Advent Style in Early December. . .

A cafe treat for the Young Master, who did not accompany yours truly on my paper grading mission to the local cafe this afternoon. But how could I not purchase a gingerbread man for him when I saw them grinning from the glass case beneath the cash register?

A lot going on around here since Thanksgiving, but I thought I'd check in today with a few photos of stylish seasonal items. . . of the edible kind.

-- Heinz-Ulrich

The first of this year's authentic Dresdner Stollen baked by the Grand Duchess each December and fresh out of the oven. The aroma filling the house when I returned home a while ago was heavenly. While a properly done stollen is not exactly sweet like a sticky coffee cake or birthday cake, it tastes amazing with fresh, very black coffee..

Finally, yours truly, happy to have plowed through 20 or so undergrad papers (5-6 page critical website reviews). I have several days' respite until I get another stack of final papers from one of my classes this semester later in the week and from the other two early next week. Then, no classes again until around January 20th next year! My usual weekend and evening attire during the winter months on full display here. Everything is old or very old here. It sure ain't what you could call brand spanking new. Well-worn corduroy jeans (Land's End), an old OCBD shirt (Land's End), and a very old -- 20+ years -- Norwegian fisherman's sweater (the real McCoy) from L.L. Bean, which the company is selling again in its catalogs right now. Jump on them before they disappear!

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Up North Style. . .

Bad Dad makes a friend. YMP and Bad Dad on the shores of Lake Michigan. Or was that Crystal Lake? The Grand Duchess takes a selfie in her kayak. How NOT to impress the girls sunning themselves along the river. YMP and Bad Dad kayaking on the Platte River headed toward Loon Lake. J ust back from a week in Northern Michigan in a charming and spacious house on the banks of the Betsie River outside of Thompsonville. A largely pleasant seven days despite some challenging episodes with the Young Master, who has picked up some very questionable habits and language from his friends in the 8th Grade during the school year just ended. But otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves and contemplated remaining for a few days longer since the house was available. In the end, we decided to return home as planned originally since neither my wife, nor I wanted to spend the remaining days chained to our computers in Zoom meetings from our vacation destination. I actually managed to leave the laptop and ip

Mid-June Thursday Style. . .

A nother pretty typical variation on the theme for late spring, summer, and very early fall. I'm a huge fan of Madras and have several such shirts in the seasonal rotation. Lightweight, exceedingly comfortable, and even dressy when pressed and tucked in, which is the usual way of things here at Totleigh in the Wold. Now, if I had my druthers, I'd still rather be skiing the trails in the upper half of "The Mitten" (of Michigan), in the Upper Peninsula, or Ontario. But summers ain't so bad either, and I'd look pretty funny walking around in cross-country ski attire during June. -- Heinz-Ulrich

A Lazy Saturday at the End of June. . .

A sleepy first half of the weekend here at Totleigh. Warmer and quite humid ahead of an approaching cool front here in Mid-Michigan. Perfect for yet another pair of chino shorts an a seersucker shirt -- tucked in of course -- with the usual leather deck shoes and ribbon belt. Otherwise, not much accomplished beyond a page or so of writing and monkeying around with audio settings for an upcoming podcast episode. However, I was not completely useless yesterday! I made a huge fruit salad for dinner, which the Grand Duchess and I enjoyed a short while later at the table on the back porch. The Young Master, as is his wont on Saturday evenings, took his dinner on a tray in the TV room upstairs where he whiled away a couple of hours on Flight Simulator, flying some sort of commercial airliner to some destination across the Atlantic or Pacific. I would have loved that sort of technology at about nine or 10 way back during the late 1970s, aka The Stone Age. As it is, my sister and

Classic Style

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