-
What’s Wrong with this Picture?
(found here)
-
My Hollywood
Mona Simpson’s newest novel, My Hollywood, explores the relationship between upper-middle class and wealthy women in Santa Monica, and the women they hire to care for their children. Claire is a composer from New York, who moves to Santa Monica with her husband and baby so that her husband, Paul, can pursue his dream of writing TV sit-coms. She is successful enough, in that she is offered commissions, and receives a Guggenheim fellowship, and travels to New York to see a piece she has written performed. However, they are not wealthy by Santa Monica standards, they rent their home, and she doesn’t quite understand the money of the people around…
-
Walking with the ghosts of my ancestors…
Last week I went to Massachusetts on a business trip. It was my first time there. While I was there, attending meetings, listening to the CEO talk, working to plan the future of my company, there was a part of my brain that was wandering around outside, looking for old houses and gravestones. See, my great-grandmother’s side of the family comes from that part of the country. She was born in New Hampshire, near the Massachusetts border, and she and her family left for California in 1902. Several years ago, I dug into the world of genealogy, which is more obsessed and time consuming than blogging was 4 years ago…
-
Remarkable Creatures
Perhaps it was because of what had just happened to me, of the lightning that comes from inside, which made me open up to larger, stranger thoughts. Looking up at the stars so far away, I begun to feel there was a thread running between the earth and them. Another thread was strung out too, connecting the past to the future, with the ichie at one end, dying all that long time ago and waiting for me to find it. I didn’t know what was at the other end of the thread. These two threads were so long I couldn’t even begin to measure them, and where one met the…
-
What’s Wrong with this Picture?
I’ll tell you what’s wrong. It’s a Porsche. A Porsche Cayenne. Since when did Porsche get into the dorky car market? I thought Porsche was supposed to be sexy and fast and a fantasy car. This is SO not sexy or fantasy. Not sure if it’s fast. I saw one while I was out on my walk the other day, and I confess, I died a little bit inside. Porsche is driving fast at night under the full moon, top down. It’s tight corners and Risky Business and sex and loud music and fun. It’s hanging out at the ocean and smelling the salt air and hearing the waves. It’s…
-
Tracey Thorn ~ Love and Its Opposite
I’ve been listening to Tracey Thorn’s newest album, Love and Its Opposite, and the more I hear it, the more I like it. First off, Thorn has a gorgeous, lush voice. I don’t know if you were ever a fan of her joint venture with her (now) husband Ben Watt, Everything But the Girl, but I really loved their stuff back in the late 80s, especially Idlewild. Past her voice, though, are her lyrics. Together with the melodies, her music can really speak to me. Apron Strings so perfectly captured my baby lust in those years before we were emotionally and financially ready for a baby, but god, my hormones…
-
I’m good at…
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a meme. That part of blogging seems to have fallen away, like so much. Blogging has changed SO much. Anyway, I liked this idea, so I’m copying it from Issa at Issa’s Crazy World. I’m good at… ~ Cooking dinner ~ Loving my family ~ Being true to myself ~ Going to the store for paper towels and lunch meat, then coming home with $100 worth of groceries, and still, nothing for dinner ~ Being a friend…most of the time ~ Being a wife…most of the time ~ Being a mom…most of the time ~ Overreacting when someone upsets me ~ Getting…
-
Without Reservations: The Travels of an Independent Woman
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alice Steinbach took a year off from her job writing for the Baltimore Sun to travel around Europe in search of the self she remembers, not defined by a husband, her kids, or her career. She is hoping that by taking an entire year to travel, she can learn to slow down, to take one day at a time, without schedules or defined goals. There is something about taking your time in each city, perhaps focusing on your neighborhood and its rhythms, that is completely different than the type of rush in, see it all, rush out type of travel that most of us can afford. I’ve…
-
September 11 ~ Remembering Mr. Abad
Here we are again, and it’s September 11. Clearly this date will never be the same for any of us, just a simple day, perhaps a birthday or a wedding anniversary. Instead, we will all be brought back to that horrible morning in 2001, the day our lives changed. Back in 2006, I pledged to take part in the 2996 project, in honor of the 5th anniversary of that tragic day. Everyone who signed up was given a name of someone who died, and we promised to find something out about them, and write a bit about their lives, so that people will never forget them or what happened that…
-
Crossfire
I’ve been a fan of Dick Francis since being introduced to his work in 1987. I was at a friend’s house, and I was saying that I like horses, and horse racing, and her mom suggested that I might really enjoy his books. Normally I’m not a big fan of mysteries, but I was sucked in from the start. That first book was Break-In, after which I had to read Bolt, which had the same characters. Luckily, Francis had been writing for years, so I had a large library to go back and read. Francis and his wife were a team. Their mysteries did most often center around the world…
-
Sasa ~ Walnut Creek
Photo found here After a morning swim and a hot shower, I was lazing on the bed in my bathrobe, hair in a towel, with my book, trying to decide whether to read or perhaps have a nap, when Ted asked, “Would you like to go to lunch with me today?” “Maybe,” I said, thrown off because I was still kinda full from breakfast, and almost too lazy to bother with getting dressed, but as he showered, I thought about it and admitted to myself that the likelihood of my wanting to lie there all day in my robe without lunch was slim, so when he came out I said…
-
Cheese Fondue ala Left Bank
There’s a small chain of French bistro type restaurants in the Bay Area, Left Bank, which used to have a location in our neighboring town of Pleasant Hill. The rumor is that the owners of Left Bank decided to expand, opening one or two other restaurants (not branches of Left Bank, but another venture, I believe), right about when the recession hit hard. Suddenly quite short on cash, they closed two of their five locations, including the one near us. I was saddened by the loss, because Left Bank was one of my go-to restaurants when I wanted something delicious, semi-casual, and close by. I even went there once to…
-
Good Book
I heard about David Plotz’s “Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible” on To the Best of Our Knowledge, and it sounded like an interesting read. The premise is that Plotz was at his cousin’s Bat Mitzvah, and it was a long one, and he got bored, so he picked up the Bible and started reading. He opened randomly to the story of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, who was raped by a young man from a neighboring town, who then wishes to marry her. He and his idol-worshiping father go to Jacob to ask for Dinah’s hand. …
-
Firecracker Salmon
Back when my mom was in the hospital in Anchorage, One day I found myself looking for lunch outside of the hospital, and landed at a TGI Friday’s. There’s probably nothing wrong with TGI Friday’s, but it’s not a place that is really on my radar when I think of a place to go. But I had a really yummy dish called Dragonfire Salmon, which I enjoyed with a glass of wine before walking back to the hospital in the balmy February Alaska weather. It was nice. Enter Facebook, where I ‘like’ Barbecue & Grilling at About.com, because Ted’s cousin writes for them. He posted some grilled salmon recipes, one…
-
Fresh Summer Tomato Sauce
This has been a ridiculously cool summer here in Northern California. While the rest of the country swelters and bakes, it’s been unseasonably cold, with foggy nights, and many foggy days as well. I’m not complaining, because I love cool foggy weather, and besides, I suspect those of you melting back east would probably put a hit out for me if I did. So it was quite a shock to the system yesterday when the sun came out full force and decided that it really is actually August. It was either 98 or 104 yesterday, depending on whom you trust. It’s 101 outside right now, and it’s not quite 3:00…