It’s all vibes

~ MaryG ~ 22 Comments

A few photos from my bucket list trip to Key West.

It started out as many winter trips from Boston to Florida do:

But things quickly got better

We have an amazing balcony here.

I swam in this ocean today.

I’m settling into the vibe here. I know I was worried about getting bored on such a small island for a whole week, but Key West is actually a very lively town with many good restaurants and lots of live music. There’s definitely a lot of Yacht Rock here (I’ve heard multiple renditions of Steve Miller Band’s The Joker), but there’s also a lot of real talent playing in the bars.

The town feels safe, but colorful. There are some beautiful buildings and lots of cute houses, but none of the highrise condo buildings that are in virtually every other city in Florida.

Custom House
Episcopal Church
Walgreens

The roosters are real and they are everywhere. Apparently they were originally brought here by Cubans for cockfighting, but then cockfighting got banned, so the Cubans retaliated by letting the birds go free. They are now a protected species here.

Iguanas (“Key West dinosaurs”) are everywhere too, but they are not protected. They are an invasive species.

Despite my understanding that recreational weed wasn’t going to be available here, a very close hemp substitute is sold everywhere. This enhances the vibes, especially for those of us who aren’t big drinkers.

The food has been really good.

Blackened mahi mahi wrapped in banana leaf with mango salsa

And the legendary sunsets are truly spectacular.

To enhance the vibes, I’m reading Florida, short stories by Lauren Groff. They’re fantastic so far. She’s an amazing writer.

Before I left, I read The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton, historical fiction set in The Florida Keys in 1935, when the “Labor Day Hurricane” demolished Flagler’s wondrous railroad.

See? I got to the end of this post and haven’t mentioned Jimmy Buffett once.

🦜

A time-honored tradition

~ MaryG ~ 5 Comments

It’s that time of year when Bostonians who don’t ski set their sights on the Sunshine State.

These are some of the rituals:

Get a pedicure

Pack sandals in your carryon so you can change shoes on the plane

Pray your flight won’t be canceled due to incoming snow

Leave your winter coat in the car and dash into the terminal coatless and freezing

Sit on the plane and nervously watch the wings get de-iced

Pray this bird gets airborne

Lift off – ah

Watch dirty, grey old Boston recede from view and mind

Touchdown in the Land of the Mouse.

😎

1973
1978

Related:

Photo digitization project

A winter stew for you

~ MaryG ~ 11 Comments

I’ve posted many times about the great cookies and other baked goods I’ve made with recipes from Sally’s Baking Addiction.

Although she’s mostly a baker, Sally does have a few other recipes and I decided to give one of them a try: Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken & Corn Soup. It’s really more of a stew or chowder (chow-dah, if you’re from Boston 😉).

If you have a large slow cooker (aka crockpot), this recipe is easy and good. The inner part of my slow cooker is safe to use on the stovetop, so I didn’t even need a second pan to cook the bacon. For me, it was truly was a “one pot meal.” The only other tools I needed were a cutting board, knife, and potato peeler (for the sweet potatoes).

The only ingredient that was a bit hard to find in the store was a can of cream style corn. I had to go to two grocery stores to find it.

It cooks on low for 7-8 hours and smells wonderful while it’s cooking.

Great winter recipe.

❄️🥶☃️

Slow Cooker Creamy Chicken & Corn Soup – Sally’s Baking AddictionDownload

Here’s to Immigrants

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

All of these immigrants arrived in the United States dirt poor from Southern Italy in search of a better life.

My paternal grandparents, circa 1925.
My husband’s maternal grandparents, mid 1920s
My husband’s paternal grandmother (top right) and her children, including my father-in-law (bottom left) in Boston, mid 1920s

100 years later, their great, great granddaughter, a United States citizen, has just learned to roll over.

It’s wild to think that if any one of these immigrants had been sent back to Italy, my granddaughter wouldn’t be here.

This is Fascism.

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.

“In what ways specifically is the second Trump administration acting like a fascist regime?” ~ question to ChatGPT

The second Trump administration has implemented several policies and actions that critics argue exhibit characteristics commonly associated with fascist regimes:

1. Pardoning January 6 Participants: In his first week back in office, President Trump issued pardons to approximately 1,500 individuals involved in the January 6 Capitol attack. This move has been interpreted as condoning political violence and undermining democratic institutions. 

2. Withdrawal from International Agreements: The administration withdrew from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, actions that signal a retreat from global cooperation and a preference for unilateral decision-making. 

3. National Emergency on Migration: Declaring a national emergency on migration, the administration sought to cancel birthright citizenship and suspended refugee admissions, reflecting nativist and exclusionary policies. 

4. Attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives: The administration has aggressively targeted DEI programs, rescinding long-standing anti-discrimination executive orders and mandating investigations into DEI practices in the private sector. Critics argue that this undermines civil rights protections and could lead to systemic discrimination. 

5. Anti-Transgender Policies: An executive order was issued recognizing only “two sexes, male and female,” affecting policies related to passports and access to single-sex spaces. This move has been condemned by advocacy groups as discriminatory and regressive. 

6. Consolidation of Power and Suppression of Dissent: The administration enacted executive orders targeting undocumented immigrants, canceling federal diversity programs, and removing anti-corruption inspectors. A significant purge of senior officials and attempts to control government spending have been perceived as efforts to consolidate power and suppress dissent. 

7. Dehumanizing Rhetoric: The administration’s rhetoric has increasingly dehumanized political opponents and marginalized groups, with President Trump referring to adversaries as “vermin” and employing language reminiscent of authoritarian regimes. 

These actions have led to widespread concern among scholars, political analysts, and human rights organizations, who argue that the administration is exhibiting traits characteristic of fascist regimes, including authoritarianism, suppression of dissent, and the erosion of democratic norms.

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Class of ‘87

~ MaryG ~ 23 Comments

I have a couple of updates for you on the college class of 1987 (high school class of 1983). Most of us were born in 1965, so we are turning 60 this year. One of my best friends from college turned 60 yesterday. She broke the ice. Now the rest of us will follow…if we’re lucky. Making it to 60 is not a given. We’ve lost people—mostly to cancer, but sudden massive heart attacks have taken down a few of the men.

I appear to be the only grandparent in my college class of about 500, which is wild. A few people still have kids in high school, so I guess we tended to have kids late, but still…it’s a vivid illustration that the birthrate actually has cratered in this country.

Another observation is that people truly do age differently. Some people look 40 at 60, and some look 80. Money seems to be a factor, but not the only one. Most people are still working, but they’re either talking about retirement or saying they will never be able to retire. “Work ‘til I die” is some people’s retirement plan.

There is both a lot of concern—and a fair bit of bragging—about adult children in their 20s. “You’re only as happy as your least happy child” seems to be true. (But if you’re posting an effusive happy birthday message, with multiple pictures, for a 27-year old who doesn’t even use Facebook, you may need to let go a bit.)

Our parents, if we still have them, are very old now. I know of only one other classmate with two living parents like me. More of our mothers are still alive than our fathers.

For the first and oldest official GenXers, the Eighties was our decade. Nobody has quite so many formative memories of those years as we do. Do not challenge us to an 80s trivia quiz, because we will win. And we will also look back on it all with slightly rose-colored glasses. We’ll forget the bad stuff and laugh about that time we ate pot brownies at school and Mr. Ullman’s physics class finally made sense.

I never did see anyone get pizza delivered to a class like Jeff Spicoli, but that would have been amazing.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High came out the summer before our senior year in high school.
My 1984 look
The pizza delivery scene

The Cape

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

I’ve been digitizing old photos over the past few weeks. I have a ton of them. There’s no way I could save all of them in the event of a fire. I wouldn’t even want to. There are too many.

Walt Whitman’s lines “I am large, I contain multitudes” keep popping into my head. I’ve gone through so many phases in my nearly 60 years. I contain multitudes. We all do.

One theme I’m finding is that we (like everyone) mostly took photos on vacations and holidays. And there’s one vacation destination in Massachusetts that everyone knows: Cape Cod. It’s known simply as “the Cape.” (There’s another popular cape in Massachusetts, but that one gets referred to by its full name: Cape Ann.)

Cape Cod is where the Kennedys summered and it’s just one of those places that everyone in Massachusetts has memories of. If you didn’t have a friend with a house “down the Cape,” then you probably rented one or stayed in a Cape hotel at least a few times in your life.

My earliest memories of the Cape include barfing after eating scallops at Thompson’s Clam Bar, having my grandmother tell me that they thought I’d drowned when I went missing at the beach one day, and waiting for the sun to come out.

I’ve been lucky to visits “The Islands” many times too. (If you’re from Massachusetts, you know that The Islands are Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.) But the Cape is where my earliest vacation memories happened.

I’m realizing that the places where our memories were made—where our lives have played out—are quite meaningful. They’re the settings for our stories.

The Cape, August 1970
At the beach on Cape Cod, 1970, with my Italian grandmother in a bathing suit (a rare occurrence). I don’t remember how I hurt my knee, but I do remember wearing that huge bandage.

Best Picture – update #1

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments

Because we are old (kids grown) and have plenty of time, my husband and I try to see all the Best Picture nominees before the Academy Awards broadcast in March.

So far, we’ve seen 7 of the 10. Here are my quick (very unprofessional) reviews.

ANORA – Haven’t seen it yet

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN – I really liked it! I thought Ed Norton and Timothée Chalamet were fantastic as Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan. I have always liked folk music, so the history of the social justice grounding of the movement was interesting to me. My husband, who is more of a punk/hardcore guy, thought it was a bit boring and melodramatic.

THE BRUTALIST – Really good. It’s actually worth sitting in a movie theater for 3.5 hours to see this epic film. (There is an intermission to get up and stretch your legs.) Adrian Brody is fantastic. It’s a think piece. And worth seeing on the big screen for the Carrera (Italy) scenes alone. It will give you something to talk about at dinner. Brutalist style architecture is currently on Trump’s enemies list, so it’s au courant as well. If The Brutalist wins Best Picture, I’ll be OK with it.

CONCLAVE – I already posted about this film. We both liked it. Ralph Fiennes is terrific as the Head Cardinal in charge of overseeing the weird, secretive process the Catholic Church uses to pick a new pope. The scenes of Rome at night and the interior of the Vatican were my favorite parts. Isabella Rossellini plays a woman with the no real power (it’s the Catholic Church after all) but she plays her small part convincingly. I don’t really think it should win Best Picture, but who knows…

DUNE: PART TWO – Neither of us liked it. It’s long and boring and not our genre. In my opinion this movie is for younger people. All effects, no heart.

EMILIA PÉREZ – Really good! And so unusual. My husband said it was the only musical he’s ever truly liked. They don’t burst into big voice belting, but just kind of quietly sing/talk at key moments. It’s very effective. I actually wish we’d seen it on a big screen rather than on TV. There are a lot of dark scenes in Mexico City that would’ve been cool to see in a big dark theater. Women play all the major roles, so it passes the Bechdel Test with flying colors. I’m definitely OK with this one winning Best Picture.

I’M STILL HERE – Haven’t seen it yet

NICKEL BOYS – Haven’t seen it yet

THE SUBSTANCE – This is a horror movie people! Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley are fantastic, but I had to close my eyes a LOT. It’s “body horror” so a lot of gross stuff happens. If you’re OK with that, it’s worth seeing. There are a whole lot of women (including some I know and love) who put tremendous effort and money into defying nature with Botox and fillers, crazy face and body treatments, and actual scalpel surgeries. It’s a window into this mentality that goes completely off the rails as the movie progresses. Not Best Picture material, but worth streaming. (Also, tidbit for GenXers: Margaret Qualley is Andy McDowell’s daughter! She’s gorgeous like her mom, but in a completely different way.)

WICKED – I’ve already posted about Wicked. I loved it! It probably won’t win Best Picture because it was a huge blockbuster, but it probably should because it brought so much enjoyment, just like Barbie did last year. As previously mentioned, my husband doesn’t like musicals and even he said Wicked was “good.” From the moment Ariana Grande dropped down into Oz (a land of gingers) in a pink soap bubble carriage, I was all in.

Boston City Hall is the most well-known example of Brutalist architecture in Massachusetts.

Haiku: Week One

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

Each new outrage sears

As they are designed to do 

If you can’t watch, breathe 

Week One of having a rapist and convicted felon in the White House has sent me back to meditation. I’m fortunate that my minister holds weekly online guided meditation for free. She talks for a bit and then we sit in shared silence, paying attention to our breathing, for about 30 minutes. When a thought pops in, I try to just notice it, then let it float away and return to my breath or mantra. The mantra I’ve been using is “Be Here Now.”

Image from Pexels