In one tale, the Julie character decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s classic book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and blog about the process. The other tale is of Julia Child’s life in Paris including cooking school and the process of writing the book. Both tales weave together themes of love and support in marriage and the process of discovering and finding one’s passion in life.  The acting was great and Meryl Streep was excellent as Julia Child.

Some friends of mine went out to but Julia Child cookbooks and DVDs after watching Julie and Julia. They have proceeded to cook some of the amazing recipes and feel a great connection with the movie. Just today I saw a 1971 edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking when visiting a client and I thought of trying a recipe or two.

The film was full of the sights and sounds and textures of cooking. My date and I found our dinner cravings strangely satisfied just from watching. I’m sure we would have headed to a great dinner had it not been after 10PM.

I highly recommend Julie and Julia!

A few weeks ago I remembered when my former boss’s son tried a language experiment at a Berkeley middle school.  He and a friend decided to create a brand new slang term and see how far it would spread.  It was only a matter of two weeks before much of the school was using the new word they created.  And before the month was out it had trickled up to Berkeley High School as well as to the other middle schools in Berkeley.  The power of language in culture is potent and fast moving. 

Since Urban Dictionary often includes the etymology of  phrases, it is fascinating to see where things come from.  For example, I discovered that hyphy is the Bay Area originated equivalent of crunk.  And it didn’t take long to discover that FLIRJ originated on Saturday Night Live in one of the Tina Fey as Sarah Palin skits in 2008.  Warning: as that last example shows, cultural words can be racy. 

There are 27 Million people enslaved in the world today–more than at any other time in human history.  San Francisco is the number one city in the USA for trafficking: mostly women brought in for sex. 

I hope you will find a way to see the film in a theater near you.  Here is the trailer: 

I joined Facebook in early spring of 2007. When I hired a Cal student intern named Monica (a Facebook expert) in May, she showed me the ropes. I began visiting the site daily. I initially connected with several friends from church. At the time, there was only one other member from my high school class, now there are 43. There was about 50 people from my college class, now there are over 500.

I have always enjoyed observing social networking websites and trends. My first experiment in joining one was in 2002 via a business networking tool called ryze.com. My involvement didn’t last. But Facebook is the first one where I see people my age joining in droves. People of all ages, for that matter. I have reconnected with several friends from childhood and college. I have connected with work colleagues and clients. Several very notable friendships have grown thanks to Facebook. I have had a great time.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about “stuff” lately. My two bedroom house has too much stuff. I have boxes and boxes of books and belongings from my last house. I have been thinking about moving to a bigger place. I have been thinking about getting rid of stuff aggressively.

Last week, my house was burglarized and I lost some big ticket items: most notably my TV, computer, and some jewelry. As I have been weighing the loss, I have decided it was the digital pictures on the computer that I will miss the most. The unexpected event of being robbed combined with reading about the 100 Thing Challenge has me realizing that a LOT of my stuff would not be missed if I no longer had it. Could I whittle things down enough such that the five living creatures in my home could fit more easily? What would it be like to live lighter on this earth?

I have always appreciated her honesty and her opinions on many topics.  She speaks with a real practical wisdom based the lessons she has learned in her long life. She has told me many times that she doesn’t consider past times to be “the good old days”.  They weren’t always very good according to her.   

As she has gotten older, I have enjoyed seeing her “retire” from various activities.  She no longer travels more that two hours by car.  She no longer cooks.  She no longer bakes.  And she even has a house keeper. Her mainstays now are crocheting baby blankets (over 200 per year), watching sports, and reading. 

There has been a series of jokes in the family about what to get Grandma, the lady who has everything.  She once threatened to remove from her will anyone who dared get her a pet.

Given her reduction in activities, it seems that a lot of technology based gift ideas are considered on a regular basis.  This is where it gets complicated: she is hard to predict as far as tech gadgets go. She loves her cordless phone, but hates her answering machine.  She loves her cable but has no desire for a DVR.  

She staunchly refused to allow her kids to buy her a new refrigerator, dishwasher and stove.  She finally relented to a serious overhaul and repair of each.  Surprisingly, she allowed a microwave onto the property at the request of her frequent family visitors.  It started in the garage and finally was moved to the kitchen.  She herself has never used it.  Never will. 

My latest jokes with her are about the Internet.  I ask her if she got my email or if she had seen the latest products on amazon.com.  She gives me a good smiling “oh, David”.  

I think we should get her a new TV for her birthday.  Like a 46-inch LCD.  And I think we shouldn’t even ask her.  Hopefully she won’t disown me for instigating.   

I’ve been thinking a lot about health this week.  And about how fast life is moving by.  My friend Eleanor almost died from cerebral meningitis seven days ago.  Her husband got her to the hospital just in time.  In fact they told him she was not going to make it.  Hanging out with her in the hospital after she got out of ICU brought me very close to the situation.  Her totally unexpected brush with death reminded me of the frailty of this life.  It isn’t only disease and poor health that can get us.  Even a health nut can be killed in an accident.