The Fabulous B@ker Blog

A little over a year after receiving Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton bio for Christmas (2016), last night I finally finished it. There are several reasons for the delay in getting to the end (hey, it's the journey, not the destination, right?), among them: It's not a light read, nor it it particularly dense. I would say it's very readable for a historical biography. It's very long. I read it on my iPad (I had to purchase the iBooks version when I found the book print too small to read without a lot of light - it sucks to get old). In the iPad version, there was 1,600 pages of text, plus 400 additional pages of acknowledgments, pictures/documents, and references.  At first, I would read the book in small bites, fitting it in among 15 or so other books I read this past year. The monthly bookclub book was always there beckoning me, taking priority. I won't even mention all the Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO and other shows that kept tempting me (and winning...)...

Here's a really compelling topic for a blog post: How we did housework all day Sunday... and, boy did it feel good! The days are getting nicer now (weather-wise), and we have been blessed with a couple of sunny, warmish Sundays, which has been awesome. After church (and a bite to eat) this morning, Mark and I went to work on some much needed vacuuming, dusting, laundry, and cleaning of the kitchen floor and washing the rugs. So. Much. Dust. So. Much. Doghair. If we didn't love him so much... One of the things I finally did this weekend was to catch the dry cleaning guy when he was delivering an order back to us on Saturday, and I arranged for my mother's wedding dress to be dry cleaned. They are going to clean it and "heirloom" package it where they put it in a sealed box. That will be cool - I'll put it up in the attic with my dress which is also in sealed box. Both of which my daughter will probably never wear!!! Another thing I did was that I washed a...

Isn't it so cool that today is February 29, leap year day?! I think it would be wickedly fun to have a birthday or something like a wedding anniversary on this date (which, apparently - according to Facebook - one of my coworkers does...). This is actually my third Leap Year post since the inception of the Fabulous B@ker Blog. You can read the first entry here , and the second entry here. I work with some negative naysayers, and when I mentioned how fun it would be to have a leap year birthday, one of them launched into a tirade about how that would not be a good idea (computer systems get confused, when do you celebrate in the "off" years, etc.). Still, I think it would be awesome. Another young lady I work with is about ready to give birth to her third son, so I instructed her today would be an ideal day for Bryce to make his entrance into the world...alas, Bryce seems to have other ideas (but the day's not over yet!!). So, I hope you were able to make the ...

In the past couple of weeks I finished a book and a TV series that I feel compelled to recommend because they were both so good, and really engaging. First up, may I recommend The Boys in the Boat,   a true story about an underdog rowing team from the University of Washington (as in Washington state) and their bid for the 1936 Olympics, held in Berlin on the cusp of Hitler's rise to power. This book was soooo interesting, and not just because our kids were in crew (that made it very interesting, though, as I understood the incredibly important role of the coxswain better), but because of the deep dive the author took into this event in history, and the interesting way he presented all the characters' background. In the spirit of Laura Hillenbran's  Unbroken   (fun fact: Louis Zamperini, Unbroken's protagonist, also competed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, as did the famous Jesse Owens) and Seabiscuit ,  The Boys in the Boat was a real page turner and an excellent ...

What a news week! Unless you live under a rock, you know there were some pretty important issues in the news this week, all of which I am happy about  - being the bleeding heart liberal that I am! First up, the removal of the confederate flag from buildings in the South (not just South Carolina). After the tragic murder of nine innocent people at a church prayer service in South Carolina last week, the confederate flag became the focus (and has long been the emblem) of white supremacist hatred, seeing such activity as the inspiration for the shooter. While I would love the warmer weather in the South, I'm not sure I can deal with their attitudes. Take down that flag! On Thursday, the SCOTUS decision to uphold provisions of the Affordable Care Act (which others call "Obamacare," but I refuse to call it that...I find it a term derogatorily used by the crazy conservatives). Please, people, can we move on? ACA is WORKING! I now realize that before the ACA if Mark and ...

See? The stars are just like us...except for all that money.

Ahhhh, to have a few days off that involved nothing more than napping on the window seat, going out to dinner, and getting a pedicure. This must be how the other half (the independently wealthy other half, that is) lives.  It was a nice three days off with Annalisse, and we actually got a lot accomplished. She did a bit of homework and lined up some additional volunteering this summer, and I did a bit of running around and putting the finishing touches on Nic's shower, which came out beautifully and was very nice. Small and intimate. Great food and lots of laughs. And a surprise visit (for Nic) from my sister, Carol, for the day. A shout out to Aunt Sher who created the beautiful shower arrangements ~ they added so much to the ambience I was trying to create for the day!! While the weather all week has been really nice and went a long way toward melting the mammoth snow piles on the streets and roofs, yesterday the weather for the shower was rainy, dark and spitting sleet. O...

Well, friends, we are going on six months of dark skies, snow, sleet, rain, and freezing temperatures. It's certainly getting harder to tolerate this never ending winter, and it's really contributing to a general crankiness and malaise, and I know I'm not alone in this. Add to this a "not great" week, and not a lot of exciting stuff to look forward to, and you've got full blown Seasonal Affective Disorder. Life is a bit of a grind sometimes, isn't it? On the bright side, the Rochester Broadway Theatre League has three great shows (among all the shows scheduled) coming this fall: Book of Mormon (MY BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!) , Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella . Those of us of a certain age (and gender) will certainly remember the 1965 Cinderella TV special: My sister, Mary, is particularly obsessed with  R & H's Cinderella at the moment. Also, at last year's Tony Awards they performed th...

Today is the 50th anniversary of The Beatles first appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. Amazing! I've never understood people who say that a) they don't like The Beatles - some even say "The Beatles suck"- and/or b) they don't think The Beatles are that big a deal. Unfathomable to me. For the relatively short time they produced music as a band (1960-1970) their library, depth, and breadth of music is astounding. It always amazes me to listen to their catchy early stuff (seemly simplistic, but pretty cutting edge for the time), contrasted with the complex and rich sound that came later. Admittedly I like both ends of their musical spectrum...such variety and texture! The era of the Beatles music was truly a snapshot in time, and each member's solo music, while good in some cases (and really bad in others), never added up to the sum of the band's whole parts. Obviously, this is all my opinion, but it would be hard to argue that their influence on music...

April 13, 1976 Funny story. A couple of weeks ago I convinced a car full of coworkers to accompany me into the city to go to Swan Market , a German deli, for lunch. Let's just say German food was waaaayyyy outside some their comfort zones. So far out, in fact, that two of them got a turkey sandwich on rye. IN A DELICIOUS GERMAN DELI. But I digress. On the way to Swan's we passed by a Kentucky Fried Chicken (or, KFC as it is now known), and I remarked that it had been years since I had eaten KFC, and I would love to have some but it's no longer part of my diet. I love that stuff, I think if I had some now I'd feel pretty sick from all the grease. Me and KFC, we go way back. Back to 1974-5, in fact, when my sister, Mary, had a job there and would bring home leftovers every night after work. YUM, what a treat. So, ironically I had just talked about eating at KFC when the Facebook page for my hometown paper posted that they were looking for stories and pictures fr...

Another late night. Last night was the Macklemore concert at RIT, which was Annalisse's second major concert in four days. On Thursday she traveled with her friend, Taylor (and Taylor's family) to Cleveland to the Taylor Swift concert (that's a lot of "Taylors"...), and then there was the spring concert at RIT. She saw two of her fave artists in one week. Annalisse's taste in music is pretty aligned with mine in most cases, but we part ways with Macklemore, who is apparently the deep-thinking, message-filled rapper of our time, kind of like the 90s Eminem. She was beyond excitement in the hours leading up to the concert, and met up with some friends there. Ironically, she did not see her brother among the 6,000 fans but, according to Twitter, he thought it was a pretty amazing concert, too. Ah, but there will be Hell to pay for all this FUN. Today she has driver's ed after school and won't be home until about 8:15. I'm sure she will be cranky a...

Tonight in the car on the way to pick up Annalisse from work, ELO's Living Thing came on the radio. I was swept back to my bedroom on Roosevelt Street by this song that reminded me so much of my teen years when I would listen to the radio all night long. To think of that now is amazing, seeing I am the type of person who has to have absolute quiet when I sleep. Looking back I know now that I really wasn't sleeping very soundly in those days with my favorite songs seeping into my subconcious all night long. I remember waking up many times a night savoring one song or another on Chez 106 out of Ottawa or CHOM out of Montreal. It think I may have talked in the past about the Canadian influences on music as I was growing up, and once in a while at work I will listen to Q107 out of Toronto, which plays all that great Canadian rock that I grew up with. As an aside, one aggravating aspect of growing up in the 70s was that most music (not listened to on the radio) came in the for...

Today, on the last day of 2012, I take my yearly stroll back through the year and reflect on ups, downs, highlights and themes. This was a year filled with many ups and downs in the US, and several terrible tragedies, combined with the effects of the faltering economy, give it a melancholy feel for me. But, let's get started... First of all, as you already know, the world didn't end. Next, I remember writing this reflection about 2011 and it seems last year's theme was "connection." Thinking about this year, I would say the theme that stands out is "music and entertainment," followed by a close second of "travel." Music and Entertainment It mostly started in May when Mary, Annalisse, Nic and I went to see "Wicked" in Raleigh, and was followed by Annalisse's Lady Antebellum concert in June, then Squeeze, then Train/Mat Kearney/Andy Grammer in July and August, "Nice Work if You Can Get It" on Broadway (my first ...

Last night I had the pleasure of picking Cam up from a friend's house at 1am (it was an hour-round trip altogether) because don't we always tell our children,  "I don't care what time it is, you can always call us for a ride home" - a policy which he has taken advantage of twice this week: Wednesday night Mark headed out at 2am and last night it was my turn. But I'm not complaining because... I love driving in the car in the middle of the night or the early morning - as I often have to do when I'm traveling and need to get the airport early. The first thing I do is turn the station to WHAM1180 for " Coast to Coast, " which describes itself as: A media phenomenon, Coast to Coast AM deals with UFO's, strange occurrences, life after death, and other unexplained (and often unexplicable) phenomena. I love this show. It really reminds me that are people out there with an alternate reality who truly believe they have experienced "Shadow P...

Last week we got tickets to see one of my fave bands, Train with MAT KEARNEY this summer (in August) at CMAC, a nearby venue. What a great concert it's going to be!! While the summer plans are shaping up nicely (blog post planned for today or tomorrow on that), this morning I'm really really in a Train mood. I've spent a lot of the last hour watching videos of some of my favorite Train songs, and, in particular, "Drops of Jupiter," a song that was popular in the summer of 2001.  It's a poignant song for me that brings back memories of the summer my Dad was diagnosed with blood cancer. Everytime I hear it I think of that time, the worry, and looking back, the happiness of having my Dad with us. If you 've never had a chance to hear "Drops of Jupiter," take a listen here. It's a great song!!

Feeling compelled to write a blog update...not much exciting going on...here are some updates. You may find them exciting, you may find them mundane. I'm thinking "mundane"to "mildly interesting": We saw The Hunger Games yesterday and really liked it. I felt is was well cast but obviously not long enough to include all the details that would have made it a richer story. Also about yesterday: I spent just a 1/2 hour at home between the hours of  8:30 and 9:30pm. I don't like those kind of days. We are definitely in the "no nap zone" lately. Tonight the fifth season of Mad Men starts, which I am very much looking forward to. Some friends are coming over to watch the season premiere so as I head out to go shopping in a little while I want to think of some mid-sixties era snacks to make. Any suggestions? The amazing weather that graced us last weekend lasted through most of the week, and now we're back to more seasonable cool/cold and rainy ...

It is with great impatience that we are anticipating the coming of "The Hunger Games" movie, which will be out next Friday (March 23). The Hunger Games trilogy was the best set of books I've read in a very long time - it's a story that really stays with you, and I still think of them often almost three months after finishing them. (Real or not real?) Ironically, when the book the first book in the triology ( The Hunger Games ) landed on the list as the January's selection for this season's bookclub, I was a little annoyed. In the past we've read apocalyptic, end-of-the-world, gloom-and-doom type gems, and I wasn't in the mood to spend my precious free time pushing through a story that would ultimately be littered with death and despair.  But, the day after Christmas I took the $25 Barnes & Noble gift card Mark had given me and headed out to buy January's selection. To my surprise and delight,  I was totally hooked from page one. The story...

So there's this new thing going around Facebook where people post the #1 song from the day they were born. In case you were wondering, the #1 song on October 8, 1963 was Sugar Shack by Jimmy Glimmer & The Fireballs. I'm sort of bummed since I find this song so annoying. Oh well, it was the '60s after all.

Hey, didn't I graduate with you? Annalisse and I are halfway through the second season of AMC's zombie-tastic series, The Walking Dead , and I'm telling you: ZOMBIE ARE FREAKY SCARY. Oh, they're alright if you encounter them one at a time, but if they swarm you, you are doomed. Why, oh, why do I watch The Walking Dead before bed? I think zombies are actually pretty funny. I enjoyed their staring roles in Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland , and it was probably only a matter of time before they got their own series. So the next time you encounter a zombie (a single one, not a swarm), just remember: Zombies were people, too. Side note: the star of The Walking Dead is Andrew Lincoln, who has one of my favorite roles in one of my favorite movies,  Love Actually  - a holiday fave at the Baker's. Love him!

LAMP Yesterday afternoon (on 11-11-11) I loaded up the car with four 16-year-old girls (a.k.a "L.A.M.P": Leighanna, Annalisse, Mo & Paige) and headed to Buffalo for the Mat Kearney concert, Annalisse's birthday present from us ( the birthday celebrations just go on and on, don't they? ). In case you've never heard of Mat Kearney , he's an indie folk/rock artist, and all four girls are huge fans. The kids were so excited for the concert! We got to Buffalo around 5:30pm, found parking, and walked to a nearby TGIFriday's for dinner (their choice...). The doors opened at 7pm so we stood in line for a little bit, then entered the Town Ballroom , a cozy music hall resplendent in black walls and a mosh pit surrounded by different levels for standing. Not a seat in sight. (I must confess the idea of standing for over four hours caused a little panic for my 48-year-old self, wondering how my back and legs would be survive the night.) Like a true mom I co...