This is the time of year for gift giving. It can be disastrous. Examples:

One of my friends got a car caddy from her husband for Christmas. This husband also gave her bed pillows the previous year. They are still married, but it was rough going for a while.

Let me state very clearly to all husbands out there: If it plugs in, for Lord’s sake, DO NOT get it for your wife for Christmas or her birthday, or your anniversary. Never. Also, do not get your wife a pot, a pan, or a wire whisk. Avoid clothes, because unless you are very confident  of her size; this could backfire in a major way. Don’t phone it in with socks, gloves, or a muffler. Get your sh*t together, guys!

Don’t even consider anything you can get in a hardware store or a drug store. I know, there are also some grocery stores that sell “gift items” during holiday season, but you would be very foolish to get one of those gift items. No matter how much she complains about not having enough spatulas, perish THAT thought.

Another piece of advice: if it costs less than $25, don’t buy it. I don’t care how utilitarian it is, how handy it is, or the fact that it is marked down-don’t get it. The reason things are marked down is that nobody wants them at regular price.

Your wife doesn’t want anything you can get at a gift shop. Those scented soaps in a pink soap dish, all wrapped up in pink cellophane? That’s a no. Anything that comes in an assortment? Nope. No silk pillowcases; she will get one herself if she needs it. Don’t fall for food, either. Food is an office gift, or for your mother-in-law.

Avoid lingerie, unless you got married less than a year ago. Otherwise your wife will think you are too lusty. Just trust me on this.

So many men haven’t a clue. So they wander around on Amazon, searching for “wife gifts.” Amazon has no clue. Believe me-or look yourself: Growing Older Gnomes will NOT cut it. Nor will a sweat shirt that has YOUR HUSBAND LOVES YOU emblazoned on the front.

If you want to win at gift giving for your wife or girlfriend, just go to the nearest jewelry store, get a woman salesperson to help you, give her a wad of money, and let her take it from there.

DATELINE: Saturday, November 22, 2025. Kroger, Dayton, Ohio: Aisle 12

“Okay. I have to get parsley, and then we are done.”

“What’s it for?”

“The stuffing.”

“You cannot get parsley today.”

I look at my husband, who is shaking his head emphatically.

“First of all, who made you the Thanksgiving police? And more importantly, Why? What’s it to you?”

“If you get parsley today, it will be dead in five days.  It will be all wilty and slimy.” He put his hand on his head, and hit himself twice, as if implying that anyone buying parsley today was nuts.

“No it won’t. I put it in a glass of water.”

He rolled his eyes. “As I said, wilty and slimy.”

“I change out the water, for God’s sake.”

He laughed derisively. “Get it on Wednesday, so it will be fresh. Fresh when you make the stuffing.”

It was my turn to roll my eyes. “If you think that I am going to come here on Wednesday, when they need police to monitor the parking situation, fight my way into the store, go to the produce section where they will most likely be on their last bunch of tired parsley, then stand in a long line of people with carts full of pumpkin pies, dinner rolls, ten pound bags of potatoes, Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix, butter, full carts–all for one little sad bunch of parsley?” This is your suggestion?”

He nodded. “Wait. What about dried parsley?”

“You mean those flakes in a bottle that have absolutely no taste whatsoever?”

A few people walked by and looked at us askance. I wanted to ask them their opinions, but I knew that would be an escalation that I really didn’t want. I just wanted to get my parsley and go home.

He raised his voice a bit. “You mean there is an entire industry of parsley dryers that get paid to pick the parsley, lay it out on platforms to dry it, then send it to processing plants where they chop it up, put it in jars (another entire industry), and then label it (a whole factory that makes labels), and send it to Kroger where people buy it because it doesn’t taste like anything?”

I felt a little stab of pain behind my left eye. “Apparently, there is a segment of the population that thinks dried parsley is delicious. I am not in that segment.” I shot him my most evil look. “So I am taking this bunch of parsley,” I shook it, “And I am putting it right here in this cart,” I set it on top of the ten pound bag of russet potatoes, “And we are going to check out.”

He put up both hands, palms facing me in surrender. “Fine. But I am not making a parsley run on Wednesday.”

We made our way to the checkout. The cashier scanned my parsley and said, “Oh, do you use this for garnish?”

“No. It’s for the stuffing.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Really? You put parsley in stuffing?

“Yes. There is parsley in stuffing.”

She shook her head. “Ok then. How soon before this dies will you make your stuffing?”

Dried parsley. I sent Charlie back for dried parsley.

Thanksgiving is all right. But how important is it? If you were being executed in the morning, what would you want for dinner tonight?

You haven’t got this locked in? I thought everybody has spent time considering what they would choose for their final meal. Turkey and dressing would not be high on the list, I think.

As a matter of fact, I looked it up, and here are the ones that kept cropping up:

• Taco Bell
• KFC
• Cheeseburgers and Big Macs
• Cigarettes and Mountain Dew
• Fried eggs and bacon
• Steak
• If you can believe it, Twinkies.

So. I think Thanksgiving should be more akin to a final meal. What everybody there would want if they could not have another dinner. As far as I am concerned, my final dinner would be:

• Fried chicken.
• Mashed potatoes with plenty of chicken gravy.
• No need for a green vegetable; it’s my final meal.
• A baked potato, too, with sour cream and butter.
• French fries, right out of the fryer.
• Maybe some spaghetti with vodka sauce for a side.
• Soft rolls with butter.
• But here we go-chocolate cake with a thick layer of fudge frosting. 
• Coffee ice cream.
• A chocolate milk shake
• Warm chocolate chip cookies
• I won’t sleep tonight, so a cappuccino.
• To top it all off, more mashed potatoes and gravy.

You haven’t thought about what yours would be? Would there be appetizers? Wine? Caviar (does anyone who doesn’t live in Russia really like caviar?)? Some of you would insist on cheese. Would you want pizza? I know many of you would want roast beef or a nice Pine Club steak. Ooh-lobster. I might add lobster to my list. How about shrimp? I bet Ohio criminals would want Skyline.

Let’s all focus on what our real hope for a Thanksgiving dinner would be. Tomorrow is not guaranteed!

Forget the turkey. 

Please help local people who need it badly.

https://www.daytondailynews.com/local/where-to-get-food-assistance-in-the-dayton-region/ON2AKQNHUJD7LOUC4FUHKDM3DQ/

Just about all surgeries these days are outpatient. This means that spouses are involved. They have to get the patient there, wait for a long time in a waiting room with a group of other spouses, drinking vile coffee and watching the office TV on a loop of Antique Roadshow reruns.

My husband had a red thing (actual medical term) show up on his nose suddenly. The dermatologist biopsied it, which removed the spot, but not enough of it, because the spot was cancerous. Basal cell. The kind that doesn’t kill you but keeps coming back if you don’t get it all. And this biopsy didn’t get it all. It looked like she got it all, but the margins weren’t clear.

So the day of the surgery came. I had my Kindle loaded, my NYT games at the ready, and I was looking forward to sitting in the waiting room doing nothing for about two hours. Doing nothing is something I am good at, but I usually feel guilty about doing it. This was a day of required doing nothing, and I was looking forward to it.

I opened Spelling Bee. It was going to be a hard one, but I got vandal and diva right off the bat. My brain cells were all firing, and I didn’t even notice that I was the only person in the waiting room without a walker. I was starting to have fun out there. Just as I was contemplating vector, but damn, there was not an e on the board, when my husband returned to the waiting room. He stood in front of me and said, “Molly, they need you back there.”

Of course, I do know a LOT about medicine. I know what COPD is. I know the best treatment for hiccups is to drink water backwards from a glass. I know that if you have an upset stomach or heartburn, you can dissolve about a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of water and drink it; this is very effective. And I know that very few surgeons want the patient’s wife in the operating room. So I rose to my feet, still keeping my game turned on, thinking they just needed me to tell them something Charlie forgot–like if he has ever had whooping cough. Then I could resume. Maybe vice would work…

We got back there, and Charlie said, “Hey, they don’t know where to operate.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. They can’t find the spot where the cancer is/was, because the dermatologist forgot to take a picture of it.”

I was stunned. “What did they do in the olden days? Use permanent marker that you wore for the month before your surgery was scheduled? Or did they just not bother with face bumps? Or maybe the dermatologist just took a knife and cut the nose thing off during the office visit, taking surgeons out of the loop altogether?”

“Molly. This isn’t about history.”

“But why am I back here?”

“Because the surgeon asked if maybe my wife knew where the cancer was located.”

I felt a surge of something. Power! Importance! “You mean if I can point to the spot where this cancer is, they will go ahead and operate on my word alone?” What if I point to your ear lobe? Will they remove it on my say-so? Or your eyebrow? I can just say Off with his eyebrow! Like in Alice and Wonderland? What if I have them take your lips off?”

The surgeon interrupted my fantasy by coming in and introducing himself. Then he asked if I could point out the spot. I felt pretty sure I knew where it was, and pointed to a small red scar on Charlie’s nose. The doctor said, “Well if you just sign off on this, we can go ahead. They were willing to operate based on where I told them to do it. 

Both Charlie and I, having the same vision of Charlie with a big scar on the wrong side of his nose, both demurred, despite how flattered I was that I had sudden powers over a surgeon, for heaven’s sake.

So we were sent home, and Charlie had to go back to the dermatologist for some nose photos.

I have never in my life felt so powerful. I had lunch and absolutely ACED the Spelling Bee.

This is my mind today. I have spent about an hour trying to think of something to write about, but I have nothing. No amusing anecdotes, no criticisms of my spouse, no book lists.

TV shows? Not really, although I do recommend Dark Winds, because the actor that plays Jim Chee is extremely attractive.

Yes, I have PLENTY of ideas about what is going on in America right now. However those ideas don’t endear me to many of the people who read this blog, and so I try to steer clear of politics.

I have no ideas about fashion, although I hear that “hard pants” are out. I have no ideas about cooking, because thank goodness I don’t do that any more. I have no ideas about beauty, because I am an old woman.

Quite a few of my friends and acquaintances say things like “Oh, you should write about this!” They don’t realize that in order to write about something, you need to have more than one sentence to put on the page. Many topics that they suggest, like “Tell about the time you thought you might pass gas at the chiropractor” are just not shareable. And telling everybody why we don’t put up a Christmas tree any more is just depressing.

Give me a week, and I bet I can come up with something.

Here is a photo of my new hairstyle. It looks just like my old hairstyle. See what I mean? Nothing.

Here’s the thing. People who WIN things. If I had a nickel for every time, in their acceptances, they say they are “humbled,” I would have a large amount of money. They are not remotely humbled. You are humbled if you suddenly feel “less than.” You are not humbled by getting a medal.

If you work hard and strive, and then get to be awarded the best at something, you don’t suddenly feel like a nobody. “Nobodies” feel humble, because they are most surely not bursting with pride. They are bursting with feeling like they are just one of the herd, not leader of the pack.

This is a number one pet peeve. Do these winners feel as if saying they are humbled makes the rest of us feel more fond of them? Or makes the rest of us “non winners” feel better about ourselves? I only feel humble when I fail at doing something: like undercooking the turkey at Thanksgiving three years in a row. As a matter of fact, that humbled me so much that I stopped making turkey.

What people should actually feel humbled about:

• Forgetting why they walked into the kitchen
• Letting that pile of laundry sit there all week
• Buying those vitamin D capsules and never taking them
• Going out for dinner, then coming home and having cheese and crackers followed by 3 cookies
• Not noticing chin hairs until they are kindly pointed out
• Losing their glasses four times in one day
• Calling that woman you have met three times “Jeannine” when her name is and has always been Tanya

Humble pie. Have some…

“What is this?”

“It’s soap.”

“I know it is soap. It’s orange. We have never had orange soap.”

“So now we do.”

“Why do we suddenly have orange soap? It doesn’t smell like an orange. As a matter of fact, it smells sort of icky.”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

“Ok. In my news feed, it says that old people have an odor. An ‘old people’ odor.”

“Oh, no. What odor is that?”

“They describe it as sort of like mushrooms and must. And apparently, when you are old, you have it.”

“Are you saying I smell like mushrooms?”

“No. But you might to other people, and so might I.”

“Has anyone told you that one of us smells?”

“Of course not. Nobody would ever say that to an old person. So savvy old people have to be proactive and start using this soap that frankly, smells awful.”

“So when we use it, we take on the odor of this orange soap that isn’t a nice citrus smell, but sort of smells heavy and frankly repellent?”

“I think it is supposed to maybe react with your body chemistry to offset the old person odor and neutralize it.”

“Or make you smell, not like an old person, but just a person that smells, instead of mushrooms, more like rotted fruit? What IS this product?”

“You sort of hit the nail on the head. It is persimmon soap. Specially formulated for those of us approaching death.”

“But nobody has even hinted that you or I smell like mushrooms?”

“Who would tell us that? Frankly, the only person I can think of who would be that honest is 8 years old and lives in California.”

“So now, because of an article on your so called news feed we are doomed to use this persimmon stuff so we smell like persimmons instead of mushrooms? I like mushrooms. I like them sautéed and on top of chicken marsala. Have you ever had persimmons?”

“Yes. Once. I wasn’t a fan.”

“But you are fine with smelling like one until you die?”

“It was in my news feed.”

“The persimmon people put it there.”

“Let’s just try it and see how people react.”

“Molly. They won’t react. Just like they aren’t reacting to the fact that we might smell like mushrooms.”

“Ha ha! But we won’t smell like mushrooms, so people won’t go home and whisper about us smelling like old people–like when they are getting ready for bed and reviewing the dinner experience.”

“One question: have you ever smelled an old person? Like, caught a whiff of mushrooms?”

“Actually, no.”

“So this is all an insurance policy against being told by an adorable 8 year old in California that we smell sort of like the inside of a closet?”

“Exactly. I rest my case.”

“Should we start giving this soap to our friends as hostess gifts–since you also read on your news feed that we need to start bringing hostess gifts?”

“Only if our hostess is over the age of 65.”

“So if we have a young hostess, what do we bring?”

“A soap DISH.”

See you next week.

Stop feeling terrible about yourself.

• If you can’t get up from sitting cross-legged on the floor without using your hands, you are not going to die within five years. For heaven’s sake, I am certain that the majority of people on Social Security can’t do this. It’s the ones who CAN that are freaks. And unless they can get right down on the floor and demonstrate, they are lying.
• You know the people who don’t eat carbs? They are lying.
• I only know one person who has actually read Ulysses. The rest of them are lying.
• People who say raw oysters are delicious MUST be lying. You are still sophisticated if you find oysters, and yes, caviar, disgusting.
• You know all those products out there for improving “crepey skin?” All lying.
• 8 glasses of water a day has been debunked so many times. It’s a lie, folks! All we need to do is drink when we are thirsty. Maybe you were in the bathroom when this was exposed as untrue.
• And you are lying to yourself when you think women have to wear thong underwear. We don’t. We can wear whatever underpants we want to. I don’t think men care about thongs. Men just care if a woman laughs at their jokes. Or touches them on the face. Or breathes near them. Thongs are not even in men’s vernacular. Sex is in their vernacular, but they would have sex with a nice woman in granny pants. Or Spanx. As long as there is a woman in the same vicinity, not a man in the world would say to himself, “If she isn’t wearing a thong, it’s a no-go.”
• When you stay in your pjs all day, you are not a lazy bum. Don’t feel guilty for not getting dressed in your own home. Those people who make you feel like a lazy bum are lying. They are probably still in their pajamas.
• And finally, when your mom told you “I can always tell when you are lying,” she was lying.