Cutting for Stone

I meant to be back sooner but I got stuck in this book for a couple of days there. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese is one of those wild gifts of happenstance, a book I picked up while browsing at the library, not knowing anything about it or the author…it turns out to be [...]

skip to the loo, already

It’s a thing we want to know about when we travel: the toilets. Tell us about the facilities. We’ll be visiting several times a day, and we don’t want to make embarrassing mistakes.
The Finnish bathroom is entirely familiar, only better in some respects. The toilet fixture itself is likely to be low-flow, but not [...]

skimming the surface

So, Finland, for those of you who asked. And may my in-laws forgive me my facile impressions.
Calm, polite, reserved Finns. These are the people we shared airplane space with going over. It was a later afternoon flight from JFK, and everybody knew it would be tomorrow morning by the time we landed and we’d [...]

bugging out

I’ve lived in this house for nine years now. That’s the longest anywhere in my lifetime. And, as a house will after nine years, it’s starting to get dirty. There are a few parts of it I’ve never cleaned. Some that get cleaned every three or four years. Or not. Lots that I just don’t [...]

no intention

What I was getting at in that last post, though I never arrived because I’ve been having trouble applying myself lately, is that I’ve been having trouble applying myself lately. I’m in a foul mood. Very unwilling to concentrate, to delve, to work. Very much wanting distraction. This mood comes around again and again and [...]

too much of nothing

I got nothin’.
Nothing for my blog. I’m preoccupied lately with shaping up, and I can hardly imagine being less interesting to anybody else. My darling T, 12 years younger than I, has transformed himself recently, cleaning up the eating and drinking, losing weight, finding ambition for projects big and small…you can bet there’s some insecurity [...]

my bad

The other day I made an old lady pregnant. Most embarrassing.
Anybody who types things for a living doesn’t actually type everything she types for a living. Abbreviation expanders are handy productivity boosters that transcriptionists rely on for as much as 800% improvement in efficiency (when we’re paying attention). Mine works fairly simply; I can [...]

cheap grins

Shakespeare meme. Too funny.

where the hell is Matt videogame edition

Okay, possibly you’re not as big a fan of Matt as I am. But this is the funniest thing I’ve seen all this young year.

Afghanistan accordion journey

If you’ve got three or four minutes and need a lighter heart, check this out: Afghanistan Accordion Journey. Don’t miss the end.