Grandmas Goulash

He’d fallen for an adventurous blond, never guessing that a red-headed couch potato hid beneath those bleached tresses.  Thirty years later, Ted still reminded her about his broken chair. One more jar of honey and the big oaf would destroy the sofa.  She might have a few flaws, but she was a great cook. Dinner was not too hot and not too cold. Mom should have taken lessons from her.  He might fill the sofa and whack her with his foot, but at least he was always beside her. They had a good marriage.  This week’s word was   whack .

Mrs. Oriole had dreamed of a country home, but this fixer-upper was for the birds.  “I hate to grouse, but I’m worried about living in a condo.” “You’ll love it. Birds of a feather flock together.” “I don’t mean to question your judgment, Jay, but isn’t it a bit run down?” “It has great potential and a bird’s eye view of the clearing.”   “You’d have to be thin as a sparrow to fit through those doors. Face it, baby, you are one round robin.”   This week’s word was  question .

Anyone, who purchases a hundred year old house, should enjoy home improvement projects. I recently posted about my lack of plumbing finesse, but when it came to paper and paint, I was a pro. I began wallpapering out of necessity and learned to love it. Old houses have had plenty of time to settle and that process can create a number of unsightly cracks and bulges that are difficult to mask with just spackle and paint. With fourteen rooms, I knew it would be a long while before I would be able to replace all the damaged walls with new dry wall, so I turned to wallpaper as the easiest way to rejuvenate my home’s appearance. The walls still required some patchwork, of course, but even a major flaw disappeared, when I employed a highly textured covering. I became adept at finding sales and got some very high quality coverings at reduced prices, when there weren’t enough rolls to paper an entire room. These worked well as accent walls. You don’t have to be an interior designer to fi...

My mother was just a year younger than her sister. They were good friends, but my mother always felt as if she had taken second place. Her sister was smarter, her sister was prettier and her sister had curly hair. When I was a kid, she said this often enough that I came to accept it as fact. I was an adult before I looked at some photos of them together and realized that my mother could have been a model.  She had a gorgeous figure, a beautiful face and straight, glossy hair. My aunt was well-groomed, but narrowly spaced eyes, slightly bucked teeth and frizzy curls made the possibility of a modeling career quite remote. I guess the grass is always greener on the on the other side. I’ve often wondered if my aunt longed for straight hair. I don’t know, but I have several friends, who regularly use chemical hair straightening processes. Everyone seems delighted with the results.  Remembering high school girlfriends, who used a flat iron once or twice a day to straig...

No, chain gangs are reserved for crimes less heinous than yours. You’ll spend the next twenty years manning the tourist information booth. Relax. We no longer grab tourists and throw them off the cliff. You will receive a speedy trial. Then we’ll throw you off. Recreation? Music? Dancing? Where did you get that ludicrous idea?        This week’s word was  evolution .

Calico took down our holiday tree on Friday. Yesterday, the rest of the Christmas items were packed away for another year. At least we thought so, until she remembered the decorative bells on the mailbox and I found one more Christmas mug hiding behind the everyday ones. Nevertheless, we felt pretty smug.  A lot of years, Christmas hangs around until the end of January. The year we got the flu in January, we pushed the fully decorated tree into the spare bedroom and shut the blinds, so the neighbors couldn’t see that it was almost March before the stuff got packed away. In the intervening years, we have cut back on decorations and it has simplified both decorating and packing. I was disappointed this year, when my treasured snowman collection couldn’t be found. I can understand how a small thing, like my favorite paring knife, might disappear during a move. A large box of snowmen is a different story. Calico grabbed a flashlight and checked again, but they seemed to have ...

My father was disappointed, when my brothers built a fence that fell over the first time a pig leaned against it. In their defense, Portia was one hefty pig, but even before the fence collapsed, it shook with the slightest breeze. Dad had spent time teaching them basic carpentry skills, but it seemed a wasted investment. No one thought about teaching me. Even I didn’t envision the day, when a hundred year old house would require lots of home maintenance skills. When that day arrived, I joined the school of hard knocks and eventually learned how to replace glass, repair walls, build steps and make basic plumbing repairs. It was a proud day, when I installed a new faucet unit on the laundry room sink. I’d been forced into the job, when I tried to turn on the water and the handle flew off, followed by a torrent of steadily flowing water. Since there was no shutoff at the sink, I had to turn off water to the whole house. I paid a visit to the hardware store and found a new faucet that ins...

It has taken a few months, but we are finally settling into our home and the surrounding area. We haven’t lived in a place this small since the early seventies, when I worked in another college town for a state university. There is much to be said for a community of this size. We don’t miss the crime rates and traffic jams associated with larger cities. Unlike more rural areas, the town is large enough to offer stores, restaurants and medical services. What’s not to like? Technology is the answer and a surprising one, since the town is built around a technical university. The university is wonderfully up to date, but the same cannot be said for the town. It hampered our search for a home. Some realtors offered a webpage with a handful of listings, but no one offered a comprehensive database that could be searched by home hunters. Rental applications were frequently on paper and acceptance took weeks, since references and credit checks are still done via mail. You can’t pay for mos...