If I Won the Lottery I’d Build the Perfect Staff

January 6, 2010

Every so often I play, “if I won the lottery.” Sometimes my husband joins me. Mostly it’s in my head.
Today, I need an entire staff: a cook, a housekeeper, a personal assistant, trainer and shopper all rolled into a few full time people. Next hired would be a perceptive, non-judgmental, nice person who would toss [...]

17 comments Read the full article →

Dear Technorati, This is My Blog

January 3, 2010

Dear Technorati,
I hope you are well and had a marvelous holiday season. I’m really bad at sucking up, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that this greeting is enough for you.
I haven’t tried  to claim this little blog of mine for a few months. This past summer, to both my own and my reader’s [...]

15 comments Read the full article →

Fresh Furry Start to the New Decade

January 1, 2010

Apparently there was a time in the 1930s when being draped in a snowy-white cute-but-dead fox, complete with an intact head, was considered the epitome of high fashion. My daughters were relieved to hear that this distant trend wasn’t from some other back-in-the-day decade like the 1970s. Both decades are the “olden days” to them, [...]

21 comments Read the full article →

Christmas Traditions You Probably Should Know About

December 22, 2009

And we thought the threat of receiving lumps of coal was a terrifying prospect?

All across Europe there are members of a shady cast of characters who are far removed from our own “jolly old elf.”  They make Santa’s threat of skipping your house on Christmas Eve sound desirable.

Since the 15th century in Holland, each December [...]

24 comments Read the full article →

Don’t Donate that Fax Machine to the Smithsonian Yet

December 20, 2009

When I pulled an old fax machine out of the closet a while back, my teenage daughter looked at it and asked, “What’s that?”
This wasn’t our first shared “Smithsonian” moment. It reminded me of a time when she was six. Then she wasn’t responding to an unknown item we owned, but instead to a supposed [...]

11 comments Read the full article →

Call for Peace on Earth and Twitter

December 18, 2009

Hell or high water, every generation of mothers has found a way to deal with social isolation. In my mother’s era there were coffee klatches, bridge clubs and consciousness raising groups. More recently relief came in the form of Bunco or bowling, playgroups, book clubs and girls’ nights out. These days there’s this little phenomenon [...]

17 comments Read the full article →

Not Quite Angels

December 18, 2009

My grandmother loved Christmas, little girls, angels and irony. I was her first grandchild: her sugar and spice who dutifully wore ruffles and lace, hair bows and shiny mary janes. I learned good manners and how to “be seen and not heard.” She would sometimes tell me I was good as gold. I didn’t object [...]

16 comments Read the full article →

These Two Things Bother Me, But I’m Getting Over It

December 13, 2009

#1 President Obama preempting a beloved half hour Christmas show to speak about sending troops to Afghanistan
An American’s right to view a live televised Charlie Brown Christmas Special is unalienable.  Sure many of us own it on DVD, but as a nation we’re guaranteed the option to watch it at the same time.  It  is [...]

20 comments Read the full article →

On Her Last White Christmas, She Probably Complained About It

December 10, 2009

What’s the weather like where you are? If it’s snowing you better duck, because my friend, the barrel-fisted party girl, might just hurl one right at you. All day long she’s been listening to people whine about the ice, wind, cold and snow in many parts of the country as if this, the jingle bell [...]

28 comments Read the full article →

Feel Better Now Hot Toddy Recipe

December 6, 2009

Don’t Operate!

After spending endless hours in the Life in the Short Lane test kitchen, I provide you with a recipe in follow-up to my last post. Consider it my special gift to you. Perhaps it will prove useful during the cold, flu and relatives-who-will-not-leave season:
Virtual Grandma’s Feel Better Now Hot Toddy
1 oz. brandy, whiskey or [...]

14 comments Read the full article →
Clicky Web Analytics