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Wordless Wednesday – local edition
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Mrs. Mata
This is a somewhat blurry picture of my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Mata, taken when she was much younger than when I knew her. She retired just a few years after I was in her class. I don’t remember a lot from that year in school, but I do remember her being a very good teacher, kind and involved and helpful. And short. I found out today, via Facebook, that the Stockton Unified School District has named their newest school (opening this school year, what a year to open!) for her. Here is the bio, from the school website, which is also where I got the photo. I had no…
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Nice vs. Kind
Ally had a post the other day about her rules for how to live her life, and in the comments, Nance mentioned that the only rule she lives by is to be kind. Then I saw this meme on FB, and it got me thinking about the difference between being nice and being kind. According to this post, the main difference is in your motivation. Nice is about how you want to be perceived, whereas kind is about genuine compassion and caring. From the post: “If you get offended when people don’t offer you praise for being “nice” then you can be certain you aren’t being kind.” I agreed with…
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We Are Being Tested – And We are Failing
“All were unconscious that this experience was a test of character, and, when the first excitement was over, felt that they had done well, and deserved praise. So they did; but their mistake was in ceasing to do well, and they learned this lesson through much anxiety and regret.” ~ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women California did so well at the beginning of all of this, we crushed the curve. At least, it felt that way. I felt sorry for the people in New York and Louisiana and so on. I felt a little smug, actually. And now, here we are, mid-July, and hospitalizations in my county have tripled since…
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Splurge Worthy
Photo and recipe found here. Fresh crab meat is expensive. Our local grocery store sells fresh Dungeness crab meat for just under $40 a pound. At that price, you want to be sure your recipe isn’t going to bury it with too much mayo or bread. Last week was our staycation. We were supposed to go to Portland to see family and scatter my father’s ashes at sea, and then to Vancouver for a vacation, but of course, COVID has put all of that on indefinite hold. We decided to take the week off of work anyway, and overall it was a nice week, though more boring than our usual…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Life is Hard
Life is hard right now. To be very clear, it is not currently hard for me personally. We are all working, we are all privileged and safe and healthy. Since Ted and Maya are working from home, so there are no commuting costs, we’re probably coming out a little ahead, financially. At least for now. But my heart is broken. The murder of George Floyd, on top of everything else, on top of the pandemic and a tanked economy and our shit for brains asshole President, it’s too much. I talked to my sister last week, before the news of Mr. Floyd’s murder, and she said, if we can only…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Roasted Split Chicken with Mustard Crust
Last week, I was looking for a recipe that we had seen Jacque Pepin make on PBS (I don’t remember what it was), and I came across this recipe. I have the cookbook, More Fast Food My Way, and this recipe is from that cookbook. It looked good to me, I like chicken, I like mustard, I like garlic. Jacques sometimes recommends ‘spatchcocking’ your chicken, and cutting into the joints in the thighs as well, do speed up the cooking. I don’t really like cutting the backbone out of a chicken, too gross, but happily there is a local store that still has a butcher, and they will do it…
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Wordless Wednesday – Interloper Edition
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Pandemic Potpourri
These are the beautiful hand made masks, sent to us by some good friends, for when we go to the grocery store and so on. I cannot sew, and have no idea how to follow a pattern, and don’t have (and have never used) a sewing machine. And I’m the one Ted and Maya come to when they need a button sewn on or something, so of course this task was a lot more than I could handle. Aren’t they lovely? I like how the patterns are all different so we can tell which belongs to who, and that they are hand made by friends. How are you all doing?…
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Wordless Wednesday – Artists gonna Art, local edition
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Sign of the Times
I hate this meme, with the missing apostrophe (wont) and the extras (in Alien’s and UFO’s), but it is, indeed, a sign of our times. I’m trying not to let the world stress me out, partially because I need a crown, but I ignored it and put it off and now I am afraid to go to the dentist, so I worry that if I grind my teeth too much, I will crack my tooth and make it worse. Me me me. We’re all working from home now. Maya and I are more introverted, and of course we are set up right next to each other in my bedroom. Ted…
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Avocado and Grapefruit Salad
Is it late winter, or early spring? Grapefruits are a winter fruit, so we’ll go with late winter. Yesterday I decided that I wanted this salad for dinner, along with some chicken Milanese. The recipe is Ina Garten, but I have made a few modifications. I always forget how good this is, which is REALLY good, and perfect with crispy fried chicken breasts, with arugula on top, lightly dressed in the same vinaigrette, with shaved Parmesan on top. I liked dinner so much, I think I may make it again next week. In case you’re interested, here is my version of the salad recipe. Ina’s is here. I’ve made a…
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Thursday Thirteen, Los Angeles version
(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia – there was a TINY bit of snow on the tip of the mountains, nothing like this. I don’t think I realized before that there are mountains RIGHT THERE, but I’ve not really paid much attention to LA in the past.) My BFF Rosemary lives in Pennsylvania. She and I met in High School in 1982, and after HS she moved around a bit for a few years, ending up in PA a few months before we moved back to California. She has two boys in college, one is graduating from Clemson in May, the other is a Freshman at Lewis and Clark in Portland, OR.…