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Frou Frou ~ Holding Out for a Hero & Let Go
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvRveRCx-lM[/youtube] Any Bjork fans out there? We used to listen to a lot of Bjork, both on her own and as a member of The Sugarcubes. Frou Frou reminds me of a cross between Bjork and the electronica songs by Everything But the Girl. I think the first song I heard them perform was a remake of “Holding Out for a Hero”, which I believe was on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. I immediately recognized the song as being from “Footloose”, because I not only saw the movie a million and one times way back when, but I owned the “Footloose” soundtrack. I went looking for a youtube video, and couldn’t…
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Friday Dog Blogging
Hi Everyone, this is Genevieve! I haven’t written to you in awhile, because I’ve been busy. Busy doing what? Well, sniffing, pooping (in the house yesterday…my bad!), licking the floor, napping, eating, rubbing my face on the furniture, wondering why I can’t sleep on the bosses’ beds, sneaking up to sleep on the bosses’ beds, having a few baths (which takes away my fierce smell and leaves me smelling like sham’s poo! The humiliation!), thinking about my mommy, and taking walks. It’s the walks I wanted to tell you about today. You see, I am a very lucky girl, and I am grateful for every day. I get a nice…
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Buzara di scampi
If you’ve been paying attention, you may have noticed that I’ve started watching America’s Test Kitchen in the early afternoons. Or, more accurately, Cooks Country, which is the latest season. I love it. After America’s Test Kitchen comes Lidia’s Italy, which is a great cooking show, and one that sometimes gives me some great ideas. One day last week, I saw Lidia make this lovely shrimp dish, which she suggested sopping up with bread, but in the notes said could also work well with a pasta. So I tried it a day or so later, using the pasta variation. My verdict? So-so. Just not enough flavor. But it seemed like…
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Enchiladas Verdes
I definitely have a fondness for Mexican food. Chiles Rellenoes (as long as they’re not the ultra cheesy kind), tacos, burritos, fajitas, chili, enchiladas, I love them all. And while I enjoy cheese enchiladas with red sauce, I love the verdes sauce. Love. If I weren’t already married, I’d marry it. Well, maybe that’s overstating it a bit…but it’s great on black bean enchiladas, as from the Greens Cookbook. It’s good on chicken and cheese using a canned sauce. Easy and good. Well, one advantage of unemployment is that after I look for work, I can watch TV, read a book, or take a nap. Lately I’ve been watching America’s…
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Wordless Wednesday ~ “Water please” edition
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Wordless Wednesday ~ Pic from a Memorial Day Picnic in the Park
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The Hearts of Horses
Horse books for kids and young adults are fairly common. I was a huge horse book fan as a kid, some of my favorites being Black Beauty, The Black Stallion series, and Smoky the Cow Horse. I had dreams of becoming a kind, caring, gentle horsewoman, and of having that wonderful bond with my horse that is described in these books. The reality is, though, that horses are a lot of money, and a lot of work, and if you’re not going to spend a lot of time with them, you’re better off not having one. So at least thus far in my life, no horse. When I came…
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Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch – Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dY5v9tt62IY[/youtube] We’re up to E on our A to Z Music Monday Meme. There are plenty of great options for ‘E’. I thought of Evanscence, Eurythmics, and Everything But the Girl. (The links all go to the songs I probably would have chosen, on Grooveshark) But instead, I decided to go for Emmylou Harris, even though I don’t really know her music. I do know she worked with Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch on this very sexy song that the Sirens used to draw Ulysses and his mates to the rocks in “O Brother, Where Art Thou”. He wasn’t smart enough to have himself lashed to a mast, so I…
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Earth Day ~ A Day Late and a Dollar Short
I heard this poem read on NPR the other day, and it really struck me. It struck me of the beauty of our world, of the importance of our caring for it. Of our stewardship of this Earth. I know I’m late, and that Earth Day was April 22nd. But still, our Earth does not deserve just a day. But a lifetime. An eternity. It’s not just some fruity tree hugger thing I’m talking about here…save the Earth, save the world. Meaning….us. ‘The Well Rising’ by William Stafford The well rising without sound, the spring on a hillside, the plowshare brimming through the deep ground everywhere in the field —…
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Tasty Roast Chicken with Potatoes
Since I’ve been enjoying watching America’s Test Kitchen lately, and we really enjoyed the juicy and delicious French Chicken in a Pot, I thought I would snoop around and see if I couldn’t find an ATK recipe for a roast chicken with crispy skin that also stays juicy. The only problem is that ATK only gives their recipes away for free for the current season. For past seasons, you have to pay for a registration, which I’m not really interested in doing right now. Thankfully, there are plenty of people on the internet who post recipes, so I was able to find this one, and we had it for dinner…
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ABC Music Monday ~ David Bowie and David Gilmour
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM0Pl80Zf00[/youtube] I was having a hard time with picking a ‘D’ here…I mean, David Bowie was my first husband, so of course, loyalties should go there. But I also love Depeche Mode, and Dire Straits have always been a huge favorite. What’s a girl to do? So I was toying with the idea of blowing them all off, and putting up David and David’s Welcome to the Boomtown. Went searching for “David and David” on YouTube, and came across this live duet of David Bowie and David Gilmour performing Comfortably Numb at the Royal Albert Hall, and I couldn’t pass it up. The Wall was such an amazing, amazing album,…
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Small Island
“But for me I had just one question – let me ask the Mother Country just one simple question: how come England did not know me?” This is the question asked by the baffled Gilbert, one of the protagonists of Small Island, Andrea Levy’s award winning tale of the first wave of Jamaicans to come to England after World War II. Gilbert is confused, because while any young student in Jamaica can recite the canals of England, the roadways, the ports, the railways, the docks, while they memorize the Parliaments and the laws that were debated there, while they take great pride in their mother country, the English that they…
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Friday Wrap Up
It’s been a busy week…I didn’t do much posting this week, did I? The Thursday 13 took me forever, because I couldn’t find the time to scan pictures. And even then, I had some pictures for some of the places that I didn’t post, because I couldn’t be bothered. OK, I could be bothered, but not much. More interested in napping and cooking dinner in my free time. And I didn’t have a lot of free time this week…Monday is exercise day…long walk, then video work out, then yoga, and by the time I get home at noon, I’m ready for a nap, and then it’s time to pick up…
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Thursday 13 ~ Places I’ve Seen
Michelle at Scribbit has had two posts recently, one of places she would like to see, and one of places she has already seen. What a fun idea! So I’m ripping her off, and trying this one too. Several of my selections are here in California. Born in Berkeley, raised for a few years in Alaska and then the Central Valley of California, college in San Francisco, and now raising our daughter in the Bay Area suburbs. I’ve seen a few places outside of the United States, but for now, I’ll stick stateside. Though not only lower 48, as it were. 1. Monterey, California. If I could afford it, I’d…
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Cowboy Junkies ~ Sun Comes Up, It’s Tuesday Morning
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6k4ZYjW-cA[/youtube] Some music hits you with its beat, or the melody, or the way the guitar and the bass work together…and sometimes a song hits you because of the absolute poetry of the lyrics. I’m not talking “Jump” here. But there are a handful, at least, of artists who can truly paint a picture, a beautiful picture of real life and honesty and pain and loss and love, something that touches your heart. A few examples, for me, are Simon and Garfunkel, Aimee Mann, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, and Texas. Another is The Cowboy Junkies. This song, especially, evokes a certain feeling. The bittersweet feeling of loss at the end…
