The Half-Ambidextrous Hat

I have myself so well trained now that I must be doing something while watching TV that I nearly found myself at loose ends the other night. I wanted to watch a Miss Marple movie, but all my cross-stitching stuff was at Mark’s. What to do?
Find a half-knitted hat I started 3 years ago, of course! I [...]

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On things that are wrong

One of the longest standing country music stations here in the Raleigh area is now vigorously advertising a new… um, I suppose one might call it a service? They have installed a “Holla Line” for people to send “shout outs” to their friends, family, etc. They did not go so far as to suggest that people might [...]

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The political history of food

More from Oracle Bones, on the historical baggage our innocent take-out dinners can carry. The author is accompanying his Uighur (Chinese minority) immigrant friend on delivery rounds in DC:
Many customers were lawyers working late; they came down, bleary-eyed, fumbling with wallets and purses. None of them looked at us twice. It would have been a lot [...]

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It’s so true

From Oracle Bones, by Peter Hessler, who was a foreign journalist in China:
[Background: Hessler is being told the story of why Mr. Xu, the owner of the cornstarch plant he is visiting, started a second plant after being forced out of his first one.]
I was growing more interested in meeting Mr. Xu. I wanted to see exactly [...]

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Tower of London Follow-up

I just noticed this in the news, and had to post it as a nice follow-up to my account of our tour of the Tower of London. Moira Cameron, the first female Yeoman Warder, (aka Beefeater,) has officially started work.
The article couldn’t resist mentioning that she admitted carry lip gloss in the pockets of her [...]

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