A New Kind of Shower is a Gift for AllBy: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.This past weekend, I attended my second wedding shower in two weeks.The receipt of a shower invitation usually inspires dread. Typically, women are herded into a too-small room and forced to sit in chairs making small talk for hours while the bride, perched on a carefully positioned throne for [...]
Why Fix It When a Good Patch Job Will Do?By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.In these turbulent times, there are plenty of words around to inspire fear.The list includes things like nuclear arms, biological warfare, terrorism, etc. No need to further elaborate; given the world’s almost constant state of mayhem, you can use your imagination to come up with a tally as long as [...]
Mother’s Day-Can You Hear Me Now?By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below. Once again, the annual homage to mothers is upon us. Next Sunday is Mother’s Day and for weeks now, we’ve been barraged with advertisements encouraging kids and dads to part with their cash to honor mommy with the perfect gift.But the truth is the perfect gift can’t be bought, no matter how much [...]
Of Royal Weddings and Broken Bank AccountsBy: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.I’ve got a royal case of the jitters.The impending nuptials later this week of Prince William and Kate Middleton, have me feeling a bit jumpy.William and his lovely bride-to-be are the picture of promise and hope as they happily take on the days leading up to their marriage. Frankly, it’s a stark [...]
Headphones Insure that Silence is GoldenBy: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this post, click the play arrow below.I want a job with headphones. Lots of jobs with headphones involve really important stuff. Air traffic controllers, TV and movie directors, NASA rocket launchers (I’m sure that’s not their official title, but you know what I’m talking about), recording engineers, sports announcers…the list goes on.And I’m sure some of those jobs would [...]
By: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this column, click the play arrow below.Lots of things scare me these days.Between rising gas prices, global warming, natural disasters, malfunctioning nuclear power plants and a host of other frightening actual or potential events, I often find myself staring wide-eyed at the ceiling at 3 AM stewing over the latest calamity.Yet I admit that any control I might have over most of those large [...]
The Bare EssentialsBy: Mary Fran BontempoTo hear an audio version of this column, click the play arrow below.“All I want is two pairs of underwear and a pair of sneakers.”With that odd proclamation, my husband weighed in, somewhat obliquely, I might add, as to whether or not we should purchase a small table and two new chairs for the back porch, something I was lobbying for to replace the broken down set currently [...]
