Books: Face of Deception - I Johansen

So sometimes I get a book and I like it and I sit down and don't get up till it's finished.  Especially on days when Nick works (and I don't).  Yep.  Happened today.

I saw a review for the final book in a series, so I headed back to the beginning and borrowed the first one from our library.

Iris Johansen

The author is interesting; she started writing romance novels when her kids went to college.  She's now in her 70s and going strong! 

Let's be clear.  This is NOT a romance novel :P  I used to read alot of mysteries (I think seeing Sherlock Holmes last night made me nostalgic!), but haven't done much with the genre recently. 

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The main character, Eve Duncan, is a forensic sculptor.  She was born poor and has worked really hard to get so good at her job.  Sadly, her 7 year old was kidnapped and murdered several years ago.  In the current book, she is recruited by a wealthy man to recreate a face on a skull that she knows nothing about and then the book gets all thriller/mystery.  It was a very easy read with interesting twists and turns - even at the very end - (and an interesting "bad guy"), and I actually liked it alot.  I think there are thirteen (?) books with Eve, so if I want to get to the end of her story, I've got some reading to do!!

Well, it took most of my Sunday, but Number 65: (2/33) - CHECK!!

Read any good mysteries lately??

Books: Beloved - T Morrison

I'm not sure what my deal is with this book.  It must have been on a required reading list at some point.  But whenever I think up "classic" books I want to read, this one is always there. 

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To its credit:  Beloved by Toni Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1988, was made into a major motion picture starring Oprah in 1998, and in 2006 a New York Times survey of writers and literary critics ranked it as the best work of American fiction of the past 25 years.  So I had high hopes.

The first bad sign that I might not like this book was that as I started reading, I had the sinking feeling that I'd read it before.  And I had.  And I remembered 0.0001% of the story.  (Oops.)  Which is about slavery and reincarnated dead ghost babies.  And terribly tragic lives of sad people.

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I don't mind supernatural stories or fantasy, but something about this was just too... sad? tragic? not relate-able? for me to really get into.  I even had to renew it from the library, which for this fast-reading-girl is something!  It was very haunting, but ultimately not really my style.  Hopefully this time I remember having read it!!

So to #65: Read 33 books (1/33): CHECK.

Ever read Beloved and can explain to me what I'm missing?  Or have you ever read a book and completely forgot it??

Documentary: Gloria - In Her Own Words

Gloria Steinem popped up on my radar recently when reading an article about Jennifer Aniston.  She was asked (and answered):

If you could name one woman the sexiest of all-time, 
who would you have picked? 

It’s a tie between Bridgette Bardot and Gloria Steinem. 
But if I had to choose one, I’d say Gloria because, well, she’s the full package. That’s sexy.

I was thinking that I don't really know anything about her, other than that "she's a feminist".  So when I was looking for something to watch on a quiet Sunday night and saw Gloria - In Her Own Words, I loaded that right up.  

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First of all, she WAS gorgeous when she was young - in a very 70s New York City kind of way. 

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And she's aged well.

~Age 75
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The movie was shocking really at how much we take for granted now.  I know there are still lots of gender inequalities today, but the fact that things were SO ridiculous less than 10 years before I was born... I had no idea really.  For example:

• "Women don't get better jobs because they have trouble concentrating."
• In 1970 (maybe until later), there were gender segregated dining rooms in NYC.
• Ms. wasn't an acceptable title on paperwork - the president (Nixon) publicly opposed it
• "Alot of the women of my generation are living the unlived lives of our mothers." - G.S.

Striking woman.  Short, interesting movie.  If it's free and on-demand, take a look.

To #59: Watch 20 documentaries (3/20) -- I say CHECK!

Got any biography documentaries to recommend??

Food: Cafe 522 and chicken livers

Awesome title, eh?

So last night, we wanted to take our shiny brand new car out on the town, so we headed to a new restaurant in downtown Sonoma:  Cafe 522.  In the two and a half years we've lived here, this is the third restaurant in this space... so we figured we better check it out fast!  It's been getting good reviews and you gotta love their theme "We love bacon".  On the entree menu, it even has the option "Add bacon to any meal: $3". 

We ordered an appetizer:

Farm Egg Noodles hunters-style chicken livers, hen of the wood mushroom, local egg

Which counts as #17 - eat new foods (2/10 - CHECK).  I honestly can't remember eating chicken livers before.  Unless the gross Liverwurst that mom used to make me eat for lunch (I blame you, Katie!) counts.  But I don't think it does.  Anywho, the noodles were fresh and the mushrooms and liver (which was chopped into small pieces) were in a rich sauce.  It felt like a very nice fall/winter dish. 

Nick ordered the 

Tolenas Farm Quail braised leg hash, fennel caramel, kale, fried quail egg  (he added bacon, of course)

And I had the 

‘Angry’ Laughing Bird Shrimp anson mills rice grits, fra’mani chorizo, lemon, wild arugula, brandy butter, garlic toast

The food was good and they had a nice menu of local beers and wines.  We had beers and were very entertained.  Which is a good thing because the service was sloooooowwww.  Overall, we enjoyed the food but it was pretty expensive, so it might be a little while before we return. 

And to #63.  Eat at new Sonoma restaurants, I say (1/10) CHECK! 

Have you ever eaten liver voluntarily?? 
**And this post is a good lesson in learn-to-take-pictures-if you're going to blog about it!! Sorry for the boredom!!**

Hikes: Oat Hill Mine Trail

Last weekend, Nick, Lucy, and I headed to Calistoga for a little getaway.

 

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Lucy made friends with the dog that lived at the B&B, his name was Sparky and looked JUST like Curly.  We enjoyed resting at the inn and in the spa area.  We also got to see the Lighted Tractor Parade (not something you see every day!).  But our main activity was heading to the Oat Hill Mine Trail for a few hours of hiking up above Napa Valley.  It had 10 (one way) miles of trails.  We hiked ~2 hrs up and then turned around.  And Lucy still wasn't tired!!!

 Still kind of looks like fall...

 Gorgeous manzanita trees

 Up at the top!

And down at the bottom again.  Lucy loves having her picture taken.

And so, to #47: Go on 10 new hikes, I say CHECK (2/10)!

Inside Job

97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes is certainly a good recommendation, so even though I fell asleep on my first attempt, I knew I wanted to see this documentary.

Inside Job (2010) dir. Charles H. Ferguson

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First of all, why do all these other country's leaders speak such spectacular English?  I feel like such a US centric loser sometimes.  Ok, topic at hand.

How did the economic world crash in 2008?

As a movie, it was a little dry and you definitely have to pay attention.  No multi-tasking during this one!  But the complicated topic was presented very clearly and from what I read online, it seems to be a pretty fair/unbiased presentation of what happened.

I just finished it (#59. Watch 2/20 documentaries: CHECK!!) and have to say, wow, our country is in worse shape than I thought... The amount of money and negligence made, covered up, lied about, and stolen from people is pretty shocking.  And the fact that after ALL THIS has gone down, and President Obama gives interviews saying the right things (more regulation, less conflict of interest, etc.) and then RE-HIRES all the bosses of those disastrous country-crushing companies to run our governmental financial system.  Ouch.

The most insane point addressed in the movie is the credit default swap.  I read about that in the book "The Big Short" (also highly recommended), but basically, in the normal world of real money, let's say you want to insure a house.  Only you can insure your house against fire.  But in the fake world of crazy banking rules, there's a mortgage loan on a house (actually a collection of many houses) and you -- as the bank lender -- can insure against default on the loan.  But not just you-the-lender, ANYONE can.  So if the mortgage is defaulted on, the lender gets an insurance pay out, but so might 100 OTHER people.  And when the loans are based on absolutely nothing financially sound, pretty quickly the whole fake money world falls apart.  Obviously, it's more complicated (and corrupt) than that, but what a mess.  And terrible idea.  But people got $485,000,000 paychecks off of it, which I guess lowers that moral bar.

Here's to hoping someone ethical and responsible gets in control of this before it's too late.  (*I'm disappointed I went to Harvard under Larry Summers, what a sleazeball.*)  I also understand now what it was so impossible to get a business loan in 2009.

If you want to learn more about "the economy" -- I hate hearing people blame everything on "the economy" but not understanding what that means exactly -- I would definitely recommend this movie and that book.

Anybody want to run for congress to fix this mess???

Baking: Bread

I'm not sure this fully counts as a successful check, but I'm counting it for now.

First thing to say - my oven is ridiculous.  It's a tiny little thing and that makes cooking a full Thanksgiving extravaganza even more of an adventure than it would already be.  So with the turkey in the oven (in a disposable pan because no normal sized roasting pans, even the really nice ones you get as wedding gifts, FIT), you basically have to cook elsewhere.

Enter the toaster oven.  I don't love toaster ovens.  I don't think we ever had one growing up... Nick's a fan, so I try and give them a shot, but more often than not, things burn.  *Foreshadowing, much?*

Recipe for item #1 on my list (Bread):  No Knead Onion Rolls from Real Simple Magazine

Step one: Get all your ingredients out for the whole day and lay them on the counter so that there's really not any room left to work.  Yes those are industrial sized flour and sugar bags.

 

Step two: Watch your yeast not turn "foamy" in it's bowl.  Watch a youtube video on how to tell if your active yeast foamy.  Based on results, try again.  Yay foam! (Yay for buying 3x the yeast you'll need, just-in-case.)

Rise little guys, rise!!

Everything was really going very well... dough rose, TWICE!  Onions were nice and caramelized and then... the toaster oven.

Holy burned-ness, batman. :(  Luckily it was only the tops and after we sawed them off (and promptly threw the garbage - evidence - away), the rolls were really super moist and flavorful and yummy.  I wasn't going to show a picture, but... here goes.

So, I've successfully used yeast, it wasn't that scary, and I'll leave my baking for the (slightly) bigger oven.

And to item #1.  Bake bread - I say CHECK!

Hike: Little Mountain & (maybe) Verissimo Hills OSP

In the spirit of exploring our beautiful backyard in Northern CA, on "our Thanksgiving" (aka, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the day we're going to eat because Nick had to work all day on the real holiday) Nick, Lucy and I headed to Novato, CA, to go on a little 5.1 mile hike.  It was a very quiet walk and Lucy got to run off leash.  I'm a bad mom and get a kick out of hiding behind rocks and trees and making her nervous, so she learned to not get too far ahead. :)

"Are you coming?  Why do I have to sit here like this?"

It was a little colder than we planned for, and we got a little confused about the directions of the hike.  I think we've figured it out and will try again another day.  I'm pretty sure we just did the Little Mountain part of the hike, but *oh well* it still counts as

#47.  Go on 10 hikes in Sonoma. (1/10) -- CHECK!

Isn't she such a good little poser??

Half marathon circa 2011

This Sunday we ran the Big Sur Half Marathon in Monterey, CA. 

Here is an example of the pictures I saw when we signed up:

Look at all those happy people, running in shorts, enjoying the blue sky...

I wish I had screen captured the weather forecast in the days leading up to the race, but it looked something like this:

Every day up until Sunday a.m.:  Sunny and cool

Sunday a.m.:  RAIN, MISERY, AND COLDNESS

Sunday p.m.:  Pleasant again

Nick and I checked and checked and checked the hourly weather forecast, bought rain gear, tried to psych up for a nice little 13.1 mile jaunt in the rain... and then when the alarm went off at 5:30a, I noticed a beautiful thing.  No noise.  No rain!!! Oh thank youuuuuuu weather!!

It was PERFECT.  It rained overnight, but for the race it was cool, overcast, and NO rain. And gorgeous scenery.  We ran down Cannery Row and then along the beautiful coast of Monterey Bay and the Pacific Ocean.  It was a nice out-and-back route, so at about mile 5, we saw the winners coming back (at their mile 11!).

Our goal was a sub-2 hr run and the final time was 1:59.02.  Yay hooray!!!  A nice little post race festival (with Michelob Ultra at 9:15a) and then we headed to clean up and cheer on the Packers. And watch the skies open up and rain again.  Just running to get/pack the car was miserable, so once again, thank youuuuuuuuu weather for cooperating!!

And to "Run a half marathon in 2011", I say:  CHECK!

Two checks in one SF trip!

Nick and I headed to SF to see Cirque du Soleil's traveling show, Totem.

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And while we were there enjoyed a very nice dinner at Michael Mina.  A nondescript building in the financial district.  Our reservation was for 830p on a Sunday and the place was completely full!

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We got the chef's tasting menu (five course - steak tartare, scallop, fish, duck, ribeye, two desserts - a goofy overly fancy rootbeer float creation and then little bites) with wine and checked off two (sub) checks on the 101 list:

     #17.  Eat ten new foods:  (1) John Dory:  A perfectly tasty white fish.  As to
              the funny name?  Even wiki is unsure.
     #62.  Eat at three one-Michelin starred restaurants:  (1)  Michael Mina SF

My favorite course was probably the fish (although the scallop with the crab salad underneath was realllly tasty too); there were these little potatoes and this puree with it... yum yum.  I was impressed by the food - Nick was underwhelmed.  Which for the $$ is disappointing...

All-in-all though, a very fun evening in the city!!

First check!

Ok, well, it's a sub-check really.

#59. Watch 20 documentaries.  (1/20)

An Inconvenient Truth - 2006 - dir. Davis Guggenheim

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I've been wanting to watch this one for a while, having been an Oscar winner and all.  But I didn't love it.  It was from 2006 and kind of felt/looked that way.  The most striking thing-I-learned -- California (not even the whole US) tried to pass car emissions regulations that in ten years time would bring our standards to the current standards in China (Japan?) which are far lower than even Europe, etc.  But the US car industry petitioned SO HARD the standards failed.  And now the US car companies can't sell our products in Asia because we're so far below their levels.  Sad.

Anyway, climate change is scary, I'm glad I have a hybrid car, I promise I'll buy energy friendly light bulbs, and it's maddening what the media can distort from fact into hype (NO published scientific studies doubt that global warming is happening; >50% of lay media, aka regular news reports state global warming as a "possibility" or "theory").  And I hope some of his predictions/charts are wrong.... (don't buy any beach homes.)

Seen any good documentaries lately?

Progress

Ok.  Eight days in...

I HAVE put $8 in the jar and I registered for an account on Pinterest.

Did you know you have to apply and wait on a wait list??  To be part of a cool kid website?? Well, I don't want to say too much in case I become a convert, but so far, still don't get it.  Sorry item #78.

We also made reservations for a one Michelin star restaurant this weekend (woohoo!) and I'm blogging right now, that counts, right??

Here's to getting some check marks!!

THE DATE

Day 1001 is........

Friday August 1, 2014!!!

And.... GO!!

Redirect

So... I was into the thing-a-day for a while, but just thinking about doing new things seemed to get me out of my funk and I didn't need to TRY so hard to feel like I had a full life.  Or I just didn't feel like blogging for a while.  But it was on my mind.

And I still like goals.

And I'm still a little bored. 

So I found a NEW inspiration: 101 in 1001 - you make a list of 101 attainable, specific goals (not bucket list things) and have 1001 days to check them off.   Find my list under the other page tab.

Off we go!