Culture
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Presidential Cereal
I had a dream last night (or was it a vision?) of a cereal box with Trump’s picture on it. I know, what a horrid idea. I told Ted, and he went and found this picture, likely in order to torture me. I mentioned it on Facebook, (which is where Ted put the picture), and my FB and prior bloggy friend V-Grrrl said that her nephew (founder of Air B&B) had presidential cereals back in 2008. So I did a search for Presidential Cereals, and found these. The Obama Os and Cap’n McCain’s are VGrrrl’s nephew’s. Good thing these aren’t around all the time. I for one do not want…
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Such Sad News
[youtube]http://youtu.be/NQj7Ek2kqxs[/youtube] I woke up to such sad news today, that David Bowie had died from cancer. Generally, I don’t feel anything when celebrities die. Especially since my mom died, I know how much the death of a real-life person you know and love hurts, and what an absolute hole it leaves in your heart. How can the death of a stranger truly matter. And maybe it doesn’t. But still, this morning’s news hurt. David Bowie was my first real celebrity crush. I remember when I was about 20, dreaming that he came to the hotel where I worked, and oh, by the way, he was my husband in this dream.…
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A Day in the City
Yesterday found the three of us going into the City. For Ted, it was a work day, so we dropped him off a few blocks from his office, and then we went to have some fun. We met up with our friends, Marilee and Paul. Marilee is my dear friend, whom I met in Latin class while studying at San Francisco State back in the early 90s. Paul is her wonderful husband, who she met on an archilogical dig in Greece. We went to b. Patisserie on California Street, and enjoyed kouign-amann, the lovely pastry that you see above. I had never heard of kouign-amann, but it is similar to…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0IyAAOmwx4[/youtube]
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Doing Your Part
(Jesus the Homeless, by Timothy Schmalz) Last Saturday morning found Maya and me (and her friend) in San Francisco, handing out meals to homeless people. We had done this once before, when she was in 7th or 8th grade. In that instance, it was for a class, Teens Around the World, in which they learned about kids in other cultures. A group of 10 or 15 kids, the teacher, and several parents went into the city and handed out bag lunches, which the student had assembled the day before in class. It was kind of an amazing experience, and I think it helped Maya to overcome her fear of homeless…
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Jury Duty
Wednesday I was summoned to another part of my county to perform my civic duty and report for the dreaded Jury Duty. Jury Duty can be horribly boring, sitting in the Jury room for hours on end, and then perhaps dismissed. Bring a book. I once brought a notepad and wrote my friend a 6 page letter before being dismissed, then went to lunch and then some light shopping. It can be a nice diversion from your regular routine, provided that your company pays you for the time. I wonder if the reason so many people hate it is because they are losing pay or income by being there. I…
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Merry Christmas to All!
It’s morning on Christmas Eve. I was watching Tim Minchin sing “white wine in the sun”, my favorite secular Christmas song by far, so I thought I’d share it with you. Gifts have been purchased, delivered, and wrapped. Cards and packages were mailed early last week. Cookies have been baked. The house is decorated. Our traditional Christmas morning breakfast of Cinnamon rolls (from a tube) is in the fridge, as well as the ingredients for our contributions to Christmas dinner. Ted is at work, and Maya is still sleeping. I’m not sure I can face the grocery store today, and I didn’t plan a Christmas Eve dinner, so it’s…
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Batkid Saves Gotham!
SF got all giddy yesterday and went all out to help a boy with cancer to fulfill his wish to be a superhero. The make-a-wish foundation hoped for hundreds of volunteers. They got thousands. The mayor was in on it, there was a Lamborghini made to look like the batmobile, city officials, actors, and tons of civilians on the sidelines with signs held up, thanking batkid for reducing crime by “1,000 percent”. What an awesome day. (I like the special Chronicle put out yesterday, with bylines by Clark Kent, Brenda Starr, Lois Lane, and Perry White…photos by Peter Parker….excellent) Read more here, if you haven’t heard enough elsewhere. I, personally,…
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Harriet Tubman ~ Abolition Princess
Maya and I were talking about Disney the other night, and how, while the princesses are generally funny and clever and increasingly independent, the happy ending of most Disney movies is the ‘Happily Ever After’ wedding. When the protagonist of a Disney movie is female, the end is almost always a wedding. When the protagonist of a Disney movie is male (wait, are there any with a male protagonists in Disney movies, or are they mainly Pixar these days?), the happy ending is the success of whatever adventure or mission they have just experienced. They save the day, the end. Mulan saves the entire nation of China, but the end…
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Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
After having seen the kerfuffle on YouTube where Reza Aslan took Fox News host Lauren Green to task for her attack of his scholarship, and his daring to write about Jesus while he, Mr. Aslan, is a Muslim, I was intrigued by the book. Most of the interview is Ms. Green looking like an idiot, stressing over and over again that, gasp, he’s a MUSLIM, so how could he possibly write about JESUS? He upbraids her, and explains a bit about how scholarship works, and how as a scholar of ancient religions, he studies Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The most interesting part of the interview, to me, was not the…
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Remembering Edelmiro Abad, again, still, always
Reposting this, again. I keep seeing notes to “Never Forget”. How could we. The horrors of September 11th, and the wars that came after, have forever changed our country, and the world, in so many ways. Back in 2006, I pledged to take part in the 2996 project, in honor of the 5th anniversary of that tragic day. Everyone who signed up was given a name of someone who died, and we promised to find something out about them, and write a bit about their lives, so that people will never forget them or what happened that day. As if any of us ever could. The name I was given…
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Cutting the Cord
We’ve noticed that most of our TV use lately is Maya playing video games, or us watching Netflix. For awhile there, we were getting good use out of our cable On Demand service, but not lately. Perhaps that’s because we don’t have a DVR, so when there’s a new show on that we want to watch, we seldom watch it live. We keep hearing about people cutting the cord and getting rid of cable, so we decided to give it a try. We can use the XBOX 360 for Netflix, Hulu Plus, whatever else. But what about our local channels? Nance successfully uses an indoor antenna to access local channels,…
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In Defense of Charles
I know there are plenty of you out there who could not care less about the Royal Family, the Royal Baby, any of it. Move along, I’m sure there are plenty of blogs out there talking about important things. Or silly things. Or interesting things. Something that interests you while this does not. For anyone that is still here, I have noticed a lot of Charles bashing in the American Press these last few days/weeks. Everyone wants to know if William and Kate will raise Prince George in the method of dear departed Diana, or in the method of evil bad guy Charles, with the majority of support going towards…
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Girl with a Pearl Earring
One of the benefits of membership to our local PBS station is that they sometimes have a ‘free member day’ at local museums. Several years ago, that took us to the SF MOMA to see a Picasso exhibit, and Maya and I spent a lovely day in San Francisco together. This time the ‘free member day’ was for the de Young Museum, one of two fine art museums in San Francisco. They have several exhibits, but the current Special Exhibit is a collection of paintings from the Mauritshuis in Holland, which is a museum that is being expanded and is under renovation until mid-2014. While they’re tearing up the place,…
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Dirty Little Secret
I’m pretty open about the fact that I’m an atheist, and that I was raised that way. I’m a little less open about the other lie that we don’t participate in….Santa. To me, they are very similar. Stories that bring lots of joy and comfort, but that are just that…stories. Being an atheist seems somehow safer, culturally. You can tell people that you can’t reconcile the pain in the world, the natural disasters and mass murderers, with an all powerful and all loving God, and people will respect your view, even if they do not agree with it. But if you tell people that you are not raising your child…