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Playing Hooky
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NpJ4fUhFRU[/youtube] Last weekend, Maya asked if she could miss school on her birthday. My first reaction was, No, go to school. Then I thought about it and realized, who cares if she misses a day of school to celebrate her birthday? I mean, if a teacher is absent, they just show a movie in class, so if they can waste her time (once in awhile…not ragging on her school…it’s a good school, with very dedicated teachers), then so can I. Anyway, it seemed like SUCH a good idea, that Ted and I decided to take the day off as well. So we took a vacation day from work, and went…
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Getty Mansion
(you can click the picture of Marilee and Me, if you’d like to see us with the tops of our heads intact…) Last week, on a stormy, windy, rainy Thursday afternoon, my friend Marilee called me and asked, “Would you like to go to a high society fundraiser at a billionaire’s house tonight?” Her +1 had been forced to cancel at the last minute, due to a child with croup, and she thought we might have a great time. My first reaction was, um, no, it’s RAINING! It’s WINDY! I want to stay home and have a cozy dinner here. But by the time she finished telling me about the…
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Happy Birthday, Genevieive!
Hi Everyone, it’s Genevieve! Guess what? Today’s my birthday! I’m 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13 today! Medium Boss keeps saying I’m 13, and that I’m no longer a tween and had better start acting my age, but that just goes to show that she doesn’t understand dog time AT ALL. Last week, Medium Boss took me to a new place to have a bath. It was kind of scary, and I’m sorry to say that I dug in my heels a bit and didn’t let her guide me to the car. But it was kind of loud! And there were so many interesting smells! And you know, since…
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Happy Birthday Maya!
Sometimes it seems that the time is flowing so quickly, and that I don’t know how we got from that very first day, with its fear and pain (labor), as well as its joy and exultation (baby), to today, when our beloved daughter is 15 years old! It has thus far been an amazing ride, watching Maya grow from a sweet, dependent baby, to a sweet, strong, thoughtful, intelligent, caring, beautiful girl. She truly is our dream come true, and we could not wish for anything more. I remember those baby wishes, before we had her, before I was pregnant. I had it bad. I wanted a baby so much,…
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Update in Pictures
I thought you might like to see what’s new around here. These photos aren’t going to win any awards. But they’ll give you something to look at, since you took the time to stop by, right? My Chicken Pot Pi, for Pi Day on Monday. I tried to cut a cute pi symbol in the top, but it oozed yumminess from inside, so you can’t really see the symbol. You can see Ted presenting the pie, however, with his model hand. That’s a hand like a model, um, not a fake hand. This is Maya’s little frog, Buffy. She is about a year old. Maya received her as a gift…
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Happy Pi Day!
picture found here, along with the story of how Pi Day came to be celebrated) Today is Pi Day, 3/14. (Which reminds me that I totally forgot to do anything for National Grammar Day! Drat.) To celebrate, you can talk about the properties of pi, you can listen to a musical representation of the number pi, you can watch a rap music video about pi, and of course, you can eat pie. A few years ago I decided that we would have turkey pot pie for dinner for pi day, and I bought some from the freezer section of the grocery store, and overall, I was VERY unimpressed. So this…
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Thinking of Japan
The pictures from Japan are so horrifying, they boggle the mind. I mean, when it was Haiti a few years ago, the pictures were unimaginable and tragic, but Haiti is such a poor, destitute country, that somehow it gave me a false impression of security. But Japan, Japan is a wealthy industrialized country, one where large earthquakes are expected and planned for. But an 8.9…that’s impossible to plan for. By comparison, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was 6.9, and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was 7.9. (To read more about the Richter magnitude scale, and learn the difference between a 6.9, a 7.9, and an 8.9, click here) And of…
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Best Broccoli EVER
Last weekend was Ted’s brother’s birthday, and we celebrated with a steak and potato dinner. Ted’s mom brought this delicious broccoli, ala’ Barefoot Contessa, that was SO GOOD I had to make it again on Tuesday, and actually, I think I’m going to make some more tonight, to go with ‘leftover Friday’. I think I ate about twice as much broccoli as I normally do. So I went online to get the recipe, and I decided to make the meal that she made on the episode. It was a mustard roasted fish, dill fingerling potatoes, and of course, broccoli. Results? The broccoli was kick-ass. The potatoes were yummy, and maybe…
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Cutting for Stone
I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art. ~ From the Hippocratic Oath Cutting for Stone begins with the pregnancy and birth of slightly conjoined and separated twins, Marion and Shiva Stone, orphaned at birth with the death of their mother, Sister Mary Joseph Praise, and the disappearance of their father, Dr. Thomas Stone. Marion and Shiva are raised at the Ethiopian hospital where they are born, by two Indian doctors, who love them as their own. They grow up amid political upheaval, though they are mostly insulated from…
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Eggplant and Zucchini Pizza with Basil and Cherry Tomatoes
Back when I worked at a certain big hotel in San Francisco, one of my coworkers was a big fan of a local pizza place, Vicolo. She raved about it, and I’m sorry to say we never got around to trying it, because we were big fans of North Beach Pizza and Mozzarella Di Bufala, and rarely ventured elsewhere. I think what they were famous for was their cornmeal crusts. I assume that because last week at my local grocery store, I saw these Vicolo pre-made cornmeal crusts in the refrigerated section. It made me think of a recipe from The Greens Cookbook that we like. We usually eat it…
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Dieting Sucks
It’s interesting to me that at the same time more and more information comes out about how diets simply do. not. work., we seem to be just as obsessed with trying the next and newest, in our attempts to control our bodies and our weight. Think about it. Have you ever known anyone who went on a diet, lost weight, and then moved on with their life, never to need to diet again? I haven’t. Dieting messes with your metabolism, and sometimes your mind. For a small percentage of us, it triggers eating disorders, like anorexia and bulimia. For most of us, it means that we can gain more weight…
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Instant Beef Tenderloin Stew
If you’re ever looking for a beef stew that you can make quickly, perhaps within 1/2 an hour, rather than the several hours most stews take, here’s your recipe. I found it in my new Fast Food My Way cookbook, by Jacques Pepin. The secret is that while most stews take a tough or slightly tough slice of meat and stew it for a few hours to make it tender, this recipe takes a tenderloin of beef (aka, Fillet Mignon, aka, $$$) and browns it quickly, maintaining the tenderness of the meat. You use a combination of fresh and frozen vegetables, also hastening the process. Know what? I had a…
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Wordless Wednesday
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If there weren’t any bad news, maybe there wouldn’t be any news at all…
Don’t you sometimes find that some days are just too much? I mean, personally, my own life is fine. My family is healthy, we have jobs, no real problems for us. But leave that circle just slightly, and it gets so much worse that it’s hard to bear. In our own little town, two students at Maya’s high school died this weekend when they decided to take a raft trip down a raging waterway. Such things should be safe, shouldn’t they? People go whitewater rafting all of the time. But in our local city, these waterways, this creek is not natural, it’s man-made. Back in the 60s there were floods…
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Spring Gardening
Winter has finally returned. While most of you lovely people were suffering mightily with huge snowfall and bitter cold weather, we were enjoying temperatures closing in on 80 degrees. One should not complain of such things, 80 degrees in January, but still, here in California, land of the drought, there is always a bit of worry that accompanies such weather. Drought. We had a very wet December, so our snow pack (our source of water) is pretty high, so we’re not too worried. But still, we’re somewhat worried at such a dry and warm January. Enter February, and thankfully, things have cooled off a bit, and we’re having some rain…