Late: International Women’s Day 2021

In honor of International Women’s Day 2021 (which was two days ago), and since self is reading 44’s A Promised Land, here is the fabulous Michelle Obama with her man at the Biden Inauguration:

And here’s another fabulous lady who is mentioned in A Promised Land, FLOTUS Dr. Jill Biden! Also with her man at his inauguration.

Woo hoo! So incredibly happy to have these two as role models for our young women.

Self is about a fourth of the way through A Promised Land. Please don’t rush her, she is having such a blast reading.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: ATE or EIGHT

Cee Neuner thinks of the most inventive prompts.

This week’s Fun Foto Challenge asks us to photograph something we ATE or something with the number EIGHT.

Since food is constantly on self’s mind, she decided to do a gallery of recent fare. Clockwise:

• Fondue with a friend in Left Bank, Menlo Park (outdoor dining is absolutely packed, all the time).
• Steamed pork buns from the Belmont Farmers Market
• Self loves mushrooms and pasta. The mushrooms were from the Menlo Park Farmers Market.
• Last night’s dinner: broccoli, pineapple, and orange chicken, which self’s friends tell her is just gross (but which self found dee-lish!).
• Self just discovered this ice cream (the maker is a family in Santa Cruz, just south of here) and LOOOVES it.

NOTE: Self is always masked, always. And whenever she returns from “outside,” she spends a good long time washing her hands.

Thanks ever so much for doing such a Fun Foto Challenge, Cee!

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

Thoughts Thus Far on A PROMISED LAND

Self is on p. 88.

• 44 is a very, very good writer. But dear blog readers knew that already.
• The parts with Michelle are some of the best parts of A Promised Land. She is 44’s biggest ace in the hole.
• Self loves that 44 is always questioning his motives. When the idea of running for President starts being broached, he is honest about his fears. But, in the end, he writes, “I had to know how this thing played out.” (p. 78)
• After he announces his candidacy, he describes campaigning this way: “sleeping in a Hampton Inn or a Holiday Inn or an Americ Inn or a Super 8. I’d wake up after five or six hours . . . It was a life of not glamour but monotony, and the prospect of eighteen continuous months of it quickly wore down my spirit.”
• But there’s also his singular dedication: “I was learning a lot and quickly. I spent hours dutifully poring over the fat briefing books prepared by my staff, inhaling the latest studies on the value of early childhood education, new developments in battery technology that would make clean energy more accessible, and China’s manipulation of its currency to boost its exports.” Contrast that with 45! Self heard that when Biden’s transition team was finally given access to the daily briefings, they were surprised at the extent to which the daily briefings seemed to have been tailored to 45’s inclinations, because they’d been whittled down to about two pages.
• RE Bill and Hillary: He “admired” Bill, but was “more sympathetic” to Hillary because he saw in her what his “mother and grandmother had gone through . . . “

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.

Sentence of the Day Belongs to Obama

Whether in sports or politics, it’s hard to understand the precise nature of momentum.

— p. 49, A Promised Land

It’s not just politics and sports, sir. Momentum applies to writing as well.

Quote of the Day: from the Lafayette Overpass

A woman with a Trump placard and humongous American flag: “We have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. It’s called the First Amendment.” — Fox News

Self thinks it is so cute when Trump supporters quote us. About protecting . . . white rights, lol.

Authorities told the protesters they were distracting passing motorists.

Calling All Emerging Writers!

Enter the Far Horizons Award for Short Fiction

Deadline: 1 May 2021

This contest is specifically for writers who have yet to publish their fiction in book form. Submit your short story (maximum: 3,500 words) by 1 May 2021 at 11:59 p.m. PDT for a chance to win $1000 (Canadian) and publication!

Entry fee is discounted and comes with a one-year print subscription to The Malahat Review.

$25 (Canadian) for each entry from Canada; $30 (Canadian) for each entry from the USA; $35 (Canadian) for each entry from elsewhere.

Go here for full contest guidelines.

Obama Sentence of the Day

Hopeless! Simply hopeless! I am ALL OVER 44’s A Promised Land.

Still Chapter 1:

• The conviction that racism wasn’t inevitable may also explain my willingness to defend the American idea: what it was, and what it could become.

Sentence of the Day: A Promised Land, p. 38

44 writes too, too well. Self can see it now: a sentence of the day two, maybe even three, times a day.

This (2nd) sentence of the day comes right after a scene where Obama flies to LA at a friend’s invitation to attend the 2000 Democratic Convention, finds that he can’t rent a car to the Staples Center because his American Express card is over its limit, manages to get over there anyway (though he doesn’t spell out how), then finds himself “haplessly” circling “the perimeter” and “watching the festivities on mounted TV screens” because “the credential my friend had secured . . . didn’t allow entry to the convention floor.” He flies home in a “dark mood,” fuming about being “almost forty” and “broke.”

Without further ado, THE SECOND SENTENCE OF THE DAY!

• I recognized that in running for Congress I’d been driven not by some selfless dream of changing the world, but rather by the need to justify the choices I had already made, or to satisfy my ego, or to quell my envy of those who had achieved what I had not.

In the above sentence, Obama makes multiple uses of the Oxford comma. Use this sentence as Exhibit A if you are ever doubtful of the power of a correctly placed Oxford comma!

Stay safe, dear blog readers, stay safe.

Quote of the Day: A Promised Land

44 remembers a conversation with his mother!

“You know, Barry, she said (that’s the nickname she and my grandparents used for me when I was growing up, often shortened to “Bar,” pronounced “Bear”), “there are people in the world who think only about themselves. They don’t care what happens to other people so long as they get what they want. They put other people down to make themselves feel important.

“Then there are people who do the opposite, who are able to imagine how others must feel, and make sure that they don’t do things that hurt people.

“So,” she said, looking me squarely in the eye. “Which kind of person do you want to be?”

— Chapter 1, A Promised Land, pp. 6 -7

Sentence of the Day: Barack Obama

As a general rule, I’m a slow walker — a Hawaiian walk, Michelle likes to say, sometimes with a hint of impatience.

— Chapter 1, A Promised Land

The words of 44 are very clear and precise. He was a great President. You can tell by the way he writes, which is also the way you can tell how a man thinks. And 44 is a very, very good writer.

America was so lucky to have him.

Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.