Culture
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Escaping Ennui
Ted and I went to escape the heat as well as taking advantage of Maya’s going to her best friend’s house on Saturday (free babysitting!), and we drove into Berkeley to see “A Scanner Darkly.” It’s a complicated tale, and one wonders how and why the main character (played by Keanu Reeves….whoa….) got to be where he is. In one flashback that may or may not be real, we see him in his home, with a lovely wife and two children. The wife and kids are playing a board game, and he is reading the newspaper. He gets up to make some popcorn, bonks his head on an open cupboard…
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Saturday Poetry
OK, after the last three days of serious, personal family stuff, mostly written by someone else, I’ve decided to lighten things up a bit, and bring you a poem today, also written by someone else. Who knows, maybe this will become a Saturday tradition, a poem that I love but did not write. no man,if men are gods;but if gods must be men,the sometimes only man is this (most common,for each anguish is his grief; and,for his joy is more than joy,most rare) a fiend;if fiends speak truth;if angels burn by their own generous completely light, an angel;or(as various worlds he’ll spurn rather than fail immersurable fate) coward,clown,traitor, idiot,dreamer,beast- such…
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Props to Safeway
I stopped at Safeway on Thursday evening, and when I got back to my car, there was a woman filling the trunk of the car next to me with fruit and veggies. Corn, watermelon, strawberries, and so on. She didn’t have any bags, she was taking the items out of a big box and putting them into her trunk. I asked her if she had bought all of this at Safeway, wondering if she was against bagging her groceries for some reason, or if she were planning a huge party, since there was so much food. No, she said, Safeway donates the food to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum. Color me…
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Happy Independence Day
Go get your BBQ on, and while you’re enjoying feast, family and fireworks and a long weekend, let’s remember what we’re celebrating, what our little experiment in democracy means, how much we have gained these last 230 years, and just how much we stand to lose. Happy Birthday, America. Let’s all work together to make this the best country we can. K? (It’s been awhile since I read the whole document, which is indeed a very dangerous document – It brought about a complete change in government, after all – so if you’re interested in having a read, click here.)
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Mark Knopfler/Emmylou Harris concert
Last summer, Ted’s boss had 8 tickets to see Mark Knopfler at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, and then something came up, and he couldn’t use them. He knew how much Ted loved Mark Knopfler, so he very generously gave him the tickets. No $$, just tickets. NICE! So, we rounded up the family, and we all went. It was such a great concert, with SO MUCH energy, so much fun, wonderful wonderful. We had a great time. You all know how I feel about Dire Straits, and this was a great concert, because he played a lot of the old Dire Straits material for it. Friday was the last…
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Children Who Feel Empty…
I found this article in my SF Chronicle Magazine, from Sunday’s newspaper. It’s pretty long, but worth a look if you have some time. Really, there’s nothing here that I haven’t thought before…too many kids today are overscheduled, over-pressured, and very unhappy because of it. One thought that came to me, though, is that this story is about upper-middle to upper-class kids…what about the lower-middle and lower-class kids. When their parents push them and push them, isn’t it supposed to be a sign of caring? And conversely, if they DON’T push them, isn’t that a sign of failure? Where’s the happy medium? The article, which is really exerpts from the…
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Everything Old is New Again
My buddy Neva and I went to dinner and a little shopping on Monday evening, and one of the places we ended up was Sephora. I wanted to get some Lorac mascara, as recommended by Gina. The girls who worked there had the bright, multi-colored eye shadow that was semi-popular in the mid-80s. You know, like Cyndi Lauper here used to wear. Seeing them made me think a couple of thoughts… 1st, boy, I’m getting old, because things that were trendy when I was in college are coming back around. 2nd, it reminded me of my mindset when I tried these looks…I just wanted to be cool. That was the…
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This Just In…Politicians SUCK
How else to explain the vote this week in the Senate, which would give the Congress the power to ban flag burning? What can this be, if not pandering to the right wing before the November elections? As to flag burning itself, I hate to see it. I do not enjoy watching someone burn a flag on TV, because of what it represents, the hatred which that person holds for America. Usually when you see a flag burned, it is happening in a foreign land, and the people there are ANGRY with America. I guess I just want to be liked, want my country to be liked, and I hate…
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Calling All Dead Heads
Any Greatful Dead fans in the audience? Ted did an awesome interview, just for fun, with a HUGE Dead fan who works with him. I’m not a huge fan, but it’s fun to listen to someone who is, and hear what a smart guy who loves the music has to say. Go check it out. 🙂
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Resistance Is Futile
Now that I’m working from home, phone calls have been coming to my home phone, which I don’t really like. Sometimes someone else wants to use the phone, or if it’s during work hours, Ted and Maya feel funny answering it. Options: 1. A second phone line. 2. Vonage. 3. A cell phone. Let’s look at these, one at a time. 1. I don’t really have a big problem with a second phone line, but I’m not sure of the intricasies of having one for work, and having maybe a different calling plan than our regular phone. Our regular phone has no special provisions for long distance during the week,…
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When I’m 64
Happy Belated Birthday to Paul McCartney, who turned 64 on June 18th. I’ll confess, Paul was the Beatle I had a crush on first. And come on, look at that face. That’s a face a 13 year old can love. He’s so…safe. And cute. 😉 John was the one who I had a crush on in High School (though of course he was already dead by that point, lending him an even greater sense of tragedy and mystery). I sometimes thought, personality wise, that Paul was the Heart of the Beatles, and John was the Soul. Not sure where that leaves poor George and Ringo. I like to picture Paul…
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Happy Juneteenth!
Today is Juneteenth. I remember when we lived in Philadelphia, the HUGE celebration every June, comemerating the holiday, Juneteenth. I had never heard of this holiday before. In case you haven’t heard of it, June 19th, 1865 is the date that Union General Gordon Granger landed in Galviston, TX, and announced that former slaves were now free. Philadelphia has a much larger black population than San Francisco, something like 50%. So the Juneteenth celebration there is much larger than it is in S.F. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that it used to go down Fillmore Street, which was very close to our Japantown apartment…we just didn’t know about it.…
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I Feel Dirty…
Because I watched THIS last night. I’m surrounded by books, some of them works of great literature, ALL of them better than watching Britney’s veiny boobs hang out of her top. I have DVDs. I have cable, with lots of options. But I watched Britney cry instead. If you have now lost all respect for me, I completely understand. I have, too. I need a bath with some comet to feel clean again, I think.
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No More GUILT
The worst, worst, WORST part of parenting, at least of mothering, is the guilt that society tries to push upon us. L at Homesick Home wrote a wonderful post the other day about her feelings after reading a New York Times article titled “Breast Feed Or Else“. I read L’s post, and I was horrified…horrified that people are actually equating not breastfeeding your children with smoking while pregnant. With going to a bar, riding a mechanical bull, and smoking while pregnant. Give me a fucking break. (Sorry, I tried not to swear there, but no other word worked for me. Get over it.) The current culture has really made a…
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WTF Part II
I’m a bit confused…is our American diet so screwed up that we need all of these products to help us with our intestinal tract health? Is no one pooping anymore? Last week, in my multi-subject post, I mentioned a product that kind of freaked me out called the “Almighty Cleanse“. It freaked me out because there was a God/poop connection going on that was somewhat confusing. Well, even though none of my 4 loyal readers commented on the product or it’s disturbing connection between the Almighty and colon health, apparantly plenty of people found my blog by googling “Almighty Cleanse”. So people are out there, looking this stuff up. People…