Recent content by Janna S

ABout 3300 miles - Minnesota to Alaska.

I studied German from 7th grade through high school, went to school in Germany the summer after I graduated, and applied for a job at the Munich Olympics (which I didn't take, thank goodness, since the terrorist events at those Olympics would have been far more than I could have handled at the...

Having started my second half century a couple of years ago, I like what a wise old person said (actually, I think it might have been Katharine Hepburn): the older you get, the harder the climb, the shorter the breath, and the better the view. I wouldn't go back in age for anything! And in a...

Man, what a crazy trip this movie is. It shares some of the same audacious hyperrealistic bad taste as Hustle and Flow, and it more than once veers into the ludicrous, but it really grabbed me. Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci are a great pair - bruised and messed up, transparent...

Hi Jay! It's pretty common to cut away (or not install at all) the carpeting in front of an outer doorway. Often you will see tile or hardwood or linoleum on the floor in that entry area, which makes it a visually separate entryway or vestibule area. I'd recommend taking the carpet out in a...

The show is tape-delayed here, so it won't start on TV here for 3 more hours. What's the best site on the net to monitor the show live?

Limbo.

As Ofelia ate the grapes, I kept thinking of the myth of Persephone - duality, the underground, the failure to take care, temptation . . . .

Spend some time on your state or local (county or borough) websites and look for information about landlord/tenant laws in your area. Most states that I am familiar with have good information - pamphlets, web pages, etc. that give solid guidance from both the tenant and the landlord perspective...

You will also want to check into the possibility that the adoption of a special needs child may make you eligible for special adoption assistance and other long-term benefits through your state child welfare department. These subsidies are available through the federal government, and are...

Chinatown.

In an autobiographical essay that my father wrote (he was born in 1918, died in 1997) he described how every fall, he filled gunnysacks with walnuts from the nearby woods, spread the nuts out to dry, stomped off the husks, and picked out the nuts, which stained his hands for months. His mother...

Years ago my father worked with a guy named Marian who was married to a woman named MaryAnn. And they both went by their full names, no nicknames. As as aside, non-gender-related, we have three new family members (new spouses) who are all named Doug. It makes family gossip very complicated.

Cutter's Way

Perhaps this is not an invention in the usual sense of the word - rather it's a refinement - but there is no doubt in my mind that it's the development of reliable, available, legal contraception.