Musings
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Crisis of Faith
I know, that’s an odd title for a post written by an atheist, isn’t it? But it’s what I feel sometimes. And atheists have faith, too, as much as the next person. I don’t believe in a higher power, but I believe in the human spirit, in beauty and hope and love, in the miracle that is a baby being born, and the devastation that is a loved one lost. Some days, however, I truly should stay the hell away from the newspaper/TV, etc., because the real world has the ability to crush me, casually, as though it doesn’t even care that I exist. The evil that men do to each other…
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(Not) Wordless Wednesday…Vernal Falls Edition
I was prepared to write up a long post all about our weekend in Yosemite, but Ted beat me to it. He did such an awesome job, you can read all about the bears, etc., here. I got our pictures developed…since we THOUGHT we had forgotten our camera (it was in a side pocket, which we didn’t check. NEWMAN!*), we bought a disposable camera to use…and we only took pictures on the hike up to Vernal Falls. No pictures of any other camping stuff, I’m sorry to say. Anyway, if you read my post on Saturday, you know that hiking to Vernal Falls was the one thing I REALLY wanted…
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Vernal Falls
(photo found here) My favorite thing to do in Yosemite National Park is to hike up to Vernal Falls. It’s a moderate hike, and takes awhile, but heck, what else are you going to do all day? 😉 If you’re feeling brave, and you have longer, you can keep hiking up to Nevada Falls. It’s a cool feeling to find yourself at the top of a waterfall (see the tiny person there, to the right of the falls?), and a unique way to experience the beauty of Yosemite. Hopefully, while you’re reading this post, our place is in the process of being sold (goes back on the market today, first…
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Calorie Restriction
A few weeks ago, the Sunday SF Chronicle had an article on people who practice calorie restriction as a way of life. I’m sure you’ve read the hypothesis by now…scientists have found that if they feed lab mice 25% fewer calories than their recommended daily intake, the mice live longer. In people who practice calorie restriction, also consuming 25% fewer calories than their recommended daily intake, the health benefits are evident: lower bad cholesterol, higher good cholesterol, healthier arteries, and lower levels of triglycerides. Other benefits include very low blood sugar levels and a very high response to insulin, indicating a very low risk for diabetes. So, if we take…
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Blessed Rain
We awoke on Saturday morning to a long, slow rain…the first rain of Autumn, coming in like a promise, a promise that unlike last winter, this will not be a drought year…a promise that there will be enough water for everyone, for long showers and healthy lawns…a promise of a change in weather, of crisp cool mornings, yet still warm afternoons. A promise of apple cider and pumpkin pie in our future. Today the sun is out, and they’re saying by Wednesday, it will be back in the mid to high 80s again. But I don’t care. I know, Autumn is here, and though it comes slowly and gradually in…
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Religion in Schools
Sometimes a subject just keeps coming at you, until you have to acknowledge it and give it the thought it deserves. Autumn’s Mom wrote a post the other day, in which she mentioned that Autumn’s 7th grade history class is teaching World Religions, and how she thinks that’s a great idea, and wishes she could take the class herself. This reminded me of a podcast I heard recently on To the Best of Our Knowledge, in which they mentioned a book titled Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know, and Doesn’t, by Stephen Prothero. From Amazon.com: Prothero (American Jesus), chair of the religion department at Boston University, begins this…
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Kitchen Update
Before…sorry, it’s kind of blurry…the picture, I mean, the kitchen isn’t. 🙂 During… After…notice not only the counters, but also the color on the walls…this is what our realtor calls “wise owl”, and Ted calls, “brown”.
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Tasteless…
Back in December of 2006, a zoo keeper at the San Francisco Zoo was partially mauled during a public feeding of a tiger, a practice at the zoo since the 1940s (the feeding, not the mauling!). She lost the use of one arm, and had severe damage to the other. Updates have been made to the area, so that zookeepers now more safely feed the lions and tigers, and so that the public can safely witness the feedings. With the changes now in place, the area was recently opened to the media, before reopening the area to the public. This small quote, from SFGate: A steel barrier closes the gap…
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September 11
Last year, I participated in the 2996 project, which was an attempt to recognize all of the people who died on September 11, 2001. I was assigned a name, and I did a bit of research, and copied and pasted what I found about Mr. Abad. After that, I felt the need to write something more personal, and since I (happily) didn’t lose anyone that day, I wrote about my thoughts and feelings at the time. I was kind of proud of this post, so I’m repeating it for you today. Edelmiro Abad of Brooklyn at a wedding with his close-knit family: his wife, Lorraine, and in white from left,…
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Madeleine L’Engle 1918 – 2007
I know, I said I was on Hiatus…but really, the reason was that I had nothing new to say. Plenty to say, but nothing new.  We’ll see how the whole ‘hiatus’ thing goes. I could ignore the whole iPhone price reduction scandal, which was tempting to write about, but I couldn’t ignore the passing of one of my favorite authors of all time, Madeleine L’Engle. I think the first book I read of hers was A Wrinkle In Time. I loved the books in this series, loved reading about Meg, Charles, and the whole family. Loved that their mother was a smart, loving scientist. A Wrinkle in Time was written…
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Hiatus?
So I’m thinking I may take a little hiatus from the blogosphere…I kind of feel like you all know where I stand on grammar, on eating a family dinner together, on the stupid government we’re stuck with, what kind of food I like to eat, what kind of books I like to read. You know about my family, my music, my house selling woes, my dog. You know more about me than you could possibly ever want to know, I’m sure. So I find myself thinking, Oh, I could write about that…but I wrote about it a year ago already. Not sure I want to keep repeating myself. Maya says…
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I love my a/c
I have a feeling it’s going to be hot today…not this hot, thankfully, but the a/c kicked on at 5:30 this morning. You read that right. I hate it when that happens. Thankfully, it’s been a relatively cool summer, so we haven’t had very many hot hot days. And I guess it would be too good to be true, to imagine we could get through the summer without hitting the triple digits at least a few times. Yahoo weather says thunder and rain today. Really. They do. Those of you who don’t live in Northern California probably don’t think that’s weird, to have high 90s and scattered showers, but I…
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Ramblin’ post sort of about the Farmers’ Market
Our neigboring town, Concord, has a great Farmers’ Market every Thursday evening, and in the summer, they have live music and sometimes more (like movies, etc.). One of the radio stations Ted works for sometimes has a booth there, and they sometimes have a radio personality come and do an announcement during a break in the music portion of the show. Last week, Ted was asked to be the personality, and since it pays pretty well for a short gig, the weather is nice, and it’s a fun evening, he agreed. For those same reasons, Maya and I decided to schlep along with him. I really wish I had brought my camera…
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Graveyards…
I’ve just started reading “Gilead”, a novel by Marilynne Robinson. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and is in the form of a letter from an elderly father who is dying, to his young son. Early in the book, the elderly father tells of going with his father, when he was but a boy, on a search for his grandfather, who died while in Kansas. They find that the grandfather has died, and go to honor him at his grave in the late 1800s. There was a phrase the author used, about the small graveyard ‘going back to nature’, which struck me. She (he if you count it as being the…
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Five Fun Factiods…
I’ve got nothing today..I’m tired from a deadline at work, and I’m looking forward to the weekend, yet not quite there. So I’m going to give you some fun random facts that you may or may not know about your body. My dad came to visit last week, and he brought Maya this book. He was careful to make sure she knew that HE knew that it was well below her reading level, but that it had a lot of good information, and might be a fun book to have nonetheless. He couldn’t have been more right, and she has enjoyed regaling us with interesting factoids. Here we go: How…