When I went to London, I fell in love with dish towels. Well, I fell in love with a lot of things … with the stores, the gardens, the big black cabs, the cathedrals, the tube, the Thames, the bridges over the Thames, the theaters … everything! But yes, the dish towels. Because I have cleaned and rearranged my linen closet, I have a stack — a large stack — of dish towels to iron. (Of course I have to iron my dish towels. Not to would be a travesty with ones like these.) These are 100% Irish linen with bright colorful designs. As soon as I saw them, I fell in love. I bought them by the armful. They were not expensive — at least not by American standards — and they cheered up the kitchen, and me. I can’t remember now (it’s been over half a century) where… Read More »
Do cats get bored?
Is it possible that my cat, Smokey, is a bored cat? I mean, really, do you think cats get bored? Dogs get excited about things and jump around and bark and are always underfoot. Cats, however, seem to simply drift through life sleeping, bathing and occasionally taking a stroll from one room to the next or even (in the case of my cats) into the backyard. But really, how exciting can that be? Smokey has been following me around all day crying. Why? I have no idea. Is the water dish full? Check. Is there crunch (we don’t call it dry food — how appetizing would that be?) on the blue plate? Check. Is the cat door accessible — I mean not blocked by a chair or something? Yep, it’s clear. In Smokey’s case that really doesn’t mean much. She won’t use the cat door anymore since Lop Ear came… Read More »
Goodbye Samuel Pierre
I think I would’ve been okay if I hadn’t seen the trash truck. I’ve been clearing out a lot and one thing I finally decided to let go was Samuel Pierre Bear who has lived with me for nearly 60 years. Samuel Pierre is a large — very large — stuffed Panda bear that a young man named Samuel won for me at the Pomona Fair when we were teenagers. Samuel Pierre Bear has lived with me in Houston and South Africa and London and now Las Vegas. He is a very sturdy fellow standing about 3 feet high and weighing 35 pounds. Wherever I went, he went. When I left home at the age of 22, SPB accompanied me on my drive to Houston. When I joined the Foreign Service and was assigned to the American Embassy in South Africa, SPB went along. He was packed up with all… Read More »
Bad words start with S
I was quite young when I first discovered that words starting with S were likely to be bad. No, I don’t mean bad as in naughty — not that kind of bad word. No, I mean a word that portends tedium. Lengthy, boring and for the most part, indecipherable. I think I was probably around five and just learning to read. I first noticed the connection between S and boredom. It was in church. We went to a little Baptist church in North Hollywood. Reverend Showers was a very nice old man. He could talk for hours. Well, it seemed like hours. I had no idea what he was saying, of course, but it didn’t take me long to realize that Reverend Showers long rambles coincided with the letter S. S as in Sermon. There were other words in the bulletin, of course, that started with other letters — 2… Read More »
Where’s Dr. Oz when you need him?
Obesity? Really? Dr. Oz
Free food ??
It happened again today. I was in line at the market behind the woman who thinks food is free. She had a rather large amount of items and stood here placidly as the checker rang them up and the box boy bagged and set them in the basket. Then the checker turned to her and said, “That’ll be forty-three-dollars and eighty-five cents.” “Oh,” she said as though startled, “how much?” The checker pointed to the total on the register. $43.85. The woman stood there another moment as if she expected the cashier to say something like “Oh, wait, I forgot. It’s Wednesday. It’s free food day. Never mind.” But the cashier didn’t say that and after a moment, the lady picked up her purse and put it on the counter. She somehow seemed a bit startled that the checker was actually asking her for money. She fished out a wallet. She… Read More »
If it’s Christmas, can Halloween be far behind?
Yesterday I received another batch of Christmas catalogs in the mail which means (Ta-DA!) it’s almost Halloween! Today when I stepped into Wally World, I was confronted with a large display featuring reindeer and a sleigh full of colorfully wrapped boxes. Must be time for the Great Pumpkin. Actually, since the end of September, my neighborhood has been gearing up. The house around the corner has a yard full of fake tombstones (which actually complement the dirt and weeds). Across the street they’ve hung white gauze “ghosts” from the tree and the people next door put orange lights in every window and a motion-activated skeleton that jumps and shrieks when someone walks past. The house on the other side has a display of carved pumpkins and a large rubber rat that makes horrible choking and gagging sounds. Jolly good fun! When did Halloween develop into this elaborate holiday? And how much does all… Read More »
Please don’t sit at the end of the row
Why do people get somewhere early, park themselves at the end of the row and then glare when someone asks to get by? Has this not happened to you? In a concert or church or anywhere with open seating. I realize they want the prized “end seat” so they can be first out and perhaps get out of the parking lot ahead of the other thousands of people, but surely they understand that when they sit at the end of the row, other people are going to need to get past them. So why do they get so upset when you ask to get by? It happened again this morning in church. A woman had parked herself at the end of an empty row and simply sat there as I stood mutely for a few seconds, waiting for her to make eye contact. She didn’t, so I finally said, “excuse… Read More »
The “Giant Economy Size”
What’s so great about the “Giant Economy Size”? The idea, of course, is that you get a lot more product for only a bit more money. Hah! They’ve hoodwinked us right out of our wallets. That huge box of cereal isn’t full of cereal. It’s half full of cereal and half full of air. And does the “Giant Economy Size” fit in your cupboard? It does not. In the olden days — like the middle of the last century — they built houses with sensible cupboards to accommodate sensible size boxes. And bottles. Yeah, it’s not just the boxes, it’s the bottles, too. As a rule, I don’t use 4 letter words, but last weekend was a “3 Day Sale” at Sprouts and I have to say it — my favorite four letter word is SALE! When I see that word, common sense just flies right out of my head.… Read More »
Visiting (the People’s Republic of ) California
Recently I had reason to drive down to California. L.A., to be specific. Slightly over an hour after leaving Las Vegas, one passes the final set of casinos and crosses the state line into California. There is a sign saying “Welcome to California” which puzzled me for a few minutes — several pieces of the state seemed to be missing and I was wondering if this was intended to portray the state as it might look after The Big One. But no, I realized, the missing pieces were actually part of the silhouette of the bear. This being the Bear Republic. This is almost immediately followed by a sign that says “seat belt law strictly enforced.” Okay, fair warning. In Nevada we have a campaign that says “click it or ticket” with the picture of a seat belt. Not quite as authoritarian, perhaps a little catchier, but we all get… Read More »
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