• Happy Birthday Cherry!

    Today is my dear friend Cherry’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Missy! Cherry is a wonderful, giving, (too) hard working, friend. She loves to cook for her friends, go out with her friends, hang out with her friends, whatever…just bless us all with her company. Thanks, Cherry, for being the wonderful person that you are. Now, if you look at Cherry’s post today, you’ll see that we celebrated Cherry’s birthday in style on Sunday at Fenton’s Creamery in Oakland, where the smallest ice cream they serve is still as big as your head. Maya and Jackie shared a 3 lb. banana split…(she has the ‘before’ photo on her post) But they finally…

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  • Our Amazing Dinner

    Friday evening, Ted, Maya and I were invited to dinner with our friends, Pat and Beatrice, and their friend, Unita Blackwell. If any of my 5 daily readers are familiar with the civil rights movement of the 1960s, specifically the voters rights movement in the south, you may have heard of Mrs. Blackwell. I am not terribly familiar with that movement, though I admire the hell out of it, and I see a strong correlation between the struggles of the black people in the south, and their success, and the struggles of women and gays, as well as the anti-war movement. So to meet a pioneer in this movement is…

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  • Sunday Morning Thoughts…

    I just got up, looking at a few blogs, and the first two I came to had some interesting coincidences… 1st, my mom’s blog talked about the sexualization of children, about how dressing young girls in adult’s clothing, and visa versa, is dangerous because it sends very confusing messages to the world. This reminded me of when I was a girl, and I wanted to get my ears pierced…I wasn’t allowed, because my mom said that earrings were a symbol of being a certain age and maturity, and so I didn’t get them done until I was 16. I’ve put a lot of thought into when to allow Maya to…

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  • Saturday Meme

    Leave it to Jay to tag me for a good one. I’m not sure what happened to #9, though. You can listen to the Beatles in your head if you want to. (OK, if that’s a confusing reference, think of John Lennon saying, “number 9….number 9…..number 9….” I know…I’m lame.) 1. Things that scare me: Global Warming Religious Fanatics The thought of losing my family 2. People who make me laugh: Autumn’s Mom Ted Neva 3. Things I hate the most: Politics and the way they work Liver and onions People who harm children 4. Things I don’t understand: Foreign languages (unfortunately) The “isms” – Racism, Sexism, Ageism, Fatism (is…

  • It’s The End of The World As We Know It….

    Oh God, the day has come…We are truly in the final days, the days of apocalypse…and what proof do I have, you may well ask? Well, I’m truly ashamed, but within the span of one week, 1 WEEK I tell you, I have found myself agreeing with both George W. Bush AND She Who Must Not Be Named. Before you pass out, or rush to have me committed to a mental institution (which, truly, I beg you to do should I ever TRULY agree with these spawn of Satan), allow me to say that I only agreed conditionally… 1st, on Monday, we were having breakfast at our hotel in Ashland,…

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  • Uh Oh…

    I just saw this article. If signed, children under 8 need to ride in a booster seat, and children under 12 need to ride in the back seat. What’s the big deal? Well, Maya’s been riding in the front seat for a little while now…the Volvo doesn’t have any airbags (too old), and on the Camry, we have the passenger seat pushed all of the way back. Ted reasoned that many small adults are in the front seat, so she would be OK. I read some reports that said that there is no proof that kids who have been harmed by passenger side airbags in the front seat were ‘properly…

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  • Ode to Forest Park

    When we go to Portland, Maya’s favorite thing to do is to hike in Forest Park. She told me that Forest Park is her favorite place on earth. This most recent trip was no exception, and happily, Ted was able to join us this time, and I think he may be hooked as well. For Maya and I to enjoy hiking is definitely saying something, because we are two girls who do NOT like to get hot and sweaty. Sadly, there is almost no way to hike around here without getting hot and sweaty, because there are simply not enough trees to keep you shaded. So the sun is beating…

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  • Happy (Belated) Birthday, Sesame Street

    I have a couple of Portland related posts in mind…one is about the yummy and not-so-yummy restaurants we went to, one about books I read or bought there…one about the beautiful world of Forest Park. But I had to stop and do this, because Issa and Mom-101 did it several days ago, and it will soon be too late to jump on the bandwagon. Stupid vacation. So, this started on Mrs. Davis’s blog, where she talked about popular culture influences you had as a child, due to the new season of Sesame Street starting on August 14th. She gave out a bunch of linky love on the 14th, but I…

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  • Convoluted Vacation Wrap Up

    Hello Bloggy Blog Blog Blog, I’ve missed you so. I’ve posted, sure, but it’s not the same as actually writing something NEW, and I haven’t been reading my friends’ blogs, and I haven’t been commenting, and boy, I have a LOT of catching up to do. Let me start by saying, I’m still Biff, because I’m thinking…One Week Ago Right Now…I was getting ready to go to Seattle…on vacation. Sigh. So, today I’ll tell you what we did on our vacation to the Pacific Northwest. (Mostly Portland.) We left home and drove to Ashland, where we hoped to see a play, but we got a bit of a late start,…

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  • Did Anyone Else LOVE This Show?

    Boy, I used to love to watch “Land of the Lost” when I was 8 or 9…Saturday morning cheezy crap TV at its finest! I loved Holly, kind of wanted to be her. Loved Cha-ka (Who, by the way, was NOT played by a member of the group, Sugar Ray, at least according to this article. I know, you’re crushed. I happen to have it on good authority that Ted’s friend’s Matt’s Wife’s exboyfriend, the actor, was Cha-ka. And I’m totally kidding there. That’s an inside joke that only Ted will get, because his friend and friend’s wife don’t read my blog.) The Sleestack were TOO SCARY (OK, even then…

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  • The Food Meme

    We’re having a wonderful time in Oregon…spending time with family and relaxing. 🙂 Not much time for the computer. I’ve posted a few posts that I had “in the can”, but I’m running out of those…so maybe I’ll find time to write a bit about our vacation. No pics, though, because I’m not sure how to download them onto this computer, so you’ll have to wait for that. I did finish another book, so maybe I’ll write something about that in a day or two. Anyway, here’s one of my last ‘canned’ blog posts, from before we left CA. 🙂 I found this at Ally Bean’s site: How do you…

  • Thinking about books…

    I just finished this book….and I have to say, it was pretty amazing. I am not a HUGE fan of the short story, though of course there are those certain authors that can make me eat those words. Alice Munro, for one, can suck you in and make you feel like you’ve just finished a novel in just a few pages. Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles sucked me in and drew me from one weird world to another in a short period of time. But overall, I kind of like the continuation of a full length novel. The feeling as I’m putting the book down, and the characters will still be…

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  • Michelle Selden Rocks!

    And who is this Rockin’ Michelle Selden, you may ask? Well, she’s an 8th grader who lives in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. Why does she rock, you may ask? Because when faced with the somewhat insane policy of segregating boys and girls in her school district, because of how our brains work differently, she stood up and said, “Uh, Hello?” She got the ACLU involved, and they sued the school district on her behalf. From Salon’s Broadsheet: The school board made its initial decision based on impressively retro theories of girl- and boyhood. Among the sources defendants cited in the proceedings was Dr. Leonard Sax’s “Why Gender Matters,” which argues for…

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  • That Seems About Right to Me…

    You Are 64% Open Minded You are a very open minded person, but you’re also well grounded. Tolerant and flexible, you appreciate most lifestyles and viewpoints. But you also know where you stand firm, and you can draw that line. You’re open to considering every possibility – but in the end, you stand true to yourself. How Open Minded Are You?

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  • Time for Bacation

    We’re off for a week of R & R in the Pacific Northwest, which will include a stop for dinner and a play in Ashland, OR, sleep overnight there, and then on to Portland to visit with the family, including my new baby niece, Sophie! Hopefully we will see the beautiful Chloe and her family, too. Yay! We may have blogging access while we’re there (we’re going to try, so check back from time to time), but we may not (ACK! Can I survive without my blog? Without reading YOUR blogs? I don’t KNOW!). If you don’t hear from me in awhile….you’ll know that I’m far away in the wilderness…

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