Love
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Our Time in France – Part 2
Our first day of touring France, aka, not driving 8 hours from Paris to the West Coast of Brittany, Ted’s friend Jean-Marc took us to visit the medieval town of Locronan. As with any village or town in the area, there is a lovely church, St. Ronan. St. Ronan was an Irish pilgrim whose relics were housed for a time in the church. Most of the street signs in Brittany are in two languages, French and Breton. There is a movement to bring back the Breton language, and there are quite a few immersion schools for children to learn Breton. Surprisingly, this was illegal until somewhat recently. Anyway, we drove…
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Our time in France – Part I
We spent our first night in France out by the Charles De Gaulle Airport. Our flight arrived in late afternoon, and we had to get through customs, etc. So we found our hotel, got settled a bit, and had dinner. Maya wanted to shower and go to bed, but Ted and I wanted to try to stay awake a bit. We took a walk, expecting it to be all airport hotels and such, but there was a lovely little village right by the hotel, Roissy en France. There was a charming street with bustling cafes (we wished then that we had not eaten at the hotel, though the food there…
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Family Treasures
Monday was my mom’s birthday, and it was also my Great Aunt Flo’s birthday. My mom was born on her 18th birthday, and Aunt Flo always said she was the best birthday gift she ever received. Aunt Flo married my great uncle Wes on her own 26th birthday, and my mom spent her 8th birthday being a flower girl in her beloved aunt’s wedding, a job she cherished. Aunt Flo became a widow after only 11 years of marriage. She never had children of her own, and Uncle Wes’s girls were mostly grown by that point. 2 of them were married, and I believe the 3rd had also moved out…
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Grieving with Flowers
Today is my Mom’s birthday. She would have been 76 years old. I was thinking about her, and remembering how much she loved fuchsias. So I bought one, hoping that I can keep it alive. They do not do well in our micro-climate. It’s too hot in summer, too cold in winter. They do well on the other side of the Oakland hills, in Berkeley, Oakland, and especially San Francisco, where there are lovely fuchsias in Golden Gate Park. My mom would buy them and hang them indoors, but I’m going to try, and am putting mine outside. It’s in the shadiest part of our yard, where they will not…
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Good Eats / Birthday Weekend / Bloody Mary recipe
Thursday was Maya’s birthday, and we celebrated by going to our favorite Dim Sum restaurant in San Francisco, then we did some shopping near Union Square with her gift cards. At some Dim Sum restaurants, you order off of a menu (like the place we went last year). At others, the staff bring food around to the tables, either on carts or on trays, and you say yes or no to each item as they bring it around. So they come by and say, “shrimp dumplings?” and you say yes or no, and if you say yes, they give you the shrimp dumplings and mark your check to show that…
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Happy Ending for a chair
This is (a kinda blurry photo of) my friend Dana, who used to be on my Meals on Wheels route. Back in November, she moved into a (very nice) assisted living apartment building. I stop in for a visit occasionally, and on my last visit she mentioned to me how difficult it is for her to get up out of her chair. She had piled up pillows to help. In one of those twists that the universe sometimes takes, a couple of days later I was having dinner with my dear friend Neva, my BF from 6th grade, and she mentioned to me that she needed to sell her mom’s…
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Catching Up
Sorry for the long silence. My stupid keyboard broke, the little Bluetooth one that I use with my iPad Mini. A few keys still worked properly, but some did not work at all, and some would spit out completely different characters. I went onto some user forums to see if there was a way to fix it, and there was, but it did not work. Rats. Sure, I could have borrowed Ted’s laptop, or written on our regular computer, but somehow it just never happened. I like writing on my iPad, but I can’t stand the stupid touchpad. When Christmas came around, I thought maybe I would get a new…
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Wordless Wednesday – Happy Birthday to my lovely brother
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Throwback Thursday
I have a friend and she comes from the high plains Wise as the hills and fresh as the rains I have a friend and she taught me daring Threw back the windows and let the air in For all she knows Bless my blue moon rose I have a friend and we talk about books She comes around and she drinks while I cook Took me an atlas to find her town And to realise that the world was round For all she knows Bless my blue moon rose ~ Everything But the Girl My darling friend Rosemary and me, above, in Old Town Sacramento, probably early 1984. We…
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Wordless Wednesday – Happy Birthday to my Lovely Sisters
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Friday Recap
Thanksgiving is over, and it was a lovely day. Mulder and I went for a very long walk in the morning, much longer than usual, and we were tired when we got home. Too bad, because I still had some cooking to do. Thankfully I had started the day before, or I wouldn’t have gotten it done in time. We had all of the family favorites, which means there was way too much food and not everyone ate everything, but we all ate what we wanted. Some ate turkey, some didn’t. Some ate potatoes, some didn’t. Some ate cranberry sauce, some didn’t. The salad I made with Brussels sprouts, pomegranates,…
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Throwback Thursday
When my Dad died, we divided up the list of people to notify, and one of the people on my list was my Dad’s ex girlfriend, Kit. Dad and Kit dated for awhile in the early 60s, when he dropped out of college, and they moved to New York together. As Kit tells it, they moved to New York because someone had posted an ad in the paper that they needed someone to drive their car to New York from Oakland, and it seemed like a good idea. The picture above, which Ted likes to call my Dad’s album cover, is of my Dad (on the left) and Kit’s friend…
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Wordless Wednesday – Wordy version
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Dia de Difuntos
Dia de Muertos is a time to pray for and remember friends and family who have died. It is traditionally a Mexican holiday, and a Catholic one. I’ve never really paid any attention to it before, but the bright orange flowers reminded me of my Dad, and my Grandma died last year in November, so it made sense to me to buy some flowers and make a small alter with some pictures of Dad, Mom, and Grandma. There are too many others that I could easily include…my Uncle Forrest, my Grandma Wells, my Grandpa Ward, etc. For today, I’m keeping it to these three, the most difficult losses I have…
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Wordless Wednesday, Paris Edition