Southern Biscuits Forever

Today's "Where my Flickr Photos are Being Used on the Internet" is brought to you by The American Scholar's Viral Days article from June 29, 2020. They used my biscuit photo from 2010. Katherine Lucky writes:

When we place a match to a tealight, illuminating steak over tart tomatoes, soaked in the brine of green olives and vinegar, we are being indulgent: perhaps. There are too many food blogs. Instagramming my food, I know, is dumb. Dumb, and indulgent, but not quite wrong, for there’s real thankfulness here: the soft purple of ube ice cream, the crack of shortbread—colors and textures that exist in contrast to how bad everything is. Oven heat and the snap of boiling water, new discoveries in the study of quesadillas. Cooking doesn’t solve problems; it just makes us happy. Terry Eagleton calls these kinds of things culture: gifts that exist without clear utility. Summer is here! Peaches are coming. A resilient marvel, an excess.

Cooking doesn't solve problems; it just makes us happy.

I agree. In the face of all the things that are going terribly wrong in the world every day, creating and claiming a little bit of happiness also gives me a little hope.

Thankful For Our Daily Bread

I learned to make a sourdough starter and sourdough bread during this shelter-in-home period. I still think every baked loaf is a miracle. I am grateful for the practice and thankful that everything has been edible, even if not always worthy of a social media post. 

Here are some photos of the loaf I baked for Thanksgiving:

Meet Experiment 253 - my starter:

Orange is still one of my favorite colors

Orange is still one of my favorite colors, despite the wildfire smoke that saturated the atmosphere over the West yesterday, lighting the daytime sky with an eery orange glow. I spent my lunch hour walking around the neighborhood and taking photos. Most things seemed to reflect the orange, except household lights, streetlights, and vehicle headlights. This hearse caught some of that white light momentarily from a turning bus. 

Memories of hot & humid weather elsewhere

This current heat wave in the Bay Area, dotted with rolling thunderstorms, reminded me of a past trip to San Antonio. Twelve years ago, Eric and I were there in the middle of summer, the week before the 4th of July. Eric was at a conference and I explored the city on my own. I explored the McNay Art Museum and the San Antonio Botanical Garden alone but Eric and I eventually got a chance to take a boat cruise and stroll around the Riverwalk. It did rain a few times while we were there. The weather was hot and humid - but perfect for leisurely walks with a wide-brimmed hat on and a fruit slushy in hand for little moments of sweet brain freeze.

 

This post is also an excuse to share another "Where my Flickr Photos are Being Used on the Internet" photo. It is of my fourth most-viewed Flickr photo of Riverwalk, by the Casa Rio Restaurant. The tour boat in the foreground, ready to take the right turn, was waiting for the other boat to pass from under the bridge. This appeared in a 2016 post from a discount / deals aggregator website, faredealalert.com: 

From Faredealalert.com's website, July 22, 2016

If we ever have a chance to visit again, I'd like to stay in one of the hotels by the river so I can explore it further. On this trip, we stayed by the Alamo, at the Emily Morgan, which was convenient when we finally visited the Alamo. We weren't prepared for the torrential downpour that greeted us after our visit but we were just a short walk to dry clothes.

An island, in a lake, in a volcano, on an island, in the ocean

Taal and its people on my mind. 

A Family Favorite

From KCET's website, May 11, 2012

My photo of biscuits (baked and photographed in 2010) was featured in KCET's website under the Food and Living Section. It accompanied a recipe for vegan Savory or Sweet Mini-Biscuits. I think it's a little weird to post a recipe with a photo of a finished product that was not made from the recipe being featured. I'm a little curious why they didn't take photos of their biscuits if they did make the recipe. Then again, maybe someone thought my photo might encourage readers to make their biscuits  and maybe my photo offered a good representation of what the final bake could (should?) be like. That doesn't seem so bad... right?

I recently made a batch of biscuits for breakfast, to be the base for some creamy sausage gravy. My favorite biscuit recipe is Alton Brown's Southern Biscuits (not vegan) with a minor alteration. I use all butter instead of half shortening/half butter for the fats, since I don't really have a use for vegetable shortening outside of this recipe and Eric and I think the biscuits turn out just fine. 

Remembering an emotional visit

A recent search for "Where My Flickr Photos Are Being Used on the Internet" took me to the American Automobile Association's webpage highlighting their recommended destinations for a Civil Rights Trail Road Trip, one of several trip guides if you are driving within the Southeastern Appalachian area.

My photo of the "Outrage Hand" was taken during my visit to the the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in July 2014. I explored Atlanta on my own while Eric attended a conference. The section of the photo I took doesn't convey its actual size. It's part of a large mural, so large that I couldn't capture it all in one frame. This photo might give you a sense of scale.

My visit to the Center was educational and highly emotional. I was there about two hours and cried most of the time. The Center knows emotions will run high as there are boxes of tissues in some of the galleries.

AAA is right to include the Center on their Civil Rights Trail Road Trip. It is definitely worth a visit.

From AAA.com's Civil Rights Trail Road Trip guide 

Is it Fall already?!

Maybe it's time to breathe some life into this old blog of mine with some content!

Occasionally, I google myself to see where my photos are being used on the internet. Many of my photos are available through Flickr using several Creative Commons licenses. My first post about "Where My Flickr Photos Are Being Used on the Internet" aka WMFPABUOTI debuted on Tumblr but I am fairly active there already, and post music videos and songs from my favorite bands regularly.

No, I don't have an audience but haha, I figure when I'm 80 I can laugh and reminisce about the music I enjoyed in my younger days with Tumblr as my record - if it's still around then.

Anyway, I haven't used Blogger in ages and have always wanted to keep it going somehow. So, I think I will continue WMFAPABUOTI here, on blogger instead. After a little searching earlier today,  I spotted my photo of gourds and squashes for a list of 2018 Fall Festivals in Oregon.

Decorative Gourd Season is apparently already upon us so I think the event guide post is appropriate.

From ilovehalloween.com - where it's "All Halloween. All The Time."

The Chicago Theatre

As seen from the State Street 'L' platform.

A New York City moment

Eric and I visited New York City for the first time this past spring and we hope to visit again. We took a sightseeing boat tour around Manhattan and this would be the closest we got to Lady Liberty. Maybe for our next visit, we'll give her a proper visit. Until then...

The New Colossus - Emma Lazarus (1883)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 

With conquering limbs astride from land to land; 

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall strand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

MOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, 

Your huddled masses wearing to breathe free, 

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Revisiting London

Some of my favorite photos from our week-long visit to London this past spring.  

Some assembly required

I miss making stuff. I need to set aside some time to finish a few knitting projects. 

I hope to cook and bake more, especially as the weather gets cooler.

I also want to make more time for random/useless art projects.

Going underground (within Zones 1- 6)

 

I'm pretty sure The Jam's Going Underground isn't about riding the London subway. But I couldn't help humming it in my head when I was traveling... UNDERGROUND! After many years of dreaming about going, I finally made it to London.

Eric and I celebrated our wedding anniversary a little early this year, during Spring Break. It's a milestone year for us so we wanted to go big and to also make use of our passports before they expired. We used tons of credit card points, stayed in a posh and completely lovely boutique hotel a block away from the British Museum, and froze our butts off in what would be England's coldest March in 50 years. 

Days began with a really yummy breakfast buffet at the hotel. There were pastries, cereals, smoked fish, cheeses, toast, bagels, fruit, and the full English breakfast. And if that didn't float your boat, you could order from their a la carte menu. I skipped the beans and the smoked fish and cheeses, but ate pretty much everything else. We never ate lunch as we were too full from breakfast, but we did have tea once. Clotted cream is MAGIC.

After breakfast, we walked and walked and took transit and walked some more. We spent an entire day at the British Museum and still didn't see everything. There's just NO way. If I lived there, I'd be a member even though it's free. Thank you, Transit for London, for putting your Legible London maps everywhere we needed one, which was well, everywhere.

When we finished our walking and gawking, we made our way to dinner. Afterward, we returned to the hotel to rest, download photos from the cameras, recharge batteries, and watch some BBC. Eric always fell asleep before I did, Kindle in his hands, propped up in bed. I stayed up late planning the next day's excursions and mapping our transit and walking routes. Around midnight, the infomercials would start and in between, sometimes this video would come on TV. That was my cue to sleep. I tried not to plan too much and at times, I could have planned and timed things better, but overall, we had a great time letting London unfold before us. While we had plenty of opportunities to take a ton of photos, I knew I was restraining myself. I wanted to just *be* there, to be present, not just going around documenting things. But hehe, of course we ended up with over 1800 shots, some are here and here. 

Just when I started getting used to things- the weather, the accents, even the sidewalks- our travel card was expiring and our trip was ending. I hope we can return when the weather's warmer or when we have the appropriate clothing. I will definitely make another pilgrimage to Kew Gardens, and explore other neighborhoods, shops, and parks we either breezed through or didn't get to visit at all. And tea! More cream teas!

Cor-NEE-lius!

Ok, so I'm still laughing at this great California Lottery commercial. 

I don't play the lottery much these days. I used to buy an occasional quick pick when the jackpots grew beyond $100 million dollars. I can't even remember the last time I bought a scratcher. 

COR-NEE-LIUS! 

If anything, it makes me want to get a dog just to call it Cornelius. Which is weird, because I think I'd like a female dog. Hm. Oh well. 

I do daydream about some of the things I would do or how I would spend my money if I ever won a super huge jackpot. 

• Give away a bunch to my family
• Give away a bunch of it to my favorite charities and non-profits
• Quit my job
• Spa more
• Get haircuts more frequently
• Travel more
• Sleep more

Once upon a time...

I graduated from high school twenty years ago. Looking back at my senior year scrapbook, I found some funny notes my friends left on the autograph pages,  from the time I didn't have a telephone. These days, many kids, even the less privileged ones, have mobile phones. For a while there, I didn't have a house phone. And my friends knew it. They were an understanding bunch and my buddies with cars often showed up at my house to invite me out, the old-fashioned way, by knocking on the door. My mom didn't always let me out, but I was always glad my friends came by anyway.

 

San Francisco Giants win the 2010 World Series

San Francisco City Hall dressed in orange light, 10/20/2010.

With the football season so much shorter, I'm more likely to tune into a Niners game than a baseball or basketball game. And I'm not a hockey fan either.

But I'll always be a San Francisco fan.

Congratulations, San Francisco Giants! Your die-hard fans are waiting to celebrate your victory with you. And thank you for giving me another reason to love being a San Franciscan. See you guys in five months.

Nothing's gonna change my world

Nudibranch at night
(A from-the-car-shot of Sam's Chowder House signage, Half Moon Bay, CA)

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe
- excerpted from the song Across The Universe,
lyrics written by John Lennon

I've started 3 blog notes and I can't seem to develop any of them. Then Across The Universe came up on Eric's playlist and the above verse struck a chord. He's playing DJ while we both wander through the Web this evening.

Images of broken light dance before me like a million eyes

I am wandering aimlessly across the Internet - jumping from blog to blog, looking up unfamiliar terms and following interesting links only to forget how or why I got there in the first place. Entertaining, mind-numbing, awe-inspiring, repulsing. I leave electronic footprints with every link I follow - someone/something out there is looking back or documenting my virtual journey.

Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box

So many ideas going around my head:

• something one of my interns said about Section 8 and public housing: "You make it sound like only poor people live in the projects." Yes, she said that to me.
  
• digging up old love letters to be possibly published anonymously on a friend's blog
  
• taking photos of the layoff letter I received earlier in the month
  
• listening to music at work (to drown out)
  
• another work group in the clinic argue and cuss during their staff meeting
• office walls should not be so thin
  
• what it means to be a pedestrian on the Internet superhighway, with the proper shoes, of course
  
• dyeing Easter eggs

It's 11:51PM and writing about thinking about writing about these things is about as far as I'm going to get tonight.

Pet peeve

I hate seeing temporary stitches on coats and jackets still holding the vents and flaps closed. They just bug. 

I noticed a cute little swingy gray coat on this young woman who was waiting for her Golden Gate Transit bus while I was waiting for my MUNI #5 after work. Her bus arrived and as she walked up the stairs into the bus, I noticed that the little flap on the back of the coat was still closed with that temporary stitch. Everything else about her seemed put together, but why did she not cut that stuff loose? The cute, flirtatious effect obvious from the front was undone but the awkward bunching in the back. Terrible.

I don't see these kinds of things very often, but when I do, I just want to run up with scissors and cut those stitches open. Other things I can't stand along the same lines are wool labels on scarves and wool labels still stitched onto the sleeves, near the wrist, of wool coats. UGH.

Don't be lazy, people. Cut those stitches, and wear your clothes, coats and scarves as they were meant to be worn.

Into the Wild - the movie?

I forgot how I read about this, but I saw on imdb.com that the book Into the Wild has been made into a movie, with a screening at the Mill Valley Film Festival. I was excited at the chance to see it, but I hadn't learned about till now and I don't have the time or money ($150!) to attend the screening on 9/13.

I don't read much in terms of books. Magazines, cookbooks, myspace profiles, no problem! That crap, I can read forever. Books, and I'm not sure why, not so much. But Into the Wild is one book I actually own, having read it many years ago. I don't remember what exactly attracted me to the story but I do remember being upset through most of my reading, with Chris McCandless, so young, full of potential, and very privileged. At the time, I was at crossroads, struggling to get through college and start my life, thinking wow, what a waste.

Or was it? Bits and pieces of his story, written by Jon Krakauer, still stay with me to this day and that's why I was a little excited to know that the movie version was coming soon to a theater near me. I think I need to dig it out of the closet again and/or see the movie to revisit my feelings about Chris' experience and what he was really trying to discover out there in the wild. I get the feeling I'll be more sympathetic this second time around.

Wake up now so you can go to sleep

My mom always says the television watches my dad, not the other way around.

My sister and I spent the night at my parents' house this past Friday. Guests usually sleep in the living room. My dad fell asleep on the couch and we had to wake him up so we could go to bed when the movie was over. It didn't matter that we were all howling through "Blades of Glory" and plain ole chit-chatting. I think the noise lulls him to sleep. He was awake for the beginning of the movie, but he gradually fell asleep.

He's been doing this for quite some time. I was still in high school and he'd come home around 11PM from his second job. I'd be doing homework (procrastinating) and we'd watch some TV together - Twilight Zone, news, Benny Hill, whatever, and talk about what was on or I would listen to him talk about stories he had related to what was on - and he'd eventually fall asleep. He'd sense things were done when the program was finished or when I'd start wrapping things up with my papers and he'd wake up.

On Friday however, a little nudging of his arm wasn't enough going to be enough. When we realized this was going to take a little more effort than normal, I blurted out, "Daddy, wake up now so you can go to sleep." We were laughing so hard, I think that really got his attention. So he said his goodnights and made his way up to the bedroom.