So, Watcha Been Readin’, Watchin’, or Generally Doin’?
Saturday Afternoon Book Group in Front; Naps in Back; TV’s for Basketball Available.
Your Host is Maryb. And you are . . . ?
Newbies and Lurkers come on in and introduce yourselves.
Newbies and Lurkers come on in and introduce yourselves.
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Newspapers are in their regular spot next to the door
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Please recommend (and unrecommend the Cafe/Lounge from earlier)
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Make somebody’s day better – Give them a 4.
Watcha reading this week? I’m three quarters of the way through A Thousand Days in Tuscany by Marlena de Blasi. It’s her memoir and, since she’s a food writer, at the end of many chapters she includes a recipe. Here’s one even I could make:
That sounds like a really good book. Love reading about Tuscany — especially food! How are things in the frogpond today?
It’s been a quiet Saturday.
I love reading about Tuscany too. I’m in the middle of planning a trip to Italy in September. Either Tuscany or Umbria. So this is getting me in the mood.
That sounds really lovely!
Tuscany reminds me of Sunflowers. There are fields of Sunflowers all over Tuscany.
Any new flower pics this week?
Nothing too new — uploaded a few that I had in my queue. This is one of the most recent:
Daylily, taken 7.19.2005 (view large)
While I was getting the above img url, I looked at some of the flickr photos tagged tuscany — including a beautiful sunflower shot. It’s a beautiful place: tuscany.
Beautiful in small, but when I click larger it’s magnificent. I feel like I could touch the screen and it would have that velvety flower feel.
And that field of sunflowers you linked to is wonderful! I think they’ll all be harvested by the time I go in September. Too bad.
I hope that you’ll take lots of pix for us! We sure seem to love photos here in the Cafe lol.
Do you think the Andi and Jim will make an appearance this evening? I’m going out tonight so might miss them.
I don’t know what time they get back, Andi just said they were coming back Saturday night. I’m hoping they check in for a little bit. Jim can start working on picking out the pictures they want to share with us tomorrow!
I doubt I’ll take many of my own pictures in Italy, I’m not much for taking them. One time I went to London/Paris and the guy I went with came back with 23 rolls. I came back with 3 pictures (not rolls). It’s become a joke.
But I’m going to Italy with a bunch of people so I’m sure I’ll have all I want.
See, you just have to say our names — and not go out so that you miss us.
of a daylily. I have never been fond of them. This picture makes me want to plant the things somewhere.
I stand by my accusation that you have supernatural powers.
Did you know that you can eat these? Thanks to Puget4 who told me that, I went googling and found out that you can put the petals in salad, or you can stuff and bake them, or eat the unopened flowers like sugar snap peas! I’m thinking they’ll make a really colourful salad this summer when entertaining visitors. 🙂
Be sure to post the recipe over at E4T 😀
Awesome flower photo, wow! Up close and personal….
I just got done reading The Third Secret by Steve Berry. NYT bestseller, supposed to satisfy fans of The Da Vinci Code (which I haven’t read). There were some interesting historical details about Marian visions, but other than that I didn’t care for it. I thought the plot was weak and the characters sort of shallow. There was a romantic subplot and I just didn’t buy it.
Thats’ actually how I felt about the Da Vinci code.
Well, I sort of enjoyed Angels and Demons, so I’ll probably give it a try when it’s in paperback.
To me it was like a weak Robert Ludlum novel. If you’ve read those kinds of thrillers you pretty much could predict who was going to end up being the bad guy and the plot twists. The only original part was the context.
Yeah, I’m probably more forgiving. I’m addicted to the genre (mysteries, not thrillers, but they sometimes cross over).
Weak plot and shallow characters can be made up for with good pacing. Brown does seem to have that.
Me, too, I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t find the writing all that engaging. Wonder what’s happening with the plagiarism lawsuit?
This week I also read Averno, a new book of poetry by Louise Gluck. According to the notes, “Averno” is a small crater lake located in the south of Italy that was thought by the ancients to be the entrance to Hades. Appropriately, some of Gluck’s poems reflect upon the myth of Persephone, the daughter of the Ceres, the goddess of the harvest, who was abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Ceres’ rage at the abduction is so great that Hades returns Persephone for six months of the year (spring and summer). During the six months that Persephone is in Hades, Ceres refuses to allow the growing season and autumn and winter occur.
Here is one of the poems, which is from Persephone’s POV, something we rarely see:
Quick Nap….
Did 3 tax returns this morning…1 later. No reading except blogs and tax code and work….so a nap today then a birthday party for a cute couple tonight…she’s turning 60 and her sweet young thing is turning 55!
Yippee for CA delis! A 10″ round by 3″ high veggie sushi tray for $25 or less! No cooking for me for this potluck!
I’ll drop by after my nap…
Where did you get that? Way too cute for words!
I spent all day packing as much as I could cram into a Hertz Toyota Minivan. You can really get a lot of stuff in there after you figure out how to get the seats out, which is the hard part. I finally had to take it to the Toyota dealership where at least they could decipher the instruction book.
So I’m taking my life apart and it’s in pieces all around me. I have faith that all those pieces are attracted to each other in just the right way so that they will reassemble effortlessly and it will be business as usual just a few weeks down the road from now.
Obviously, I won’t miss anything about my toxic work situation, but — back in LA LA Land — I will greatly miss walking out my door into beauty beyond description.
BTW — Thanks for all of the moral support through these dark times my fellow pond dwellers!
We’ll miss these shots when you get back to LaLa land but having you happier is more important. When do start DRIVING the minivan?
Tomorrow morning. I am giving a ride to an 85 year old friend of mine so she ccan visit her son in Pasadena. Then I have 3 job interviews Monday Tuesday Wednesday… keep your fingers crossed!
How many hours by car?
Six to eight hours from Monterey to Los Angeles. Depending on traffic and how much rest time you need. It’s just a little over 300 miles.
sounds like a good idea. 😉 Home from the erranding — bought some stuff for the Big Trip, had breakfast/lunch out (meaning spouse had breakfast, I had lunch — once it gets past 11am, I’m out of breakfast mode and into lunch mode), picked up some fresh bagels for the week 🙂 and did a bit of grocery shopping. A relatively fruitful day, but now I’m exhausted.
Unfortunately, missed the Stanford women’s team trouncing of Oklahoma (yay!); they play LSU on Monday to go to the women’s Final Four in Indianapolis. And I’ll probably substitute hockey for basketball in the above equation — Sharks are on in a couple of hours. 🙂
As for books, I should get started on Michael Lerner’s The Left Hand of God, which is the book club selection for April over at Street Prophets…May’s selection is Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens, which looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun… 🙂
(Ah, mail arrived — spouse got the copy of his birth certificate from King County WA! Now I need to hoof it up to San Mateo County to get mine…)
a quick “Thank you!” shoutout to Dada for his excellent link for transferring vinyl and cassette for the computer. I’ve got the pages bookmarked and will probably tackle that project sometime this summer after vacation. Not only do we have a ton of vinyl records in storage (most of which aren’t available on CD), I know the in-laws have some as well they might like transferred to CD. And my brother-in-law is an amateur guitarist/songwriter (his arms got wrecked out from sheet metal work, so he can’t play for too long at one time); he’s got tons of cassettes with his original compositions, and I’d like to offer my help in putting them on CDs for him (once we get the master CDs done, he can copy them on his dad’s Dell computer that has dual CD drives, one that records as well as plays). Figure I’ll have him come down for a day, he and the spouse can watch WWF or soccer or something while I’m working, and I’ll cook up a batch of chili (he actually said likes my chili better than his mom’s, high praise) or ribs or something in the slow cooker — might actually make a good birthday present for him next December, in fact… 🙂
Okay, now I’m off to nap…
Well LSU ran away with that game in overtime.
Is everyone still napping with Family Man? Wake Up! (Cali excluded since she’s on the left coast).
here, was fun. And even though I stuck to O’Doules Amber last night I’ve still been draggin’ butt all day. Dang! It’s tough to be “young.”
Good thing about all that was I missed the male private parts being harvested for science by anna in one of today’s earlier FBCs. Wheewww!!!
Well, it was really Second Nature who brought the topic up. But it took Anna to really put the whole thing in perspective 🙂
I clicked through your link. That sounds like it was fun. You’ll get your second wind. I know you.
ya don’t suppose she’s one of those “instigators” my high school English teacher was warning us about.
Yes, she was one of those that your teachers told you to stay far away from, thereby insuring that you would be tempted to hang out with her.
The concept of “reverse psychology” must have been postulated subsequent to those times…
know “Back Home Again in Indiana” because I can’t sing for shit.
You’re home! Time for the party to start…
The F’s are back home in the pond so its time for an F-ing party. Come on over.
I’m started here! And patiently waiting for the Fs photos to load, ha!