Recent Comments

1. 22 days ago on Heart of the City

   I don’t always mind a trite story line, because some readers are young kids, and a heartwarming story that appeals to them is one I can tolerate. Now and again.

2. 24 days ago on Arlo and Janis

   My high school French teacher taught us this in 1975, and a traveling companion on a Kenyan photo safari in 1996 taught us that if you forgot to say rabbit, rabbit, then you could reinstate your luck by taking the first set of stairs that you encounter on the first day of the month backwards. I now live in a house with no stairs, anywhere, neither indoors nor out, so I have become pretty “rememberful” about saying it in my dotage.

3. about 1 month ago on Stone Soup

   During our house hunt in Chicago we visited a house in late January that had been empty for a few months; the gutters hadn’t been cleaned, but the furnace was still running, so the interior was warm. The ice dams had created a complete and total disaster in multiple rooms; walls, carpets, hardwood floors, cabinets all just soaking wet. The odor was enough to chase us out after about 15 minutes. When we drove by the property a couple of years later, it was a vacant lot.

4. about 1 month ago on Betty

   I had every issue of Gourmet Magazine from 1980 until it went out of business, and moved them from house to house, 4 times in total. Heavy as could be, but I also had the index for each decade, so it was a wonderful, albeit massive, cookbook/travel planner. When we recently downsized for 5th and final move, I spent about 24 hours over several days going through each index (where I had, over the years, marked favorites/failures) and then cut out each recipe from the issue in question. Taped them up in a notebook, and voila, my personal version of The Best of Gourmet Magazine. I also kept some of the most beguiling covers to eventually frame for my new kitchen.

5. about 1 month ago on Ben

   I’m the kind of gal who cries over more movies than you’d think, so I was happy to have my mood turn when, as I was waiting for my friend in the theater lobby after crying over E.T. going home, a gentleman strolled through the lobby with at least 15 feet of TP stuck to his shoe. I almost gave myself a conniption trying not to burst out laughing until he was out of my sight. Lordy, that was a funny funny night, after all.

6. about 2 months ago on Bliss

   It seems to me that whenever Steve is involved in the gag, the character looks a bit like him; am I just imagining it?

7. 2 months ago on JumpStart

   I hate it in movies/tv shows, but I realllllllllly hate it live; I had an uncle you would literally turn his head to look at you in the backseat, whilst driving, to tell you something or other. Truly terrifying.

8. 2 months ago on Non Sequitur

   Did you ever try to buy health insurance on the open market before the ACA? I worked for the BCBSA, and I guarantee you the doing so, affordably, under the ACA is possible, having done so after I took early retirement. Before the ACA, the odds were highest that you might have purchased a plan for several hundred dollars, but the insurer would have taken measures to ensure that every single claim you made was denied, likely due to a pre-existing condition. Being alive was pretty much considered one.

9. 2 months ago on Non Sequitur

   Bet you’re p.o.’d about being fact checked right about now, huh?

10. 3 months ago on Lay Lines

    My late mom doesn’t visit via birds, but she does so in my dreams. She once told me in a dream that I had cancer, and while she wasn’t right, she was darn close. I had a rapidly growing non-cancerous abdominal tumor that went from the size of a lemon when first detected, to over 10 pounds when it was removed 14 days later. So I pay attention when I dream of her now.