denise

Daily Dose of Coffee and Water

2 Comments / Coffee & Tea, Foodie /

Last weekend was synchro weekend in south Florida. We took advantage of it and made a trip to the Whole Foodsin Coral Springs. Sort of boring, particularly in comparison to the newly opened Wild Oats in Tampa. Boring was good, it means we spent less money! Though I was annoyed with myself for not buying something that I knew RJ would be fascinated by. I ended up ordering it for her yesterday and had to pay shipping on it. Next time I’m tempted to impulse buy, I should follow my impulse. (I say this a lot because I almost never impulse buy, odd for someone who leads such an extravagant life. That’s me, a long line of contradictions.)

What I did buy while at Whole Foods was a selection of bottled waters and bottled teas. Some for me, some for Prince J, some just because. I’ve tried two so far – one surprisingly bad and the other surprisingly good. O2GO is the surprisingly bad one. It has absolutely no nutritional value, though it has a touch of orange flavor. The only bennie is the oxygen and last time I checked, I had plenty of that. The surprisingly good water was W2O – Water for Women. I bought the Tropical Samba flavor and expected not to like it. I liked it, a lot. Ended up drinking the entire bottle yesterday evening. I’m surprised it doesn’t have more calcium added, since it is bottled for women, but it makes up for that by having a ton of folic acid and all of the B vitamins a vegetarian could want and never get.

bloggerfuel.jpgNow about the coffee… TW received a package of Bloggers Fuel yesterday from Mr Bruce and the folks at Boca Java. This is nice enough but I’m just a little annoyed. I’m the one who signed up to test the coffees and blog the coffees, not TW. I’m the one who got the note from Mr Bruce saying he would ship my coffee soon. Yet TW is the one who received the blogger fuel kit with the coffee cup that makes me consider tossing my old faithful smiely mug aside. I’m sure Mr Bruce just got confused because TW has ordered stuff from him, because she and I share an address and because they seem to have some shipping issues in general. (TW’s box arrived in less than stellar condition but at least it did arrive.) Oh well, any coffee in this house is thoroughly tested by me and usually only by me. It’s the coffee that counts, not the shipping label, right?

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Daily Dose of Television – Troubadours

3 Comments / Sights & Sounds /

Amy Sherman-Palladino almost redeemed herself with last night’s Gilmore Girls – almost.  I was with her right up til the very end and then she blew it. 

The town full of troubadours – loved it so much I cannot even begin to tell you how much.  Taylor being unable to kick the bums out of town, awesome.  Luke calling and calling and calling and Patti and Baryshnikov was pure Gilmore Girls fab.  Rory getting put in her place by the vile Mitchum was almost worth the entire spoiled brat Logan storyline- almost.  The goodbye scene was nicely played by both Rory and Logan. FND was excellent.  The therapy scene in the driveway, not so great but ok.  Lorelai confronting Luke and then leaving – priceless.  But that last scene.  That very last scene.  Lorelai. Christopher. Gigi.  Not. Right. At. All.

Goodbye Palladinos,  it was good while it lasted, or until this season – let’s hope we have a better year in Stars Hollow, next year. 

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Daily Dose of Music – 6 for 6

4 Comments / GLBT, Melissa Ferrick, Sights & Sounds /

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Finally!  Melissa Ferrick has been promising a 6 for $6 download and it has arrived.  The songs are "new" and they are acoustic, which is cool.  (Melissa wound up playing my birthday show acoustic and I was really glad it worked out that way.)  They are also never going to appear on any ideal MF set list I might dream up. 

I’ve talked about some of these songs in previous posts about Melissa, (Click the Melissa Ferrick category link on the right sidebar if you want to see those entries.), so you know I’m not really all that thrilled with them.  On the otherhand, when Melissa sings "Standing up here singing my secrets", in Easy, it’s definitely the truth.  These songs, sans Rest Now, feel very much like she’s sharing her secrets. 

Rest Now is the only song of the six that’s different.  It isn’t about her.  It isn’t her story.  It isn’t her secret or her pain.  It’s a tribute to the late Chris Whitley.  It’s a good song.  I liked it the first time I heard her play it in a show, and the second time and I am enjoying this acoustic version as well.

If you’re a Ferrick fan you should grab the six now to tide you over til the album is finished – and that’s the kicker here, Melissa’s had a rough year and the money would go along way toward getting Never Give Up into our hands by the end of the summer or early fall.  If you aren’t a Ferrick fan, I don’t think I can recommend this six to you – choose one of the albums available in her store, instead to start you off.  (Other Side or Skinnier Faster Live  would work for you – preferably all three)

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Penelopiad

3 Comments / Favorites, Fiction /

OK I admit it, I just plain like Margaret Atwood. Yea, Oryx and Crake was a disappointment but I still liked it. And as I mentioned recently, I really enjoyed The Tent. So it’s probably not going to surprise you when I say that I really, REALLY enjoyed The Penolopiad on Sunday, is it? I haven’t read any mythology in awhile so this was an added treat. What did happen to the 12 maids? Was Penelope a female cult leader? Was she a slut? Fun stuff. I don’t know why sassymonkey didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. I’m also not sure where she gets that ‘feel sorry for them” thing. Were we suppose to feel sorry for Penelope or the Maids? What kind of Canadian woman doesn’t really like Atwood anyway? 😉


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Daily Dose of Stuff – Monday

3 Comments / Day to Day, Memories, Monday Meme, Toys & Games /

I’m jealous of Lee’s What is this doing in my house, Monday entry.  No fair! She should definitely send those to Florida!

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This little toy I’m sharing today has history, or more importantly, memories.  This was my grandmother’s and everytime we would visit, we’d pull it out of the blue cabinet and we’d make a huge mess with the chips and the decks of cards stored along with it.  Grandma didn’t have a whole lot of toys specifically for her grandchildren.  In fact she didn’t have any.  We played with her toys – the poker chips, huge jewely boxes of Sarah Coventry, her weird stuffed animals, odd little gadgets that I never understood but was fascinated by – and of course, the rubber/plastic fruit.

The "old fashioned" chips are missing from this but the chip caddy still makes me smile an awful lot – and that’s why this weird thing is in my house – finally! (My brother finally handed it over to me on my last trip to Charleston.  Now if he’d give up my secretary…)

Here are links to others playing the game – if you’re playing, feel free to add your link!

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Trigger, Trigger, Trigger

3 Comments / Don't Read This, Non-Fiction /

The only thing I can say about Girls of a Tender Age is that is one trigger after another.  Wait, I can say one other thing and it isn’t good.  Why would anyone read this book? Why did I read it?  Bad guy abuses and/or rapes very young girls and kills one in the process.  There was no mystery involved, we knew right off the bat that this guy was bad and he did the deed (or several deeds).  There was no redeeming social commentary.  It was just a recap of this horrible story, plain and simple.  Nothing we haven’t seen for ourselves or read in a newspaper.  It was almost boring, it was so normal and that is probably what bugs me most.  Don’t read it.  There’s just no reason to do so.

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Daily Dose of Cupcake Toppers

1 Comment / Cupcake Toppers /

In honor of Mir and Chickadee, this week’s installment of cupcake topper goodness kung fu fun, in a plastic bubble! Several search results indicated I could find both male and female martial arts toppers but upon click-thru I discovered a shortage of the female variety. Interesting. Lure us in with the promise of girls and then provide us only boys. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

karte.jpgIt looks like these little plastic bubble karate kids come in both genders and are cuter than the generic kung fu figure anyway.

Happy Birthday, Chickadee (and Mir!) and all you Karate Kids out there.

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Daily Dose of Education – Field Trips

4 Comments / Kid Talk, Memories, Travel Log /

TW is not at work today.  Instead, she  is sitting on a bus with a bunch of second graders watching her most favorite movie of all time, (ha), Madagascar!  The bus is on its way to the Florida Aquarium.  Don’t you just love field trips?  Or not?  I was trying to come up with some fun field trip memories and coming up a little bit empty which seemed odd,  but upon reflection it’s not so odd. 

When Jenn was in pre-school, Kinder and First Grade we lived in the Philippines.  No field trips, except for mini trips to various squadrons to see what the daddies (and the very rare mommy) did at work.  We were there during the time of Cori Aquino and there were constant shootings outside of the base, military members kidnapped, lots of security threats.  We traveled as a family while in the Philippines but buses full of school kids roaming the country was not something the DoD or the DoDDS wanted to deal with. 

Then we moved onto northern California and Jenn and Chris did manage to go on some field trips.  I attended very few which again seems odd until I think about it.  First issue – I had an infant and a husband who was gone all of the time and I didn’t then nor do I now do the daycare thing.  Second issue – I was really not all that into field trips at school because I was constantly taking a Girl Scout troop on some trip, somewhere. 

Then it was onto Panama (think Canal not Florida) where again the field trips were few and far between for both Chris and Jenn, which seems odd and upon reflection still seems odd.  There were some – to the canal, to Panama Viejo, to Summit Gardens but it seems like there weren’t too many.  Michelle was in pre-school, Kinder and First Grade and I did attend quite a few field trips with her class.  But again, I avoided field trips if I could because I was always taking a Girl Scout troop or a Cub Scout troop on some trip, somewhere. 

After that, New Jersey.  Ack.  More field trips for the kids in this location; Liberty Bell, Statue of Liberty, etc… I attended one trip to the Statue of Liberty and another to a farm and that’s about it.  Again the Girl Scout trip thing.

In SC and here in FL I avoided field trips completely, yea me!  My pre-teen/teen wasn’t all that hot for field trips in either location.  She has crowd issues and noise issues and by the time she hit 12, field trips held no fascination or fun – just anxiety.  I can understand that.  Being surrounded by noisy, over-excited kids can make it difficult to relax, to have fun, or to learn.

I’m betting TW comes home with lots of fun stories about the trip and I know E will.  And I’ll be almost jealous that I didn’t get to go.  Almost.

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Daily Dose of Stuff – Monday

4 Comments / Monday Meme, Religion /

Nuthinfancy is on vacation so I may be the only one posting "What is this doing in my house, Monday" but that’s ok because my entry is good.  And she’ll be sorry she went on vacation before seeing it… but first, some background so you understand why my entry is so "good…

Monday night I had some really odd dreams.  One of them was about, well, it was about Jesus.  I won’t go into the gory details but I will tell you that throughout the dream E and her rabbit sang "Jesus Loves Me".  I don’t think I’ve ever dreamt about Jesus before.  (have you?)  I have attributed the odd dream to the reading of Whale Season on Sunday (I finished it on Monday).  No, I’m not heading toward some spiritual crisis or finding my religion or anything else so don’t bother suggesting it.  Anyway, it was just weird enough that I didn’t really want to talk about it.  I did, however, find myself singing "Jesus loves me" off and on for a couple of days.  Also weird since that hasn’t happened since E was gifted with her Jesus loves me singing rabbit a year ago, at Easter of course.

Anyway, I was coming off of that weird dream and the weirder fixation on the song on Wednesday when today’s What’s this doing in my house Monday item popped onto my radar.  I headed to the backyard with the dogs, for some fresh air and to water the garden in hopes of keeping myself from saying a lot of things I didn’t really want or need to say.  Sounds like a good idea, right?  Right.  As I went out the back door and stepped over Chanel’s dog food bowl I noticed something IN Chanel’s bowl.  Odd.  Jakey has never allowed a trace of food to be leftover in either his bowl or hers so I looked more closely.  What the… What the heck is JOSEPH doing in Chanel’s bowl??

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Yes, it’s Joseph.  From a nativity.  It looks a little familiar but most Joseph’s from the nativity look alike to me, so I’m really not 100% sure this Joseph did come from one of our nativities.  I mean it must have, otherwise how would it have gotten into Chanel’s bowl?  But then again, how did it get there in the first place?  Four months after Christmas? When TW insists all decorations (shhh she’s troubled about last week’s Christmas tree photos) are put away before New Years? 

OK maybe the dogs dug into one of the decoration boxes without me noticing it.  That could happen because they are stored in the garage and the garage is a mess.  Let’s assume that happened.  Why just this one piece? Jake is a very thorough dog.  When he gets into something, he REALLY gets into it.  So why aren’t more decorations floating around the house?  Let’s pretend this was just "found" by one of the dogs and we somehow didn’t manage to get it put away to start with… so why no chew marks? teeth marks? drool?  on it?  I know you can’t tell from the picture but it’s really in ok shape considering it has definitely been removed from a nativity where it was once "glued" to the manger. 

It’s in my house and probably belongs here because TW has a fondness for the nativity.  But it’s weird that it appeared, out of nowhere, last week, in a dog food bowl.

What weirdness is in your house?

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Farewell Legs

2006, Books in Bed, Favorites, Mystery /

I’m officially moving the Aaron Tucker Mysteries to my favorites category. I thought Minivan was really amusing and A Farewell to Legswas equally amusing. OK maybe not equally, but pretty close. Remember, I just finished a Chris Moore book so anything I read immediately after that tends to be a let down. This wasn’t. It might have been the perfect book to read after A Dirty Job.

If you’re looking for an amusing mystery from the suburbs of Jersey, this is your series.

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