So today’s been fine, but kind of a trial.  A trial for someone lucky enough to have a free day in Washington DC.

It started when the alarm clock in my suite went dead.  But I woke up in plenty of time to check out.  And somebody else paid for… Read full post »

My family wasn’t terribly interested in religion.  My mother’s harsh Mennonite childhood had turned her away from religion (until she converted to Catholicism late in life; a story for another blog) and my father was an atheist before he had a face-to-face visitation from Go… Read full post »

I hesitate to write this.  Especially when the current OS Headline is by the mother of a slain Columbine student.  And hundreds of people were killed in an earthquake in Italy yesterday.  And a big chunk of Antarctica just fell off the bottom of the earth….

I had t… Read full post »

Congratulations Dave!  Along with all your stars, you now have Time Magazine's rave. The review spends most of its lines on summarizing the book, but it's a great review. Yay!

"...Columbine is a necessary book."  

Hope you'll be coming to Cleveland to read from it soon!… Read full post »

Courage

The world has become so brutal
I have resolved to fight—
Clamped fists vitriol
Feet parted, steady
Locked in earth.

It is a shell; a soft shell
Only ribs guard my lungs
And there is nothing between my belly and the world
But thin pink skin.

I’m not sure I’m up to… Read full post »

www.edupics.com

I’m going out on a limb here, so I’ll try to be as kind as possible when I say this:

People, please start getting a handle on your own feelings of self-esteem. I’ve been on OS since November, 2008, and almost weekly someone blogs… Read full post »

In the winter of my forty-fifth year, I had had about enough of the relentless Cleveland winter and decided to stretch my legs and get some exercise—get out of the house god damn it.  It was twilight, on a rare windless evening, and streaks of red were vying with… Read full post »

My sunroom on a summer day.  That’s Samantha on the right.  This is my favorite spot in my house.

I loved Dorinda’s idea so much that I decided not to wait to be “asked” to do an interview.  (Hell, I suspect no one would ask me.)  Since waiting did… Read full post »

www.meadowvale.com.uk

I spent last weekend visiting Chicago and my best friend, "He who is my Twin Separated by Birth."  We both like to explore interesting restaurants, and because he is the Consummate Gentlemen, he never lets me pay.  (I do offer, I promise.)

My TSB knows my… Read full post »

 (faithcenter.newspress.com)

My comment on today's Bill Maher "cover post:"

 "Kerry? Joan? Is Bill Mahr or HBO paying to advertise on OS? If so, can you list him as a "sponsor" instead of letting his "people" use OS for advertising?"

 OS-- Please discuss. Read full post »

 (a real French bistro, not the one in Cleveland...)

After going to hear actor and Screen Actors' Guild President Alan Rosenberg speak energetically about corporate union busting, I decided to drown out my disgust with corporate greed and treat myself at a new French bistro, run… Read full post »

www.newturfers.com

 I smell something very suspicious about the following case, and I hope OESheepdog will look into it.  Nanatehay lives in Kansas.  Nanatehay is a suspicious character.  Just who sold the fugitive lion to Harsh, and who trained it to kill?  Na… Read full post »

August Saint-Gauden's Memorial of Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment (National Gallery, Washington, D.C.)

I love too many movies to have a truly favorite one.  But tonight while watching Turner Movie Classics’ &ld… Read full post »

The sun was out in Cleveland today, so I took advantage of its generosity and explored a watershed in an eastern suburb.  The property had originally been a city “right of way” for a light rail route, but the route was never extended and the suburb wisely turned it… Read full post »

Here's my take on Fox's new show Dollhouse.

The premise of the show is that there is a super-secret factory called the "Dollhouse" where (beautiful, skinny, half-naked) women are kept like prostitutes, the result of some kind of "deal" they make with its madam procurer.  (Exactly w… Read full post »

www.canadiantrainvacations.com

When I envision the United States as a “green economy” I am most excited about the possibility of high-speed trains for transportation across the nation.  We already have good train service on the East Coast (at least from Boston to Washi… Read full post »

farmgirltripod.com

Now that we're in the Great February Thaw, my palate would like lighter fare, but I'm guessing we'll be in for another cold spell very soon.

This hearty soup/stew takes some time to make because it's made with a very inexpensive cut of beef.  It's well worth… Read full post »

www.amateurscientist.org

if the web sizzled loud between us
we’d know each other
like children
each a destination for tin-cans and string

if the Ohio highway sang to us
we’d make up home-grown harmonies
about your River and my Lake and the rolling hills between

if life was just/… Read full post »

 schools.mukilteo.wednet.edu

Last Thursday I was serenaded.  Shakespeare and Frost and Dickinson and Donne, Shelley, and Poe, and Chesterton and one:
(my favorite)

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts c… Read full post »

 UPDATE:  Thanks to Umbrellakinesis, here is a loaf for you.  No, it's not pretty, but we all love our children, regardless of their looks. :)

A couple weeks ago I took the advice of an OS poster, and bought some yeast and whole wheat flour to start making my own bread. … Read full post »

blogs@courant.com

I just got a little love note from my credit card company.  They were pleased to inform me that they were raising my interest rate to 16.99%.  (This is a card that started out around 4%.)

I have a really high credit rating.   I always pay my… Read full post »

There is a watershed that runs from the glacial “heights” above Cleveland, down to the flatlands, snaking its way through what once was John D. Rockefeller’s summer estate, finally emptying into Lake Erie in an area that is now a bird sanctuary for migrating birds resting af… Read full post »

Cleveland is a city richly decorated with 100-year old trees and lush ravines that empty into secluded lagoons.  Suburbs built at the dawn of the 20th century still have vestiges of farm culture:  apple trees, ligonberry bushes, plum trees, quince bushes and crabapples. … Read full post »