I recently noticed that my consumption of Haagan-Dazs has increased over the past few weeks. I know there are those who associate this behavior with depression or unhappiness – subconsciously, suicide by cholesterol, I suppose. Not the case here. Besides, my doc has me on statins. That should take care of the after-effects of my vanilla Swiss almond habit. Right? Right. Or maybe I should be eating heartier, healthier meals in the evening to curb my after-dinner appetite (well, we know how that goes down around here). But I digress…

Continue “Counting calories”

I was having lunch with an old friend not long ago who asked me how I manage to stay so thin. I told him it has a lot to do with my lack of motivation in the kitchen.

The term “cooking” is defined by my trusty internet dictionary as the act of preparing food for human consumption with the use of heat, such as boiling, baking or roasting. There’s more to it than that, of course.

Continue “Hey good lookin’, whatcha got cookin’?”

I was surfing through my TV channels the other day and happened upon PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. For those of you who might not be familiar with the program, the producer and his crew, which includes a group of professional specialty appraisers, take the show on the road to various cities around the country. Upon arrival at each destination they set up shop in a conference center or something and then invite the local citizenry to bring in items to be appraised. These items are generally deemed to be antiques and run the gamut including jewelry, furniture, artwork, musical instruments, floor coverings, various decorative objects and so on. The premise: Do you have some heirloom or flea market discovery that may turn out to be a rare and valuable collector’s item?

You never know!

Continue “Antiques and collectibles”

I grew up in a dog family. My father was particularly fond of German Shepherds, so it seemed we always had at least one in the house at any given time over the years.

Dogs aren’t the only pets one might find in a typical American household, of course. Felines are in abundance (cat families.  We weren’t really a cat family, although I do seem to recall Mom owning a cat at one time, but it was after I had grown and moved out. Wait, though, it might have been a Chihuahua), but we also share our respective living quarters with everything from chickens to ducks to baby piglets to anacondas to tarantulas (tarantula families – I suppose they don’t get much in the way of company dropping by). Consequently, our homes become the primary training ground for teaching our kids how to get along with the all these animals with whom we share this world.

Continue “Critters”