I think I was about 13 when I read my mother’s copy of . Not counting Rhett Butler, I fell in love with two concepts: red hair and green eyes, and Mammy.

This confession of Mammy-love came up recently when someone online referenced another favorite character loved for her supportive role, which reminded me of Mammy, and referencing her, I felt obliged to explain how it seemed as if I had, at one time, wanted my very own slave. Read more about Mammy

Presentmas is my daughter’s favorite term for Christmas, because at our house it’s always been all about the presents. I’ve trotted out my thoughts on the season on at least a couple of occasions, one addressing the issue of greetings and another addressing the presents/indulgence issue. I hold firmly to those positions. Read more about Presentmas

I was driving to Costco to pick up a new pair of glasses early yesterday afternoon when I heard the first reports of the latest terrorist attacks in Paris. The kind man who retrieved my glasses for me was born in Germany near the French border. He asked me if I had heard anything further than what he had picked up at work. I told him what I knew, and we talked for a little while about why such things happen. About disaffected youth and discrimination and joblessness and the desperate search for some kind of meaning in lives that can find little else than whatever jihad has come to mean. Read more about Nothing

Remember George Carlin’s classic bit on Stuff?

My generation loved it. We thought it was deep. Maybe it’s my dotage showing, but lately I’ve come to think it’s not deep at all. It’s just a cranky guy riffing on a word.

Stuff. It’s a great word that covers a multitude of blessings.
Know your stuff
Do a lot of stuff;
Your morals, your values, that type of stuff.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on… Read more about Stuff

There are a couple of definite changes that have come over me in the last few years, not counting menopause. For one thing, I no longer keep a careful eye out for vampires. For another thing, I don’t freak out when I walk into a spider’s web. Read more about Spider Time

If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Read more about Heat

A piece I wrote several years ago. I thought it worth posting here: Read more about Welcome to Istanbul

Way back in 1960 or so, I wrote a high school essay in defense of advertising, in which I proposed that whether or not products ever did for you what they promised to do, sometimes they could help you feel better about yourself for a while. You put on a certain brand of lipstick (I gave up wearing the stuff aeons ago) and while it doesn't substantially change you, for a while you might feel as if it did and sometimes that feeling is something you need to carry you through the day. Read more about Thoughts on the Mad Men Finale

Diving back into old National Geographics, I recently surfaced with a few treasures: Read more about Pieces of Eight

The rain this afternoon is no more than a whisper. Nothing worth mentioning, really. Last year's brown leaves are caught in the year-round, unremarkable green of the skimmia - I think it's a skimmia - and stuck in clumps, like old birds nests, among the confusions of the St. John's wort. The pots that don't have the dead or dormant remains of last year's plants have sprouted gray green beards of weed and moss. Read more about Uninspired