The Little Words Mean the Most

How do u like it?

Slammin' upstairs. 10 minutes on the timer until the fresh tomatoes have simmered in enough balsamic vinegar, love (olive) oil, and herbes de provence to be rendered comestible over frozen, locally-made ravioli.

Signing off for France

Dear beloved clients with works in progress,

Just to let you know, in case you wish to reach me, it's time for our semi-annual run over to France to make sure the house there is still standing, before the summer rental season adds another round of wear, tear, and wine stains. If you need me, email. I will be peeking at that from time to time. I'll be gone from June 2 to June 16, and then working 24 hours a day to catch up on your stuff as soon as I return.

My very best, Tom

Half and half: Coffee and ginger beer

From the cocktail laboratory in Foster: I was looking for a cool, non-alcoholic midday drink, and thought, Why not, like Jim says, start with two ingredients you already love?

Which would be coffee (#1!) and ginger beer (one of the two essentials in a Dark and Stormy), over ice.

WINNER! Wedded bliss. Conjugal harmony! Caffeine with bite. I'll have another.

Half and half to start, so you can tell which ingredient needs boosting or weakening. But it's pretty good at half and half. The two botanicals go well together, coffee and ginger. Lucky me, I have locally from Hosner's, an eastern CT soda maker, something called "Dangerous" ginger beer, with a serious overbite.

Experiment. Try it with cream. Try it with rum. Try it with Kahlua.

Poems

I've always thought of them as (1) important things for (2) others to figure out. This:

Yup

Loud mouth?

Lord moth!

I eel lke

newborn in warm Jell-O

these are my bullets

Microsoft Word: You sorry sack of...

I've thought for years, decades, ever since I HAD to use it to stay current with my corporate clients, that Microsoft Word was a hapless sack of crap. "Loser!" to be cruel. Over-featured, mostly. It could do everything. And nothing really well. Yes, it could send personalized mail to Mars. But I'm a writer. I didn't care, so long as it did the basics okay. Tonight, it crashed repeatedly as I tried to throw a few ordinary edits into plain vanilla Word documents. Aike! Spinning ball. Aikee! Force-exit.

So I flash-purchased Apple iWorks. Bye-bye, Microsoft. You were always tuna with a bit of mercury. For this professional writer, you're now utterly toxic.

Presenting in Wilton, CT, in one of the world's...

...most acoustically perfect environments. Any normal voice in this room will sound like a voice from The Sacred Mountain. The (Dave) Brubeck family paid the bill. It is an extraordinary venue, L-r: my opening salvo; the stacking chairs (because there are often crowds); Elaine Mintz brings it all to order; the FINE acoustical ceiling....

Truth is, we should outsource reading

I have a pile of meaningful, useful, revenue-enhancing books ... that I have not yet read. Can't we "socially network" the reading of business books? Each person maybe reads just ONE a year? And reports in sufficient detail ... so the rest of us don't have to read it? I wish. Do you wish? See the reviews on my website. Like this. Even better!

The clop of my Toms

Across my cork floor. Toms are slippers. In France we call them "espadrilles." They come from Spain. They're annual sandals. You wear them out in a season. They have cord soles, canvas slip-on tops with a heel. The deal with Toms is this: when you buy a pair, Toms gives a second free pair to some needy kid somewhere. Every purchase is for you and that needy kid. Whom you can easily imagine. Plus: Toms are the most intriguing, beautiful slip-ons in the world. Fashion philanthropy. Just do it. Does Nike?

Brain spam

Why is it that a regularly dripping faucet bothers us to madness, and a regularly ticking clock does not?

We want Greggie to rethink our bathroom

But we don't know when to ask.