May 19, 2019 at 12:31 pm (Books, Conversations, Family, Food and Drink, Personal Bookshelf, Places, plans, Recommended, Sundays, Surprises, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: Catherine Morland, favorites, happiness, Henry Tilney, humor, Jane Austen, London, novel, reading lists, restaurants
Self was supposed to go on an Old Parish Maps walk of Clerkenwall but she bailed because she wanted to take things slow today, after that loooong train journey from Cornwall yesterday.
She had an early breakfast, then set off walking. Soon, she found herself in front of the British Library, but instead of going in, she went next door, to St. Pancras/Renaissance Hotel, and inquired at reception if they could ring her son’s room.
He did not pick up, probably because he’s just arrived in London. She told the receptionist to let son know that his mother had stopped by. Then, she twirled and waltzed out without waiting for a response from the receptionist.
She wandered on Leigh Street and found North Sea Fish was closed. She walked down Marchmont Street and stopped at a café for very yummy hot banana bread with yogurt. Topped that off with red bean gelato. Picked up a couple of flyers from LSE (London School of Economics, Dear Departed Sister’s alma mater), returned to Russell Square (one side of which was sprouting police cars, she wonders why) and resumed reading Northanger Abbey.
UGH, the horrible stress inflicted on poor Catherine Morland (so far, self’s favorite Jane Austen heroine — yes, a better heroine than Emma or Anne Elliot) by manipulative Thorpe sibs Isabella and John! In the latest situation, they have conveniently dismissed Miss Eleanor Tilney (sister of that elusive love interest Henry Tilney) without checking first with Catherine whether she intended to keep her appointment with Eleanor. Catherine, on learning of the Thorpes’s horrible presumptuousness, goes running full tilt after Eleanor (and why should she not? Henry Tilney is quite a fetching man! Self too would go running if someone told her that Timothy Olyphant or Nikolaj Coster-Waldau were just around the corner!).
p. 111:
Thorpe would have darted after her, but Morland withheld him. “Let her go, let her go, if she will go.”
“She is as obstinate as — “
Thorpe never finished the simile, for it could hardly have been a proper one.
lol
Morland refers to Catherine’s older brother, James. And a wonderful older brother he is, too. He’s in love with Isabella Thorpe, who’s a ninny. If not for that, he would be self’s third-favorite Jane Austen suitor, after Mr. Knightley and Henry Tilney. He most certainly is self’s favorite Jane Austen brother.
Stay tuned.
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April 23, 2019 at 12:26 pm (destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Places, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, favorites, London, restaurants
It’s been a few weeks, at least, since self was able to join Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge.
Today, self is in London. She walked around her Bloomsbury neighborhood and took pictures, all with an eye to the current Fun Foto Challenge, SIGNS. Here are a few:
Right outside the British Museum, which self visited yesterday.
Directly across the street from the British Museum: This bubble tea place is always full.
An Alley Off Bury Place
Stay tuned.
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April 17, 2019 at 12:42 am (Books, Food and Drink, Places, Recommended, Traveling, Women Writers)
Tags: 9/11, history, Iraq, London, memories, news, novel, reading lists, restaurants
Asymmetry, p. 196:
One afternoon we were sitting in Bloomsbury Square, keeping half an eye on our charges, when Lachlan pointed toward the iron railings on the far side of the park and said that the original ones had been dismantled and melted down for ammunition during the Second World War. These new ones were shorter, and unlocked all day; square’s been open to the public ever since. I could not pass Bloomsbury Square after that without wondering where the old iron had ended up. On which fronts. In whose bodies. It was around this time that the avowal to do away with Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction was accelerating toward its first anti-climax. Blair had declared it time to repay America for its help sixty years earlier and pledged Britain’s commitment to sniffing out all remaining stockpiles of genocidal intent. Forty-eight hours later, Clinton announced that Iraq intended to cooperate; a month after that, UNSCOM reported that in fact Iraq was not cooperating, and lo, the British-American bombing began. I watched the Desert Fox airstrikes with Alastair, sitting in our usual spot in The Lamb, whose ceiling had been strung with Christmas bunting and the bar transformed into a lukewarm buffet of mince pies and a faux cauldron of brandy-spiked mulled wine.
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March 6, 2019 at 5:25 pm (destinations, Flowers, Food and Drink, Links, Places, Recommended)
Tags: Cee Neuner, Garden, indulgence, Redwood City, restaurants
For this week’s Fun Foto Challenge, PATTERNS, self is posting pictures from Lovejoy’s, an English-style tearoom tucked away in downtown Redwood City, CA, only a block from the library; and a picture of a plant with bright orange flowers that just began sprouting in her backyard. This winter saw heavy rain, hopefully in a month or so there will be tons of flowers blooming.
Tea at Lovejoy’s, downtown Redwood City, 1 March 2019
Adorable Porcelain Cup and Saucer, Perfect for Tea!
About to Bloom: 28 February 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 27, 2019 at 8:57 pm (Food and Drink, Links, Places, Recommended, Traveling)
Tags: California, Cambridge, Cee Neuner, indulgences, literary festivals, London, restaurants
Self missed last week’s Fun Foto Challenge. But this week, the Challenge is SMOOTH.
Here are: a sidewalk near Fleet Street, London (smooth sidewalk); a canal in Cambridge (smooth, tranquil boat ride); and sweet potato fries and an assortment of (smooth) dips!
London, Near Fleet Street: 20 November 2018
And here’s Cambridge University, during last November’s Cambridge Literary Festival:
Cambridge, England: 25 November 2018
And here’s a dish from Coupa Cafe, whose owner might be Venezuelan because there are a number of Venezuelan items on the menu:
Sweet Potato Fries w/ an Assortment of Dips: Coupa Cafe, Los Altos, CA
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 8, 2019 at 2:46 am (Conversations, destinations, Food and Drink, Lists, plans, Plays, Traveling, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: lunch, Mendocino, restaurants, Shakespeare, teaching
Drove up to Mendocino, which as the crow flies is only 200 miles from Redwood City, but always takes self at least FIVE HOURS.
On the way, she stopped by Yorkville Market and had lunch:
And then she mulled over the writing exercises she should start tomorrow with.
Should she have the students practice writing one very, very, very long, run-on sentence? With points to whoever can come up with the most run-on sentence?
Or, for fun, should she have them write a piece that’s all bad grammar and deliberately wrong spelling? Hamberder, anyone? Smocking guns?
Should she have them write a piece that’s all dialogue?
Should she ask them to capture every nuance of a piece of reality . . . in one sentence?
Should she have them practice writing a conversation that grows from an association of ideas (like a Harold Pinter play?)
Should she have them practice delaying the outcome for as long as possible?
She can’t decide. She’ll have to sleep on it.
BTW, this is one of the plays being presented by the Mendocino Theatre Company in 2019:
Mendocino Theatre Company, 2019 Season
Stay tuned.
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December 30, 2018 at 11:25 pm (destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Lists, Places, Sundays, Traveling)
Tags: Durham, England, London, Philadelphia, photography, restaurants
Showing the ways people move from one place to another on land: roads, walkways, stairs, elevators, escalators, railway tracks, ski lifts, runways, canals, locks, parking lots, driveways, tunnels.
The Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, Downtown Philadelphia, 5 December 2018
Crossing Over the River Wear, Durham, 29 November 2018
Millenium Bridge, London, 22 November 2018
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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December 5, 2018 at 6:22 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Movies, Places, Surprises, Traveling)
Tags: Cee Neuner, England, humor, indulgence, London, memories, museums, Oxford, restaurants
Self loves posting for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge. It gives her a chance to post photographs from her archives that might otherwise be overlooked. Such as the close-up of her bedside lamp at The Penn Club, where she stays whenever she is in London:
Room # 1, The Penn Club: Bedford Place, London
Or this tea-set:
London Review Cakeshop: Bury St., London
Or this amusing pair of socks:
Gift Shop, Ashmolean: Oxford, England
Thank you, Cee Neuner, for the prompt!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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July 19, 2018 at 6:22 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Family, Food and Drink, Lists, Places, Recommended)
Tags: art, desserts, exhibits, happiness, museums, praise, restaurants, San Francisco
Self has seen it three times.
The Magritte-themed food in the fifth floor café is so much fun:
In the adjoining sculpture garden, you can pose in front of this sign and you will look fabulous and so ‘San Francisco’:
Andrew and Jennie, 14 July 2018
There is a great, really great interactive portion at the end: Raise your arms, and YOU’RE the Magritte!
More later. Stay tuned!
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June 19, 2018 at 3:09 pm (Artists and Writers, destinations, Food and Drink, Links, Lists, plans, Recommended)
Tags: Anthony Bourdain, causes, Events, restaurants, San Francisco
In honor of World Refugee Day, June 20, San Francisco this week is hosting the Refugee Food Festival.
The festival kicks off today in one of Anthony Bourdain’s favorite San Francisco restaurants, the Hog Island Oyster Company in the Ferry Building.
The chef, Pa Wah, from Burma, “spent the majority of her life in the Mae La refugee camp in Thailand.”
The other participating chefs are from Bhutan, Iraq, Myanmar, Senegal, and Syria.
More information on the festival, here.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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