October 2009

Ghost stories

October 31, 2009

Now, I’m not a believer, as you know, but… Who’s to say there are no ghosts? When I was pregnant with M’hijito, his father and I lived in beautiful high-ceilinged old house in an elegant midtown historic neighborhood. Being centrally located and full of pretty 1920s and 30s homes, the area was very hot with [...]

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Zombie consumerism may take book publishing down

October 30, 2009

If you enjoy reading and you like your reading matter on paper, not in little lights on a screen, you need to know what is happening to the people who bring novels and nonfiction to you. The following post, originally published in the October 2009 issue of Southwest Signature, is by Bill Fessler, president of [...]

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w00t! Budget success!!!

October 29, 2009

The American Express bill  arrived today. Hot dang! Just a little over $1,000!! That’s within easy shooting distance of the $1,000/month post-Canning Day figure I’ve set for total discretionary spending (i.e., all costs that are not recurring monthly bills), and it’s well below my current $1,200/month budget. And that’s without even trying very hard! Last [...]

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Get OFF the flickin’ PHONE!

October 28, 2009

This morning as I was strolling home from the daily walk with La Maya, a woman passed me in her car on a neighborhood road. She caught my  attention because she was driving too fast for a residential street. She had both hands off the wheel and her eyes off the road while she pawed [...]

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Mansef: A Middle-Eastern feast dish

October 27, 2009

Arabs cook meat—most often lamb, goat, or chicken—with a variety of aromatic spices and then add yogurt to make an ineffably delicious sauce. The feast based on this dish is called mansef. Recently in my collection of magazine and newspaper clips I came across a late 1960s Americanized version of mansef. Authentic mansef is boiled [...]

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Another little roommate

October 26, 2009

{sigh} A new little rat has moved in behind the washer and dryer, out in the garage. She (I’ve decided it’s a girl, for no good reason) was wooed by the garbage, which I keep in the garage, just on the other side of the kitchen door. She’d carried various delicacies to her dining table [...]

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