What no one wants to hear and everyone wants to talk about is their health. Many years ago, when finances were too tight to spend money eating out, I wanted to celebrate an occasion by going to a restaurant with a friend. We chose a medium-priced restaurant that had the look and feel of luxury and we expected to have a lovely dinner. This restaurant had small rooms that gave you the feeling that you were important enough to be …
I was trying to get an early start on sending out holiday cards so I was looking on the Internet for inspiration for something festive but different. Instead, I saw something different, but so far from festive, and so offensive, I had to write about it. It starts with the friend sending a note to Bridezilla: “I still have your candles.” Bridezilla responds: “Yrs sucks but really will help us with bills.” The friend goes on to explain: “What I …
The holidays tend to make us nostalgic, and many people make major decisions based on selective memories when they are feeling mellow, rather than on their true experiences of what really happened. It’s so easy to fall under the holiday spell of peace on earth, good will toward men, that you let the memories of your painful childhood and adulthood fade into the background. It’s at those times that, in a moment of weakness and longing for love and acceptance, …
Thanksgiving has always been a difficult holiday for me. From the time I was a very little girl and only wanted to eat a turkey with feathers . . . to when I became an adult and knew, with absolute conviction, that cooking would never be one of my better skills . . . to becoming an aware adult, that we only think about feeding the poor and homeless at holidays when we can feel magnanimous and spiritual, and seldom …
I know this is the equivalent of heresy but I’m not usually a lover of chain restaurants. Most of the ones I’ve gone to don’t live up to their reputation and I’m always surprised by the number of customers who still patronize them. One of these restaurants is having huge financial problems and is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. The only thing that’s surprising is that it didn’t happen decades ago. I’ve tried this restaurant several times through the …
In my salad days, long before I started earning enough to live on, my friends were much older and established in their careers. Whenever we would go out to a restaurant, I would order the cheapest thing on the menu, mentally counting out the cost of the dinner plus a tip. It never failed, they would order alcoholic beverages and I would order water but, when the bill came, they wanted to split the cost. After a few times of …
I’m not usually given to looking for signs from the universe to guide me in my daily decisions but, for a very brief period of time, that’s exactly what I did. It all began, many years ago, when I went to a Chinese restaurant with a couple of friends. We were having a lovely evening and eating our way to Nirvana when the waitress came over and gave us our Fortune cookies. I usually smile when I read the superficial …
Sometimes I feel as though the century that we left so recently was the 1800s and not the 1900s. In most of the last century, when someone sent us a gift, we wrote a thank you note, or we at least called them to acknowledge it. When we were invited to an event, e.g., a party, a wedding, or anything where a head count was important, we sent back the stamped, self-addressed RSVP that came with the invitation, or we …
When I got my first part-time job as a youngster, I was thrilled with the sixty-five cents an hour minimum wage. I was living at home and all my financial needs were being met. My sixty-five cents an hour felt like I had won the lottery. And I loved the feeling that I could earn money by my own labor. I wasn’t a single mother with a few children to house and feed. My medical and dental needs were covered …
Life is full of those embarrassing moments. And they are even more embarrassing when they are caught on video, compounded by thousands when they go viral. Sometimes a person is lucky enough to have had the worst embarrassing moments before the Internet was born. I remember hearing about a woman who made her living as a diet guru, giving seminars on diet and nutrition. From what I remember, she had gained some weight and had gone to a conference …