Asana today, asada tomorrow? Goat yoga comes to Austin

Goat yoga might be good for baaaad girls. Read more at jeffcarmack.com.

Jeff Carmack's avatarJeff Carmack

Not content with turning St. Patrick’s Day into an excuse to wear green and swill crap beer, or to mistakenly celebrate Mexican independence on Cinco de Mayo and swill crap beer, white America is slowly doing the same for yoga.

View original post 410 more words

Chef’s Choice

After Studly Doright’s round of golf yesterday and my round of garage sale foraging we both returned home to Doright Manor and took well-deserved naps. Actually, I’m not sure I’d done anything to merit such a good nap, but I enjoyed one anyway.

Studly awakened before me and went out to do some work in his shop. Apparently I had been snoring too loudly for him to continue sleeping. I am woman, hear me roar!

After he came back into the house Studly took a shower and then harassed me until I woke up. He wanted to go into Tallahassee for Italian food, so I wiped the drool off of my chin, the sleep out of my eyes, and tried to make myself presentable for dinner out.

We went to Riccardo’s for dinner. I’d never been before, but Studly and his workmates eat there fairly often. The place was packed on a Saturday night, but we got a table and ordered fairly quickly. I ordered a caprese salad and a glass of wine, but Studly ordered a pepperoni pizza with pineapples and onion.

After the waiter left to turn in our orders Studly told me about a time he’d been in Orlando on business, and he stopped in at a small pizzeria on his way back to his hotel after work.

He said, “I ordered the same thing I did tonight: pepperoni with onions and pineapple. The waiter frowned and said he didn’t know if they even had pineapple, but he’d check. After a few minutes the waiter came back to my table and said, ‘Sir, I’m sorry. We do have pineapple, but the chef said that’s a horrible combination and he refuses to make it.'”

I was kind of shocked. Wouldn’t one go with the theory that the customer is always right? Shouldn’t the chef have made the pizza as requested?

Now, I know that pineapple on pizza is controversial. I’m a fan, but apparently not everyone is. What say you? Yay or nay on the pineapple? This is a matter of great importance.

Snapshot #217

Saturday I woke up early and decided to drive to Crawfordville, FL, to check out a neighborhood garage sale. I guess I’d fared so well on last week’s bargain that I thought I could find another such piece. Wrong. There wasn’t anything for sale even remotely worthy of a photograph.

So, I texted Studly and asked if I could join him for lunch after his round of golf at Southwood. He gave the okay, and I sat outside the restaurant waiting for him to come off the back nine.

Fittingly, this snapshot is called, Waiting for Godot, er, Studly.

Peace, people.

My New Journal

I’ve decided I’m going to attempt to keep a journal. Every day I’ll take a few minutes to jot down my deepest thoughts and meaningful musings. And some day, as God is my witness, I’ll have a body of work to be proud of!

Oh, who am I kidding? Writing for this blog is the closest I’ve ever come to keeping a journal, and it’s hardly noteworthy. However, I found a notebook at Target a couple of days ago and had to have it. It almost makes me want to begin journaling.

Intriguing cover, am I right? But open to the first page and you get this:

Every page has either an actual incorrect, yet amusing answer to a test question,

Or a cute doodle.

It’s so much fun to turn the pages that I can see myself scribbling my thoughts down, expounding on the ideas or enlarging the doodles. Or not.

This notebook does make me wish I’d compiled all of the inventive and unusual answers my students used on tests through the years, though. As I recall there were some doozies, but I can’t remember a single one. I reckon that’s why I should have kept a journal. Can I get an amen?

One of my favorites:

And this one:

We lived in North Dakota, and raised two children there. I sure hope this kid got credit for his answer.

Okay, I have things to accomplish today. Thanks for joining me in this nonsense.

Peace, people.

Remembering My Dad

Today would have been my dad’s birthday. He’d have been 82, I think. I wrote this post about him the first year I blogged, way back when I still used two spaces after a period.

It’s hardly a perfect post. My paragraphs are too lengthy and the piece is not constructed all that well, but if you take the time to read it I hope you can tell just how much my Daddy was loved. I miss him every day.

https://nananoyz5forme.com/2014/08/16/not-just-any-man/

Snapshots #213, #214, #215, and #216, or “Before and After”

Last Saturday I brought home this piece from a garage sale:

The above photo is titled, Studly Doright Will Just See an Ugly Old Chair, while the photo below is, Surprise! It’s an Ugly Old Hamper, Too!

It was a bargain at $5.00, and I figured even I was up to the task of making it pretty again. And contrary to the title, Studly actually thought I’d found a gem!

Just look how beautiful it is all cleaned up!

Besides finding a colorful new cushion for the chair, I also applied a bit of oak tinted furniture repair paint to the white splotches, and then rubbed tung oil into the rattan. I am incredibly pleased with the results. I call these photos, Bare, Beautiful Chair, and Ta Da! respectively.

Now I just need to find a place for this beauty. None of my bathrooms has a vanity table or counter, but the chair might find a spot in my bedroom. I can picture the cats making themselves comfy on the cushion. Studly suggested selling it. Maybe he was just pretending to like the chair. Harrumph.

Peace, people!

For Your Viewing Pleasure: Godless

One of Studly Doright’s co-workers recently sent him home with the Netflix series, Godless. We didn’t binge watch the series, but only because things like work and entertaining the Texas grandkids took precedence. Otherwise we might’ve done nothing but watch this one-season series from start to finish.

Godless is an unconventional western featuring an ensemble of strong, independent female characters, non-stereotypical Native Americans, as well as a highly nuanced villain played brilliantly by Jeff Bridges.

This Steven Soderbergh production follows a band of ruthless raiders led by Bridges’s character, Frank Griffin, as they scour the southwest searching for Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), who has stolen a large sum of money from Griffin’s team and left the group for parts unknown.

The opening scene shows the brutal aftermath of Griffin’s band’s vengeance on a small town where Goode had received shelter while on the run. Every man, woman, and child in the village had been slaughtered and their bodies left in the streets as a warning to anyone who might offer assistance to Roy in the future.

Roy, who’d been shot during an exchange with Griffin’s men is tended to by a widow, Alice Fletcher, played by Michelle Dockery, along with her mother-in-law, Iyovi (Tantoo Cardinal) and her son, Truckee (Samuel Marty). Alice and her family live on a ranch outside the mining town of La Belle, Colorado.

La Belle is populated almost exclusively by women after a mine explosion claimed the lives of most of the town’s males. The women of La Belle have had to rethink their roles and to challenge the ways in which women are viewed and restricted during the period immediately following the Civil War. Their lives aren’t easy, but these females aren’t quitters.

The viewer knows that at some point Griffin and his murderous marauders are going to discover where Roy Goode has taken up residence. The women of La Belle think Roy’s last name is Ward and have no idea that Griffin is on his way to wreak havoc on the community. That is until a newspaperman, (Jeremy Bobb) from another community realizes who Ward is while visiting La Belle in pursuit of a story. Griffin discovers where Goode is even as the ladies of La Belle learn they’ve been harboring the object of Griffin’s wrath. Whew. The climactic scene is intense, and everything leading up to the climax is beautifully crafted.

The casting choices for Godless were impeccable. Merritt Wever plays one of La Belle’s widows who has thrown off the trappings of femininity to lead her “sisters” through an uncertain future. Her brother, played by Scoot McNairy, is the town’s sheriff. He’s also slowly going blind, but doesn’t want anyone to know. One of my favorite actors, Sam Waterston, portrays a federal marshall on the trail of Frank Griffin.

If you enjoy westerns then this one-season series is worth watching. Yes, there’s violence and some nudity and sexuality, but the tale is gripping. The only downside is that Godless consists only of seven episodes. Studly and I are in a funk now that it’s over. We both hope there might be a spin-off series down the line.

Peace, people.

Snapshots #213 and #215

Those who pay attention to such things will note that the numbers in my title are not consecutive. There’s a good reason for that. I shared photo #213, titled, Studly Doright Will Just See an Ugly Old Chair, several days ago.

I bought the vanity chair for $5 at a garage sale, and after asking my crafts-minded sister-in-law, Lyn, for advice I’ve begun the process of making it prettier. The first step was to buy a new cushion which was way easier than I’d imagined since the existing cushion was a fairly standard size.

Here’s snapshot #215, which I’m calling Old Chair with New Cushion:

Isn’t it already prettier? I found this cheerful cushion at World Market for half of its original price. So far, I have $19.00 invested in my chair. Now I need to clean it and as Lyn suggested, apply Tung oil to the rattan.

As blog posts go, this is hardly earth-shattering, but the project is keeping me out of trouble. For now, at least. Oh, and Studly actually likes the chair and pronounced that I’d found a gem! Will wonders never cease?

Peace, people!

Wine Talking

Last night I imbibed

A Cabernet Sauvignon

Mellow vibes accrued

Sweet drifting on sips

This languid summer evening

Deep in these red cups

Oh, deepest vintage

Layered tastes on eager tongue

Rich flavors ensued

What Would You Remember?

This morning while Studly played for the final day in his club’s golf tournament I decided to take myself to brunch at the Canopy Road Cafe on Apalachee Parkway in Tallahassee. It’s a bit of a drive from Doright Manor to this cafe, so I had plenty of time to listen to an entire episode of NPR’s RadioLab on Sirius/XM.

The segment that gave me pause was one about a music conductor who suffered an illness that resulted in him having the worst case of amnesia ever recorded. He literally could not remember what happened from one minute to the next. He attempted to keep a journal at the urging of his nurses, but the entries went something like It’s 8:02 and I am fully awake. This was followed by, It is now 8:03, and I’m truly awake. Then, It is 8:04 and I am awake!This pattern continued until something else occurred in his routine.

Since I was driving I didn’t write down his name, but I do remember that of his wife, Claudia. I remember because she was one of only two touchstones in his life. He might not always remember her name, but he lit up when he saw her and he wanted only to be near her, to kiss her, and to enjoy her hugs.

He also remembered how to read music and could sing lyrics to familiar songs. Claudia brought his choir members to the facility in which he lived, and her husband was able to conduct their performance as if nothing had ever changed.

All I could think of as I ate my omelet this morning was what would I remember if inflicted with a similar fate. Would it be Studly Doright’s face? Those of my children? Would it be my favorite books or movies? What would survive an almost complete memory loss?

There’s no way of knowing, of course, and I hope I never have to deal with Alzheimer’s or dementia, or any other memory stealing event. Still, maybe I need to begin reinforcing pleasant memories. Note to self: Give Studly a big hug and kiss when he returns from golf today.

What do you think you’d remember? Are there things you wouldn’t mind not being able to recall? That’s dangerous territory.

Peace, people.