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Friday Dog Blogging
Samantha 1972 – 1988 Dear Samantha, my sweet doggy love, Thank you, for letting me come into your house and watch as you gave birth to your 13 puppies… for being my ambassador when we moved – I made so many friends while taking you for walks, because they wanted to know about my dog… for jumping over trash cans (upright, even!) when I pretended you were a horse… for letting me dress you up in long frilly dresses… for sleeping in my bed and keeping me company… for defending me from the creepy cable guy that one time… for forgiving me when I treated you badly… when I bit…
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A Few Tings
(I say tings because I’m trying to affect a Guyanese accent…) 1st. My mom (aka, Maya’s Granny) wrote a post yesterday that really gave me a peek into growing up in the 50s, being a girl. I would say that this is her best writing so far…good stuff, and definitely worth the time. Check it out. And now that I mention it, today’s post isn’t shabby either…I wrote a quick post back in March about Feminism, and she gives it a more thorough treatment today. She’s on a roll. 😉 2nd. I’m guest blogging over at Birth Stories. My fellow ‘J’ blogger, Black Belt Mama started a new blog, and…
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Sweet Relief
Take a peek at this…it’s the view toward San Francisco, from the Lawrence Hall of Science in the Berkeley Hills. Maybe I’ll pull this post later, when the view changes, but right now, it’s all foggy foggy sky, which is sweet relief, and bringing cooler breezes out our way.
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A Thankful Thursday 13
It’s been awhile since I posted 13 things I’m thankful for, and after the last couple of posts, which were pretty heavy, I thought it might be time to lighten up a bit. So here we go…13 things I’m thankful for right now. (I chose this picture because it looked so cool and inviting…not like the brown dead stuff that surrounds us in the CA summertime.) 1. It seems that it is finally, albeit SLOWLY, cooling off around here. Saturday: 111 Sunday: 115 Monday: 109 Tuesday: 108 Wednesday: 98 Thursday Forecast: 93. We’re hoping for mid-80s by Saturday. (Look what the heat did to my poor roses…) 2. Ted and…
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The Dark Side of Genealogy
Many years ago, in my mis-spent youth, I worked at the front desk at a big San Francisco hotel. One evening, a very cute black man checked in, whose last name was Ward. “Hey,” I said, semi-flirtatiously, “that’s my last name, too.” He smiled and said, “Yeah, it’s that southern thing.” Ugh. Stopped me cold. Maybe he thought that somewhere back in time, some of my ancestors owned his ancestors. Which is surely not true, since, 1. My Ward surname came from my mom’s step-dad, so I wasn’t descended from him by blood; and, 2. Our Ward family was poor Irish in Oklahoma, and surely never had the kind of…
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Escaping Ennui
Ted and I went to escape the heat as well as taking advantage of Maya’s going to her best friend’s house on Saturday (free babysitting!), and we drove into Berkeley to see “A Scanner Darkly.” It’s a complicated tale, and one wonders how and why the main character (played by Keanu Reeves….whoa….) got to be where he is. In one flashback that may or may not be real, we see him in his home, with a lovely wife and two children. The wife and kids are playing a board game, and he is reading the newspaper. He gets up to make some popcorn, bonks his head on an open cupboard…
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Mom Always Said Not to Play Ball In the House
Since it was 115 yesterday (according to this morning’s Chron…I never saw it get over 112…HA!), we pretty much didn’t leave the house after 10am, except to take out the garbage. As I mentioned, TV Land had a Brady Bunch marathon on, and after an early dinner, we were watching the top 10 most popular episodes, and of course, the episode with the broken vase came on. I suddenly thought, hey, why was that only Peter’s fault? All three of the boys were playing basketball in the house…it was just Peter who got unlucky enough that he bounced the ball down the hall, over the ledge, and broke the vase.…
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I Think the Sun Is Trying to Kill Us
According to my local paper, the high yesterday was 111 F. Ugh. It was so stinking hot. Maya went to her best friend’s house to play, and Ted and I decided to go see a movie…the A/C had conked out at the theater, so it was kind of like an oven in there. We bailed. But when it’s 111 degrees out, you don’t want to do a lot outside, so we drove to Berkeley (where it was a frigid 92 degrees…), and found our movie there. We saw “A Scanner Darkly“, which was a pretty serious cautionary tale about drug use. I liked it, but I kind of think that…
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Guest Blogging!
Hey Everyone, Py Korry (aka, Ted) has invited me to make a mix of six songs on his site! I pick the songs, according to his rules, then he mixes them and puts them online for your enjoyment. Check it out, and let us know what you think. Weekend fun!
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Brentwood Corn
There are two Brentwoods in California….the Brentwood down near Hollywood, where the rich and famous reside, and the Brentwood in the ‘Far East Bay’ or the ‘Far Western San Joaquin Valley’, whichever sounds better to you. 😉 Our local Brentwood is known for the quality of their corn. When you go to the grocery stores or farmers’ market, the signs proudly proclaim, “Brentwood Corn”, and you know you’re getting the good stuff. Well, we went to Brentwood the other night for dinner. Ted’s mom had heard good things about Cap’s Oak Street Bar & Grill, so we all piled in the car and took her there for her birthday dinner.…
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Friday Cat Blogging
This is Acidophilus, Ted’s cat. But this is pretty much the only view we ever got of her, because she was a feral cat. Ted, for those of you who don’t know us personally, is VERY allergic to cats. VERY. His eyes puff up like a boxer who has been hit in the face 3 too many times, his throat constricts, and asthma kicks in. And that’s from being in a room where a cat has been. I’ve never seen him actually have to deal with a real live cat. So, back when he lived on Fell St. in San Francisco, he lived on the 2nd (or was it 3rd?)…
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Thirteen Grammar Pet Peeves
Here is where I make everyone think I’m a big grammar snob. I don’t THINK I am, but maybe I’m wrong. I’m a horrible speller (though I promise to TRY to run spell check before publishing my posts from now on!), and I do not claim to have perfect grammar. I loves me a split infinitive from time to time, but it drives me crazy to read (or hear) certain mistakes over and over again. It’s careless, and I think people should take a little bit of care when they’re trying to communicate. Otherwise it distracts them from your meaning, and you’re not communicating well. Here are the ones that…
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Why do IDIOTS get away with crap?
Remember the plum tree that keeps me awake? Well, two corrections…as someone pointed out, it’s the fence making the noise, not the tree…and it’s actually a cherry tree. Not like the kind you go pick cherries from in an orchard, but the kind that drops cherries all over the sidewalk and they make a mess and you step on them and track the juice in on your carpet. Yeah, that kind of tree. Anyway, we’re tree hugging liberals, and we certainly don’t want the tree cut down…just pruned a bit, so it doesn’t knock down our fence. We live in a condo complex, and Ted is the president of the…
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Happy Birthday
To Vin (Ted’s uncle), who thinks blogs are stupid, so he won’t be reading this. I hope he has a happy birthday, anyway. 🙂 To Pat, my ex-CEO, a guy who defines aging well for me. He rides his bike to the farmers’ market on Sundays. Twice if he needs to load up on heirloom tomatoes. He’s got a gorgeous significant other, and she’s not 40 years younger than he is. He defines a ‘superstar husband’ as one who realizes the value of wife and kids, and does his share in the care of children and home. He wanted to learn more about Civil Rights in the south, so he…
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Father Bob
The other day, I mentioned a poem by ee cummings, that was introduced to me by a teacher of mine, and I said I would tell you a bit about him someday. Well, today is the day. That teacher’s name was Bob Hanlon, and he was my Latin teacher, as well as my Composition in Literature teacher in High School. My first day of 9th grade, when I first saw him, all I could think was of the Beatles’ line, “I am the Walrus”, because he was kind of pale, kind of roundish, and had this big, walrus-like mustache. But the more I got to know him, the more I…