From fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid Tue Feb 3 00:57:35 2009 From: fmaneely at fhmaneely.yahoo.invalid (fhmaneely) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:57:35 -0000 Subject: happy merry Message-ID: I check the site every now and then, however totally missed December. So, Happy Merry to Everyone. I can't believe you guys have been talking about food. I developed some stomach intestinal thingy in August and have been on a gluten-free, presative-free, fast food-free, bland crappy diet. Bah! No fun spicey stuff for me. Anything else going on??? Anyone read Beedle the Bard? Cheers, Fran From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid Tue Feb 3 02:44:57 2009 From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:44:57 -0800 Subject: [the_old_crowd] happy merry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4987AFA9.8070609@...> Just curious. Why no fun spicy stuff? Not only does spicy stuff not irritate the stomach (at least as far as my reading goes), it actually aids digestion and, as any chili-head will tell you, triggers the release of all sorts of endorphins, explaining the euphoria many people feel at the end of a fiery meal. What you need to watch out for is the fat, especially hard fat, that is usually part of such an ethnic or fast-food meal. I have learned the hard way that every time I eat at McDonald's, I get throwing-up sick, and food in an Indian restaurant goes through me like a hot knife through butter (too much ghee; when I cook Indian food at home, no problem). I don't know what part of the world you're in, but out here on the central coast of California, organic is the word of the day, and both mainstream and alternative markets are pushing it for all they're worth, both fresh and in cans, bottles, tubs, plastic wrap,...well, you get the picture. Organics include beans of all sorts, meat of all sorts, tomatoes and other fruits and veggies of all sorts, and dairy products including cheese. I bring up organics because if they are in cans, bottles, etc., they are usually missing the preservatives and other chemicals you and I and most of the people I know want to avoid. If you can't have gluten but are a pasta-head, check out rice-flour pasta. My ex-roommate, who was allergic to everything, got along well on rice-flour pasta and pizza. Are you at all interested in cooking? If so, I will refer you to my Virtual Cookbook . As one of my friends said after working her way happily through it, "If you are what you eat, you're cheap, fast, and easy." A couple of questions to ask your ever-so-prohibitive doctor: * Where does fiber fit into all this? * Am I allowed to cook with/drink wine? I've read /Beedle the Bard/, and found it a graceful exploration of the folk tale/fairy tale genre, though it will never replace Howard Pyle's /Wonder Clock/ in my heart. /Beedle/ is one of those books that just cries out for beautiful illustrations, and of course publishing companies these days think lovely illustrations are not cost-effective. >:P Thank goodness I grew up in the early (1943-?) twentieth century, and was blessed with books illustrated by N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Monroe Leaf, Beatrix Potter, Arthur Rackham, E.H. Shepard, Maxfield Parrish, Norman Price, oh, too many to name. Those illustrations shaped my character, just as the text did, made me the highly visual, aesthetic person I am. I was raised on /My Book House/ and /A Picturesque Tale of Progress/. The text, as I recall, was pedestrian enough (Piltdown Man was advanced as a classic example of pre-human /Eoanthropus whoosis/), but the illustrations were just glorious, and I learned from looking at them, becoming enthralled, and then going back and reading the pedestrian text that talked about them. Never underestimate the power of illustration to stimulate a child's interest and imagination! Even today, when I find a well illustrated children's book, I buy it if I can possibly fit it into the budget. Tomi Ungerer (/A Story Book/, /Zeralda's Ogre/) and Wallace Tripp ("He found a formula for drawing comic rabbits...") are two of my all-time favorites. Happy Solstice to you too! Culinary purrs, --Gatta fhmaneely wrote: > > I check the site every now and then, however totally missed December. > So, Happy Merry to Everyone. > > I can't believe you guys have been talking about food. I developed some > stomach intestinal thingy in August and have been on a gluten-free, > presative-free, fast food-free, bland crappy diet. Bah! No fun spicey > stuff for me. > > Anything else going on??? Anyone read Beedle the Bard? > > Cheers, > Fran > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid Fri Feb 6 05:28:00 2009 From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:28:00 -0000 Subject: happy merry In-Reply-To: <4987AFA9.8070609@...> Message-ID: --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kat Macfarlane wrote: > I was raised on /My Book House/ and /A Picturesque Tale of > Progress/. Wow! I thought I was the only person in the world who had any recollection of those books! The copies of /My Book House/ and /A Picturesque Tale of Progress/ that I had as a child were the SAME copies that my father had had as a child. I loved /A Picturesque Tale of Progress/ so much ... long ago, when I was a university student, my friends who were taking Introduction to Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology were laboring to memorize photographs for an exam, and I glanced over their shoulders and said "Oh, that's the ivory goddess from Knossos", "Oh, that's that that Minoan vase with the octopus on it", and so on. Because I remembered them from those excellent drawings ... fhmaneely wrote: << I check the site every now and then, however totally missed December. So, Happy Merry to Everyone. >> Hi, Fran! Welcome back. << I can't believe you guys have been talking about food. I developed some stomach intestinal thingy in August and have been on a gluten-free, presative-free, fast food-free, bland crappy diet. Bah! No fun spicey stuff for me. >> Ouch! How awful. I hope your stomach gets healthy quickly. << Anything else going on??? Anyone read Beedle the Bard? >> I read it, but haven't gotten around to checking the published book against the Amazon website because of my suspicion that there might be some Rowling drawings on the website that didn't make it into the book. From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid Mon Feb 9 15:14:44 2009 From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 07:14:44 -0800 Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: happy merry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49904864.7050403@...> Oh, I do hope you still have them! Into my exile in a little tiny studio apartment, I brought one big bookcase, in which MBH and APToP have pride of place. My edition is from 1948, and I suspect yours probably is from about then too, which would put you about a generation after me. I doted on the Minoan pictures, and also the ones, a couple of volumes on, on medieval Russia, not a topic usually addressed in children's literature and therefore exotic and titillating. If you want a cheerful and good-hearted read (no illustrations; this is a Grown-Up Book), I strongly recommend /The Guernsey Literary and Potato-Peel Pie Society/, by Mary Ann Shaffer. I got it from the library, and loved it so much that I actually went out and bought it in /hardback/!!! (Some books you just have to own in hardback!) Literary purrs, --Kat Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote: > > --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com > , Kat Macfarlane > wrote: > > > I was raised on /My Book House/ and /A Picturesque Tale of > > Progress/. > > Wow! I thought I was the only person in the world who had any > recollection of those books! The copies of /My Book House/ and /A > Picturesque Tale of Progress/ that I had as a child were the SAME > copies that my father had had as a child. > > I loved /A Picturesque Tale of Progress/ so much ... long ago, when I > was a university student, my friends who were taking Introduction to > Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology were laboring to memorize > photographs for an exam, and I glanced over their shoulders and said > "Oh, that's the ivory goddess from Knossos", "Oh, that's that that > Minoan vase with the octopus on it", and so on. Because I remembered > them from those excellent drawings ... > > fhmaneely wrote: > > << I check the site every now and then, however totally missed > December. So, Happy Merry to Everyone. >> > > Hi, Fran! Welcome back. > > << I can't believe you guys have been talking about food. I developed > some stomach intestinal thingy in August and have been on a > gluten-free, presative-free, fast food-free, bland crappy diet. Bah! > No fun spicey stuff for me. >> > > Ouch! How awful. I hope your stomach gets healthy quickly. > > << Anything else going on??? Anyone read Beedle the Bard? >> > > I read it, but haven't gotten around to checking the published book > against the Amazon website because of my suspicion that there might be > some Rowling drawings on the website that didn't make it into the book. > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] From catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid Tue Feb 10 03:22:09 2009 From: catlady at catlady_de_los_angeles.yahoo.invalid (Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:22:09 -0000 Subject: happy merry In-Reply-To: <49904864.7050403@...> Message-ID: --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Kat Macfarlane wrote: > > Oh, I do hope you still have them! Alas, I do not, which is one of those long stories... > My edition is from 1948, and I suspect yours probably is > from about then too, which would put you about a generation after > me. No, I'm about the same generation as you: 1948 was when my parents got married. From katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid Tue Feb 10 04:58:31 2009 From: katmac at lagattalucianese.yahoo.invalid (Kat Macfarlane) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:58:31 -0800 Subject: [the_old_crowd] Re: happy merry In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49910977.90106@...> I'm so sorry. I'd love to hear your long story when you have the time. I hope they went to someone who would love and treasure them. Any chance you could get them back? (If not, you're welcome to come to Santa Cruz and read mine.) My parents got married in 1940, but there was a /war/ on, so they waited three years to see what was going on before having me. They reckoned it was safe by then, and the next thing my father knew he was conscripted and shipped off to Panama to deal with elephantiasis and other exotic tropical diseases. My mother and I joined him there in early 1945. I have eschewed the tropics ever since! I still loathe Spam, which was often the only meat the commissary had on hand. What else? I learned that coatis and small native children love bananas (I never did, much); my father would buy them by the bunch and hang it on the back porch, first come, first served. Our native housemaid used to chew my bacon to soften it up for me, which is probably why I came home with a mild case of tuberculosis. And I adored our Panamanian milkman, who called me "la ni?a; one time, when I was just out of my bath, I came romping out to see him in the altogether, which got a gasp out of my mother and a bellow of laughter out of him (I was all of two years old, so it was hardly a social episode). And I remember my father carrying me in his arms to Fort San Lorenzo and showing me where the Spaniards chained British prisoners in dungeons below the tide line, so they would drown when the tide came in. I wish I could remember more, but I was only just small. I was one of those irritating children who start reading spontaneously at about three and a half; I can't remember a time when I couldn't read. /My Book House/ and /A Picturesque Tale of Progress/ arrived in my life when I was about five, and I took off and haven't stopped yet. I still have penitential thoughts about what I put my kindergarten teacher through, asking when we could stop drawing stupid pictures and /read some books/--and then when I hit first grade, there were books, and they were /Dick and Jane/. I utterly rebelled for the first time in my young life, and refused to have anything to do with them! (I probably trotted in a volume of /My Book House/ to inform the teacher of what /I/ expected books to be about!) I still have the /Treasure Island /my father used to read to me with the wonderful, scary illustrations by Norman Price, with pirates that really /looked/ like pirates! (They didn't scare me, because I was snuggled up against my father, and I knew he'd protect me!) In fact, I have most of the childhood books I loved so much. When my father went off to college, my grandmother packed up all his childhood books and sent them to the /dump/, if you can imagine, and he never, ever forgave her, and put the fear of god in my mother of doing the same thing to me. So they kept them until I could get them out. Most of them are in that big bookcase with /MBH/ and /APToP/. :D Whenever I need heartwarming, which I have recently,...there they are. Pederobibliophilic purrs, --Gatta Catlady (Rita Prince Winston) wrote: > > --- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com > , Kat Macfarlane > wrote: > > > > Oh, I do hope you still have them! > > Alas, I do not, which is one of those long stories... > > > My edition is from 1948, and I suspect yours probably is > > from about then too, which would put you about a generation after > > me. > > No, I'm about the same generation as you: 1948 was when my parents got > married. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]