Culture
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(Nearly) Wordless Wednesday
My personal barometer on when COVID-19 is largely behind us. This newspaper vending kiosk was last loaded with a new paper a year ago, on March 16, 2020, which is the day that the Bay Area went into lockdown. Since that time, there have not been enough people riding BART (our local mass transit) to justify the labor, I assume, of consistently replacing the papers with new ones. I do see current newspapers in front of the grocery store, so I know it’s not everywhere. What about you? Do you have a small local barometer that you keep track of?
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Bonus Meme – National Grammar Day
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The Hill We Climb
I was blown away by the spectacular Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate, and her poem at the Inaugeration today. I am sure you saw it. In case you’d like to see it in writing, here it is. What an amazingly talented, hard working, brilliant young woman. “The Hill We Climb” Amanda Gorman When day comes we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry, a sea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast, we’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice. And yet the dawn is…
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How I read now
Where do you find out about books? Recommendations from friends and family? New York Times Review of Books? Browsing the bookstore or library? Do you insist on a physical copy, or do you use a kindle app or some such? What about audio books? Personally, I love a physical book, and I have become quite enamored with audio books. I’m not really fond of the e-reader, though I think it’s great if you travel, or commute via public transportation, or if you have arthritis or something that makes holding a book uncomfortable. Anyway, here are some books I have read recently, or will read soonish, and how I came to…
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Meme Monday
The attempted coup last week was in no way funny. However, I am going to post a bunch of memes/cartoons that I saw online anyway. What I really want to say, however, is screw these assholes. I would add, “And the horse they rode in on” but I like horses, so I will omit that part of the phrase. I have some Republican friends that I love and adore. Thoughtful people who know better and do condemn the President, and do not think it was an Antifa hoax. This post is not about them. I have some Republican acquaintances, people I went to school with or worked with at some…
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Wordless Wednesday – Dark Day
Photo credit – Reuters via CNN
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Meme Monday – Back to Lockdown
I posted this meme on Facebook last year after reading Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk, which is a great novel that I really enjoyed, about an 85 year old woman meandering her way to a party in New York on New Year’s Eve, 1984. Ms. Boxfish was a very talented ad woman for Macy’s in the 1930s, and the character is based on the real-life ad woman, Margaret Fishback. Facebook likes to remind you of things you posted on this day in history, so this popped up, and I decided it’s a meme, and it sums up the whole feel of Shelter in Place (SIP) so perfectly. Speaking of Shelter…
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Meme Monday – Art Edition
Art ala 2020. I miss museums. A few years ago, I went to see an exhibit at a local museum with my dear friend Marilee. I paid for the admission to the exhibit, which was Degas, Impressionism, and the Millinery trade, and while we were in the gift shop at the end of the exhibit, she found out that the ticket price could be applied to an annual membership, and she paid the difference as a gift to me. I discovered that with that membership, I went more often. My step-mom, Julie, always gives me money for my birthday, and for the last couple of years, I have been considering…
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Thursday Thirteen, Los Angeles version
(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia – there was a TINY bit of snow on the tip of the mountains, nothing like this. I don’t think I realized before that there are mountains RIGHT THERE, but I’ve not really paid much attention to LA in the past.) My BFF Rosemary lives in Pennsylvania. She and I met in High School in 1982, and after HS she moved around a bit for a few years, ending up in PA a few months before we moved back to California. She has two boys in college, one is graduating from Clemson in May, the other is a Freshman at Lewis and Clark in Portland, OR.…
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My Trip to Washington D.C., Day 3
Saturday my BFF Rosemary, who lives in Pennsylvania, down near the Delaware border, drove down to D.C. to spend the day with us. We started out at the National Portrait Gallery, and ended up getting separated from the rest of my family there. It was OK with everyone that we did so…Rosemary and I wanted to go slowly and read the blurbs about all of the Presidents, and my sister wanted to take her kids to the Air and Space Museum, which I didn’t care about. So they ended up seeing more pictures than we did, but we went more slowly at our own pace. It was interesting to us…
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My Trip to Washington D.C., Day 2
As if it weren’t emotional enough to honor my dad at the Grant Writers’ Association conference, we also honored my step-mom’s first husband, Bruce, who died early in the Vietnam War. She was married while in college, and he left soon after their wedding to go to Vietnam, so they did not have a lot of time together. They did spend some time in Hawaii once when he was on leave. His death broke her heart and changed her life. She left college and travelled in Europe for awhile, and when she came home, discovered she could not bear to live in California anymore, there were too many memories. So…
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My Trip to Washington D.C., Day 1, Part 2
After spending the morning at the Grant Writers’ Association Conference, we walked over to the National Mall and went to the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It was amazing and overwhelming and so emotional. We only had the fortitude to visit the History section, and at that point were worn out and ready to head home for the day, which is too bad in a way because I think the Culture section would have been well worth seeing as well. The museum is part of the Smithsonian, which means that it is free, and I think a person could spend a month or two in D.C. and…
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Harriet
Harriet Tubman has been my hero for as long as I can remember. When Maya was little and they were talking about heroes at school, I told her about Harriet, and several years later she told me that at the time, she had pictured her with a cape, flying down like Superman, rescuing slaves from the south and spiriting them north to safety and freedom. I love that idea, but of course, if she had been able to fly, she would not be proven to be as brave as she was in real life. Putting herself into harm’s way, again and again, So, a few months ago when we first…
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Save the Titans
Near the California/Oregon border, near Crescent City, is Redwood National Park. Within this beautiful park (which I have not personally visited), there is a small grove of giant redwoods, discovered in the 1990s, nicknamed the “Grove of Titans”. The biggest two are the fourth and fifth largest known coastal redwoods in the world, and they are surely magnificent. There was a story in today’s paper about the grove, talking about how secret it used to be, but how popular it now is, which is dangerous for the very trees that people are trekking in to see. Redwood trees have very shallow roots, and are sensitive to people walking on the…
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My Reading List
I have not been in the mood to read lately. By lately, I mean, since my Dad died. I just veg out in front of the TV. But I miss reading. I miss getting sucked into a story, and now I have a couple of reasons to crack a book. First, Ted’s aunt and I are both fans of Dick Francis mysteries. He died several years ago, and his son has taken over the franchise. Auntie is much better than I am about remembering to watch for a new release. Well, there is a new release, which she reserved at the library. She read it and then gave it to…