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Friday Randomness
Today’s randomness post is mostly my contribution to Elisabeth’s FIG Collective, finding joy and gratitude wherever I can. The world is a lot right now, and I’m finding this exercise really helpful. Saturday – We had a nice day on Saturday, Maya went and had brunch with a friend, and Ted and I went to see his parents, and then we had dinner with some dear friends. They were in a horrible car accident several months ago, one that could have easily been fatal (but thankfully was not) – The wife is still healing, but is getting better all of the time. That’s a relief. Sunday – We blew off…
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Mobility
Mobility ~ Lydia Kiesling The year is 1998, the End of History. The Soviet Union is dissolved, the Cold War is over, and Bunny Glenn is an American teenager in Azerbaijan with her Foreign Service family. Through Bunny’s eyes we watch global interests flock to the former Soviet Union during the rush for Caspian oil and pipeline access, hear rumbles of the expansion of the American security state and the buildup to the War on Terror. We follow Bunny from adolescence to middle age—from Azerbaijan to America—as the entwined idols of capitalism and ambition lead her to a career in the oil industry, and eventually back to the scene of…
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Supporting Girl Scouts
I was thinking about this troop this morning, of Girl Scouts in the New York City shelter system. Maya was a Girl Scout for 10 years, and made wonderful friends, gained confidence, volunteered a ton, and learned valuable skills. Personally I will be happy if I never eat another GS cookie in my life, but when I see scouts selling in front of the grocery store, if I have any cash I will often donate to their troop. I don’t remember how much the troop keeps from the sale of each box, but just giving them $5 is like selling 10 boxes or something. Anyway, I learned about this troop…
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Friday Randomness
The cartoon above is one I have shared before, first in the summer of 2020 I think, but boy oh boy does it resonate now. HOW ARE WE HERE AGAIN? Onward. This is the first full week of Elisabeth’s FIG Collective, and I’ve been enjoying keeping track of little joys in my life. Appreciated in the best of times, much needed right now. SaturdayWicked – Ted is a member of SAG/Aftra, left over from his days working in radio, and he gets screeners of the films that are nominated for SAG awards. Saturday’s mail included a DVD for Wicked, which we hadn’t bothered to go see in the theater, but…
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Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers
Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers ~ Jesse Sutanto Thank you to those of you who suggested this book. I’m not really into the murder mystery genre, though when I read them I seem to enjoy them, so maybe I am into the murder mystery genre? Maybe I need to read some Agatha Christie books, my mom sure loved the hell out of them. Anyway, I loved Vera, though there are so many descriptions of her as being elderly and old, and she’s (ahem) 60. I mean, I guess when I was younger, 60 seemed pretty old to me, and my mom died at 66, and it’s close to retirement…
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Friday Randomness
Elisabeth is encouraging interested souls to write down one thing for which they are grateful every day in February, and is calling this group of interested souls the F.I.G. Collective (FIG = Finding joy In Gratitude) In her comments, Engie said she’s in, but instead of waiting until February, she’s starting NOW. I feel like we could all use a little joy and gratitude, so I’m diving in early too. I started this post on Monday, so I could keep track. Monday – I’m thankful that Monday is Maya’s turn to cook, and that Ted made enough delicious food for dinner on Sunday that we had leftovers, which meant I…
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Wordless Wednesday
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The Bee Sting
The Bee Sting ~ Paul Murray Cassie is finishing up secondary school, ready for college. She’s a straight A student, bright and interested in poetry, but she’s angry with her father, and she blames him for their reduced position in town. She worries that she will not get to go to Dublin to attend college with her best friend, Elaine, and seems determined to sabotage her chances. She has a lot of disdain for her mother, who she thinks of as shallow and uneducated. PJ is Cassie’s little brother, lover of science and strange facts, who inconveniently outgrows his shoes right when money is tightest. He’s worried that his parents…
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10 Things that Never Happened
10 Things that Never Happened ~ Alexis Hall Sam manages a big box bed and bath store in Northern England, though he doesn’t run it very well. His employees are either taking too many breaks, or they are damaging the expensive mattresses, that sort of thing. He should probably fire the one that does the damage, but that employee is caring for his Gran, right? He should come down on the one who takes too many breaks, but really, he doesn’t care enough. That’s the real issue. He’d like things to go more smoothly, but this isn’t his dream job, and he’s just going through the motions. It’s a small…
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Chicken Soup
Last week I was thinking about making one of my favorite soups for dinner, Red Lentil Soup with Warm Spices, but Ted wasn’t feeling well and I thought that a nice chicken soup would be more comforting for him. I love Chicken and Dumplings, and the Pioneer Woman has an excellent recipe, but Ted tries to stay a bit more low carb, so I thought I would just take the recipe and modify it. The changes I made were: She uses a whole, cut up chicken. I used bone in chicken thighs, and removed the skin. She uses 1/2 cup of carrots, I used a lot more, probably 1 1/2…
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Focus on What You Can Change
In April of 2020, my darling friend Marilee and I were commiserating about the stress of the world. About how suddenly fraught it felt to get groceries. How isolating to be trapped at home. Marilee and her husband Paul have a business, Spotlight Sojourns, which requires them to spend a lot of time traveling around the world. No travel, no leaving the house, was stressful. Paul made the Venn diagram above, and Marilee shared it with me. I was reminded of Paul’s diagram by Anne’s recent post, where she shared a quote that I liked a lot: “Caring about everything is a disaster. Caring about nothing is also a disaster.…
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Friday Randomness
The Return of Fabulous FridaysLet’s start with the excellent news that Fabulous Fridays are back! Technically, they never went away. In past years, either the CEO or HR sent an email telling us that the perk of a 4 day work week was continuing. When we heard NOTHING this year, our boss decided to err on the side of caution, and told us to work 5 8-hour days instead of 4 10s. So we worked last Friday, and we noticed that gosh, most people were not around, so our boss checked with HR, and it looks like it’s a manager discretion type thing, so YAY! Back to having Fridays off!…
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Shadows and Light
iHanna has a blog photo challenge, where participants go through their photo libraries and find pictures that fit a certain theme. The idea is that you spot that theme in photos that you have already taken, not that you go out and take new photos that would work. I like the idea, so I’m playing along. January’s theme is Shadows. Here are my shadow pictures from my iPad photos. The picture above is an oak tree on one of our walks, and I am so often struck by the beauty of the shadows in amongst the branches. I take pictures, trying to capture it, but I don’t end up sharing…
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Friday Randomness
Just some random thoughts that have nothing to do with the heartbreaking fires in Southern California. I don’t know what to say about the fires except that it is shocking and horrible. Lives lost, homes lost, communities destroyed. This drone footage reminds me so much of the fires in Paradise and Santa Rosa from several years ago. I am shallow enough to be specifically sad about the homes that I visited 5 years ago that were prominent in the TV show, Beverly Hills, 90210, which are about 1/2 block from each other in Altadena. I cannot tell you how stupidly happy it made me to stand in front of these…
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The Night We Lost Him
The Night We Lost Him ~ Laura Dave Nora Noone is a successful architect living in New York, who has recently gone through the horrible loss of both of her parents, her mother from cancer, her father when he fell from a cliff side above the ocean in California. They divorced when she was young, and her father remarried, twice. Nora was extremely close with her mother, and is having a lot of trouble processing that loss. She loved her father, but they weren’t terribly close, and she was not close with her twin brothers, who he had with his second wife. She is struggling with her grief, which is…
