Research Junkie

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Where does the time go?" I overheard a 50ish woman with white-blonde hair say to her companion as they sipped coffee at Cosmo's. Later the same day, a mother at my daughter's school said it to me, "Where does the time go?"

I don't know about anybody else, but I can tell you exactly where my time goes. My husband sort of pointed out to me that I answer practically every question anyone asks me with, "I don't have time."

Here is what I figured out: I think the Internet could ruin my marriage.

And not even in that Dear Abby sort of online-romance/porno-in-over-your-head way a marriage could be ruined. Oh, I know that is pretty common these days. The very thing happened to an acquaintance of mine. It seems that he said he was going to work but in fact he had been fired months before. He would leave the house in the morning, circle the block and come home to hook up with his online honey. Let's just say his wife caught him in the middle of what we used to call "phone sex."

In my case it's more like research overload. I have always been an information junkie. I used to go to the library a lot. Now I have all that information and more streaming into my house 24 hours a day. I'm amazed I find time to do anything else.

It all became clear the day I went to see Kim Miller and Jamie Day's house on North Broadway.

I am having a cocktail party this weekend and I read in InStyle magazine that I need a signature drink. So I went to my favorite party-prep site, epicurious.com, to find a recipe for something warm and appropriately holiday-ish. I found several and narrowed it down to Hot Toddies or one of two wine punches, Gloomling or Grogg.

I was thinking about the party as I stepped through the topiary arched hedge that frames the front yard of Kim and Jamie's house. I remembered the hedge being funkier. But as I entered the yard it seemed rather lovely and appropriately formal for this red-brick, Victorian-style house.

Because of the attention to detail in the garden I imagined that the house would be layered with velvet, wallpaper, and stuffed with furniture. Instead, calm rooms recall Scandinavian interiors. Which makes sense as Kim and Jamie have spent many years in Denmark.

Windows are left bare to both let in the light and to reveal the original, faux-woodgrain painting on the woodwork. The living room floors, also woodgrained, are mostly bare. Well-planned soothing colors are pulled from original tile fireplace surrounds, stained glass windows, and in the instance of the mustard colored walls of the living room, from a common exterior color on ancient buildings in Denmark.

Kim described the Christmas party they had last year as one of her best memories. They decorated with vintage ornaments on two silver Christmas trees and magnolia leaves cut from the back garden. A Danish colleague pronounced the house "hoeglig," which means, according to Kim, "Cozy but more than that - better than Martha Stewart could ever hope to be." And they prepared traditional Danish drink, Glogg.

Talk about synchronicity. My mind was made up. Glogg would be my signature drink. I ran home to research Glogg. An hour passed before I realized it, and I had only hit 12 of the 658 web page matches Yahoo found. On one page alone there were 12 recipes. I would need more information before I decided on a recipe. I began reading about Denmark in general, hoping that insight into the Danish mind would lead me to the perfect recipe.

Then - like a lightbulb above my head - I realized what exactly I do with my time. Every day I get bleary-eyed becoming a mini-expert on some inane subject.

It's a better habit than crack, but I think my husband misses me.