Give Me a Pill
Maybe you’re one of those people who gets a hangnail and it’s just a hangnail, nothing complicated. […]
14
06, 2015
26
04, 2015
By Special Request
A faithful reader of this blog requests that we discuss today’s book, A Spool of Blue Thread by Ann Tyler. Blue Thread is a family saga in which the working-class Whitshank family lives out their days in a wonderfully crafted house in one of the better Baltimore neighborhoods. […]
8
03, 2015
Playing with Sharps
I need a week to just sit on my hands. Every day, I manage to mangle them. […]
2
02, 2015
The Medieval Bowl
And how did your big game go? Did anybody get raped, pillaged, trampled under a horse, burned with torches, locked away in a cold isolation cell, anything like that? Oh, wait. Wrong game. You’ve been hearing all about the Super Bowl while I’ve been munching on tail-gater food, absorbed in the Medieval Bowl. Who's playing? Well, it's the Monks vs. the Earls. Mini Muffulettas [...]
28
12, 2014
The Skeptics Ate It
When I announced that Christmas dinner would feature salmon, the skeptics among us kept their skepticism to themselves. Which was wise. […]
27
10, 2014
Sneaky, Snaky Behavior
"I can see you want everything, . . . [k]ids, husband, career. The whole superwoman thing."So says one character to another in Rachel Pastan's Lady of the Snakes.Pastan's novel begins when Jane, the aspiring superwoman, gives birth to a daughter. She loves the little tyke, of course. But after a couple weeks of the foreignness of motherhood, Jane longs to get back to her dissertation. [...]
12
10, 2014
Catch and Release
A few artfully-arranged ponds dot our neighborhood. The powers that be stocked them with fish, then posted the rules.According to the signs next to the ponds, only neighborhood residents are supposed to fish there. Now, do I know my neighbors? Could I recognize twenty faces? Ten? Barely. But when I see some guy in a t-shirt casting his line, and a truck parked nearby, I'm [...]
31
08, 2014
We’ll Buy More Sunday Clothes
The sound of Sunday morning around my childhood home was filing-metal sound of Mom's spoon in the saucepan, stirring the jello until the ice cubes melted. By dinner time, a meatloaf showed up on the table, paired with some Rice-A-Roni, some peas, and that jello, and she considered her duty fulfilled. But Sundays require dessert, no? Mama didn't trouble herself with a lot of cooking experiments [...]
3
08, 2014
Half Marathons for the Untrained
I must have needed the nap.We are not morning church people this year. We get the pleasures of sleeping in versus the pleasures of the Sunday afternoon nap. When we arrive home, all we want to do is eat. Bye-Bye Nesquik, if she wishes to be loved by all, had best start frying up the sausages and hunting down the measuring spoons.But today, Bye-Bye Nesquik [...]
15
06, 2014
I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Try Before
Curses! Foiled again!I'm dabbling in the art of reproducing something great I ate at a restaurant. Been at it for months. Been back to the Chicago restaurant so many times, they're starting to remember the odd-duck lady who dissects the food on her plate like just so much pinned frog.There's a reason I like cookbooks and recipe sites. Somebody else has tweaked the sauce, eaten [...]