I might end up being The Last Person Alive who writes checks.
 
This is because I use my checkbook more than anyone I know. 
 
Like a lot of folks, I pay our mortgage with a check.  But I take care of utility bills this way, too, and my hairdresser gets a check for the awesome cobalt and maroon colors she puts on my bangs.  Twice weekly yoga classes and monthly massages are handled with a check, and you’ll also see me pulling out my brown leather checkbook at the grocery store.  It’s also here that I pretend to ignore the eye rolls and withering glances of those behind me in line.    
 
I don’t care.
 
However, I’d like to tell them that I know debit and credit cards are a faster way to pay, and more convenient and efficient, than my old-timey writing ways.
 
Also, I’m uber aware that millennials like my 21-year-old daughter use even speedier methods such as Apple Pay and Android Pay.  There’s also PayPal and Zelle, online technologies which allow someone to send and receive money directly to and from the bank of his choice, sometimes for a small fee but sometimes not. 
 
In fact, my kid insists that she never needs to learn how to write a check—and she’s right.  An increasing number of companies, Urban Outfitter and Jockey and IKEA among them, are in the same circus tent as my girl.  They don’t accept checks, and frankly, their reasoning makes sense.  
 
After all, cashiers can’t determine if a customer’s account contains enough money.  (Adding insult to injury, banks
will slap fines on businesses that deposit checks from customers with insufficient funds.)  It also takes longer
to prepare and deposit personal checks for a business owner, who has to sign them, fill out deposit slips and then
send them to the bank. 
 
It’s also worth noting that for those of us holding the checkbook, it’s easy to make mistakes, with common errors including writing in the wrong company, or entering mismatched amounts of money. 
 
Still.
 
A 2016 Washington Post article reported that over 40 percent of the small businesses it surveyed didn’t accept electronic payments of any kind.  And, even in this new world of online banking, a whopping 97 percent of those companies said they still cut paper checks to vendors, and received checks from customers. Reasons given for taking checks included no hidden fees and familiarity, as well as having a paper trail. 
 
I like all of these justifications. 
 
But my main reason for writing checks is this:  doing so helps me stick to my budget.
 
With that leather book always in my purse, I can know, in an instant, how much money I have in the bank, as well as what I’ve spent and where I’ve spent it, in the last week or even the last six months.  Check writing is also a terrific system for brains that are wired like mine—those who learn best when life is handled visually and kinesthetically.  By looking at a blank check, then writing an amount in, and finally recording the company and amount in the register, the information sticks in my noggin.  
 
And really, I’m not that much of a fuddy-duddy.  I keep an online account with my bank, which lets me track deposits, credits and other transactions.
 
It works for me.
 
All of this means is that I won’t stop writing checks unless it’s forced on me.  Hopefully, that won’t happen
​anytime soon.   
 
How about you?  Do you write checks? 

I finally got around to making sauerkraut balls.
 
For those who don't know about this appetizer, welcome to my world. 
 
Not being aware of this snack was a surprise because I’m a committed home cook and foodie.  But, I’m also a native Californian, and since these treats are most popular in Ohio, it made sense that I hadn’t heard of them.    
 
However, the Buckeye-educated Hubster has rhapsodized about sauerkraut balls for years.
 
They were terrific, he said, with a beer or a Pepsi.  He also spoke of Boomer, a pet Bassett hound from years before.  Boomer frequently ran away but was easy to retrieve—since he was always busy scarfing down sauerkraut balls at a nearby tavern where the dish was a happy hour staple.  Also, my spouse remembered a certain Mr. and Mrs. Duncan, two of his parents’ best friends.  Mr. Duncan loved sauerkraut balls so much that when he and his wife came for dinner, he always made a complete meal out of them, even forsaking grilled steak or fried chicken.   
 
Here was my picture of a sauerkraut ball.
 
It was hard and icy, a wadded ball of old cabbage that looked exactly like a delicious coconut macaroon. I’d take a bite and there was the reveal—a sauerkraut ball was going to taste like the sourest pickled cabbage imaginable, held together with white glue.  
 
In other words, here was a dish I was never going to have the time to make. 
 
But my spouse never gave up. 
 
A few months ago, he printed out a recipe with a photo, and presented it to me while I was in my office.  Okay.  It didn’t look too labor intensive, and what do you know: the instructions said it made more than two dozen balls, but only called for one can of sauerkraut.  And, it featured bread crumbs, sausage, cream cheese and chopped onion, ingredients I could definitely get behind.  Also, he said that while the directions called for deep frying, his mother baked them, which meant less time in the kitchen. 
 
I was game, although I quickly discovered that the recipe wasn’t simple.    
 
For one thing, I couldn’t just drain the sauerkraut and dump it in my big yellow Pyrex bowl. Nope, I had to squeeze the stuff completely dry, using three different dish towels to do so. Then, I had to snip it all into small pieces.
 
However, I was determined to cross the finish line.  
 
After prepping the kraut, I mixed it with those other yummy ingredients, along with milk and eggs and mustard and parsley.  It resembled uncooked meatloaf, another dish that the Hubster loves.  The difference—besides the sauerkraut, of course—is that the concoction needed to chill for an hour.   When that time was up, I divided the mix into small meatball size balls and dipped each one in flour.  This part took the longest to do.  Right about then, my spouse suddenly remembered that in Ohio, sauerkraut balls are often made assembly-line style.
 
Once the balls started cooking, though, I knew everything was right with the world.
 
They puffed up a bit, and smelled divine.  Also, since the recipe instructed that they be consumed hot out of the oven, how could I not comply?
 
Sauerkraut balls are astonishingly amazing.
 
Best of all, and a revelation to me, the sauerkraut didn’t overpower the meatball.  It simply gave the snack a nice bite.  In fact, if you’ve never had one, you might find it difficult to identify the recipe’s title .     
 
I’m absolutely up for making sauerkraut balls again.
 
But there’s another Midwest recipe that the Hubster wants me to do first.  
 
It’s a cherry cola-chocolate-mayonnaise-sauerkraut cake.  

I love Quora. 
 
For those who don’t know what I mean, Quora is a question and answer website that covers an astonishingly huge range of topics.  
 
If you’re curious about anything, you’ll probably find it here—recipes for the best casserole someone’s mother ever made; the top 10 Bollywood films of all time, and the funniest game show bloopers in television history.  Politics are also covered, although the company’s official POV is to not take sides. 
 
I’ve been familiar with Quora for a couple of years (the company started in 2009) because I’ve replied to a handful of questions about movies, clowning and circuses.  So at some point, I must have created an account.  But I didn’t know that 200 million people around the world clicked on the site every month.
 
Then, at the end of last year, I received an email from Quora’s corporate office.
 
The message was an invitation to join the Quora Partners Program (QPP), which meant that if I signed up, I could now make money for asking and answering questions.  The amount varies for each question, since each query is dependent on how many people view and respond to the question; the number of internal and external traffic a specific question generates, and other mysterious revenue parameters way above the pay grade for this Girl Clown. 
 
There’s also the secret of how one gets invited to be in the QPP. 
 
The answer is that no one is sure, since Quora won’t give out that information.  Still, some speculate that candidates are selected because past responses they’ve submitted are well written, accurate and complete. 
 
It’s also a mystery as to how many Partners there are, maybe because the number is constantly changing.  My guess is more than several hundred, but less than 10,000.   (As it turns out, I’m acquainted with two Partners.  I once worked with one on a TV series pitch.)
 
In any case, I needed to know the bottom line, which is this: how much money could I make?  
 
The short reply is not very much.  
 
While a teeny tiny group of Partners do rake in beaucoup bucks—half a dozen participants consistently see a few thousand dollars every month—these members must be at their computers nearly 24 hours a day.  That’s because in order to reach that tier, a Quora Partner needs to post at least 100 questions, daily.  Also, they have to be questions which aren’t already on the site, and which are also going to engage thousands of viewers.  
 
So, most Quora Partners see pennies a day.
 
I decided to give it a whirl anyway. 
 
When I started, I focused on questions about my favorite movies, as well as life as a journalist and clown.
 
But within a few weeks, I realized I’d have better luck (in other words, more money) with queries about everyday topics, such as recipes and fashion and work.  For instance, I’m a very good home cook, so I wondered what surprising ingredients folks added to their beans, potato salad and scrambled eggs. (This was done by asking three separate questions.  Thanks to many replies, I now have a favorite new way to make green beans, and directions for a spinach cheese pie with matzo.) 
 
It’s not much work.
 
I write between five and 10 questions every day, asking about topics that just pop into my head.  I also answer
twice that many.  My current financial stats are this: since February, I’ve made enough every month for a coffee
​date with the Hubster.  And this last month, I earned $35—sufficient to cover a dinner for two at our neighborhood
Mexican restaurant. 
 
I realize that my Quora Partner earnings aren’t making my piggy bank jingle much at all.   
 
But that’s not important.   
 
What’s more essential is this. 
 
I’m getting the chance to polish my writing, where my words are read by millions. There’s also the opportunity to interface with folks who I’d never otherwise know.  And of course, I’m learning a lot about a lot of things.  As a naturally inquisitive person, that fact alone is intoxicating.   
 
One more thing:  I’m having a lot of fun.
 
p.s.  My Quora profile is here, at  https://www.quora.com/profile/Hilary-Roberts-Grant.
  

​We’re leaving California, and heading to Oregon.

This Very Big Thing has been made neither lightly nor in haste.  

In fact, the Hubster and I started talking about it right after our daughter graduated from high school, nearly three years ago. 

Relocating is also the reason we’ve completed many home improvements, most of them sizable, in the last couple of years.  These include exterior and interior paint jobs; sprucing up old flooring and where needed, installing new, and updating both bathrooms.  Just prior to officially going on the market, less than a week ago, I also had 200 feet of backyard fence painted; watched a trio of workers do a top-to-bottom deep cleaning that took five hours, and hired a college senior to spread angel hair mulch around the rose bushes by the front door. 

Some friends thought we’d change our minds after our light and bright home makeover. 

They’re wrong.

But I get why they might think so. 

We’re lucky to live in one of the most beautiful communities in this country, a laid-back beach town on the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Second, it’s an easy commute to San Luis Obispo, the town where the Hubster works, and according to National Geographic, comes in at fifth place as the happiest city in all of the 50 states.
 
Our corner also reflects the pride of home ownership, with pebble driveways, tidy flowerbeds and decorative flagstones placed just so.   It’s a plus, too, that everyone around here loves their pets as much as we love Sadie and Hank, our two rescue dogs.  Did I mention that the ocean is just 12 blocks away?

However, other considerations far overshadow all of the above.

Happiest region aside, San Luis Obispo County is currently the sixth most unaffordable place to live in the United States.  This is why the Hubster—a music educator with a master's degree who has worked in his profession for nearly 50 years—still needs a second income to ensure that our bills are paid on time.  (In fact, with a median home price of $730,000, a young family can no longer afford to buy in SLO unless there’s bigly help from rich relatives.) 

When it comes to retiring here, the stats are even worse:  if you’re a senior, SLO County is the most expensive area in the entire country to live. 

The cost of living is much more favorable in Oregon, where after making a hefty down payment on a new house, we’ll have a we-can-breathe-now mortgage of about $600 per month.  Add on the fact that annual house taxes are half of what we pay here, and with no state sales tax, the reasons to skedaddle start looking pretty good, pretty quickly.   
 
Still, there are other details that have nothing to do with money.  

Next year is fast shaping up to be a contentious time politically.  The 2020 Presidential election is promising to be especially nasty, and key Senate seats are also up for grabs.  As my realtor says, buying a house is a huge commitment—and when people are feeling shaky about the future, they’re less likely to take this sort of plunge.

Finally, I’m ready for a shift.

I’ve lived here for 17 years, and now that our daughter has grown and flown, it’s time to change the channel. 
​
I already know that the library system where we’re moving to is great, and there’s an art house theatre a 30-minute drive away.  The weekly farmers’ market also boasts an astounding 70 booths, which is most appealing to the home cook and foodie that I am.  Of course, I’ll still need to find a new hairdresser, yoga studio and dentist.

But I also know this.
​
It will all fall into place, because it all feels right. 

​I knew.

Right away, and with absolute clarity, I knew that Jussie Smollett invented the story of his assault.
 
Now, after not speaking out in public for a few weeks, the actor, who is both black and openly gay, is back in the news—and in a heap of trouble. 
 
Once a sympathetic victim, Smollett has been charged with multiple felony counts for making up the horrifying story about two men who attacked him in the dead of night. 
 
Unknown thugs, he said, beat him and poured an unknown chemical on him, and also fastened a rope around his neck,
as if to fashion a noose.  In the midst of this, he added, they shouted racist and homophobic slurs. 
 
I recognized the tale as utterly false because of the job I used to do:  producing true crime stories, mostly for
network television. 
 
Over the course of nearly two decades, I researched dozens of stories.  A good part of the work was interviewing the same number of attorneys and FBI agents; I also spoke with witnesses and family members of victims and small-town newspaper reporters (the latter group often provided the most heartbreaking stories, and could recite them in detail).   From all of them, I learned that hard, physical evidence is the key to proving a case beyond a shadow of a doubt.    
 
Along the way, I also acquired a healthy dose of skepticism.
 
Others who called out the Smollett story early on probably didn’t have my experience.  But they had this: the common sense to put the pieces of the narrative together, and to then see that it smelled, and smelled bigly, in spite of the early, sensitive reporting on the assault.
 
For those who don’t know the story, here’s the rundown. 
 
In late January, Smollett, who is 36 years old, reported to Chicago police that he had been attacked at two in the morning after going out for a sandwich. (Empire, the TV show co-starring Smollett, is filmed in Chicago).  The next
day, his family issued a statement of support; less than a week later, the performer gave a concert in West Hollywood, where many members of the LGBTIA community live and work. 
 
In an emotional speech, Smollett told the audience that he had to play the show because he couldn’t let his
attackers win. 
 
By now, a dozen detectives had been assigned to the case—but there were already holes.   
 
A photo of Smollett hours after the attack showed only a scratch under his right eye.  The actor refused Chicago PD’s request to see all of his phone records, citing privacy concerns.  And, it was puzzling that despite numerous cameras operating in the neighborhood when and where the attack occurred, not one showed any sign of an assault.   
 
The big break came two weeks later. 
 
Two Nigerian brothers were picked up and questioned. Their Chicago apartment was also searched.  One was an extra on Empire, and Smollett’s personal trainer.  Arrested on suspicion of assaulting Smollett, they were held for nearly 48 hours before being released with all charges dropped. 
 
The story they told was a very different one than the actor’s.
 
Faced with multiple hate crime charges—which can bring life in prison or even the death penalty—the siblings gave it all up.  
 
They told investigators that Smollett had paid them $3,500 each, by check, to stage the deed.  Weeks earlier, the actor had also given them money to write and mail an anonymous death threat letter addressed to him.  But when that didn’t garner the publicity or the fatter paycheck that Smollett had hoped it would, he came up with the attack idea.  To that end, Smollett even had the two men rehearse the assault.   The scratch, they added, was self-inflicted.  
 
Yet despite the brothers’ narrative; the physical evidence, and the 16 felony charges, Smollett is sticking to his story.
 
In fact, often breaking down in tears, he did so to a national TV audience, and to the entire cast and crew of Empire (shortly afterwards, Smollett was fired from the show).    
 
One can argue that our justice system presumes that one is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. 
 
Yet.
 
When I put everything together, I can only conclude that Smollett is not only blameworthy, he’s a pretty sick puppy. 
 
That’s because besides lying for his own gain, the performer also diverted resources away from other criminal investigations, and, too, took blatant advantage of the pain of racism tearing so much of this country apart.  One more thing: Smollett is a terrific actor—he can cry on cue—but he’s also not the brightest bulb in the room.  After all, who writes a check to those you have hired to attack you?
 
As of this writing, one of Smollett’s attorneys is saying that the charges are redundant and vindictive.
 
Maybe that’s true.  But if the charges stick, someone who might want to stage a similar hate crime is sure to
think twice.
​ 
By then, I hope that Smollett is in prison, and doing a lot of thinking, too.    
 
What is your opinion of Jussie Smollett? 

Girl Clown Dancing is four years old this month, which means it’s also the time to reflect on posts over the last year.
 
Most often, I don’t have to think much about what my next GCD essay will be.  There’s always something going on, whether it’s a story in the news; from a friend, or about a personal experience. 

But in 2018, I also gave myself some wiggle room, so I didn’t post as often.
 
However, there were reasons.  
 
A year ago, in January and February, I was in Guatemala, attending a memoir writing retreat run by best- selling author Joyce Maynard.  I met, played and worked with about a dozen extraordinary women, all writers.  Some have been published, some not, but each had terrific stories to tell.  My biggest takeaway was learning how to edit GCD posts with the goal of keeping every essay on point.  To that end, I’m now doing my best to write posts 800 words or less. 
 
Some of these tighter blogs include memories of the Bakelite View-Master I had as a child (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/view-master);how social media came to me (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/social-media), and the secret to living a long life (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/the-secret).  I’ve also used GCD to write about my Bill Cosby petition, which now has over 35,000 signatures, but received only a few comments on the Weebly platform  (https://hilaryrobertsgrant.weebly.com/blog/the-monster-named-bill-cosby).
 
A few months after that retreat, I began working with an extraordinary woman, now 75 years old, on her memoir.   
A retired environmental attorney, she has lived a big life, including traveling the globe; marrying three men
(with romances in between), and raising two children, mostly on her own.  She has also saved nearly every scrap of
paper detailing these events, and many more, so there’s a lot to organize, and then, write.  Later in the year,
I was honored to pen four articles for Cornell University. 
     
All along, I continued to conjure up ways to attract new readers.
 
I now post Girl Clown Dancing on Next Door, the social media platform that bills itself as the world’s largest social network for local communities.  While its main purpose has nothing to do with blogging, most have welcomed my essays, seeing them as an opportunity to get to know another person in the area. 

Then, I created a Facebook business site which allows me to post my essays, and advertise my writing services as well.  (The link is here, at: https://www.facebook.com/girlclowndancing/)  A few more Facebook friends have also kindly permitted me to post new blogs directly on their timelines.  
 
Finally, I’ve become a partner on Quora, the global question-and-answer website where questions are asked, answered and edited by its community of users.  When appropriate, I’ve used GCD essays for answers, another way of introducing my writing to yet another pool of readers.. 
 
As for this year, the goal remains the same:  I’ll keep writing.  I hope you keep reading. 

​I’ve become a Gel Girl.
 
For those not familiar with the vernacular of beauty salons, gel is a kind of nail polish that, for all intents and purposes, is a modern-day miracle. 
 
Its positives are many, including the fact that there’s no chipping, cracking or peeling.  And, also unlike traditional polish, gel holds its shine and won’t fade; lasts weeks longer, and is odorless.  Some professional manicurists also swear that clients who get regular gel manicures have stronger nails within a few months.  Gel also comes in plenty of colors, and thanks to a special LED light, dries within seconds of being put on, which eliminates smudging. 
 
For every one of these reasons—especially the fact that I’ll now only need a new pedicure when I notice my toenails growing out—I’m never going back to the Cutex our grandmothers used. 
 
But gel wasn’t an overnight sensation.  Indeed, nail polish has a long, and global, history.
 
The product originated in China as early as 3000 B.C., and contained beeswax, egg whites, gelatin and vegetable dyes. 
In Egypt, the richest of women wore nail extensions made from bone, ivory and gold.  In Greece in the 1800s, women of the same class choose empty pistachio shells to wear over their real nails.  Automobile paint inspired the first modern-day polish, which was colorless, but in the 1930s, premiered in a second, cream color.  A decade later, pin-up goddess
Rita Hayworth made bright red nails famous.       
 
Then came artificial nails.  Shiny and durable, they were gel’s predecessor.    
 
Like many other out-of-the-box ideas, it happened because of an accident.  In 1954, a dentist named Fred Slack broke a nail at work, and created a fake nail using dental acrylic as a replacement.  And while today’s acrylics are way more advanced than Slack’s primitive substitute (although the process is still meant for damaged nails, or ones that can’t grow), I always cringed when I saw someone getting an acrylic manicure. The chemical smell was overpowering; the sound of a drill-like instrument kept me more than an arm’s distance away, and I’m pretty sure smoke was involved.   
 
So, I kept buying drugstore polish, knowing that in a few weeks, my toes were sure to chip.  That, of course, meant it was time for the nasty smelling nail polish remover and a fresh coat of polish to the damaged areas.  Even when gel polish hit my little beach town about 10 years ago, I assumed it was uber expensive.  Consequently, I kept doing what I’d been doing.   It wasn’t great, but it was okay. 
 
Then, late last year, my daughter gifted me with a gel pedicure.

There were a few steps more at this appointment, including a different top coat and the already-mentioned light.  But as it turns out, a gel is just $10 more than a regular pedicure. 

However, there’s one big downside to traveling the gel road: over-the-counter polish remover won’t take it off.

Instead, I’ll need to go back to the salon.  I could try the removal process at home, but that involves more steps and time than the original application, including buffing the shine off each toe; placing a cotton ball soaked in acetone on every digit, and then wrapping it all in aluminum foil.  This is pretty much what salons do anyway, but at least in the hands of professionals, I know it will be done right.

I’ll keep nail polish remover around, though.

It removes paint splatters from windows and floors, as well as eliminating tea stains from China cups.  One of the weirdest uses is this:  if you happen to see a blood-sucking leech on your skin, pour the acetone directly onto the leech, and it will soon peel off.

Here’s hoping that if I’m ever in that pickle, I’ll have the remover at hand. 

​But I’ll never need it for my toes again.  

I emptied out my office closet. 
 
And, lo and behold, there was a treasure trove of stuff that matters—stuff that I swore had been tossed out, by design or by accident, years before. 
 
I already knew where to find my labels for file folders, business envelopes and blank cards because I use all of them. But I didn’t expect to find childhood drawings more than 50 years old; love letters from years during and right after college, and my first circus contract.   
 
The drawings were in an oversized manila envelope that my mother had saved. 
 
Most of the contents went into the recycle pile, but I couldn’t resist keeping several yellowed, blue-lined sheets that show off my perfect cursive writing. 
 
And, there’s the picture above.  I was six years old when I made this, and no doubt the teacher wrote the poem on
a blackboard for everyone to copy.  But the writing is entirely mine, as are the red crayoned hearts with those
kite tail tendrils.  
 
Another large packet held love letters from three different beaus, all older than me, two of them irascible newspapermen who didn’t much like anyone.  But because they liked me, and really liked me, I couldn’t help but feel special in their arms.
 
Yet, these were also men proficient at mind games—vowing to call and then not doing so, or confirming a time to meet and then not showing.  Reading their missives, I know now that I wasn’t imagining their love.  But today, I can also see that they were incapable of making commitments, although the letters indicate otherwise. 
 
There were also notes from someone else, a boy who was sweeter, and closer to my age.
 
He was ready for the relationship I thought I wanted, and absolutely the most mature.  But I knew how to play games, too, and wounded him so deeply that I will regret the way I treated him for the rest of my life.  This remorse is still so raw that when I came upon his notes, I recycled every one of them.  Perhaps because the friendship happened around the time I attended Clown College, I found my first circus contract in the same packet. The gig paid $175 per week, and now I remember that I thought I was going to be rich.      
 
Then I found two plastic containers with lime green lids, both involving my daughter.
 
The first was from her time in Daisy, the Girl Scouts group for kindergarteners.  There was the uniform, a blue apron neatly folded and replete with eight iron-on flower petals in the center.  Snuggled beside it was a green vest with badges for marching in a parade; visiting a children’s museum, and being a responsible pet owner.  On top of it all was a certificate welcoming her to the next age level of scouting.  But we never made that tier because we moved away.     
 
This box is hers.  She can do whatever she wants with it, but I hope she’ll save the contents for the children she may have, maybe for them to play dress-up games.   
 
The other lime topped case held the happiest discovery of all.
 
There were my girl’s first stuffed animals—a pastel pink and blue plaid bear, and a yellow and red kitten, both sewn
by hand from the softest of fabrics.  Neither have buttons nor plastic, since I had been warned that babies could pick those off, put them in their tiny mouths, and choke.  A tightly tied up plastic bag was underneath, and that’s where
​the clothes were. 
 
It’s not just any outfit.
 
Here was the ensemble my daughter had on when she was first handed to me in a cramped hotel lobby in China.  Included were the tiniest of red fabric shoes with white rubber soles; crotchless yellow leggings, and two tops, one fuzzy and pink, the other a mock turtle neck with frolicking baby pandas.
 
This box belongs to my daughter, too.
 
But along with the childhood sketches, love letters and circus agreement, I’ll be keeping it. 
 

​Charles Phoenix teaches American history. 
 
But not in the usual sense.  
 
With his horn-rimmed glasses, sparkly Jell-O colored suits and Kodachrome slides, the fashion school graduate and former car salesman has created a unique brand—performance artist, humorist and documentarian.  Phoenix’s lesson plans are also purposefully narrow: he focuses on pop culture of the 1950s and ‘60s, spotlighting kitschy decorating, dining and entertainment.  Phoenix makes these “lectures” accessible on all of the usual social media platforms, where he’s also known as The Ambassador of Americana. 
 
Phoenix’s curriculum also gently lampoons the odd food of those decades, when veggie gelatin molds and potato-chip casseroles ruled the day.    
 
To this end, he creates bizarre-but-tasty-dishes.
 
I’ve made the fried cereal mix (there’s an entire stick of butter), and thought of trying the Frosty the Cheeseball Man dip (using Velveeta and cream cheese, it’s shaped like a snowman).  But Phoenix is perhaps best known for the Cherpumpel—an eye-popping three-layer cake with a different pie (cherry, pumpkin and apple) stuck between each layer.  He has penned eight coffee table books as well, with titles including Addicted to Americana, Fabulous Las Vegas in the ‘50s and God Bless Americana.    
 
However, Phoenix’s fans like him best in person.  
 
I was lucky enough to be given a ticket to one of Phoenix’s shows earlier this month.  So, alongside hundreds of other devotees (many wrapped in blinking Christmas lights), I arrived at the perfect venue, a vintage art deco movie theatre that opened in 1942. 
 
Here, I saw what Phoenix calls “the bread and butter” of his career—a two-hour, Kodachrome slide show, this one titled Retro Holiday Jubilee.  (Other shows, all with slides in the starring role, have included mid-century homages to Hawaii, Route 66 and Disneyland.)
 
Projecting hundreds of bright images on a huge screen, all snapped from a time when millions of Americans had big cameras and carousel slide projectors, Phoenix riffed about each slide with humor and joy.  The audience saw siblings lined up in homemade Halloween costumes; living rooms adorned with cabbage wallpaper and aluminum Christmas trees, and long-gone roadside amusement parks.   
 
Originally, Phoenix intended that the slides—his collection now numbers in the thousands and comes from every state—be presented in a straightforward and serious way.  But the pictures’ inherent kitsch caused so much laughter from early audiences that he restructured the show to make it comedic, often using the catch phrase “I know!”  
 
Phoenix never imagined that he’d make a living out of his obsession for Americana, which started when he was a teenager buying vintage clothes in the Los Angeles suburb of Ontario.  
 
But in 1992, when Phoenix was 30 years old and selling classic cars, he walked into a Pasadena thrift store. 
 
There, he came across a blue shoebox labeled “Trip Across the United States, 1957.”  Packed with Kodachrome slides of an unidentified family’s vacation photos, Phoenix remembers opening the container, putting the first slide up to the light, and seeing what appeared to be a halo. 
 
“I just knew, right away, that this was a whole new world for me to discover,” says Phoenix.  “I put the slide back in the box, went to the cash register, and haven’t looked back since.”   Soon after, he began scouring other thrift stores, flea markets and estate sales to find more of the same.  “They’re everywhere,” he says. “People couldn’t delete photos back then.” 
 
Phoenix is 55 years old now, but isn’t slowing down. 
 
He no longer has to buy slides; he finds boxes of them at his door.  Phoenix’s new book Holiday Jubilee is set for release next year, and he’s on tour through at least January.  So far, the shows are only in California, but a couple of years ago, Phoenix performed in the United Kingdom and New York City.  
 
One show I’d like to see is next month: it’s called Long Beachland, and will feature slides of Long Beach, the city where I grew up, and a stone’s throw from Ontario.  
 
Because the event (in Long Beach, of course) will be at a smaller location than the movie house I went to, there’s an added plus:  Phoenix will serve one of his signature cakes.  It might be the candy cane swirl with Tiffany blue frosting; then again, it could be his whipped cream Christmas volcano cake, or even the famous Cherpumpel. 
 
Charles Phoenix and wild homemade cake, together. 
 
What a terrific way to start the New Year. 
 
Who are your favorite onstage performers?   

As the days grow shorter and the nights colder, I'm reminded of what makes me happy, no matter what the season.     
 
Here are three of my favorites right now.

 * Whenever I’m feeling cynical, I head for The New York Times Vows column. 
 
While reporting weddings has been around since the paper’s original issue, in 1851, the publication took a radical turn
in the early 1990s. 
 
That’s when traditional wedding stories—those select few that only profiled couples from blue blood lineage and
old world money—were substituted with very different copy.
 
In its place, the column shifted to weddings about firefighters, office workers, teachers and even a homeless couple. When same sex marriage became legal, the Times also became the first major newspaper in the country to publish notices of gay marriage. 
 
But no matter who’s featured, the emphasis is on the back story.  So besides ceremony details, Vows reports on how
a couple met; their courtship, and the predictable stumbling blocks before reaching the altar.  
 
One of my favorites is the story of Colleen Ryan and David Cleary.  Unaware that they had worked in the same building for five years, and against the laws of probability, the two kept seeing each other for months on buses, in restaurants and in bagel shops.  Finally, suddenly alone in an elevator, they introduced themselves.  I also adored reading about Maureen Sherry and Steven Klinsky, who met one rainy night when Klinsky looked out of the window of a Manhattan cab and ordered the driver to stop after seeing Sherry walking down the sidewalk in tears.  And then there’s 98-year-old Gertrude Mokotoff and 94-year-old Alvin Mann, who met at the gym.
 
Love is love, and Vows keeps my faith in its magic.
 
www.nytimes.com/column/vows
​

 * When I start to think that people don't read books anymore, I remember the Little Free Library movement.
 
It began quietly, a little more than a decade ago, in Wisconsin. 
 
That’s when Todd Bol built a model of a red one-room schoolhouse with a white roof and bell tower, filled it with books and put it on a post in his front yard. A bit larger than a birdhouse, Bol came up with the idea as a tribute to his mother, a schoolteacher who loved to read.  Bol’s neighbors and friends quickly embraced the idea, so he made several more and gave them all away. 
 
It wasn’t very long after that friend Rick Brooks began talking to Bol about ways to expand the idea.
 
Brooks pointed out the positive impact of community gift-sharing networks, especially focusing on the free “take a book, leave a book” collections available at so many coffee houses.  As their conversations continued, Bol and Brooks kept creating and giving away Little Library houses, engraving each with official charter numbers; small grants and informal partnerships helped keep up with the demand.  
 
Then, in 2011, the Little Free Library attracted national media attention.  The growth was astonishing after that: one year later, there were 4,000 Little Free Libraries in neighborhoods across the country.  In 2015, The Little Free Library Book, with chapters detailing the non-profit’s mission, history and instructions for establishing one’s own Little Free Library, was published by Coffee House Press.     
 
Here in my little beach town, there are five Little Free Libraries within a mile of each other; I’m sure there are many more I haven’t found. 
 
Some are simple wooden boxes; others are splashed with rainbows and decorative writing.  Some have mostly children’s books; others are stuffed with adult novels. I’ve borrowed a book or two, especially liking the fact that I can keep one as long as I want (even forever, but I hope no one does).  I’ve also contributed paperbacks that I no longer need; I like the idea of someone in my community having the chance to enjoy them.  
 
Todd Bol passed away last month. 
 
But in his final days, Bol remained dedicated to the mission of the Little Free Library.  
 
“I really believe in a Little Free Library on every block and a book in every hand,” he said.  “I believe people can
fix their neighborhoods, fix their communities, develop a system of sharing, learn from each other, and see that
they have a better place on this planet to live.”
 
https://littlefreelibrary.org/


​* If you were around in the 1970s and loved great television comedy, you stayed home every Saturday night. You had to—because that’s when The Mary Tyler Moore Show came on. 
 
Moore—only a few years from playing Dick Van Dyke’s stay-at-home wife Laura Petrie—starred as Mary Richards,
a 30something, independent woman who moved to Minneapolis and found work as a news producer at fictional WJM-TV.  A central female character who wasn’t married; dependent on a man, and not a virgin was a rarity then, and viewers lapped it up. 
 
But the other characters, realistic and complex as well, made the show shine, too.   
 
For those actors who played them, the roles meant instant fame and for many, their first steady paychecks. 
Edward Asner was Richards’ boss Lou Grant; Valerie Harper played neighbor Rhoda Morgenstern, and Ted Knight
was dim bulb news anchor Ted Baxter. Stars of the future, including Henry Winkler, Bruce Boxleitner and
Peter Strauss, showed up in small, one-time only parts.  And while the show was a comedy, topics included
infertility, divorce and addiction. 
 
I was a sophomore in high school when The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered, and I never missed an episode. 
Mary Richards’ life, one of dinner parties, interesting men and a satisfying job, was something I wanted to have, too.  But I also loved Richards’ vulnerability—best seen in my favorite episode, Put on A Happy Face, where everything that can go wrong does go wrong in the course of one week.  
 
Watching today, there’s also a certain quaintness about the show.  Richards used a manual typewriter, and the newsroom’s archives are all stored, in alphabetical order, in cream colored file folders.  Of course, there was no Internet, microwaves or voice mail.  Nonetheless, the show still resonates, and more often than not, has me laughing
out loud. 
 
All of the seasons are available on Hulu, but most of the episodes can also be viewed free on YouTube.    
 
www.hulu.com/series/the-mary-tyler-moore-show-00122c74-2b9f-451c-8cfd-8d130fcb10d6
 
 
What makes you happy these days?   

​