Maya
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Spotted Photo Theme – Circles
OK, I’m squeaking in under the deadline here. iHanna has another Spotted Photo challenge, where the idea is that you go through your phone/iPad photos, and find pictures that match the theme she has given. You’re not out looking for that theme, not taking new photos, just curating the pictures you already have. I’m not a photographer by any means, so mine are not going to be gorgeous like some others, but here they are anyway. A lot of them are food. And I snuck in some memes, which is totally cheating and not cool at all. The Rose Window in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, 2018. I really hope…
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Happy Birthday Maya!
As mentioned in yesterday’s post, today is Maya’s birthday! This is her ‘Golden Birthday’ or ‘Champagne Birthday’, which is the year your age and day of the month match. She turns 29 on the 29th. I don’t remember what year the picture above is from, but it’s not new. I considered taking her shopping for something gold, but took a look at her jewelry and decided she has plenty and likely won’t wear it, so I bought some Veuve instead to enjoy at her party. Bonus photo from 2022. Note the candle is not on the cake. I didn’t think we’d ever go back to blowing germs all over cakes…
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Friday Randomness
Just some random thoughts that have nothing to do with the heartbreaking fires in Southern California. I don’t know what to say about the fires except that it is shocking and horrible. Lives lost, homes lost, communities destroyed. This drone footage reminds me so much of the fires in Paradise and Santa Rosa from several years ago. I am shallow enough to be specifically sad about the homes that I visited 5 years ago that were prominent in the TV show, Beverly Hills, 90210, which are about 1/2 block from each other in Altadena. I cannot tell you how stupidly happy it made me to stand in front of these…
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Meme Monday
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, wonderful, peaceful, joyful holidays to all who celebrate them. Our Christmas plans include dinner at Ted’s parents’ house, which will be ‘white people Christmas’, as Ted put it. Standing rib roast, mashed potatoes, peas with pearl onions, and pumpkin pie. For Ted’s mom, who is pescatarian, salmon tikka masala. For Maya, who is also pescatarian but not really a big fan of most fish (??), fake turkey cutlets as she can’t think of anything she would like more. Our Hanukkah plans will be pushed back, as his family doesn’t celebrate. We will have latkes and such on the 26th. For those who are new here, we…
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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…
