April 20, 2021 at 4:07 am (Artists and Writers, destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: Mondays, museums, art, Sacramento, spring
Tomorrow morning, early, self is headed to the de Young to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit. Finally, finally.
Because she’ll probably be out the whole day, she’s posting tomorrow’s Bright Square early. Thank you to Becky at The Life of B for hosting this challenge!
More pictures from the Crocker Museum in Sacramento! The huge painting is Landscape with an Archer, by David Ligare (American, born 1945)
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 19, 2021 at 9:43 pm (destinations, Holidays, Links, postaday, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: London, Mondays, Sacramento
The host of the Friday Fun Challenge is aroused. Her theme for the week is COLOURS.
Self’s gallery are mostly reds, and one blue:
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 19, 2021 at 5:28 am (destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Places, postaday, Sundays, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: restaurants, Sacramento, weekends
Becky’s post on BRIGHT SQUARES (She’s the host of this challenge, which is truly a lot of fun) is something really BRIGHT and really SPARKLY and it’s something Becky saw in the British Museum. Feel free to gape.
Self spent the weekend in Sacramento. It’s a city she’s always felt at home in, not sure why. Sometimes it feels like Bacolod (in the central Philippines), sometimes it feels like San Luis Obispo. Kids come whizzing down the street on skateboards, and they all go to the same boba place, which as luck would have it is on the same block as her Airbnb.
Her host acquired this 1920s building that used to be a FAMILY LAUNDRY and the neon sign is protected by the City as a historical landmark (though only the bottom half is lit).
Across the street is a Mexican restaurant (the street is otherwise mostly Asian) that’s open 24 hours. Sorry for the blur, self didn’t have a place to rest her elbow for the shot, which took long exposure. Next to the Mexican restaurant is a martial arts school.
Sacramento is an old city, but in the neighborhood she’s in, everyone is young. Not like back home, where you’re either old or pushing a stroller. Or driving a humongous SUV.
Her car is parked directly across the street. A handful of times in the last few hours, someone’s car alarm has been going off. At first, self wondered if it was her car. But it wasn’t.
Back home, she’s just started seeing, around the library, the teens wearing all-black: black T-s, black baggy pants. They were a regular sight before. Then, the library shut down and these teens seemed to disappear. A sure sign that we’re opening again is that self spotted a pair of these black-wearing teens, walking along Middlefield. What did they do with themselves when everything was shut down? Here they are again; feels like old times.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 18, 2021 at 9:27 pm (Artists and Writers, Conversations, destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Lists, Movies, Places, postaday, Recommended, Sundays, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: adaptations, art, exhibits, lunch, museums, Oscars, Sacramento
For today’s BRIGHT SQUARES Challenge, self took pictures at the Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento! Which is just as fabulous as she remembered it being, all those years ago (Then, she was lucky enough to catch a Norman Rockwell retrospective)
(Left to Right):
What a great museum. Self is so happy she returned to Sacramento for this brief visit. If only the café had been open, she’d happily have lingered the whole day.
For lunch, she stopped at this small pop-up on 16th. The metal chairs had been baking in the sun, which she did not think mattered until she actually sat down. A lady who was sitting at the same table smirked and said, “That’s why I avoided sitting on those.” I took a chair that was sitting in the shade, a bit closer to the lady, and she immediately said, “I’ve had my two shots, don’t worry.”
The lady also told self that there was a “Chinse supermarket” not half a block from where we were sitting, and self got very excited at the thought of loading up on goodies for back home.
In addition to tacos, the pop-up also sold, somewhat improbably, mac’n cheese, and since it’s been forever since she’s had mac’n cheese, she decided to try it. It was good!
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 17, 2021 at 11:17 pm (destinations, Links, Places, postaday, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: inspiration, museums, Sacramento, Saturday, weekends
Self hasn’t missed a day yet! Yesterday, she had this BRIGHT IDEA.
Here’s her entry for The Life of B’s April BrightSquare challenge.
Airbnb, Restored 1920s Chinese Laundry, Sacramento:
Drove here to see the Crocker Museum, which just re-opened.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 10, 2021 at 4:24 pm (Links, Surprises, Traveling, postaday)
Tags: humor, Prague, Saturday
Today, self is participating in Travel with Intent‘s Six-Word Saturday Photo Challenge.
The only requirement is that your post must have a six-word title.
This morning, self decided to use Google Translate to figure out what’s on this T-shirt, which she bought in Prague, 2019:
Ever since she bought it, she’s been wondering if it says something . . . lewd? Why’d she wait this long to find out? Stoo-pid.
Here’s the translation:
what’s up here, stick one!
I don’t roll,
I’m an exhibit!
LOL
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 9, 2021 at 7:55 pm (destinations, Flowers, Links, postaday, Traveling)
Tags: flower photography, Fridays, Garden, Prague, spring
The host of this challenge is Mama Cormier.
Self had great fun browsing through her archives to come up with these trios. All were taken in her garden except for the arches (obv). Self took that picture somewhere near Prague Castle, May 2019.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 7, 2021 at 12:31 am (Books, Conversations, destinations, Places, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: COVID Reading, memories, mysteries, novel, Paris, reading lists
A young couple from China asked self to take their picture, and then returned the favor by taking one of self. So here’s that very, very rare occasion when she is actually IN the picture, rather than just TAKING a picture.
She’s wearing that same exact scarf right now, since she’s been feeling chilled all afternoon. Instead of a coat, she’s wearing a flannel nightgown — hello, pandemic self! She put on her nightgown hours ago, preparatory to spending the rest of the day reading in bed. She feels like she might be coming down with something, but she can’t blame it on Pfizer 1, received Saturday: she’s felt this way for weeks. All Pfizer 1 did was exacerbate those symptoms.
Now her left arm aches. That’s where she got her shot, but it hasn’t ached since the day of. A kind of phantom pain?
Around them, floodlights lit up the magnificent monuments. Vehicles passed by. Distinctive French sirens sounded in the distance. Visitors took selfies in front of the statues.
Armand heard snippets of conversation and bursts of laughter.
— All the Devils Are Here, p. 347
April 4, 2021 at 2:34 am (Books, Conversations, destinations, Eavesdropping, Places, Traveling)
Tags: COVID Reading, humor, mysteries, novel, Paris, reading lists, Saturday
First, don’t ask for directions, just head on up to the room in question. And don’t fuss too much at the door to the suite. Just go right in.
A hotel maid will pass you in the hallway, she will glance at you but keep on walking. Expect the hotel manager in 10 minutes.
When the hotel manager lets himself into the suite (accompanied by “muscle” of course, this is a five-star Parisian hotel! Rooms cost upwards of $1000/night!), you will say, “Bonjour!” You will introduce yourself, you will say you’re a friend of whoever, and you will demand, DEMAND, the name of the manager, and then you will ask to see his ID.
Bearing, bearing is absolutely important.
Also, a silk scarf.
If it is autumn, then a beautiful autumn coat.
Just think “classic.” Be “cordial, but aloof.”
After all that, I’m sorry to say the manager will probably say something rude like “I would like to see what you’ve taken from the suite” and also mention the “small issue of” the bill.
You should say, “Of course!” And hand over your credit card.
And then you must keep smiling, even when they charge “three-thousand five-hundred euros. A night.”
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
April 3, 2021 at 4:23 am (Books, destinations, Places, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: COVID Reading, Fridays, memories, mysteries, novel, Paris, reading lists
On p. 25, a character looks out her office window and can “see the Tour Eiffel in the distance.” She calls it
A marvel of French engineering. A monument to innovation and audacity. Something to be proud of.
————————————————————–
Paris, A Memory:
One night in December 2017, self made an appointment to see a doctor. It was around 8 p.m. Her hotel called a cab, and the cab waited for her. On the way back, she asked the driver to circle the Eiffel.
There is something about the Eiffel Tower at NIGHT. Lit up, you notice every single strut.
She was practically hanging out the window, and managed to squeeze out a dozen shots.
There is no stopping at the base of the tower: traffic has to keep circling. It is truly a hub of frenetic activity. All gratitude to the patient Parisian cab driver.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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