Family
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More Cooking Today…
One of the comments I got on my anniversary post asked about a recipe for Roti, which is an Indian flatbread…very similar to Naan, though not exactly the same. Roti is better. 😉 The Guyanese commenter, Shelliza, noted that when her mother tried to give her the recipe, it came out, “a handful, a pinch and this much”, which is just how Ted and his mom make it as well. So I can’t give you their recipe. However, my friend Cherry tried to find a recipe online, and she gave it a try. She said it was very yummy. I asked her for the recipe, and she said she melded…
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This Is Us*
A few nights ago, I was up watching Sex and the City DVDs, and it was the episode where Miranda and Steve get married. Miranda was saying that she didn’t want the cookie cutter wedding, didn’t want someone else’s idea of a wedding, that what she wanted was a wedding that represented them, and who they were. I liked that. I liked it, because it resonated with me. I felt like we had that, a wedding that represented us, 13 years ago today. When faced with the idea of a big white dress and a long walk down the aisle, I thought, “Well, that’s nice for other folks, but not…
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Saturday Dog Blogging
I know, dog blogging is supposed to be on Fridays, but oh well. Sue me. 😉 Maya has requested that I write a blog telling how we got Genevieve. I have mentioned it once before, when we had dog visitors, but here’s the whole story. Back in 2002, we decided we were ready for a dog. Ted and I had both had dogs a lot as children…Ted a series of dogs, his favorite being Chamailie, and me one dog, my beloved Samantha. I had Samantha for 16 years, and when she died, it broke my heart. So I wasn’t ready for a dog for quite awhile. Add to that the…
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Almost Famous
Back in 2002, before I knew what the word ‘blog’ meant, before I realized the obsession and time suck that is the blogging world, I discovered the obsession and time suckiness of genealogy. My great-great Aunt had written a letter back in 1963, which appeared to detail our family tree back aways, and I thought a nice birthday gift to give my mom would be a map of the family tree for her wall. As I tried to put it together, I realized that there were holes and inconsistencies in the letter, and so I had to try to figure as many as possible out. What I discovered was that…
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Welcome to the World of Blogging!
Maya’s Granny, aka, my Mom, has decided to give this blogging thing a whirl, since she enjoys reading other peoples’ blogs so much. Go check her out. :)Â
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Happy Father’s Day, Dado
I thought that maybe I could have a guest blogger today, to wish her father a very happy Father’s Day. She’s not as verbose as I am, but she loves him VERY MUCH. So, with no further delay, here’s Maya. Happy Fathers Day, Dado! I love you! You are the best! Love, Monkey
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Happy Father’s Day, Dad!
My Dad and stepmom were here last weekend, which is a pretty groovy Father’s Day gift to me. 🙂 They live in Oregon, and so we don’t see them as much as we would like to. My dad is a pretty great guy, whom unfortunately I did not get to know until I was an adult. One day maybe I’ll tell that story, but not today. Anyway, when my dad was here, I asked him about his time in the 60s, about his involvement in the Civil Rights marches, etc. I was right on some things, wrong on others. I thought he had heard Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have…
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A Fish?
If you remember, our good friends Cherry and Eric came over for dinner last weekend. In addition to the lovely ice cream and homemade sauces that Cherry made, they also brought us this lemon. I know, it looks like a grapefruit. I suspect that Cherry has been waiting to see if it pops up on my blog, because it’s so huge, and because, well, blogarreah. Well, finally, it’s time. Every time I see this lemon sitting next to our other fruits, I wonder, “What shall I do with this lemon? Lemon pound cake? Lemonade? What?” The most common use for lemon in our house is as a sort of bath…
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Weekend Wrap-Up
For some reason on Friday, I woke up at 4am with Ted, and couldn’t go back to sleep when he left for work. I usually sleep until about 5:30 or 6:00 lately, so this was odd. Well, that all caught up with me at about 1:00. Luckily, since I work from home, I could take a 30 minute power nap after eating lunch, and see if that helps. It didn’t. I woke up grumpy and feeling like I had a nap hangover. So when Ted came home and said he wanted to go somewhere nice for dinner, somewhere in the city with French food, I was bitchy. I didn’t really…
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Virginity
For some reason this story reminded me of a question I asked my mom when I was about 7 or 8. I had been arguing with my best friend, Amy Derocher (I just realized I have no idea how to spell her last name), whose parents were pretty religious by our heathen standards, and I came into the house to settle the matter. Went and found my mom, who was taking a bath. Me: “Mom, do you have to be a virgin to get married?” Mom: “No.” Me: “Are you sure?” Mom: “Yes, I’m sure.” Me: “How can you be sure?” Mom: “Well, I wasn’t a virgin when I got…
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Recipe Thursday
I’ve never seen ‘recipe Thursday’ anywhere before, so I just made it up. I don’t want to talk about poop anymore, or God, and I haven’t thought of anything else exciting, so I thought I would just give away the store here, and share one of our family’s favorite recipes. This picture is what I got when I googled “Curried Butternut Squash”, but it doesn’t look exactly like the dish I’m describing. Similar though, and tasty looking. Ted’s parents were born and raised in Guyana, which is in South America. If you don’t know much about Guyana, it was a British Colony. After Great Britian abolished slavery, they still needed…
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A Good Problem to Have
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY! A couple of years ago, I was lamenting the cost of greeting cards, and that I end up paying out too much money around Mother’s Day. You see, I don’t only buy them for my mom, but for all of the “mother figures” in life, so they kind of add up. Then I stopped in my tracks, because I realized…this is not a bad problem to have. I have so many women in my life that I want to acknowledge as mother-figures, it ends up costing me some money (And I’ve tried a box of cards to save money, so I know, it doesn’t HAVE to be…
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As Promised…
Here are some pictures of Maya and the ducklings. We live too far from her school to walk the whole way, but we park at a library about a mile from the school and walk. We bring the dog, so she gets her exercise in as well. One stretch of the walk is on a bike trail, and there is a little canal running through it. There are often ducks in the canal, and we’ve been waiting for ducklings since September. Well, we saw them a few weeks ago, but only this week did we remember to bring some bread to feed them. And today I actually remembered the camera.…
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The “F” Word….
Warning…this post contains SWEARING I lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, from the age of 4 until I was 9. It was the early 70’s, and it was much more a frontier society than we have down in the lower 48. I haven’t been back since, so I can’t speak to the modern sensibilities, but I digress. In Fairbanks, at that time, everyone swore. I mean, EVERYONE. At one point, we lived next door to a church, and it wasn’t unusual to hear people come out and say, “Jesus Christ, it’s 45 Mother-Fucking Degrees Below Zero out here!” Needless to say, my brother and I grew up with what is politely known…
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What Kind of Mom Am I?
I read on Cape Buffalo about an idea for a Mother’s Day Collaboration, and I thought, I guess I could chip in on that. I don’t want to write about my mom, because I just did on her birthday, and I’ve got another post in mind for Mother’s Day itself, so for here and now, I’ll write about my goals as a mother…the kind of mom I would like to be. I want to be the kind of mom who supports her child no matter what. I want Maya to never doubt for a second that I believe in her, that I love her unconditionally, and that she will always…