October 31st, 2012 | General, the world and Mother Nature
Prolonged periods without electricity are rather like air travel with long layovers—I get a lot of reading done. I finished the last few pages of Andrew Graham-Dixon’s superior biography, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane. Every Third Thought by John Barth—a book...
September 3rd, 2012 | Genealogy, General, Memory, Time Passes, Travel, United States
It wasn’t the wedding my heart yearns for. That wedding must wait until my Tattooed Boy is wrapped in love by some young woman who loves him and his family the way he will no doubt love her and hers. No, this was the nuptials of Young James and His Katie, friends...
August 29th, 2012 | Genealogy, Memory, Time Passes, Travel, United States
In genealogy, I have found, it is always easier to see a connection than prove one, to imagine a family than establish one, to design a tree rather than allow it to grow. When we attempted to track down my Dear One’s Lithuanian progenitors, for instance, an...
August 28th, 2012 | Genealogy, General, Memory, Time Passes, Travel, United States
“Dontchaknow”punctuated her every third or fourth sentence. Granny was fabulous. She was easily moved to laughter, her eyes sparkling and her face a constellation of wrinkles. She made brownies and applesauce. She took us out to lunch at some restaurant between...
August 28th, 2012 | Genealogy, General, Memory, Society at Large, Time Passes, Travel, United States
The headline of The Scranton Times on December 9, 1914 read THIRTEEN MINERS KILLED, Dropped Dynamite Blows Bottom Out of Cage. Actually there was no dynamite. The elevator that carried miners up and down the Tripp Shaft at the Diamond Mine had a rotten floor....
June 16th, 2012 | General, Memory, Politics, Popular Culture, Society at Large, Time Passes
Since bicentennials are a once-in-a-lifetime experience, my Dear One and I found it impossible to ignore the “Star-Spangled Sailabration” of the War of 1812. That war is one of those conflicts largely ignored in American education. We’re very big on the War for...
May 28th, 2012 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Education, Gardens and Gardening, General, Health, Shopping, Travel
The fragrance of Lithuania in May is lilac with a hint of lily-of-the-valley. It is best not to start a two-week vacation with a fall and a sprained ankle. It is worse to start a two-week vacation with a fall and a broken ankle, so count your blessings. Wherever you...
May 27th, 2012 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, General, Travel
As it turned out, all the rooms were good and Lithuanian food is just plain delicious. Choosing hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, gîtes/self-catering apartments is something of a crap shoot. You start with the essentials: parking and free Internet. You move on to the...
May 25th, 2012 | Gardens and Gardening, Genealogy, General, Memory, Politics, Time Passes, Travel
Well we traveled from Maryland to Lithuania to learn more about my Dear One’s progenitors and all we discovered was that his maternal great-grandmother’s name was “Prana” not “Orene” (as it appeared to my eye in a scribble on a ship’s manifest). Apparent that “O” was...
May 24th, 2012 | General, Travel
It was an honest mistake. It was certainly not the fault of the washing machine. It was the kind of thing that happens when one is tired and hot and urgently wanting a change of clothes and needful of clean clothes as soon as possible. It was something of a trek from...
