Holidays

I must admit that now that one of my sisters is no longer a teetotaler, Christmas has become a more Bacchanalian celebration. I started with sampling my brother-in-law’s very expensive Scotch (yuck!) followed by a more palatable, but still nasty expensive cognac.  After the ice melted more in the cognac, I reported that the secret … Continue reading »

About a month before visiting my sister’s family in VA, I bought an expensive winter coat for $10 + taxes to prepare for the much colder weather than what I normally experience in Austin.  Despite my early morning flight, I still didn’t need my winter coat en route to my final destination. Not only was … Continue reading »

Thanksgiving comes as a wonderful break from work to sleep in and then work on various, small, creative projects. In other words, I truly rejuvenate myself. One thing that I put together was my famous cornbread for the Orphans’ Thanksgiving, hosted by a meetup couple. Not only is one of them a chef, but they … Continue reading »

I love any excuse to get dressed up; so when I got the invitation to a Halloween party in the middle of October, of course I jumped on it. Funny thing is, I didn’t take a single picture, but that’s no problem. I wore the same costume I wore at the last Austin Writers Roulette: … Continue reading »

 On June 19th, 1865 Texas slaves in Galveston heard the announcement that they were free. For this year’s Juneteeth celebration, I volunteered to do a character interpretation of one of the newly freed slaves. Although I read through all the lively character interpretations, I was assigned to by Mattie Gilmore. According to her narrative, she … Continue reading »

It’s been scientifically proven that the idea of race is unscientific. Even when we talk about the “human race,” what we are actually referring to is “species.”  (The definition of a species is a population of organisms that can breed and produce fertile offspring.) With the influence of global media, people around the world can share … Continue reading »

The annual Christmas trip back home to visit my family, including nieces and nephews, went as predicted: lots of laughs, stories, trivial bickering, far too much food and far too little exercise. Within seven days, I only managed to gain six pounds and do a half set of bikram yoga twice and something that one … Continue reading »

I faced a little more drama than usual on my annual Christmas trip home. First of all, the famous “Mayan End of the World” countdown came to a heads the day before I hopped on a plane. Since the world didn’t come to end, as I knew it wouldn’t, I finished up my Christmas shopping … Continue reading »

This was the first time in a couple of years that I wasn’t participating in an annual tango festival over the Thanksgiving holiday. Instead, I celebrated Thanksgiving four times with different groups of people. The first was a monthly poetry potluck that occurs every third Saturday at a private residence in Dripping Springs. This was … Continue reading »