Tag: dailyprompt

What’s the last movie that made you cry?

I think the answer to this question might be better answered with another question:

What movie has NOT made me cry?

Let’s face facts. Kiki is a sap.

I’m an empath. Sure, I am strong like bull, but I am also chock-full of emotions. Filled right to the brim, actually, like an emotional piñata just waiting for someone to give me one good whack.

A well-written movie can move me to tears—the happy AND the sad kind. And please. It doesn’t even have to be a movie.

I am a marketing executive’s dream.

Give me a well-written commercial with a returning soldier, an elderly couple, a lost dog or a kid surprising his mother and I am DONE. There was an old Folgers commercial where the son comes home from the Marines on Christmas morning. “The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup.”

Dear God.

I’ll never recover.

I don’t even drink Folgers, but apparently I’m emotionally invested in their entire family.

Sometimes these Daily Prompts show up at eerily precise moments. I’ll see something, hear something or experience something and then—BAM—WordPress comes knocking with a prompt that fits perfectly.

Such was the case this morning.

I had finished my shower, my daily meditation/inspiration track and was sipping my coffee while taking a quick stroll through Instagram. Guilty pleasure. No apologies.

An old cinema account I follow popped onto my screen.

And there it was.

The scene.

Robert Redford.

Barbra Streisand.

Hubbell and Katie.

The final scene of The Way We Were.

Their love story was never meant to be. Honestly, those two were doomed from the beginning. But still, after everything, when Katie reaches up and brushes Hubbell’s hair across his forehead in that final scene?

Holy Mother of God.

I lose it.

And I don’t just cry. Oh no. Amateur hour.

I recite the lines.

With inflection.

I am IN the scene. I may as well be sitting in a director’s chair just off camera wearing a headset and yelling instructions through a megaphone.

“Okay, Barbra…reach for the hair…beautiful…Robert, give me wistful…WISTFUL! Annnnd…CUE THE TEARS!”

The dialogue ends.

Cue Babs singing The Way We Were.

And Kiki is officially goo.

A big puddle of emotional goo sitting there with her morning coffee, sobbing over two fictional people whose relationship ended more than 50 years ago.

Such was the case this morning. As I tried to sop up the puddles forming under my eyes, I opened Jetpack/WordPress and Daily Prompt 2859 sprang to life:

What is the last movie that made you cry?

How apropos.

There have certainly been plenty of movies that have touched my soul over the years, but The Way We Were was one of the first—besides Old Yeller, which frankly should have come with a childhood trauma warning—that taught me just how deeply a movie could reach inside you.

So, what was the last movie that made me cry?

Apparently one I’ve already cried over about 847 times. Pass the Kleenex.

“Your girl is lovely Hubbell”

Share a photo of your pet and tell us one thing that makes them uniquely them.

Phoebe is an old soul.

I don’t mean that in the “she likes to nap a lot” kind of way. Although, let’s face it, she certainly doesn’t turn down a good nap. I mean there is something behind those beautiful eyes that makes me believe she has been here before. Possibly several times. And I’m pretty sure in at least one of those lives she was a therapist.

Phoebe has never been a lap dog. She has boundaries. She does, however, need to be next to you at all times. There is a difference. If I move from one room to another, Phoebe moves. If I sit down, she settles nearby. Close enough to know exactly what is happening, but far enough away to maintain her independence.

And then there are the conversations.

Somehow Phoebe inserts herself into them like a treasured old friend. She doesn’t interrupt. She doesn’t bark. She just…joins us. She looks from one person to the next, listening so intently that I sometimes forget she has absolutely no idea what we are saying.

Or does she?

Because those eyes. Those beautiful, soulful eyes can look straight through you. Tell Phoebe something and she will stare back as if she understands every single word. Your good days. Your bad days. Your worries. Your secrets. She takes it all in and, thankfully, has never repeated a thing.

She is fiercely protective of the people she loves. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons she and I understand each other so well. We love hard. We protect harder. And we like to keep our people close.

She is our shadow. Our protector. Our confidante. Our treasured friend.
And sometimes, when those beautiful brown eyes lock onto mine, I swear she isn’t looking at me at all. She’s looking right into my soul. And somehow, I think she knows exactly what she sees. ❤️

What’s your home decoration style?

My decorating style is probably best described as “If it makes me smile, it gets a spot.”

I love old things that look like they’ve lived a life before finding their way to me. Oversized clocks. Distressed wood. Vintage-looking signs with words that remind me who I want to be. Warm lamps that make a room feel like someone is always home.

Then I sprinkle in pieces that tell my story.

A vase overflowing with hydrangeas because fresh flowers make an ordinary Tuesday feel special. A Hamilton book because some stories deserve a permanent place in the room. And yes…a sign that simply says FABULOUS because sometimes we all need a little reminder – plus it’s my fave word.

I don’t worry much about whether something is trendy. Trends come and go faster than my Amazon deliveries. Home should feel like a collection of your favorite memories, not a page torn from a furniture catalog.

When people walk into my house, I don’t want them to notice the furniture first. I want them to feel comfortable. I want them to see little pieces of my family, my personality, and the things that make me laugh, think, and appreciate life.

Maybe that’s my decorating style after all.

Not farmhouse. Not rustic. Not vintage.

Just…me.

Do you remember life before the internet?

I don’t know if any of you are involved with Pinterest the way I am, but there isn’t a day that goes by where I’m not clicking, scrolling, saving, or searching for dinner ideas I’ll probably never actually make. For me, it’s the world’s biggest rabbit hole. One minute I’m looking for a chicken recipe and forty-five minutes later I’m emotionally invested in a woman restoring a farmhouse in Idaho while organizing her pantry in matching glass jars.

But Pinterest reminded me exactly how I should answer today’s prompt.

Today, Pinterest exists with flash messages, recipes, advertisements, and perfectly curated outfits worn by people who somehow never spill coffee on themselves. You can “pin” your likes to boards and pages you create. It’s basically a virtual vision board.

“Back in the day” — and you all know how much I love that phrase — my vision board was very real and very oversized. It lived on the wall of my bedroom at 36 Grant Avenue. I covered a giant corkboard with magazine cutouts attached by brightly colored pushpins. I cut out letters from magazines like I was preparing a kidnapper’s ransom note just to label sections of the board. There were concert ticket stubs, wrinkled boarding passes from family vacations, doodles born out of boredom during math class, dance wristbands, and newspaper clippings featuring my Kickline performances or Track Team racewalking results.

My entire life — and the life I hoped to create — lived on that board.

It hung above my prized stereo system, which took up nearly as much emotional real estate as the corkboard itself. I never wanted a Sweet 16 party, so my parents bought me a stereo setup instead. Best decision ever. I could disappear into music for hours while lying on the shag carpeting in my room or French braiding my hair before school each morning. That stereo was therapy before we called things therapy.

The stereo and my portable transistor radio also doubled as my pre-internet mix tape headquarters. I was an absolute professional at recording songs off the radio. I knew every DJ’s rhythm and signature lines. I could sense the exact second they were about to “hit the post” and stop talking right before the lyrics started. That was my cue to slam down the record button.

Young friends, this was our playlist creation process. This was iTunes before Apple even knew what iTunes was.

And then there was the view from my parents’ bedroom window overlooking the block. That was my social media feed. We had thirteen kids living on our block and from around 7:30 in the morning until well after dark, somebody was outside. Bikes were scattered across lawns. Kickball games erupted without warning. Somebody was always crying over something dramatic and life-altering like who slept over whose house the night before.

There was early girl drama long before group chats existed. Who slept at Mary’s house without inviting me? Why were Debbie and Kathy sleeping at my house while Mary and Peggy were left out? Every day brought a new emotional scandal worthy of a daytime soap opera.

Honestly, it was Facebook before the World Wide Web.

Painful as those years sometimes felt, I can say with complete certainty that I probably would not have survived my later high school years had social media existed the way it does today. There. I said it. Living inside the small protective bubble of my little neighborhood gave me room to grow up quietly. Mistakes disappeared by the next morning instead of living forever online. Embarrassing moments weren’t recorded, reposted, analyzed, and commented on by strangers.

We lived our lives in real time, not highlight reels.

And for that, I’m deeply grateful.

There’s something beautiful about having memories that only exist in stories, ticket stubs, faded photographs, and corkboards covered with dreams. Nothing was curated back then. We were just kids trying to figure ourselves out one mix tape, one sleepover, and one pushpin at a time. Maybe that’s why those memories still feel so alive to me. They weren’t created for an audience. They were simply lived.

What’s the oldest things you’re wearing today?

The oldest thing – ok things I’m wearing today are my Pandora charm bracelets. I cannot take these things off or put them back on by myself so they live on my wrist. Shower, gym, work, sleep – that are always there.

What are your favorite brands and why?

By now, you know I love to shop. And if you don’t—well, welcome. Grab a cart. Stay awhile. In Chez Kiki, shopping isn’t a chore; it’s an experience. I read the reviews like they’re the morning paper. I compare, contrast, second-guess, and then—just when I think I’ve found “the one”—I’ll try something completely different just to keep things interesting. Loyalty, for me, isn’t blind. It’s earned.

Take store brands. I used to breeze right past them like they were the understudies of the grocery world. Why settle, right? Until one day, curiosity (and maybe a sale sticker) got the better of me. And guess what? Plot twist: some of those “backup singers” are hitting higher notes than the headliners. Same quality. Sometimes better. Honestly, I’m convinced there’s a mysterious warehouse somewhere in the tri-state area cranking out both labels while we all argue in aisle five.

When it comes to cars, my loyalty used to be inherited. I grew up in a Chevrolet family, with a little Audi influence sprinkled in. And to be fair, those Chevys treated me well. Reliable. Familiar. Comfortable. Then marriage came along—and with it, a new contender: Jeep. Three years ago, that “contender” became my forever. My Jeep flipped—up and over, spinning like it had somewhere else to be—before finally landing on its roof. I crawled out upside down, shaken but here. That vehicle didn’t just get me from point A to point B. It saved my life. Brand loyalty doesn’t get more real than that. I won’t drive anything else. Period. Full stop.

Now let’s talk clothes—because this is where things get personal. I’m not a high-end, designer-label kind of girl. Give me classic with a little personality and I’m happy. About thirty years ago, I walked into Gap and felt like I found my fashion soulmate. Since then, my closet has become a tribute to all things Old Navy and Athleta. At this point, I should probably get a holiday card from corporate. And while we’re here—let’s just say it: Athleta gym clothes outperform Lululemon in my world. There, I said it. They last forever, they move with me, and they don’t make me nervous to actually…you know…sweat in them.

The only other brand that has truly earned my undivided loyalty? Nike. I’ve tested them all—every style, every promise, every “this will change your workout” pitch. But Nike? Nike gets me. I’ve got a thin foot with a high arch, and since 2014, I haven’t had a single ounce of foot pain after a workout. Not one. Sometimes I don’t even branch out—I just keep buying the same sneaker like it’s a trusted friend. No flash required. Just results.

If you’re keeping score at home, my “brand style” is less about labels and more about loyalty with receipts. I’ll try anything once, but when something proves itself—whether it’s saving my life, surviving my laundry routine, or supporting my arches—it earns a permanent place in my story.

At the end of the day, our favorite brands say a lot about us—not just what we like, but what we trust. They’re stitched into our routines, parked in our driveways, and lined up in our closets like old friends. Some we outgrow. Some surprise us. And a few? A few show up when it matters most and never leave. Those are the ones worth sticking with…no coupon required.

What are your favorite emojis?

Daily Prompt 1921

The texts absolutely fly here in the Land of Kiki. At any given moment, there are family texts for just the four of us, separate chats between me and the kids, groups with my mom and sister, and enough sidebar conversations to qualify as their own social network.

The messages are quick, chaotic, and usually hilarious. Some days I can barely keep up—especially with the extended family and cousin group texts, where responses come faster than I can find my reading glasses. Thankfully, we’ve added the younger cousins to the mix. They keep us current on all the latest emojis, abbreviations, and internet shorthand. Please note: I often need to quietly sidebar someone for translation services.

Apparently there are entire conversations happening in symbols now, and I’m just doing my best to remain bilingual.

Jules and I, however, have taken things to the next level. We now have our own private emoji language. We discovered you can turn photos into stickers, which means ordinary texting has evolved into a highly specialized communication system made up of facial expressions, inside jokes, and random snapshots used as punctuation.

You may recall that Jules and I saw Stevie Nicks last year. After every song, she’d grow very quiet. A hush would fall over the crowd… and then she’d offer one long, dramatic, deeply heartfelt: thaaaank you.

Naturally, this became part of our vocabulary.

So now, instead of typing “thanks” or even the efficient little “TY,” we simply send the Stevie sticker. No words necessary. Just mystery, gratitude, and a touch of chiffon.

Honestly, if every family had a custom emoji dialect, world peace might be possible. Or at the very least, fewer misunderstood texts.

What makes you laugh?

Daily Prompt 1892: What Makes You Laugh?

If you’ve spent any time here with me, you already know—these blogs are basically a breadcrumb trail of who I am. Some crumbs are obvious. Others? You’ve got to squint a little, read between the lines, maybe even take a leap and guess. You might be right. You might not. That’s part of the fun.

Here’s one that requires zero decoding:

Most days at work, I walk into the ladies’ room, close the door behind me, exhale like I’ve just finished a marathon, and think, “Why on earth am I not writing for TV?”

And every single time, the answer is the same: I have absolutely no idea.

What I do know is this—I love to laugh. Not a polite chuckle. Not a courtesy giggle. I’m talking about the kind of laugh that sneaks up on you, takes over your whole body, and leaves you wiping your eyes wondering what just happened. And if I’m being honest? I want more of that in the world. We’re all wound a little too tight these days. No politics here—you know that’s not my lane—but let’s not pretend we couldn’t all stand to loosen the grip a bit.

So what do I do? I go hunting for laughter.

Over the years, I’ve spent plenty of time in comedy clubs—some live, some courtesy of the YouTube rabbit hole that swallows hours of my life without apology. I’m fascinated by comedic timing. It’s an art form. A science. A rhythm. And long before he became a household name with Seinfeld, I was drawn to Jerry Seinfeld. He studies comedy. Dissects it. Perfects it. His writing? Sharp. His delivery? Effortless. The man doesn’t just tell jokes—he engineers them.

Now yes, Seinfeld is legendary. Untouchable in many ways. But for me? It’s not even his best work.

That honor goes to Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.

The premise is simple—which is exactly why it works. Jerry grabs a classic car (because of course he does), gives you a quick love letter to the vehicle, picks up a fellow comedian, and they head out for coffee. That’s it. No bells. No whistles. Just conversation.

But oh…that conversation.

Two masters of their craft sitting side by side, talking shop, life, absurdity—it’s magic. Pure, unscripted magic. And every now and then, there’s a moment where Jerry completely loses it. Full-on, can’t-catch-his-breath laughter. The kind where you start laughing just because he is. Honestly, that might be my favorite part. Because if you can make him laugh like that? Good God…you’ve made it.

So here’s to chasing the laugh. To studying it, finding it, sharing it. To refusing to let the weight of the world steal something so simple and so necessary.

Because at the end of the day, if we can still laugh—really laugh—we’re doing something right.

What’s a secret skill or ability you have or wish you had?

Like many card-carrying members of modern society, I proudly hold an Amazon Prime membership. Which means, naturally, I can have just about anything my heart (or impulse control) desires delivered to my doorstep in record time. Need paper towels? Done. A last-minute birthday gift? Covered. A random 2 a.m. purchase I’ll question in the morning? Already out for delivery.

At some point, we’ll unpack my relationship with Amazon a little more—because, trust me, there’s a story there. But for today, just know: I’m a frequent flyer.

So when I sat down with this prompt, my mind wandered like it usually does. Sure, I’d love to read minds (strategically, of course). I wouldn’t hate waking up with effortlessly perfect Pinterest hair. Baking something edible—consistently—would be a win. And yes, I stand by my lifelong dream of sharing a few cocktails with Kenny Chesney on a beach somewhere.

But instead of typing any of that, I found myself entering two simple words into the Amazon search bar:

Thick Skin.

According to vocabulary.com, “thick skin” means being emotionally resilient, mentally tough, and not easily rattled by criticism, rejection, or the occasional unnecessary comment that somehow sticks longer than it should.

In other words, I’d like to glide through life a little less ruffled. A little less reactive. A little more…unbothered.

That’s it. That’s the wish.

It doesn’t feel like a big ask, honestly. Not compared to mind-reading or mastering the perfect sourdough. Just the ability to let things roll off a bit easier. To not carry what was never mine to begin with.

And if Amazon happens to have that in stock? Even better.

I’d gladly pay the extra $2.99 for same-day delivery—somewhere between 4 and 8 p.m. would be perfect.

Because while I’m still a work in progress, I have a feeling this is one package worth waiting for.

Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

Many moons ago—back when my calendar was color-coded in highlighter and my car basically ran on Dunkin’ and determination—I served on every PTA board in our school district from 2004 to 2016. Elementary, middle, high school. If there was a bake sale, a budget vote, or a debate about cafeteria pizza, I was there.

It was unpaid. It was exhausting. It was one of the most meaningful seasons of my life.

One sunny afternoon in June, my phone rang. It was our district Superintendent. In that tone that says, This is not about pretzel sales, he explained that the Governor of New York would be coming to our district to sign a newly passed bill. The legislation would reduce the speed limit in front of school buildings to 25 mph and install remote cameras in those zones to track speeding.

Safety first. Children first. All good things.

Then he added, almost casually, that the Governor’s office would like the PTA Council President to deliver a short speech in support of the bill.

That would be me.

I said yes before he could finish the sentence. Of course I did. PTA moms don’t say no. We say, “Sure, what time?”

A few days later I arrived at the school and was escorted behind the stage like I was part of a traveling Broadway show. That’s when I was introduced to Andrew Cuomo.

Let me tell you—what a production. Lights. Cameras. Staffers with earpieces. He was polished, charming, larger than life. If you’ve heard stories, let’s just say… yes. That. All of it.

I delivered my speech. I spoke about protecting our children, about the peace of mind parents deserve, about how slowing down for a few seconds could save a lifetime. The bill was signed. Hands were shaken. Pictures were taken. Pomp. Circumstance. Applause.

And then?

I went back to packing lunches and answering emails.

One week later, I grabbed the mail after work. Bills. Coupons. And then—front and center—a crisp envelope from the Town.

A speeding ticket.

For driving 30 in a 25 mph school zone.

Issued in the neighboring district’s school zone.

There I was. On video. Zipping past the school like I had somewhere far more important to be than my own public platform.

I just stood there staring at it. The irony was almost poetic.

I immediately called my Superintendent and said, “Guess who got the first school zone ticket? Me!”

He burst out laughing. I burst out laughing. To this day, years later, when we talk, we still fall down laughing about it.

For the record, I am probably the most conservative driver on the planet. I brake at yellow lights. I wave pedestrians across like I’m directing traffic at LaGuardia. But that June in 2014?

Public enemy number one.

And here’s what I’ve learned: life has a wicked sense of humor. Just when you’re standing at a podium feeling polished and purposeful, it humbles you with a grainy traffic camera photo.

Sometimes you’re the advocate.

Sometimes you’re the example.

And sometimes—if you’re lucky—you get to be both.