All Purls. No Swine.
Gosh. I really missed my annual Auntie Pat post this year. She died just a few days short of a year ago, at the age of about 99-and-a-half, on December 10, 2022. One of the last sentient conversations I had with her was in June of 2022, just before her 99th birthday. Things weren't quite… Continue reading That Moment When You Know You’re Old
Those of you who’ve been here a while will know that I’m a staunch defender of my birth country’s cuisine. I love “stodge,” best exemplified by a main course like “steak and kidney pudding,” and puddings such as “spotted dick.” I also love lighter desserts such as “summer pudding,” and sausages like “black pudding.” (If… Continue reading Traditional Thanksgiving Meal–UK Style
So there I was, as I often am, chasing down some reference or other that has nothing to do with the point at hand, and I stumbled over the fact that it was only 160 years ago today, on November 19, 1863 (what a very young country this still is), that a President of the… Continue reading “These Honored Dead”
It’s Easter 1979. Mr. Right and I are living in a tiny house we bought for the princely sum of $7,200 (all we could afford), somewhere in Pittsburgh’s low-rent district, amongst the druggies and the motorcycle gangs. Monthly mortgage payment: $71.97. Rather abrupt investment in learning necessary self-defense techniques and maneuvers on the part of… Continue reading Confessions of an Accidental IT Professional, Chapter One
A gently revised revisit of a post from many years ago: Dear Dad, Sixteen years ago today I got the phone call that I’d been expecting for several months, but kept on hoping would never come. My sister told me that you were gone. I don’t think I’ve ever completely recovered. Oh, I’ve moved on… Continue reading Dear Dad–2023
Well. In addition to the birth of the "One-Woman Positivity Machine" which I've previously mentioned, your humble correspondent was born 69 years ago today. But, enough about me. What do you think about me? LOL. Someone actually said that to me (not sarcastically or ironically), once. In other news: Virgil, the Roman poet best known… Continue reading What Else Happened on September 20?
Several months ago, I wrote a "very preliminary" book review of John Blashford-Snell’s From Utmost East to Utmost West: My Life of Exploration and Adventure. Happily, someone took me up on the challenge to read the entire book and write the actual whole thing, and the result is this post on the Ricochet main feed. (Worth… Continue reading On Family Memories and the Meaning of “Gift”
The following is a lightly edited version of a post I wrote on the Queen's death, a year ago today: The only British monarch of my lifetime died a year ago today. She was crowned in June 1953, slightly more than a year before I was born. I was named after her, “Elizabeth,” and–for my… Continue reading “I have to be seen to be believed”–Queen Elizabeth II
I see that today--August 29, 2023--is the 154th anniversary of the opening of the Mount Washington Cog Railway. (That means that my great-grandmother, who was also born in August of 1869, would have been 154 years old the day before yesterday.) The railway, in New Hampshire's White Mountains, was the first mountain-climbing rack railway in… Continue reading Memories of Mount Washington, New Hampshire
It is beneficial that the next generation learns about the past for the same reasons that it is important that you remember your childhood. The quintessential question of “what next!” How will we as a society go into the future without knowledge of the past? If we don’t know what we, as Americans, are, how… Continue reading Why is History Important?