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Feminist Polygamy?
Do you ever listen to “This American Life” on NPR? It’s an interesting program, where they basically choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme. It’s a lot more interesting than that sounds. I download the show via audible.com onto my iPod, and listen to it when I’m walking the dog, or walking back to work after dropping Maya off at school (though we haven’t been doing that as much lately…gotta work on that). You can listen to it for free on the radio, of course, or if you are willing to sit in front of your computer and listen, but my mind wanders when…
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Why I Prefer Showers…
So there’s this website called Post Secret, which is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard. This one pretty much sums up my feelings for bathing (see # 76). A jacuzzi, however, is different. Take a look…some of them may speak to you. I found it via The View From Crazy. Mail your secrets to: PostSecret 13345 Copper Ridge Rd Germantown, Maryland USA 20874-3454
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In Case You Were Wondering…
What’s wrong with missionaries, and why I don’t give my ‘charity’ dollars to religious groups…I mean, they go and bring education and medicine and try to help people, correct? But at what price. The fact of the matter is that the whole goal of missionaries is to try to convince the ‘other’ that the best course of action is to change from being ‘other’ to being ‘self’. To be a bit more clear, those people over there have a problem, and the best way to fix it is to make them more like us. Because, you know, we’re doing so damn well over here. We don’t have problems with poverty,…
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Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
SPOILER WARNING We watched this movie last night on DVD. It was really pretty amazing. If you’re not familiar with the story, I’ll fill you in. There is a flock of parrots that live on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco…no one is sure when or how they got there, but there are many theories, including that they escaped from a ship that was here from South America, that an old woman owned them, and when she died, the person who came to clean out her apartment released them, and many others. Those parrots have not only thrived, they have been breeding for about 20 years now. There is a man,…
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Why I’m afraid of going to Africa
Two posts before I leave the house? This is getting stupid. I’m insane. I’m still in my jammies. ACK! The worst thing is that I dreamed about this post…I was peacefully sleeping, and I dreamed that Autumn’s Mom wrote a post about either going to Africa, or the Toto song, I’m not sure which…maybe both? I don’t know. Anyway, it made me remember why Africa is the last continent on my list of travels: Look here… and/or here (Hint…my maiden name? Ward.) I remember reading about this when it happened, and I lived in San Francisco, and I remember thinking maybe the Terminator was behind it, and was going to…
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Flashback Friday
I was going to skip posting for a few days…maybe until Monday…just to show you all that I don’t HAVE to post every day, and I DON’T have a ‘posting problem’ or anything. But apparantly that’s not true. Is there a support group out there for blogging? Maybe this will be my only post for the day. Maybe. Anyway, here’s where I rip off TWO friends at once! First, Autumn’s Mom, who sometimes posts about music from the 80’s on Friday, taking us all into a slightly uncomfortable yet somehow pleasant time warp, and second, Jeffito, who has a link to a THIRD blog, Drink at Work. It’s the Drink…
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Junk Mail (aka Spam)
Do you ever read any of the junk mail that gets through the filters? Since I’m working from home today, my work email isn’t quite the same as when I’m at work, and I have to open an email in order to delete it. Of course, I don’t open the attachments. I stopped and read one today, and I thought it was kind of funny. Here you go. Nothing has been omitted, except for the attachment. Enjoy: Nor was that all. what do you do? in 1893 Of course not. But instead of weeping with exalted grief as she should have done when Misery expired giving birth to the boy…
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Puke…
So last night, Maya said she felt cold, freezing cold, but I assumed it was because it was getting cold out, and she was wearing a thin, short sleeved shirt. She didn’t feel feverish, and we took her temp…99. So I didn’t worry about it too much. She got in the shower, still freezing, and got ready for bed. She wanted help brushing her hair, so I was doing that, and she said, “I feel queasy….” then barfed in the sink. Twice. Poor kid. Good thing we had draino, becuase those little bathroom sinks aren’t meant for puke. She brushed her teeth and got into bed. Took the temp again,…
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Best Meatloaf Recipe
As you know, I received many Barnes and Noble giftcards for my birthday this year. Well, I spent most of the money on the books over there to the right (scroll down), and on Monday I managed to spend the rest of it on a new cookbook. I got the Barefoot Contessa cookbook, which I would not have gotten if I hadn’t had the gift cards, because it was EXPENSIVE (not so expensive on Amazon, but it was at B&N). But the pictures are beautiful, and that is key for me. I guess I’m a visual person. Well, we tried a recipe on Monday night. I made the Turkey Meatloaf,…
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Thinking about films…
While I was driving home from my Great Uncle’s funeral yesterday, I was listening to “Fresh Air” on NPR. Terry Gross was interviewing Steven Soderbergh, who I really like ever since he directed ‘Sex, Lies, and Videotape’, which is one of those films I can watch over and over again. I haven’t liked EVERYTHING he puts out, but I do have a lot of respect for him. So he has a new movie coming out that is very interesting for two reasons. The film is called ‘Bubble’, and it’s about a strange love triangle “born in a doll factory” in a small midwestern town. The first interesting thing about this…
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A Day in the City
Saturday, after a lovely breakfast at Lafayette Circle Cafe, we drove into the city, with the intention of going to Morrison Planetarium. We knew that it was being redone, but weren’t completely clear on the details…Ted knew there was a new museum in where the old City Library was, but he had forgotten that we had actually gone there a year or so ago, and that it is the new Asian Art Museum. I remembered reading that the aquarium was near the Moscone Center, downtown, but wasn’t sure where. So we parked near Moscone, and went into the Metreon to use the bathroom and find out more. Of course, I…
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Blog For Choice Day
I found out about Blog for Choice at Angry Black Bitch. And there’s more here. I’ve been thinking about what to write about this….it’s an important issue for so many reasons…so here’s what I came up with. First of all, abortion is a terrible thing. I don’t care what you believe about when life starts, whether it’s with conception or with the birth of a live baby, or somewhere in between. The cold hard fact of the matter is that, if the pregnancy were allowed to continue, the most likely result would be a living, breathing baby. Stopping that in its tracks is tragic. That having been said, however, when…
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Pasta Primavera Cafe
Every once in awhile, I find myself dining at Pasta Primavera Cafe. If you haven’t tried PPC, it’s a small chain with 5 locations: San Ramon, Walnut Creek, Concord, San Mateo, and Dublin. There are two locations within a block of one another in Walnut Creek, on North Main near Treat Boulvard. One is Pasta Primaver Cafe, and the other is Pasta Primavera Too. Not long ago, they took the original Cafe and converted the second dining room into a sports bar type atmosphere. There is a big, flat screen TV, and a large full bar. I don’t like the change…it seems to go against open, semi casual atmosphere, and…
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Rockin’ Good News!
Some of you know that my mom has had some bad luck this past year…poor health, which led to a pretty invasive surgery, and the loss of her job, all in a few months time. Well, she called me tonight, and she has a new job! YAY YAY YAY! She starts Monday. She works/lives in Juneau, Alaska, and she’ll be working somewhere where they work with teenagers to create anti-alcohol media, at least that’s how I understand the job. YAY! Tomorrow was her last day of Unemployment Eligibility, so things were about to get a lot more stressful in her neck of the woods. Now, this past 6 1/2 months…
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Ashamed…
Tuesday night, Maya brought home a bunch of math homework. She hates math homework. I hate the barrier she puts up around her math homework, where she makes things so much more difficult than they need to be. She’s pretty good with the rest of her homework, but math, she simply does not want to do. She’s actually good at math, too, which makes it even more confusing for me that she dislikes doing the work so much. I was always good at it, and I liked it because I liked being good at it. So she was adding fractions, looking for the lowest common denomonator, and she decided she…