Holidays
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Playing Hooky
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NpJ4fUhFRU[/youtube] Last weekend, Maya asked if she could miss school on her birthday. My first reaction was, No, go to school. Then I thought about it and realized, who cares if she misses a day of school to celebrate her birthday? I mean, if a teacher is absent, they just show a movie in class, so if they can waste her time (once in awhile…not ragging on her school…it’s a good school, with very dedicated teachers), then so can I. Anyway, it seemed like SUCH a good idea, that Ted and I decided to take the day off as well. So we took a vacation day from work, and went…
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Happy Pi Day!
picture found here, along with the story of how Pi Day came to be celebrated) Today is Pi Day, 3/14. (Which reminds me that I totally forgot to do anything for National Grammar Day! Drat.) To celebrate, you can talk about the properties of pi, you can listen to a musical representation of the number pi, you can watch a rap music video about pi, and of course, you can eat pie. A few years ago I decided that we would have turkey pot pie for dinner for pi day, and I bought some from the freezer section of the grocery store, and overall, I was VERY unimpressed. So this…
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Christmas thoughts…
For years, Maya wanted to make a gingerbread house. She would ask, and I would think about the mess, the candy, my lack of crafty skills, the mess, and the what-does-one-do-with-it-after aspect, and say, hmmm….maybe. But never get around to it. A local supermarket has gingerbread house parties, where you can come and pay to make one there, which seemed a perfect solution to me, but I could never seem to get there and sign her up in time. By the time I found out about the party, it was either fully booked or fully over. So I would think, maybe next year, and feel a twinge guilty for not…
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Pete and repeat are in a boat…
Pete falls out, who’s left? Repeat! OK, so for a repeat performance, here’s a picture of Maya on Santa’s lap circa 1996, when she was 9 months old. If the picture looks familiar, I posted it about 3 years ago on this very blog. Chrissy and Glinda both reminded me of this photo…Chrissy when she posted a picture of her poor baby freaking out on Santa’s lap, here, and Glinda when she asked about the cuteness of Santa photos, here. In this picture, Santa is a family friend dressed up, not a guy at the mall, which is probably why she’s not screaming. Also, she’s young. Had she sat in…
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Soundtrack to Love…
For several years after we first married, I would find my thoughts drifting back to July of 1993…”last year right now, we were driving to the pier to pick up the discounted wine for our wedding reception…” or “2 years ago now we were on the plane to London to start our honeymoon…” That sort of thing. Well, as the years pass, I find my thoughts going back to specific days less and less, but for some reason today I was thinking about 17 years ago, when we took the train from Amsterdam to Paris, for the last part of our Honeymoon. We bought coach tickets, but decided while underway…
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Happy Independence Day!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeahROQ716M[/youtube] Get your patriotic groove on, folks, and remember that the flag that flies above us flies for us all, and was born from blood, sweat, and tears…we’re all in this together, much as it sometimes does not feel that way.
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April Come She Will
April come she will When streams are ripe and swelled with rain; May, she will stay, Resting in my arms again June, she’ll change her tune, In restless walks she’ll prowl the night; July, she will fly And give no warning to her flight. August, die she must, The autumn winds blow chilly and cold; September I’ll remember. A love once new has now grown old. ~Simon & Garfunkel, April Come She Will. Listen. God, I really do love them, and the poetry of their lyrics. It’s April already…how did that happen? Not sure. But April makes me think of this song, and of my mom, since her birthday is…
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Gung Hay Fat Choy!
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Friday Randomness
Thanks everyone for your kind birthday wishes. I had a lovely birthday, and a lovely time off from work. One of Maya’s Christmas gifts was tickets to go see Wicked, which was a lot of fun. I’m not a huge fan of the musical as a play, but this one was really fun and interesting and kept your attention the whole way through. Excellent gift, Ted! Btw, Ted wrote a great review of the show for Popdose, and he included a couple of YouTube clips that are pretty great. Along the theme of gifts that are not things, we also received tickets for dinner on the Napa Valley Wine Train,…
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On the First Day of Christmas…
(image found here) A Facebook friend posted this morning, “Happy First Day of Christmas”, which confused me, because I thought Christmas Day was the first day of Christmas, with Epiphany being the 12th day, and the day that the magi came bringing gifts to the baby Jesus. But what do I know, I’m an atheist. Thanks to the internet, all I had to do was search for ‘1st day of Christmas’, and I found this very informative page, which both agreed with what my Facebook friend said, and what I had said as well. In other words, different traditions and churches celebrate it on different dates. I don’t know about…
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Friday Randomness, Now on Tuesday!
(photo found at SF Gate, here) Does anyone else still get a newspaper delivered to your house, as opposed to looking for your news online? We are suckers and pay quite a bit to support this dying industry. Sometimes I wonder why, and other times, I’m glad. Today I was glad, as I saw the picture above, which I might have missed if I had been looking online. The story is that the San Francisco Ice Co. donated 10 tons of ice to the San Francisco Zoo, which the zoo had blown into snow for the Polar Bears, who look like they’re LOVING it, don’t they? Doesn’t the bear in…
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Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone
It’s Wednesday afternoon, and tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. I got up early and went to the grocery store before it got too crowded and insane. Came home and started some cooking. Sweet Potato Pudding? Check. Homemade Cranberry Sauce? Check. Green beans prepped for my favorite green bean dish (green beans, steamed, then sauteed with butter, then tossed with Gorgonzola cheese and toasted walnuts. Yum.) Check. Pumpkin pie and pecan pie purchased? Check. All that’s left to do tomorrow is make my Grandma’s Fruit Salad, put together the green beans, and enjoy a lovely feast with the family. And, of course, stop to think about what I’m thankful for. That is a long…
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Thank You
(Photo of Union Soldiers occupying the U.S. Senate during the Civil War, found here.) Thank you to all of the veterans of our many horrible wars, just and unjust. Thank you for putting your life on the line, for risking all. Thank you to the families, the husbands, wives, parents, and children, of those who are sent into harms way, over and over again. Veteran’s Day is a day of Remembrance, a day to ponder the sacrifices of those who serve. A day to ponder our future, and whether this might, perhaps, be avoidable now, and in the future. For now, though, thank you. Ted and I happened upon a…
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I Am the Flag
Ted was born in Ontario, Canada, and came to the Bay Area at the ripe old age of 1. When the family naturalized as U.S. Citizens 5 or 6 years later, some neighbors gave them a little book, titled, I Am the Flag: A Portrait of America, by Lawrence M. Jones. It’s kinda groovy, with very early 70s illustrations. I thought it appropriate to copy here, for Independence Day. I am a composite being of all the people of America. I am the union if you are united. I am one and indivisible if you are undivided. I am as strong as the weakest link. I am an emblem of…
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Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, word of their freedom came to the slaves of Texas. Major General Gordon Granger brought the news via General Order Number 3, which began: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.” This is clearly a truly American holiday, as it marks the end of slavery in the United…