Friday Randomness

This week’s Randomness post, I will start with a list of my FIGs (Elisabeth’s Finding joy In Gratitude practice), then we’ll dive in for a bit of detail.

My FIGs for this first week of February:

Sunday – A trip to the museum in San Francisco
Monday – Maya’s night to cook + flowering trees
Tuesday – Good Books and A Cool Blog Trick
Wednesday – Strength training + leftovers
Thursday – Connections + Frozen broccoli
Friday – Fabulous Friday

A Trip to the Museum

On Sunday, Maya and I took our cousin Grace to The Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, to see the Manet and Morisot exhibit. Grace and I had both been (separately), but Maya had not, and we wanted to go before it closes on March 1st. I don’t know that I love this painting, but wow, look at that wallpaper. I want it to be a fabric wallpaper, either in my powder room or perhaps even my library. Just making notes in case I win the Lotto (unlikely, I rarely play).

While looking at the beautiful paintings, we discussed the difference between the paintings of Manet (male) and Morisot (female). We felt like her paintings of women conveyed more emotion, because she has lived the experience of being a woman. His paintings were more objective, I guess. This painting is a perfect example (and the card to the right of the painting discusses it) of how her technique gets at the heart of what it is to be a woman, to know you are being watched, being under ‘the male gaze’. Could she be a character in ‘The Age of Innocence’, which we are reading for Engie’s book club? Is this May at a dance, waiting for a dance partner?

This painting, by Manet, is of Morisot. We think she looks like Joyce from Stranger Things. One might say she looks like Winona Ryder, but I think more Joyce.

Grace is taking an Art History class at UC Berkeley, and part of her assignment was to go to a museum and stand in front of one piece of art for at least 10 minutes, and write about it. Had that been my assignment, this is the painting I would have chosen. It is of Morisot’s daughter with her nanny, and there’s something about it that I just love.

Maya Cooks

My stepmom Julie’s gift to her grandkids this Christmas was a binder full of recipes. I have a lot of cookbooks, and of course, there is the internet, but Maya has been using the binder for inspiration when it is her night to cook. Last week we had fish (it was supposed to be cod, but the store didn’t have any – I don’t remember what I bought) with a pistachio crust, and this week we had chicken curry with Indian spiced quinoa. Both delicious, though we liked the fish more than the chicken. I love that at this point in my life, I’m down to having to figure out what’s for dinner three nights a week. Maya cooks on Monday, I cook Tuesday – Thursday, we go out on Friday, and Ted cooks on Saturday and Sunday.

Flowering Trees

It’s barely February, and most of the trees are still bare, but some (like the one at the top of my post) are in full bloom, while others, like this little tulip tree, are putting out their flower buds. When we were dropping Grace off at her dorm, we saw a few with flowers, but I haven’t seen any here yet. I guess they’re a week or two ahead of us. The Berkeley/Oakland hills that separate us make a difference.

I liked these delicate little flowers too.

Good Books

I am reading and loving The Age of Innocence for Engie’s book club. Having finished this week’s reading for Monday, I’ve started reading Nicole’s book, Inhale Exhale. I’m a couple of chapters in and am enjoying the heck out of it. The other two books pictured, We Run the Tides and The Optimist’s Daughter, I got from Little Free Libraries around town.

Cool Blog Trick – Tap the arrow to learn how to create hidden text in Blocks

Engie had a spoiler in her book wrap up on Tuesday, and she hid the spoiler behind a cool button. I read the spoiler, decided the book was not for me (thanks for the warning Engie!) and decided I wanted to see if I could have a similar button on my WordPress blog, which uses Blocks. So I did, and it was pretty easy. All I did was start a new block, then typed in ‘show’, and it’s the first icon there, Details. Easy peasy.

Strength Training

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I am ready to up my weights game a bit. When I first started doing strength training videos via YouTube, I had 2lb and 5lb weights. Eventually I was able to increase to 10lb weights for some exercises, and lately those have not felt challenging enough, especially for leg exercises. So I went out and bought some 15lb weights. That feels like I’m making progress, even though you can’t really see the muscle that I’m building.

Leftovers or Meal Prep

Ted made turkey meatloaf for dinner a few weeks ago. The recipe we use is from Ina Garten, and it makes a LOT of meatloaf. Usually we halve the recipe, and still have plenty for leftovers. This time, Ted made the whole recipe (5lbs of turkey!), divided the recipe into thirds. He cooked one and froze the other two. So on Wednesday, all I had to do is pull one huge portion out of the freezer, thaw it, and pop it in the oven. I had some frozen vegetarian chili in there as well, which I thawed for Maya’s dinner. I made some mashed sweet potatoes to go with the meatloaf. I like cooking, but sometimes it’s really nice to just have something ready to go like that.

Connections

Yesterday’s Connections made me laugh. A nod perhaps to the Boss’s new song? If you don’t know what made me laugh, look at the top quarter of the chart. Iconic.

As is so often the case, this was not the actual row, but my very favorite, a rainbow row. When I get a game like this, it’s all about the heart eyes.

Fabulous Friday

Today is Friday, and of course I wrote this post all week in dribbles as things came in, so I’m writing on Thursday afternoon and Friday is my tomorrow. I’m sure we enjoyed watching The Pitt last night. I still have Fridays off from work, and I am so very thankful for that. I don’t have any big plans or even a bunch of errands to run. I do not think there will be any cats to visit, when I showed up on Wednesday afternoon the kennels were all empty, all of the cats had been adopted. I was pretty annoyed that no one had posted on our FB group that this was the case, since I drove across town on my lunch break and could have spent that time differently. I cheered myself up by buying some flowers at Trader Joe’s. Tonight is dinner out with Ted. Tomorrow is a dentist appointment, and a couple of friends are going to meet me at the Saturday protest (yay!)

Not a FIG, just Randomness

I’ve shown pictures of random food that ends up outside before, but this one was worrisome. It was about 44 degrees on my morning walk, and someone had put this food out with a sign that says ‘Free!’. I mean, I like a good fridge clean out as much as the next person, but it’s probably best to not give people salmonella. I should have thrown away everything but the bread, but I didn’t. I left it there. I was still thinking about it a couple of hours later, so I went back the next morning and some of it was still there…the turkey cutlets, the shrimp, and one of the heat up meals, plus the bread. I left the bread but threw the rest away. It was 70 degrees on Wednesday, I can’t imagine that food would be remotely safe.

Bonus FIGs

These were technically January, hence the Bonus. Saturday Sarah and I did yoga together, 1,745 miles apart, which was a lot of fun. We sent each other a few texts as we waited for it to start, and I’ll admit that I really liked knowing she was downward dogging at the exact same time as me (and at least 4.3k other folks). Want to join us for Saturday Yoga this February? I linked the specific videos I’ll be doing, here, though any yoga you want to do would be fun. Today’s is ‘Yoga for the Pelvic Floor’, and as a woman of a certain age, I feel targeted.

Roasted Frozen Broccoli

Yesterday I was making pork chops for dinner, but what to make for a vegetable? Perfect time to give Elisabeth’s roasted frozen broccoli a try. I tried this recipe, and it’s simple and definitely a keeper. Ted took a bite and said, “this is great, what did you do?” Excellent, thanks for the idea Elisabeth!

Continued Protests

The last couple of anti Trump protests have been great. Sadly, the reason that more folks have been on the streets is due to the continued brutality of ICE/DHS. I liked these handmade signs. From left to right, they read:

“This is always light – Choose it!”

“Wake the Fuck Up”

“We Are Not OK”

My pictures don’t show the size of the crowds, it has been several hundred. I have been heartened to see a few more people in the under 50 set, though the majority are still definitely retirees. Last Saturday a student who organized a walk out of about 300 kids at her high school got up and spoke, and she was really great. The news shows that several high schools in the area have been having walk outs in protest of ICE, which is fabulous.

Does anyone listen to This American Life? Last week’s episode, What is Your Emergency? is about ICE agents in the US, and includes a segment of people calling their local 911 for help when they witness someone being taken, or when a car with ICE agents hits their car and doesn’t stop. It’s interesting and chilling. Certainly not a cheerful episode, but I’m grateful that this kind of journalism is happening, and that people are bearing witness to what is going on. That is the only way we will stop it. The song at the end of the episode had some very fitting lyrics.

’Are You Seeing This, or Is it Just Me?’

Bonus Content

Ted sent me this photo yesterday. Awesome.

What’s awesome in your life right now?