I’ve always associated white picket fences with the idyllic, so when I spotted a vacation cottage with one online, it said, “Rent me! rent me!”
What’s more, it had plenty of bedrooms, plenty of beds, a washer and dryer and dishwasher.
Many years ago, I had this stupendous idea: a four-ingredient cookbook.
“Wow!” I announced to anyone who’d listen. “A recipe book for the rest of us! For people who don’t have time to chop and peel 16 different things between the downtown traffic and the soccer game.”
Most folks who’ve seen Woody Allen’s latest movie have raved about the cleverness of the time travel and the scintillating conversations between the protagonist, an aspiring 21st century novelist, and literary luminaries like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.
“It truly WAS a Golden Age,” sighed a friend enraptured by Midnight in Paris, and rambled on about the romance of returning to a better, more stimulating time.
“You are so right!” I told her. “Some things from the past cannot be improved upon.”
She nodded while I went on.
“Take my food processor, for example.”
I forgot to take the before-and-after pictures, but I’m happy to report that I’ve lost 400 pounds and simplified my life.
I don’t credit any miracle formulas for this. No Ultra-Slim concoctions. No daily trips to my local Subway.
Last week, the National Weather Service predicted that April showers in Central Ohio could bring … May showers.
We who counted on the May word being “flowers” immediately started moaning and groaning.
After extensive study, which includes cleaning out refrigerators for a good half century, I’ve concluded the world breaks down between those who faithfully discard food by expiration date and those who do not.
The discarders will not tolerate even a pickle that has exceeded its advertised lifetime.
We all know about the benefits of exercise. It’s hard to pick up a magazine without learning about some new unimagined benefit – a body part sure to get bigger or flatter by investing 20 minutes a day.
I never dreamed that instead of fixing me, exercise would introduce me to a whole universe of people who want to fix my stuff.
As anyone who’s planned or settled an estate knows, it’s hard enough, wading through the hereins and thereofs, to figure out who gets the dog and the china when someone passes.
Just when I thought I’d figured that out, a helpful friend (thanks, I think) sent along an e-mail informing me of the urgent need for a digital will.
When I pulled into the Toyota dealership in Greensboro, N.C. this month, I thought it was just for an oil change, but I forgot. It’s January. I was actually there for a waistline change.
No respectable waiting room this month comes unequipped with self-help articles capable of eliminating 20 pounds or so from one’s post-holiday frame. The idea is not to shed them. It’s to shed them EASILY. Waiting at Toyota was no different.
It’s hard enough to absorb the extra load of holiday cooking, partying and foraging for the perfect gift.
Now, it seems, we’re also on deadline to snag solutions for life’s little aggravations before they disappear from the store shelves and we have to pay shipping.