turkey girl and I that year I was going to show them! 

Everyone at the table watched in awe as my mother pulled a plastic bag of innards out of the stuffing cavity. I can still hear my brother's hysteria. This year I'm at it again...shoot me.

For decades it was my mother's Italian egg stuffing recipe. A combination of, roughly, a dozen large eggs, a handful of grated Locatelli cheese, a handful of chopped fresh Italian parsley, enough plain bread crumbs to thicken the mix till it drips off a spoon and a little salt and pepper. This then blows up inside the turkey and is absolutely delicious.

My sister-in-law Susie started going with her sausage & chestnut stuffing and my stuffing allegiance is now challenged. Actually, I am open to stuffing suggestions. Got any?

I took introduction to psychology in college so I have a general idea of what the term "passive aggressive" means. It wasn't until recently, however, that I really got to witness it in person.

Apparently my husband has decided that this is his newest way to complain about the things I do without actually complaining about them.

Here are a couple of examples, which could easily be compiled with a slew of others for a "passive-aggressive husband reference manual":

The other day my kids and I went out to lunch with a couple of other moms and their kids. I don't eat out for lunch all the time, and this was an impromptu get-together. I had packed my husband a lunch that morning for him to take to work so he had leftovers. When he gets home he tells me this: "The guys at work said, 'Let me get this straight...she gets to eat out for lunch and you have to eat leftovers? Man, that's messed up!' Ha-ha!"

Translation: He's ticked off that I got to eat out and he had to eat leftovers.

My husband recently did some volunteer work with the guys at church that involved a lot of physical labor and when he got home he said, "Bob told me he was so glad that his wife and daughter were out of town because after we finished up he was going to go home and take a long nap without interruption. Ha-ha!"

Translation: He wants to take a nap but knows that we already agreed that he would take the kids so I could get some work done. He's hoping I suggest he takes a long nap and I'll just stay up until two in the morning working.

How do I know it's all passive aggressive? These comments don't even go with the flow of conversation. They come out of nowhere, and he gives a long pause afterward as though he's waiting for me to fall to my knees and beg his forgiveness for going out to eat with my friends/not offering him a four hour nap/whatever else I do that ticks him off.

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Busy people, who surround themselves with four kids, a husband, a wide social circle, a dog, two cats, and countless gerbils, do it because they don't like to be alone. I am one of those people.

My girlfriends, therefore, called me crazy when I told them I was going to go without a date for the next month.

I had no idea it was going to be so hard. Unplugging the phone and suspending the match.com account has not been without ramifications. The first night was horrible.

It reminded me of the first weeks of being separated.

The first thing I did Friday night after work was turn the lights down and turn the radio up. With the scent of candles wafting through the house, I ran a bath and decided to concentrate on "me" time.

Normally the kids would be watching TV in the living room, asking for second helpings of dinner. On nights when the kids are with their Dad, I'd be out for drinks with friends.

Weekends post-divorce, I'd usually be juggling a man, or two.

But not this month. This is solo month and I'm determined to find out what makes me tick.

There is no choice but to succeed. If I can't wrestle some quiet time into my hectic life, then nothing is going to change from the days when I was married.

By 8 o'clock I'd downed two glasses of wine and was feeling weepy. Wine churning around in an empty stomach, and the silence of a childless house, were enough to make me run screaming from the suburbs.

When the divorce was first under way, I'd thought about getting an apartment in the city. My ex told me that he'd make life with the children impossible if I did that, so I'd reneged, a good choice for the kids, but a tough sacrifice for a middle-age woman alone in a house in the middle of August, with nothing but the crickets chirping outside.

It might as well have been Stephen King's Maine.

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Roxie, Lila and I flew to Arizona last week for my niece's high school graduation. Most of my family is down there in the desert.

My parents live in a cookie-cutter neighborhood. They've been living in the same house for 10 years, and at night, I'm still not sure which on is theirs.

Every house is that suburban-Scottsdale tan adobe with a terra-cotta roof.

In May the weather is uniform like the architecture. Everyday is hot and sunny.

Our visits are always pretty scripted. They kids stay with my parents, I stay a couple nights there and a couple nights at my brother's, or my sister's.

And it's hot.

Last graduation here, my other niece's, I was pregnant with Lila. It was 100 plus degrees, my shear tank-dress was one layer too thick and no amount of bottled water could quench my desert thirst.

What I love about travel is the unexpected. Visiting family isn't exactly "travel," but it's a break from routine.

And this trip we got a great dose of the surprise. The temperature dropped 50 degrees from 108 on Tuesday to 57 on Thursday.

It was cold and rainy and nothing like late-May is supposed to be here.

The wind blew graduation caps across the fields, and while people huddled under blankets and umbrellas they laughed though the complaints.

And loved it for the great stories that come out of disaster even as it's happening.

For me, that's key to surviving these hard times. Loving them for the stories they will become and laughing a little right now, too.

Yay! Vacation. Bring it on!

Well, not vacation, exactly. But as close as I'm getting anytime soon.

We're headed to Arizona for some quality family time and my niece's high school graduation.

My girls and I have been packing this week. OK, technically, Roxie and Lila have been packing and I have been unpacking the inappropriate things they've chosen for the trip.

Replacing long-sleeve dresses and heavy jeans with tank tops, skorts, and cotton capris.

I love traveling alone with my girls. The adventure. Three girls alone on the road, or in the air, as it were. It's empowering to know we can do it ourselves. Even if, technically, I'm going to my family where my kids stay with the grandparents, I stay with my brother or sister and I have way more help than I do at home as the only adult.

Still, even on these totally scripted trips, where little room is left for spontaneous activity, travel feels like possibility.

Even on the "easy" trips, you can't leave home without learning more about yourself. Travel is the ultimate crash course in self discovery.

And there a few things I already know.

We can go anywhere. Do anything we want. Don't need anyone else.

Here's a question: Should a mother take her daughter to see Sex and the City? Should I even be asking this question?

I loved the series, but I'm 51 years old. Is it proper for a 13 year old to see this movie?

I don't think so, though my daughter is begging me to let her go. She's seen the softened version of SATC on TBS, and she's in love with the characters. She wants to know what happens to them in the end or more specifically if Big and Carrie get married.

Every little girl's dream — a beautiful wedding complete with gown, flowers, an orchestra, an unblemished face — you know the perfect day. We all had it once.

In the third grade, I was set on marrying a preacher. Don't know why other than as a form of rebellion against my older brother and sister who were best buds and were always leaving me out in the cold. Marrying a preacher seemed to be a way to "get them back" for some reason. Using God as my weapon. Hmmmm.

I did marry, but I was six weeks pregnant and nearly 38 years old. I wore an India style outfit I bought at Pier One Imports (when they used to sell clothes) and I felt like crap. We went to the Justice of the Peace. I had to throw up in the middle of the very brief and non-frilly ceremony, but managed to hold it in until we got home.

I was so sick; I barely made it to the bathroom, removing my clothes as I went for fear of getting them stained. It was awful.

Later, and in sweats, I treated myself to Velveeta Cheese & Macaroni (about all I could stomach) while our few guests had Mexican dishes that made my stomach churn. Yeah, it was a great wedding day and a great experience. Some fairy tale.

Now, back to SATC. I've heard, though I do not know, that the movie is not all peaches and cream and that there is a dark ending. "Dark" meaning what, exactly? Don't know.

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"Well, I wanted to go for a walk in the woods, and I have to get ready for that fishing trip on Monday, and I might want to take a nap...and I don't feel like cooking supper... How about next week? Next week is better for me." 

No, next week was not better. Next week was far too long for a little girl missing her daddy. I pointed that out. 

"Aw, don't make me feel guilty. I really don't want to feel guilty about this. I need time to do my own things and..." 

When you separate and you have children, be prepared. Be prepared to be the one who has to explain, gently, why we can't go see Daddy. Or why Daddy doesn't come have supper more often. Or why daddy has to leave to go home. 

Despite being used to this, despite knowing all the right words and the proper how-tos, I still feel the pain of having to disappoint a child when Dad just doesn't want to be a dad. 

Does it make me mad? Sure. Sure it does. Fathers should be there for their kids — all the time. 

What makes this such a hot issue when a couple splits up, though? I know married couples that live together and the father works 70 hours a week. He barely sees his kids. I know mothers too wrapped up in their own lives to care for their kids. 

When a couple splits up, why do people suddenly get all upset if dad doesn't want the kids for a day or a week? What changed beyond the situation before? 

I don't begrudge my ex his need for time on his own. No one should have to have their weeks full of work and responsibilities with no spare time left to relax and do what they want.

There's compromise, too. My girl wants to see her dad. Dad wants to be alone for a while. "How about if we come at 3 and just stay for a few hours? You have time to do your stuff and she'll be happy to see you."

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My husband wants to go to a marriage retreat. It's for a full weekend, so we would have to leave the kids with someone else and then make the drive five hours to the retreat location. I don't like the idea of leaving my kids with someone else — especially since we don't have any family nearby — but as I keep saying, I'm willing to do whatever I need to in an attempt to save the marriage.

He's inquiring about availability now. I've talked to some couples who have gone to this same retreat and they all sing praises about the program. Apparently this particular program has saved many a marriage and lit sparks under others that weren't troubled but were bordering on stale. Could this be the thing that saves our marriage?

To be honest with you, the very first thought that entered my head when he brought up the idea was, "Damn it, he's going to want to have sex with me." I can see it now...we're away from the kids, away from work, and we're staying in a hotel room. He will think this translates into romance, while I automatically think about how great it will be to sleep without keeping one ear poised to listen for the kids. Ask me if a weekend in a hotel with my husband appeals to me right now, and I'll admit to you that no, it doesn't, not really.

Yes, we still have sex here at home, but it's usually him doing his business while I lay there and wait for him to finish. Take this to a hotel and he'll be expecting me to be all into the act, having a great time and really whooping it up.

It seems to me that a change in environment won't change the things that are stopping me from being truly intimate with my husband, but I know I'll feel compelled to oblige him with at least some physical intimacy.

Wouldn't it be great if these retreats offered separate rooms until other issues were resolved? I'd go to that one for sure.