Maya
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Miscellaneous Monday
First off, look at my beautiful Mother’s Day breakfast. We usually get danish for Mother’s Day, a tradition born when Maya was little and Ted worked early (before the sun came up) on Sundays, so this was something that he could put together before he left. She’s old enough to make me anything I might want now, and he works normal hours, but the tradition remains because I love danish, and the only time I eat them is Mother’s Day. Now look at this picture and tell me whether you think I have a skin cream addiction. I love skin cream, and I think I collect it now like I…
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Blood Orange, Fennel, Avocado, and Arugula Salad
Maya took me out for a lovely lunch on Saturday to celebrate Mother’s Day. We ordered a few items and shared them. We had a salad, some calamari, and tuna tartare. Maya doesn’t eat meat, but she does occasionally have seafood, and tuna tartare and calamari are definitely favorites. The salad was blood oranges, fennel, arugula, and feta cheese. Everything was delicious, but the salad was our favorite item. To drink, I had a lovely crisp Sauvignon Blanc, and she had her drink of choice, gin and tonic. I liked the salad enough that I decided to make it at home last night, and because everything is better with avocados,…
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Monday Meme
I know, a cartoon and a meme are not the same thing, but I liked this cartoon and decided to share it. Want to get caught up? This sign is on one of our local walks. There’s construction ahead, and somehow, they think it’s important for us to know that the sidewalk is close. Very close. Maybe a foot and a half? (I did terribly on the spacial section of the ASVAB way back when, so don’t really ask me about distances, and if you need help packing your moving truck, I’m probably not your gal.) Do you make wishes? I sometimes do. I make a wish if I blow…
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Happy Birthday Maya!
It’s Maya’s birthday today, so I’m about to photo dump you with pictures of her from over the years. In no particular order (gotta get to my yoga before she wakes up), here you go. I said in no particular order, but this is our first photo together, taken in the delivery room. Which was also the labor room. Usually they would have you labor in one room and then move you to deliver. Who thought of this idea? Clearly a man. No woman would think it was a good idea to move rooms in the middle of being torn apart from the inside. Anyway, here we are, and that…
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DHS
(For those of you who hav been waiting to see what kind of genius posts I would come up with now that I’ve gotten through the alphabet, I apologize. It’s come to this. As Stephany said so eloquently, “I’m on the end-of-NaBloPoMo struggle bus.”) Sometimes, when we are watching TV, or I am driving, or in line at the grocery store, whatever, someone will do something idiotic, and I give what Maya has coined the ‘Disgusted Head Shake’. She LOVES it, and it is now part of her repertoire as well. More recently, we shortened it to the acronym, DHS. That way, if we are in public and it would…
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Z is for Zero
As in, I have Zero idea what to write about today. I could tell you why I hate Zebras (short answer, don’t watch nature programs if you don’t want to suddenly hate an entire species. Also orcas, same reason.) I could tell you that I am not the biggest fan of Zucchini, because it can be bitter (like me after watching a nature video with Zebras), though if it’s cooked correctly and generally if the Zucchini are smaller, this isn’t an issue. There’s a place nearby that has pretty amazing deep fried Zucchini that they serve with ranch dressing, though in that situation I could probably just eat the fried…
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X is for eXtra
Last week we celebrated the fact that Maya got a promotion at work with an eXtra special meal, dinner at a local vegan restaurant that she loves, Millennium, in Oakland. She’s mostly vegetarian (pescetarian really, though she doesn’t eat fish very often), and has a vegan friend, and they sometimes go here for a special occasion. It’s expensive, but really good. On weekends, meals at Millennium are a Prix Fixe four course meal, including the amuse bouche. You pick from the full menu, an appetizer, entree, and dessert. As Ted doesn’t eat sugar, he had two appetizers instead. I’ll give you pictures and menu descriptions where I can, though the…
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Wordless Wednesday – Birthday Girl
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Meme Monday – Snaily Edition
Again, I am using a cartoon instead of a meme. Is that wrong of me? I don’t know. When I was 9 or 10, I was playing outside on the lawn, when I stepped on something that went kind of crunch. I didn’t step hard, but hard enough to hear and feel it before pulling my foot back. My brother said that it was probably a snail, and that I had cracked its shell. I was horrified, and went inside to ask my mom what happens when you step on a snail and crack their shell. She said she thought they died. Wrong answer. I was a sensitive, tender hearted…
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Meme Monday – Happy Birthday Edition!
Today is my daughter Maya’s 25th birthday! That is somewhat shocking to me, I remember 25 very well. Actually, 25 is when my biological clock started ticking, and I started really wanting a baby. Before that, I was more hypothetical about it. But Ted and I were dating still, had just recently gotten engaged, and I was just graduating from college, into a recession. So it was 5 more years before we had Maya. Anyway, this is her 2nd COVID birthday. She went out yesterday with some friends, and sat in the park and had a lovely time while socially distant. It was almost 80 degrees, so pretty perfect weather…
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Meme Monday – Convenience Food Edition
My mom was big on raising us to be self sufficient. I think it was her number one priority as a parent. Perhaps because she was 6 when her father died, and her family was thrown into chaos. My Grandma married my Grandfather just before graduating from High School, had my mom a year later, and my uncle 5 years after that. She was in no way prepared to support a family. She ended up losing her children (temporarily, thankfully), my mother to a convent, my uncle to a foster home. When she married my Grandpa, she got her children back. But my mom had learned a lesson, to make…
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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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Pandemic Potpourri
These are the beautiful hand made masks, sent to us by some good friends, for when we go to the grocery store and so on. I cannot sew, and have no idea how to follow a pattern, and don’t have (and have never used) a sewing machine. And I’m the one Ted and Maya come to when they need a button sewn on or something, so of course this task was a lot more than I could handle. Aren’t they lovely? I like how the patterns are all different so we can tell which belongs to who, and that they are hand made by friends. How are you all doing?…
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First Day
In my last post, I mentioned that Maya was interviewing for jobs. I haven’t heard anything about the employment agency sending her anything, but she DID really like the law firm, and accepted a job offer there. Today is her first day. I’m thinking of her and hoping it turns out to be a good fit and that she excels there and makes friends and so on, all the things you wish for someone on their first day. She left to catch BART at the same time that Puppy Boy and I were leaving for our walk, and for some reason seeing her in her business clothes (skirt, hose, pumps,…
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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…
