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The LL Cool J piece made me realize how sorry I am The Times dropped its rule that people be referred to as "Mr." or "Ms. X" and not by first names. They repeatedly refer to LL Cool J as "LL". How much cooler would it have been to say "Mr. Cool J"?

I refer in particular to that trinity, M-Day, J4, and L-Day. This site is either determinedly internationalist in its approach, or determinedly provincial (with threads on some backwater called "Boston"). As a proud American, I want to make a stand. To my L-Day bbq today I took my All-American Special K:

I went to some medical procedure a couple of weeks ago and the nurse was like "OMG there's blood all over your lips and beard" and I was like "no that was a very ripe plumcot".

You know what…

Dropped her phone into the dessert

labor day lunch for four: insalata caprese polpette al sugo swiss chard and onion braised with pork fat and wine roasted zucchini with garlic, mint, and vinegar blood orange-rosemary ricotta pound cake digestifs/coffee/tea

When they started issuing "forever" stamps, my wife bought a lot of them.

I take your $0.56 and $0.73 and raise them to $74.90, with no results in sight. Strolling through Harvard Square my wife and I popped into the Cambridge Artists Cooperative on Church Street. Seeing scarves we liked, my wife said that they would be perfect for S, S and S (their real initials), close relatives in Birmingham. We bought them and walked through the nearby alleyway, stopping only for ice cream at the oddly hidden cart from the terrific restaurant Harvest (where I once had lunch courtesy of Rupert Murdoch -- but that's another story), to the Post Office. I paid the amount mentioned above for this 8oz package, for what their marketeers have told them to call "Express Mail". 5:42 hours later Boston "accepted" the package. The next day it was at the "Jamaica International Distribution Center". That sounded promising. Jamaica is a hop, skip & jump from JFK (not that those are any of my moves). 4:08 hours later it had been "processed" by that facility. It took another 18:35 hours for it to get to JFK. .... You get the drift. Things were no better at the UK end. At this point the package is being "held" at some local Birmingham office. "Held" because they want to charge the recipients export tax. When I called the USPS today to complain and got through after two hours I was told "It's up to you to know the rules of the country you are shipping to."