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Happy 14th Birthday, Maya!
Maya is 14 today, so obviously this picture is an oldie but a goodie. I have been thinking about the difference between those times when she was a preschooler, and these times, getting ready for high school next year. Sometimes I miss those times, because she was so sweet and said some pretty funny things sometimes, and if only I had had a blog then….but these times are wonderful and special as well. Watching her grow from a little girl into a teen, not too long from now into a woman…it’s amazing. Seeing the things she’s interested in, that I never was. Seeing the things she doesn’t really care about,…
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The Good Thief
Ren is a twelve-year old, one-handed orphan, living in 19th century New England. He was left at a Catholic orphanage as an infant, pushed through a wooden door in the gate one rainy night, and spends his time wondering who his parents are, why they left him here, and if he will ever be adopted. The gate was hinged to open one way – in. When Ren pushed at the tiny door with his finger, he could feel the strength of the wooden frame behind it. There was no handle on the children’s side, no groove to lift from underneath. The wood was heavy, thick, and old – a fine…
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Coconut and Lime Macaroons
(This is NOT a photo of my macaroons. I found this picture on Foodnetwork.com, here. My macaroon recipe differs in that it does not call for any dairy, and it is frosted with a delicious lime icing and pistachios as well. Pretty good stuff. I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture. Oh, right, because my pictures rarely come out the way I want them to.) My friend Cherry is planning to have a baby in about 6 weeks, so we decided this last weekend was a good time for a baby shower. Baby showers have come a long way from the horrid bets about how big your stomach…
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Breaking Her Fall
One summer night in July of 1998, Tucker Jones drops his 14-year-old daughter, Kat, off with her (slightly older) friend, Abby, in front of a movie theater. But the girls meet up with a group of older boys, one of whom is Abby’s boyfriend, Jed. Jed’s parents are out of town, and he invites the girls back to his place for a party. The party is big and gets out of control, and a few hours later, Tucker receives a phone call from the parent of another girl, telling him that Kat has been drinking shots, has gotten naked, and gone into the pool house to give oral sex to…
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Friday Randomness
Diving right on in here… I am sick to death of TVs every-damn-where. (If you’re not supposed to split infinitives, you’re probably REALLY not supposed to split a word in half, but I don’t care. Sue me.) I hate going to restaurants where they have a TV set up, and it’s happening at more and more places. Some decent places even. Not that Carls Jr is what I would call a decent place, but really? TV? And California Pizza Kitchen, and so many other places. There was a nice pasta place down the street, and they put in a big TV, and then it closed. Wonder if the TV did…
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March Forth!
Today is National Grammar Day! To celebrate, I’m freely cribbing a list of grammar myths from Grammar Girl, for your enjoyment. Full credit to Grammar Girl, though I might add a few comments here and there… Grammar Girl’s Top 10 Language Myths: 10. A run-on sentence is a really long sentence. Wrong! They can actually be quite short. In a run-on sentence, independent clauses are squished together without the help of punctuation or a conjunction. If you write I am happy I am glad* as one sentence without a semicolon, colon, or dash between the two independent clauses, it’s a run-on sentence even though it only has six words. 9.…
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Linguine with Herbed Shrimp
(photo found at a yummy cooking blog, Kevin at Closet Cooking, along with a really yummy looking recipe for a different shrimp and pasta combination. I tried to find a picture from a cookbook or something, but none looked anything like what I made. I should have taken my own photo, clearly. This looks similar, though mine had tomatoes.) My mom gave me a great cookbook years ago, Pasta Fresca. I think that was when Ted and I first moved in together in 1990. It is one of my very favorite cookbooks, partly because I love pasta, and partly because the recipes are all delicious. When cooking with recipes, my…
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Day After Night
The nightmares made their rounds hours ago. The tossing and whimpering are over. Even the insomniacs have settled down. The twenty restless bodies rest, and faces aged by hunger, grief, and doubt relax to reveal the beauty and the pity of their youth. Not one of the women in Barrack C is twenty-one, but all of them or orphans. Their cheeks press against small, military-issue pillows that smell of disinfectant. Lumpy and flat from long service under heavier heads, they bear no resemblance to the goose-down clouds that many of them enjoyed in childhood. And yet, the girls burrow into them with perfect contentment, embracing them like teddy bears. There…
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At The Cusp of Woman and Black
February is Black History Month, and March is Women’s History Month, so here at the cusp I’m going to repost an oldie from my early days of blogging, about my personal hero, Harriet Tubman. Originally posted April 13, 2006. In yesterday’s post, which was a meme of six weird things about me, I mentioned that my personal real life hero is Harriet Tubman. I admire her for her grace, her courage, her determination, and her strength of conviction. She was a woman who wanted freedom, and found a way to attain it…once she had tasted the sweet flavor, however, she determined that she must free others, so she went back…