I used to have a life. I'd answer phone calls, reply to texts when they came in, and surf Facebook to read updates on my friends' antics. Not anymore - not since my mother took me Downton.
I had no interest in watching Downton Abbey. It seemed like everyone was doing it, and I hate to do what everyone else does. I ignored my friends' comments about how wonderful it was and even poo-poohed the selling point that Maggie Smith was in it. For these mistakes, I now hang my head in shame.
It was over coffee at my parents' house that my mother mentioned she'd picked up Season One ofDownton Abbey at the library on my sister's recommendation. Mom finished that first season in 24 hours. I've known my mother all my life, and she doesn't commit to that kind of show easily, particularly if it doesn't star Andy Griffith or Dick Van Dyke. I was intrigued.
I checked Netflix and found they had Season One on streaming. My life changed forever.
Jason didn't understand why I didn't want to make dinner or clean the house, but these things seemed trivial to me. It was more important to me to find out if Mr. Bates and Anna were ever going to be able to be together. I started talking about Mary, Edith, and Sybil like they were my own sisters (good thing my sister had gotten sucked into the show first, so we could gang up on them when we thought they were being foolish.) My thoughts took on a British accent. One day, when I was feeling particularly sad (for Branson) I called my mother, who cheered me up. I sent her a hand-written card the next day: You were so kind to cheer me up yesterday - I was terribly blue. I think anyone who really knows me knows that pre-Downton, that note would have contained 14 colorful and inappropriate words and would never have been hand-written on embossed stationery. My life had changed.
It took me about seven days to watch all three seasons. (I tried to cut out the unnecessary things in my life, like sleep, but I wound up face-planting myself on my iPad from exhaustion during an episode in Season Two, so I napped and re-watched the whole season from the beginning.) My sister, mother and I wound up video-blocking each other at the local library, all of us trying to get our hands on Season Three before the others. I started referring to my late grandmother as the Dowager Countess. Nobody in the family seemed to mind.
If you haven't watched the show yet, I'm afraid I've bored you. But you're missing out. Be a sheep. Watch the show. You'll thank me for it.
And do drop a note to let me know how you got on.

Are you thinking of relocating to Connecticut? Good Lord, why? Have you not seen how much it costs to live here? Plus, if you Google “school shootings” or “circus fires” or “guys who have put their wives through wood chippers,” we show up on the top of all of these lists. Are you crazy?

Still determined to live here? Fine. I’m here to help. Here are some things you should consider when relocating to Connecticut:

1. Pick your town wisely. Yes, you will be judged solely on the town you live in. Living in Glastonbury, for instance, will buy you more social snootiness points than living in East Hartford, but less than if you lived in Avon. The closer you live to the New York border, the more stuck up you are allowed to be. As you move north and east, your social status will decrease, but I think we can all agree that the death knell to your reputation would be to buy a house in Jewett City. It’s just a known fact to us Nutmeggers.

Helpful hint: It’s important to keep your favorite baseball team in mind when you move to Connecticut. If you prefer the Boston Red Sox, settle east of the Connecticut River. If you’re a Yankees fan, head west. That’s the rule.

2. Do you like sports? More specifically, are you ready to follow the UCONN women’s basketball team off of a cliff if that’s what’s required of you? Fine. You should fit right in. However, if you prefer any other team or any other sport, you might want to consider another state, like Massachusetts.  Nutmeggers are famous for not bothering to leave their homes to support their teams. We’ve lost our MLB baseball team (the Hartford Dark Blues – also showing our lack of enthusiasm for clever names,) our NFL team (that’s right! We were home to the NY Giants from 1973-4, because we couldn’t muster up our own team,) and our NHL hockey team (still a source of heartbreak for the 237 of us who actually went to the games.) If you have no interest in team spirit, Connecticut might be a good fit for you.

3. Great education, terrible jobs. Times are tough everywhere, and Connecticut is no exception. We have fantastic schools and institutions of higher learning – Yale, Wesleyan, Trinity, University of New Haven, even UCONN – which means our retail and fast food workforce has the highest percentage of Ph.Ds in the nation.

4. Consider your political views. Are you a Democrat? No? Keep driving.

5. Weathering the weather. Connecticut is a beautiful place to live, particularly due to its seasons: Fall, winter, more winter, and smothering humidity. When moving to the Constitution state, you should be prepared for snow on Halloween, sunshiny Christmas days, frost in May, and sunny September hurricanes. It’s part of the fun of living here.

6. How do you feel about weird, life-threatening diseases borne by insects? You will learn more about Lyme disease, West Nile Virus, and Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus after one spring season in Connecticut than you’d ever learn in a lifetime anywhere else. See those pretty deer in your backyard? They’re dropping ticks all over your hydrangeas.

After considering all of these things carefully, maybe you think Connecticut is still right for you. Perhaps you figure you can overcome any adversity with the help of good friends and good neighbors. Because everyone knows how welcoming and friendly New Englanders are. 

Good luck with that.

It's fishing season again. If you have a fisherman in your household, then you know what this means - endless days of sitting on the beach, freezing your tuckus off and slapping sand fleas as they bite your legs. However, if you are truly dedicated to your fisherman, the following tips might make your life easier!

1. Know your tide tables. Nothing ruins a college graduation or child's birthday party faster than your fisherman not showing up because it's an ideal tide for fishing. Knowing your tide tables will help you to avoid planning pesky nuisances like dinner during peak fishing hours.

2. Know your bait. Nobody wants to be the guy who brought the wrong lure to the fishing party. Familiarizing yourself with the proper bait for the target catch will make your fishing trip much more pleasant. I find it helpful to keep emergency packets of squid innards, minnows, and maggots in the cooler  next to the cold sodas.

3. Prepare for any situation before leaving the house. Wear short sleeves for warm weather, pack sunscreen, bring a sweatshirt for cooler weather, wear rubber boots over your sneakers in case of rain, don't forget an umbrella (you don't think a little monsoon will cause your fisherman to pack up early, do you?), bring a blanket for sitting on the beach and wrapping up in once the temperature drops, and bring a shovel as a handy walking stick/beach fire prevention tool...just in case. It's also important to remember to spray yourself in insect repellant beforeleaving the house. Otherwise, the soft "fwoosh" of the bug spray on the beach might scare the fish away, something your fisherman will hold against you for years to come.

4. Know your fishing knots. Lost hooks and lures are par for the course while fishing. You never know when you will be called into service to re-tie a hook at a moment's notice. Remember the angler's rule of thumb when tying hooks: the rabbit runs around the tree three times before jumping in the hole. Bonus:As a fun beach activity, why not tie a few flies while watching the fishing line drift listlessly in the water?

5. Know your limits. Size limits, of course (your limits of patience and endurance will be tested throughout the day.) Familiarize yourself with state regulations on every breed your angler is trying to catch and make sure you can cite them when prompted. It's helpful to know the limits on all the fish in the ocean - you never know when your fisherman will aim for a fluke and reel in a scup. Don't forget the tape measure!

Overall, it's your choice whether to spend the day fishing with your loved one or to read a good book in the comfort of your own home. After all, nobody's going to ask you to stab a meal worm with a hook when you're camped out on the couch. Even then, you're never safe - after all, someone's got to fillet, de-bone, prepare and cook the big catch once your fisherman brings it home!

It might surprise you to know that I'm a bit of an amateur scientist. (Maybe it wouldn't. But it surprised me to type that sentence, as dissection makes me hyperventilate.) Recently, I let a few bananas get a tad overripe, and my kitchen was overrun with fruit flies. I figured the best way to turn lemons into lemonade (or bananas into banana bread, if you would) was to conduct a few experiments. The results were shocking.

I put a clear glass bowl over the banana mush, gave them a little water, and started right away. First, I subjected my fruit flies to ten days of Sweatin' to the Oldies VHS tapes. Sure enough, within 40 days, all of my first-generation fruit flies were dead (though two insisted on getting a Richard Simmons perm before expiring). 
Proven fact: exercise is bad for you. 

My next generation had it a little easier. I fed them lentils and a high-fiber supplement that rhymes with Betabucil to see how they'd do. All were dead within 37 days. 
Proven Fact: a high-fiber diet is even more lethal than exercise.

I had a few more theories to test. One generation was subjected to three days straight of Under the Mistletoe by Justin Bieber. Sadly, I didn't stop this experiment early enough, and I lost several fruit flies when they threw themselves in the water bowl to escape the madness. It was a veritable fruit fly suicide.
Proven Fact: Justin Bieber = death.

Next up, I gave some flies the cheap dollar store chocolates that Jason bought me for Easter instead of going to Munson's, like I'd hinted at for days leading up to the holiday. (Honestly - how do you misinterpret a text that reads "Munson's has choc. covered Peeps. Bring some home or don't come home" ?) Sure enough, the fruit flies were dead within 40 days of being subjected to cheap cocoa and powdered milk.
Proven Fact: Next time, don't cheap out on the chocolates, pal!

Finally, it occurred to me that all of my experiments had been negative. What if I tried something fun, that I was sure would bring about positive results? So I played the DVD of Sing Blue Silver, a documentary of Duran Duran's 1983-84 World Tour. Unbelievably, all of my fruit flies were dead within 40 days. But I looked closer. Underneath the microscope, the evidence was clear: each one of those buggers had died with a tiny fruit fly smile on their faces.
Proven Fact: Duran Duran is good for the soul.

Next week: My hilarious exploits as I try to rid my kitchen of fruit flies.

If there's one thing I've learned as a writer, it's that not every novel idea should see the light of day. While a love story between myself and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson might sound like a good idea to me, there are other things to consider - like, will Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson's girlfriend, or the WWE sue? Will a restraining order be taken out against me? And how do I explain this to my husband?
I've had a few failed novel attempts over the years. Let's take a look at a few:

"My Mother is a Monster": Conceived of during my teenage years, this tale was about a 16-year-old who has to deal with such horrors as her mother insisting she come home by curfew; the cruelty of her mother refusing to let her out of the house in a skirt that barely covers her butt; and the worst of terrors, her mother insisting on calling her friends' parents to make sure the party the poor girl wants to attend will be supervised and that no alcohol will be served. It turns out that probably all of these things were for the main character's own good, but it took me a few years and a few failed agent queries to figure that out.

"Lame-o, the Sheepish Werewolf": In my early horror-writing days, I thought it would be fun to write about a werewolf that generally spent his days sunning himself on a rock, and preferred to eat Friendly's chocolate peanut butter sundaes over people. The terrifying part, of course, would be when Lame-o discovers he's lactose intolerant. However, it turns out there isn't much of a market for a non-snarling, dairy-loving werewolf named Lame-o. Live and learn.

"Zombie A-p-o-c-a-l-y-p-s-e": Sure, we all know that to survive the apocalypse of the undead, one will have to have some basic skills: hunting, gathering, finding weapons, using those weapons well, and, of course, the sidekick that always gets asked "how do you spell...?" Kept around for his impeccable spelling and grammatical abilities, Theodore hangs out with Butch, Fang, and Eyeball, letting them decapitate zombies and disembowel ghouls, while he reminds them that the decapitations are having a negative effect, not affect, on his appetite. This story was humming right along until Eyeball killed and ate Theodore in Chapter Three. Rule of thumb: never trust a character named Eyeball. Had I known he was a cannibal when I started writing the book, I never would have let him live past Chapter Two.

So remember, aspiring writers, not every idea is agood idea. And when you show your first draft of your novel to your family and your mother says "you have a LOT of nerve, young lady! You're grounded!"...well, then, maybe it's time to explore new ideas.