It is our tenth year of making Valentine’s Day cookies. I can’t believe how long it’s been. Ten years of making nipple cookies. There’s something to be said for the holiday rituals of married couples. These things sustain us and keep us whole when the world outside is unstable and cold. To use one of our couple idioms, we protect each other from the elements. It’s a good thing to remember on this wintery Valentine’s Day. Nipple cookies make staying inside and warm just the thing.

The origin of the word “swag” is appropriate since we are now in Mardi Gras season. Swag, as a bag to haul stuff around in, has been used for half a century in one form or another.  The version we use today – the free crap you get from car dealers, trade shows, and Mardi Gras floats – first appeared around the 1920s. During that time, it referred specifically to the sort of crap folks got from fairground showmen. From a bag to haul your crap in, to the crap you haul in your bag, either way swag has got it. I hope my husbandRead More →

Even though I’m exactly three weeks early, I’m declaring my resolutions today. It’s never to soon to get started on positive changes in your life, right? In no particular order: 1. I resolve to be a better friend. There are so many friendships I have let slip away. Drift is a natural thing in friendships, of course, but I seem to be quite good at letting people disappear for no real reason other than friendship laziness. Facebook has made this point abundantly clear by bringing people back into my life. Still, clicking on the like button or dropping a comment doesn’t count. I will tryRead More →

1. Food, of course. Good food that you don’t normally eat. 2. The people who make the food. 3. Although I’m not the religious type, and I sometimes get impatient with people who are, I am thankful for their genuine expression of thanksgiving gratitude before the meal. 4. I’m thankful that my husband drove the whole friggen way to Florida. 5. The break from school. Much needed before hell week next week. 6. The cats. They are gracious enough to stay at home and poop and pee in their litter box (we hope). ∞

1. 3-day holiday weekends. 2. The niece is coming home this weekend for what she calls “extended” (i.e., the extended weekends that they get kicked out of the dorms and forced to visit their parents). 3. D&D on Saturday. ∞

Yesterday was a great Valentine’s day. I looked forward to it for two weeks and I wasn’t disappointed. First we woke up at 6:30 AM (gawd) and baked our usual v-day cookies. Then that evening we went out to eat steak at Ruth’s Chris steakhouse. Which was yummy. Last, we went to see another Bollywood movie, Jodhaa Akbar. Essentially, Jodhaa Akbar is a love story between the Muslim Mughal Emperor and his Hindi wife in 16th century India. It stars Aishwarya Rai, who I think is terribly beautiful. The movie was widely anticipated, and we didn’t get good seats because the theater was so full.Read More →

1. I am grateful for our fireplace. I love having a warm fire on these chilly nights. 2. I am grateful for my current housecleaning company. They are reliable even if they are expensive. (Liberal guilt aside….) 3. I am grateful to the person who fixed the printer at work today — it broke down; it was so frustrating. It’s the Christmas season and I have the “Holiday Blahs.” As much as I love Christmas, I am ambivalent about it this year. Perhaps it’s because I’m feeling rather broke, saving money for Ireland. The idea of shopping fills me with dread, however. I don’t lookRead More →

Every year for Valentine’s Day, my husband and I make cookies. We’ve done it now seven times. Of course, with each anniversary comes a recounting from the husband about the previous year’s events, including the cookie-making extravaganza. Twice when we lived in the Garden District bungalow and now five times in our current house. This Valentine’s Day our cookies came out perfectly. And when the news of peanut butter salmonella outbreaks hit the internet and the television, we blew it off, because we heard it was Peter Pan, and we buy the ghetto brand, Great Value. Well, lo and behold, we have two jars ofRead More →

I spent part of today cleaning out my clothes of old clothes. Tomorrow I am going to go through my drawers. A sort of purging, I guess you could say. I don’t know what to do with these clothes, since most of them are good. They aren’t rags or torn or stained. They are just clothes that I don’t wear anymore for a variety of reasons. Which is just embarrassing because it’s emblematic of my crass consumption. I read on ABC an article that talks about where your clothes go when you donate them. They -don’t- go to poor families for free. Anyway, we’re spendingRead More →

In honor of the day — The difference between a yam and sweet potato can be found here: http://www.sallys-place.com/food/columns/ferray_fiszer/yams.htm Yams and sweet potatoes are two different plants from two different parts of the world but most of the yams we get here in the grocery store are really sweet potatoes. I wonder how we would be able to tell the difference. Sweet potatoes are a “Southern Thing” and a big deal in Louisiana. It’s nice that the article mentions this fact.