This post will not be long ... but it will be tall. Pittsburgh is divinely, interestingly weird. Most American cities are horizontally sprawled across a plain, but Pittsburgh is uniquely, defiantly vertical. And that's a big part of its charm. The Terrain Pittsburgh has some elevation. The difference between
It is July 12 ... the day that every gherkin-dunking, brine-swigging, Peter Piper wannabe dreams about all year long. It is the annual Picklesburgh Festival here in Pittsburgh. And it's a big dill. You might think that's the only joke you could possibly make out of dill
Jay Ward and Bill Scott, the creators of Bullwinkle and Rocky, one of the first made-for-TV cartoons, had a problem. They had to crank out one episode a week, every week, like clockwork. Back then when you had to draw every frame of every movement, that was not an easy
The universe is gonna kill us all. Sometimes it seems the universe doesn't care a whit about us little dust specks jumping up and down on planet Earth. Then it sends viruses, cancer, tornadoes, boredom, and deceptively-enticing products like deep fried Oreos. For something that doesn't
"Won't you please? Won't you please? Please won't you be ... my neighbor?" sigh Mr. Rogers. So goddam insistent. You had better be his neighbor, or the next 30 minutes is going to be ... well, pretty awkward. Here Comes the Trolley C'
Our tour guide, George, counts them off on his fingers. "You got the City of Bridges. More bridges than any city on earth, including Venice. The City of Tunnels. The City of Champions. The 'Burgh. The Steel City. The Dirty 'Burgh. Hell With the Lid Off. Sixburgh,
It's my last day here in my 6 month Scotland adventure. What have I learned? Well, I have learned a shit-ton about Mary Queen of Scots. I learned she was kept in a tower for years and years, and they kept all the embroidery she sewed during this
When you think of UK food, you think Yorkshire puddings, blood sausage, a big roast beef, maybe some scones with clotted cream. You think of lords and ladies sitting around the dinner table wearing pointy hats, gobbling a mutton leg dripping with gravy, and throwing the bones in the corner
Dave, my hair guy, has a pretty stable Edinburgh accent, having lived here all his life. I have had 3 haircuts with him. The first, in April, I could barely understand him. The second, in June, I understood about 50%. And then last week I had my last Scotland haircut,
It is fairly unlikely I have Scottish blood, despite reports to the contrary (see The Reverend John Dorcas). I was neither born nor raised in Scotland. I hadn't even set foot in Scotland until I was 51 years old. But my name is all over the friggin'
It was April. I was standing on the edge of the Salisbury Crags, the plateaus which jut out underneath Arthur's Seat, the highest point in Edinburgh. I surveyed the entire city of Edinburgh, its beautiful stone work, its ancient church towers and clocks, the blue Firth of Forth
It sounds like an Anne Tyler novel. The first time I saw the Library of Mistakes advertised in the e-newsletter Edinburgh Genealogical Society (who are nuts about all-things-researchy)... I said, "Ah! The Library of Mistakes! This is the place for me!" I love mistakes. I make them all