Feb 12, 2014; Sochi, RUSSIA; Anna Sloan (GBR) in the women’s curling round robin session 4 during the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Ice Cube Curling Center. Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports Curling is a sport born in Scotland, and played there since medieval times. The first written record of this contest on ice dates from 1541. The game’s popularity and viewership soar every Winter Olympics, particularly during the Games in…
Renée FlemingMiro Vrlik Photography / Shutterstock.com When it was announced earlier this week that Renée Fleming would sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl on Feb 2nd, I was overjoyed. Others were bemused, even critical — after all, no opera singer has opened the football championship before. So why can’t there be a first? I asked. Since I’m penning a collection of humorous essays based on my mother Margery’s…
We all worked with our hands, we just had different tools and worked on different materials, be it fabric, leather, or human tissue. Our basic tools, however, were a needle and thread. When I was growing up in Scotland, I remember studying my dad as he worked at his tailor’s bench. In the yellow light he bent over the fabric, lips pursed in concentration, dividing the tweed with huge shears. Around his neck was his measuring tape, by his…
March 18th 2012 is Mothering Sunday in the UK. Mother’s Day across the pond falls on a different day than in the US. This was a bone of contention between my mother and me, for I was always getting it wrong. It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I either missed it or was late. The barrage of TV advertisements, newspaper ads and Hallmark store banners in the States, all told me, in clamant tones, that Mother’s day was the second Sunday in…