-
Chicken Breasts Stuffed with Goat Cheese and Olives
(sorry for the blurry pic…) One indulgence we have been enjoying is On Demand for our cable TV. It’s part of the cheapest package that gives us HBO, etc., and we really like it. It’s expensive, though, so who knows if we’ll keep it. On Demand allows you to watch certain TV shows whenever you want. It feeds Ted’s True Blood and Rescue Me addictions, fills us in when we go to bed early and miss an episode of Mad Men, and allows us to find movies to watch if we’re in a TV mood but there’s nothing on. I wish they had everything ever made, but they’re far from…
-
Violent Femmes
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQeP1UOwss[/youtube] Here we are at V already, coming mighty close to the end of this mostly ignored experiment called, The ABC’s of Music, which I copied and morphed from Gina, and was then copied (yay!) from me by Simon. I thought of Veruca Salt, who I do enjoy from time to time, but I’ve mentioned them before already. Thought of the Verve, but then I remembered The Violent Femmes! Oh my, does this take me back to a particular time and place, that being my sophomore year of college, in Stockton, CA. We didn’t get much ‘good’ music in Stockton, or at least it didn’t feel like it at the…
-
Tough Times
(I couldn’t resist this little kitten…remember those stupid posters that said, ‘hang in there baby’. HA! Anyway, picture found here.) My bloggy friend Michelle wrote a lovely post yesterday about things that she has learned after her husband was laid off from his job 6 weeks ago. One of the things she mentioned learning was that now she knows what to say to people when they are going through something similar. She’s always been caring and concerned, but now she really *gets* it, you know? The worries and fears and shame that so often go along with such a thing. That struck me, because since losing my mom, I also…
-
Changing The Rules
I’ve decided to switch out a few of the books on my reading lists. There are only three months left in the year, and I keep getting distracted from the books that I’ve ‘challenged’ myself to read. Maybe I’ll get to some of the books I had originally planned to read, and maybe I won’t. So there. I thought of being all sneaky and just changing the list on my sidebar, since no one seems to read my book posts, and the people holding these challenges couldn’t care less if I switch my books or not. But then I thought, hey, I can get a blog post out of this.…
-
Saving Fish From Drowning
I could see the details of the world they passed through. Now that I had the gifts of the Buddha, I could flow unimpeded by safety concerns, and the hidden forms of life revealed themselves: a harmless snake with iridescent stripes, myriad fungi, flowering parasites of colors and shapes that suggested sexual turgidity – a wealth of waxy flora and moist fauna endemic to this hidden spot of the earth, as yet undiscovered by humans, or at least those who assigned taxonomic labels. I realized then that we miss so much of life while we are part of it. We fail to see ninety-nine percent of the glories of nature,…
-
Who Will Save the Insurance Executives????
Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell
-
Until December ~ Free Again
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biSbmPYbwzo[/youtube] There’s no video for this song. As a matter of fact, it’s not a very easy song to find anywhere, probably because it wasn’t their most popular song, and Until December wasn’t ever big as a group. But I loved this song, love the very 80s sound of it all. Love the bitter lyrics, which while I don’t agree with them, there are certainly times in our lives when they feel very real. Maybe right after a break up, for example. Enjoy the crackles at the end of the song, proving that the person who posted this on YouTube ripped it from their LP.
-
Udupi Palace
(Photos found at Check, Please! Bay Area) There’s a television at Ted’s office, and on Friday he decided to watch a little TV to unwind during his lunch break. Happily, Check, Please! Bay Area was on, and one of the restaurants reviewed was a Southern Indian place in Berkeley called Udupi Palace. The large majority of Indian restaurants in the Bay Area are Northern Indian, influenced by Punjabi and Pakastani flavors. We love that, but the idea of trying something from another part of India entirely appealed to Ted. He came home thinking we might go that night, but I didn’t feel like getting in the car and going to…
-
Honest Scrap Award
I’m tickled pink (an expression I very rarely use, VERY rarely) to receive this award from the lovely and overworked Chrissy, a lovely woman living on a little island up in Ontario, on a farm with her husband and her beautiful baby. Anyone who thinks farm life is easy has never read any good farm books (Like the Little House books, for me), and doesn’t read any farm blogs. Chrissy’s is a good one. She is also a champion blogger…last year, during NaBloPoMo, she honored that commitment, blogging every day that month, even though she was sent to the hospital in the hopes of keeping her baby inside of her…
-
13 Again
(pic found here) I remember 13. I remember how emotional I was. Stupid hormones going crazy. I remember crying bitter tears because my mother thought I was ugly. My proof? SHE LOOKED AT ME. Clearly she hated me. And now, I’m the mom. It’s a confusing position to be in, because there are days that are perfectly fine, with laughter and happiness…and then there are days when hormones run hot, and I feel like I can’t say anything right. And when I ask her what’s wrong, she has been thinking I was mad at her the whole time. Which I was not. Not in the least. I remember that, from…
-
Translator ~ Everywhere That I’m Not
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxdriKRoabA[/youtube] There’s no way that I was cool enough to have heard this song when it came out in 1982. I was just graduating from Hall & Oats and deciding that I was into heavy metal. And the radio stations that we got in the San Joaquin Valley in the early 80s sucked, so there wasn’t much chance of hearing it there, either. Anyway, finally I met Ted, and he was cool enough to have heard this song, cool enough to actually own it, and he put it on a mix tape for me. See why I married him? Enjoy. Back to the early 80s.
-
Photo from SFGate.com. We awoke early this morning to a rare event in Northern California…a thunder and lightning storm! Our summer weather usually consists of some hot days, and some days when the coastal fog comes in far enough to cool us off. This is what happens when you have some of each…reminds me of the storms we used to have in Philly. We lived on the 16th floor of an apartment building, which was the only tall building around, so our view was a canopy of tree tops, and we could see quite far. It was fun to watch the lightning from up high. It was 100 degrees yesterday,…
-
September 11, Again
I wonder how many years will go by before we can hear the words, “September 11th” without it taking us back to that horrible day. How long before we forget the tragedy of those who died that day, those who were badly injured, those who continue to carry the harm of that day around inside of them. How long before we forget the sight of people jumping to their deaths from the top of the towers. Before we forget the gut wrenching signs all over Manhattan, of people missing, while their families hoped against hope that they might have somehow survived. How long before we forget the fear and anger…
-
The Time Traveler’s Wife
I read the novel version of The Time Traveler’s Wife a few years ago, and I loved it. It was really well done. This weekend, we finally got around to going to see the film version, and I loved it too, just not quite as much. I think that happens most of the time with books that are turned into films. So much of the story has to be left out when you change the medium, it’s rare to find a film version that really works. And I would say, this one did. The premise of the story is that Henry has a genetic disorder that causes him to travel…
-
Oven-Fried Chicken Parmesan
I thought I would share the recipe for Chicken Parmesan that I made with the $10 pasta sauce (on sale now at Safeway for $9!) last week, which I made again last night, because Maya wanted to try it and couldn’t last week because her teeth hurt too much after getting her braces tightened. Anyway, I made it again, and this time, I took a picture. I think this is my favorite Chicken Parmesan recipe ever. The keys are: good quality chicken, good quality sauce, Italian Parmesan, and panko rather than American breadcrumbs. They’re so nice and crispy, and give the chicken a wonderful texture. Also, of course, don’t overcook…