Month: February 2004

Valentine’s celebrations turned out differently than expected last week. Monday I made heart-shaped Italian cream cakes and stuck them in the freezer, trying to follow the “freeze before frosting” technique. Tuesday, my cream cheese frosting gathered up cake crumbs like a new vacuum cleaner. I smoothed as best I could, stuck the cake back in…

Frozen dinners rarely capture my attention, but when the prices plunged to spare change, I quickly realized fried chicken dinner costs less than stopping at my husband’s favorite chicken place. Besides which I don’t have the cooking equipment to duplicate franchise fried chicken. I bought a few for our freezer. It only took one time…

The quest to gain same sex couples the benefits – insurance, Social Security and family leave for the birth of children (always conceived with the help of a third party) – available to heterosexual married couples, found an empathetic ear in Boston, Mass., last week. The Massachusetts high court declared gays are entitled to nothing…

Like clock work, four times a year, honor rolls, merit lists, principal’s lists and dean’s lists from grade schools, middle schools, junior highs, high schools and colleges inundate the News-Times mail box, fax machine and e-mail. The list of the academic achievers piles up as we scramble to get all the names published before the…