Post-Birthday Monday. . .

Taking a page from my late mother's handbook, I celebrated yet another 29th birthday yesterday and enjoyed a lovely, quiet Sunday at home with The Grand Duchess and Young Master. A late waffle breakfast and Thai take-out later that evening, courtesy of my wife, plus chocolate cake and a few gifts after dinner. The Grand Duchess, bless her, gave me a bottle of St. John's Bay Rum aftershave, which is divine. Easily the most fragrant Bay Rum I have found. Even more so than Royall Bay Rum.

Attire for today (Monday) includes a vintage Harris Tweed jacket that I found in my old Central Illinois thrift/charity shop for about US$7 about eight or 10 years ago. Almost everything today, now that I think about it, came from Land's End except the Allen Edmonds shoes and belt. The vintage Land's End necktie, a favorite this time of year, is 100% wool, hand sewn in the U.S.A. of fabric woven in Italy.

Yes, Virginia. At one time, you could actually purchase quality items at reasonable prices from LE that did not resemble stretchy sweats, Snuggies, or lycra-infused, so called "comfort" items that might be more at home in a Kindergarten classroom than an adult workplace.

So the lesson for today? Smaller and fewer portions at mealtimes, limit snacking, and know your precise clothing sizes. The comfort issue will solve itself.

On a related note, just say "No more!" to the ongoing infantilization of life and society at all levels. You can start by taking a conscious step back from the perpetually rumpled, torn, and food-stained soiled laundry hamper aesthetic that dominates the cultural landscape in 2022, and instead dress like an adult who gives a damn. It's not at all difficult, and far from the erroneous hardship that so many imagine dressing better than the average must invariably be.

I know, I know. The genie is already well out of the bottle. But a guy can still hope, eh?

-- Heinz-Ulrich

Comments

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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