Category Archives: Rants and raves

Fill in the blank. The age of the corporate takeover. The frustration of shopping. The rudeness of shop-keepers. The notion that water is endless.

Waiting for Loretta Young!

It’s a shopping center, a strip mall, a commercial complex, a Hollywood set! It’s Las Vegas. The show starts at 8! Right? Wrong. It’s a cruise ship complete with karaoke bar, golf driving net,  movie theater, swimming pool and no prices on the menu! It’s eat all you want, drink all you want, order room service all night. For a little extra you can have a butler. It’s 900 of your closest friends and terrific service. For some people — doctors, for instance, like my L.A. cousin, who works hard — it’s the best way to relax and see the world. I stepped aboard that make-believe world for a one-day visit in Charleston, S.C. I have to admit: she and her husband looked very happy.

Waiting for Loretta Young on the cruise ship

Follow the dots — or dirt

The resolution lasted two days and two hours: take off your shoes before you come in the house. That’s the secret to a clean house, right? Other than dogs, cooking, yanking vegetables straight from the dirt and bringing them inside to clean. Ah, the beauty of clean surfaces, fan blades, couch crevices, the bottom of table legs — especially  after the four-hour, deep-dish, paying-someone-to-help cleaning session. But what about when you’re late and you don’t have time to untie and kick those puppies off at the door? Or when you have to pee like a race horse? What about when you forget? Huh, what then?

Busted