Archives July 2025

I spend hours each day on my iPhone. There are games. I cannot go on unless I can solve the Spelling Bee from the New York Times. Also Instagram–the cat and dog reels are all consuming. And of course, there is my news feed, but that is way too depressing.

But I fall into the rabbit hole of the “influencers.” They are unbelievable. These are people with enough time and apparently followers to make videos giving the rest of us advice on, and here comes the list–grab your pencil:

• How to do your makeup–using tools like marble rollers that you run over your skin erase wrinkles. But the influencers using these tools are at best in their late twenties, so they have no real credibility with the rollers. There are other tools: little combs to shape your unruly eyebrows. Tiny razors to remove God knows what off your face. Masks. Toners. Lotions. Contouring creams. Foundations. Blushers. The rainbow of makeup colors they use-on a single face, my God! Do these women have jobs? So they get up four hours early just to put on their makeup for the day?
• What stuff you should eat to be in tip top health. Beetroot is a big one. Let that just sit for a minute. And smoothies. The things they put in blenders are horrifying.
• Exercise. Apparently, doing some sort of squat on top of the kitchen counter ought to make you live at least an hour longer.
• I have to admit that dogs and cats in hats are very entertaining. But think of the time that is spent knitting these little hats! From watching the pet influencers, I get the idea that all pets these days also wear pajamas.
• Every single influencer has incredibly white teeth. I want whiter teeth. I have tried those white strips, but they don’t make my teeth startle others with brightness. I want to know what these influencers, and all the newscasters out there, use. They probably go to dentists for expensive treatments that regular Daytonians like me don’t have access to. I asked my dentist about this, and he suggested brushing more aggressively. Ok then.
• How to stay safe in a hotel room, which involves tin foil and a paper towel.
• Finally, there are the influencers who do “hacks.” A hack is a creative way to use something that nobody has thought of before, and this will make your life EASIER. For instance, just today, there was a hack on Instagram on how to charge your phone using two raw potatoes and two quarters. It was so revolutionary that I went to the comment section, where the first comment was “I just plug my phone into the wall.”  Another commenter noted that “This is a great way to use those  two potatoes in my glove compartment.”

I will keep watching those videos, though. One day an influencer might tell me how to exfoliate without bleeding.

In my career as a wife and mother, in the fifty years that I made the evening meal for my family, the math comes out to 18,250 or so dinners that I cooked. During that time, there were of course some disasters, but the majority of the time, the things I made were completely acceptable, and quite a few were delicious. I could make recipes, follow directions, and even improvise. My family not once refused to eat what I cooked.

I have never liked cooking. No Julia, Ina, or Emeril over here. I just did what had to be done, and I managed pretty well. My kids still say that I “make the best tuna and egg salad ever.” So there is some pride involved with that.

However, when we moved into our apartment, my skills slowly deteriorated. We subscribed to meal boxes, and my husband took over cooking those. That left four nights a week for suppers I was responsible for.

I hated those four nights, and spent time online looking for “easy recipes for two,” and really leaned into the Crockpot. As many of you have experienced, Crockpot meals most often taste as if the cook just boiled a bunch of stuff and then served it.

Things got progressively worse. Sandwiches were frequent. I had high hopes for omelettes, but my spouse refuses to eat breakfast for dinner. I overdid spaghetti and Rao’s sauce. I continued to look for “easy recipes.”

I undercooked things, misread recipes, added herbs and spices that did not enhance the entrees, and tried to convince my husband that a lot of families have the same thing on the same night every week. I had hopes that I could get away with “Sandwich Sundays and a “Midweek Pot Pie.” That didn’t go down. He wanted variety. My dinners got worse and worse.

So. Last Friday, I thought I would make pizza. Easy. We have a pizza stone. You buy the dough ready made, and nobody cares if you stretch the pizzas perfectly round. Then, you preheat the oven to 450 or 475 with the pizza stone in there. Just throw on the toppings and cook. Easy peasy.

I have one of those pizza shovel things. I put cornmeal on the shovel, as that is imperative in order for the pizza to slide off onto the pizza stone without getting stuck on the shovel. “Smart,” I thought to myself.

I hit the 475 degree button, oven on, and sat down to talk to my husband during the pre-heating. The oven beeped. I had forgotten to hit “start.” So I got up and hit “start,” not realizing that when I did that, the oven reset to the standard 350 degrees. Not hot enough for the pizza.

I spread half of the dough (“makes two pizzas) on the shovel and topped with the sauce, the olives, etc., finishing up with lots of mozzarella. It slid right onto the pizza stone. In the not hot enough oven.

I did the same thing all over again on the shovel. Then it hit me: I needed the shovel to get the first pizza off the stone and onto the counter.

I remembered, somewhere in the depths of my brain, reading instructions that said “You can put the pizza directly onto the oven rack,” so I did that with pizza number two, on the rack above the one on the pizza stone. Sat down and relaxed.

Suddenly, my husband screamed,”Molly! THE PIZZA ON THE RACK IS MELTING DOWN ONTO THE PIZZA BELOW! IT’S DRIBBLING ALL DOWN!”

And sure enough, what I had remembered was instructions for store bought frozen pizzas, which as we all know, have crusts made out of dough that contains 90% cardboard. They don’t melt.

I tried to retrieve the bottom pizza, but as the oven was set to just the 350 degrees, that pizza was melty on top but raw otherwise-it sagged. It buckled. It became all scrunched up, because it was under cooked. Ugh. THEN, As we struggled to grab the globs of pizza hanging off the oven rack above, like stalactites, he burned his hand and said the “F” word, I became depressed, and we ordered pizza delivery.

After we had the really good delivery pizza, my husband looked at me, shook his head, and said, “You know Molly, I think your cooking days are over.”

I rejoiced silently. Then I rejoiced right out loud.

I am a cat person. I have had exactly two dogs in my entire life. My life has been filled with cats; at one time I had five. I will never have another dog, because my current cat would murder it.

And yet, when I have nothing to do, I spend a whole lot of time thinking about what I would name a dog if I got one. A dog’s name is important. If you have a dog, you probably say its name multiple times a day. I am very judgy about people who give their dogs dumb names. I mean, really: if your dog is white, and you name him “Whitey,” you have absolutely NO imagination.

It is trendy now give dogs human names. “This is my dog Robert.” I have mixed feelings about names like Robert, Thomas, and Theodore. Pet names get shortened all the time. So Robert becomes Bob, Thomas Tommy, and Theodore Theo. And for God’s sake, don’t name your dog Richard, because then your dog will become a Dick.

Naming little dogs big names and vice versa is popular. A Chihuahua named Bruno or a Mastiff named Penelope. Oh, and every Pitbull I know has a dainty name like Pansy, Sweet Pea, Holly, or Dierdre. Although Adam Sandler had a Pittie aptly named Meatball.

If I got a dog, I would look to food. So many dogs have cute names like Lentil, Pepper, Popcorn, or Triscuit. I think I would choose a more unique food name for my dog, like Gravy or Hoisin.

I might call a dog “Baby,” but I would never name one that. Talk about not being original. And I have often wondered why so many dogs are named “Chance.”

I know of a dog named “Lentil.” Kudos to that owner. I hate lentils, but what a good name. I also saw a dog named “Mayo” on Instagram. Another favorite dog on Insta is “Schmoo.” Another Pitbull mix.

I have a list in my head of good names for my nonexistent dog:

• If he looked ferocious, I would name him “Backbone.”
• If she were adorable, I would name her “Blanche,” as counterpoint.
• I like medium sized dogs. Brown ones especially. So I would name my brown dog a good medium brown name like “Sparrow,” or “Geraldine.”
• And who on the Internet doesn’t love “Olive” and her sister “Mabel?”
• “Ginko” is cute. I bet it isn’t that original.
•  Adjectives might make good names, like “Huge.” Especially if the dog is, you know–medium and brown.
• I could go for “Panko,” “Bookend,” or “Rosemary.” Maybe “Bookend” is too affected–strike that one.
• I like “Fiona,” “Dashboard,” and for a Beagle, “Flight Risk.”

Here are some names that nobody should ever name a dog:

• “Booger”
• “Buddy”
• “Adolph”
• “Flea”
• “Killer”
• “Bubba”
• “Tootie”
• “Stupid” UGH
• “Girl” or “Boy”
• “Donald”
• Any game name like “Mario” or “Roblox”

I worked at a veterinary office for eight years. And guess what was the most popular dog name in the practice?

You guessed it? MOLLY