With one of my own kids about to become a grandparent, it does seem a little late to start bragging about stuff they brought home from primary school, but I just have to show you. Found this in a bottom drawer I'm cleaning out, couldn't think why I'd bothered to save this bird report -- then I read the p.s.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Baffling New Yorker
In the past, when I still had all my wits, I’d assume a puzzling
cartoon probably referred to some current Manhattan situation. After all, when they named that magazine The
New Yorker, they weren’t thinking about Buffalo . So maybe there’s a scandal in Brooklyn about a retired
pharmacists who’s dealing drugs? Would
someone let me know?
But with this issue I set a record. Take this next one; Evidently the Bogeyman has a shrewish wife, whom we can’t see, and she’s complaining that
he doesn’t run the vacuum. But why is
she upset about that, when that bedroom
is in perfect order? Why are we in a
bedroom altogether? Can someone please
explain?
So nu?
Maybe Upstaters aren't meant to read that magazine at all.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
plus le meme chose
...He says of the Syrian affairs that the ...French and Russians have been intriguing there is no doubt...the spirit which all over the East is so easily roused just now...Musselman fanaticism--The result is terrific, and of course the English Govt. are as keen to stop these horrors and to restore order as any, but the plan proposed by the French would...have been the signal for a universal massacre of Christians...--with great difficulty they have got it modified...
I may have mentioned that I'm reading my way through all my old books before giving them away? The bit above comes from the Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley, and she wrote it to her sister from Queen Victoria's summer home in Osborne, on July 18, 1860.
I may have mentioned that I'm reading my way through all my old books before giving them away? The bit above comes from the Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley, and she wrote it to her sister from Queen Victoria's summer home in Osborne, on July 18, 1860.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
nor sleet, nor gloom of night
Found this yesterday in a bottom
drawer I haven’t opened for lo these many years.
First off, the
stamp. A quick google tells us that the buying
power of that stamp today would be 29 cents, so it really was a bargain. And let's consider what service it bought..
For starters, I hadn’t
been on the faculty at Westbrook for more than a year.
Next, there’s no street
address given -- and in addition, we'd moved just a few
months before.And – my last name was no longer Handleman.
That envelope reached me just fine.
So what did the letter say? I re-read it last week – can’t seem to find
it now. Maybe it got into the throw-out
pile.
In it, that literary agent assured
me he was still interested in the book I was writing. I seem to remember he'd contacted me after seeing an
article I’d written in a national magazine,
and we had indeed discussed a book. But
what do you suppose it was to be about?Beats me.
By the date of that postmark I’d married and was happy as clam with a new baby.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZN9d-Tr4aMH_odTEdm6zzckWYRcUtFm68uwJIMUlE7qlvhjR52JjBqCLxicbCkMg3a2PLbk7aegE7PO9OnwVZoJTw8e2jz5zjwdDCB8K4mGADOhFiXqoyPRKYAXKHwBsd-BO4i7UCTMMg/s1600/mrep.jpg)
Monday, December 16, 2013
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Macy's Service
Internet shopping was invented for my old age. Instead of
limping painfully around the malls, I sit here eating lunch at the desk, while
the computer searches the markets of the world for just what I want. But I could use some new sheets, and the
other day when Macy’s newspaper ad offered door-buster bargains (only until 1
p. m.) –
You just can’t buy sheets without feeling the fabric first. So off I went to Southtown Mall for the first
time in ages. A good omen: there was
what my kids call the Babe Spot, the handicap parking slot right next to the
main entrance, vacant and just waiting for me.
Then up the escalator –
household goods in these stores are always on the second floor, past the
children’s wear. Found just the right
sheets, one set for the king size I still use, one for the guest room queen. Women
waiting at the cashier’s counter took one look at me and stepped aside. I don’t think it was just the cane. I do need a haircut, and in the dry indoor air
-- Fright Wig is the term that comes to mind.
So the witch gratefully hobbled to the head of the line, and yes -- I
got the exciting doorbuster prices!
Off to the down escalator,
and there I was amazed to find myself stopped short, downright scared. The bags weren’t that heavy – when I got home
I actually weighed them, about five pounds each.
Pete’s sake – before that pre-diabetes
scare a few years ago, I was 30 pounds heavier and never had any problem with an
escalator. Maybe it was managing the
cane. At any rate, I finally planned how
to step on, and then spent the next ten seconds worrying about to get
off.
But none of this is what I started out to tell you. As I stepped off the escalator, a tall man in a dark suit suddenly appeared and said “Can I carry those for you?” And as he was wearing some sort of a badge, I surrendered my two bags. He took them all the way out to my car --and it was way below freezing out there. So what I want to know is, does Macy’s have a drive to fight Internet shopping with all sorts of new personal service? Or have they always sent the Floor Manager (which it turned out he was) to rescue Lttle Old Ladies, and I just never looked Little Old enough to run into it before?
But none of this is what I started out to tell you. As I stepped off the escalator, a tall man in a dark suit suddenly appeared and said “Can I carry those for you?” And as he was wearing some sort of a badge, I surrendered my two bags. He took them all the way out to my car --and it was way below freezing out there. So what I want to know is, does Macy’s have a drive to fight Internet shopping with all sorts of new personal service? Or have they always sent the Floor Manager (which it turned out he was) to rescue Lttle Old Ladies, and I just never looked Little Old enough to run into it before?
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Last Night at the Lobster
At the Red Lobster the other night – and btw, if you like that
restaurant, you might enjoy Stuart O’Nan’s novel Last Night at the Lobster,
but let’s not digress – our beverages came with interesting straws, and I did want a
photo to show you. My cell phone has a camera and I could probably figure out how to take a picture, but I'd
have no idea how to get it out of the phone after that. It's not a smart phone, it's a dumb phone.
So Amy laid her straw on the menu for contrast, and photographed it so that the tip showed. It was, as you can see, firmly and irrevocably sealed tight.
The other end of those straws, though, was completely open.
So that was good.
So Amy laid her straw on the menu for contrast, and photographed it so that the tip showed. It was, as you can see, firmly and irrevocably sealed tight.
The other end of those straws, though, was completely open.
So that was good.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Friday, December 6, 2013
Days of Infamy
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHE57iaJc_twGo9IGL6IIgcMGbenF2xSRQ68sF9V2hyccYN77NECAOIVYlRqDYCjt5Bl0ox7mxfqAfupSZmiTyHc2yKEw4LD7W0ka8Dalt4fWMsnwD3uK1AQR8T4PD9hCGXtx1q9oqat4f/s1600/alamo.png)
Years ago, when a movie
about the Alamo came on TV, my husband the Canadian said we didn’t need to
watch it. “I know,” he said. “REMEMBER
THE ALAMO ! Big U. S. victory, right?”
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu5GJwXzA1Q2rMuZ-xVoTSJwcX6phAkLlzZb6IfvZ2opJFT-mO9gy4BMI1ZnFPHvLkV4N242UR9Au9NJXa-Wf-F2utSfHilYVw8thzcTUMaXmcrUvD8kM_vgE8EZdkUOhHwVT2AA8L9tmQ/s1600/maine.png)
“No,” said I. “Big U. S. defeat. Everybody
died.”
So why DOES this country
memorialize defeats? Come on, can you think of any
day of the year that celebrates a big victory?
Any inspirational slogan?
All I really know about
the Spanish American War is “REMEMBER
THE MAINE!” Wasn’t that a ship that
sank?
And within my lifetime, a
disaster that has not only a slogan but a day named after it – and a song. I still remember all the words, but you
probably don’t, so here it is:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Fl8diy1EI8h7ZwciiwHWEHTzF_qi9NQH8vi_lAjrmeiyd55ZMUSPi8bwc-ahi_GZqfSMBSkCO7CCWtqsg8yHxJAErX7ixbPJfsceDs892UXcI76sRXjmBsQnRoWkCi0OAoXocBMf9adY/s1600/pearl+harbor.png)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Nf_SzRFlHY
Monday, December 2, 2013
Stay Tuned
This isn't a post, it's just an apology for no post. Over the Thanksgiving weekend we ended up with people sleeping in the office, on the livingroom couch...and now everyone's gone. I bade farewell to each departure with "Did you remember to take your toothbrush? your chargers?" -- those being the items most often left behind. So far, though, all that's turned up is a pair of jeans, a shopping bag called an Envirosac, and -- at first I thought that was a pacifier, but -- maybe it's a bicycle bell?
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