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Never Say Never
I’ve never thought of myself as a cruise person. I know plenty of people who *love* them, but they seem really crowded to me, and I’m not thrilled with the idea of being on a tight schedule when in port. One exception I might make would be an Alaskan cruise, because the opportunity to see so many little towns along the southeast, without having to pack and unpack, is really appealing, and being on a ship and seeing the fjords and wildlife of that region would be amazing. My cousin Carey and her family enjoy cruises, and have been on several. They’ve been to Alaska a couple of times, and…
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Happy Birthday Ted!
Today is Ted’s birthday, and we are going to celebrate in the best way, with family and friends. He and I will celebrate some more later this month, we’re going to Los Angeles to the Cruel World music festival! There will be some great 80s and 90s bands, like New Order, ‘Til Tuesday, Madness, Garbage, The Go Go’s, Devo, and more. That will be a lot of fun, but for now it’s time to party. In honor of my beloved husband, let’s do a Saturday Six, shall we? Six Things About Ted
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Friday Randomness
The pretty flowers above are from a little tree I saw in Berkeley last week. Well, I did it! I blogged every day in April. It was a lot easier than NaBloPoMo, because you all weren’t trying to post every day at the same time, and I wasn’t trying to keep up and read your posts. I did get behind a couple of times on reading and commenting though, so that’s one downside. One thing I notice when I blog more often is that I find a lot more blog fodder in my life. When I find myself in a blog drought, and don’t post anything for a couple of…
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Memorial Days
Memorial Days ~ Geraldine Brooks Fiction writer Geraldine Brooks was married to non-fiction writer Tony Horwitz for 35 years when, on Memorial Day in 2019, just before his 61st birthday, he suddenly collapsed on a sidewalk in Washington, DC and died in the middle of a tour for his most recent book. Memorial Days is her memoir of his death and the time following, and mostly alternates between the confusing and horrible days just after his death, and a trip she takes in 2023 to a tiny Australian island in order to grieve his loss in her own way, away from Western culture and its constructs. She is heartbroken, tired…
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(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
I wanted to include this picture in last week’s post about my mom and great-Aunt’s birthday, but I didn’t have it. Now I have it! This is my Great Aunt Flo’s wedding, on her 26th birthday in 1950. My Mom is the flower girl, with her curls and her hoop skirt, and it’s her 8th birthday. I think her dress is yellow. My Grandma is next to the bride, and then my other Great Aunt. I don’t know the other bridesmaid, nor any of the groomsmen. My Great Uncle Wes died before I was born, so I never met him. Doesn’t this look like a beautiful wedding?
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Daydreaming of Berkeley
While we were wandering around Berkeley on Saturday, we saw a sign for an open house in the neighborhood, and Ted wanted to go check it out. So we walked a few blocks and found it. Unfortunately, they were closed for the day (but still had their signs up), so we didn’t get to walk around inside. I have to tell you folks, this is the house of my dreams (aside from the shingles, which I could definitely do without). I adore these old craftsman homes with built in shelving and wood everywhere. It’s over 3,000 square feet, but only 2 bedrooms. This is because there is a huge upstairs…
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Independent Bookstore Day
Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day, so Ted and I decided to go to Berkeley and see what we might find there. The last time we went book shopping, we went to two bookstores, East Bay Booksellers and Pegasus Books. This time we went to Mrs. Dalloway’s. I started out taking pictures of books that I want to read but will probably listen via my Libby App, and then eventually succumbed to temptation and bought some books. First up, the books I will listen to via Libby. Real Americans ~ Rachel Khong Ted saw this one and said it sounded like a book I would enjoy, and I feel like some…
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All Fours
All Fours ~ Miranda July In All Fours, Miranda July’s unnamed peri-menopausal protagonist decides that she will take a recent windfall and drive across the country alone rather than flying, because she wants to become the kind of person who does such things, and hopes that by changing her basic self, she will be able to recapture the ecstatic love she shared with her husband when their infant child was in the NICU seven years ago. Our protagonist, a semi-famous artist who creates art in several genres, makes her plans and starts out on her trip, but only gets about half an hour away from home before being waylaid by…
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Cool Bloggers Walking Club
Mostly pictures for Elisabeth’s Cool Bloggers Walking Club are beautiful, of nature, of walks with dogs and children and so on. Today we are keeping it real, and I’m sharing pictures from the suburbs, from my morning walk to a local grocery store to get some eggs and probiotics. This is our local BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station, which is about a block away from our house. Very convenient for Maya, who works in San Francisco 3 days a week, or when we want to go to the airport. If you look carefully in the lower(ish) left of the picture, you can see the mailbox, which is where I…
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Friday Randomness
Apparently I’m blogging every day in April. This was not intentional at first, but once I got to the middle of the month, I figured, ‘In for a Penny, In for a Pound’. Now that I’m near the end of the month, but not quite there, the suspense is growing. Will I make it? Will I find enough content? Time will tell. One thing I could do would be to NOT do Friday Randomness, and instead take each of these little tidbits and make each its own blogpost. Nah. I didn’t take any pictures of last Saturday’s protest, but it was well attended (between 1,700 and 2,000). I have clicked…
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On Unicorns
Last week I ranted a bit about how unicorns have horns, and do not have wings. I feel strongly about this. Both Maya and Suzanne mentioned the term ‘alicorn’ which I had never heard before, but which I like a lot more than lumping a singular horse god (Pegasus) into a mythical species. It would be like saying ‘a Poseidon’ is a species, or ‘a Zeus’. Anyway, I looked up alicorn, and found these admittedly pretty yet historically problematic examples. I’m working on opening my mind a smidge. I know, I said historically problematic about a mythical creature. I’m ridiculous. I love this statue, the ‘alicorn’ is beautiful and is…
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Birthday Girls
Today my mom would have been 83, had she not died too young at the age of 66 in 2008. Today my Great Aunt Flo would have been 101, had she not died at the ripe old age of 100 last year. This is my mom when she was a little girl, with her Shirley Temple curls in her red hair. And here she is in college. She went to UC Berkeley, though she dropped out for a while. After she married, had my brother (six days after getting married), had me, and got divorced (I think her divorce became final on my day of birth, but I’m not 100%…
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Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance
Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance ~ Alison Espach Sally and Kathy are teenaged sisters in small town Connecticut. Kathy is a few years older than Sally, she is finishing her Junior Year of High School while Sally is finishing up 7th grade. Both girls have been obsessed with Billy Barnes, graduating senior and basketball star, since he jumped off the school roof a few years prior. Eventually Kathy starts dating Billy, leaving Sally behind. In Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance, Sally is telling Kathy the story of her life and everything that has transpired, from the vantage point of 15 years in the future. This is a story of profound…
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Money Monday
Kyria had a post last week where she discussed her budget and spending for the first quarter of the year, while she’s been traveling in Western Europe. She’s within a few dollars of her budget (or would be if she hadn’t had to buy a new phone and laptop, one time expenditures), and is doing well. She asked if people budget when they travel, and I said no, I spend what I spend, and she then asked if I budget in my day-to-day life. The answer again, no, not really. Then Elisabeth had a post about how she keeps her grocery bill under control. Which got me to thinking about…
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Playing with ChatGPT
The other day, a friend posted a ChatGPT generated picture of her horse as a human on Facebook. Immediately I wanted to see what Mulder would look like as a human, so I went to ChatGPT and tried to load a photo. You have to have an account (free). So I signed up for an account, but instead of loading a photo, I asked it to show me what a Keeshond would look like as a human. Chat asked me if I wanted male/female/androgynous, and I said androgynous. It asked for personality, and I said kind of loud. This is what I got. I love the grey hair, which matches…
