Every year now, I suppose, we’re going to go through this.

My Facebook stream will be inundated with well-meaning people who want to commemorate the tragedy of 9-11. They will post graphics, sentimental posts, all kinds of hooey about where they were that day and how we should “never for… Read full post »

So it pretty much stunned everyone. A cinema icon took the stage in the beginning of the last hour of the Republican National Convention and talked to a chair for twelve minutes. 

When it was over, Twitter exploded. @InvisibleObama tweeted his inaugural tweet and had 15,000 follo… Read full post »

When I first started blogging on Open Salon, Little Man was two years old.

My first post on OS was a hyper-political post about the 2008 democratic primaries.  Back in those days, OS was still in its “beta” form, and the small community of people that wrote/… Read full post »

 

My son is about to become a graduate…of preschool.  Well, actually, of two different preschools.  And yes, there will be graduation parties.

I am as proud as any parent, of course.  Who doesn’t love an opportunity to celebrate their child?  B… Read full post »

The “stroller wars” have almost become a modern cliché.  If you are a parent with a child under 10, you’ve probably been on both sides of the battlefield.  On the one hand, you have been the persecuted parent who has been made to feel inade/… Read full post »

I watch the TV in my studio while I do work. I absorb a phenomenal amount of bullshit TV in the name of having noise in the background while I work.

When Oprah did her hour-long interview of Rielle Hunter last week, the needle got buried on the bullshit meter.… Read full post »

It is one of the less attractive aspects of child-rearing that the little buggers seem to have a knack for changing the game on you just when you think you have them figured out.  No sooner do you think that you have a handle on the whole newborn thing, they… Read full post »

In Canada, they are breathing a sigh of relief because they have managed to stave off having a fifth national election in five years. Here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the yearly statewide election is a way of life.

Last year was the national Presidential election, with the C… Read full post »

The real problem with the kerfuffle over Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren is being glossed over.  Once again, the left wing is so busy saying things like “Reagan did it too!” that they are missing the point entirely.

Like it or not… Read full post »

The Iron Pundit and the Iron Skillet are parting ways.

 I have decided that in order to better find my voice as a writer, I need to give this blog some focus and direction.  For me, that means choosing what I want to write about and sticking to that in this… Read full post »

  

Well, here we are again folks, getting ready for the grand finale, the final show for Top Chef Masters.  Tonight is also the premiere of Top Chef Las Vegas, which as a super special treat, I will also be liveblogging along with the TCM Finale.

 And appare… Read full post »

Hello everyone! 

Here we are again for our weekly foray into the wonderful world of Top Chef Masters, Open Salon Liveblog style!

First off, a BIG Iron Pundit thank you to Pretend Farmer, who valiantly filled in for me last week, as I was off someplace with no televisions… Read full post »

I am not built for giving up.

This is the single fact of my being, the thing I know about myself more surely than my own breath.  From the day of my birth, my persistence has been both my greatest asset and my greatest weakness.  If I want something,/… Read full post »

Here it is folks!  The very first episode where the Top Chef Masters have to behave like real cheftestants.  It’s not that the preliminary competitions weren’t tough.  They were.  But for some reason, the format where one one advances didn’t/… Read full post »

So tonight blogging Top Chef Masters has been something of a odyssey in juggling.  You see, I have been captivated by the season premiere of BBC America’s science fiction drama “Torchwood,” featuring the amazingly sexy John Barrowman as Captain Jack H/… Read full post »

When the cat’s away, the mice will play, or so the saying goes.

My husband has been away for most of the week.  I love my husband, but cooking for him is….well…..limiting.  He won’t eat fish.  He won’t eat cheese (except on pizza, in/… Read full post »

     

So here we are folks, back for another episode of Top Chef Masters after a break for the July 4^th holiday.  Tonight, the chefs are apparently cooking for Neil Patrick Harris (aka Doogie Howser or Dr. Horrible, depending on how geeky you are)./… Read full post »

For most liberals, the appeal of Sarah Palin is baffling, much in the same way the appeal of George W. Bush was baffling.  Both are governors with little accomplishment to speak of, and even less intellectual capacity, with odd public speaking styles that to most educated pe/… Read full post »

Howdy folks!  And welcome again to another Liveblog of the new season of the Top Chef franchise, known as Top Chef Masters.

With all the confessing going on with the South Carolina governor, I have something to say.  A confession here about my dinner tonigh… Read full post »

Here we are folks, for episode TWO in the Top Chef Masters series!

I thought for a minute that I would enjoy leftovers from my chicken phyllo pie recipe tonight as dinner, but due to a confluence of factors, I ended up creating a quick baked halibut with a warm stirfry… Read full post »

(Actual pie goodness)

If you are a woman who grew up in a Greek household, there are certain things that you can count on having in common with every other woman you meet who grew up in a Greek household.  One, you have been the recipient of corporal punishment/… Read full post »

Greetings everyone!  And welcome to the beginning of the liveblogging of Top Chef Masters!

Back in the day, the Iron Pundit would attempt to watch political chicanery while eating. This is going to be somewhat different. Eating while liveblogging a food show seems… Read full post »

Read Verbal Remedy's into post here.

Our own Verbal Remedy sent me a proposition.  She was getting reacquainted with some of her old tarot decks, and knowing I was a professional reader, she asked me to help her interpret a reading she’d done. Since it seemed to be not only fun/… Read full post »

Lately it seems that everything I have to say on Open Salon has to do with my family’s struggle with raising a son with Asperger’s Syndrome.  After a fabulous weekend with our own Pretend Farmer that included an inspired evening with the one and only Bob E/… Read full post »

It was not a dozen roses or a diamond bracelet.  It wasn’t fantastic oral sex.  It wasn’t a fancy dinner or a tropical vacation.  It wasn’t a love letter. But it might as well have been all of those things, because buying a whiteboard for his office is t/… Read full post »