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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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

The Power of Ideas. . .

T he end is nigh! The autumn semester/term approaches. And while we still have almost two months of summer left according to the calendar, "Summer is over and gone," as the crickets sang in Charlotte's Web . At least for those of us who head back to the classroom in less than a month. In advance of a meeting with my program director late Monday morning, I spent about 40 minutes total during the weekend to jot down several ideas about planned workshops and related activities for the coming 2024-2025 academic year. At an opportune moment, I mentioned "I have a few ideas," and opened my leather portfolio. My director was highly receptive to almost everything I suggested, and we had a very productive planning session for just over 90 minutes. Just about everything I sketched out on Sunday aligns with his own ideas. It's nice when meetings go that well, and two related things occur to me in hindsight. One, it pays to exercise...

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 19...

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