​I’m grateful to my parents for teaching me table manners.
 
Getting more specific, their schooling was in the etiquette of eating out.
 
Also, learning this sort of comportment wasn’t by chance.
 
Indeed, and from a very young age, perhaps kindergarten, our family went out to dinner about every six weeks. We were a single breadwinner unit, and my father, a postal clerk, didn’t make much. In fact, scrimping was my mother’s full-time job: her friends said she could make a pound of ground beef last a week.
 
That’s not far from the truth.
 
Nonetheless, going out to what was then considered an upscale restaurant was an important ritual that we rarely missed.

And for many years, our lessons were at only one place—the downtown Jones' Family Restaurant in Long Beach, California, where I was born and raised.
 
My mom and dad picked Jones' for a few reasons.
 
Geographically, it was both close to my dad’s post office job and since we didn’t own a car, a bus stop. But I think
the main reason for dining there was the ambiance. Boasting beautiful menus; white cotton-or-maybe-linen
tablecloths and sparkling china, the place was owned and operated by a local family who clearly took pride
in their business.
 
All of these features made Jones' the perfect place to practice eating out in public. So it was that here, I discovered how to properly order dinner; place and then unfold a napkin in my lap, and definitely, to never gulp my food. Sipping
milk from a heavy crystal glass wasn’t easy for a little kid, but more times than not, I aced it. 
 
Also, the food wasn’t fancy—I don’t remember prime rib or lobster-- but it was always good, much like the kind of all-American, sensible recipes you’d find in a women’s magazine from the 1960s. Offerings included roast beef, lamb and chicken coquettes, along with salad and dessert selections, with the latter two choices wheeled right up to the table. The most exotic offering was Manhattan clam chowder, which my father always ordered because he hated salad. I also remember Jones’ signature orange biscuits melting in my mouth.  
 
It’s amazing that I can recall any of these details, since Jones' Family Restaurant closed decades ago.
 
But the memories, and the lessons learned there, have obviously lingered.  
 
Maybe that’s why a recent news story about Chez Xue, a restaurant in Foster City near San Francisco, caught
my attention.
 
According to several media reports, while owner You You Xue considers his eatery to be family friendly, “we are not
a playground.”  So, now on the Chez Xue menu in full view, an announcement details a new policy.
 
"Please control your children," the notice reads. “Please ensure children REMAIN SEATED at all times and respectful of fellow guests and the dining environment. Running around, shouting, making noise with utensils, etc. WILL NOT
BE TOLERATED!”
 
The new rule goes on to say that “guests not respecting this policy may be asked to leave.”
 
Xue added that coming up with the policy wasn’t a hasty decision.
 
Instead, his rules came to be over the course of a full year, when Xue began to notice that parents increasingly seemed to be "abdicating personal responsibility" when it came to raising their children.
 
Finally, there’s one more tenet—and it’s about cold hard cash.  
 
While Xue has clarified that parents will never be penalized for actual accidents, they will have to cough up dough
for damages caused by a child’s reckless behavior.
 
So far, there have been two incidents: one, a thrown-to-the-ground teacup, which cost the customer five dollars,
and two, a shattered point of sale device, which typically includes a touchscreen, tablet or credit card reader for
​paying a bill. That loss cost the restaurant guest $327.  
 
Perhaps not surprisingly, Xue says that the response to these new rules have been overwhelmingly supportive.
 
In fact, new customers have shown up because they’ve heard about the policy and consequently, want to support Chez Xue for taking this stand.
 
I’m also thumbs-up on these rules.
 
While I feel bad for some parents who truly can’t control their kid’s dining-out manners, eating out is expensive, and other guests shouldn’t have to put up with this conduct. Years ago, when The Daughter was very young, she had a massive tantrum in a very nice restaurant. I picked her up and we left.
 
And, guess what? My child loved to eat out, and that behavior never happened again.
 
As for me, I am forever grateful to both my parents and Jones' Family Restaurant.
 
Where did you learn proper table manners? And what do you think of Chez Xue’s policy?

I used to be a circus clown named Celery.
 
How I got there is a story that some family has never heard, and now want me to tell.
 
Thus, while memories have faded, here goes.
 
But first, and unlike most other clowns I’ve known over the years, I was never crazy about the circus.
 
I attended one Ringling Brothers show as a kid, and while the acts were terrific, there was no longing to see the event again. Even though I loved to read, and even after discovering classic Hollywood movies a few years later, I never thought to seek out circus-themed books or films.  
 
Then, as is so often the case, college changed everything.
 
Having done some acting in high school, my first-year major at UCLA in the fall of 1972 was theatre arts. Most of
​the action happened at McGowan Hall, and with all of my heart, I believed that I had found my place.
 
However, I quickly discovered that I was utterly out of my depth.
 
Likely because of UCLA’s proximity to Hollywood, as well as its stellar drama program, many freshmen were already union actors. I even saw one in a national commercial. Visiting celebrities added to my insecurity: I spotted Beau Bridges, Joyce DeWitt and Lucie Arnaz hanging around Macgowan.
 
Just as important, it wasn’t long before I realized that I didn’t have the needed passion to succeed as an actress.
 
A lot of my theatre chums were thrilled to paint sets and work late into the night, showing up because they loved theatre and not caring that there was no extra credit. I never missed class but after hours, preferred to read in my dorm room.
 
So, no surprise, in my sophomore year, I switched my major to undeclared.
 
Then, one fine morning, life took a pivot.  
 
I just happened to catch a segment on the local news with two Ringling clowns. Working as advance agents and bedecked in full makeup and costume, they were on camera to publicize a couple of things.
 
One, The Greatest Show on Earth was coming to Los Angeles. Two, there were going to be auditions for this thing called Clown College,  also known as CC.
 
That got my attention.
 
Here, I thought, was where I could start anew.
 
In retrospect, I don’t know why I came to this conclusion so swiftly.
 
After all, besides not having seen a circus in years, I had exactly zero circus skills.
 
I had never juggled; walked a tightrope, or even thrown a pie properly. Still, I played violin and had done some tumbling as a child, becoming adept at somersaults and standing on my head. My audition, which took place in late July, was just okay. But then, after finding out that there was a long and required written application, and also knowing I was a decent writer, I figured I could ace that part of the process.  
 
Much later, I discovered that a good number of Clown College alums never auditioned. But like me, their thoughtful prose caught the attention of the CC admissions team.
 
In what I now consider a small miracle, I recently found a completed copy of the five densely written pages I wrote in the summer of 1974. This was only going to be the seventh year of CC—the school didn’t officially end until 1997—and a new crop of youngsters was always needed. The joke from some of the 70something Ringling clowns was while they could still fall down, they had trouble getting up. 
 
The application questions were definitely eclectic, including “If you could be someone else, who would you be and why?”, “Describe briefly memorable turning points in your life,” and “Rate your boiling point on a scale from one to 10.”
 
We were also told to write our replies by hand, with the rumor that Ringling had hired a handwriting expert and also took our astrological signs into consideration. I don’t know about the former, but SCORPIO was printed in bold letters by someone else on the top page of the questionnaire.    
 
As to why I so badly wanted to get out of town, that was an easy answer.
 
My life was a hot mess.
 
Now ending my second year at UCLA with no path forward toward acting, I spent a lot of hours wondering why I was still in college. Also, my parents and I expended an inordinate amount of time loudly butting heads.
 
And then there was this other, way bigger thing: I was madly in love with a much older journalist, a popular and hard-drinking newspaper columnist in my hometown who had swept me off my feet. I wanted him to love me back as fiercely as I worshipped him. He didn’t, which was also complicated by the fact that he wasn’t going to leave his wife.
 
All in all, it was time to run away and join the circus.  
 
Thankfully, I was one of 48 would-be clowns accepted into the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Clown College, Class of 1974. Our curriculum began in late September and ended eight weeks later. Tuition was free, but we had to get to Florida on our own, then cough up room and board and the cost of clown makeup. Most of those chosen were guys, but there were seven girls, too.  
 
We were a talented crew.
 
There was Barry Lubin, who later saw his face plastered all over New York City as Grandma The Clown with The Big Apple Circus. Another classmate was Bill Irwin, recipient of a hefty MacArthur Genius grant in 1984. After that, Bill was Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street, and then scored a Tony Award. He’s still a working clown and actor.
 
I must also mention Steve LaPorte, who auditioned right out of high school on a whim. A few years later, he was an acclaimed makeup artist and Oscar winner. Other classmates were a magician working at the Trivoli Gardens in Copenhagen when he got his CC acceptance letter; a long-haired comic book artist, and a former US Army Captain recently returned from Vietnam. Also, second in command at CC was David Nicksey, who’s now an A-list Hollywood executive producer with credits including Wicked, In The Heights and Addams Family Values.
 
Despite its festive name, Clown College wasn’t all lollipops and rainbows.  
 
Landing at night in Sarasota, I remember exiting the plane and feeling a blast of the hottest, most humid air I’d ever experienced. I was soon living 15 miles away at the Venice Villas with all of the other students. A not-quite rundown motel with kitchenettes and thank goodness, air conditioning, the cost was $25 per week. Each of us was assigned a roommate, and a mini-bus and station wagons provided transportation between the Villas and the Venice Arena, one mile away and where Ringling had its Winter Quarters and where we attended classes.
 
The schedule wasn’t easy: six days a week, starting early in the morning with dismissal late in the afternoon. This much time was needed because there was a lot to cover: 16 subjects, including stilt-walking, elephant riding and clown makeup. There were the same number of lectures, with circus jargon, trouper nutrition and history of the Big Tops being some of the topics.
 
In addition, we were encouraged to return later in the evening to see movies starring Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, two of the best silent clowns ever. Another must watch was Cecil B. DeMille’s 1950 classic, The Greatest Show
​on Earth.  

I took in every minute. 
 
I learned to juggle with lacrosse balls and see-through scarves; balance a peacock feather on my nose, and ride a rolling cylinder called a rolla-bolla. Sort of a tiny teeter-totter, it was a  wooden board in which I placed one foot on one side of the board and my other foot on the other side. Underneath was a large metal cylinder that made the board sway back and forth. Keeping my balance wasn’t easy, especially while juggling and wearing oversized clown shoes, but eventually I aced it.
 
I also became very good at my favorite thing: running up to and then leaping onto a very long banquet table covered with baby powder. From there, I slid across the entire table and somersaulted off. My black-and-blue thighs were testament to my success.
 
Our last official day of Clown College was an hours-long, nighttime performance designed to  show off our talents for an audience that included the owners of Ringling. We were told that this single show was going to determine who would be offered a contract.  
 
The next morning, several of us assembled at the arena, waiting to see who was going to win this particular lottery.  
 
Shortly after arriving, I asked the head of Clown College where I stood. He stared at me for a moment and then said, “You were passed over.” Then he walked away.
 
That was it.
 
As it turned out, about half of us were offered contracts and about half weren’t. The latter group also included the magician, the comic book artist and the Army captain. Later, I was told that while some CC students were picked for their talent, just as many were invited for other reasons. 
 
Those details included having the right personality thought to fit into the circus, whatever that meant. Or, some were recruited because they could rock a certain costume, and maybe deemed more acrobatic than others. And, some, especially students from small towns, were offered the gig because they were perceived as naïve youngsters who could be easily molded to the RBB & Bailey way of doing things.  
 
Those new clowns were told to report back in January, with everyone else returning to the lives they had had before. I slunk home to California.
 
But I had learned so many new skills that I wanted to use them.
 
To do otherwise, I thought, would waste all of those weeks of training. This meant that despite the Ringling rejection, I still wanted to be a circus clown. So, and after asking, someone gave me a list of small circuses where I could send a query, including Rudy Brothers, Carden-Johnson Circus, Polack Brothers Circus and the lofty sounding James Harrington Pan American Circus. 
 
My prayer was answered.
 
Rudy Brothers mailed me a congratulatory letter with a contract. The pay was $175 per week, $25 more than Ringling paid!
 
That was a fortune to me, but there was no train and my car had to double as a bedroom.
 
I drove a Datsun sedan, and one of the workers removed the front passenger seat and procured a long plywood board to lay a sleeping bag on. I also made some curtains for privacy, and figured out how to dress in that small space. Showers were a luxury, but I welcomed them whenever I could find one.
 
Also, and like every little circus, Rudy hit venues that didn’t offer the crowds Ringling needed.
 
So, taking the name Celery because it was both close to my own name and kids remembered it, I clowned around in Salinas and Yuba City, both in California, as well as Lynn, Massachusetts; Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Cincinnati, Ohio. We boasted a terrific trapeze act, as well as baby elephants and trained dogs. These animals weren’t pets, but they were treated with great respect because they were crucial to the acts. Usually we’d set up in a mall parking lot, but there were also rodeo grounds and baseball fields.  
 
I thought I’d continue with Rudy or another similar show after the first season. In fact, I had more names of other circuses now where I could send letters. I think I sent a few.
 
But something unexpected happened while clowning.
 
I realized it was time to go back to college.
 
There were more than a few reasons for doing so.
 
At the top of the list was that the road was very lonely. The internet hadn’t yet been invented, so of course, laptops and iPhones didn’t exist. That left little contact with the outside world, with me depending on the occasional letter from a few friends sent via USPS General Delivery to the next town on the Rudy itinerary. I also had to use paper maps to get to our destinations, something that I wasn’t particularly adept at doing.
 
Plus, with all of the solo driving back and forth across the country, as well as performing, my brain was turning to mush. No longer a voracious bookworm, the only thing I could stand reading now were true romance magazines; even newspapers were hard to comprehend.
 
To sum it up, I was exhausted.  
 
Two years after Clown College, I enrolled at San Jose State, finally realizing my passion and eventually, scoring a journalism degree. I also did some clowning on the side, including birthday parties and corporate events. For a while, I was even the official clown of the San Jose Farmers Market.
 
But my heart was no longer really into it, although I kept all of my costumes, props and makeup for decades. I couldn’t bear to throw them out, and was thrilled when the International Clown Hall of Fame in Wisconsin agreed to let me donate these items a few years ago. 
 
Still, I’m Celery in a lot of ways.
 
This includes being in a private Facebook group of former Clown College and Ringling clown alumni, many of whom continue to perform. With The Hubster and The Daughter, I attended a CC reunion in 2008, and after 50-plus years, I’m still friends with the magician and the cartoonist.  
 
As for the newspaper columnist, he lost a child; joined a 12-step program, and married two more times. We kept in sporadic contact, last speaking over 20 years ago. He told me then that the stupidest thing he had ever done in his life was not marrying me.
 
Looking back, there are three huge takeaways I got from Clown College and my life as Celery.
 
One, I found some extraordinary friends I would never have come into contact with anywhere else. That has been an incredible gift. Two, I made a lot of people laugh, including lots of children who treated me like a movie star and asked for my autograph.
 
But the third and most important lesson has been this.
 
You can be afraid of trying something new—I absolutely was--but it doesn’t mean that you have to succumb to that fear. Just do it, even when you’re afraid.
 
This self-taught mantra has led me through a life of challenges, surprises and much happiness.
 
Clown College, and becoming Celery, was the starting point.
       

Call me an old biddy, but I cringe when I hear the F word.
 
Decades ago, I believed that this once pearl-clutching, verbal bomb could never make its way into everyday vocabulary.
   
Yet here we are.
 
Frequent usage seems to ring especially true for millennials, the generation  who entered our world between 1981
and 1996, and with Gen Z folks, born between 1997 and 2012. But this four-letter word is now uttered by lots of
older folks, too. In that circus tent, the list includes a retired newspaperman friend; a graphic artist blogger,
and no surprise here, our own President of the United States.
   
The latter, in fact, used the word while glancing at a hefty pile of paperwork regarding pardons for thousands
of January 6 rioters. 
 
Apparently annoyed at being made to wade through each case, Donald Trump said, “F—k it: release ‘em all.” And
a few months ago, visibly angry about the war between Iran and Israel, Trump told television reporters, live and on
camera, that the two nations have been fighting “so long  and so hard that they don’t know what the f—k they’re doing.”
 
Both outbursts made headlines. But no one seemed to care much. 
 
In fact, there’s no escape from hearing the F bomb—sometimes many times in  one day.   
 
How did this happen?
 
Some say social media is the culprit, with one study finding that f—k is the most commonly tweeted curse word.
Other research concludes that swearing has health benefits: supposedly, cursing boasts our pain tolerance by
over 30 percent. Who can’t get on board with that?
 
Maybe the explosion of cable and streaming services that allow the word share some blame as well. After all,
these platforms are more popular than PG-rated broadcast networks; also, none are mandated to censor curse words
the way that mainstream TV and radio outlets are required to do.
 
But many movies seen in theatres aren’t any less responsible. Did you know that the second-highest grossing movie
of 2024, Deadpool &  Wolverine, reportedly has 116 f—ks in just over two hours?
 
By the way, this film was released by Disney.
 
Yet on the flip side of the coin, writers can choose to not be lazy.
 
In fact, more creative descriptives are always at hand whenever a character is frightened; in a perilous place, or
​even happy.
 
Indeed, neither of this summer’s two biggest blockbusters—Jurassic World Rebirth and Superman, both replete with nonstop danger, death-defying special effects and terror—includes the F word, not even a single utterance. Of course,
the same is true for all classic movies, including Gone With The Wind, Jaws and every Hitchcock thriller. 
 
I’d never heard the F word until I was a tween.
 
That was the summer my mom and I visited my aunt and uncle. We slept away from their house in an adjoining
 cabin, which had once served as a bunk house for a failed school my uncle had run for troubled kids. On one wall
 was a couple of rows of masking tape. A curious kid, I had to see what was hidden underneath, so very, very carefully,
 I peeled the tape off.
 
 There, the words “F—CK YOU!” were spelled out. Incredibly naïve, I thought the word rhymed with “kook.”
 When I asked my prudish mother for a definition, she first tightened her lips and then replied, “It means two
 teenagers who aren’t married who screw each other.”
 
 Okay. That was her point of view, but it wasn’t even close to accurate.
 
In fact, while the exact origin of the word isn’t known, many theories point toward German, Dutch or Scandinavian
roots going back to the early 1300s. Providing more context, f—k might have come from the German “ficken” or
“fucken,” which means to hit, strike or penetrate.
 
Of course, every generation always comes up with its own way of expressing itself with new slang or phrases.
 
Sometimes the words carry over time and sometimes they don’t. Indeed, when was the last time you heard someone
say “fiddlesticks,” “fudge” or “gee willikers?”
 
In any case, and because I don’t live an isolated life, I’ll just have to live with hearing f—k over and over again.  
 
But that doesn’t mean I need to like it.    

​In these wearying times, I’m grateful for my house plants.  
 
And for a whole lot of reasons, this is A Very Good Thing.
 
Greeting me every morning, my leafy menagerie rests on a rectangular coffee table only a few steps from our bed. Here, I see nearly a dozen plants in clay and ceramic pots, mostly with matching saucers. There’s a larger pot to the left as well, placed on a cracked piano stool that still swivels. I get to look at all of this greenery while doing my yoga practice, too, since the only place my mat fits is smack in front of the table.

And given that the table is parallel to a large window facing our backyard, the plants get a great view, too.
 
I suspect that most indoor plants come from a nursery, garden center or hardware store.
 
But none of my plants were purchased from any of these places.
 
Instead, each pot has its own back story.
 
Two are avocado plants started from big shiny pits, one of which already had a fat two inch root growing out of it when I sliced the avocado in half. Despite the fact that this fruit is a mega cash crop in California, I wasn’t very successful with growing them when I lived there. But for whatever reason, these avos are thriving at nearly three feet high, and show no signs of stopping.
 
There are also two jade seedlings from the beach town where I last resided, as well as tulips in a tin turquoise container. Rounding out the group is dual golden pothos, taken from cuttings snipped from a meandering plant at a friend’s beauty salon in California. Similar to a philodendron but with less pointy leaves and more variegated hues, they not only take me back to the place where I used to get my hair done, but also remind me of my dear friend.  
  
There are also three lemon plants started from seeds. All are very slow growers; I know, too, that they’ll never bear fruit. But they’re here because they remind me of my roots, no pun intended. After all, I’m a second generation native of the Golden State, and remember picking this citrus all year round from a tree in my childhood yard.    
 
The house where I grew up had a big grassy backyard with borders of pale pink poppies and cherry red azaleas; a row of pomegranate trees, and the afore mentioned lemon tree.  
 
But I don’t recall any indoor plants, which might be why I never acquired any until I left home.
 
It helped that this was the 1970s, and the houseplant craze was in full force.  
 
Going along with this time, there were lots of how-do books on inside greenery then, too.
 
The one I remember best is a nearly 100-page illustrated book from the editors of Sunset Magazine. The unofficial bible of houseplants for its time, the title is succinct: How To Grow Houseplants. Given that the authors wanted
readers to find success, plants here included the snake plant, which was accurately heralded as a houseplant
that couldn’t be killed.
 
Spider and wandering Jew plants were also in the mix since they were cheap; grew fast, and were easy to maintain. Another plus: these latter two plants paired perfectly with those crafty macrame holders made out of twine, which complemented the hippie homespun look so popular then in millions of American living rooms.  
 
But since then, I’ve learned that houseplants do way more than making a space feel homey.
 
First, there’s this no brainer:
 
Given that an astounding 85 percent of our lives are spent indoors, houseplants are a simple way to bring nature directly into our homes. That fact is even more of a benefit for those who must stay inside more than others, bound by age, illness or a permanent disability.
 
And, since plants replace carbon dioxide with fresh oxygen, houseplants also improve indoor air quality.
 
One study went further, concluding that even the soil in potted plants can help clean the inside air we breathe. Other research by NASA concluded that indoor plants can further improve what we breathe in by removing cancer-causing chemicals such as formaldehyde and benzene, common ingredients found in many household cleaning products.   
 
However, the biggest and most immediate benefit for me is that my plant table always make me smile, even when
I’m having a tough day.
 
Finally, my plant table is a living example of this: they show me that winter never fails to turn into spring.

Wrapped presents under a tree, spectacular lighting displays and fancy cookies all make Christmastime a very happy time of year.
 
But another December custom might not be getting the attention it deserves.
 
Getting engaged.  
 
In the last week, and just in my not-all-that-large social media circus tent, I’ve learned of 1-2-3 marriage proposals.
 
All took place in different states, either on Christmas Day or right before. One is a friend whose daughter’s partner dropped down to a knee. Another is a circus clown colleague—his older brother has been with the same woman for well over 15 years and the timing fit. The third is a television producer who I knew back in the age of the dinosaurs, when we both worked on the same network show. It’s her daughter whose ring finger now has a sparkly stone.
 
Thinking back, my husband’s middle child—married for about a dozen years and now mom to four kiddos—posed with her then-new fiancé, twinkling Christmas tree right behind them, shortly after receiving her proposal in Arizona.
 
When I reminded the Hubster of this, he said that he had also asked his late wife to marry him at Christmastime.
I hadn’t known the whole story, but now I’ve found out that he was still in college, and had finally paid off the simple diamond ring purchased on layaway for $20 per week. The solitaire diamond was in his suit pocket when he popped the question on Christmas Eve, parked at a church lot in Ohio just prior to a midnight service.
 
Obviously, I’ve missed the boat when it comes to knowing much about this decades-long tradition.
 
However, and thanks to some internet sleuthing, I’ve since learned that asking for someone’s hand in December is way more common than I had thought.
 
In fact, according to a 2017 Washington Post piece, wedding experts and social media sites affirm that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day are the most popular days of the year to pop the question.
  
So, and no surprise here, Googling “why is getting engaged during the holidays a thing” brings a surplus of articles that show December engagements to be a virtual industry in itself. Included is Why Christmas Is The Most Wonderful Time to Get Engaged!, Why the Holidays are the Best Time to Get Engaged and Why is Christmas Such A Popular Time To Propose?
 
The latter headline is from Diamond Rocks, a United Kingdom website that also informed me that over 100,000 engagements occur during the Christmas season on the other side of the pond. Breaking that number further down, a full 40 percent happened  between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day in 2020, likely the last time this sort of survey was done.  
 
Diamond Rocks goes on to say that these December engagements make sense since it’s a time when lots of family and friends get together, as well as the fact that “people are in high spirits, feeling festive and willing to take time to reflect on the year that has passed.”
 
From the same Washington Post piece quoted earlier, jeweler Matthew Rosenheim gives similar reasons. “It’s a special, emotional time, he says. “People are around family, and they want to share those special moments when there’s time to enjoy it without some of the pressures of day-to-day life.”
 
I’ll add one more thought.
 
Christmas Day falls only a week before the New Year begins. Typically, then, the end of the year is both a season for joy and a season for reflection. With the latter, that might mean changing gears in the upcoming year.
 
When it comes to love, this could include who we’ve chosen to leave behind, as well as who we want to take with us.
 
Still, every engagement, no matter when, where or how it happens, should come down to only this: the surety to take that bold and scary leap of faith.
 
Oh, and one more thing.
 
Before saying yes, make sure you love that person back as fiercely as he or she loves you.
 
Happy holidays!
 
    

I fell in love with my stove five years ago.
 
And now, it’s gone.
 
I mooned over this gas appliance almost as soon as when I walked into the Oregon house that became our home. Plain white—not that polished stainless steel that everyone but me seems to adore—and the opposite of swanky in every other way, it nonetheless had a certain panache.
 
For instance, there were all sorts of matching white knobs on the back splash that looked and felt like Bakelite, including one that was a timer and another used to turn the oven temperature up and down. There was even a small old-fashioned clock with little red hands that worked.  
 
Nothing was digitized.
 
But mostly, I loved this stove because it was a reliable workhorse.
 
I make dinners from scratch and I also bake. This stove took me up on everything I offered—whether that meant a vintage casserole with canned cream of mushroom soup and grated cheddar cheese on top; a sheet-pan recipe for chicken and herbs, or a maraschino cherry cake. The broiler was odd because it wasn’t in its own bottom drawer: instead, there was a compact coiled up concoction attached to the oven ceiling. But it, too, performed with finesse, especially when I was jonesing for cinnamon toast.
 
But over time, and like all vintage stuff, I began to notice new dings and dents.
 
The timer stopped working and the clock wasn’t as accurate as it had once been. The oven light went kaput, but the bulb to replace it was no longer being made. Also, and now more often than not, the flames under the burners weren’t evenly distributed. Indeed, I’d occasionally have to light a match to get one to work.
 
But despite these irritations, the stove continued to do what I needed it to do.
 
Also, I never give up until I’m absolutely forced to.
 
That finally came when I suddenly couldn’t close the oven door. A closer look revealed that a hinge had snapped.
The Hubster tried to put that part back in place but he didn’t have the tools to do so.
 
After a few weeks of looking and making calls—thank goodness, we have a small air fryer that doubles as an oven--we found a replacement hinge at a warehouse in the Midwest.
 
But it was the only part still being manufactured for this stove, which was considered obsolete even though this model debuted in 1994. So, if anything else went out, which was more likely than not, we’d be stuck. Also, the hinge alone carried a price tag of over $100. Adding shipping and installation could very well double the cost.   
 
I went into a bit of a grieving process.
 
Nonetheless, the next step was clear. It was time to buy a new stove.
 
Going online, I found one made in the United States that could work. It also came in various colors and I settled on the pale, icy blue hue. This stove would fit perfectly in our blue and white kitchen! We drove to the family owned appliance store in town that carried the model. I was very excited until the price was revealed: $5,300, not including the costs of unhooking and removing the old stove and installing the new one.  
 
But then, and nearly hidden at the end of the new stove aisle, I saw what had surely been waiting for me all along--
a simple white stove.
 
While the model was brand new, it was also basic in a 2024 kind of way.
 
Compared to my unworkable stove, the knobs didn’t weigh as much and there were also less of them. In fact, temperature control, as well as the clock and oven light and a bunch of other things, were all digitized. Also, instead of individual cast iron grates for each burner, this stove had one heavy, black grate that rested on the entire top of
​the stove.
 
So, while it wasn’t my first pick, we ordered it. After all, the model had everything I needed, and was also about one-fifth the price of the icy blue one. We got lucky on the timing, too: one week later, the stove was in place, the centerpiece in our kitchen. 
 
How much do I love this new stove and barely remember my old one?
 
A lot.
 
The burners literally ignite in one second, with the flame perfectly even all of the way around. There’s also an extra burner, oblong-shaped and in the center, that’s meant for grilling.  And thanks to its digital features, my desired oven temperature is now exactly on the mark, with the stove even making a little ding sound that happens once the heat gets to where I programmed it to be. Also, the window looking into the oven is much larger than the one on my old stove.
 
And, I can’t forget to mention the oven light.
 
Given the years I’d been without one, I’d forgotten that such a feature even existed. In fact, I was so delighted that when I turned the light on for the first time, I think I yelped a little and maybe even clapped my hands.
 
A great many folks, especially women, seem to get their retail therapy from new clothes or purses or shoes.
 
That’s A Very Good Thing, but my truth is this.
 
I’ll take a brand new stove any day.  

​Life would be way more worrying for me if there were no blank journals, Post-it pads and daybooks.   
 
Sitting next to my laptop, my floral-covered journal is within reach for any number of things that I consistently write down while working online. Included are random arithmetic problems; letters eliminated from my daily Wordle habit, and headlines for articles that I’ll later retrieve. When I travel, I also keep a smaller notebook for casual thoughts and doodles, but more often, it’s used as a way to track my itinerary.
 
Post-its aren’t employed as often, but when I do buy them, they’re always in bright, eclectic colors. There are a few stuck directly below my office windowsill right now, where those colors remind me about important info such as how to contact our cable provider, or let me know I have an important call to make in a few days.
 
When it comes to my large daybook, that’s used to note any number of occasions, such as medical appointments; the day and time I’m scheduled to have lunch or FaceTime with a friend, or when to see a movie. Honestly, I can’t start a new year without one.
 
I know I’m a dying breed.
 
Indeed, the older Hubster keeps track of nearly everything, including grocery shopping lists and his schedule for the week, on his iPhone. Counting back several decades, the 20something daughter doesn’t appear to own any paper at all. Everything, such as online banking and paying bills, is done via a smart phone or Apple watch. Even her boyfriend, who works remotely as the operations manager for a large website, seems to need very little paper.
 
In fact, they don’t even own a printer. After all, why buy a piece of equipment—one that not so long ago, was utterly required for a home office—if it’s never going to be used?
 
But for me, keeping track of life via paper is an action that’s non-negotiable.
 
Maybe it’s because my brain operates more effectively with visual cues as opposed to auditory prompts. 
 
For instance, a friend might tell me about a recipe that she knows I’ll like. While she recites the ingredients, prep time and cooking temperature, I’ll smile and gamely nod in the affirmative. However, unless I jot the instructions down while she’s speaking, I won’t remember a thing.
 
So, I’ve learned that taking pen to paper is one of the best ways to take care of myself.
 
And, as it turns out, writing by hand has other benefits that I hadn’t considered.
 
Indeed, a 2021 article in Psychology Today suggests that handwritten notes on paper are actually a more superior way to organize one’s life.
 
One, putting a thought down on paper is faster than digital note taking. Two, these notes tend to be more accurate, and also leave room for personalized flairs. Three, scientists have found that handwriting in a notebook triggers more robust brain activity. And finally, writing by hand is associated with stronger memory retrieval. 
 
Technology can be, and often is, wonderful. 
 
Yet sometimes, and for some of us, the old-fashioned method is not only simpler.
 
It’s better.  

I love freelance writing, but I hate having to chase what I’m owed.
 
In the years since I started my writing business, I’ve had terrific clients who pay as soon as they receive an invoice. But sadly, about half of those who hire me hem and haw when it comes to paying the bill.
 
This, in spite of the fact that every one of them praises my work.   
 
Here’s a case in point.
 
Last year, a client who helms a very successful Lasik company in California wanted web site copy for a new venture. In explaining her eye surgery company, she made it clear that she was a very wealthy woman. So, I gave her my hourly rate—much less than what a Los Angeles or New York City writer charges--and she seemed ready to go. Indeed, she already had a domain and knew her goal: to convince movers and shakers in her town to expand the local airport.  
 
I’ll note here that while the topic was fun, this wasn’t an easy-peasy assignment.   
 
Among other requests, she wanted stories and the research behind them about how the location came to be an airport; famous flights that had arrived and departed, as well as the facility’s part in World War I and World War II. Some phone interviews were also in the mix. She had their names but little contact information; I had to dig that up myself.
 
After completing the initial consulting end of the job, I sent her an invoice.
 
She got off a check right away. But instead of making payment out to me, she wrote the name of my business. My bill had been very clear about using my name. Nonetheless, hope springs eternal: I took the check to my bank. Not surprisingly, the bank refused to deposit it. So I tore up the check, mailed it back, and then explained that I was going to keep working.
 
However, I’d now need another check, one that was properly made out.
 
This time, it took a couple of weeks to receive payment.  Thankfully, though, she followed directions.
 
As promised, I completed the job after several weeks, always making sure to communicate with her about what I was writing. Then, I emailed a final invoice for $300.
 
Not long after, new excuses began.   
 
One was that while my writing was great, I hadn’t penned exactly what she wanted.
 
Now, she really only wanted captions to historical photos, not the one and two-page features on the topics I had
sent her and that we had agreed upon. Next time I called her office, I was informed that she was in Texas
on an extended stay.
 
Luckily, I had her cell number. 
 
On this call, she told me she had instructed someone at her business to pay me while she was away. “You know how it is,” she said. “People never do any work when I’m gone!” She promised to contact her supposed-to-mail-the-check employee right away.
 
Of course, this took more time and more calls on my part. Well over a month after sending the invoice, I
​received payment.
 
Other stories in my collection scrapbook include a large public university which took over two months to pony up. Another client opined that she hadn’t paid me because her children were sick. With the latter, I sent a sympathetic email telling her I was praying for her kids, and then knocked on her front door the next day. She quickly figured out that I wasn’t going to leave until I received my money, so, she got out her checkbook.  
 
Still, I wasn’t going to take any chances. I cashed the check at her bank before going home.
 
I know it’s not only freelance writers who deal with this.
 
The list includes most folks who identify as self-employed—artists, interior decorators, teachers, house painters and yes, even clowns. Also, I remember that decades ago, doctors and dentists mailed bills. But now, medical offices post signs stipulating that payment is due at the same time services are rendered. Come to think of it, plumbers and electricians and handymen operate the same way.
 
I wish my freelancing didn’t have to include wearing a collection hat.
 
But as long as I keep writing, and until a new rubric comes along, it’s part of the job. 

There’s something about holiday baking that makes the season seem brighter.
 
Maybe that’s why I whipped up more goodies than usual this month.
 
I began with my favorite snowballs, also known as Mexican wedding cookies or Russian tea cakes. It really doesn’t matter what one calls them, since they’re all irresistible balls of butter and flour dipped in a liberal amount of powdered sugar. Next was traditional shortbread, but rather than taking out my usual rectangular cutter, I chose another road. Instead, I used a cookie cutter shaped like a Christmas tree, and then, after finding a recipe for simple gingerbread man icing, decided frosting was in order.
 
There was a slight glitch here.
 
I couldn’t find my green and red food coloring, so made do with neon blue. But since we also celebrate the Festival of Lights around here, they became Hanukkah bush cookies.
 
Then came my most ambitious project.
 
We were having a guest for a Hanukkah night dinner, so besides the customary latkes, applesauce and sour cream on the table, I went all in with a three-layer candy cane cake for dessert. I haven’t made this since we moved to Oregon over three years ago and while assembling the ingredients, remembered why: it’s pretty labor intensive.
 
But the cake came out perfectly. Plus, having found itsy-bitsy pieces of red-and-white peppermint candy in the bulk aisles at WinCo eliminated one huge step. So, rather than having to carefully remove cellophane from individual candy canes and then hammering them with a meat pounder, these pieces were ready to go, and only needed to be folded into the batter and cream cheese frosting.  
 
Then came Christmas dinner pie.
 
My choice here was a grasshopper pie, as pictured in full color in Betty Crocker’s Pie and Pastry Cookbook, circa 1968. The creamy filling comes from nearly three dozen large marshmallows melted on low heat in a bit of milk, and placed in the refrigerator to thicken. Whipped cream from scratch is added, and along with crème de menthe and white crème de cacao, the sweetness of the marshmallows was nicely tempered.  
 
By now, I’d located my green food coloring, so added a few drops to the filling, giving it the desired mint green hue. Pouring the mix into a dark chocolate crust I’d baked earlier, this was an image to linger on.
 
I wasn’t finished yet.
 
For the last few Decembers, the Hubster has been jonesing for the chocolate drop cookies his mother made every Christmas when he was growing up in Ohio. While I love nearly all things chocolate, this flavored cookie has never appealed to me (Oreo Double Stuff is the exception).
 
But this year, my spouse did more than wax poetic about these cookies—he researched where the recipe might be; found it, and then sent me the link to it.
 
I knew then that I had to make them.
 
And so, I did.
 
Like snowballs, they weren’t hard to put together, and I topped them with royal icing, which consists of a lot of powdered sugar and a bit of milk to achieve the desired consistency. One recipe yielded over three dozen cookies, and the batch was quite festive after being adorned with red, green and blue sprinkles. Some of these treats will be gifted to the Hubster’s farmer friends, one who works at a creamery and another who supplies us with our weekly carton of fresh eggs.
 
One other thing made this year’s baking feel extra special.
 
When I decided to shape the shortbread into Christmas trees, I took out the identical white plastic cookie cutter that my mother used for hers so long ago.
 
The cutter has to be at least 50 years old and probably cost a nickel. Also, the handle had broken off a few decades back, but I’d never been able to throw it away.
 
This was A Very Good Decision, because the cutter was still quite useable.
 
But something more important and unexpected happened.
 
This simple act made me feel closer to my mom, who passed 30 years ago this coming year. She was quite the baker and I imagine she was closely watching me step-by-step, guiding me so that I’d get these treats down pat.
 
Thank you for that cutter, Mom.   
 
And now, here’s to 2023—a brand spanking new year of adventures, memories and of course, recipes.
 
Here’s wishing that every single one turns out exactly the way we’re hoping they will.   

It’s time for some wiggle room at Girl Clown Dancing.
 
Here’s what I mean.  
 
While I have no intention of ending this blog, I’m taking a step back from my self-imposed schedule of delivering one essay per month.
 
Loyal GCD fans know I’ve been performing in this circus ring for a while—to be exact, seven years and six months. Indeed, after publishing my first blog in February of 2015, I made a vow to download two original pieces every month. I maintained this schedule for more than a few years and sometimes, a third essay got into the rubric. Doing so was a way to keep my writing polished; let my creative juices flow, and give those thinking of hiring me a chance to see how I mesh words and ideas together.
 
More than a few years went by, and then I realized that having to post twice per month was just something I didn’t feel like doing anymore. So, I switched to one blog per month, which worked.
 
The new deadline was great. And then, it wasn’t.
 
In fact, I was starting to dread having to come up with a different idea every three weeks or so, since I never allowed myself to wait until the last few days of the month to start writing. Given that I’m a perfectionist, I didn’t want to
post anything slapdash. I still feel this way.
 
But more and more, I shuddered at the thought of having to look for one more idea and then making myself write
​about it.
 
So, for now, a pause.
 
I might post next month. Then again, I might not. I’m proud to call myself an alphabet wrangler and word collector—that’s not going away, and I don’t expect that this description of who I am ever will.  
 
In the meantime, I intend to repost some of my most popular blogs from time to time. There are plenty of folks who never saw those, and to this end, I have more than 100 original essays to choose from.
 
Until then, happy trails. 
 
One more thing.
 
I promise that we’ll meet again on this platform. I just don’t know when.