Posts by Trisha Leigh Zeigenhorn

Everyone knows that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and Thomas Edison came up with the bright idea for the lightbulb, but of course people who invent things never stop with just one thing – and their most famous invention probably wasn’t their first, either. If you’re curious what other things your favorite inventors contributed...

Helicopter parents. Free-range parents.  Those are the far ends of the spectrum, but I promise you, most parents in the world fall somewhere on the spectrum in between monitoring their kids’ every move and letting them do what they want all day and night. Many, if not all, of my friends who are teachers would...

They say that kids will do as you do and not as you say, and even though my kids never pick up their toys even though they’ve been watching me do it for years, let’s go ahead and assume it’s good advice for the things that matter. One of the toughest things for people to...

Most places you apply will ask for references, either personal or professional (or both), and I think most people are aware that you’re supposed to let your references know you’re putting them down, and like, ask permission. Right? Doing so eliminates awkward situations like this one, where a woman listed a place of employment where she’d...

There are as many ideas about what makes a “dream home” as there are people in the world, probably. Beach houses, lake houses, white picket fences, old houses, new houses – you name it, somebody dreams every day about getting to live in it. I’m not sure I’ve heard of people dreaming about living in...

The Fellowship of the Ring is honestly a great trilogy of films, from the story to the cinematography and the acting. Fantasy nerds the world over got exactly the movies we deserved after decades of adoring the book, handing it to our friends and our children, and generally viewing it as canon for anyone wanting...

If you are a person of a certain age, or really anyone who professes to love high fantasy literature or film or television (or any type of story), there’s almost a zero chance that you aren’t familiar with The Lord of the Rings. The trilogy, written by J.R.R. Tolkien, is considered a classic, and essential canon,...

Say what you will about social media, but it’s ability to get into discussions you really never imagined – and never realized how much you needed in your life – is definitely a plus. Like this one about vampires, for example. It began with someone asking why there couldn’t be supremely lazy vamps who don’t...

In news that would have literally taken your breath away as a small child, there are people out there who are like, professional candy-tasters. That’s right. It’s a real job to taste candy and tell the makers which ones are the best, which ones could use work, and how. If that sounds like a dream...

Homelessness is a problem all over the world, and it has been since we’ve been recording the issues with our society. There are always going to be poor folks, people down on their luck, people struggling with addiction or mental illness, or who have otherwise fallen through the cracks of programs and people trying to...

Airport food is a total racket. I mean, everything you buy at an airport costs like, four times as much as it does anywhere else, because they know they’ve got you trapped – and that goes double for the places that are on the other side of security. You’re hungry? Well, your options are nothing...

First of all, can we just say that most “secret” family recipes aren’t really secret at all? Like, they’re all made with ingredients that are in post people’s pantries, just in varying amounts, and if your mom or grandma told you the truth, you’d probably find the recipe in an old printed church cookbook (or...

I hope we all know by now that diamonds really aren’t special, or worth a ton, or rare in any way at all. The entire industry was created – and remains propped up – by jewelry companies like DeBeers, who started the craze of needing a flawless and expensive diamond ring before you dared get...

Okay, listen. Normally I’m all about the Unpopular Opinion reddit, and that’s because I am middle aged and crotchety and all, get off my lawn and stuff. That said, so many things about this question got my dander up – the fact that there’s no universal definition of “weird,” for one thing, but for another,...

It should be no secret by now that for all of the good that science has done over the centuries, a lot of people – helpless, differently colored, and voiceless people – have been hurt in the name of progress. Every time I hear about one of these experiments that crosses the line (boldy) into...