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At The Cusp of Woman and Black
February is Black History Month, and March is Women’s History Month, so here at the cusp I’m going to repost an oldie from my early days of blogging, about my personal hero, Harriet Tubman. Originally posted April 13, 2006. In yesterday’s post, which was a meme of six weird things about me, I mentioned that my personal real life hero is Harriet Tubman. I admire her for her grace, her courage, her determination, and her strength of conviction. She was a woman who wanted freedom, and found a way to attain it…once she had tasted the sweet flavor, however, she determined that she must free others, so she went back…
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Sunday Morning Randomness
My heart goes out to the people in Chile, in light of the 8.8 (!!!) magnitude earthquake that hit there this morning. 8.8 is HUGE. The largest I’ve felt was 7.1, later downgraded to 6.9, in October of 1989 in San Francisco, and I seriously thought we might die. So 8.8? CRAP. The difference in initial death estimates between this earthquake and the Haiti earthquake speaks to infrastructure and building code, I think. Meaning? Money. Countries that aren’t dirt poor have a better chance of surviving huge catastrophes than countries that are dirt poor. Same as it ever was. Um, what about the trainer who was killed by a killer…
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Healthy Choices
I recently read a book that I thought might be good for the parents of any teen. Especially girls, but boys as well. It was recommended to me by a friend, who was particularly impressed by the section on how dieting does NOT work, and that especially in teens who are still growing, it usually leads to the body ‘resetting’ at a higher weight. So teens who diet are likely to end up weighing more than they might have otherwise. Any teen thinking about going on a diet might think twice if given this information. This books appears to be mostly common sense, but completely against what the consumer culture…
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Strange Fruit
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs[/youtube] Strange Fruit Southern trees bear strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh! Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop. I had never heard this song before, nor did I know the story behind it. I was listening…
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Gung Hay Fat Choy!
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Mavericks
Down near Half Moon Bay (yes, very close to where we took the girl scouts to the beach a few weeks ago, but under totally different conditions) there is sometimes held a ‘Big Wave’ surfing competition called Mavericks. This year the waves appeared to be right, so the elite big wave surfers voted to hold the competition, and it was on, February 13, 2010. HUGE waves, 50 ft, which is five stories tall. You might think that if waves are going to be that big, people might stay away from the shore, but a couple of hundred people were swept off of their feet on Saturday morning, 15 of them…
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Gorgeousness and Gorgeousity
Where the heck does the time go? Maya will be 14 in 6 weeks. All grown up, yes? Admire the new hairdo. The cool pink and blue are gone, the lovely blonde highlights are in. In about 10 days, the braces come off. Those high school boys won’t know what hit them.
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Lamb Ragu with Mint
(photo found here, because I’m too lazy to take a picture of my own…) I saw Giada make this recipe on TV the other day, and I decided that I wanted to try it. Fortuitously, the next day, I saw an episode of America’s Test Kitchen where they talked about the problem with recipes such as this one, and they talked about how to correct it. So I put the two together, and made a killer Super Bowl Sunday pasta for our dinner. Really, really good. (Go Saints!) So, here’s Giada’s recipe, which varies slightly but (I think) critically from her cookbook: Lamb Ragu with Mint Ingredients * 1 pound…
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Jon Hamm as….SERGIO!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MADdGkWtbCw[/youtube] If you thought you loved him as Don Draper in Mad Men, wait until you see him as Sergio the Sexy Sax Player! Wait…I love Don more. Wait…Don’s an ass. I forgot.
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(Not) Lost Generation
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42E2fAWM6rA[/youtube] I got this in the email the other day. I liked it. See if you do, too.
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People of the Book
(page from the Sarajevo Haggadah found here) From Wikipedia, where you can also read the fascinating history of this beautiful book: The Sarajevo Haggadah is an illuminated manuscript that contains the illustrated traditional text of the Passover Haggadah which accompanies the Passover Seder. It is one of the oldest Sephardic Haggadahs in the world, originating in Barcelona around 1350. The Haggadah is presently owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, where it is on permanent display. The Sarajevo Haggadah is handwritten on bleached calfskin and illuminated in copper and gold. It opens with 34 pages of illustrations of key scenes in the Bible from creation through…
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Crappy One Pot Taco Soup
I have a confession to make. I like ranch dressing. I like it on my salad, on my pizza crusts, and on my fried zucchini or mushrooms. Yummy. I like to mix the powdered dry mix in with turkey to make turkey burgers, or make oven fried chicken with it. So I came across this recipe via Yahoo the other day. One of those “5 nights of meals” articles, and this was one of the recipes. Doesn’t it look good? Don’t be fooled. For one thing, the recipe they linked to doesn’t have tortilla chips, cilantro, OR sour cream, and it has red meat, not chicken or turkey or whatever…
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Lovely Weekend
(Pescadero State Beach, gorgeous photo found here) This weekend, I joined Maya and her girl scout troop camping at Camp Butano, in lovely Pescadero, California. Pescadero is just south of Half Moon Bay, and we were fortunate to get perfect weather. The girl scout camp at Butano is way off the beaten path, with a creek babbling nearby. We arrived on Friday night, and layed low there. Then on Saturday we went to the beach, where we had a lovely picnic, including a loaf of amazing artichoke garlic herb bread, which was hot out of the oven. We happened to be there as the tide was going out, and there…
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Friday Dog Blogging
(photo found here) Did anyone else see this story yesterday, about the poor dog that floated 75 miles down Poland’s Vistula River and into the Baltic Sea, and was lucky enough to be rescued by some Polish scientists doing research? The story is here. There’s video as well. The story is that firemen in a town about 60 miles inland saw the dog floating down the river, and they tried to rescue him, but were unable to get close due to the shifting ice. Eventually he drifted out to sea, where the research boat came upon him. The rescue was somewhat harrowing, because the dog slid off of the ice…
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Missing my Mom
I was brought to tears this morning by Jon Carroll’s tribute to his mother-in-law, who died last week at the age of 98. I started crying, thinking of how sad his wife, Tracy, must be at losing her mother. (Really? Was I really crying for Tracy, whom I do not know? In an abstract way perhaps. But mostly, no. Mostly I was crying for me.) And then I started crying harder, because I still miss my mom so very much. I had to wonder, how is it different to lose your mother when she’s 98 than it is when she’s 66? When she’s 98, people are pretty much expecting it,…