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Body Image for Girls
Starshine wrote a post a little while ago about the hyper-sexualized advertising she sees at the local mall, and brought up her concerns about raising her sons to be respectful of women and not objectify them, when they are surrounded by these images. She brings up a good point, and it’s important to raise our boys to understand that this is just advertising, and that the majority of women and girls do not go around in their underwear, with ‘come get me’ looks permanently on their faces, bent into unnatural positions. It’s a fantasy, and not even one that’s very interesting or original. As the mother of a daughter, my…
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Friday Randomness
Nothing earth shattering today, so we’ll dive on in, OK? Just a bunch of randomness that’s been swimming through my brain a bit. We’re trying Genevieve on a new drug. She had stopped eating, which had us really concerned. Or, to be more accurate, her eating was very sporadic and unpredictable. She didn’t want her kibble, so I started making her some homemade food. She liked that for awhile, but then seemed to tire of it. We’d try to hand feed her, and she’d just turn her head away. She was always happy to eat dog treats, cheerios with milk, that kind of thing, but not regular dog food. She…
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Roasted Tomato Marinara
It’s been a mild, cool summer, with lots of foggy cold or cool days. I shan’t complain. I love those kind of days. Because I’m thankful for the mild weather, I have decided to not complain when it gets hot hot hot, which it finally did, in early September. When it gets above 90, it’s difficult to keep the house cool, even with the a/c cranked up. When it gets above 100, I don’t like to turn on the oven or even the stove for very long. Right around this time, Cherry came by with a crop of tomatoes from her dad’s garden. YUM. What to do with so many…
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Chile Corn Custard Squares
Another family birthday party, and this time we decided to go straight to the appetizers. Everyone brought one or two, we all sampled, and by the time we were finished, we were full. Not too full for cake, but still, pretty full. I had been looking on Bon Apetit.com for recipes, and came across two that inspired me with their gorgeous pictures. One was a winner, and the other just so so. Today’s recipe is the WINNER. Really good, really easy. Did I mention that they’re good? One might even say, delicious. Give these a try for your next pot-luck or dinner party. They’ll be a hit, as long as…
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The Forgotten Garden
Cornwall, 1900 – Eliza has been living in abject poverty, hidden in the attic with her brother. Her brother makes money cleaning chimneys. Eliza cleans and launders clothing that Mrs. Swindell brings in, for money. Mrs. Swindell strains the broth that they eat before feeding them. No reason to waste meat on children such as them. Their mother recently died, but before she did, she warned Eliza and Sammy to always be careful, always watch out for the bad man, the bad man who is searching for them. London, 1913 – A 4 or 5 year old girl hides in the dark, just as she has been told. She’s waiting…
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Friday Randomness
I don’t have a lot to say, but I feel like I should say something…I mean, I like blogging, so I need to blog, right? OK. Here are a few random thoughts coming through my head right now. Is anyone else exhausted by the coverage of the anniversary of the attacks on September 11th? I know I am. That day will never be forgotten…it was a horrid horrid day, and it was captured on video, played over and over again for all to see. I don’t want to see those buildings falling, or people jumping to their deaths, or people covered in ashes, or the desperate ‘have you seen this…
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Who Put the Labor in Labor Day?
We did, that’s who. When I think of labor day, my mind first thinks of the end of summer…the crisp fall weather on the horizon, the cool weather clothes, school starting up again, the return of the good TV shows… Then there are the Labor Day celebrations…one last bbq of summer, maybe a trip to the beach, the lake, or the shore… For some people it is a chance to get caught up with some chores around the house, to enjoy a 3-day weekend by sleeping in one extra day, maybe see some friends. I agree with all of these things. Not a thing wrong with any of them. But…
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The Other Wes Moore
When I was in college, there was another woman with my name (Julie Ward (click to read the story of her murder, the mystery of it, and the obstruction of justice at the hands of the British police)), who was murdered in Africa. I remember seeing an article in the paper about it, and clipping it out and hanging it on my bathroom wall, with a certain degree of gallows humor. I wrote on the clipping, “One Down…”, because it reminded me of The Terminator, when Arnold Schwarzenegger comes to the front door, says “Sarah Conner”, and then kills the poor woman. I know, it’s sick. I was young. But…
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One Day
At twenty-three, Dexter Mayhew’s vision of his future was no clearer than Emma Morley’s. He hoped to be successful, to make his parents proud and to sleep with more than one woman at the same time, but how to make these all compatible? He wanted to feature in magazine articles, and hoped one day for a retrospective of his work, without having any clear notion of what that work might be. He wanted to live life to the extreme, but without any mess or complications. He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random, it would be a cool photograph. Things should…
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Update from Genevieve
Hi Everyone, this is Genevieve! Guess what I figured out? After all of these years with my pack, eating that stupid kibble they give me, being grateful for every day, I finally decided I had had enough. I just couldn’t take it anymore! I mean, they make all of this delicious smelling shash (J’s note…Gen calls food ‘shash’), and the best I can hope for is to smell it, and once in awhile I get a bite, and one scoop of stupid kibble in my dish. Not fair! So I went on a hunger strike. Oh my goodness, did I scare the bosses! They would coax and beg me to…
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Baked Shrimp Scampi
(I found this photo on this blog. She gives credit to FoodNetwork, but when I go there, I get a video.) The other day I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner, and decided I wanted to make something with shrimp, since I had some in the freezer. (The folks at America’s Test Kitchen say to buy your shrimp peel on, frozen, because what you get at the store in the fish aisle is thawed anyway, and the longer it sits there thawed, the more flavor it loses. As to the peel on, they use some kind of chemical to get the peel off, so if you…
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Movies
One thing we did on our little ‘staycation’ was to go to movies. Our first pick was Another Earth, which wasn’t playing out in our neighborhood (though it is now), so we went into the city and stopped and had a drink and an appetizer beforehand. Nice way to start a movie, no? Especially on a weekday, when your coworkers are covering for you because you’re on vacation. I didn’t know what to expect with this film. I thought it was going to be a big sci-fi film, with mysterious aliens maybe and certainly some shoot-em-up violence. Instead, it’s a film about very human trauma. Rhoda (Brit Marling, who co-wrote…
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Bodega Bay
We decided not to take a regular vacation this year, partly because money is kinda tight, and also because Genevieve isn’t thriving, and we would feel weird asking anyone to take care of her for several days. Blind, kinda confused, not a lot of appetite, questionable tummy issues, etc. And since we live in a beautiful part of the country, we have been mostly staying close to home, and adding in a few day trips. Monday we went to San Francisco to see Another Earth, which was really good. Wednesday, we drove to Bodega Bay. I’d never been before, and Ted hadn’t been since he was 5 or 6. Bodega…
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Artisan Bistro
(photo found here) Saturday morning, Ted and I were downstairs, looking at the newspaper and wondering what the hell is going on in the world, when we received a phone call from our friend Marilee, with whom I have been friends since our days in graduate school together, many years ago. She was in our little town on the wrong side of the tunnel, and had unexpectedly been released from her duties of the day. Would we like to go for coffee or breakfast, she asked. Indeed, we would! We considered IHOP, but decided to go to the other end of the spectrum and try the Michelin recommended Artisan Bistro,…
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Bruschetta (aka, Crostini), Three Ways
This weekend, in addition to attending Maya’s swim meet one day, and working the meet the following day, we found time to celebrate two birthdays, those of Ted’s mom and Ted’s uncle. Our family get-togethers are generally pot-luck, with the host telling everyone what to bring, so that the menu has some sort of cohesion, and we don’t end up with 5 plates of chicken and nothing else. I was asked to bring corn and bruschetta. Yay, bruschetta! I love my standard, go to bruschetta recipe, which I have posted about before, but I also like to try something new from time to time. Happily enough, a recent Bon Appetit…