-
(Almost) Wordless Wednesday
Thank you Sarah at The Shu Box for the lovely surprise that arrived on Monday! #SecretSANtaSwap2023
-
Top 4 / Bottom 4 / Meh 4 Christmas Movies
Elisabeth had a Top 5/Bottom 5 Christmas movies post, which looked like fun. Here are mine, though I couldn’t come up with 5 of each category, so we’ll only have 4, so I added a meh category. Top 4 Bottom 4 Meh 4
-
Dinners Last Week
I’m sure you missed my ‘Dinners Last Week’ posts during NaBloPoMo, so here I am back at it. Maybe I can give you an idea for something to cook, because THAT is the hard part for me. Figuring out what to cook. And like the meme, above, sometimes I have ideas earlier in the week, or even earlier in the day, and then when it’s time to cook, I think, “Couldn’t we just eat cheese and crackers? What about eggs?” I generally stick with my plan, because I have the ingredients. I like cooking, it’s just that by 5:00 when I get off of work, I’ve lost my verve. I…
-
Throwback Thursday – Happy Hanukkah!
Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah! Let’s rewind to 2006, and you can enjoy Maya singing. The video quality isn’t great, it’s 2006 after all. We’re not Jewish, we just like to celebrate things, and when Maya was little, we wanted to expose her to different cultures. Of course, that confused her, when she was in first grade she told her teacher we were Jewish. Our celebration consists of a nice dinner with latkes and small gifts the first night, and lighting the menorah every night (if we remember – Ted is pretty good about this.) Today I’m working 1/2 day, then I’ll start cooking – brisket braised in…
-
Recent Reads
After I Do – Taylor Jenkins ReidAfter reading Maybe in Another Life, I was interested in trying another book by its author, Taylor Jenkins Reid. After I Do is the story of a marriage in trouble, and begins with the young married couple (Lauren and Ryan) deciding to separate for a year. Their resentments and frustrations with each other have taken over, and they want some time apart to see if they can figure out a way to come back together. I liked this book, it was engrossing and I felt for Lauren. I wasn’t as fond of Ryan, but we don’t see much from his point of view, so…
-
National Socks Day
I’m sorry it’s so late, and I am only now aware that today is National Sock Day. Had I known, I could have celebrated by: Any of these would be a good idea, but I didn’t know, so I didn’t do them. Oh well, there’s always next year. At least you get a picture of Mulder in my Totoro socks, which he hated. Not because they are Totoro, but because he hated ALL clothing, with the exception of his collar and his tie.
-
Where I’ve Been
Ally posted this little US Map, where you can show places you have lived, visited, passed through, etc. You can create your own US map, here, and a European map, here. My Europe level is 17, I haven’t been to many places in Europe. In the US, a lot of these are from driving across country, and then traveling for business. So I haven’t seen much of quite a few of these states. I’d kind of like to go to New Orleans, and I’ve heard Wisconsin and Michigan are lovely. I’ve always been curious about South Dakota, might be cool to see the town where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived. To…
-
Whamageddon
I’m in, again. The first time I heard of Whamageddon, I made it all of the way from December 1st to December 24th without hearing the Wham! classic ‘Last Christmas’, but last year the DJ at Ted’s company party played it, and I think that was December 2nd. (To clarify, I do not have strong feelings about this song. I like it fine, but I don’t love it.) We’ll see how it goes this year. Stout hearts. UPDATE: The acoustics at the party were HORRIBLE at this year’s company party, so I have no idea whether he played the song or not. SO I’M STILL IN!
-
Throwback Thursday
This is a picture of me and my roommate Troy, back in 1988 or 1989. He’s putting me in the garbage can at an amusement park, which is clearly HILARIOUS. I love this picture. When I was 21, I moved from Stockton to San Francisco with Troy, to attend San Francisco State University. We had worked together at a hotel in Stockton, and I wanted to move to San Francisco, and so did he. He had lived on his own before (I had not), so he had some furniture and an idea at least of how things like signing up for utilities and paying bills worked. But we were both…
-
DHS
(For those of you who hav been waiting to see what kind of genius posts I would come up with now that I’ve gotten through the alphabet, I apologize. It’s come to this. As Stephany said so eloquently, “I’m on the end-of-NaBloPoMo struggle bus.”) Sometimes, when we are watching TV, or I am driving, or in line at the grocery store, whatever, someone will do something idiotic, and I give what Maya has coined the ‘Disgusted Head Shake’. She LOVES it, and it is now part of her repertoire as well. More recently, we shortened it to the acronym, DHS. That way, if we are in public and it would…
-
Honeymoon Photos
For our honeymoon 30 years ago, we went to 3 amazing cities – London, Amsterdam, and Paris. We had a cheap point-and-shoot camera, and of course it was film back then, so we don’t have a ton of pictures and what we have are not great. It’s not like today, where you can take an unlimited number of photos, and immediately see whether they are in focus, centered, etc. Here are a few pictures that I like. I guess Ted had the camera most of the time, because there are more pictures of me than there are of him. We stayed in little Bed and Breakfasts. The one in London…
-
Meme Monday
My A-Z theme is over, and we still have a couple of days left of NaBloPoMo. What to do? Well, Elisabeth asked a bunch of questions on her Blog a couple of weeks ago, and I saved them for just such a situation. I remember when ‘meme’ meant all of these questions, back in the old days of blogging. So here we go. The meme above is a repeat, and is just to make you laugh.
-
Z is for Zero
As in, I have Zero idea what to write about today. I could tell you why I hate Zebras (short answer, don’t watch nature programs if you don’t want to suddenly hate an entire species. Also orcas, same reason.) I could tell you that I am not the biggest fan of Zucchini, because it can be bitter (like me after watching a nature video with Zebras), though if it’s cooked correctly and generally if the Zucchini are smaller, this isn’t an issue. There’s a place nearby that has pretty amazing deep fried Zucchini that they serve with ranch dressing, though in that situation I could probably just eat the fried…
-
Y is for Yoga
Yoga has been a big deal in my family, specifically for my step-mom and my mother-in-law. My step-mom, Julie, was in college in San Francisco in 1968 when her first husband, Bruce, was killed in a helicopter accident in Vietnam. She was 21, and was unmoored by the loss. She felt that she had to get out of the Bay Area, there were too many memories here, too much pain. So she did some backpacking in Europe for a while, and then moved to Portland, Oregon. She started taking yoga classes to help her calm her mind and get through her grief. At some point she was asked if she…
-
X is for eXtra
Last week we celebrated the fact that Maya got a promotion at work with an eXtra special meal, dinner at a local vegan restaurant that she loves, Millennium, in Oakland. She’s mostly vegetarian (pescetarian really, though she doesn’t eat fish very often), and has a vegan friend, and they sometimes go here for a special occasion. It’s expensive, but really good. On weekends, meals at Millennium are a Prix Fixe four course meal, including the amuse bouche. You pick from the full menu, an appetizer, entree, and dessert. As Ted doesn’t eat sugar, he had two appetizers instead. I’ll give you pictures and menu descriptions where I can, though the…
