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My Fairbanks Life
I recently found a new bloggy friend, Theresa from My Fairbanks Life. I found her through Michelle at Scribbit. They’re both Alaskan bloggers. Michelle lives in Anchorage, and Theresa lives in Fairbanks, which is where I spent 5 years as a child. Hearing about the cold snap they’re having right now (I just checked yahoo weather, and they’re saying it’s -43 F right now) put me in mind of some of my own memories of Fairbanks, and the time that I spent there. I had intended to do this as a Thursday 13, but didn’t get to it until late. So it’s a Friday 13 I guess. Anyway, without further…
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Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O!
(artwork by Tracy Butler, found here) We were talking the other day about music in schools, remembering when Maya used to sing every day in class, and how much she liked it, and then how that…ended…when she got to 1st grade. They still had music, but it was a music teacher who came once or twice a week, rather than the class singing songs together. I was reminded of the 4th grade, back in 1976 (I remember because it was an election year, very controversial among the 4th graders), when we had Mrs. Katz, the music teacher, who would come to our class once or twice a week with her…
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Team in Training
Guess who’s doing a 100-mile bike ride on June 1st, to raise much needed funds to research a cure for blood cancers? That’s right, my own beloved Ted, aka Py Korry. If you can spare a buck or 5, and are interested in sponsoring him in his endeavors, hop on over to his Team in Training page, where you can click to donate. And if you think he’s all take take take, not giving back to you, you’re wrong. Check out the mix of songs he’s put together for your listening pleasure this week, posted at Popdose. Thanks, kids!
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Wordless Wednesday
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I Voted
We just got back from voting…It felt ridiculously good to see the names of a woman and a minority on that ballot. No matter which way it goes, today was a good day. I can honestly say that I have never, NEVER felt this way about voting before. We took Maya into the ballot with us, so she could watch history being made. A good day. Updated to add, I have not forgotten that Carol Moseley Braun and Al Sharpton ran last time. He’s a bit of a freak, and neither of them had much of a chance. This is the first time things have gotten so far as to…
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The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards
Last week, The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards catered lunch for the staff at Ted’s work. He came home talking about how delicious everything was, which pretty much made me want some of that for myself. I know, greedy, huh? Well, Ted tends to spoil me and my tendencies, so on Saturday, while Maya was enjoying herself at her BFF’s birthday party/sleepover, he took me there for dinner. Since the birthday party started at 4:00, we had really early reservations, so we were the first folks there. I don’t think they were technically open yet, actually, because they had us wait in the bar area for a few minutes while they…
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Home Alone
There was a time, years ago, when I was practically never home alone. Ted was working on his dissertation, Maya was in pre-school, and I was working across the street from her school. I would get up and go to work in the morning, leaving Ted with Maya. He would get her up and ready for school, and I would pick her up in the afternoon. If I were home, either Ted or Maya were also here, usually both of them. I remember once in awhile, envying Ted his quiet time at home, time alone to spend however he chose, though of course that wasn’t the reality of it…he was…
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Proof that Maya is Smart
While we don’t believe in paying our child for getting good grades, we have been known to celebrate our successes in life. So when Maya came home on Friday with a report card that showed how hard she’s been working, Ted said we would celebrate, and she could pick what we have for dinner. Anywhere she wanted to go, or we could cook at home. Being an intelligent child, as it is the height of Dungeness Crab season, she said she wanted crab, at home. Yay! It just so happens that I had been eyeballing the crab at a local grocery a day or two before, and had decided that…
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Old Fashioned Clam Chowder
Photo courtesy of Cucina Testa Rossa, and not of this recipe, though that bowl right there is making me want to hop on BART and go into the city tout de suite. Several years ago, I took a cooking class with some friends of mine at a local Home Chef location. This was more so we would have something fun to do together than to learn to cook, though we did manage to pick up a few pointers while we were there. The class we took was on Seafood, and we got some tasty recipes out of it. I was reminded of this class by a post that C wrote,…
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Friday Five Meme
(image stolen from here) I found this little love/hate meme over at Caribousmom, and it seemed like a good Monday Meme idea. Then I decided I couldn’t wait until Monday. Oh well. Since there are Five love/hates, I’ll pretend like it’s a Friday Five, k? I love to eat: almost any flavor of potato chips, esp. those Kettle ones. Beets with Bermuda Triangle cheese. Ripe tomatoes. Crab. Oh, so may yummy things. (gosh, I advertise for these Bermuda Triangle folks enough…don’t you think they’d send me some for free? Please?) I hate to eat: celery and mayonnaise, though I’m trying to get past the celery one. Mayo is actually fine…
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Jimmy Corrigan, or, The Smartest Kid on Earth
If you still think that graphic novels are childish and can’t rip your heart out just as easily as any other novel out there, you haven’t been paying attention to this blog lately. Because this little challenge I’ve been doing has really opened my eyes to a whole new world, and I’m so glad that I decided to take this one on. My latest graphic novel was Jimmy Corrigan, or, The Smartest Boy on Earth, by Chris Ware. Initially I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this book, because the illustrations are quite busy, the writing tiny and sometimes hard to read, and it looked like it might…
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Dang.
First Kucinich, now Edwards. The candidates who had the most to say to the more progressive elements in the Democratic party have dropped out. I can only hope that their influence lives on, and that both Obama and Clinton take some of it to heart, and do more than ‘talk the talk’. Getting tired of politics already. I mean, so few people have voted, and this is indicative of the entire country? Bah. Stupid primaries.
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(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday
Think I’m kidding? Not even.
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The Tale of One Bad Rat
The Tale of One Bad Rat, by Bryan Talbot, is a pretty amazing accomplishment. Mr. Talbot started out with the goal of writing a graphic novel that took place, at least partially, in the Lake District of England, home of Beatrix Potter and the characters of her children’s books. From that beginning, he took the image of a young homeless girl being harassed by a bearded ‘Jesus Freak’, (his words) in the Tube, and constructed a tale around her. For the girl to be homeless, Mr. Talbot decides that she needs a reason to have left home. So his character is the victim of sexual abuse by her father, and…
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Persepolis
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rl6kH3xPwDU[/youtube] Persepolis is a story told in two graphic novels, The Story of a Childhood, and The Story of a Return. It is also the name of an award winning animated film based on these graphic novels. The stories are the autobiography of Marjane Satrapi, a woman born in Iran in 1969, and they follow her through the overthrow of the Shah, and give voice to the crushed hopes of the Iranian populace when things go from bad to worse under the fundamentalist rule of the Ayatollah. Marji’s family is very progressive and open minded, and they encourage her to be a free thinker, to read and understand the events…