La Maestra

Julia Alvarez was at A Clean Well Lighted Place for Books in SF last Friday night reading and signing her newest novel. . .

I've read most of her stuff, though not the latest. She has an incredible voice, so check her out if you haven't already.

Mama Pajama

We went to the Ladies' Guild Mama Pajama Par-tay the other night. J was pretty into it. Everyone wore their pj's and had their hair and makeup done with their best friends. There were crafts, pizza, ice cream, movies, dancing, and a lot of hugging and carrying on. Everything was shockingly pink. I'd post a picture, but it was all strictly top secret girl stuff.

Too Funny

Okay, I took this from Manolo's.

Good Vibrations

On Easter Sunday at California Disney, The Beach Boys played unannounced in place of the regularly scheduled WaVe RiDeRs. . .

No kidding! They were totally for real, albeit the lead singer was NOT Mike Love. My mom was a bit skeptical at first, as in "They look too old."

RIGHT. . . I was kinda thinking the opposite.

Anyway The Boys sounded great.

Yeah For The Good Guys

They're finally fighting back against the vast right wing conspiracy with this. It's about time!

In My Life

R-the-one-who-committed-suicide-a-week-or-two-ago-'s obituary was in the paper over the weekend. It was obviously written by her (unfortunately estranged) husband, a great guy who loved her very much:

"And of all these friends and lovers, there is no one [who] compares with you. . . . In my life, I love you more."

R apparently suffered from major chronic depression, something I would not have suspected from such a seemingly vivacious woman.

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On the first night of Passover, the night before we left for Disney, I went to a "Motherhood and Spirituality" meeting at a friend's house. The featured speaker was Mimi Latno, who taught us a Navajo rocking ritual to help "passover" great pain. Basically, you're supposed to gently rock your standing partner while sending loving thoughts for about 4 minutes so that that person can feel and deal with whatever demons are hanging out. Then you switch places. It actually seems to work. . . the issue for me is finding someone to mutually rock with on a regular basis!

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Here's a picture from St. Columban's in Garden Grove where we attended mass yesterday morning. . .


Where does the hang-some-eggs-in-the-tree tradition come from, anybody out there?

Vote June 6th

Inspiring. . .

Here's the link to the website of a program I just learned about that brings figure skating to girls in Harlem. We need to do something like that over here!

Full Joy, Full Pain

I found a place for the oranges. They're being added into the fruit salad at the local soup kitchen. My neighbor's the head chef.

And it's sunny here when the forecast said rain. . . so there are lots of things to celebrate.

We're going to Disneyland in a few days, an impromptu trip. Hopefully we'll see M and her kids. M's the one whose husband just announced his 10-year affair. Yup, when the going get's rough, the tough get to Anaheim.

There was an interesting editorial in the NYT the other day regarding the Gospel of Judas. I am curious to learn more, having just had a brush with suicide. Of course, it's a sin, but maybe I've been listening to Jesus Christ Superstar and reading DaVinci Code too much. . . it does seem like there's more to what happened with ole Judas Escariot than meets the eye gospel-wise.

Here's to love and forgiveness, and faith and tender mercy, too.

Have a blessed Holy Week and a Happy Easter!

New Book

My favorite author (besides my cousin Ver) has published a new novel:

She's doing a book tour and will be in town this month. I can't wait to have her sign my copy!

Oranges Anyone?

I have a trunkful of oranges from my tree and no place to put them. The food bank is not taking backyard produce anymore, at least for right now, because of medflys. Great. . .

When life gives you oranges, make orangeade?

Visiting Hours

Yesterday I finally got over to see my co-worker and friend, B, whose husband has the malignant brain tumor. They both looked really good. His head is shaved with a little stubble growing back now so he looks like an older version of Eminem. Yeah, I like it! Hopefully I'll get to visit again next week when it's Spring Break. J wants to come, too.

Other news: One of my students-from-last-year's-mom hung herself last weekend. She's in a coma, likely never to come out. M's husband just told her that he's been having an affair for ten years now. Not quite a shocker, unfortunately. . .

Have scaled down my campaign activities considerably, and quite happily. It was getting to be way too much. Back to the blogosphere, knitting, gardening, etc. Ah, life's simple pleasures.

Oh how do I appreciate the banalities of life!!!

Walk the Line

I saw Walk The Line last night on DVD. It was a terrific movie. Reese Witherspoon is probably my favorite actress now. She was really funny in Legally Blonde and good in this movie, too.