Culture
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Tasteless…
Back in December of 2006, a zoo keeper at the San Francisco Zoo was partially mauled during a public feeding of a tiger, a practice at the zoo since the 1940s (the feeding, not the mauling!). She lost the use of one arm, and had severe damage to the other. Updates have been made to the area, so that zookeepers now more safely feed the lions and tigers, and so that the public can safely witness the feedings. With the changes now in place, the area was recently opened to the media, before reopening the area to the public. This small quote, from SFGate: A steel barrier closes the gap…
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September 11
Last year, I participated in the 2996 project, which was an attempt to recognize all of the people who died on September 11, 2001. I was assigned a name, and I did a bit of research, and copied and pasted what I found about Mr. Abad. After that, I felt the need to write something more personal, and since I (happily) didn’t lose anyone that day, I wrote about my thoughts and feelings at the time. I was kind of proud of this post, so I’m repeating it for you today. Edelmiro Abad of Brooklyn at a wedding with his close-knit family: his wife, Lorraine, and in white from left,…
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Happy Labor Day
Summer repeats…this is a post from last Labor Day. Enjoy your long weekend, and take a moment to thank those who worked so hard to get you the day off. 😉 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…
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What’s in a name?
I was shocked, SHOCKED I’ll tell you, to read over at Bite My Cookie that she does not consider herself a feminist. She said she wouldn’t make a good feminist, because her husband is the breadwinner, while she is at home with the kids, and cooking up an idea for a cookie business, which will be funded at first from money saved from her husband’s job. So, because she loves her husband, she needs him, and doesn’t want to do away with him and do it all on her own, she doesn’t think she would make a good feminist. She’s smart, articulate, well educated, strong willed, opinionated, loving, entrepenurial, motivated…
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A.T.&T. SUCKS HOLE
Why, you may ask? Because they lie. Maybe a month or two ago, we received a stupid sales call from AT&T, wanting us to migrate our internet over from a cable modem to their DSL line. They claimed it was just as good, for half the price. Just try it, you’ll like it, and if you don’t, there’s no penalty, just send the DSL box back, and they’ll remove any charges, no harm done. OK, we decided to give it a shot. The box came, we hooked it up, and you know what? IT SUCKED. SLOW like molasses. We took one look at that, and decided, never mind, let’s stick…
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Mawige*…
A random train of thought that started out with me thinking about my new glasses went on to my contact lenses, and somehow derailed into coworkers from 15 years ago, and then took a surprising turn and ended up with me thinking about divorce. Specifically, I was thinking about this coworker of mine way back in the early 90s, an older guy who was on his 4th or 5th marriage. He met this woman, fell in love with her, and they zoomed up to Tahoe to get married, post haste. Those of us who were a bit younger thought that was kind of strange…what’s the big rush? His reasoning, though,…
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Blonde Jokes
Way back when I was 16, I worked first as a hostess, and then as a waitress, at the local Mr. Steak. I worked there for about 2 years. The first year I was there, the owner had a Christmas party at his house, and there were awards given for the person deemed to be the most this, best that, whatever. Guess who was the only blonde working there? Me. Guess who was voted ‘biggest airhead’? That’s right, me. The blonde. The blonde who was working and going to school and getting decent grades and had plenty of brains AND common sense, thank you very much. That really, really hurt,…
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Six Degrees of….nothing really
I was watching Sex and the City the other night, and I was remembering the first time I saw Kristin Davis, aka Charlotte York…which would be on Melrose Place, where she played the ill-fated and psychotic Brooke, who married Billy, who was played by Andrew Shue, who was the brother of Elizabeth Shue, who was pretty darned good in Adventures in Babysitting and Leaving Las Vegas, which are two movies that are about as different as they could possibly be. But I first saw her in one of the lamest movies EVER, Cocktail, in which she played Tom Cruise’s idiot girlfriend/wife. Idiot because she loves Tom Cruise, really, who I…
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Leonardo…
Yesterday, I was roped into driving on a field trip to Sacramento, to the AeroSpace museum, which is located at the former McClellan AFB. They are currently hosting an exhibit called The DaVinci Experience. It was pretty cool…they started out with a short video of DaVinci’s life, telling about his genius and some of the discoveries that he made. I was a bit concerned, thinking that if I drove an hour and a half at $3.32 a gallon to watch a video, I wasn’t going to be happy. Esp since I saw gas for sale in Sacramento at $2.99 a gallon, which made me madder. Anyway, I got over that…
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Safety
This week was the final week for the PEP program I’ve been teaching at Maya’s school, and the lesson was on health and safety. One of the exercises that we did was to write categories on a flip chart, and have the students (4th and 5th graders) give as many examples of how to be safe within that category as they could think of. The categories were: safey in the home, personal safety, water safety, bicycle safety, outdoor safety, and nutrition and exercise. One thing that struck me when they were brainstorming their answers is, these kids are pretty sure that they or someone they know is going to be…
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My Thoughts on Paris…
In between Buy Me, the ever pessimistic view of the real estate market, and a repeat of the always charming Groundhog Day the other night, I found myself briefly watching the obnoxious TVGuide Channel, which was busy crowing about Paris Hilton checking into prison. For the first time ever, I found myself feeling a little bit sorry for her, as the vultures joked about what her roots will look like when she gets out of prison. Prior to this, I have never felt the remotest sympathy for Paris. She’s a spoiled brat media whore, famous for sex tapes, partying, and having a crappy attitude. She has more money than God,…
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Earth
I finally watched Earth the other night. If you haven’t seen this film yet, it is the story of the partition of India into India and Pakistan in 1947, at the end of British rule there. The story takes place in Lahore, in the Punjab region of India, where many cultures come together. The picture above is of Lenny, the little girl who tells the story. The woman next to her is her ayah, or nurse. The men are the ayah’s admirers, and they include Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims. They are a group of friends who all get along very well, until the divisive power of partition takes them over, and…
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Song of the Day – Summer of Love
The SF Chronicle is currently running a series on the Summer of Love, aka, 1967. This is the 40th anniversary of that crazy summer, just one in the hippy era at Haight Ashbury in San Francisco. When I see those words, Summer of Love, part of my mind thinks of the actual cultural reference, but then I start thinking about when I first moved to San Francisco, back in 1987. It was the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love, and San Francisco, quite the provincial little city, always in love with itself, was all atwitter, just as it is now. I moved to a flat just a few blocks…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Living in the 20th Century
A few days ago, C-Lo called me to ask me to make a recording for Ted’s birthday, which she then ran on the radio. Cool idea, right? Lots of his friends and coworkers wishing him a happy day on the air. 🙂 That C-Lo, she’s full of good ideas. Anyway, when she called, she thanked me for answering the phone. I thought that was an odd thing to say, but I just said, “You’re welcome”…she must have heard the confusion in my voice, because she explained that when she doesn’t recognize the caller ID, she often figures it’s a sales call, and won’t answer. Crickets. This is when I had to explain that…