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PLUR1BUS
PLUR1BUS ~ Apple TV Scientists discover a signal coming from 600 light years away, and set to trying to figure out what the heck it might mean. Eventually they figure it out, to disastrous/wonderful results (depending upon your perspective). Almost a billion people die right away (horrible by all accounts), but the billions that are left are full of joy and peace, and a collective mind. Everyone on Earth has the memories and skills of everyone else. Everyone can work as an airplane pilot, a brain surgeon, an author, a bartender, whatever. Except Carol and 11 other people, who are for some reason different and have retained their individuality and…
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Maggie
Maggie; or A Man and A Woman Walk into a Bar ~ Katie Yee The unnamed protagonist of Maggie has a lot going on. She has two small children, her husband no longer loves her and is moving in with his new girlfriend, Maggie, and our protagonist has cancer. In honor of her husband’s girlfriend, she names her tumor ‘Maggie’. This book had some funny moments, and it was poignant in its own way, but mostly I felt like it skimmed the surface too much, and I never really felt engaged with the protagonist. I found her behavior to be somewhat ridiculous and unrealistic. For a quick listen, it was…
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Jacques Pepin’s Pot Roast
Suzanne recently made a pot roast that sounded delicious, but instead of going with her recipe, I cracked open a favorite cookbook, Julia and Jacques – Cooking at Home. This was delicious, and makes a LOT. I froze enough for at least 2 more meals, and we still had plenty in the fridge for leftovers. The internet tells me that I should not have frozen the veggies, they will lose some of their texture, but I couldn’t be bothered to figure out the math on that one. This is a delicious recipe perfect for a rainy day. Pot Roast Ingredients Instructions Preheat the oven to 300 F. Season the roast…
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Getting to Know All About You
Last week I shared some basic facts about myself, with a funny picture of me in my mom’s bra. Well, in order to share another picture of me in my mom’s undergarments, here’s another post. Don’t worry, there are no more. I’m not sure why I thought this was so hilarious, but clearly, I did. This picture is in my grandparents’ front yard, and you can see my grandma looking out at us through the window. My elder brother, Richard, is in the picture with me. This is in Stockton, California, before we moved to Alaska. So, what else can I tell you about me, to justify this post. Hmmm.…
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Friday Randomness
Will I have enough content for a post? Will I go overboard with stupid memes? Time will tell. Know what? I’ll make it a Friday 5. This week I was given a new laptop for work, which should be a simple thing, but my team uses some tools that are specific to us and are finicky, and my files weren’t transferring over to my new laptop well. So I spent a lot of time with a lovely IT guy in our Chicago office. We got to chatting a bit, as one does while waiting for processes to run, and I told him that it was raining and I was loving…
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The Road to Tender Hearts
The Road to Tender Hearts ~ Annie Hartnett PJ Halliday, an alcoholic hoarder who lives down the street from his best friend, who is also his ex-wife. He doesn’t need to work because he won 1.5 million in the lottery, which makes him popular at the local bar. He and his wife had 2 daughters, but the elder daughter died on her prom night many years prior, an event which contributed to his heavy drinking and the dissolution of their marriage. Pancakes is a strangely prescient cat who has the ability to know when someone is going to die. When he senses their imminent demise, he goes to them, so they…
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The Guest
The Guest ~ Emma Cline Alex is a 22 year old professional sex worker from New York who seems to have found herself an actual boyfriend, 50 something year old Simon. They are spending the month of August in his beautiful home in the Hamptons, where he works by day and has parties with business acquaintances many evenings, and Alex occupies her time swimming and going to the beach. At a party one evening, Alex fails to conform to Simon’s standards, flirting with another guest rather than stick by his side, and he asks her to leave, to go back to her apartment in New York. But she no longer…
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The Joy Luck Club
The Joy Luck Club ~ Amy Tan / Film Version Fearless Leader Engie recently hosted her Cool Bloggers Book Club, and the chosen book was Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. Because I am sometimes this way, I went all in. I read the physical copy before bed at night. I listened to the audio version via my Libby app. I watched the movie once I had finished the book. I love this all immersive experience. I did the same thing with My Brilliant Friend and the rest of that engrossing series. Read. Listen. Watch. Love. For The Joy Luck Club, I would say that my preference was for the…
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Belly in San Francisco
Saturday was what Ted called our ‘culture day’. We started our day going to the talk for Percival Everett, where he spoke of his novel, James. After that we went to lunch, then home for a few hours, then to San Francisco for the evening. Our lunch had been a little on the late side, but we were a bit hungry, so we had a light dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant on Fillmore Street. Then on to the main event, a concert at the Great American Music Hall to see 90s indie group, Belly. Belly’s album, King, is 30 years old, and they are touring in celebration. The show was…
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James
James ~ Percival Everett James is an enslaved man on a plantation in Missouri on the Mississippi River. He lives there with his wife and daughter, and he teaches the children on the plantation how to stay as safe as possible in the presence of white people. How to code speak, avoid eye contact, play dumb, pretend to be superstitious, that kind of thing. There are two white boys, Huckleberry “Huck” Finn and Tom Sawyer, who like to play pranks on James, and he pretends to be frightened or worried or whatever will make them happy. When James learns that he is to be sold, he runs away, hoping to…
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Getting to Know You
Some of my blogging friends have had the good idea to post a getting to know you type post, for new readers due to NaBloPoMo. So, here are a few things about me. How about you? What is your perfect day?
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Friday Randomness
Let’s see if I regret using up several random type items in one post during NaBloPoMo. I have a couple more recipes and book reviews for you, so we’ll see what happens after that. For now, I will keep today’s post to 5 items. One of our local Little Free Libraries has been converted to a food pantry for those losing SNAP benefits due to the government shutdown. I hate this. I mean, it’s a great idea, but I hate that it’s come to this. Thankfully, my county is handing out pre-loaded debit cards to folks that get SNAP, so at least there’s that. My decluttering project continues. I gave…
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Sweet Potatoes with Curried Lentils
Sometimes it is really, really difficult to figure out what the heck to make for dinner. Thankfully, Suzanne searches the internet for inspiration, and then posts about her ideas for what they might eat. She recently linked to this recipe, which is originally vegan, though I used yogurt instead of coconut milk near the end. I think you could use regular milk or something else instead of coconut milk in the lentils as well, if you don’t want to buy a can and then only use 1/2 cup. I didn’t like throwing away the rest of the can but wasn’t sure I would use the rest of it. I think…
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Photo of the Day
Normally this picture would not warrant its own post, but I did say that my posts might get a little random during NaBloPoMo, right? So here we are. We live very close to a rapid transit station (BART), and you can see the mailbox in the background, which is where I mail letters and postcards and such. Yesterday I had a couple of things to mail, so I stopped by on my morning walk. Then I came across this tableau. A brand new walker, tag still attached, leaning against a bench. What’s the story? Does the fact that it appears to be wet underneath the bench mean anything? Was someone…
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Upcoming Reads and Foux du Fafa
Sunday, Maya and I went to the Rockridge neighborhood of Oakland to Foux du Fafa around. That is what we call it when we want to just walk around a neighborhood, maybe have a meal or a drink, do some window shopping, etc. Our more specific goal for this day was for Maya to see the temporary location of one of our favorite bookstores, as they are in the process of rebuilding their old location that was destroyed in a fire last year. We started out with lunch at a pub with a nice outdoor patio. We enjoyed watching a dad party (4 young dads with their babies) and several…
