Saturday, May 29, 2010

Welcome to Time Continuum Airways

Welcome to the reservation website of Time Continuum Airways!

Through new state-of-the-art tesseract technology, we offer direct and expedient round-trip excursions to any place and time in the history of the earth. Our sole requirement is that you give your travel plans and objectives considerable thought before booking your trip. We cannot offer a money-back guarantee, since all travel is free of charge.

To fit every traveler's needs and dreams, we offer four travel options:

- The Live-and-Let-Live-Again Plan:
Our economy package takes you back to any one day in your life. Perfect for nostalgic types, this plan allows you to relive any blissful 24-hour period. Favorite choices among past customers include weddings and births. Please note: The day revisited must be experienced exactly as it originally occurred. Any requested changes incur an additional cost. (See "The Change Your Life Plan" below.)

- The Change-Your-Life Plan:
Our value-added package offers the same features as the economy plan, but with the additional capability to change any choices you originally made on the selected day. Geared toward the daydreamer or the repentant, this plan enables travelers to retract poor decisions, or even prevent a personal tragedy.

- The See-the-World Plan: Our deluxe package, aimed at history buffs, takes you back to legendary moments in time or enables you to experience a single day of life in any historical time period. A few of our popular trips are attending the Woodstock Festival and walking on the moon with Neil Armstrong. As with our Live-and-Let-Live-Again Plan, the day must be experienced as it originally occurred. However, travelers are guaranteed immunity against disease and injury. (One of the many benefits we are pleased to offer.)

- The Change-the-World Plan:
Our deluxe-plus package allows you to visit any day in history, with the added power of intervening in that day's occurrences and consequently altering world history. Popular destinations among humanitarians and idealists include the Holocaust and the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

Trips are limited to one per plan category (a total of four trips per customer).

To make your reservations, please leave the details of your trip(s) in the comment section below.

We hope you enjoy your trip, and we thank you for flying Time Continuum Airways: the airline that takes you any where--and any time--you want to go.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Martha Stewart in the Kitchen

I rank housecleaning, on my list of favorite activities, somewhere below root canals and calls from telemarketers.

As a cook, however, I've always been more enthused. A mop and bucket may be hapless tools in my quest for Suzy Homemaker, but I achieve a bit of magic with a spatula and frying pan.

I learned my way around the kitchen at a young age. I remember calling my mother at work, when I was ten, with a question about stuffing the roast chicken I was making for dinner. The greatest benefit of having a mother who worked outside the home was being given the responsibility and liberty of preparing dinner (that and having an excellent venue for afternoon parties on school holidays).

My mom's own mother never allowed her anywhere near the kitchen. This resulted in a few culinary disasters later in her young adult life, such as the time she made potato salad for a picnic and figured a generous sprinkling of cinnamon on top could substitute for paprika. (A red spice is a red spice, she reasoned.) Oh, Mom. *sigh*

Although she went on to be a fabulous self-taught cook, she wanted to save her three daughters similar humiliation. Consequently, by the time I was 21 and living on my own, I was a wiz in the kitchen. Albeit one with a sink full of days-old dirty dishes.

But then, over the past few years, all my dinner guests left the building.

As a single and new empty-nester, dinner time now is often a table-for-one affair. Cooking hardly seems worth the effort. Suddenly, a bag of popcorn and can of Diet Coke is a quite suitable meal. My freezer is loaded, not with beef roasts and chicken parts, but with stacks of Lean Cuisines. Twice last week, I said "Screw Dinner" altogether.

Oh, the horror of my woebegone ways.

Martha Stewart may have politely turned her back to my dusty bookshelves, but she surely won't excuse my dipping a Dorito in a bowl of salsa and calling it a meal.

Martha, however, is not my biggest concern at the moment. Son #2 returned home from college this weekend for the summer. After nine months of cafeteria food, he's looking forward to a home-cooked meal or two.

I'm more than happy to oblige him.

I hope he likes his popcorn well done.