Musings
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Friday Randomness
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiNB4epGxK8[/youtube] First off, go see Ponyo. Right now. I’ll wait here. Seriously, we went to see it on Wednesday evening, and we LOVED it. So much that Maya and her friend went to see it on Thursday. And the friend said she now wants to see it again, with her mom. Such a sweet, lovely film. It’s made for perhaps a slightly younger audience than Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, but it’s so charming and delightful, I can’t think of a single age group that won’t enjoy it. That’s two awesome films in one week, and I have to say that I cannot imagine two more different films than Ponyo and District…
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Letter to Abercrombie
Dear overpriced mall chain store (aka, Abercrombie in this case, but this has happened in other stores as well), Perhaps I don’t understand basic economics, but it seems reasonable to me that when a hapless 40-something year old mom finds herself dragged into your obnoxiously loud and smelly store, willing to shell out more than she can afford on clothes for her teenage daughter, in order to emerge relatively soon and sane, you might help her out by having some of the clothes that you advertise in stock. I took my daughter clothes shopping the the other day, and was irritated and then simply dismayed as outfit after outfit that…
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Health Care food for thought…
I have a Facebook friend who I sort of knew via High School. He was a really great guy, and we had several friends in common, but he was a few years ahead of me, and he graduated before I started HS. Anyway, through common friends, we became Facebook buddies. He’s been talking once in awhile about the Health Care issue, one that he clearly feels passionately about, as do many people on both sides of the argument. I’ve made my admittedly emotional points already, but since A doesn’t have a blog, I thought I’d let him guest post here. He sent me several emails full of his thoughts on…
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Gaited Horses
One of my favorite books when I was growing up was Album of Horses, by Marguerite Henry, with beautiful illustrations by Wesley Dennis. Each chapter in the book told a short story, and described a different breed of horse, and what made them different from other breeds. This is the book where I discovered what made a Quarter Horse special, or a Thoroughbred. The Arabian was my favorite of all, followed by the Morgan. But one horse that always intrigued me was the Tennessee Walking Horse. Tennessee Walking Horses, I read, were bred to encourage a strange gait, which makes them look almost like they’re running, when in fact they…
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Finally Joining the 21st Century
(adorable photo found here) If you must know, I’ll confess. I’m a bit of a technophobe. A late adopter. I don’t like change. I resist it heartily and look at it askance from the corner of my eye, pretending to focus elsewhere. Imagine my horror then, when our beloved Sony cordless phone recently stopped taking a charge*. I know I seem all tech savvy. I work for a software company, I have an iPod and a cell phone and I (sort of) know how to use them. I blog, I maintain the html on my company’s website, I keep in touch with family via email, all of that. But mostly…
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Friday Randomness
Nothing earth shattering today, k? As if there were anything earth shattering around here lately anyway. Sigh. OK, first, I could have done without the stupid helicopters hovering around in the stupid sky this morning, waking me up a whole hour before I needed to get up. Grrr. Second, I kinda want to make some chili dogs for an upcoming girl scout pool party at our house, but I’m not sure if I’ll make the chili from scratch, or go buy some. What I’m looking for is an all beef chili, kind of like what you might find at Pink’s in Los Angeles. Anyone have a good recipe? Facebook is…
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Friday Fun
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-94JhLEiN0[/youtube] I just saw this on Yahoo, and it made me laugh. If you haven’t seen this already, I thought you might like to see a fun wedding processional. 🙂
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Quote of the Day
“If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.” ~Elmore Leonard (Guess who started back at her old job yesterday, after five blissful months of unemployment? Yup, moi. Sigh.)
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I Heart Bissell Right Now
Really. Take this review for what it’s worth, because we haven’t tested any of the competitors. Just the Bissell. But when your dog has diarrhea repeatedly on your off-white carpet, you don’t care what brand you’re using, so long as it works. And work it did. Saturday morning, when we woke up to find Genevieve barfing her guts out, we were worried. But we had a lot going on that day, and didn’t see the shit storm she left behind the television, all over our fancy wiring system for the (rhymes with) Gielson box. We came home later and found a holy mess, and our old carpet cleaner wasn’t up…
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Love is the Answer
(graphic found here) Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald Ted and I watched a very interesting episode of Bill Moyers Journal (you can watch the entire episode by following the link…it’s about an hour) the other day, one which dealt with Faith and Social Justice. The panelists were Cornel West, Serene Jones, and Gary Dorrien, three heavy hitting scholars and members of the social gospel movement. They were discussing what our ethics and values say about our society, most specifically how our system encourages greed and immoral conduct, and the culture of indifference in which we find ourselves. They argued…
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The Cola Wars Continue
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgq4knffRKc[/youtube] We’ve been hearing a lot about High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Sugar lately, and we decided to do a very low-tech cola taste test on Saturday. I went to my local grocery store, where I procured one Pepsi, one Coke, one Mexican Coke (aka, Coke with sugar), and one Pepsi Natural (aka, Pepsi with sugar). Ted wanted to try some other cola brands as well, but at $7.80 for four sodas, we decided that four were enough. We decided that a blind taste test was best, so I marked the bottoms of some paper cups with the four varieties, and we each had a sample of all four. We…
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Thursday 13 ~ Some things I’m glad I can do, some things I haven’t bothered to learn, a few I wish I could do.
(Things I can do) Ride a horse. Maybe not well (yet), but I’m not afraid of them, and I’m glad that I feel confident enough when I ride that I don’t need someone there guiding me. Swim. I love swimming. I know people who are afraid of the water, never learned to swim, and it makes me sad. Such a free feeling, and a way to feel your body in a totally alien environment. Cook a nice meal. I truly enjoy cooking, and I’m thankful to my mom for making Richard and me start chipping in with that chore when we were in High School. That gave me some time…
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Wonderful Weekend
Our weekend started with a dinner to celebrate Juneteenth, including bbq chicken, potato salad, a tex mex salad that I found at Scribbit, and a wonderful nectarine and raspberry crisp. Very nice. Saturday I got up and out the door, and went to my first of 6 weekly horseback riding lessons. Yay! This was the assessment lesson, where the instructor found out more about me and my previous experience, and watched me ride a bit, so she could correct my seat, my feet, etc. I have to say, I really, really liked it. The lesson is more than just riding, you also learn about caring for the horse. So I…
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Happy Father’s Day
Several years ago (look how young Maya is in this picture?), Ted got free tickets through the station to go up to Six Flags Marine World, and we went. While there, some photographer guy snapped a photo of us, and ever since then, I keep getting emails asking me if I want to buy a product with the picture on it. Really, I don’t. I’m not sure how many times I have to tell them this, but I don’t. Or at least, not yet. Maybe in a few years, when I look back and say, “Gosh, look how young I am!”, I’ll be more tempted. But if I were to…
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Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, word of their freedom came to the slaves of Texas. Major General Gordon Granger brought the news via General Order Number 3, which began: “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer.” This is clearly a truly American holiday, as it marks the end of slavery in the United…