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When I was a kid, one of the most influential aspects of my cultural life was a series of flimsy, miniature transistor radios. I had one with me at all times, running them until they broke in my hands (and I often repaired them with twister ties and duct tape to keep them going long enough for my allowance to cover the purchase of a new one) and ( Read more... )

Over the last few years, I find that I have had both the funds and the equipment to raise my culinary skills somewhere a tad past the Hamburger Helper stage. I have to say that learning these new things and creating meals that induce orgasmic eye rollings and having conversations with my husband that go something like, "Do you like it?" and him ( Read more... )

When I was between the ages of 12 and 15, we had neighbors next door who were, without question, some of the best neighbors we ever had ( Read more... )

Maryland Renaissance Faire on "Dinner: Impossible"....

*sob*

Makes me homesick....

I WANT to go hereLike NOW ( Read more... )

I was living in a crappy little apartment complex in Riverdale, Maryland. My cousin, Tony, and his very pregnant wife, Debbie, lived in the next building over, so it was nice for all of us, having family so close.

One day, early in the morning, there was a knock on the door.
( Read more... )

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite Sunday School stories was the one of Jacob and Esau. There were so many freakishly facinating things about that story that I just couldn't resist. A woman pregnant with twins who fought with one another inside her, the babies born with one riding into the world while holding onto his brother's heel, the ( Read more... )

It was a lot of fun hearing about everyone's holiday horrors yesterday, but the one thing it pounded home was the idea of "one man's meat is another man's poison"--the fact that there are some things in the world that make some of us shudder while some of us think, aw, c'mon--I LIKE that stuff ( Read more... )

Six months ago, Sam Chapman, CEO of Empower Public Relations in Chicago, put his 15 person staff on notice that the office was to become a "gossip-free zone". If you had something to say about someone, then you were mandated to say it to them, rather than backbite to either your co-workers or to the boss ( Read more... )

I just had the most amazing thing happen to me at the market....

( Yes, amazing things DO happen in the produce section--this one's number TWO in my life!!! )