Rose Mula

  • Joan Fontaine

    Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

    Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…

  • An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…

  • Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…

  • high heels

    Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…

  • Vintage jewelry, Wikimedia Commons

    Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

    Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…

  • ways to grasp a pencil

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…

  • Captain Charles E. Yeager

    Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

    Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…

  • stack of books

    Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

    Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…

  • Elizabeth Warren, “It’s time for all of us to pull up our socks and get to work”

    The new consumer bureau is based on a pretty simple idea: people ought to be able to read their credit card and mortgage contracts and know the deal. They shouldn’t learn about an unfair rule or practice only when it bites them — way too late for them to do anything about it. The new…

  • Counter Space, Design and the Modern Kitchen at MoMA: From genuine pleasure to anxiety

    Throughout the exhibition prominence is given to the contribution of women, not only as the primary consumers and users of the domestic kitchen, but also as reformers, architects, designers, and as artists who have critically addressed kitchen culture and myths.

  • What Color Are Your Socks?

    Misti owns a mind-boggling wardrobe of the wildest socks I’ve ever seen. Neon zebra stripes, bright patterns and designs scream her individuality against the rest of her black attire. Wearing those socks puts a spring in Misti’s step and a broad smile on her face. I’m not the only customer who breaks into a wide…

  • Shopping at Montreal’s Fine Arts Museum Shop

    M Boutique offers wide a selection of original, high-quality gift ideas from many different countries, at prices for every budget. There are beautiful items for the home, as well as sculptures, textiles, jewelery, children’s books and games and contemporary objects. Consider Mondrian trays and boxes, a Van Gogh inspired stained glass panel and Cre-Art necklaces.

  • Anne Morgan’s War: Rebuilding Devastated France, 1917–1924

    This exhibit highlights the small team of American women who left the United States to devote themselves to relief work in France during and after World War I. Their leader was Anne Morgan (1873–1952), a daughter of the financier Pierpont Morgan who stated, “We do not want sightseers who would like to go over for…

  • ‘Unretiring’ and Social Security Myths from the Urban Institute

    As women’s earnings and retirement wealth have increased, they appear more likely now than in the past to make retirement decisions appropriate to their own careers and financial security, instead of following their husbands out of the labor force.

  • More Children Being Raised by Grandparents Since the Start of the ‘Great Recession’

    Just as the number of children being cared for by their grandparents has increased from 2000 to 2008, the corresponding number of grandparents serving as primary caregivers to their grandchildren increased 8%, from 2.4 million in 2000 to 2.6 million in 2008.

  • CutureWatch, Review of The Constant Liberal: The Life and Work of Phyllis Bottome

    It’s hard to believe after reading this detailed, sympathetic story that its subject seems to be hardly known today. She was famous and highly esteemed, especially in the United States, as a novelist before her success reached England.

  • Confessions of a Domestically-Challenged Homemaker

    If my washing machine and dryer could talk, they would tell you that I never separate my whites from my colors, I throw my “delicates” in with my jeans, and I dry everything at either the high or permanent press setting — whichever one the gauge happens to be pointing to at the time.

  • An Adventure on Cape Breton Island

    The Welps of Connecticut had been having a grand adventure on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, traversing the switchbacks of the highlands and hiking some of its most famous trails.Then, ““Hello everyone, we are stranded at a place called Meat Cove on Cape Breton Island. Came for one night of camping and had a very…