Today is shopping day for Thanksgiving week.  I need to get: dinner for tonight (whatever that turns out to be) ingredients for latkes, homemade applesauce, and chicken for Hanukkah on Wednesday ingredients for apple cake, cranberry sauce*, fruit salad, and yams for Thanksgiving I generally tend to go to the grocery store every day, or at least every day.  So planning on going to the store for enough food to cover 3 entire days is kind of crazy.  My goal, of course, is to avoid the insanity of shopping either the day before Thanksgiving, or, God forbid, actually shopping on Thanksgiving. I predict this shopping will bring me to two…

Ted and I were talking about the difference between ‘boy food’ and ‘girl food’. Prepare for some huge generalizations here, and you will likely think of plenty of exceptions to any rules we can come up with. Nevertheless…girls like small plates. Tapas. My friend Janet (and my friend Katie, and my friend Cherry) and I like to go to a local small plates place where we get a few bites of this, a few bites of that, and maybe (HA! Maybe, that’s funny…the particular joint I’m thinking of has wine flights…) some wine, and by the time we’re full, we’ve sampled many different items and had just enough of each.…

“Believe that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Believe that you might be that light for someone else.” ~ Kobi Yamada I don’t know that I’m going to make it through NaBloPoMo this year. Actually, I’m pretty sure I won’t. But that’s no reason not to make a last minute attempt at a post today, with a quote that I really adore. This one speaks to so much of what we can be. For a student who is clearly in trouble at home. To a family member who needs some encouragement. Heck, it could be the person in front of you at the grocery store who doesn’t have…

once again, for the umpteenth time, gave up soft drinks.  I’m coming to accept that I have a problem (1st step), and I cannot just have 1 a day.  I’ve tried so many times to cut back to one a day, trying the idea of moderation, but somehow, it just doesn’t work.  I keep reading about how horrid soft drinks are, with all of their chemicals and so on.  The soda I drink happens to be diet, which brings its own set of medical challenges.  So I decided that I don’t want to drink them anymore.  Rats.  I happen to LIKE soda, diet and regular, so it sucks that I…

I intended to take a picture of the chicken, but I forgot.  Then I went looking online for pictures of roast chickens, and then I lost interest.  So just imagine a beautiful roast chicken coming from my oven.  You can picture me in an apron, heels, and pearls if you’d like, though I wasn’t wearing that. This recipe claims to solve the age-old problem when roasting a chicken…the breast dries out while the thighs are undercooked. I used to have this problem a lot, but I think it’s been a decade or 2 since it happened to me. Still, I do like to try out a new roast chicken recipe…

I listen to the radio once in awhile, but what I’m talking about here is in my case partly radio, partly podcast versions of radio programs that have already aired, and I listen to them later, when I’m out for a walk or whatever.  Within the last few weeks, I’ve heard a few stories that struck me, and I thought I might share them with you. From an actual radio program (meaning, I heard it on the radio whilst driving in the car), “Here and Now” interviewed Bill Bryson on The Eventful Summer of 1927.  There was talk about that eventful year, but I was hopping in and out of…

The last 10 days have been hellish around here, electronically. No problems if you want to watch a DVD or read a book, but if you want to work (I work from home, and 100% of my job is online), or watch a download via Xfinity/HBO/Hulu/Netflix/YouTube, you’re out of luck. Our service has been MADDENING. It all started awhile ago, I can’t tell you when any more than I can tell you exactly when a particular mole in the middle of my back might have appeared. But then, last week Ted took our cable box in to the local Comcast store to return it, because even though we cancelled our…

(I had to include Bjork, because the term “Human Nature” reminds me of “Human Behavior”, and also, I just love Bjork.  I even loved that swan dress, because it was just so her, kooky and offbeat and not the least bit ashamed.) We recently had a big fire on our local mountain, Mt. Diablo.  Summers in California can be very dry and hot, and it doesn’t take much to start a bunch of dried grass to burning.  So Sunday, someone was out doing some target shooting (I pictured bows and arrows for some reason, when I heard the cause of the fire, which was illogical indeed) with their gun, and…

When I was perhaps 7 or 8 years old, we lived in downtown Fairbanks, Alaska. We were on 2nd street, which was 2 blocks from the river, and 1 block from the city library. I don’t know if there were other branches. Why would I? I lived a block away. It was a traditional Alaska frontier building, made of logs (as was our house) with I think, grass and flowers growing on the roof in the summertime. I think.* Being a reader, living a block away from the library was a wonderful thing. Being home schooled for one year (perhaps I’ll tell you why sometime, but it had nothing to…

It’s been awhile since I’ve been here.  What’s new?  Well, I guess, several things, both good and bad.   More good than bad, which I like. I’ve decided that I need to start using the term, “Jackass” more often.  Whenever I hear “Jackass”, I think of Ted’s father, and my grandmother.  Because his father, when teaching Ted to drive, gave this very helpful advice: “Just assume everyone else on the road is a Jackass.”  My grandma often told me, “Drive Defensively.”  Isn’t that pretty much the same thing? Our poor Camry was broken into last week.  We live in a townhouse/condo complex, and our cars live under a carport.  No protection. …