Brain Chimney

Just a few tastes of a Saturday in the City

Vegetable Packets at the House of Nanking:
Bitter:Sweet playing at the North Beach Jazz Festival:
Some clowning around at an N-Judah train stop :

Playing tourist in my new hometown:

Slightly Sideways*

A lazy, slow sunny Sunday afternoon filled with good wine in the slightly sideways(*) Napa...yum. 

I am looking a bit dazed and sun-tired here, with lips a teensy-bit too stained from red wine:

Vineyards...

More Randomnalia--All Over the Place!

• Despite being car-free for a little less than ten years now, my slight-obsession with tiny cars continues.  Submitted as Evidence: Another picture of vintage Mini; this one in the Haight with a parking meter for perspective on size.

  

• The upside of high gas prices?  Shopping locally and supporting small-business owners!

• **Uh, hello, anybody there Reverend Jesse Jackson???**  Could you possibly be more of an ignoramus?  Really?!  I think not! 

Where the hell was your brain when you said (supposedly off-Mic) that Obama should be castrated? 

Why in the world would a black man suggest that another black man be castrated in light of the fact that black men were often castrated before they were lynched?

Ugh, and so much more that I dare not say here...Let me just say, that the Rev. Jesse Jackson made a fool of himself.

• In a related vein, I am nearly finished reading Toni Morrison's Beloved and am thinking that perhaps the Rev. Jesse Jackson might do well to (re?)read this novel as it provides a graphic, haunting, and all-together disturbing refresher course on the horrors of slavery.

• I am tired, oh-so-tired, sleepy-sleepy.  Teaching  English Literature and Language Arts to 33--yes, 33!--6th-8th graders can sometimes feel like taming lions after being dipped in vat of gazelle blood.

  On the other hand, today's sleepiness is a "rewarding tiredness" earned from getting those same kids to be really excited and engaged with what we're learning.

• The 1975 edition of the Vogue Sewing Book rocks!  So much information!  So concise! Such clear directions!

• I had lunch last weekend with a friend and her husband at Zazil Coastal Mexican Cuisine in the Nordstrom's shopping center and was pretty disappointed.  The food is so-so, but not worth the price, and the ambiance of the restaurant is more suited to a fast-food environment.  The three of us spent $158 dollars on lunch and dessert (luckily, we had $100 in gift certificates to spend there!).  I'm of the opinion that one should never feel as if they are eating in an upscale-cafeteria-like-environment when you're paying $50+ to eat lunch.  Give me a break!  Puh-lease!

• My Princeton Review Career Quiz results are:

My INTEREST color is BLUE:  People with blue Interests like job responsibilities and occupations that involve creative, humanistic, thoughtful, and quiet types of activities. Blue Interests include abstracting, theorizing, designing, writing, reflecting, and originating, which often lead to work in editing, teaching, composing, inventing, mediating, clergy, and writing.

My USUAL STYLE is YELLOW:  People with yellow styles perform their job responsibilities in a manner that is orderly and planned to meet a known schedule. They prefer to work where things get done with a minimum of interpretation and unexpected change. People with a yellow style tend to be orderly, cautious, structured, loyal, systematic, solitary, methodical, and organized, and usually thrive in a research-oriented, predictable, established, controlled, measurable, orderly environment.

So shocking!  Not! 

Some of the suggested careers are: philosopher (got that covered with my Bachelors degree) and teacher (been there, doing that), professor (perhaps someday?).  The quiz also suggested I look into working as a Media Planner, Web Editor, Book Publishing Professional--all of which I would find interesting.  I am definietely intrigued by the Media Planner career as I L-O-V-E to critically tear apart advertisements and their often inappropriate placement.  However, I do not see myself becoming an optometrist, a Rabbi or Imam, or an antiques dealer. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

I Fibbed!

So I fibbed...I said I don't like to quilt and yet here is some sort of evidence that perhaps proves otherwise:

A baby blanket for a newborn baby girl.  And, YES, I DID go the route of gender-stereotyping by making it pink*, but only because I was using recycled material and these patterns/colors happened to be plentiful and matchy-matchy-ish.  (*You must check out The Pink and Blue Project at the International Museum of Women site.*)

Clearly the blanket isn't perfect...it's not a true square and I think it is a bit short of the desired dimensions of 36X36 inches.  But I figure the parents will be happy to have a handmade gift that is pretty much practical.

Finally, here's a pic with the backside: