Confessions of a Grandma

I was on a guided nature walk on the beach when a woman commented that she often wondered how pelicans were able to dive into the water as they do without breaking their necks. Would have been an awfully SHORT evolutionary history for pelicans if they weren't designed to dive into the water after fish. I don't care if you're of the Darwinian persuasion or the Divine Design persuasion--that was a stupid comment. Bicycle riders are largely a menace here on the isle. Clearly marked bike lanes and still riders are going against traffic or riding on the sidewalks and snarking at pedestrians who don't jump off the sidewalk fast enough. Share the road, I think, means: "Make way for me and superior method of transportation--greener than a car, more efficient than walking." I have worked long and hard, and successfully by and large, at overcoming my irrational childhood terror of dogs. Then the other day a dog bit me as I was walking to town. Apparently it was my fault...

I was watching Oprah the other day--part of a week long series, Oprah's clean up your messy house--with Peter Walsh and Candace Olsen. They made surprise stops at a few people's apartments in NYC and got them cleaned up, tidied and organized. Now this kills me. Your every bedroom surface is covered with clothes. Your kitchen is a germ infested pile of dirty dishes and over flowing garbage. The refrigerator is growing fuzzy green phosphoescent slime. And someone, a professional organizer, is needed to tell you to do laundry, fold/hang up your clothes, take out the garbage, wash dishes and clean the fridge. It's not that I don't know plenty of people who live like that, and it's certainly not that I haven't experienced the overwhelming inertia of life's clutter gotten out of control. (For me, at least, it's called depression and prozac helps alot.) It is, partly, that I wish I had had the smarts to see a niche for the professional organizer and deve...

Our cat--sprawled out in a sunny spot on a winter day. He was big. He was playfully wild or wildly playful in his youth. He was slow and cranky in his dotage. He had tons of personality--most of it bad. He ruled our house and we loved him beyond all reason. He left for cat heaven, 09/04/2005, and we miss him still. There can never be another.

Our Florida rental came with a set of satin sheets. Now sheets are a wonderful thing in life. I happen to like to snuggle into smooth, soft, clean sheets. New cotton, high quality, sheets are wonderful, but those sheets washed and washed to a silky smoothness--ahh. Maybe I still miss my silk baby blanket. But I’m getting off the point, which is those satin sheets. I went to ASK.com and asked, “Why satin sheets?” In reply, I found Ann’s Satin Sheet Guide, http://ann'ssatinsheetguide.com , to wit: What is so great about Satin Sheets? It's the Look and Feel For most people, satin sheets are great for two reasons: Smoothness Smoothness comes from the small size and tight weaving of the fibers. The tighter the weave, the smoother the surface - often described using a term called "thread-count." In order to pack so many threads in a small space, the threads must be very thin. Imagine how rough a sheet made of button thread would be! Man-made fibers like polyester, nylon, an...