goya brand frozen fruit pulps, blended with a little rice milk, make the best smoothies!

http://www.goya.com/english/products/product.html?prodSubCatID=34&prodCatID=8

I get it at publix.

I'm not really into celebrity news, but I occasionally enjoy reading liz smith's gossip column because she is so delightfully bitchy. the positive side about getting older, for women, is that if you're intelligent and clear-minded, you become like a force of nature as you age. you are powerful, you're bitchy, you know what you're talking about, people look up to you. that's how I hope to be when I'm old. I want to be like a wonderfully witchy, cackling crone who people don't know whether to fear, admire or both. (none of this implant or face-lift bullshit for me ... sad attempts to cling to youth that ultimately make one look like a sideshow freak and advertise to the world that you have no real sense of self.)

there was an older woman I used to work with who had many elements of this wise-woman ideal. she was very sharp and always said what was on her mind, and didn't give a damn what anyone else thought. I enjoyed all of those aspects of her personality. however, there was a big flaw: she often used her power to hurt people. she gossiped viciously, said mean things about people, stabbed colleagues in the back and hurt their careers.

I am not going to be like this when I am old. I am going to be kind to people and help them. I will use my wisdom for good, not evil.

this woman seems intelligent until the end, when she accuses the pageant winner of getting the title only because she's black. ouch! did she really say that?

last night, 7 months after signing up, I finally got matched up with and got to meet my "little sister." her name is chloe, she is about to turn 8 and she is absolutely delightful. she's a funny, outgoing, chatty, smart and hyper kid. she was cracking me up!

( Read more... )

poor little pup can't stay awake - even in a bowl of water.

NBC Nightly News tonight aired a segment on how the newspaper industry is dying. Part of it was filmed in our newsroom, which is cutting a gut-wrenching half of its staff by the end of the summer. which means, yeah, I could be out of job by next month. even if I do manage to keep my job, more than 100 of my co-workers will be gone. it won't be the same newspaper.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/25590403#25590403

you have to see this to believe it ... thanks to huffstuff for the link!



animals rock! so please everybody, stop killing them!

cute. sorry, I don't know why I'm so video-happy lately!

my grandma kept everything. after her death, when we were sorting through her belongings, I found a bunch of letters and cards I'd sent to her over the years that she kept stashed away in her basement.

Hi tiffini,

Back in 2007, you kindly gave us permission to include your
credited photo in our Schmap Austin Guide.

This is just a quick note to let you know that Schmap
Guides have now been released for the iPhone and iPod
touch.

Your photo in the iPhone version of our Schmap Austin Guide
is at:
http://www.schmap.com/?m=iphone#uid=austin&sid=all_events&p=28701&i=28701_3

(If you are using a desktop computer, this link will show
you exactly how your photo is displayed and credited in the
iPhone version of our guide.)

Best regards,
Emma

Emma Williams
Managing Editor, Schmap Guides

after I posted my latest facebook status, two friends immediately commented on it, one wanting to know the whole story! so here goes.

the status was "tiffini has one neighbor she's never seen without a glass of wine and another she's never seen with a shirt."

the wine lady. she lives a few doors down from me and has a cute lapdog who often runs up and barks when I walk by with my three large dogs. (gotta give the little thing props for chutzpah.) this woman, an attractive blonde in her 40s, is very friendly and chatty, in a slightly slurred and unfocused way. as referenced in my status, she always has a glass of wine in her hand. her recycling bins are always filled with wine bottles. she always remembers my name, although I forget hers. she frequently passes along tips about dog care from her vet, and has made several references to the fact that she used to live on "the island" (palm beach).

the no-shirt man. when chris was here, we joked about this constantly. this is a beer-bellied man who is ALWAYS standing in front of his duplex with no shirt. literally, if you drove by 10 times, 9 times he would be standing there - with no shirt. chris once saw him with a shirt. the man happened to be walking into our workplace. he was wearing a wifebeater. seems like a perfectly nice guy though.

I just walked home from work. it took 13 minutes. I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but this is the first time in over four years that I've walked either to or from work.

sure, I have my excuses: I don't want to arrive at work sweaty or rained on. I don't want to be stuck at work on my lunch break. I can't ride a bike because I wear skirts. but mostly what it boils down to is that I'm lazy and it's so easy to hop in my car!

today was weird. it was a day of old threads of story lines being picked up and woven again into the tapestry of the present. both professionally and personally. what an odd coincidence. it was a day that reminded me that nothing goes unsown, even if the seed takes so long to germinate you forgot it was lurking underground. I hate to use such cliches but I don't know how else to put it and I'm tired!

more cat pictures

today the following thought popped into my head: I wondered when my friends, who moved to kansas last year, were going to have a baby.

tonight I got an e-mail saying ... they're having a baby.

the following is a delicious, super easy lunch or dinner.

Ingredients:
* store-bought pizza crust (I buy a vegan one publix sells, but you can use Boboli too, which adds dairy to their crusts)
* olive oil
* pizza sauce
* tempeh, cut into cubes
* green olives, sliced
* fresh basil, chopped

Preheat the oven to 425, brush olive oil on the crust, then top with the other ingredients. Bake for 15 minutes right on the rack.

this afternoon I was sitting by myself on the patio at chipotle, having a late lunch.

while I was sitting there, for some reason out of the blue, the following thought popped into my head: "what if I get shot while I'm sitting here eating?"

please note, I do not ever think this kind of thing. it was broad daylight, it is not a bad area of town, there were plenty of people around and there were no hoodlum-types anywhere. I had no logical reason to think this. there was a fatal wendy's shooting in town a few months ago, but even despite that, today was the first time I ever sat at a restaurant and thought about getting shot.

when I got home an hour later, I saw a story on our website that someone had been shot earlier today at a restaurant less than a mile away.

this map shows the distance between where I was eating today and where the shooting was.