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Q: How do I keep the peace with a sister-in-law who is bigoted, ignorant and rude to my children?

I am almost at the point of not allowing my children to be in her presence, but she is at virtually every family gathering or holiday that we spend with my husband's parents (who are fine).

I swear, she is one of the worst people I've ever met, and I often marvel at the fact that she's related to the man I chose to spend my life with.

A: Hopefully, that very man is standing up to her. He's got the most significant role in this, as it's ultimately his duty not to let the family member he was born with do damage to the family he chose.

Together, you can agree to limit your exposure, to initiate more visits with just his parents or to have a private conversation with her.

Tampa Bay Diverse history woven into Republican convention host city

In a twist of irony, many visitors to August's Republican National Convention will travel between their hotels and the downtown event on a busy road named to honor President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat.

Kennedy Boulevard, a gateway to downtown from the west, was so named in 1964 partially because of a special connection between Tampa and the 35th president. Kennedy had waved to massive crowds lining that road from an open-topped Lincoln Continental on Nov. 18, 1963. The next time he rode in that car, four days later in a motorcade through downtown Dallas, he would be shot to death.

A statue of JFK now stands at the present site of the University of Tampa, looking out over his eponymous thoroughfare.

New Jersey

In a New Jersey sports stadium transformed into what was called the world's largest synagogue, tens of thousands of people celebrated the completion of the reading of the Talmud, the book of Jewish laws and traditions.

The program at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., on Wednesday night combined a festive atmosphere of singing and dancing with more the serious pursuits of prayer and reflection; it was dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust.

"Tonight is a night of inspiration and opportunity," Rabbi Elly Kleimnan told the gathering.

Rabbis from around the world addressed the audience during the five-hour program, and speeches and prayers in Hebrew and English were streamed by audio and video throughout the stadium's concourses.

The celebration, called Siyum HaShas, marks the completion of the Daf Yomi, or daily reading and study of one page of the 2,711-page book. The cycle takes about seven and a half years to finish.

Songwriters bring it on for show's Broadway debut

Don't bother trying to figure out who wrote what in Bring It On: The Musical.

Co-song creators Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tom Kitt and Amanda Green enjoyed reading reviews of their show as it toured the country and critics tried to untangle their contributions. Some saw Kitt's fingerprints all over a song he didn't write. Another was certain Miranda could be heard in something he had no part of.

"Usually when someone tried to do that guessing game, they got it wrong," Miranda said with a laugh. "That just feels like it's a credit to our process."

Inspired by the teen cheerleading movie franchise, Bring It On: The Musical was as risky a move for the creators as one of the human pyramids the performers do onstage. Yet all three are now basking in the glow of its well-received Broadway debut.

Movie Review Third installment true to its origins

Maybe it has to do with the lowered expectations surrounding something with "Dog Days" in its title being released during a traditionally less stellar time in the movie-going season, but the third installment in the Wimpy Kid franchise turns out to be not so wimpy after all.

Although it paints everything with the same broad sitcom strokes as its predecessor, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days, culled from the third and fourth books in Jeff Kinney's wildly successful "novel in cartoons" series, proves nimbler and truer to its origins than last year's Rodrick Rules.

Despite the fact that this "school's out" edition is hitting theaters at a time when many kids in the country are getting ready to go back, the modestly budgeted Fox 2000 presentation should still come within spitball distance of the $53 million taken domestically by No. 2.

Concord Now an organic farmer, musician returns for one-shot show Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Homegrown sounds

One of the beautiful things about being a musician is that you can take your music along wherever your heart may lead you. You cannot necessarily take your band mates and fans along, however, especially if your heart happens to lead you to an organic vegetable farm in the Middle of Nowhere, Montana. Which is why veteran New Hampshire musician Laurie

Sargent will make an appearance at the Spotlight Cafe at the Capitol Center for the Arts next Thursday night.

"There's a saying that New England girls always go home," said Sargent, whose career highlights include a top 40 hit with the band Face To Face, a stint as a recording artist for Sony Records and a handful of other distinctive musical ventures with the bands Morphine, Twinemen and the Chip Smith Project. "I'm really excited about coming back and playing with musicians that I know and trust."

Rhode Island

By MICHELLE R. SMITH

It was December 1979 when Emery Lucier learned the concert he was eagerly awaiting in Rhode Island by British rock band The Who had been canceled over safety concerns. The 17-year-old was so angry he knocked over a chair in his high school classroom.

"I just remember being so upset about the whole thing," he said.

Lucier, now 50, of Milford, Mass., held onto the ticket, for which he paid $25 ($12.50 for the ticket and $12.50 more for the scalper). On Tuesday, he and nine other people traded in tickets from that canceled show and got new ones for The Who's final appearance on its Quadrophenia tour in February at the Dunkin Donuts Center, the same venue it was supposed to play 33 years ago.

Feud led to guardianship battle over Michael's kids Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Michael Jackson Doctor

Jermaine Jackson called yesterday for an end to the public feud that has embroiled his family for more than a week, saying issues over the care of his mother and with late brother Michael's estate should be handled privately.

Jackson wrote in a statement first released to the Associated Press that he regrets the public turmoil that resulted from his mother Katherine's 10-day trip to an Arizona spa. The trip sparked a missing person's report and a driveway confrontation between relatives at the home of Katherine Jackson before a judge stripped her of guardianship duties.

"Mistakes have been made and irrational things have been said on both sides in a highly charged emotional environment," Jermaine Jackson wrote. "It is time for us all to draw a line in the sand and move towards peace, co-operation, love and healing."

Living gluten-free as a vegetarian is hard, but veggie burgers don't have to be off the menu Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Gluten-free veggie burger Gluten-free veggie burger

Before I stopped eating gluten, I was a vegetarian - and the backbone of many meals was the simple, versatile veggie burger. Nuke one of those babies for a minute then top with traditional hamburger fixings. Or use some red sauce and cheese to make a pizza burger. Or cheddar and salsa for Mexican night. Once, during a rather busy stint covering New Hampshire's Legislature, I ate veggie burgers every day for a month.

Alas, most of those burgers are full of gluten, which adds protein and binds together other ingredients to give them a meaty feel. That's good for taste and texture, but bad for those us with gluten sensitivities. In fact, the first clue to my own allergy involved something called "wheat meat" and a whole lot of hives.

Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Food Deadline Skillet Blueberry Muffins

What do you do when you are hankering for blueberry muffins, but don't have a muffin pan handy? Or maybe you just don't feel like cranking up the oven on a hot summer day.

Why not just make blueberry pancakes? To answer that, we need to look at the differences between pancake and muffin batters. Though recipes will vary, most pancake and muffin recipes call for equal amounts of flour and eggs. But while pancakes call for more liquid, muffins get more (often way more) sugar, fat and baking powder.

That's why muffins are dense and cake-like, while pancakes are light and fluffy.

So while muffin batter cooked in a skillet may resemble a pancake, the taste is all muffin. These are even topped with a blend of cinnamon-sugar (just as you would a muffin); this caramelizes beautifully when you flip them. And while muffins can take half an hour to bake, these pancake-style muffins cook up in just minutes.

Animal Planet star delves inside the minds of felines

Many cats are tail talkers. If those tails start to twitch and wag, watch out for fangs and claws, warns cat behaviorist Jackson Galaxy.

If you try to pet a cat when its tail is wagging and get bitten, "You had it coming," said Galaxy, who helps solve behavior problems, both human and feline, on his Animal Planet TV show, My Cat From Hell.

When a cat's angry enough to wag its tail or the fur on its back stands up, its ears flatten and eyes dilate, the owner needs to figure out what's wrong, he says.

Galaxy figures cats and owners equally share the blame for relationships gone wrong, but when it comes to changing behavior, cats are the easier students - by a wide margin.

His house call kit is a guitar case loaded with cat toys and treats. But there's no magic wand in the box, he says. It takes time and hard work. "You get what you give."

I love to take my boys out for ice cream. My friends are shocked that I embrace such a processed, sugary food, but I relish witnessing my sons' sweet, stained smiles in between licks. An ice cream cone on a hot summer day brings me back to my childhood, when pleasures were mostly sensory and entirely simple. In my complicated adult life, I appreciate those simple pleasures.

But a serving of vanilla ice cream contains about half the calcium of the same size serving of whole milk, and is higher in fat and calories, so I limit our outings. Because my boys delight in the whole ice cream experience, including the anticipation, we often make our own version. This way they enjoy it without the health hazards.

I know, I know, you don't have time to make your own dinner, let alone your own ice cream. Just try it. It takes very little time, and kids of all ages will get a kick out of the process.

Ginger, hot peppers and rice vinegar are favored ingredients

When you think about it - which I've been doing while reading Corinne Trang's new book - a diet that's good for diabetics is good for most everyone. The goal is balanced meals that are low in fat and moderate in calories. So Asian Flavors Diabetes Cookbook (American Diabetes Association, 2012; $20), despite its title, should have broad appeal.

Trang is a well-known author of seven cookbooks who is also a lecturer, consultant and frequent TV and radio show guest. She set out to write what the book cover describes as "the first book that takes the elegant, easy to prepare, and naturally healthy recipes and meals of Asian cuisine and crafts them specifically for people with diabetes."

Bristol returns to ABC's 'Dancing'

The Palins are creeping up on the Kardashians in their campaign to become the first family of reality TV, as ABC announced Friday that Bristol Palin had been cast in its fall all-star edition of Dancing With the Stars.

"I don't think it's our business," Bristol said of her family, when one TV critic asked about the Palin family reality-TV dynasty. "I just think you guys are going to be talking about us either way, so we might as well be doing something enjoyable and fun."

Dancing host Tom Bergeron jumped in, joking: "You haven't gone Full Kardashian."

"No - not at all," Bristol answered seriously.

Concord Author aims to help prevent sports injuries

When it comes to running, Peter Larson says humans are made to go the distance.

"We can run on a hot day over a long distance as well as - if not better than - the vast majority of animals on this planet," said Larson, an evolutionary biologist at Saint Anselm College.

So why do we then so often get hurt doing it? That's the question Larson set out to address in Tread Lightly: Form, Footwear, and the Quest for Injury-Free Running, a new book he wrote with journalist Bill Katovsky. The book draws upon a variety of sources, including physical therapists versed in running injuries; Daniel Lieberman, the Harvard professor who put forth the theory that humans were "born to run;" and running books, some from many years past, which Larson mined for insights into theories on footwear and form.

A few weeks ago I wrote that I had nothing to complain about. I should have known better than to say something like that out loud. Now a woodchuck has moved in! This is only the third one we've had in the 26 years I have been gardening here, which leads me to believe that he was relocated from someone else's garden via the woodchuck witness protection program. Lest you think I am overly paranoid, we live in an area that has long been a dumping ground for unwanted pets. Puppies, kittens, cats and over a dozen domesticated rabbits have suddenly appeared at our door over the years so why not a woodchuck? Many people don't realize that it is just as illegal to relocate wildlife as it is to abandon a pet.

It is a beautiful wagon, fluid in exterior design, with jewel-like grille and headlamps. You are forced to look at it, an elegant motorized homage to affluence, or at least to the desire for same.

Yet there is nothing ostentatious about it. The wagon's richness is in its execution - for example, the way its exterior door handles blend neatly, unobtrusively into side-panels, the way the fluid motion of it all ends in the rear in the manner of a cresting wave.

Step inside of this week's subject vehicle, the 2013 Infiniti JX35 all-wheel-drive, which I prefer to call a wagon because, in actual design and intended use, that is what it is.

There are seats for seven people, with 60-40 split middle seats that easily slide and fold forward, allowing access to third-row seats in the rear.

I take my shot as a barista for a day at True Brew Embed multimedia (photos, galleries, audio, map):  Tim O' Shea: Day as a barista at True Brew Tim O' Shea: Day as a barista at True Brew Tim O' Shea: Day as a barista at True Brew

"Pull your hair back, wear closed-toed shoes and a shirt with sleeves," Sara the barista tells me over the phone. If she thinks I'm showing up for my first-ever shift as a barista in huarache sandals, a tank top and a free-flowing mullet, she's got me all wrong. I've been dreaming of this day for a while, and I don't dream in hairnets and flabby underarms.

I meet Sara Judy early the next morning as she's opening up. Sara opens every morning at True Brew Barista, one of Concord's true coffee houses and my home, off and on, for the next few days. I'm here to learn the ropes - to get a dollop of what it's like to be a barista, to grind and brew some beans, make frozen drinks and try to look as calm and competent as Sarah and her coworkers do every time I'm in here.

They're coming: the little people, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, cousins and friends, all the people who like to visit us in the summer because we live in a tourist-welcoming state. We love having them, but it's been a while since we were the entertainment committee. What can we do? Where can we go, so they think we're fun and they'll want to come back next year?

New Hampshire has a wealth of places to go, sights to see, activities to take part in, so I've zeroed in on low- or no-cost ideas to share with your guests, in or near Concord:

• I thought my 7-year-old's eyes would pop right out of his head when he first caught sight of the gigantic rocket outside the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center. His excitement didn't abate throughout the program inside, targeted to his age group, and included his enjoyment of his chicken tenders lunch in the center's cafe.

Baggage Check

Q: I'm kind of obsessed with my therapist. It's not a sexual thing (I'm straight and we're both women), but I've Googled the heck out of her, and every time she gives me even the slightest tidbit into her life, I ponder it for days.

A: Lots of processes go on in the relationship between therapist and client, and they're usually quite useful to talk about. The feelings you describe are most likely a type of transference - you're human, she's human, and there's something in your dynamic that's meaningful to you.

Maybe you admire her like a mentor. Maybe you feel she cares for you like a mother would. I don't know what you're in therapy for, but if it has anything to do with relationship dynamics, it's even more crucial to explore this. So if you can bring yourself to do it, talk about it.