Hot Chocolate

MissMeliss | January 6, 2009

A 2008 Best of Holidailies Selection. Thanks, Holidailies Reviewers!
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My mother posted earlier today about the tradition of drinking hot chocolate on the 12th Day of Christmas (aka Three Kings Day / Epiphany), which she has adopted since retiring to Mexico several years ago. I still live here, but I’m all about [...]

Ice Like Vinyl

MissMeliss | January 5, 2009

And ice like vinyl
On the streets
Cold as silver
White as sheets
Rain like strings
And changing things
Like leaves.
– Stephen Sondheim

It was a cold, wet day, with razor-sharp rain outside my windows most of the day. Zorro refused to go out until his bladder was so full he was practically floating, and then he came back in looking bedraggled [...]

Really Rosie

MissMeliss | January 4, 2009

In January it’s so nice
While slipping on the sliding ice
To sip hot chicken soup with rice
Sipping once, sipping twice
Sipping chicken soup with rice
~ Maurice Sendak/Carole King,
“Chicken Soup with Rice”
Really Rosie

I was seven years old when I was first introduced to the Carole King/Maurice Sendak musical Really Rosie, not by [...]

Bullet Points: How I Spent Today

MissMeliss | January 3, 2009

Because I’m tired, cranky, and my knee is throbbing:
- Slept til 12:30. Or really almost one. Spent fifteen minutes figuring out which pants fit with knee brace. Went out in public (well, the salon) in really big t-shirt and stretch pants, choosing comfort over style. And sneakers. Yay sneakers.
- Spent four hours [...]

Potentially Positive

MissMeliss | January 2, 2009

We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.
~Ellen Goodman

In my column at All Things [...]

Couch Time

MissMeliss | January 1, 2009

If what you do on the first day of the year really does inform the next 364, I’m going to be a well rested writer because sleeping and writing were pretty much all I did today, though the former activity was helped along by a little vicodin.
When I couldn’t sleep any more, I convinced Fuzzy [...]

You Are the New Day

MissMeliss | January 1, 2009

On the first day of a new year, it seems fitting to include music in a post. The song, “You Are the New Day,” is by the Kings Singers. I had the privilege of attending a brown-bag lunch with them when I was in high school, and I’ve been a fan ever since.
This song [...]