Dear Margot and Greta:

Because you seem eager for me to weigh in on your personal relationships, I'll caution you not to marry a brooding man. Brooders can be very attractive because they're intense and interesting, and they look like they need your love or at least some kind of assistance. A short term relationship with a brooder is fine -- it may even be a good idea, getting-it-out-of-your-system wise. For the long haul though, they might become tiresome, fun-sucking wise.

You might ask how to spot a brooder. A brooder is any guy who would not appreciate it if you rode your unicycle into a swimming pool at a summer party. In fact, he is apt to peel you away from the festivities entirely, preferring to go one-on-one, often when things are just starting to heat up. A brooder would not go with you to visit your sister in the hospital when you are wearing an opened-back johnny that reveals your novelty rubber butt boxers.  A brooder is likely to be seriously engaged in a particular activity that involves special equipment. This equipment might require roof racks for his car or maybe a guitar case. He won't like to joke about this pursuit and he'll not want it to be called a hobby. You get the picture.

How to avoid brooders, especially if you are just coming off of one? Well, they don't like to dance freely, wear costumes or be caught unawares/observe sudden movements, so for a short time, stick with hoedowns, Walt Disney World and surprise parties. Also don't make eye contact with solo kite surfers or guys at used record stores and you should be fine.

Always here for you,

Connie

This morning, while Greta and I were making breakfast and repairing some stuff in her apartment, it fell upon us to do several Google searches to answer the following questions:

•  Does it slowly poison you if you fry your eggs in a scratched Teflon pan? (No.)

•  Is it okay to use dish soap when cleaning cast iron cookware? (Yes, if you must.)

•  Can you re-energize a uncooperative suction cup? (Possibly.)

•  Who thought up hair shirts, long, long ago? (Credit goes to a team of shepherds and tailors. It was during the Ancient Commonwealth Games, in the final round of the Mortification of the Flesh event. Team Shepherd/Tailor took the gold, narrowly defeating Team Priest/Cobbler, who turned up in excruciating high heels.)

•  Who generally made the hair shirts back then? (Your mom could make a hair shirt for you if your family had goats lying around, but only if you were naughty and listed Self Flagellation Kit at the top of your Christmas list. If you were nice, you unwrapped a cashmere or pashmina shirt, the hair for which was taken from the soft undercoat of the goat. However, in Spain, moms had to make knock-off hair shirts from scraps of scratchy burlap because the family goat was due to be thrown off of the town church during a festival held every fourth Sunday of January.)

•  Do people wear hair shirts to this day? (A few men still do, usually tank tops.)

Reference hair shirt-tank top.

Margot is going into finals week and I told her I was thinking of good stuff to put into a care package for her. "Thanks, but please don't send me one," she said, "because having zero food forces me to leave my room. For me, a care package equals an isolation kit."

Greta is moving into her first apartment this week, so Bo and I asked her how she's planning to set it up. "Well I'm not even going to think of taking any of your furniture," she said, "until I check out Sundance and Anthropologie."

Recent thoughts on candy:

Bad Candy:

I took my dogs to the vet the other day and there was an uncovered bowl of candy sitting on a desk in the waiting room. Mostly I want candy and I have to call upon the "Just Don't Put It In Your Mouth" approach to resist it. But because of this candy's exposure to veterinary office stuff like dander, I observed myself not wanting candy for the first time. So from now on I'm going to mentally transport all the muffins, cupcakes, donuts and candy that come into our office to that desk at my dogs' doctor's office, in what will now be called "The Veterinary Maneuver." You can use it if you feel it would help.

Good Candy:

Bridget, who runs my husband's medical practice, was at a conference in Orlando last week. On the last day, it was announced that she had won a $6,000 piece of x-ray equipment in a raffle. She would not have been aware of her winnings, except for that her Butterfinger melted when she was out by the pool, so she went back into the conference room to get a freshie.

Good and Bad Candy:

Tootsie Rolls were the first individually wrapped candies made in the United States (1896). I love Tootsie Rolls so much, but only when they are thrown at me from slow moving floats during parades. If I'm in any other situation I really don't like Tootsie Rolls.

After weeks of doing serious research and writing boring blog posts, I'm ready to announce what will become the newest thing in glass wear and it's bowls. You laugh now, but pretty soon (well, not that soon, as we innovators typically operate years ahead of the hoi polloi) wherever you go to socialize (as long as you're hanging out with the right people), drinks will be served in bowls, probably ones called calabash bowls, which look like this: 

Why bowls? Well, everyone knows that people, especially men, love to cup things. When we begin to drink two-handedly from bowls, especially the calabash, which is a hollowed out and dried gourd, we will look and feel like we're living a natural lifestyle, which will be super in for the foreseeable future. Drinking thusly, we will appear to revere the earth and whatnot, as we lower our heads and bow to the bounty held within our basins. This is way cooler than what we do now, which is to throw our heads back unreflectively to quaff from mason jars like masters of the universe. Drinking from bowls requires concentration, and this focus will bring us to the present moment, which is where the people who are going to drink from bowls are always trying to be, so that's a win-win. 

There is an appealing communal aspect to drinking from calabash bowls, as societies from Asia, Europe and the Americas have been serving traditional drinks from large vats into calabash-style bowls during events like weddings, concerts and graduation parties for thousands of years. What I'm getting at here is that someone who is planning a large party should consider calabash bowls if he or she is thinking of going with a signature cocktail for the evening.

Since calabash bowls do not conduct heat, they are also perfect for hot drinks, like tea. Tea is no stranger to being drunk from bowls, as handled cups did not exist until around 1750 when an Englishman named Robert Adams invented handles because too many soft, pasty British palms of hands were being badly burned. Today only a few of us tough it out with handleless tea cups for reasons that are purely aesthetic. Soon though, when calabash bowls really catch on, they will be sold in ceramic form on Etsy, and after that at Pottery Barn, then at Home Goods, and then at Everything's a Dollar. At that point, hands will be scalded left and right, just like in olden times. The innovator in me says to apply for the Cardboard Coffee Bowl Sleeve™ patent at my earliest convenience.

Yesterday, an acquaintance came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, why don't you stop writing about jars?" And I said something to him that he'll never forget. I spun right around and said, "I don't know. Why don't you stop writing about jars?"

Well I am going to stop writing about jars, because there isn't one that comes close to equaling the mason jar's charming allure as a drinking vessel. I'm probably just hours away from identifying for you what the newest thing in drinkwear will be. In the meantime, since we're all still in bed with mason jars, I will tell you that, at a party the other night, my friend Lisa Taylor showed me that it's possible to drink from one while at the same time experiencing a sense of well-being. Every time you take a sip, hunt down the area just before the threading begins. Put your lower lip there and tip the jar's opening toward your mouth. Then, if you close your eyes, you will get a load of what it was like to drink from a glass.

Photo by Con

There's no way that we're going to be sipping drinks out of apothecary jars when our mason jars inevitably go out of style. Why? Three words: 

But even though they are poor candidates to hold our vodka tonics this summer, apothecary jars have a fascinating history, which I'm happy to share with you. An apothecary was someone who used to mix up and sell "medicine." They also sometimes acted as primary care doctors and thoracic surgeons. I'm guessing that they said words like elixir, liniment and dropsy ad nauseam. Apothecaries had been at this for years, dating back to 2600 BC (Before Celebrex). Okay, this is confusing, but the stores that were owned by apothecaries were also called apothecaries. Interestingly, the U.S. Supreme Court applies this Apothecary Precedent as it continues to rule that corporations are the same as people. 

Then one time, after Old Man Gower, the apothecary in the film It's a Wonderful Life, boxed and bloodied young George Bailey's ears for not delivering cyanide to a super sick Bedford Falls resident, horrified Americans lost faith in these man/stores. And tout de suit a hysterical run on the bank ensued that led us all right to the Great Depression:

"You put something wrong in those capsules! It wasn't your fault, Mr. Gower!"

Now that you understand the history of apothecaries, you'll have some context for learning about the jars they used. Apothecary jars fell into two categories: 1) the practical kind that actually stored chemical compounds, and 2) the more decorative kind that were displayed in store fronts.

1) Apothecary Storage Jars

Like mason jars and French Kilners, these sturdy jars, with their industrial-chic flair, are great looking. They were often labeled in cool fonts and were required to be clear so the apothecary could verify their medicinal contents. If you go on eBay, you'll see that they are now highly collectible. But you wouldn't want to lick one, so again, bad drinkware. It's interesting to note that nowadays the storage of drugs is mostly the job of mason jars:

Mason, the world's busiest jar.

2) Apothecary Display Jars

Controversy surrounds display style, or show globe apothecary jars. This is because, when they were first introduced in 17th century England, they were mostly filled with different color liquids and people disagree about why that was. Some say it's because, since nobody except Shakespeare could read back then, apothecaries sent messages to the general public through the tints in their show globes: Red -- there is a plague in town, or Green -- ollie ollie out come free: 

The "Headeth F'r The Hills" Jar

Others say that the myriad colors found in show globes were formed from various tinctures that the apothecaries were making out back, and that by displaying them in their storefronts, they came off looking super busy, professional, and not a bit like warlocks. 

Next time: The Leyden Jar and then I promise I'm done.