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If I Had a Million Dollars
“If you found one million dollars in the morning and had to spend it by nightfall, what would you do with the money?” After deciding on a whim to participate in NaBloPoMo this month, I panicked and went to the official website for inspiration. This was the prompt. It reminds me of a comic book I used to like, Richie Rich, and one time Richie had to spend a million dollars in one day. That was before the 4 bedroom, boring, subdivision house down the street was on sale for $899,000 (I stopped and looked at the price the other day). So, let’s think. Rules. I have to spend $1,000,000…
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Friday Randomness
I’m thinking perhaps it may be time for NaBloPoMo around here. Maybe a good idea to try to challenge myself to post every day, because crap, I feel less inclined than ever to do so. It’s not that I don’t get any pleasure from it…it’s that when I post all of the time, my brain works that way, and little things in my life inspire me. However, when I don’t post often, my brain doesn’t work that way, so I forget my blog is even here for days at a time. Not what I want from this space. So, let’s see what happens, shall we? So, what can I tell…
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Good Advice
Many years ago, I received what I consider to be very good advice. I was talking to my boss. Ted and I had been together for 7 years…it was the anniversary of our first date, which we had always celebrated. But now we were married…so should we still celebrate our first date? So I mentioned to my boss that we had always celebrated our date-a-versary, but it felt strange now that we were married. He said something like, “Life can be hard, and sometimes is very difficult. We should celebrate life’s joys whenever we can.” I liked that advise. I still like that advise. Life is indeed sometimes very difficult.…
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Friday Randomness ~ Radio Edition
I listen to the radio once in awhile, but what I’m talking about here is in my case partly radio, partly podcast versions of radio programs that have already aired, and I listen to them later, when I’m out for a walk or whatever. Within the last few weeks, I’ve heard a few stories that struck me, and I thought I might share them with you. From an actual radio program (meaning, I heard it on the radio whilst driving in the car), “Here and Now” interviewed Bill Bryson on The Eventful Summer of 1927. There was talk about that eventful year, but I was hopping in and out of…
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Meatless Monday – Butternut Squash and Black Bean Enchilada Skillet
Not my photo…it came with the recipe. I saw this recipe online a week or so ago, and it appealed to me…I love Mexican food, and any chance to put a dollop of sour cream and another of guacamole on top of something warm and cheesy is OK by me. We all enjoy butternut squash, and I saw some beautiful and huge ones at the Farmers’ Market yesterday, so I decided to base my recipe on that. It was so huge, I think I only used 1/4 of it for this recipe. I cubed the rest and will use it to make curried pumpkin, for next time Ted makes lamb…
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Bad = Good
The last 10 days have been hellish around here, electronically. No problems if you want to watch a DVD or read a book, but if you want to work (I work from home, and 100% of my job is online), or watch a download via Xfinity/HBO/Hulu/Netflix/YouTube, you’re out of luck. Our service has been MADDENING. It all started awhile ago, I can’t tell you when any more than I can tell you exactly when a particular mole in the middle of my back might have appeared. But then, last week Ted took our cable box in to the local Comcast store to return it, because even though we cancelled our…
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Cockeyed Cake
I have a box of my mom’s things in my room. Letters and things like that, mostly. In amongst the letters and photos and old address books, I recently found a little paperback cookbook that I remember when I was a kid, “The I Hate to Cook Book”, which is full of really easy recipes. I think I’ve only ever made one, “Cockeyed Cake”. We received a copy of the cookbook when we got married, from our friend Joyce, who was one of our roommates in Fairbanks, Alaska. Sadly, that cookbook was destroyed when our stupid pipes from the shower leaked into our kitchen, which we’ve discussed here before. It’s…
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European Dinner
Sometimes we like to have what we call “European Dinner”. What makes it European? We don’t know. The mystery of that is part of the charm. European Dinner can vary, but generally consists of cheese, bread, fruit, and sausage. The fruit this time was strawberries, grapes, pear, and figs, all purchased from our local farmers’ markets. I will say that I bought figs twice this week, at different farmers’ markets, and there was a difference in the taste. Perhaps because some were more ripe, I’m not sure. The cheese was ‘Bermuda Triangle’ from Cypress Grove, ‘Mt. Tam’ from Cowgirl Creamery, both local creameries. We had a little bit of Laura…
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Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
After having seen the kerfuffle on YouTube where Reza Aslan took Fox News host Lauren Green to task for her attack of his scholarship, and his daring to write about Jesus while he, Mr. Aslan, is a Muslim, I was intrigued by the book. Most of the interview is Ms. Green looking like an idiot, stressing over and over again that, gasp, he’s a MUSLIM, so how could he possibly write about JESUS? He upbraids her, and explains a bit about how scholarship works, and how as a scholar of ancient religions, he studies Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The most interesting part of the interview, to me, was not the…
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Lemon Laws
I saw this story the other day, about a man in Germany so fed up with his lemon of a BMW (a $160,000 lemon, btw) that he had been trying, unsuccessfully, for 5 years to get fixed, that he took it to the Frankfurt Motor Show and smashed it with a sledgehammer. Happily I’ve never been in this situation, but the story reminded me of my grandfather, who was well known in Stockton back in the day, as he was a local businessman and on the city council as well. Grandpa used to buy a new car every year or two, and he paid with cash. In my mind, he…
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The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
(artwork found on the New York Times website, here) “They say there are many worlds, all around our own, packed tight as the cells of your heart. Each with its own logic, its own physics, moons and stars. We cannot go there — we would not survive in most. But there are some, as I have seen, almost exactly like our own. . . . And in those other worlds, the places you love are there, the people you love are there. Perhaps in one of them, all rights are wronged, and life is as you wish it. So what if you found the door? And what if you had…
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What Maisie Knew
I remember reading Henry James “What Maisie Knew” many years ago, perhaps in college. I’m not a good one for remembering books years later, plot lines and characters and so on. What I remembered from this book was, “Wow, these parents are assholes”. Fast forward to 2013, and there’s a film version. I was kind of scared to see it, because I remember being somewhat depressed by the novel, and I don’t always want to be depressed by films. Sometimes it’s OK, I guess. Then it got really good reviews, and my MIL went to see it and loved it, and I thought, OK, I’ll go. Well, it was apparently…
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Human Nature
(I had to include Bjork, because the term “Human Nature” reminds me of “Human Behavior”, and also, I just love Bjork. I even loved that swan dress, because it was just so her, kooky and offbeat and not the least bit ashamed.) We recently had a big fire on our local mountain, Mt. Diablo. Summers in California can be very dry and hot, and it doesn’t take much to start a bunch of dried grass to burning. So Sunday, someone was out doing some target shooting (I pictured bows and arrows for some reason, when I heard the cause of the fire, which was illogical indeed) with their gun, and…
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1 Stupid Roast Chicken Recipe, 2 Ways
Thursdays I deliver Meals on Wheels, as all 2 or 3 of my readers surely know by now. Well, one of the ladies on my route, Trudy, is special and gets a visit most Thursdays. I pull up a chair and we chat for about 10 minutes about what’s been going on since last week, or I help her with her hearing aid, the clock on her stove, picking some earrings for her to wear to her Red Hat Luncheon, etc. Sometimes we look at recipes in the newspaper. Last Thursday, she had cut this recipe out and was preparing to save it in her file. I read it, and…
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Remembering Edelmiro Abad, again, still, always
Reposting this, again. I keep seeing notes to “Never Forget”. How could we. The horrors of September 11th, and the wars that came after, have forever changed our country, and the world, in so many ways. Back in 2006, I pledged to take part in the 2996 project, in honor of the 5th anniversary of that tragic day. Everyone who signed up was given a name of someone who died, and we promised to find something out about them, and write a bit about their lives, so that people will never forget them or what happened that day. As if any of us ever could. The name I was given…