In our neck of comparatively multi-cultural suburbia, there is a fair percentage of people who hail from the former Soviet Union. Kimmy recently relayed an anecdote that illustrated that rather amusingly. She was having lunch in her middle-school cafeteria. A few girls sat together, as usual. Kimberly, Danielle, Gabriela, Emily,…
I would really like to live in a place with no natural disasters or extreme weather conditions to disrupt the normal flow of life. No tornadoes, no hurricanes, no volcanoes, no earthquakes. No snow storms dumping ungodly amounts of snow on my driveway. No heat waves, for that matter. Fine,…
Remember my editorial of several years back on the curiosity of British street naming practices? It occurred to me the other day that the Brits do not have monopoly on making weird decisions in regard to street names. Not far from where we live, if you travel eastward on Lafayette…
On balance, having a pool in your backyard is probably worth it. It costs ridiculous money – the exact total expense will be tallied later in the budget year, but I can already venture a fairly educated guess. It takes plenty of effort to maintain – hiring a pool guy…
Russian language has a vast trove of colorful gems that remain on the fringes of literary norms. On different levels of obscurity even in the street vernacular, these nouns and adjectives often sound out-of-place in a refined discourse among educated adults. Yet, they often provide the most eloquent and brilliant…
The speed limit signs on Garden State Parkway advise the drivers every half a mile or so that the limit is 55mph with a disclaimer of “conditions permitting”. The heavy Saturday snow did enough to reduce the number of cars on the road, but the Parkway was well cleared, and…
Spending all of my free time – however little of that! – in making “my” part of the house (offices, computers, assorted electronics) presentable, I am still a few days away from resuming some semblance of settled-down existence. And blogging. In the meantime, due to overwhelming demand, here are a…