(1) Let’s see, today, for our main meal the Husband and I ate a melange of five left over dishes from the last two days, or three. Or, four. Garbanzo butternut soup, couscous with chimichurri sauce, sauteed onion and squash, ground turkey   burgers, and roasted red and green peppers. The flavors blended quite well together, surprisingly and with great relief. We ate our portions all up. No leftovers, hurrah! (2) To go along with our meal I concocted an ooh-la-la drink. Passion fruit juice with a jigger of rum. Ooh la la! (3) The Husband and I toasted to the last day of our 25th year of marriage. Tomorrow: Hello 26th!  Clink, clink.   (4) Maybe next year we will be dancing with our friends and family to celebrate our 27th anniversary. I also would like us to throw a party for the septuagenarians among us. We shall see. (5) The last two weeks I’ve been working on my entries for the county fair. That’s some of the craft entries in the photo above.  (6) Yep, that’s a jui...

(1) How hot is it? Well, the Husband is wearing a tank shirt and shorts and walking around the house barefoot. I pretty much do that every day, but not him. (2) It has been seven days of temperatures in the high 90s and triple digits! The iPad won’t charge any further than 80 percent when it’s this hot. If the weather guys are to believed, we’ll feel the last of 100+ degrees today. Knock on wood, cross my fingers. This excessive heat is uncommon for our area. I’m thankful it’s unaccompanied with oppressive humidity. (3) We’ve managed to get by without the the air conditioner or heading to a cooling center. Doing the old-fashioned practice of closing and opening curtains to the sun and staying inside have made it bearable. It also helps that we have a big shady tree in front and a bunch of fruit trees in the back.  (4) We’re one of the few homes that have mature trees on our street. I wouldn’t be surprised if some neighbors wished we’d remove our trees. Earlier this year, a neighbor...

(1) This morning we walked around the block. Definitely a big deal for me who haven’t done much walking. I’ve been getting my exercise playing in the garden, hauling, digging, bending, reaching, pulling, and so forth and so on. I also got a good workout vacuuming the stairs last week.  There’s nothing like stretching my legs though. Best of all, my knees didn’t pop and cough until I took my shoes off, thank you very much. Yeah, I’m still waiting for my turn with the knee surgeon. (2) Other than in my head,  I haven’t felt much like writing. Thus, my latest absence.  (3) It took me awhile to start letting go about feeling guilty for not writing, which I’ve been doing for fun and for a living most of my life. The latter, unnecessary for the present, thankfully. I’m rambling.  (4) Once upon a time, one of my high school teachers told me I could never be a writer because I ramble too much. She, with her bra strap constantly peeking out of her sleeveless blouse. The wise ...

At the moment, I’m one of those old retired people who get up just before sunrise and do a bunch of stuff before breakfast. This morning I did a load of laundry, pruned more dead branches off a woody rose bush, washed a bucket full of flat stones, planted geranium vine cuttings, and weeded the Husband’s Three Sisters patch. All within two hours. I’ve also been dawdling for the past two hours at the breakfast table. Fun! So, what will I do for the rest of the day? There are many possibilities. Paint a few planters Read about estate planning. Dust and vacuum upstairs. Find the bags of dried rose hips and plant some in pots. Pick fruit up high on the avocado tree. Reorganize the collection of stuff I use for making greeting cards. Pull fabric scraps together for a patchwork tablecloth. Write a letter to a friend. File last year’s receipts. Fill in my passport application. Draft the second story about Daddy. Experiment with making concrete sculptures. Do research at Ancestry.com. Or, none ...

Being that July is Daddy’s month, many of my posts this month will be about him. Today’s post is the first, about his early life. I wish I knew a lot more. We both were born in the lunar year of the Snake, Daddy, 48 years before me. Daddy’s baptismal document, his only formal proof of birth, was written in Spanish. It states that the infant being baptized on July 25, 1905 had been born ten days earlier.  Daddy was baptized on the feast day of St. James, aka Santiago. I speculate that Daddy’s parents may have named him such because of the day.  It is possible that my grandparents also chose Santiago because that’s the name of their town. Santiago, Ilocos Sur, along the western coast on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. In my whole life with Daddy, we celebrated his birthday on July 25. Did he know his real birthdate? I can’t recall. He did enjoy celebrating his birthday with a big traditional Filipino party, that always included a roasted pig, which he turned on a spit fo...

1. I saw an ad this morning stating “Stay hydrated with custom drinkware!” Your name, a motto, or catch phrase in cutesy, swirly letters will get you to drink sufficient water everyday to keep from being horribly dehydrated.  2. Only 12 to 25 dollars, depending on the kind of drinkware. It reminded me of Mama saying “Those business people know what they are doing.” Followed by “They do not fool me.”  3. The Husband just read a headline aloud about the Texas legislature voting on secession. Go ahead, Texas. Be your own country. See how far you get on your own.  4.   Should Texas manage to separate itself from the Union, which is illegal and considered treason, with what countries would Texas align? Russia?  I read that Texas has the 10th largest economy in the world, even more than Russia.   5. Would there be an exodus of radical right to Texas?   Would an independent Texas go back to condoning slavery?  What would happen to Austen? 6. Yesterd...

This morning  I read an article about procrastinators not being lazy people. Quite the opposite, according to some experts of human behavior. That’s good to now. Procrastination, I know it well. Today, for instance, I didn’t get around to writing what I planned to share with this week’s Thursday 13 , but I did sew a pocket on a putter-around-the-house shirt, as well as turn its long sleeves into short ones. That, according to those experts is a common ploy with procrastinators, to distract oneself with a different task or project.  Here are 13 synonyms for procrastinate from Merriam-Webster: dawdle poke plod shilly-shally  fool around delay slow up mope dilly dally tarry loll decelerate filibuster That last synonym was a surprise. The shoe does fit for a certain party in the Senate. Okay, off to  Thursday 13   I go to check out more lists of 13. Come join me.  

1. Nobody wants to hear about mass shootings. La la la la la la. 2. I’m rambling and researching about the subject as I write. So thankful, I am, for the Internet. It would be so easy for me to be a recluse, a hermit, an eccentric, a looney tune. Thank goodness for the Husband! Though, it would be easy for him, too. See, rambles. 3. Guns don’t kill, grump some gun owners. I suppose those people merely have guns for display behind beautiful etched glass doors. “Ooh, isn’t that the cutest gun,” I could say if I was shown such a private display. May that not ever be. 4. “Bah! I’ve got my rights to own guns. Says so in the Constitution, you libtard, Nazi, socialist, communist hussy.” That’s what I imagine some grump, hand on firearm of choice, could shout at me. At my senior age, I may not mind being called a hussy. There goes yon hussy. Waddle, waddle, venture I.  5. The imaginary grump can thank the late Justice Scalia for re-interpreting the Second Amendment to make possession of a ...

1. Who is snacking on the sunflowers? They only started sprouting a few days ago. A happy thing because the seeds were several years old.  2. Was it the snails? the slugs? the aphids? the birds? the squirrels?  3. I don’t mind sharing some of the sprouting sunflowers with the bugs and such, but not all. 4. If the offenders could only read, I’d post a sign to tell them “No More for You! Move along!” 5. The experts say that the scent of marigold drives aphids away, so this morning I planted marigolds near the sprouting sunflowers. You go, marigolds! 6. It turns out marigolds attract slugs and snails. Make marigold plants your sacrificial lambs, say some experts. The snails and slugs will feast on the leaves and flowers at night to be easily picked off come morning.  7. “Marigold or sunflower?” asked one snail to another. “Smelly thick leaves or young tender shoots?” 8. We shall see to tomorrow which the snails and slugs liked. 9. If I get my act together this evening, I’ll ...

For awhile, I lived longer in San Francisco than in Hollister where I was born and raised. I moved away at 19 years old to study at San Francisco State University. A couple of times, I moved back to Hollister for a few months. The  first time I couldn’t handle being on my own, and the second time it was because I took the concept of being a good daughter too seriously. When I realized my parents were essentially okay about me having a Mary Tyler Moore single girl life in the big city, off to San Francisco I scrambled to live and work thereabouts for another 24 years. During those 30 years, I moved 13 times. In San Francisco, I had 11 different addresses, all rentals: 28th Avenue in the Outer Sunset district Clement Street in the Outer Richmond Theresa Street in Mission Terrace, right across from a freeway. This is where I learned to pretend that freeway traffic sounded like ocean waves. Byxbee Street in Merced Heights, a couple blocks from college Balboa Street, near Ocean Beach, i...

  For Thursday 13 , I’m saying Hope  in 13 languages that are significant in some way to me. In my parents’ language, Ilokano, it is Namnama . In Tagalog, the national language of the Philippines, hope is Pag-asa . In Welsh, of which Ancestry.com says I am one percent, it is Gobaith . Besides English, these languages figured among the foreign traders, missionaries, immigrants, and colonizers who lived and worked in the Philippines during centuries past. Here’s how to say hope in these five lenguas: Harapan in Malay Amal’an  in Arabic Hi-bāng  in Hokkien Esperanza in Spanish Itxaropena  in Basque In Gaelic, hope is Dóchas . This language, both in Ireland and Scotland, was spoken by some of the Husband’s ancestors. The First Husband was of Korean ancestry; in his parents’ tongue, hope is  Huimang . Mana’olana is hope in Hawaiian and Speranza in Italian, which are two languages I simply like. And, lastly, hope in Ukranian is Spodivatysya ! For more T...

Last August, I was trying to keep tabs on what I was eating so I dedicated a notebook for my food log. That lasted a week or so before the notebook became a place to note recipes I liked in books and on food sites and blogs. I actually wrote the recipes, the ingredient list precisely, the instructions in my own words.  And, what do you know: I really made the dishes. Here are 13 dishes that I’ll definitely make again, modifying as I go. “Quick-Fridge Pickles” from The Pickled Pantry by Andrea Chesman “Pan-fried Pork Chops” from Amusing Foodie  “Homemade Tomato Sauce” from Cook with Me by Alex Guarnaschelli “Easy Freeze Salsa” from Dogwoods and Dandelions “Seriously Fudgy Homemade Brownies” from Sally’s Baking Addiction   “Beef and Mushroom Stroganoff”    from Gimme Some Oven  “Cheesy Tomato Mozzarella Caprese Dip” from The Cookie Rookie  “Easy Paleo Lemon Curd” from Real Foods with Jessica   “English Onion Soup with Sage and Cheddar”, a Jame...

Yesterday, I went grocery shopping and was rather surprised how prices have soared since the last time I visited the store. It couldn’t be more than 10 days. Did I really see $12-something for aluminum foil? Ouch.  I’m participating in Thursday 13 .  Check it out. My 13 things today are the foods I like to keep on hand to create mish-mash dishes quickly.  garlic—fresh, dried, powder, and spring onions fresh or frozen tomatoes miso gochujang, a Korean chili paste rice pasta beans, especially garbanzos and black beans eggs kippers  linguisa frozen green peas cheeses, particularly sharp cheddar, mozzarella, and Monterey Jack

  1. This morning I went all the way down the stairs on my feet, without a gasp or flinch from my knee. Yay! I had been making my way down on my butt. Thump. Thump. Thump.  2. The first morning I bumped down the stairs, Missy Molly the pinky-nosed (wilde) Cat tried to help me at one point. She actually got behind me and pushed on my back. Such a sweetie!  3. The Husband has been carrying and fetching stuff for me. He also reminds me to stop doing things I ought not to be doing.  I'm still not used to be taken care of. You'd think after three surgeries in the last four years, I would be.   4. Between the Husband and me, we have had six surgeries since Mama died in 2016. The Husband got a pacemaker, I had my reproductive system removed, and we both had cataract surgeries for our eyes.  5. Molly says don't forget me. "I was the first one to have surgery, miao, miao." Poor baby. She had dental surgery, a month after Mama's Spirit moved onward and upward....

1. It's a gorgeous day. What mischief can I do today? 2. The lower end of the front yard is looking like a meadow. The first poppy showed itself yesterday.   3. The tree is an ornamental pear. About 20 years old, more or less, it is. It sheds leaves like crazy throughout the year. The last two weeks it has been snowing white blossoms. 4. I'm 10 days into a detox diet for eczema. The regiment is not so bad. No dairy, no gluten, no sugar, no caffeine, no no Nanette. I look forward to adding foods back.  5. A few days ago I decided to stop using the immunosuppressant ointment a dermatologist prescribed couple years ago. I had used it sparingly so hopefully the withdrawal symptoms won't be terrible. You should've seen how horrible my face looked when I stopped topical steroids.  6. Molly the pinky-nosed (wilde) Cat came home to live with us nine years ago.  The girl loves to stop and smell the flowers. 7. A load of laundry is in the dryer.  The Husband just cam...