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On a wire between will and what will be
Have you ever woken up on a Saturday morning with visions in your head, scenes that tell you exactly how you’ll be spending your afternoon? You lay there, eyes not yet open, and you see a middle aged fat man, dancing in a bunny suit at a Halloween party. You hear the sleazy strip club owner call the failed comic in the alligator suit, “Izod”. You hear Alex calling for her elderly friend…”Hannah…Hannah…”, then the capable older woman bluntly says, “She died….yesterday.” Then you see Alex smoking cigarettes and picking at the threads in the holes of her 501s while Kim Carnes sings “I’ll be here where the heart is”,…
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Runaway
Last week, while banished from my house so that painter men could change our walls from a boring white to an inviting brown, I was thankful to live in beautiful California, and that our townhouse has a pool just outside the front door. So, I sat beside the pool and finished the next book in my Book Awards Reading Challenge, Runaway, by Alice Munro. This book won the Giller Prize, which is an award given for outstanding works of Canadian fiction. If you’re unaware of Alice Munro’s work, it is almost exclusively comprised of short stories, and Runaway is no exception. There are 8 short stories in this volume, all…
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Wordless Wednesday
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TiVo Alert
I was listening to Forum, a show that runs on our PBS radio station in the mornings, and they were talking about a film that is being premiered this month on PBS. It’s called “Seeing in the Dark“, and it’s about astronomy, and what individuals see and feel when gazing up at the night sky. Of course, it’s about a lot more than that, but that, and the fact that some of the music is by Mark Knopfler, got me interested. So I’ll be taping it when it airs locally, which is 8pm tonight on KQED. Check it out!
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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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Confession Meme
I surfed over to Relaxed Parents from Ms. Mamma’s comments, and found this little meme. It talks about blogging, which I’ve been thinking about since my pseudo-hiatus-thing*, so I thought I’d play along. Ten Blogging Confessions 1. Do you promote your blog? I’m not sure HOW to promote my blog. I haven’t really signed up for any services that might do that. I do leave my url when I comment, but I don’t comment randomly. I only comment when a post makes me want to chime in. 2. How often do you check hits? Rarely. I was pretty interested in it for awhile, but when I discovered that the majority…
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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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Duh…
I mean, I totally knew this about myself…. You Scored an A It’s pretty obvious that you don’t make basic grammatical errors.If anything, you’re annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs.As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they’re only human.And it’s humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes. The It’s Its There Their They’re Quiz Thanks, Mom, for correcting my grammar all of the frikkin’ time, so that I don’t even know the rule or why something is right or isn’t, I just KNOW it, deep down in my soul. (That wasn’t sarcastic…really, thanks.) Too bad spelling doesn’t work that way…
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OK, I guess it’s ‘blogthings’ Thursday around here…
You Are 60% Good You are a fairly good person. You strive to live a moral life whenever possible. You are usually kind, generous, and loyal. However, you do have a dark side that even you may not see. When it comes down to ethical decisions, you tend to take the path of least resistance. So you may end up lying, cheating, or engaging in other bad behavior… because it’s just easier to do so.You are also probably: Conflicted and confused about the current course of your life Right now you are on track to being: A slightly crooked politician Sorry mom. I know that politicians suck. Honestly. And I…
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Sunday in France
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8raqLzb3rQ[/youtube] This last Sunday, Maya went to spend the day with her BFF, leaving Ted and me on our own. I love Maya so much, and so much of being a parent defines me, that I sometimes wonder what we will do when she has grown up and moved away…days like Sunday remind me…we were fine before we had her, we’ll be fine when she is in college, or married, whatever. Days when we can go and see a movie that we want to see, without worrying whether it’s appropriate for a child or not…dinners at restaurants where we don’t need to think about kid conversation…which no wonder how wonderful…
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Gilead
I’ve always envied men who could watch their wives grow old. Boughton lost his wife five years ago, and he married before I did. His oldest boy has snow white hair. His grandchildren are mostly married. And as for me, it is still true that I will never see a child of mine grow up and I will never see a wife of mine grow old. I’ve shepherded a good many people through their lives, I’ve baptized babies by the hundred, and all that time I have felt as though a great part of life was closed to me. Your mother says I was like Abraham. But I had no…