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Miscellaneous Monday
This is going to be one of those random posts, just things I’m thinking about. (I mean, that is the name of my blog, right?) First I will dip my toes into politics a bit, and say that I am feeling MUCH more hopeful about the possibility of no Trump presidency than I was a couple of weeks ago. Ever since Biden’s horrible debate, I’ve been so stressed out. I think he’s been a very good President, and doesn’t get enough credit for his accomplishments. I honestly doubt that he could put in another 4 years, though, it’s a hell of a job. But we have a whole system set…
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Lemon Pistachio Cake
This last weekend, we celebrated the birthdays of Ted’s mom and uncle, who are one day short of 15 years apart in age. We had a Mexican theme, with lamb birria tacos, grilled shrimp salsa, guacamole and so on, but I’m here today to tell you about the cake. Ted’s cousin Sewdaye made a beautiful Lemon Pistachio Cake, and frosted it with a lemon ricotta whipped cream frosting. I am generally not a big fan of cake, I’m much more team pie or ice cream, but this cake was amazing and has absolutely changed my mind. Of course, we did serve it with ice cream – pistachio gelato, lemon marionberry,…
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45(ish) Books
I’ve seen people discussing the New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, and my first thought was, ‘that seems kind of premature, doesn’t it?’ Then I went and checked it out, and found I had read 25 of the books, so decided to write a blog post about it. Blog fodder! Then I found that Engie had done exactly that. Great minds think alike! So, here’s my list, with links to my book reviews. That’s it for the official list, which was compiled by writers. As might be expected, readers chimed in, and the Times compiled a list of readers’ 100 favorites as well. The two lists…
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Bastille Day Randomness
Happy Bastille Day everyone! Bastille Day holds a special place in my heart, as my first full day in Paris on my honeymoon 31 years ago was on Bastille Day. I fell in love with France that day, and have been fortunate enough to go back twice since then. When Engie asked me to help her celebrate her 20 years of blogging (WOW!), and told me my day would be July 14th, I decided to write about France (again). So I’m her guest today! I’m sorry, I know I’ve written about my 2022 trip a LOT, and my 2018 trip less but still a lot, so likely you will not…
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Summer Salad Challenge
I was going to write about politics today, about how genuinely afraid I am for our democracy since last week’s Supreme Court ruling. About how I fear that Biden’s age is going to be a real issue in the election this fall, and how I wish he had decided not to run for a second term, and yet I worry that if he drops out now, it will be too late and again, Trump wins and we are all well and truly screwed. About how I thought the insurrection on January 6th was the end of Trump’s political career, that there was no way folks would support him after that.…
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Happy Independence Day
Happy Independence Day to my American friends! Our plans today include a small family BBQ with Ted’s parents and maybe his brother. I am looking forward to a good hot dog, as that is something I do not eat very often. Ted and I had a lovely anniversary together yesterday. We started the day slowly, went for a walk early before it got too hot, went to the grocery store for things for today’s bbq, and lazed around a bit. Then we hopped on our local transit (BART) and went in to San Francisco for the day. We took a cable car from the Embarcadero to the end of that…
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Catching Up
The picture above is from my favorite local church. In 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, they put up a sign that said “Created in God’s Image, Black Lives Matter, To God and To Us.” That sign was up for almost 4 years, and now has been replaced with the sign above, which has rainbow ribbons over the cross, and says “Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God. <3” Again, I had to pull over and take a picture, it made me so happy. If I were a believer, I would definitely go to this church. Well, a few things have happened since I was…
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TV Time
We watch a lot of TV around here. It’s how we unwind most evenings, and truth be told, we generally eat dinner in front of the TV as well. We used to have dinner like civilized people, at the dining room table, but when Ted was sent home to work in 2020, he used the table for reporting traffic for several radio stations, and he worked until 7:30ish. So we got into the habit of eating in front of the TV. After a year of that, he moved to Maya’s room to report traffic, but we still ate in front of the TV. And in 2022, he left that job…
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Friday Thoughts
Sometimes I have all of the ideas, I know what I’m going to write about, and it comes really easily. Sometimes this happens while I am in the shower, and I forget by the time I’m near my computer. This is one of those times. So I’ll try to come up with something for you, but it’s not the good shower content. Sorry for that. The other day I was taking my morning walk along one of my regular routes. This route crosses our local waterway, which is quite deep and is intended to prevent flooding by rushing the water out of our local tributaries and down to the bay…
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Miscellaneous Monday
Many of you know Elisabeth’s blog, Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist. Elisabeth is such a thoughtful writer, I love her blog and am ever thankful to San for her organized NaBloPoMo for introducing so many of us to each other. Elisabeth sometimes has guest posts, and when she asked me if I would be interested, of course I said, Yes! So pop on over. Speaking of Elisabeth, she recently wrote about ice cream, and mentioned how much she loved the pistachio gelato she had in Spain. I decided I wanted to try some pistachio gelato with whole pistachios included, so I bought the Talanti brand, and it’s delicious! Is it…
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On Jury Duty and Manicures
Last Wednesday I had to report for Jury Duty. I have served on two juries, and both times I found the process interesting and thoughtful, and generally it was a good experience. My company pays us for Jury Duty, and it was not a busy week, so it wasn’t a hardship for me. Of course the dread is that you will be picked to be on a case regarding a horrible crime, so there is always trepidation going in. Ted works across the street from the courthouse, so we drove in together with the intention that we would meet for lunch, and then drive home together. If I were dismissed…
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Hit Man
Yesterday Ted suggested that we go in to San Francisco to see a movie, because it got a good review in our local paper, and because we really like movies by the director Richard Linklater. We didn’t have any plans, so off we went to an old school movie theater. When we lived in San Francisco, we used to go to the movies a lot, and as there were a lot of theaters around town, and this is a good one, it’s in a good neighborhood and there is a local bookstore next door, which is always fun pre or post movie, to peruse the books. We’ve seen a couple…
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Miscellaneous Monday
First off, look at my beautiful Mother’s Day breakfast. We usually get danish for Mother’s Day, a tradition born when Maya was little and Ted worked early (before the sun came up) on Sundays, so this was something that he could put together before he left. She’s old enough to make me anything I might want now, and he works normal hours, but the tradition remains because I love danish, and the only time I eat them is Mother’s Day. Now look at this picture and tell me whether you think I have a skin cream addiction. I love skin cream, and I think I collect it now like I…
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Blood Orange, Fennel, Avocado, and Arugula Salad
Maya took me out for a lovely lunch on Saturday to celebrate Mother’s Day. We ordered a few items and shared them. We had a salad, some calamari, and tuna tartare. Maya doesn’t eat meat, but she does occasionally have seafood, and tuna tartare and calamari are definitely favorites. The salad was blood oranges, fennel, arugula, and feta cheese. Everything was delicious, but the salad was our favorite item. To drink, I had a lovely crisp Sauvignon Blanc, and she had her drink of choice, gin and tonic. I liked the salad enough that I decided to make it at home last night, and because everything is better with avocados,…
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Friday Randomness
Just a few random thoughts today. A while ago, perhaps 6 or 8 weeks now, we were out for our morning walk, and came across the potted plants in the picture above. They were lying on their sides on the ground. How did they get there? We don’t know. Perhaps they were stolen? We moved them into the positions shown in the picture, and assumed that if they were there rightfully (meaning if the grounds people left them there and were going to come back) they would be put into the ground. If they were not there rightfully (stolen or dumped for some reason) then someone would come get them.…
