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All The Light We Cannot See
Marie-Laure is a young blind girl, living with her father in Paris, 1940. Her father is the keeper of the keys at the Natural History Museum, and he builds her a miniature replica of their neighborhood, so that she might memorize the details and learn her way around. When the Germans invade Paris, Marie-Laure and her father flee Paris, for the coastal town of Saint-Malo, where they live with his brother Etienne in their childhood home. Werner is a young orphan, living in an orphanage with his sister, other children, and their care keeper, a woman who speaks French and tells them stories of France. Werner and his sister discover…
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Friday Randomness
I had such high hopes for this month and blogging. I posted on January 1st, and again on January 2nd. I was on a roll. Sure, they were both just recipes, but still. It was momentum. Then I lost it. And here it is, 3/4 of the way through the month. Sigh. Guess what? I’m a human pincushion. I’ve decided to try acupuncture for my non-rheumatoid rheumatoid arthritis. I’ve heard it can help. I went for my first session last week, and it wasn’t horrid, but I didn’t feel any relief. I was told that it sometimes takes a few sessions, so I went back today. I do feel a…
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Potato and Onion Gratin
photo and recipe found here Trudy, the lovely 99-year-old lady on my Meals on Wheels route, sometimes enjoys perusing the weekly insert that comes in her paper, Relish, with me. We also get a daily paper, but ours is a San Francisco paper, while Trudy’s is local, so we don’t get the insert. A while ago, I came across this recipe, and liked the look of it so much, I made it for dinner that week. I made it with a roast chicken, and it was delicious. It was enough of a hit that Ted requested that I make it for Christmas dinner. Christmas is a bit of a pot…
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KISS and Brussels Sprouts
Back when Ted was a kid, he was a fan of rock divas, KISS. How appropriate then, that this long lost Folgers commercial appears online, at around the same time that Ted decides to make me Brussels sprouts for my birthday dinner. Watch the video, it’s too funny. I guess it was filmed in 2000, but never aired. I like how into the song he is. Ted and Maya are not fans of Brussels sprouts, and Ted hates dried fruit in general, but for some reason even he really liked this recipe. Maya ate 1/2 of one Brussels sprout, and declared it not bad, but not something that she would…
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Happy Birthday to Me!
Today is my birthday! This is the last year of my 40s, and next year I’ll be 50, which seems so much older than I feel. Then again, with the arthritis that’s been plaguing me, I am feeling a lot older than I did 6 months ago. Oh well, I’m treating myself to a prednisone, which should help somewhat and allow me to have energy for the things I want to do today. Which include: Going to breakfast with Ted and Maya. We’re going to a place in Pleasanton that is known for its omelets. I love eggs, so this seems like a great idea to me. Going to San…
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Deciphering Arthritis
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to give the whole ‘gluten free’ thing a try, to see if it helps with my inflammation and non-rheumatoid rheumatoid arthritis. I have mentioned on Facebook that I’ve been having this pain, these problems, and several people mentioned to me that their pain was significantly managed by going either gluten free, dairy free, or both. I’ve also talked to people for whom these options did not make a whit of difference, but they at least gave them a try. The first two weeks I was gluten free, and now for this last week, on the recommendation of a friend for whom the combination…
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Wild
Wild is the story of Cheryl Strayed, a woman destroyed by the death of her mother. Cheryl has fallen into a seriously self-destructive spiral, shooting up heroin, having sex with strangers, sabotaging her marriage. One day she hits her own version of bottom, and while in a drug store, spies a travel book, for hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, and she sees some sort of peace there. Her mother was that rare, truly good, happy-in-spite-of-it-all person, and told her many times to find the beauty in life, to let that beauty find her and wash over her. So she decides that the way to come to terms with the person…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0IyAAOmwx4[/youtube]
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Still here
In years past, I have often, if not always, participated in NaBloPoMo, posting on my blog every day for the month of November. This year, it didn’t even occur to me. What did occur to me was to not post even one blog post for the month of November. “What if I take the entire month off?” I thought, “would the world end?” Of course not. If I don’t care, then why should anyone else? Those heady days of busy busy blogging are long gone, at least around here, and no one worries if I don’t have anything to say for a week or two. Or maybe a month. But…
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Friday Randomness
OK, I know I said I don’t care about baseball, or sports in general, but I must admit I got sucked into this series. The drama of it all captivated me, and the scores kept flopping from one team to the next. First SF kicked KC’s butt. Then KC kicked SF’s butt. Back and forth, and it sometimes felt like you weren’t watching the same teams from one night to the next. After the first game, when SF won 7 to 1, I was kind of disgusted with the local press. It was very smug and sure of SF superiority. Sort of like, “Of course we’re going to win, it’s…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends! Our Friends to the North celebrate Thanksgiving in much the same way we in the U.S. do. Get together with family, eat some turkey, stuffing, sides, maybe a pumpkin pie. Very nice. My loyal readers will remember that my darling husband, Ted, was born in Canada, and has citizenship there, though he’s not claimed it in any way at this point. Because we are a family that enjoys celebrating life when we can, we like to have a Thanksgiving feast in October, just us, and then again in November, with Ted’s family (my parents came to California last year and joined in, which was…
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Friday Randomness
We generally have a couple of very hot days in late September or early October. I remember moving to San Francisco back in ’87, and it hitting 100 that October. Indian Summer, they call it. So this weekend was Indian Summer, hitting the 90s after a few weeks of cooler weather. Hot weather requires a bit more water for the plants, water I’m hesitant to give in a drought year. Saturday morning I was watering the plants around our little patio garden, in preparation for a hot summer day, watching a fat black bumblebee buzz around the purple flowers of our potato plant, when I am sure I saw said…
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Eggplant Involtini
picture found here. Isn’t it gorgeous? Mine looked nothing like this, as you’ll see below. Just in time for ‘Meatless Monday’, I bring you a delicious recipe for Eggplant Involtini, which I found in my July/August issue of Cook’s Illustrated. I swear, I don’t know why I subscribe to this magazine. I find one recipe maybe every 4 issues that I want to try, and then only half of those turn out. So I subscribe for a year, then blow it of for a couple of years, then I get sucked in again. Somehow I got sucked in again this year, and my results have not been great. Mostly the…
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Saturday Randomness
It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and I’m in a random sort of mood. Let’s see if I can get some truly random stuff up here, instead of narrowing down to one topic, shall we? I finished my book last night, “Horse Heaven”, by Jane Smiley. I’ve tried to read one or two other of her novels, and haven’t really enjoyed them. But I loved “Horse Heaven” so much, this is a second reading for me. It’s a story of horse racing, told over a two or three year period. There are a large cast of characters, including 6 horses, and the people who surround them. It was a slow read…
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Too Much Information
Well I was pretty down on Tuesday, having a bit of a pity party, have to go on a crappy drug for 3 weeks. I don’t know why I’m such a baby. It’s 3 weeks. I remember when I had to stay at the hospital the night before Maya was born, I felt so sorry for myself that I cried. Of course, there were hormones involved, but I’m not sure my reaction now would be any different without them. I just hate taking drugs and staying in hospitals and all of that. Antibiotics don’t bother me, I’m used to them. Birth control pills are fine. Allergy pills, OK. But when…