Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 97

a random assortment

best pasta
My favorite shape of pasta is long fusilli:



One supermarket I go to has it (the one with the Lenten ideas, actually), but the near supermarket doesn't. I bought lots of packages last time I was at the one supermarket, and last night we had some. I love-love-love the feel in my mouth.

Do you have a favorite shape of pasta?

Knife throwee or lion's mouth?

A cafe in a nearby town has old board games for patrons to play. We didn't play any, but one that I noticed was called something like "W...

Other Lenten ideas

What if Lent isn't just for ketchup? Maybe there are other inexplicably Lenten things in our world?



Please share with me any particularly Lenten cities, cars, surgical procedures, fossil fuels, fossils, celestial bodies, or deciduous trees (or things in other categories) you can think of. It's good to have a list.

(I promise this is the last entry on this theme.)

Lenten Ideas: Ketchup

Our supermarket had this helpful suggestion for its Catholic shoppers:



So now... Is the supermarket recommending giving up ketchup for Lent? That's .... eminently bad salesmanship, but laudable ... something. Adherence to the faith? (The founders of this supermarket do happen to be Catholic.)

Or is the supermarket recommending buying the ketchup for Lent, and if so... why?

"You've given up coffee/alcohol/chocolate/desserts ... have some ketchup"?

Or is eating ketchup a penance of some sort? Ketc...

Small magics

On Thursday there was a candy-pink truck, like a giant child's toy, outside a university building:



On Friday evening, in the parking lot of the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, and with a view of Interstate 91, a lowering sky, and storage units, there was a little blue food truck, looking like a food truck version of The Little Engine That Could:



Last night, Wakanomori left his running shoes on the porch--this morning they had moved.



The raccoons and possums were trying them on for size? Or m...

A ginger-ale drinking game

Thank you, everyone, for your good wishes last entry. The healing angel is recovering quite nicely, though still with lingering joint pain. Hope that goes away for him. This week is winter vacation, so that gives him more time to recuperate without missing more school (he's already missed two weeks).

In English he's supposed to be reading The Kite Runner. Although I was pleasantly surprised by his last book, Angela's Ashes, this one is every bit as awesomely depressing as Good-for-You English-...

head still down

The healing angel's illness is mysterious and tenacious enough that we're off to a infectious disease specialist tomorrow. Work also continues fairly busy, and between caring for the healing angel and work, I haven't found time for much else. I miss folks here but peer in now and then while I'm working.

Warriors of the Wind karuta

Some time ago I posted about creating a matching game with quotes from Warriors of the Wind, a mangled dubbing of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind which we have an affection for in my family. I didn't have it quite done for New Year's, and then it became hard to find a time when the whole family was gathered, but tonight, on the occasion of a family birthday, we all gathered and played. True, the healing angel was ill (he's been sick with a virus now for more than 10 days...), and the ninja...

faith-hope-love ... also Star Wars musings

But first, an apology and some excuse making. I've had a crushing amount of work, so I haven't been here much, either to read and comment or to write my own entries (and reply to commenters). I think of my friends here pretty much all the time, and I try, gradually, to make my way to people's journals, but I do miss things--please accept my apology. Things should ease up soon.

So, what are you in the mood for? Theological questions?



We heard this on Sunday:

So faith, hope, love remain, these thr...

your morning breakfast

One of the women I do essay tutoring with was telling me about the breakfasts her great-grandmother used to make for us.

"She'd always make us the same thing," she said. "A cup of tea, and cinnamon toast."

She was smiling and her eyes were sparkling as she told me, and I could practically taste the cinnamon and feel the warmth of the tea. I love cinnamon toast.

What's your idea of a great breakfast? I remember my grandfather used to have an orange, cut like a grapefruit, so you can scoop out ea...

Stories around the electric fire

The guys who oversee the town transfer station (aka the town dump, but some stuff does get transferred for recycling) keep warm in a tiny room attached to the big pit where the nonrecyclable trash gets tossed. You go in there to buy town trash bags or to renew the sticker for your car that lets you go there. Inside, a TV is often on, and, at this time of year, there's a three-bar heater running.

There are two guys there: one is in his sixties and the other is in his thirties. I was renewing my...