Category Archives: Blather

They Say You Can’t Go Home Again.

My friend Ellen, I think1, once insisted on Twitter that your hometown is where you were born, period. No other place could be your hometown.

I viscerally didn’t agree with this, but didn’t say anything because I couldn’t figure out why. Much later, I think sometime in 2012, I realized what I was thinking. Namely, your hometown may or may not be the place you currently reside and it may or may not be the place you were born. Your hometown is the place you know. The rhythms, the roads, the speed traps, the truly unsafe places, the places people think are unsafe that are fine, the upscale places, the hidden gems. You know this place in your bones.

For me, while I deeply love Chicago and could happily live there the rest of my life, my hometown has always been Albuquerque, New Mexico.… Continue reading →

Book Giveaway: Kindred by Octavia Butler

I love books. Stories, really, but particularly in written form. I don’t know why I have such a preference for reading over watching or hearing, but I do. (My hierarchy is probably reading hearing watching, when it comes to fiction.)

Every now and again, a particular story comes along that really moves me. And Octavia Butler’s Kindred is one of them.

This is an old book. Thirty-five years old. It appears it’s been chosen as a school text for many of the years it’s been around. Still, I’d never read it or heard of Butler until this year. And based on what I heard of her, I bought every work of hers I could get my hands on at Powell’s in May.

I haven’t read them all, though I’m working on it.… Continue reading →

Quick question

A very quick question for everyone, please feel free to answer here, on Twitter, on Facebook, where- or however.

Would anyone be interested in a link list of books that Bill and I find interesting and/or useful? I’m thinking an Amazon widget on the homepage, mostly with books that are related to one of the four categories on the blog (though, let’s be honest, “blather” is a pretty broad category). They’d be affiliate links, unless Amazon tosses me out of the program (which is looking likely, at this point).

For example, I’d probably suggest a book or three on lions. Any book I’m currently reading and like. Beer basics books.

Regularly scheduled posting again tomorrow!… Continue reading →

“It’s Always Something.”

A common phrase around our house. Bill is regularly shaking his head and muttering that it’s always something.

He gets it from his dad. Who also often mutters about it always being something.

I’m telling you this because it really IS always something. Today? The something is that we leave the house at “unbearably early” (that’s the official time) tomorrow morning to go visit Bill’s father. And Bill and I are out of the house all day today, and well into the evening for a friend’s birthday.

So, of course, we started laundry last night. And, of course, the washer just stopped working while we slept, thus delaying our packing.

Always something. We’ll get packed up, but today’s planned post will go up Monday or Tuesday, because instead of shooting photos for it, I’m dealing with laundry and packing before I leave for the day.… Continue reading →

Some Housekeeping

First and foremost, as of late night 23 April 2014, I have re-enrolled in Amazon’s affiliate/associate program. I will, over time, be changing past links to affiliate links, and calling them out as such. Except the Joy of Cooking link in this post which I did last night to test the new way of linking. In the future, other links to Amazon will also be affiliate links (and called out as such). As Bill and I explained in The Rules waaaay back in 2010, we wanted to try it. I’ve also updated the rules to explain how we we came to not be affiliates for a time, and to include the official language Amazon.com wants me to have somewhere on my site. It’s under rule number nine.… Continue reading →