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Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Darwin & Abraham Lincoln
Today is the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist who proved the theory of Evolution and Natural Selection. Perhaps the most clear and concise book that I’ve ever read on how Natural Selection works is Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution, by Steve Jenkins. That this is a children’s picture book is immaterial. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to understand Natural Selection, or especially to anyone wanting to explain it to a child. The SF Chronicle had a book review the other day for what looks to be another great book on Evolution, Why Evolution is True, by Jerry A Coyne. This book is for…
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So Far…
(album cover art found here) I know it’s soon to say, and I know I’ll change my mind in a few minutes, but right now? I don’t mind being unemployed in the least. I mean, I haven’t even started receiving Unemployment benefits yet. I don’t want it to go on too long, and with most of the people I know saying their companies have hiring freezes, it’s worrying. But still. Not a bit of urgency in me yet. I’m going to give myself a few days, in which I only work connections, email people I know, that sort of thing. I’ll start the grunt work later this week, the searching…
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Ebelskiver ~ Filled pancakes
(my final picture came out very blurry, so I took this one from the Williams-Sonoma website, here) One of our Christmas gifts was this cool ebelskiver pan from Williams-Sonoma (click the link and watch a video of how to make them!). Ebelskiver are light, fluffy, filled pancakes, originating in Denmark. I was a little bit afraid that they would be difficult, and they were more difficult than regular pancakes, but they were very good, and I’d like to try some different fillings to see what’s what. We used it for the first time this morning, using a Williams-Sonoma pancake mix, strawberry and raspberry jams, and powdered sugar. Mix your favorite…
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First Born Meme
Maya, Easter Sunday, 1996…I week old First born meme My baby cousin Jenny’s BFF Ana, who has become my online friend, though I’ve never met her in person, tagged me for this. I must admit, with my only child coming up on 13 in a matter of weeks (like, 6 or 7), I’m not as interested in this subject as I was when she was younger. BUT, Ana asked, and Ana shall have her answers. 😉 Because Ana rocks. 1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? Perhaps. Meaning, we wanted to start trying, and I had gone off the pill, but I was still very irregular, and did not at all…
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Day 1
(pretty image found here) Day 1 of being unemployed. I don’t mind not working so much, it’s the not getting paid that sucks. 😉 I’m going to return my new bike to REI in the next day or two. I called today, and they’ll give me a full refund. That’s good news. I like the bike, but I can’t see spending the money on it when I am going to need interview clothes and clothes for a job that doesn’t occur in my bedroom. Sigh. I like shopping for clothes, though, so it’s not all bad. Spent today packing up my work computers and sending them to the company headquarters. …
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Carp.
(image found here) Carp…that’s a joke, because Cherry typo’d ‘crap’ in an IM once, and it came out CARP, and I’ve always liked that better. Anyway, CARP. Just got laid off from my job. I was only there for just under 8 years. Thankfully, Ted is starting his new job on the 18th, and there’s unemployment insurance, right? But man, this economy sucks, and being out of work sucks, and looking for work sucks. A rainy Friday morning. Think I’m going to go read my book and watch some 90210 on Soap Net. CARP.
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Friday Randomness
Is Facebook destined to be the death of blogging? So easy to go there and post a quick snippet, without the commitment and time that it takes to write a blog post. So easy to go there and read your friend’s updates, without the commitment of clicking around or using a reader. I’ll admit, I like it a lot more than I thought I would. That I have reconnected there with people I didn’t expect to ever see or hear from again is a bonus indeed. Is it wrong to come home from yoga class and be thrilled to find KFC for dinner? (If you are a facebook friend, you…
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Sleepless Thoughts…
The other night, I was starting to drift off to sleep, and for some reason, the thought popped into my head, that Maya is going to be a teenager soon. 13, on March 29th. Not that I haven’t realized this for awhile, but still, somehow, the idea that she is going to be 13 suddenly made me feel OLD. I mean, the teen years…who doesn’t remember the teen years? Some of the best and the worst in your life, with friendships that change, young love that opens your heart like a flower and crushes you at the same time, cruel jests from bullies, school getting harder when it has always…
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Felled by Migraine
(image found here) Yesterday started innocently enough with my regular routine…exercise, breakfast, shower, work…but soon after starting work, I started experiencing what is called a migraine aura, which for me is blurry vision, which seems like maybe there’s some lotion on my contact lens or something. If I ignore the aura, I then suffer nausea and vomiting, and of course, a headache (which feels mostly like a bad sinus headache). If I nip it in the bud by taking some migraine meds, get off of the computer/tv/book, lay down with a sleep mask over my eyes, it rarely gets worse than slight nausea and slight headache. I think I’ve had…
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Criss Cross
“Wanna go to the movies?” he asked. No one had ever asked Debbie this question before. She had imagined, often, being asked this question, but not by Lenny. He was the wrong person. Wasn’t he? She had never felt that way about him. Had she? His question caught her off guard, and she didn’t know what to do with it. The part of her that was open to the universe was facing in another direction just then. She felt disoriented and uncomfortable and there was Lenny, waiting for her to say something back. “I think it’s better if we’re just friends,” she said. To her relief Patty arrived with a…
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Pardon The Mess…
My blog has been acting weird lately, and we suspect that the template that I’ve been using isn’t completely compatible with the newest version of WordPress. Every few days, I get completely locked out of my blog. And then Ted has to go in and fix it, because I haven’t asked him to show me how to do it myself. I was locked out on Thursday or Friday, and vowed to get to it over the weekend. But I spent my weekend bike shopping, reading, watching BSG, watching the Super Bowl, gathering tax information together, putting together girl scout cookie orders, grocery shopping, reading some more, watching Big Love, and…
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Bicycle Update
We went to REI yesterday to see if they had any bikes like the ones I wanted, and if they might be any cheaper there than at the bike store. They don’t have as big of a selection of cruisers, but they did have this very pretty purple bike, the ‘Karma’, by the same company, Electra. And guess what? It’s a lot cheaper than the others. Partially because this particular model is a bit cheaper, and partly because there was an air bubble in the paint, so there’s a spot that looks a bit funny, so it’s not perfect. Well, who is? These bikes aren’t cheap, and the Gypsy I…
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Friday Five ~ Sucky film version
This one started over on Facebook, where my friend Jeff mentioned being proud that he had never seen Ghost. Which started a discussion of films we’re glad we never saw, which morphed into a discussion of films we wish we could unsee. I like that idea, except for the brainwashing aspect that’s kind of there in the undercurrent… So, here’s my list of 5 films I wish I could unsee. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZTYkmAcsvk[/youtube] 1. Crash. And by this, I mean the 1996 version that most people were smart enough to avoid. I pink puffy heart James Spader, but he should have been smarter and skipped this one entirely. Blurbs are from imdb.…
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Apostrophe Abuse
Not sure if you’ve noticed, but parenting doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Which makes it difficult sometimes. For example, a few years ago we went to a somewhat upscale French bistro in San Francisco for dinner. Maya wanted to wear jeans, and we told her that was inappropriate, that at nicer restaurants, people wore nicer clothes. Of course, we were the only diners that evening who were not wearing jeans. Thankfully, she learns more from us at this point than the world around her, and does pay attention to what she’s wearing and whether it’s appropriate to her surroundings. Another example of parenting not happening in a vacuum is grammar…
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Baby, It’s COLD Outside
OK, not really. I mean, it was 34 degrees when I went for a walk this morning, which was enough to make me wish I had worn my hat, but not enough to make me turn around and go get it. And it’s supposed to heat up again over the next few days, so we’ll again be in the mid 60s for highs by the end of the week. Those of you in Wisconsin, Toronto, and New Hampshire, please, don’t kill me. I know, 34 is NOT cold, and for mid 60s right about now, you’d probably sacrifice a calf or something. When I go out in weather like this,…