Laurel A. Rockefeller's Blog, page 13

Review: Walmart’s Equate hairbrush out performs national brands

I have very fine hair that breaks easily. Online the consensus has been for years that the Wet Brush brand was the best performing brush for fine hair, especially right after washing hair when your hair most readily breaks.

Imagine then my surprise when I bought the Equate Gentle Rounded Tip Cushion Hair Brush. At a cost of around $2.00 the brush measures 8.85 inches long, 2.36 inches wide, and 1.38 inches deep. It’s therefore much smaller and easier to handle than the standard Wet Brush...

Tasteless: Great Value Cream Cheese Frosting Fails to Please

Cake is good. Frosted cake is supposed to be great. Cream cheese frosting on red velvet cake is supposed to delight.

Sadly that is not the case when you frost your cake with Walmart’s Great Value cream cheese frosting.

Looking at the label, there is no cream cheese in this frosting. The first ingredients are sugar, palm oil, water, corn syrup, corn starch, and canola oil. The rest is a long list of stuff like xanthum gum and chamomile extracts. Though the label tells you to put in frid...

Review: Dine In at Dominos Pizza Johnstown

When we think Dominos Pizza, dine-in is not the first thing to come to mind. When I was growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska the ads for Dominos focused on their “fast, free delivery” to contrast them with Pizza Hut. Gone are the days of free delivery: there is now a fee paid to the restaurant if you choose delivery that is separate from your driver tip, dramatically raising the total price you pay.

Though not typically in their television ads, many Dominos locations offer dine-in options. When ...

Poem: I love you Jesus

When I was in junior high I was hit by a distracted driver and suffered a crippling traumatic brain injury during what is for most people, myself included, the most challenging years of our lives. In those years my complete amnesia of all my lived experiences led me to change churches to Holmes Park Bible Church in Lincoln, Nebraska. While there I penned this poem, roughly at the age of 15. This is one of many poems including in my work in progress book, “Land of Flat Water: Poetry and Re...

Simple DIY Natural Toys for Small/Medium Parrots

Parrots chew. Parrots can be very destructive. It’s instinctive, part of both the courtship and nest building process, depending on the species.

Pet stores love to sell toys featuring hard wood pieces such as pine. These are loved by the larger species, especially those over 500 grams. Think umbrella cockatoos, galah cockatoos, blue-gold macaws, green-wing macaws, etc. The iconic species.

But smaller species are just as beaky and just as destructive. My two publications in Bir...

Poem: Trapped in Time and Space

My first preview from my work in progress poetry book sounds Whovian, but was written about 40 years before I watched my first episode of Doctor Who.

Trapped in Time and Space

(written circa 1987)

Trapped in time and space

I am trapped in many a place.

Going forwards, backwards, and up and down.

This way, that way, and all around.

I’m trapped.

I’m trapped.

Trapped in time an space

I don’t know exactly where I am.

I’m lost, so confused.

What do I want, whe...

Return of the King. Excerpt from “Margaret of Wessex: A Play in Four Acts”

War between England and Alba persisted. A warrior king equal to his rivals in the south, Máel Coluim mac Donnchadh, nicknamed “Ceann Mhor” found himself restless and unable to stay home for very long following the christening of his son Edward in Act IV, Scene II. War called him back to the battlefield. In this scene, Malcolm returns home to Dunfermline to find his palace – and his court – dramatically changed by his Saxon queen.

Dunfermline Palace today

Act IV, Scene III

1...

The War on Women Erodes Women’s Rights and Identity

Women’s rights are in the news. Two years after Roe verses Wade’s overturn by the United States Supreme Court, the attack on women, women’s body, identity, and basic legal rights has not stopped with the moving of abortion regulations to the individual states.

My recent micro-history, “American Patriarchy” explores many of the laws and progress of legal rights for women in the 19th and 20th century, finding most laws focused on women specifically to address property, employment, and financia...

Patriarchy and Money. Sex-based income disparities. Excerpt from “American Patriarchy”

As the 2024 campaign for president heats up, it’s time to take a look at “American Patriarchy” from the Life in America series. Here is topic six from the book entitled “Patriarchy and Money.”

Topic Six: Patriarchy and Money

Money makes the world go round – the song from the musical “Cabaret” remains infectious. Money is a vital tool for our lives, allowing us to convert our professional labors into the tangible products and services of life. From basic needs like food and shelter to ...

“Patriarchy and Money.” Excerpt from “American Patriarchy”

As the 2024 campaign for president heats up, it’s time to take a look at “American Patriarchy” from the Life in America series. Here is topic six from the book entitled “Patriarchy and Money.”

Topic Six: Patriarchy and Money

Money makes the world go round – the song from the musical “Cabaret” remains infectious. Money is a vital tool for our lives, allowing us to convert our professional labors into the tangible products and services of life. From basic needs like food and shelter to ...