Here’s a picture of a redwood tree in our neighborhood, for Nance, who says they are one of her favorite trees. They are beautiful, though of course these are not the Giant Redwoods that you can see a couple of hours from here. They look a lot like pine trees, but so much prettier. Today is a lazy-ish day, because I’m plopped down on the sofa writing a blog post. I have my library book nearby, which is due on Wednesday, so I need to get going on that. I’m a little over 1/2 way though, and it’s a pretty quick read, so I think I will make it. After…

Mulder and I have changed our morning walking route lately. At least for now, the sun is coming up early enough that we can go for an hour before I have to be at work. One of the many benefits of working from home is that I can walk in the door from my walk at 7:58, and be at work at 8:00.  I thought about editing the chain out of the picture, but decided against it. I can even take my laptop downstairs, boot it up, and eat breakfast while looking over emails and easing into my day. There is a city park near us called Heather Farm, and…

Aimee was my best friend in Fairbanks during the years we lived downtown. She lived kitty corner from us. I think she went to Montessori with me, actually, though I don’t remember for sure. She and I found each other on Facebook a couple of years ago, and she told me that when she first saw me, she thought I was a boy, because I had short hair. My mother was an atheist, and Aimee’s parents were very religious. I scandalized the neighborhood when, after checking the facts with my mom, I yelled across the street to her (in front of the people coming out of the church, and the…

My first bike was a hand-me-down from my brother, Richard. It had training wheels at one time, but by the time I got it, those were long gone. The red building in the background is a church, and it was right next door to us. The dark haired girl in one of the pictures is my friend Aimee, who lived across the street from us. In the second picture, where I’m riding away from the camera, if you look closely, you can see some black metal bars, parallel to the ground. There were steps there that went down to the basement, and the black bars were to keep anyone from…

This one made me laugh. It reminds me of when I’m frustrated with Maya because she goes through hair conditioner too fast or is late getting out the door in the morning, and she says something like, “Well, at least I’m not addicted to drugs or pregnant or anything.” Yes, at least. That’s setting a low bar, but still, she’s right.

Maya has a job working for one of her High School English teachers, at an annual event called ‘Pinot Days’. Most of the job is online, ticketing and calling clients and so on, and that goes on for a couple of months. Then, when the date of the actual event comes, she goes in to the City and helps set up, works with vendors, works with customers, etc. Ted and I benefit, in that she gets us free tickets. Pinot Days is a wine event, where local wineries bring their Pinot Noir (and sometimes Pinot Gris or Blush wines), and trades people can walk around and taste, as well as…

Ted has been asking for that as a title for a post for years now, because all too often, when we’re having a conversation about anything at all, I will pop in with a story about my time at Mr. Steak. I worked there for 2 years, from 1982 – 1984. I think the first year was as a hostess, and the second year was as a waitress. So I was 17. Back then, when you took an order, you wrote it on a ticket, and turned the ticket in to the kitchen, and they cooked it for you/your customers. I remember as a hostess, watching the waitresses take care…

Back in early July, my beloved Le Creuset Dutch oven suddenly came down with a horrible chip in the bottom of the enameled coating.  Suddenly, you could see the cast iron at the bottom.  It looked like this. There isn’t a lot of danger from the cast iron, people cook with cast iron all of the time. But if the enameled coating is chipped, it could continue chipping, and you don’t really want to bite into that. So I did what any 21st Century person would do, and I complained on Facebook. A FB friend (a friend I knew in real life, back in college) mentioned that her Martha Stewert…