All Purls. No Swine.
It happened to me last week during a conversation with my darling Auntie Pat. (Ninety-nine next month; may she live forever.) I’d phoned her up, and after a false start in which she may have been holding the phone upside down and speaking into the earpiece (shades of my dad in the months before he died;… Continue reading That Moment When You Realize You’re Old
I’m proud of my country. Not in the Michelle Obama “first time” sense, but one which, for once, I’m comfortable “sharing” (as the abominable Markle might put it.) My Lord. So many flag wavers. You’d think the country had turned “American” all of a sudden. Loved it, from the Horse Guards, to the Trooping the… Continue reading A Very Un-British Feeling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffZI9ETWMmo He was born 110 years ago, on May 18, 1912, just a small piece down the road from me, in Canonsburg PA, home of (among other things) Sarris Candies and All-Clad cookware. Not to mention also Bobby Vinton, Marty Schottenheimer (giving the lie to the idea that the only good things, NFL-wise, to come… Continue reading Happy Birthday, Pierino Ronald Como!
March is a problematic month for me, being one of those two or three in the year in which anniversaries and memories--those both deleriously joyous and desperately sad--seem to congregate and coalesce in an inescapable, and sometimes overwhelming, swarm. My granddaughter's birthday. Our dinner of grace and the death of Mr. Right's first wife. "Fifteen… Continue reading Just a Daughter’s Memories: Nigeria 1959
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world were discussing whether any one belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for… Continue reading Amazing Grace–A Lenten Post
I am the grandmother of an eight-year-old girl. Technically, she is my step-granddaughter, though the distinction makes no difference, I assure you. Her mother is my stepdaughter and beloved friend. Her first few years have not been idyllic. And she’s had to learn to be a little tougher than I would like, a little earlier than I would… Continue reading My “Feminist” Fever Dream
Well, OK. Einstein was wrong. (I say this because I refuse to believe, just because I indulge this particular sort of repetitive behavior--always believing that, next time, when the end comes I'm going to weather the storm without incident--that I’m insane. Obtuse, stubborn, and human, perhaps. But not insane.) Shortly before Christmas, it fell to… Continue reading Giving My Heart (Just Once More) For a Dog to Tear
I've mentioned before how much I enjoy Ammo Grrrll's Friday morning posts on Powerline. Today's post, Make New Friends, and Keep the Old, is no exception. Her fond recounting of some of the entries in "Mama Dorothy's autograph book" put me in mind of this post I wrote on Ricochet eight (!) years ago about… Continue reading Roses are Red . . . Jokes, Adages, Sayings
The film is dark and grainy, and the room is poorly lit. None of the cast is wearing the proper sort of clothes or makeup. And all of them, particularly the father of the little moppet with the starring role, are bursting with their pride in the first member of a new generation in the… Continue reading Pictures of Perfection: Christmas 1956
He was the biggest--in every sense of the word--dog who's ever owned me. Big of size, big (well, reasonably big) of brain, big of spirit, but most of all, big of heart. Levi's long, and very good, run came to an end this morning. He'd been having increasing trouble hauling his 150lb frame to its… Continue reading Ave Atque Vale: The Greatest Pyrenees