Mizwrite’s Blog

Hi, all!

I’m honored to have been asked by the always-terrific Joanna D’Angelo to post over at Pop Culture Divas from time to time.

The divas dish on books, television, movies and music — what’s hot, what they’re watching, what’s worth following, and what to keep your eye on.

My first post is about my current obsession with Bravo TV and The Real Housewives series! Ack! I can’t take my eyes away! Come on over and leave me a comment about which “Housewives” series you watch, if any … and (perhaps more importantly) why-oh-why they enthrall us so. …

1. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
2. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCullough
3. Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood
4. The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
5. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle
7. Anne Frank Autobiography
8. Othello, Shakespeare
9. The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
10. Beloved, Toni Morrison
11. All the King’s Men, Robert Penn Warren
12. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert
13. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
14. On Writing, Stephen King (nonfiction, but altered the way I write)
15. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Neffenegger

Hi, all!

I’m blogging over at Health Bistro today about Why Celebrity Deaths Affect Us. Please come visit and tell me  which celebrity death hit you hardest: Phil Hartman? Princess Diana? Michael Jackson? Nick Adenhart? Let me know …

"California Landmark 3" -- photo by L. Sanchez, 2006

Know where this is? California natives will probably know this one …

I received my first camera the year I graduated high school. Superman bought it for me. It was a Pentax K1000. I’m sure he had no idea how much I was going to love that camera … or the fact that he was going to buy me my second, third and fourth cameras too, for various wedding anniversaries … or especially the fact that we would eventually use that very camera to take pictures of our three newborn children … but there it was, in bright birthday wrapping on my 18th birthday, ready for me to discover.

My first pictures were the summer after high school. We went to Disneyland – Superman and me, and two of our friends, L and D. I took a ton of pictures that day. I zoomed in on faces, got lots of “buddy shots” and had plenty of pastel-muted Disneyland landscape in the background. When I first got those pictures back from Sav-on, I leaned against the glass counter, flipped through them, and fell in love. I was hooked.

After that, it was a rapid succession of shutter shots: my first days of college, our newborn nephew, my first Christmas back home, my roommates. (more…)

Here, on this Father’s Day, are 30 of the many reasons I love my husband Superman:

1. He has the most fabulous arms.
2. He never leaves the house without saying “I love you” to each of us. He will walk up and down the stairs to make sure he accomplishes this.
3. He makes me laugh every day.
4. He snuggles with each of the kids on the couch anytime they ask. (Which is pretty much every night.)
5. He loves that our teenage son still hugs him in public.
6. He makes the Most. Amazing. Salsa. Ev-ah.
7. He writes me e-mails in the middle of the day just to say he loves me.
8. He has a great body.
9. He loves all manly things: football, motorcycles, golf, surfing, beer, gadgets, women and blue jeans.
10. He looks great in his blue jeans.
11. He makes me and the kids Sunday brunch every week (usually egg burritos and salsa — yum).
12. He pulls over if he sees a car stranded in the middle of the road and helps push it like some kind of superhero.
13. He calls my mom just to talk to her.
14. He instituted a Saturday night sleepover for the kids when they were small, and it’s a tradition we continue to this day.
15. He loves traditions.
16. He’s very generous and helps me be more so.
17. He has interesting interests and follows them with a passion. They change over the years, but I love that he has them. Examples: tikis, midcentury modern design, presidents, WWII, football, baseball.
18. He knows an outrageous amount of trivia about tikis, midcentury modern design, presidents, WWII, football and baseball.
19. He does crossword puzzles every day.
20. He takes each of our kids on a “10-year-old’s road trip,” which is a weekend road trip of their choice with just dad. Child 1 went to Oregon to see a Ducks game. Child 2 went to the coastal city of Carmel and to the aquarium there. Child 3 turns 10 next year — we’re not sure where he’ll choose!
21. He keeps a “Happiness Book” of the kids’ drawings and named it such because it brings him joy.
22. He had to bury a brother and his mom, and, perhaps consequently, loves his family like there’s no tomorrow.
23. He hates to fly, but will.
24. He loves Tahoe and Yosemite as much as I do.
25. He holds my hand over the console in the car.
26. He encourages me to do things that make me happy, whether it’s running out to the book store or scrapbooking until midnight.
27. He still gets nervous about buying me presents.
28. He taught our daughter how to throw a football.
29. He shows our kids every day how to treat a woman with respect.
30. He is quite possibly the best father on earth.

Happy Father’s Day, babe!

One of my favorite singer-songwriters is Lyle Lovett. He has the most fabulous voice, a great band, hilarious lyrics, and songs with a beginning/middle/end. He never lets me down. 

And when he performs with his “Large Band” – mingling jazz with country, and sometimes just enough hand-clapping gospel – well, I’m smitten.

(Plus, any cowboy in a suit is going to impress me. …)

Here’s Lyle Lovett’s “Church.” Turn it up, clap along, and listen to this singer-storyteller weave the funny tale about a congregation trapped in church, starving, while the preacher goes on and on and on and on …

Lyle Lovett’s “Church,” YouTube

"California Landmark" - Photo by C. Sanchez, 2006

Do you know where this is?

At my job, I’m always looking at blogs, and some of the names really catch my attention. The funny names always intrigue me, and make me open the blog. There are some really funny ones out there. Here are some of my favorites:

• The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy
• Does This Blog Make Us Look Fat?
• Where Am I Going … And Why Am I in this Handbasket?
•  I Should Be Folding Laundry
• Happy Hour … Somewhere (from our very own Kat!)
• Muffintopless
• Drunk Writer Talk
• Back of the Napkin blog
• Ungirdled Passion
• I Could Cry but I Don’t Have Time
• I Do Things So You Don’t Have To
• Life Just Keeps Getting Weirder
• 40 Is the New 20
• Daddy Is Tired

Do you have some blogs whose names you just love? Share them with us! I love a little “clever” on a Monday morning. …

So I’m minding my own business (really), just doing some laundry, staring out the window as I fold some T-shirts, and I see this woman get out of the car inside my neighbor’s garage. She’s definitely not my neighbor. And she’s too old to be a girlfriend for the teen boy who lives there. She might possibly be a niece or an aunt or something. … But then I see the man-of-the-house get out of the car, and he puts his arm around her. Hmmm. … I move closer to the window. I recall a few months ago seeing the woman-of-the-house leaving with a man I didn’t recognize, too. … They were kind of laughing together, running down the porch steps to a sports car parked in front of the house. But I thought maybe it was her brother or something. I wasn’t sure. And now, this … So what’s going on? Swingers’ parties? Divorce? Are they all living there? Are they sharing the house and bringing respective dates? I press my face closer to the window … I’m fascinated. …

This all makes me think, though, about my across-the-street neighbor when I was growing up: Marge. She was one of those neighbors who knew everyone, and who knew everyone’s business. She would come across the street at least once a day and walk inside the door, yelling “yoo-hoo” through the entry way, and my mom would roll her eyes at me. My mom finally had to start locking the door when she mopped the entryway, or else we’d have Marge’s footprints all over the tile.

Marge would pull up a barstool and lay her cigarettes on the countertop. (more…)