I have no clue what to write my column about this week.

Nada.

Nil.

Nothing.

Usually an event happens, I break something or I have a thought about life and go from there. But this week, my mind’s like Jell-O – slippery, empty and nothing sticks.

Looking at the news, it’s bleak and depressing. A probable war in Ukraine, a Hitler wannabe taking over parts of Europe and forecasters warning that gas will cost $7 a gallon by the summer.

There’s global warming, computer-chip shortages, empty shelves in the grocery store and constant warnings about a new virus, ready to shut the world down again.

Who wants to read about those depressing subjects?

Not me.

Looking for an idea, I went through a file I keep of interesting news clippings. One was from 2000 about banning books. Parents were demanding the Harry Potter books, “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Lord of the Rings,” “The Handmaid’s Tale” and any books by Maya Angelou be taken off library shelves.

Today, parents are demanding these same books be banned and brave librarians are still leading the fight against banning books.

We haven’t changed much in 21 years have we?

Inflation is a hot topic, but nobody wants to read about rising prices. Besides, we’ve been down this road before. When I was in high school, gas was 19 cents a gallon. When I was in my 30’s, gas was $4 a gallon.

Global warming continues to make headlines. When I was a teenager, I also thought we only had 30 years left on this planet because Barbra Streisand said so on the back of her album.

Today, they’re saying that in 30 years, it’ll be 115 degrees in most places during the summer and to expect tundra-like winters. These doomsday prophets aren’t batting a thousand with me.

Being a mom is always a fun topic, but my boys are adults now. They’re no longer hoarding dirty dishes underneath their beds, running experiments on how long they can consecutively wear a pair of socks without washing them – two weeks is the record, by the way – or learning how to drive.

The grandchildren are perfect, just like everyone else’s grandchildren. My mom’s still rocking and rolling at 89 and retirement finds me looking for the best place to find a deal on day-old muffins.

I don’t go on cruises or exotic vacations, so I can’t try to entertain you with tales of a Caribbean voyage or the wonders of the Egyptian pyramids.

I’m not in an exercise class, so I can’t talk about the humiliation of standing in the back of the class in hopes of hiding just to have the instructor turn the tables and the people on the back row now become the people on the front row.

YouTube videos continue to entertain, especially cleaning ones. The one recommending using toilet-bowl cleaner to whiten the grout in my kitchen floor worked like a charm. Now I’m contemplating mixing vinegar and Dawn to clean the scum off the shower doors.

Just typing that last paragraph made me hang my head, admitting that removing bathroom scum is the highlight of my week.

So I’m back to wondering what to write about. How to make the words worthwhile so you, patient reader, will enjoy spending a few minutes reading this column.

Perhaps I don’t have to write about anything earth-shattering. Maybe you don’t want to read about the glamorous life someone else is living or the fabulous places they’ve traveled to.

Maybe you’d enjoy spending a few minutes with an ordinary, ho-hum retiree who believes even though there’s struggles all around, life is still pretty darned great.

It wasn’t any fun cleaning that kitchen floor, but I listened to my brother’s podcast and was quite entertained. I don’t go to live concerts, but I enjoyed listening to George Strait singing from a truck’s sound system while waiting for a train to pass.

So maybe having nothing to write about gives me the opportunity to realize that even nothing can be something special.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

These cold mornings gave me a chance to hunker down and clean out some of the kitchen cabinets. In the process, I remembered why some things are more useful than they appear on the surface.

For instance, a pasta fork or, as we novices call it, a spaghetti stirrer. This useful device allows you to scoop spaghetti noodles out of the bowl with ease.

Our mom taught us a second use for the spaghetti stirrer – it’s a great back scratcher. Just be sure you don’t put it back in the utensil drawer after you’ve taken care of that itch.

A four-cup Pyrex measuring cup serves double duty. It’s perfect for making one serving of oatmeal in the microwave.

You’ll never have to worry about oatmeal boiling over in the bowl, thus leaving a layer of oatmeal that resembles concrete on the microwave plate. Plus you can eat the oatmeal right out of the measuring cup.

Our mom taught us a useful trick for a spatula. In a pinch, the pancake flipper thing makes a great spanking tool for unruly children. More than once, she would wave the spatula around and threaten us with a spanking if we didn’t behave.

The pizza cutter isn’t just for pizza. It’s a great tool for cutting sandwiches in half and doesn’t massacre peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches like a regular knife will. The pizza cutter also makes cutting the crust away from sandwiches a snap.

Zip-loc bags are a lifesaver for me. I use them as they’re supposed to be used –sandwiches, cookies and grapes. They’re also my first choice for keeping a wet washcloth in the car when traveling with little ones.

The jumbo Zip-loc bags are a traveler’s best friend. You can put four or five T-shirts in one bag and then squeeze the air out of the bag. This step compresses the bag down to about an inch thick. Then you toss it in your suitcase, saving space and keeping the garments relatively wrinkle free.

Same goes for your nightgowns and shorts. Put them in the bag, squeeze out the air, and you can pack twice as many garments as you’ll need. The gallon-size bags are great for packing undergarments for travel as well. My suitcase resembles a plastic factory whenever we travel.

I also use the sandwich-size Zip-loc bags for sorting pens and the extra plastic dispenser cups for kids’ medicine. They’re also great for separating Legos by color or shape, and the bags are the perfect size for a toddler’s hands.

A butter knife not only spreads butter, but it’s great for spreading anything. Hint – lightly mist that knife with cooking spray before attempting to spread Marshmallow Fluff on a slice of bread.

In a pinch, a butter knife makes a fabulous flat-head screwdriver. I’ve also used a butter knife as a shoe horn, a tool to pry open the lid on homemade jelly and to clean the gunk out from the sides of the kitchen table leaf on the rare occasions when I take it out.

At the top of my not-needed list is a food processor.

I have a friend who swears by this machine, but I’ve never taken it out of the box. In my over 50 years of cooking, I’ve never had the need to process any food. So, buh-bye.

Also on that list is a blender. Once I found out the calorie count in a milkshake, the blender became a distant memory. That unused appliance came out of the cabinet to make room for more boxes of Zip-loc bags.

Our thoughtful son and wife gave us an Insta-Pot for Christmas a couple of years ago. The directions were confusing, and the one time I was brave enough to use it, the chicken came out like rubber. I can accomplish that with my old Magnalite pot from Louisiana.

So there you have it – what’s useful and what’s not in the kitchen. The next time your back itches, try out that pasta stirrer. You’ll never look back.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

Unexpectedly, I found a pendant along with another necklace I thought I’d lost years ago. I went to Chris Dostal’s Fine Jewelry to have the pieces checked and evaluated.

Gina and Steve not only took their time with inspecting the jewelry, they cleaned the pieces to showroom quality. We enjoyed small talk as they worked, and I felt as if I’d stepped back in time to when shopkeepers knew you by name.

As long as I was in downtown Rosenberg, I decided to see what other shops had to offer. As I walked down the sidewalk, I remembered conversations I had with the late Arthur and Lydia Mahlmann about their growing-up years.

They said downtown Rosenberg was the place to be on Saturday nights. would come in from the farms and surrounding areas to visit with each other, catch up on the county news and do a little courtin’.

Lydia said the girls would go to the drugstore, sample the lipsticks and giggle at the guys. Arthur said the men would pick up a beer and a brat for a nickel and try to talk to the girls.

Downtown was the place to be, and that’s as true today as it was 60 years ago.

The downtown area has long been known for their antique stores, but there’s so much more. The stores have been updated and offer more than antiques. One store offered hand-made soaps and jewelry in addition to a room with a variety of coffees in all flavors.

So many shops have a backyard garden area, landscaped with beautiful flowers and garden knick-knacks. I walked past one shop where you can have your hair cut and styled while looking out on the street, just like people did back in the olden days.

Walking is enjoyable, thanks to the wide sidewalks and beautiful murals that cover the entire side of the buildings. Window shopping is always fun, and it’s a lot more satisfying than looking at pictures on a computer screen.

I found quite a selection of clothes, from pants to vests to shirts to baby clothes. The prices are reasonable, and the quality is top notch. There’s clothing for all occasions, from attending a casual rodeo to an elegant quinceanera.

You’ll find hand-made wreaths for all holidays and occasions and candles in all scents. A downtown area is complete when visitors have access to quality restaurants, and the downtown area has what you want.

My grandchildren and I enjoyed an old-fashioned milkshake, burger and fries while watching the trains roll by and promised ourselves we’d be back again. They asked if we could visit the Railroad Museum on our next trip as they thought the caboose on the grounds was calling their names.

The antique stores in downtown Rosenberg have always been a favorite haunt for me. One year, I found all the Christmas gifts for my sisters-in-law in the shops and had a fun time browsing, picking up items and saying “remember this?” to my friend.

In all the shops I visited, the owners were helpful and we had real conversations. You won’t find that on Amazon.

There’s other restaurants and shops around the downtown area as well, including the Black Cowboy Museum. Cast Theatrical has a full season of plays for 2022, all staged in the historic Vogelsang Bulding.

There’s no need to drive for hours west or north of Houston to rediscover the allure of a downtown area. The best is right here. Minutes from your house, you can get a bite of something delicious to eat, sip a little wine, pick up something special for that special person in your life, browse in quality shops for a variety of one-of-a-kind gifts or see a live theatrical performance.

In downtown Rosenberg, you’ll meet friendly shopkeepers and discover that hometown feeling right here in your own back yard.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald. 

When I had my first real job — the one where you wear sensible heels and a white blouse instead of a band T-shirt and scruffy jeans – I secretly laughed at the older women who worked for the big bosses on the fourth floor.

“The dinosaurs” we called them.

Word processing software and equipment had just hit the markets, and we young guns embraced the software immediately.

We could now delete entire paragraphs with the press of a button. The dinosaurs didn’t have a clue about that. They just started over.

All of them had at least two bottles of Liquid Paper in their desk drawer, right next to a box of carbon paper.

We knew everything because we were young.

We understood technology, a new word back then.

We could run circles around them if only they’d get out of the way.

Forty years later, the tables have turned.

In my former job as a yearbook teacher, I used every trick in the book to reach parents and students to get them to buy a book.

We put up signs and posters all over the school and mailed letters home.

We sent emails to parents’ accounts and put a link to our yearbook account on the school’s website. We recorded a message for the school phone tree.

But times change.

Students don’t look at posters on the wall because, during these post-pandemic times, they’re still not physically in the building.

If they are, they’re looking at their phones when they’re walking down the hall.

Letters mailed home are unread because parents don’t check physical mailboxes. Anything really important is texted to them or posted on social media.

Forget phone calls. Hardly anyone has a land line and, if they do, they never check their messages. Cell phone numbers change so frequently, it’s hit or miss to actually connect with a potential buyer.

A former colleague posted on social media that they were looking for ways to sell more yearbooks. I suggested some options, but every suggestion was nicely shot down as being out of touch.

“But you’re a really nice person!” she posted as a reply.

I realized something tough.

I’m now the dinosaur.

I’m the relic.

I’m the irrelevant one.

After a few hours of feeling sorry for myself, I thought more about what I did and didn’t know about marketing a product.

You must have something people want. You have to enlighten buyers as to what you have for them, why they need it and how they can get it. The transmission system changes, but not the message.

The same goes with writing. People join the author with an unspoken contract.

Engage and entertain.

Enlighten and involve.

Surprise and satisfy. The author’s characters, plot, and intention should touch a nerve in a readers’ heart and head.

Sometimes writers want to make people laugh. Other times, they want them to cry, but always, readers want to feel emotionally connected with the characters they’re reading about.

Good writers – and there’s only bad ones and those looking to improve – are continually searching for the best way to connect with readers.

That never goes out of style.

I don’t know how to navigate the latest social media platform or how to put emoji’s in a text message.

I don’t have a reason to create a Tik-Tok video.

I’ve never ordered fast food from an app and the only door dashing I do is from my car to the front door during a rain storm.

And I don’t mind that I don’t know those things.

I suppose it’s time to find out where the other dinosaurs are grazing and join the herd.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.