http://www.record-eagle.com en-us Copyright CNHI All Rights Reserved. 5 Mon, 02 Nov 2009 08:10:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_306071016.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_306071016.html You're riding south to a reunion when a warm flush begins to spread through your body. Your chest grows uncomfortably tight, making it hard to breathe and your heart begins to race. Before you can react, a tingling sensation creeps up your arm, you get dizzy and begin to sweat. Your unease turns to terror as you realize you're having a heart attack. Mon, 05 Oct 2009 07:30:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_278073209.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_278073209.html We're on the boarding line at the airport with one carry-on bag each, which we've carefully measured to conform to airline policy. The airline has overbooked and is asking for volunteers to take a later flight, but we don't bite since we're meeting friends in New York. We shuffle to the head of the line, where we're told we can't carry on our carry-ons because the plane is too full. My husband argues. Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:50:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_250065026.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_250065026.html As some of the hardest workers in the world, Americans deserve a day off -- this year, more than ever. Why? Because employees in the United States generally labor more hours and take fewer vacations than their counterparts in other advanced economies. Because 10 percent of full-time workers don't get any paid vacation days. But mostly because, with retirement accounts evaporating faster than jobs these days, many of us will have to toil until we drop. Mon, 10 Aug 2009 07:20:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_222072023.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_222072023.html First it was "The Biggest Loser," the NBC fitness-weight loss program that asks obese participants to work out and weigh in wearing revealing bike shorts and sports bras. Then it was "Dance Your Ass Off," Oxygen's dance-weight-loss competition, which features "talented full-figured contestants who struggle with their weight and through dancing unleash their inner thin." Now it's "More to Love," Fox's plus-size version of "The Bachelor" -- or "'Fat'chelor," as some have dubbed it. Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:55:55 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_187075552.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_187075552.html Like a lot of locals, I'm ambivalent about the festival, though I recognize its contribution to the city. I don't skip town to avoid it, but I don't schedule my vacation around it, either. The sad truth is that I don't like cherries, except in pies. I hate crowds and I wilt like a plucked wildflower in temperatures above 80. Yet there's something about festival week that makes my step a little lighter. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:05:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_166070542.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_166070542.html When it comes to art, I've always believed that those who can, do; those who can't, collect. The first sign that I was meant to be among the latter came in grade school during a simple art project. It started with a piece of black construction paper and a straw, through which we were supposed to blow a dollop of watery white paint into a free-form design. I blew so hard that I fainted. Mon, 11 May 2009 06:55:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_131065714.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_131065714.html We're bumping down the dirt road that leads out of our neighborhood, feeling that rush of freedom and adventure you get at the start of a road trip. I'd raced home after work, flung some things in a bag and set off with my husband for a four-day weekend in St. Louis to attend the wedding of a friend, a former intern at the paper. Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:00:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_103073044.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_103073044.html They were on their way to Pamukkale, site of an ancient city and natural wonder: a miles-wide calcium formation dubbed "cotton castle" for its dazzling white color. The trip was part of a much-needed vacation on the Turkish Riviera, roughly 1,400 miles from their home in Germany. But their perfect getaway turned into a nightmare when the tourist bus in which they were riding overturned on its way to the World Heritage site. Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_075070216.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_075070216.html Beware the Ides of March, the soothsayer warned Julius Caesar in a Shakespeare play. Caesar didn't listen. And neither did we. Instead we tied the knot on March 15, chiefly so that two of our sisters -- college professors -- could attend our wedding during spring break. Since then, I've come to have other reasons to regret getting married in a season halfway between lion and lamb. Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_047095055.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_047095055.html Every year Lake Superior State University releases its "List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Misuse, Overuse and General Uselessness." So I decided to develop my own banished words list and extend it to include particularly offensive phrases, gestures and pronunciations. Here goes, in no special order. Mon, 19 Jan 2009 09:58:00 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_019094030.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_019094030.html Mickey Rourke came back from virtual obscurity to win Best Actor at the Golden Globe Awards. And it's all because of a dog. Now I'm thinking there's someone else who could use a dog to help get him through the hard times. He takes office tomorrow as the president of the United States. Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:00:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_357100047.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_357100047.html Grief knows no holiday. And for those who lose someone they love at Christmas time, the shock and loss can seem like a double blow. Even years after, the holiday remains a painful reminder for some. This year I know several people who are struggling through the holidays. One is a friend whose mother died four weeks before Thanksgiving. Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:00:58 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_329094556.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_329094556.html I was leafing through a list of Chicago restaurants open on Thanksgiving, feeling the first seeds of doubt begin to take root. At first a holiday weekend in one of my favorite cities two years ago seemed like a good idea: waking early to join the throngs for the parade, strolling through the Christkindlmarket, catching a holiday show. Later I wasn't so sure. Sun, 26 Oct 2008 20:00:57 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_301100109.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_301100109.html During a fit of getting her affairs in order, my mother asked my sisters and me to go through her house and make a list of the things we wanted someday. The idea was to prevent arguments after she died, but as it turned out there was only one thing we all treasured: the pair of small pumpkin lanterns we'd carried as kids to go trick-or-treating. Mon, 29 Sep 2008 09:43:00 +0000 http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_273093036.html http://www.record-eagle.com/martadrahos/local_story_273093036.html You're never too old to treasure stories about your childhood. One of my favorites is how I was supposed to be called Marquita, a name my father heard and liked, but that morphed in his memory to Marta by the time I was born. Now, that may be a common name in certain Latin American and Scandinavian countries, but it's all too rare here.