All posts by Deirdre Straughan

Seeing Rainbows

^ top: rhubarb!

It’s a gorgeous spring day in San Francisco, so I walked over to the farmers’ market at the Ferry terminal, saw lots of amazingly beautiful produce, and bought a a little of it.

honey treats

^Honey in a rainbow of flavors.

veggies

^ Flowering borage (yes, I had to ask) and tubers for tasting.

colorful potatoes

^ I don’t actually like eating purple potatoes, but they are awfully pretty.

beans!

^ The Rancho Gordo heirloom bean stand had this wonderful tub of “touching beans” – don’t you just want to run your fingers through all the shiny smoothness? I could see having something like this on my coffee table for visitors to play with.

Home Update

This wall of my bedroom is pretty much done, with a cheap-but-capacious dresser from Ikea, Elfquest prints, decorative bark balls bought on the street in Porto Alegre, and the etched mirror bought at Tribal Route during my recent visit to Mumbai. The merino sheep is from last summer’s trip to New Zealand, but he’d been stashed away til now because I was afraid my Colorado roommate’s dogs would think he was a toy for them and summarily dismember him (as they do with all their toys). And he’s way too cute for that dismal fate.

Looking out into the living room, you can see the poster of Lakshmi that Yuti and I bought on the street in Mumbai. I had said to her: “I’d like to buy some god posters,” and we ran into an ambulatory poster vendor as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Yuti was amazed; there are plenty of street vendors in India, but she had not ever seen someone walking around selling posters until I apparently summoned him with the mere thought.

The rubber tube “frame” came with the poster, the whole thing cost about $2.50. I could probably frame these in glass and sell them for hundreds of dollars each at a trendy shop in San Francisco.

Learn Italian in Song: Domani 21/04/09

Tomorrow

Jessica aka @italylogue asked me a while ago to translate this song done as a fundraiser for survivors of the L’Aquila earthquake, but it slipped to the bottom of my inbox/to do list. However, I can claim that it’s appropriate to resurrect this request now that we’re almost at the anniversary of the song. The names shown in parentheses identify who is singing at each line – a handy guide for those of us not entirely al corrente (up to date) with Italian pop music.

Continue reading Learn Italian in Song: Domani 21/04/09

Planet Hollywood, Planet Vegas

This week I was in Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters conference/show. I had booked a room at Planet Hollywood because I thought the folks I was going with/for would be there. When I checked in at the desk, I was told I’d been upgraded to a suite. This surprised me, but the lady explained that, when bookings are tight, they often upgrade people who are only there for 1-2 nights as this gives them more flexibility in reassigning rooms.

So they put me into a suite decorated with relics of Harrison Ford’s career, mostly Indiana Jones stuff as shown above, and this:

…which was in my bedroom! A headless suit of clothing watching over me as I sleep was just too weird. Fortunately, it was not lit up when I arrived; I had to find the switch labeled “Memorabilia Light” to get this picture.

All this memorabilia was puzzlingly mixed with 60’s Mod furniture:

…which has what to do with Indiana Jones, or Harrison Ford, for that matter? Boh. Vegas works by its own rules.

I was most amused by these props from the famous “Oh, to hell with it!” swords vs. whip fight in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I read somewhere years ago that an actual fight had been carefully choreographed, but when it came time to shoot it Ford was not feeling well (something about the food on location in Morocco?) and, instead, did what came naturally. I was feeling very unwell myself throughout my stay in Vegas (cold, not intestinal), so could totally empathize.