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Phobia
(absolutely perfect graphic found here) I don’t have a lot of phobias, I don’t think. I’m not excited about the idea of hanging out in an extremely crowded place with a lot of pushy strangers, but I can handle it. I don’t love finding a spider struggling to get out of my shower, but I can handle it. I’m not thrilled with Ferris wheels, but I wouldn’t say I have a fear of heights. I’ve been to the top of the Empire State Building, and it didn’t freak me out in the least. One fear I do have, however, is sleeping on a ground floor with the window open. You…
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Giving Tuesday
The day after Thanksgiving is Black Friday, the day when retailers hope to move from being in the red to being in the black. It has also become a day when shoppers go forth, hoping to find great deals, either for their Christmas and Hanukkah shopping, or perhaps for themselves. There is also Small Business Saturday, when shoppers are encouraged to frequent small, locally owned businesses, rather than the big box stores that are so popular on Black Friday. Yesterday was Cyber Monday, when shoppers go online and shop while they’re supposed to be working. A person can supposedly get really good deals on this particular Monday, though I find…
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Grandma Weekend
This is my Grandma and my cousin’s daughter, Julia, last year Thanksgiving Day was a lovely day of fun, family, and wonderful food, as it should be. It also brought the disquieting news that my Grandma, my mom’s mom, had fallen pretty hard and broken her wrist, and was in the hospital. Blech. So Friday I drove to Stockton to see her, to verify with my own eyes that she was OK, to try to find out what was going on. The news was not good. And sitting in a hospital is rarely fun. You wait and wait and wait all day for someone to come and tell you what…
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Rereading ‘Gone With The Wind’
The story of Scarlett O’Hara and the ruin of the south is so tied in with the film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel, “Gone With The Wind“, that if you’ve seen the film, it’s difficult to separate the two in your mind. I first read “Gone With the Wind” in the 8th grade, and the love triangle between Scarlett, Ashley, and Rhett absorbed me completely. I’ve read the book so many times since that I can open it at any page and know what’s going on, just by reading one sentence. It’s one of those books. I was thinking about it recently, however, and I realized that I’ve only read…
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Lincoln
Daniel Day-Lewis does an amazing job portraying our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln. He conveys the humanity and intelligence, along with the awkwardness and sorrow. Lincoln was perhaps singularly suited to deal with the issues of slavery and union, with bringing our nation out of a time of bondage, and into an era of freedom. The film wasn’t what I expected. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but I purposefully ignored reviews and articles about it, not wanting to have anything ruined for me. I think I expected it to handle more of his presidency. Instead, the film covers the period between his re-election and his assassination, a time in…
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The Sessions
My MIL and I intended to see ‘A Royal Affair‘ on Wednesday, but though the newspaper and the internet both assured me that it was playing at our neighborhood theater, it was not. Frustrating. I wanted to see it, but now, I’ll probably wait until it comes to Netflix. Not to be deterred, however, since my MIL had driven 1/2 hour just to see the movie with me, we looked at their offerings, and found something else. We chose ‘The Sessions.’ Wow, I’m glad we did. If you’re not familiar with the plot, “The Sessions” is based on the true story of a late-30 something, Mark O’Brian (played by John…
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Happy Thanksgiving
(image found on a Facebook page dedicated to Thanksgiving, here) It’s Wednesday morning as I write this. I’m trying to motivate myself to get dressed and go for a walk, because I’m going to meet my lovely MIL for a movie date in a couple of hours, and then I’m going to spend the afternoon baking assorted yummies for tomorrow. But I do want to stop and contemplate the holiday, and what it means to me. When I was a child, Thanksgiving was a crummy holiday, which you can read about here and here, if you’re so inclined. Now, it’s a lovely holiday, perhaps my favorite of the year, though…
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Cotogna
photo mix found on the Contogna website Yesterday found me taking BART into the City to meet my dear friend MAS for luncheon, at a lovely restaurant that I hadn’t tried before, Cotogna. Turns out, they are the sister restaurant to Quince, which inhabits the space once occupied by Myth, a restaurant that Ted and I happened upon one night several years ago. It was the kind of lunch that Ladies of Leisure enjoy…we had appetizers, potato gnocchi with castelmagno cheese, wine (I had wine, MAS had sparkling water), veggies, and a delicious apple-quince crostata with vanilla ice cream (seen in the picture there). We lingered for well over 3…
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The “Reader Appreciation Award” Meme
Ally from The Spectacled Bean has tagged me for a meme. I’m supposed to answer the questions, then tag those of my readers who comment, and they can answer the questions on their blogs, and send it forward, and so on. I don’t have a problem answering the questions, though I’ll confess the book ones were a little difficult. I do have a problem tagging, because I don’t know if my most loyal commenters are likely to want to do a meme or not. Let’s start with the questions, and see where we get from there, shall we? :: The Questions :: Where do you do most of your writing/blogging?…
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Pomegranate Love
I adore pomegranates, but truth be told, I seldom buy them. They’re expensive, $2.50 or more each, and they’re a lot of work. While I’m at the store I might think, “Sure, I’ll de-seed it, and we can snack on the seeds, or I can put them in a salad, or whatever…” But then, the expensive fruit ends up just sitting there, not getting eaten, because none of us obtain the wherewithal to deal with them. Until now. On Saturday, Ted and I went into San Francisco in search of some specific walnuts to make a walnut pie for Thanksgiving (Franquette, which are rumored to have the best walnut flavor)…
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Time Off
I have this week off from work. My company doesn’t allow us to accrue a lot of time (120 hours), and yet I’ve been there over 11 years, so I accrue quickly. When an opportunity comes up to take a few days off, especially if I can time it with a break for Maya, and holidays, I’m happy to do it. I have another week off for Christmas. So this week, I’m trying to think of what to do with myself. Ted has to work several days at least. He’s working as an independent contractor right now, which means, when he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. Blech. Maya has…
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Saturday Funnies
Thanks to Don Asmussen from SF Gate. For more of his hilarity, go here.
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Meals on Wheels Update
I’m sure you’ve all been tossing and turning in your sleep, worried about Dana, the sweet woman on my Meals on Wheels route who was bumped from the program because she’s not in such dire straits as some of the others on the waiting list. Well, encouraged by you, my faithful commenters, I went back to her house this week with an extra meal* that I had, and while I was there I dropped off a flyer that I had in the car about the Senior Center, where I pick up the meals for delivery. They serve lunches on weekdays to seniors, and payment is voluntary for those who can…
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Thursday 13
(Sorry Sebastian, she knows it’s crab season, and she’s hungry!)* Since I’m trying my darnedest to post every day in November, what better way than a meme or two? You had my ‘Wordless Wednesday’ yesterday. Today will be a Thursday 13. I don’t think I’ve done one of these in a long time. Way back when, I used to find a theme and stick to it…like, my 13 favorite albums, or 13 songs I hate, or whatever. Not sure if I can do that now, not sure I have the focus. So this will be a fairly random Thursday 13, which feels quite a bit like a Friday Randomness, right?…
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Wordless Wednesday