Not long ago, a travel reporter from the Washington Post contacted me about a story she was working on. The topic was tiny lights in hotel rooms—the annoying little beams emitted from TVs, smoke detectors, alarm clocks, air conditioners, and so on. Many hotel guests find this constellation of artificial twinklers unwelcome at, say, 3am. The reporter […]
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Rummikub
The last time I was back home in Arkansas for a visit, my two younger sisters got into a long-drawn-out debate over the following passage from the instructions for the Rummikub game: In order to make an initial meld, each player must place tiles on the table in one or more sets that total at […]
2022 Holiday Card
The front of the holiday card my husband, Frank, and I sent out this year features two photos of us: one taken on Thanksgiving at my mom’s house, the other in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza during our Egypt vacation. On the other side of the card there’s a picture of our dog, […]
Chips-and-Dip Bowls
One football season many years ago, I decided to watch all the Chicago Bears games on TV. I had never really given the sport a chance before, even though I grew up where the Arkansas Razorbacks inspire a religious fervor rivaled only by, well, the locals’ religious fervor. I guess I wanted to see, at […]
Travel Neck Pillow
I envy people who have no trouble sleeping on planes and long car rides. I, on the other hand, never know where to put my head. It just kind of rolls around. Going to sleep is no problem for me when I’m lying down, but snoozing while sitting up is beyond me. On a plane, […]
Wedding Ring Dish
My husband, Frank, and I got married with virtually no fanfare, forethought, or guests at Chicago City Hall on February 7, 2015. Same-sex matrimony had become legal in Illinois the previous year and we had an afternoon free. Cue the Wedding March. We had already been together for more than 8 years by that point […]
Black-and-White Checked Scarf
My husband, Frank, and I just got back from our 2020 vacation. We didn’t take it till this year on account of the plague—even though the destination was Egypt, which can, per the Book of Exodus, withstand 9 out of 10 plagues thrown its way. We took a Nile River cruise from Aswan to Luxor, […]
Chicago Skyline Lego Set
The dumbest song ever written about Chicago is probably “My Kind of Town,” originally performed by Frank Sinatra in the 1964 Rat Pack musical Robin and the 7 Hoods. Lyricist Sammy Cahn intends to praise the city, but he never gets specific, so he sounds like someone who has never been there. (Jimmy Van Heusen […]
Apple TV
I recently canceled my Netflix subscription. I had stopped using it. Oh sure, I’d browse the selections now and then, but I hadn’t been a regular viewer since Orange Is the New Black was still in production. And I didn’t even finish watching that one. I thought the season where the prisoners took over the […]
The Aeneid 2022
This blog turned 3 years old on August 6. Tradition dictates that I mark the occasion by consulting the Virgilian lottery, a form of soothsaying where you open Virgil’s works at random and whatever passage you land on tells your fortune. I tried the exercise for the very first Indirect Objects post and then again […]