[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGdyMgvRNEg[/youtube] We were unceremoniously shaken awake at 3:20 by a 6.0 or 6.1 magnitude earthquake. If you’ve not experienced a major or semi-major earthquake, let me tell you that it’s mostly the noise that assaults you, at least if you’re indoors, and assuming there’s nothing falling on your head. We have sliding mirrored closet doors, which make a lot of noise rattling around. The walls rattle. The roof rattles. Yes, you feel the bed shaking, and if the lights are on, you might notice the lights swaying. There was a time when I enjoyed earthquakes. They’re generally small enough that there’s no real damage, and it can be kind of…

I’ve been loving most of this whole sabbatical thing. It’s really nice, and some days I have plans with friends or family, while other days I don’t, and both are really nice. Maya has started school at our local community college and is in the process of settling in. I feel like I dodged a bullet with her not moving out, because if she were in college in VT or NY right now, I’d be pretty darned sad. Amongst the relaxation and enjoyment of having time off, however, I’m having some weird kind of health issue with my foot. Feet. Legs. What could be wrong? I don’t know. The pain…

Today is the first day of my sabbatical. My company has a newish policy, that every employee has to take a month of paid time off every four years.  This is my month, so I can’t look at my email or do any work of any kind. It’s kind of weird. My regular routine is to wake up, come downstairs, get the paper, and check my work email. I’m in California and most of my coworkers are on the East Coast, so often things have started up by the time I wake up. So this morning I woke up, came downstairs, got the paper, and….looked at Facebook. It’s not so…

I’m not sure how I came across this poem, but when I did, it broke my heart and moved me so much. Meena Alexander is so talented and evokes a pain of which so many of us are unaware. In this poem, she tells of the pain of three young women, unwilling to put her family into a desperate financial situation so that she may be married…also unwilling to deal with the shame of not being married. It is a glimpse into a very different world that still manages to bring our own sexist culture into focus. A School Teacher from South India By Meena Alexander Portions of a mango…

We’re kind of late to the quinoa bandwagon, but now that we’re here, I enjoy finding recipes that use the protein packed grain. I saw this one online, and loved the idea of peaches, arugula, and tomatoes mixed in with the quinoa. I wasn’t exactly sure about the pickled onions, but the reviews all said it’s key, and kind of makes the recipe, so I went for it. I’m glad I did. The pickled onions were delicious. Smelly when you’re heating up the vinegar, and also smelly when you’re pickling the onions, but delicious anyway. I subbed nectarines from the farmers’ market for the peaches, because we had them and…

Last night we went to a graduation party for one of Maya’s friends, and of course there were several families there with kids who had also graduated. I was talking to one of the moms about the cost of college, and talking to her brought a couple of things to mind. 1st, the issue of deserving things that you cannot afford. The daughter is going to an expensive private school, even though the family cannot afford that in any way. The cost is about $60,000 a year. The daughter has worked hard and is receiving scholarships through the school that will cover half of that, bringing the cost down to…

How fitting is this angry poem, that rails against the unfairness and cruelty of death, in our current time of school and other mass shootings. The bitterness that boils up inside me, inside so many of us, as we hear of yet another child, police officer, teacher, friend, shot and killed. So many deaths, so many broken hearts left behind. I don’t know why Congress can’t stand up to the NRA. Yes I do. Money. Money and the fear that they will be thrown out of office, like Eric Cantor was (not by the NRA, not because of gun control, but an example of watching out for your constituency). So…

Gosh I’m excited for today’s Belmont Stakes.  I am a big fan of California Chrome, I like his back story, I like that he’s local, and his owners and trainer seem like decent people.  Of course, being from California myself, I’ve been rooting for him all along.  And now, once again, we have a shot at a Triple Crown.  It’s been forever, hasn’t it?  I find the history of it to be pretty interesting.  There was a wealth of Triple Crown winners in the 1930s and 40s.  3 horses won the Triple Crown in the 30s, and 4 in the 40s.  Then nothing until Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by…

This is Trudy, one of the wonderful ladies on my Meals on Wheels route. Ted and I went to her 99th birthday party to help her celebrate. Trudy is my role model. She’s 99, still lives at home alone (her husband passed away maybe 10 years ago). She cooks some of her own meals, and only stopped driving a year ago. She goes to lunch 2 or 3 days a week. She goes to exercise class (chair exercise, she uses a walker). When her family comes to visit, she cooks for days ahead of time, rather than letting them do the cooking (which they would be eager and willing to…

I’ve taken the week off from work, to correspond with Maya’s Spring Break. One thing that we did with our time was to go to the Legion of Honor in SF, to see the current exhibit of Impressionist Art. I do love impressionism, and Maya has to see one exhibit a semester for her art class. So we went, and we saw beautiful art. We got through the exhibit fairly quickly, and decided to skip the rest of the museum, as we’ve seen it several times, most recently in November. One nice thing about the Legion of Honor is that if you pay your admission there, you also get same…

My friend Nance has been tagged in a meme, and she has taken it and twisted it in her own way.  The meme is a series of questions, and instead of popping them all into one long list with quick answers, she is using each question as a blog post of its own, and telling an entire story around that question. You may have noticed that I haven’t been blogging much lately.  I’ve noticed.  I don’t know why, but I do know that when I get out of the habit of blogging daily, or at least a couple of times a week, my mindset changes, and I forget all about…