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Girl with a Pearl Earring
One of the benefits of membership to our local PBS station is that they sometimes have a ‘free member day’ at local museums. Several years ago, that took us to the SF MOMA to see a Picasso exhibit, and Maya and I spent a lovely day in San Francisco together. This time the ‘free member day’ was for the de Young Museum, one of two fine art museums in San Francisco. They have several exhibits, but the current Special Exhibit is a collection of paintings from the Mauritshuis in Holland, which is a museum that is being expanded and is under renovation until mid-2014. While they’re tearing up the place,…
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Wordless Wednesday – A Day in San Francisco
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Bella Trattoria ~ San Francisco
Sunday was a day in San Francisco, which we spent going to the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park, looking for Magnolia trees in bloom. It turns out it’s a bit early, even here in sunny California, so we didn’t see a LOT of blooms. OK, there weren’t many. But one thing I like about Magnolia trees (specifically, the ones called ‘Tulip Trees’) is how the branches and trunk look relatively delicate, and the sparseness of the branches with the beautiful pink and white flowers coming out, it’s somehow architectural or something. I love it. Anyway, after searching the Gardens for Magnolia trees for awhile, then stopping by Ocean Beach,…
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Chocolate Cake for a 90th Birthday Party
My lovely Grandma turned 90 last week, and on Sunday we celebrated with her in the care facility where she is recovering from the fall she took on Thanksgiving. Hopefully, the x-ray she takes later this week will show that she is recovered enough so that she can go home. For the party, I volunteered to bring the cake. Grandma says her favorite cakes are fruit cake and chocolate cake. I don’t know many people who like fruit cake, and I have no idea how to make it, so I opted for chocolate on chocolate love. Then came the question, to make the cake from scratch, or use a box. …
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Monday Meme – 48 Things
I saw this one over at Issa’s place, and shockingly enough, I don’t think I’ve answered more than 10 of these here before. So, in the spirit of over sharing, here we go. 1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Yes. My great aunt was SO amazingly important to my mom. She took her in when she was having trouble at home, made her feel like there wasn’t anything wrong with her after all, encouraged her that life in college would be far better than life in high school had been. Sadly, she died before I was born, so I never met her. Her name was Julia, but she hated…
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Friday Randomness
Happy Friday Everyone! We finished watching Season 3 of Downton Abbey this week. Agggghhh! How can it be over already? I know, you’re probably saying, “But I’ve only seen 3 episodes thus far, how can you have seen all 7 plus the Christmas Special?” The answer my friend is that I donated money to my local PBS station, and they sent me the DVD. I will not give any plot spoilers, but I will tell you that the LOOK of the show is much better on DVD than it is on broadcast TV. This was a big season in many ways, but I recommend not googling anything, since those in…
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Flight Behavior
“Number one. Bring your own Tupperware to a restaurant for leftovers, as often as possible.” “I’ve not eaten at a restaurant in over two years.” “Try bringing your own mug for tea or coffee. Does not apply, I guess. Carry your own cutlery, use no plastic utensils, ditto ditto. Okay, here’s one. Carry your own Nalgene bottle instead of buying bottled water.” “Our well water is good. We wouldn’t pay for store-bought.” “Okay,” he said. “Try to reduce the intake of red meat in your diet.” “Are you crazy? I’m trying to increase our intake of red meat.” “Why is that?” “Because mac and cheese only gets you so far,…
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Harvest Roast Chicken with Grapes, Olives, and Rosemary
This is a sad, pathetic picture of a delicious, wonderful dinner. We scarfed it down too quickly for me to take a picture of the whole plate of chicken and veggies, so you get the leftovers in a cold bowl. Sorry. One of my gifts for Christmas was the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. I was thrilled, because I’ve tried a few recipes from Deb’s blog, and I’ve enjoyed them quite a bit. Last night I decided to try my first recipe from the cookbook, and then I decided to pair it with another recipe from the cookbook. Why not, right? Because I’m nice that way, I suggest you try them. Then,…
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Friday Randomness
Jumping right on in here…. I enjoyed my time off from work. Sunday we had some friends over that we haven’t seen in ages. There’s something about having kids who are in school and sports and trying to support them, that doesn’t leave one with much time, so it can be hard to get together. Then there’s work, which is also a huge time suck. So between the work and the commuting and the kids and so on, we haven’t seen them in awhile. Finally we did. I made a huge meatloaf, we laughed and ate and relaxed. It was excellent. Also, went to Stockton to see my Grandma. She’s…
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Dirty Little Secret
I’m pretty open about the fact that I’m an atheist, and that I was raised that way. I’m a little less open about the other lie that we don’t participate in….Santa. To me, they are very similar. Stories that bring lots of joy and comfort, but that are just that…stories. Being an atheist seems somehow safer, culturally. You can tell people that you can’t reconcile the pain in the world, the natural disasters and mass murderers, with an all powerful and all loving God, and people will respect your view, even if they do not agree with it. But if you tell people that you are not raising your child…
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Bookworm
Today is the first day of my winter break…10 days off from work. I feel fortunate to have this time off, as I work in the payroll software industry, and year end is traditionally the busiest time of the year. But I work from home, and if I agree that if something earth shattering happens before Jan 2nd (like Congress gets a plan voted on, and the IRS is then able to put out new withholding tables), I will put in a few hours and get that info to our clients, I can pretty much take the time off. It works well for me. So, aside from Christmas and New…
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On School Shootings and Facebook
I want to write something about the mass shooting in Connecticut. I feel like I should. But it hurts to go into a lot of detail. I hate it. Those poor families. Those poor children. Those poor teachers. That whole, devastated community. I cannot imagine what they are going through. I hate that people get sick enough that they would do such a thing. I hate that we live in a country where guns are so available, that we can have two shootings in one week. It was just Tuesday that I heard on the radio about a guy who shot up a mall outside of Portland, and I quickly…
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Dog in a Dress
This is Samantha, my sweet puppy, lurking through the window of our house in Fairbanks, Alaska. She used to sit on top of her dog house and try to guilt us into letting her in the house, which didn’t happen on too regular of a basis, as she was an outdoor dog, and if you keep your dog in the house in Alaska, they don’t grow all of the fat and fur that they need to survive in sub-zero weather. If it were today, I would do it differently. I think dogs are happier in the den with the pack, and I think the pack is happier with the dog…
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The Hobbit
Our local paper had this to say about The Hobbit: “‘The Hobbit,’ a movie that is exactly one Jar Jar Binks away from being as bad as ‘The Phantom Menace’.” In other words, the reviewer hated it. We read the review, and decided to go see the movie anyway. I didn’t hate it that much, but I’m not sure I really liked it, either. For such a charming story, I’m sorry to say that the film felt bloated and somewhat boring. Part of the problem, I think, is that a book is not a film, and a film isn’t a book. You have to do some trimming if you’re going…
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The Hobbit
In preparation for this week’s release of the film version of “The Hobbit”, I decided that I wanted to read the book. I haven’t read “The Hobbit” since High School, which was a few decades ago. If you haven’t read “The Hobbit”, I’ll fill you in a bit. “The Hobbit” is Bilbo Baggins, a resident of Middle Earth, who is recruited by the wizard Gandalf to accompany a company of dwarfs on their mission to reclaim their kingdom under the Lonely Mountain, as well as their treasure. The mountain has been occupied for perhaps a century by a dragon, Smaug, who has laid waste to the surrounding area, terrorizing those…