I need to park myself on a couch and just read, because when I get up and actually do things, disaster ensues.Last week, my household was assigned to work on the church cleaning crew. I think the kitchen looked pretty good after I worked it over. With a sigh of satisfaction, I carried a sloshing bucket of mop water to the janitor closet to rinse [...]
I admit it. I'm a wanderer. I try to pick the nice areas of town. Million-dollar homes, urban plazas (especially with large, burbling fountains)--that's what I aim for. In fact, I can make one certain assumption about wherever I wander: if I like the neighborhood, I can't afford it.Sometimes, though, I draw the scary card. Like that day that I walked by the abandoned distillery. [...]
Oh, you thought we were cheering for That Other Football Game?Sorry. I'm digging further down in the pile of fame by reading H. G. Bissinger's Friday Night Lights. Bissinger spent a year in Odessa, Texas, following the fortunes of the Permian Panthers, a team that grips the passion of its hometown so thoroughly that one fan, who had to miss a game because of his [...]
Fountains. Vine-covered bridges. Monuments. Handsome old churches. Plazas and shady walking paths.Thanks to Angela's recent visit, these are all some things I got to see in my home city, things I had forgotten about, things I never visit on my own. After our tour, we returned home. David showed up soon. He practiced his medical skills on Skooby, and told me all about adjusting to [...]
Aiobheann Sweeney. That's the author of the book that I'm about to not recommend to you, Among Other Things, I've Taken Up Smoking. I looked forward to seeing a picture of this person. What does an Aiobheann look like?She was a nice brown-eyed, brown-haired Celtic type. Her book rode along rather aimlessly, even sleepily. A motherless girl lives on a Maine Island with her father. [...]
By now, we know that Scooby likes Cheerios, peanut butter, ice cream, brownies and, most especially, Honey Butter Ritz crackers. But anything pungent or garlicky makes his face screw up as if we had waved something three-days-dead under his nose. He wouldn't have liked what I'm sharing with you this week. However, you are all adults. You are expected to appreciate flavor.Vegetable Cheese TortelliniAs suggested [...]
Would I be bragging if I say this meal came out just like the magazine pictures? Or could it be that the dishes were so easy, any dummy could make them look nice?First, we feature Chicken Parmigiana.May you enjoy the aroma as this bakes. I sure did. While it's in the oven, you have time to fix Zucchini Rice Pilaf I love restaurant rice or box [...]
The spy book has me gripped. It bogged down in the middle. Then the author got involved in Watergate. Since he was a novelist as well as a spy, his story skillfully unfolded as he met G. Gordon Liddy, embarking on White House-assigned projects that may have been legally questionable, but felt perfectly normal to a CIA man who once organized the Bay of Pigs [...]
Ah, Memorial Day. Best one in a long time. Mercy introduced us to Bexley, where the streets are shady, the vast lawns are landscaped by skilled hands, the driveways are long, curving, bricked, and the houses -- excuse me -- the manors are dignified. At one of the larger ones, I expected Captain Von Trapp to pop around the corner and scowl at me. That [...]