karen.....

ok, so....eku finally assigned me an email address.....under the name of karen.......this after 2 weeks....and so i spent additional time today getting this changed so that i can actually log onto to blackboard and make available my class outlines for students to use for the upcoming test.....and having successfully maneuvered these tasks i was asked to teach again in the spring.....but i digress from karen......as an alias it just doesn't suit.....it is not a name that i would have chosen for myself........actually, i like the name anne....could see myself as an anne....with an e at the end......i also like the name cassandra.......for reasons that i just cannot pin down........but not karen....

a very classy widow.....

ok, so one of the 9-11 widows has a book out...and some classy words for her bleached blonde critic......And she had time to get in the book at the very end a very classy 5 1/2 page letter to the vixen Ann Coulter. Here's the last 4 paragraphs.

... Ann, I don't want to get in a debate with you. It's not because I am afraid of your or your nasty bullying tactics. I'm not going to debate you because we have many, many more important issues to deal with in our country right now.

But I will leave you with this: We live in America, the world's oldest democracy. Democracy can prevail (is that what you and your friends really fear?), but that requires hard work, as President Bush might say. Every citizen in this country is entitled to his or her beliefs, and every citizen is entitled to participate. We still have the right to speak our minds to effect change (within the parameters of the law, of course). So don't try to silence the voices of victims or anyone else, merely because you disagree with them or feel threatened by their political choices. In my opinion, your method of using intimidation and insults to "win" a debate is truly unpatriotic.

Actually, I expect that you will continue to scream and shout and smear as nastily as you want, so long as you think that that kind of behavior sells books. But we have tackled bigger bullies than you and lived through far worst circumstances than your book tour. We're not intimidated by you. We're not running away.

And under no circumstances will we be silenced by your "godless" rantings and ravings.

and he started eating a salad......

ok,so that was just one of the the weird parts about the capture of the notorious polygamist.....this from cnn.com....A paper license tag, a salad and stories that didn't make sense pricked the suspicions of a state trooper who stopped the car of a wanted fugitive polygamist in Las Vegas.

But it was the pumping carotid artery in the neck of Warren Steed Jeffs that convinced Nevada Highway Patrolman Eddie Dutchover that he had cornered someone big.

"I knew some type of criminal activity was possibly afoot," Dutchover said after he stopped Jeffs with a brother and one of his wives in a new luxury SUV that had only a paper tag instead of a license plate.

Inside the car on Monday night, Jeffs seemed evasive and started to eat a salad.

"I noticed Warren was extremely nervous. He was sitting in that right side back seat and wouldn't make eye contact with me," Dutchover said.

"But his carotid artery was pumping."

Dutchover separated the brothers and questioned them. Isaac Jeffs said they were heading to Utah, but Warren Jeffs said their destination was Denver, Colorado, Dutchover reported.

"Their stories didn't make any sense to me," Dutchover said.

.....ok, so he had only his brother and one of his 40 wives with him......presumably the rest are awaiting their conjugal visits.........oops.....my bad...this from time.com......

It is estimated, that Jeffs now has 80 wives, some 250 children and millions of dollars at his disposal.

"Money, sex, and power is what fundamentalist polygamy is about and that is what Warren Jeffs represents," says John Llewelln, who points out that Jeffs is the leader of the largest and most secretive of the fundamentalist polygamy groups. Llewelln has authored four books on polygamy and is a former polygamist himself; he also worked as Salt Lake County's deputy sheriff, specializing in sex crimes investigations. "From the fundamentalist Mormon polygamist point of view, Jeffs is the quintessential Mormon polygamist because he does not hold himself accountable to any government or societal rules — only his religion. His followers view him as having done nothing wrong except to live his religion and do what a prophet does."

oops.....

ok, so bill frist can no longer go by the credentials m.d.....because he has lost his medical license in tenn....this from the a Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist did not meet all the requirements needed to keep his medical license active — even though he gave paperwork to Tennessee officials indicating that he had, his office acknowledged Tuesday.

Tennessee requires its licensed physicians to complete 40 hours of continuing medical education every two years. Frist, a heart-lung surgeon who is considering a 2008 presidential run, submitted a license renewal with the Tennessee Health Department stating he has fulfilled that requirement......

so let's get this straight.....bill lied when he said he had completed his continuing ed....and then got caught.......double oops.......

pain, pain go away.......

ok, so i worked hard yesterday at breaking the pain cycle.....at relaxing so that the muscles could go back to their normal state from their current tenseness/swollenness....i did next to nothing....taking two naps and not bothering to look at my lecture notes because it is hard to read lying down and nurse a stiff neck/major headache......i did take the suggesed ibuprofin dose of three at a time every 4 hours......wow!......and at some point the pain was diminished, only to return when the dose wore off.....which is where i am this morning......stiff and in pain........i am going to work, as there is a going away lunch and i don't want to miss it,.....but i fear for my comfort.......i havenot felt this awful in quite a while........

downed......

ok, so it takes a lot to keep the mm from going to work....but i do believe that my throbbing headache has done the trick.......it started as a stiff neck on sunday....and has gradually moved up and over....my doctor tells me that it is likely from sleeping in an unnatural position...and that the muscles that keep up the head need time to relax and rearrange....which is good news, as i have doen the requisite google search and was horrified to learn that stiff neck is a classic symptom of menigitis.......of course, i lack the required fever that goesd along with that particular stiff neck......and so i am staying home with my warm neck bundle, my ibuprofen, and my class powerpoint notes.....speaking of this warm 'bundle'....it is one of those stuffed rice things that fits around the neck and stays warm for quite a while when microwaved......except that it also smells like rice while it is warm........i'd prefer lavender or something floral to rice when i'm not feeling hungry.........

charges dropped....

ok, so as predicted.......John Mark Karr, a suspect in the 1996 murder of 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey, will not face charges, his lawyer announced Monday.

"The warrant on Mr. Karr has been dropped by the district attorney," said Karr's attorney, Seth Temin, at a news conference. "They're not proceeding with this case. We are deeply distressed that they took this man and dragged him here from Bangkok, Thailand with no forensic evidence confirming the allegations against him and no independent factors leading to a presumption that he did anything wrong."

soup tureens....

ok, so i didn't sleep well last night......mostly because i couldn't find a comfortable spot to support my aching neck (the left side- for no good reason....) and i swear that i was dreaming about soup tureens without actually being asleep.......the building in question was vaguely italianate....in red brick....and the tureens had no matching bowls....and i was supposed to be wrapping them up for transport......and at some point i was asked about which job i had come to interview for......dream details don't make much sense......and the neck thing continues today....my neck is stiff/achey/annoying again today.......cannot imagine how a stiff neck could be related to my sinus maladies......and heaven knows that a dream about soup tureens that are missing matching bowls is no darn good...........

out of touch.....

ok, so i sat through the emmy's this evening despite the fact that i watched little actual television programming, and had seen few of the nominated performances.......i was aghast to discover that hugh laurie was not nominated for house.....one fo the few shows that i find appealing enough for a full hour of my attention.......i regretted not seeing elizabeth 1.....given my cable-free existence.....maybe it can be bought.......i am a huge fan of everything elizabeth.....despite knowing that it will always end the same way......ah well.......and tragically, stephen colbert lost to barry manilow in the variety/comedy category....and i shall not see the inevitable sour grapes show about this loss...given my cable-free vow......so who is laughing now?.......

the comair crash

ok, so a good friend lost her son-in-law in the comair crash at bluegrass airport this morning....we got the news as we were starting a special congregational program during the sunday school hour.....the fellow in question has been transferred to atlanta, and commutes home on weekends until his family moves down in september......my first hope was that they had not yet sold their home in danville......that would be too tragic to have to give up the link the three children have to their dad, or the wife to her departed spouse.......so very tragic.....from the sound of the news reports, the fire burned hot and bodies may take days to identify.......so very, very sad.......

a day spent in study.....

ok, so yesterday was spent in its entirety obsessing over the 2 chapters to be presented on thursday.......likely the 2 bodies of knowledge i know the best, but one cannot ever take these little details for granted....especially when somebody else has provided the official lecture outline...there are grave ommissions that i have rectified......things that only an idiot would have left out.....i suppose that when a textbook author is trying to hit the highlights some issues get snipped to the cutting room floor....hopefully i'll get to teach this course again...and make double use of my studiousness......

ok, so most folks are crowing about tom cruise being fired from paramount.........as for the mm.....i only want it noted that mr cruise dragged his baby-mamma outin the 100 degree southern california heat wearing a winter coat that appears to be some sort of wool boucle.......what's up with that?....did he pick the outfit........? because no reasonable woman would have left the house on a hot day wearing that get-up......... 

bill m. is back......

ok, so bill maher is back....and ready to tango...this piece on pluto is priceless...btw...the guy laughing in the backround is max cleland.......he who has been swiftboated by dubya's cronies........if crooks and liars has updated...just keep scrolling down till you fins it.......

this week in god......

ok, so this from the blogesphere.......First up from the God machine this week is a Baptist church that is filled with the Christian spirit — just as long as church officials approve of your racial background.

Fellowship Baptist Church in Saltillo, Mississippi, voted out a 12-year-old boy who "asked Jesus to live in his heart" at the church two weeks ago. Why the ban? Joe is biracial, and church members didn't want the black side of his family attending with him.

They were "afraid Joe might come with his people and have blacks in the church," church pastor John Stevens told the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.

To his credit, Pastor Stevens resigned from the church the same day 12-year-old Joe was voted out of the church. Cliff Hardy, a local police officer, also resigned from the church. "My best friend is a black man," he said. "I wouldn't be comfortable going to a place where I couldn't ask my best friend to go to church with me."

The local paper contacted church members, but they refused comment. Go figure.

on bush and camus

ok, so.....this from slate.......The Man Without a Language: Far from improving his SAT score, a month of reading Camus seems to have left George Bush more linguistically challenged than ever. On Monday, at what Fred Kaplan politely called, "What a Moronic Press Conference!," the president's meaning was clear, but his words were often nearly impossible to deconstruct. "I see the challenge to what these threats pose to our homeland," Bush said, "and I see the challenge—what these threats pose to the world."

For years, we have dismissed these Bushisms as the struggles of a congenitally inarticulate Texan. Yet just as Bush's stubborn pride betrays a secret passion for France, could his abuse of the English language reflect a deeper problem: that his mind is trying to speak English while his heart is speaking French?

Isn't It Pretty To Think So?: In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway describes the American expatriate, "Mrs. Braddocks, who in the excitement of talking French was liable to have no idea what she was saying." Bush is the same way with English.

Here's Bush at Monday's press conference, reflecting upon his administration's impotence abroad:

Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. This is—but war is not a time of joy.


yeah, that's gotta be it.....bush is really just thinking in french but talking in english.............and that makes us lost in translation, rather than schnookered by his bumbling .....

h.s. football

ok, we have received a gracious invitation to a party in lexington, which we just as graciously declined......as it was a pregame party...just down the street from henry clay......where the other local team will play this evening.......gentle readers.....i have lived in this lovely town for nearly 25 years without ever doing time at a football game.....and i mean to keep it that way........the only football i will tolerate on television, let alone in person must have ohio state involved.......and that is for nostalgia only....certainly not for the love of the game........

wish i'd said that......

ok, so the following is a response quoted on crooks and liars....but one that tracks back to hullabaloo..........

Yesterday, they said life begins with conception.

Today, they say life begins with intercourse.

Tomorrow, they will tell us life begins with dinner and a movie.
Dover Bitch | 08.25.06 - 4:20 am

ok, so having run (walked) a marathon, i take umbrage when political candidates fake marathon pictures........COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt is fast, capable of running a marathon in 3 hours, 19 minutes, 6 seconds.

At least that's what a photo on the Ohio congresswoman's Web site shows.

No way, says a rival who contends that the picture from the 1993 Columbus Marathon is doctored and complained to state election officials. A four-member commission panel ruled Thursday that there was enough evidence to look into the complaint.

State law prohibits candidates from publishing false statements designed to promote their election.

The photo shows Schmidt near the finish line at the marathon with a time clock showing 3:19:06, which would have made her one of the top finishers. But a newspaper list of the top runners does not include Schmidt, said Nathan Noy, who is seeking to run as a write-in candidate against Schmidt.

Noy said he believes the photo may be fake and suggested that Schmidt never even participated in the event. In the photo, Schmidt doesn't cast a shadow while other runners do. 

plan b

ok, so the 2 nurses present at my thursday county got into a calm but intense discussion yesterday about plan b......and the more progressive of the two asked the other how she could refuse to buy the drugs for her own daughter if she ended up 1)pregnant and 2) tearfully not wanting to continue with that notion.....the nurse said that under the circumstances she likely would, even though she disagrees with anybody having unprotected sex......yep......who doesn't disgree with that? but that is like locking the barndoor after the horse is long gone.....

it went o.k........

ok, so my class went ok.....some tech trouble with the powerpoint.....4 different projectors before the last one was compatible with the eku laptop....oy! but all went well.....several folks came up to tell me that i had taught their wives/sisters/girlfriends at some point......and that was nice......it will be ok.......

came to his senses?

ok, so yesterday there was an article in forbes magazine on-line that listed, amonh other things...9 reasons why a reasonable man should marry a wife who has no career plans....i.e.- someone who will devote her life to his happiness through countless hours of housework, childcare...you get the picture......the article in question went so far as to say that no man should marry a woman who has the potential to make a higher salary because it will cause friction that will likely lead to divorce......wtf?......before the story disappeared, somebody had commented on that particular line......reasoning that the couple could hire help with the extra cash and anybody who would turn down a woman who made lots of money was crazy.......maybe that is why forbes pulled the story......my only regret is that i failed to make the time to copy and paste the piece before it vanished.......it is highly unlikely that the author came to his senses......he is probably out there looking for barbie as we speak.........oh, right......even barbie came in a ms. president version.......

addendum....salon.com was savvy enough to snag the story.....good for them.....

nervous wreck......

ok, so...i am humiliated to admit that i am quite nervous about my professorial re-debut tomorrow evening.......and it's not like i don't have any knowledge or experiences to share about the material......its just the anticipation is making me crazy......and crazy.....as in emotional well-being is on the docket for the lecture.......hopefully lightening will not strike as i attempt to appear well-adjusted and angst-free...................

the one where kathy drove all the way to richmond for nothing.....

ok, so.......my eku class starts tomorrow....and i am as prepared with regards to material to be covered as possible...the glitch came when the powers that be discovered that my previous eku-instructor employment was too long ago to use the old human resources paperwork...and that i would have to drive over to richmond to the mothership h.r. department to fill out the forms.....no one mentioned that in order to prove citzenship and employability i would need to bring along the requisite government issued i.d.'s.......a driver's license wasn't enough....one must have a s.s. card as well.......or a passport...which was back at home.....so i drove back home, then out to eku's local campus to present my credentials to the director so that she could fax it to the mothership......all this took 4 hours....including driving, finding a place to park, waiting......oy!....that will teach to me carry my passport at all times.......

Fired by the Bible?

ok, so this is also from salon.com.......

At the First Baptist Church in Watertown, N.Y., a Sunday school teacher was fired this month.

Her infraction? Simple. She's a woman.

Mary Lambert has taught at the church for 54 years without issue. But during her tenure, the Baptist Church -- along with Evangelical churches of every stripe -- has changed, growing radically more fundamentalist. Churches like First Baptist increasingly teach that every word of the Bible is literal truth, never to be interpreted. And so if the apostle Paul -- who was a murderer in addition to being a misogynist -- decrees in a canonized letter, "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man," as he wrote to Timothy, then it must be God's unimpeachable word. (I'm surely not the first to note, however, that other declarations of the Bible go unheeded while this submission doctrine goes enforced -- like the ruling that one be executed for disobeying parents, having sex before marriage or lacking fidelity to Christ.)

And so it goes, for women across America, who have devoted themselves to a faith that increasingly strips them of not just basic rights, but the opportunity to contribute to their own communities. A woman's job, as mandated in the Bible, is to adhere to a doctrine of submission, serving her husband as Jesus served the church, to be a "lovely helper" as some pastors like to say. Serving the church in any role of influence is increasingly out of the question, as the faithful cleave to literalism.

By the way, the reverend who fired Mary Lambert also serves on the Watertown City Council.

bush supports plan b?

ok,so this from salon.com.......

President Bush said in a news conference yesterday that he supports acting FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach's decision to "consider approving nonprescription sales [of Plan B] to women ages 18 years and older," the Kaiser Network reports. Bush said he "support[s] Andy's decision," and believes Plan B "ought to require a prescription for minors." This is the first public comment the president has made on the decision of whether to make Barr Laboratories' emergency contraceptive available over the counter. Think this public show of affection has something to do with the fact that the acting commissioner's confirmation has been held up in the Senate because of his political foot-dragging over Plan B?

i have great hopes.......

ok, so good luck.....you know who(m?) i mean........maybe you can make a concerted effort to learn who vs whom and let me in on it........i probably learned once, but now that i am this old i have to leave such details up to the young whippersnappers........

screening out sunshine......

ok, so... i will freely admit that i pre-judged those who asked about my weekend......with regards to whether i saw them as savvy enough for little miss sunshine...or not.......clearly, this gem of a film can only be embraced by those who appreciate a certain genre of humor.......and those who do not seem the type may not want to bother.....i rarely react this way to films.....the notion that i must protect the film from the unworthy........but my workmates soon divided themselves into those who shoud make the drive to lex....and those who shouldn't.........48 hours since my first viewing i marvel at the depth of the nuance....the memorable moments.......and i must state publically that i saw none of it coming.......which means that the scenes flowed naturally rather than felt engineered....and the characters seemed like they had loathed each other forever.........this is essential in an ensemble piece...the air of eternity...rather than feigned conviviality......or made-up dysfunction.......not that one can make up disharmony.......gosh darn i loved that movie.....

keep on rocking in the free world.......

ok, so i announced under pressure that neil young is my secret new band......in order to throw everyone off the scent that he is also my secret old favorite band.......my family knows that cowgirl in the sand is one of my top 3 all time favorite songs........and as we were driving back from a family walk this evening...and listening to n.y.'s greatest hits in historical order....i discovered that cowgirl dates from 1969......years before i ever heard 4-way street.......csny's greatest album evah.....go figure.......gosh.....in 1969 the only album i owned was introducing the monkees....or therabouts.....i didn't buy another commercial recording until 1972 when i bought....4-way street.......and not because of cowgirl.......i liked helplessly hoping.....and the all along the lee shore.......don't let it bring you down.......but then cowgirl grew on me......and i could sing the lyrics blindfolded......hee hee........but i digress from neil.....we watched the colbert footage again this evening......and i must say that neil is every bit as timely as an iraq protester as he was in 1969...1970......and beyond.......

ok, so somehow i missed this until today.......... 

ok, so fox news finally had a headline i could agree with......... 

the 'e' word.......

ok, so my church is focusing on it's past for the next few months...so that it can go more boldly into the future....and the details of our founding have finally been uttered during this morning's service......past recollections have allowed emphasized the march out of 1st Baptist by the 400 or so souls that opted to leave and start out on their own.....but the issues that prompted the split have always been murky at best......and heard from other than church members.....seems that a new minister hired in 1925 was a bit too progressive for some....and amongst the charges leveled against him was that he was an evolutionist.......a ph.d.-prepared archivist who has studied the 'evolution' of baptists in ky spoke to us this morning briefly, in hushed tones....about how the schism became so ugly that one might not have known that the parties involved were christian.....and that charter members of labc vowed never to speak of it again.......i blogged once about a centre student who did extensive study of our two churches for a religion project....and that said student actually tracked the path of both churches from that split to the present.....and noted that at some point labc became a progressive congregation that embraced female involvement let alone evolution, and the 1st baptist folks ended up as the more conservative group, one that kicks out families that serve champagne at weddings and likely clings to the adam and eve story.....so now the evolution card has been played, without gasps......and hopefully we can all move on......

neil young on the colbert report......

ok, so......go to this link on crooks and liars to see neil young playing guiatr with thew witty mr colbert...scroll down if ya have to ....you'll know when to stop looking..........neil young happens to be my secret new band.......and old favorite......i like the part where colbert asks him which one of c,s,n&y he is.........

ok, so one of my favorite parts of little miss sunshine was when they were riding in the van, and most of the adults are arguing.....and olive is listening to tunes on her cd player through the headphones....all the while trying to solve the happy face sliding puzzle, which the camera shows to be recongizable but terribly jumbled......just like her family.....how does one start to describe a film that cannot be categorized as either comedy or tragedy.......or justify the laughs when the body is smuggled out of the e.r. through the window.....and stuffed into the back of (push-started) v.w. van.......this film was so unexpected for dark yet strangely satisfying humor......go see it....go see it soon....if for no other reason that because the yellow van is so visually pleasing against the horizon........ 

tomato celery soup

ok, so....here is a recipe that i am submiting to the heart of danville cookbook.....haven't made it in a while...there was a time when i mde it almost everyday.....

Tomato Celery Soup

1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp dry sherry...not cooking sherry
1 can tomato soup
1 can water
1/2 cup half&half
1 tsp minced parsley

Saute onions and celery in butter until soft. Deglaze pan with sherry, then add tomato soup and water. Simmer til heated through. Add half&half. Garnish with parsley. Lemon juice may be used instead of sherry, but the flavor will suffer.

cats

ok, so.....as long as i live i will never quite come to grips with the elusive feline that shares my space......i mention this with great earnestness.....having just come back from a quick amble the length of my brick walk....while the rice cooks and the chicken browns......the cat joined me midway.....walking at first before me and then beside me....and for a few yards behind....until she lost interest and meandered off to some distant diversion under the bushes.....and when i went back into the house....she hesitated....and then opted out of a cooler and easier evening......no....she loped on to the back to scout out the fledglings who congregate under our birdfeeder.......bad girl........surely we raised you better than this..........

plethora

ok, so i have a plethora of tomatoes this evening to prepare.....from three different growers who shall remain....unknown..... in hopes they provide more.......but plethora is not the word of the day....no....i actually heard a word on the way to work that i looked up online before doing anything else.....despite the potential wrath of ernie f.....who probably would not understand the need to look up a word one heard on the way to work......it was in a piece about the folks moving back ever so slowly to the lower 9th ward.....diaspora- a term to describe people or things who are scattered with the wind....often used in relation to jews displaced by war......to be honest, i had never heard the term.......and could not wait to be able to put it context.....and the random flight from new orleans is a perfect use of the term.......not so with my tomatoes...nothing random about a meal with 3 varieties of yellow and red tomatoes..........yummmmmmm

less-than-true confessions.....

ok, so jonbenet ramsey's confessed killer got headlines yesterday, but they guy is likely a poor sap who craves such attention, even if he is innocent of that crime. seems the fellow confessed that he picked her up after school, hardly possible since the crime took place the day after christmas.....and he was at home in alabama with his wife and kids at the time........according to his ex-wife.....funny things about family......they would tend to remember such details, such as where people were at holidays....probably have photos to prove it.....and so the headliner may turn out to be merely a pediophile who really wished he had been with this child when she died, but was nowhere nearby at all.........

an end to abstinence-only?

ok, so this from salon.com.......65 pregnant teens = one canceled abstinence-only program

It became near impossible for the Canton school board to ignore the unintended by-products of its abstinence-only program when 13 percent of Timken High School's female student population became pregnant last year. Thanks to Feministing for pointing us in the direction of this ridiculous-but-true story about an Ohio school board which has, to its credit, finally seen the light of sex education.

Of course it took 65 of the 490 female students becoming pregnant within a year to adequately deliver that message, but as Jessica of Feministing queried, "I guess better late than never?"

Sure, we can throw them that bone. The board decided Monday to include safe sex education into the curriculum, while continuing to promote abstinence. They also plan to replace a few well-worn health textbooks that are "older than some students," according to WYFF 4 of South Carolina. Patty Rafailedes, a physical education teacher in the district, told the station, "If we had math books from 1988, reading books from 1988, as a parent, I would be furious."

Susan Ross, coordinator of health services for Canton schools, admits the district was well-behind the times. "Our sex education curriculum was really outdated," Canton told the Associated Press. "It was about 18 years since it was revised. With kids, having good and updated knowledge is critical." Sounds to me like the adults were the ones lacking "good and updated knowledge." Let's hope their recent enlightenment spreads to the rest of Ohio.

slow news week......

ok, so this is a slow week for news....there was that maccaca thing, and stephen colbert is really wringing all he can out of his insistance that jon stewart apologize to geraldo.......and somehow pluto's close planetary call wasn't really all that funny after i read my own blog online.......on the other hand......i had a great time watching ocean's 12 with my daughter.....especially when it came to the part that matt damon's mom was the one who got them all out of the italian jail.....we laughed hysterically......mostly because we didn't see it coming even after seeing it the first time aways back.......wow......you'd think we could remember a great detail like matt damon's mamma.......hopefully the rest of the week will be blessed with outargeous and blogworthy doings........

really bad timing, wouldn't ya say?

ok, so this from the nyt........Pluto dodged a bullet today.

In the hope of ending years of wrangling, a committee of astronomers and historians has proposed a new definition of the word “planet” that would expand at a stroke the family of planets from 9 to 12 and leave textbooks and charts in thousands of classrooms out of date.

But astronomers immediately began to wrangle about it.

“It’s a mess,” said Michael E. Brown of the California Institute of Technology.

Among the chosen few within the solar system would be not only Pluto, whose status has been challenged in recent years, but also Ceres, the largest asteroid; 2003 UB313, nicknamed Xena, an object discovered by Dr. Brown in 2005 orbiting far beyond Pluto in the outer solar system; and even Pluto’s largest moon, Charon.

In addition, at least a dozen more solar system objects are waiting in the wings for more data to see if they fit the new definition of planethood, which is that an object be massive enough that gravity has formed it into a sphere and that it circles a star and not some other planet.

so....we are at war on many fronts in the middle east...and there are folks who are spending somebody's tax dollars figuring out the definition of a planet.......huh......?

ok, so....there is a woman in san diego who has been ordained as a catholic priest by another catholic priest.....and then excommunicated by the pope......and i do believe that it is under just such circumstances that i could become a catholic......with a female priest.....i know that my spouse misses the cadence of the roman mass.....and finds the moderate baptist service less than stimulating.......but i cannot in good faith become a member of a sect that excludes women from places of power/authority/influence/voice........and so i can only hope that a renegade female priest presents herself locally.....in my lifetime....... 

will without emily

ok,so......we were blessed with will at our table this evening.....and while there was a collective sigh of 'i likewill'when he left,......no joke.....the brief encounter was not the same without emily......or should i say that we are not as we as we could be if emily were with us......i would use italics, but this is a wi-fi blog and pda features still elude me.......but i digress from emily's absence......talking about defiance,ohio, and wondering....where DO they put the bodies.....the discussion lacked your vital input......please, do not leave us adrift again....

i wondered who buys this stuff......

ok, so i stopped at teh krogers to buy wonton wrappers, and coconut milk so i could make thai peanut noodles and crispy stuffed wontons......and the checkout girl looked up in amazement and said.....'i wondered who buys this stuff......i put up the prices and i just think nobody will buy it....'.......and so i have stirfried spinach and green onions and added chopped waterchestnuts and baby shrimp....with a mighty dash of pepper sauce.....and stuffed little dabs into wontons that i will bake and dip into sweet chili sauce....to go along with the vegetables and peanut noodles.......yum........sometimes these notions just take hold....i was thinking this afternoon about how much i liked crispy stuffed wontons and how i have not had them since i left the restaurant......and there was nothing to be done until i made them at home.......

martha, martha, martha......

ok, so poor martha s. cannot seem to find a buyer willing to cough up the cash for her house in connecticut...the one she used as a backdrop for her books and television shows......this from the wash post......Stewart has been trying for more than two months to sell her early 19th century federal-style farmhouse for $9 million. Real estate experts say it's not unusual for luxury homes to take at least a few months to sell _ even those with Martha's famous touch.

"It's the most beautiful property I've ever seen," said Eileen Hill, president of the Mid Fairfield County Association of Realtors. "Every blade of grass stands at attention."

"There was certainly no real sense of loss," said Cristin Marandino, editor of Westport Magazine. "I think 70 percent of the people who live in Westport have a Martha story. She just wasn't very easy to live with."

of course, 9 mil would only be the beginning for a new owner....who would need to employ numerous gardeners to keep up with her extensively landscaped grounds, greenhouse, chickens, etc........but for the right martha devotee, it could be a very good thing.......

vicarious.......

ok, so.....i have undertaken the task of printing the digital photos...all 655 of them off of stephan's memory card...not that i am printing every image....many are repeats and alternative views....and i am using great discretion in choosing the printworthy......and this has given me great pleasure.....each photo takes a little minute to make its way through each pass of primary colors......which gives me a moment to study the last print.....and i have come to some conclusions.....i have impoverished clients who likely live better than stephan's landlady.......omg......but enough of what was wrong with his trip.....lets focus on the timeless beauty of the churches, palaces, and other buildings......some are magnificent......i could grow fond of onion-topped towers, and pastel-painted baroque edifices.......i have not had the full toue, so to speak.....just a picture by picture glimpse......of course......the canon camera runs on double-a batteries.....and has gone dead until we purchase more tomorrow...no more printing tonight.......a task incomplete..........

7-letter word for........

ok, so our entire family played scrabble last evening after dinner.....everybody including grandma and andrew down from lex........there was the usual machinations between siblings about who was ahead.....and the eldest at one point was surprised that his dad was so close to his top score.....as if his intellect sprang up independently!!!!!......andrew was to go out with a flourish, and a win by just one point...as for me.....i drew mostly vowels and my picks didn't get much better after that....i wasn't last in the scoring......but i was no where near winning points.......an idyllic evening.....

the resurrection dance......

ok, so i have a secret dance of joy that is performed ever so briefly....when i find that roses that were moved and dropped all of their leaves have sprouted new leaves......3 of the 3 roses that were feared dead have resurrected with new growth.......and the hostas that i moved are also showing signs of sprouting new fronds......and the buddlaia bush that i moved has some new growth...not on all its many branches but on enough for me to declare it living rather than lost......now, all that i need to complete the circle of rebirth is for the japanese maple behind the pond to sprout a leaf or two......just to give me hope that it too will be resurrected......and the dance of joy on that day may be too loud and raucous to be secret for long........

martha gellhorn

ok, so...salon.com has a nice piece about the recently edited book of martha gellhorn's letters.....for those who don't recognize the name instantly, martha gellhorn was the the woman for which ernest hemingway dumped his 2nd wife pauline...she had come to france in the early thirties as a newspaper correspondent....first having an extended affair with a relative of one of colette's ex-husbands.......and having liasons with scores of well-knowns over the years.....the list included rockefellers, generals......and the like.......these are some of my favorite quotes from the article.....written in 1972....."I started living outside the sexual conventions long before anyone did such dangerous stuff and I may say hell broke loose and everyone thought unbridled sexual passion was the excuse. Whereas I didn't like sex at all ... all my life idiotically, I thought sex seemed to matter so desperately to the man who wanted it that to withhold was like withholding bread, an act of selfishness ... what has always really absorbed me in life is what is happening outside. I accompanied men and was accompanied in action, in the extrovert part of life; I plunged into that; that was something altogether to be shared. But not sex; that seemed to be their delight and all I got was a pleasure of being wanted, I suppose, and the sort of tenderness (not nearly enough) that a man gives when he is satisfied. I daresay I was the worst bed partner in five continents."

After her inevitable breakup with her second husband, Gellhorn remained in London, which was to be her home until her death in 1998, though she also spent time at her houses in Kenya and Wales. Late middle age was tough on her, as she watched her looks and energy fade at just the time her professional star dimmed. "I have always looked forward to my old age," she wrote in 1960, "being more and more convinced that it would be far funnier than this neither fish-nor-fowl period of middle age, which I am bound to admit bores me."

The one quality she did not lose was her anger, which only seemed to increase as she got older, allowing her to become the sort of feisty grand dame who always seems to be surrounded by a coterie of younger artists and intellectuals. "I never for a moment feared Communism in the U.S. but have always feared Fascism; it's a real American trait," she wrote after observing Barry Goldwater in 1964. She was particularly incensed by the Vietnam War. "I cannot endure this hideous wicked stupidity; to be at once cruel and a failure is too much," she wrote about Lyndon Johnson. "Our President is a disaster and will get worse; never trust a Texan farther than you can throw a rhino.".........for clarification, i am certain she meant political texans........not all texans......

trifecta......

ok, so....so in the past 8 hours i have ventured into 3 farflung goodwills.....frankfort, leestown rd, and new circle.......i have been to frankfort and new circle only once before....and never to leestown...the jewel of them all if one likes to buy secondhand books........there is a secondhand bookstore next door.....probably buys all of its stock at the goodwill and i should really have gone over there...but we were hungry....and i digress about leestown.....i arrived at the checkout minus most of the the books i had selected......hard to tell amongst the stacks of titles chosen by my closest kin......and i marched over accusing my own children of discarding my books as chaffe.....and finally a bystanding woman admitted that she had thought that our cart was fair game and she returned one of the missing volumes.....the others....who knows who grabbed them out of my cart.......i suppose that when a family of bibliophiles shops a store with 8 racks of books....and the cart starts to pile up...it might look like just another jumble pile for the taking........except that now i am home and wishing i had my book about living in paris......just in case i shuld ever win the lottery......frankfort was really good for someone wanting to dress more.......formally?.....at college.....with great buys in ties and tweed jackets......and new circle....curiously another good tweed jacket find...this one in an alternative color scheme............but by the time we were at new circle i was exhausted...and wishing that i had chosen more wisely at kashmir.........i do not eat spicy fare often enough to grow accustomed.........though i do believe that i could eat more than my share of spinach nam.......ah well....three goodwills in one day is no record.......but i consider the day well worth my time because i was with my beloveds.....and these snatches of time are priceless.......

the daily show.....

ok, so the dark humor on the daily show reached a peak with jon stewart's conversation with his new 'Middle Eastern correspondent', Aasif Mandvi....look it up on youtube........it was quite cutting on condi's assertion that the war in the middle east is ripe with opportunities and birth pangs........

wet......

ok, so my thursday county, like my every-other-day county has one of those early warning radios that starts in beeping like crazy before it spits out the bad news......today the lightening had just struck close enough to the building to cause one of the nurses to scream out loud...and then started in laughing because an electronic toy in her 'toy basket for clients' had started to talk....must have been the electrical surge... and then the beeping started in....with a listing of counties in the storm's path......and the list did not include the county where the lightening had just hit.....go figure.......the rain was coming down so fast and furious....and the wind so bold that swirls were vaguely visible as i looked onto the parking lot and realized that each of my car windows was down 1-inch for ventilation........and my heart sank.......i didn't rush to close them because i only cared to get wet once....when it was time to go home.......and so i drove back to danville soaked to the bone......with the heater running full out and the seats sopping from what rain had a direct hit on the window gaps......oy!......by the time i reached the boyle line the torrent had downgraded to a drizzle......and i went on to the aldi's like nothing was the matter......

ok, so words cannot caption such a sight.........only to remind us that this is only in America........ 

sending songs into the abyss......

ok, so i enjoy sending songs...in compressed-file form....into cyberspace to folks that i imagine to be fans of the genre in question...or of the cover....or of the scream-out-loud sound......so far nobody has gotten in my face demanding to know what i mean about all those songs.......so it must be ok........just be sure to check under all of your non-edu email accounts.....just in case my madness has struck again......

blocked.....

ok, so for 2 days i have worked tirelessly to get a website unblocked.......as previously noted, the state of ky has set it's web filters to stun, and the sites that are blocked now include those that have actual merit to my work......the site in question.....www.nancyclarkrd.com...happened to be the site of the nation's premier sports nutritionist....a reasonable place to search for information timely for the beginning of football and cross country seasons......at first i thought the blocking of such a site must be a mistake......and quickly emailed the state web-minders for a quick unblock.....but it is not to be that simple.......my request for an un-block must come from my boss......who is never around.......while this sort of superior is desirable in every other respect, when one needs things from such a boss it is impossible to track him down, and then to sum up one's needs in the 2 minutes that is his attention span.......oy!.......my forwarding of the web-minders email went unanswered, and when i happened to run into him in the hall.....i pitched my need of his personal plea on his own email stationary....and then waited.......til i got off at 6:00 pm....nothing.....and so today i will continue to seek him out and remind him to do this simple thing.....because it is now my duty to unblock such a useful site.......if it is blocked for me it is also blocked for the entire state system........the last time i had a problem with a blocked site.......a page on thre American Diabetes Association site dealing with medication.....it was quickly unblocked, though i was never able to figure out what single word on the page triggered the filter......thank heavens my scope of practice doesn't include a need to see reference photos of veneral infections on private parts.....by the time the unblock came down from above the poor patient would have died from the disease.........this blocking business appears to work randomly at times.......i can easily read the nytimes at lunch, but i cannot read cnn news......nor abc news.......go figure..........i am not in fear that my limited web browsing will come back to haunt me...there was a legal case recently in which an employee had been fired for browsing during work hours....and the case was won by the fired employee under the grounds that the employer did not fire coworkers who made personal phone calls on company time, and that web browsing is considered to be a similar use of time........my workplace is a symphony of the ringing of personal cell phones.........and since mine rarely rings......i think i am covered.......

beer in the krogers......

ok, so i don't get out much, but in the past few days i have shopped in out-of-drycounty groceries, and each time i stood in amazement that beer was for sale.....chilled and unchilled....wow....who knew?

the shining path......

ok, so a workmate of mine recently returned from her mother-in-law's funeral in bolivia.....with unique stories to tell...like the one about how a direct flight from the states couldn't be arranged, so the sister-in-law arranged a flight to peru, with a taxi ride to the bolivian border......'my boss does this all the time', she told my friend......it was not until they were actually in the taxi, and driving into the night on an unmarked road that her spouse mentioned that the boss always had bodyguards with him when he made this trip, and that the shining path rebels regularly target that route for potential kidnap/ransom victims.......and that the trip was just a few minutes to the border,, but several hours........the driver finally let them off at the broder bridge, where another driver picked them up and took them to the house to change....they made it to the funeral with only an hour to spare.......while there are those in my midst who were not impressed bu this tale, i have to admit that i have never been in fear of captivity while on the road and have to give kudos to my friend for handling it so well........

ok, so this photo says it all....... 

reality avoidance.....

ok, so i glanced ever-so-briefly at a headline yesterday on-line....just long enough to discern that flyd's b-sample came back negative......and i couldn't bring myself to read another word.......this entire business has brought me to an unexplainable mourning........i honestly do not know if i will again take as much interest in the three-week bike race........fearing yet another let-down.......and while i prefer to believe that floyd is as innocent as he claims.......the loss of the tour title is a blow to more than the official record book.......

the secret goodwill

ok, so we left my brother-in-law's house on the hill early enough to hit what i fondly refer to as thr secret goodwill.....the big one on route 25e on the left....somewhere between i-75/corbin and the cumberland gap tunnel.....but alas, the goodwill we saw first.....was not the one i had in mind.......several found a few items....but it was not the goodwill i had in mind.....and so i kept an eye out for the remaining stretch of rte 25 for the correct goodwill.....and i never saw it......yes, we stopped scross the street from the corbin goodwill when my spouse generously stopped at an automate place to change out my mom's windshield wipers (we borrowed her van)......but we did not stop at the crobin goodwill because it was nearly 6 (closing time) and because the eldest was anxious to get on home to lexington......and so the secret goodwill remains a secret.....until the next time we travel rte 25 to tenneesee.......

Idyllic......

ok, so.......we are just returned from a charmed long weekend in tennessee.....and north carolina......let us start with our accommodations.......which looked like the country living film crew just left......called creekside cabin...its theme was a melange of bears, troutfishing and moose.....2 porches with rockers and swings-one facing the stream and the other the shaded lawn.....a stone fireplace flanked by Adirondacks-style furniture, a screened-in porch with a chaise-longue, beds with those branch-style headboards......and the details...wow....the knickknacks were overthetop......'twig'-handled silverware.....papabear/mammabear/babybear chairs on the porch, a towelrack that looked like a moosehead....even the showerstall was 'tiled' in river rocks......absolutely charming........and really close to carver's gap....where our hike began.......i must say up front that my spouse's insistance that our daughter and i walk only part of the trek was a good call........the 13 mile trail started on an uphill so steep that within 5 minutes we could see none of our 15 member party.....we walked 1.5 hours up the trail, past misty scenery, wildflowers in full bloom....and blueberry bushes.....omg...nobody told us there would be ripe blueberries.......suffice it to say that few of our friends and family who saw the hike as a competition...save the observant middle child..... actually saw the berries....let alone ate them......in fact....once we had reached the top of our third bald...or peak...and turned back toward the car.......the sun shone so brilliantly upon those bushes that the ripest berries seemed spotlighted.......such a delightful surprise for a blueberry fan.........and so we who only did part of the course were able to grocery shop, cook supper, and shower and relax before the rest stumbled into the end point...where out friends were staying in a b&b that was not so charming as our rental......they all came over to our creekside cabin...we fit 16 around the picnic tables, including a duke divinity student that the lone bachelor in our midst acquired along the way......she was charming as well.......and so we are back home, settling into a month as a foursome rather than a threesome......for the record, the best moment of the trip was coming back from supper in north carolina on friday...when all three children were singing the theme to goldeneye...accopella....now that was priceless...........

drivers with signs.....

ok, so the best part of today, aside from my visit with jane and picking up my boy at the airport.....was the revolving assortment of drivers with signs that stood back from the crush of folks awaiting loved ones at the top of the escalator.....often i missed the matchup completely, one minute the driver would be there with his sign saying michael cumstein....and the next time i glanced over he was gone...presumably with mr zumstein.....many of the folks who belonged to signs didn't look like folks who would be met with a driver.....like the young mother in flipflops grasping her toddler and a diaper bag......go figure.....and then there was kathlyn bentley.....i spent an inordinate amount if time keeping an eye out for her......having never seen another kathlyn in the flesh ....and she didn't come and she didn't come.....much like our boy was delayed so long in customs/immigration....and then there she was.....followed by 2 small children with monogramed backpacks....and looking quite elegant in a white linen top that was not visibly wrinkled and a black skirt.......good haircut...at least the other kathlyns of the world have good taste......i also witnessed a sign-free plane-meeting..........a fellow with the reds organization meeting up with a player-sort carrying a vuitton bag......a call-up from the minors?.......intriguing.......the sort of people who are met at the airport and driven off into the tri-state........our daughter and i laughed that we should have brought a sign........in case our middle boy failed to recognize us after 2 months..........

home again.....

ok, so......Stephan is home til September 9...........amen.....

rock and roll will save the world......

ok, so......a little girl in halifax, england was saved a most painful death because she instantly recognized the grenade she dug up in her garden as the same instrument of death that she remembered from greenday t-shirts.......

dagnabit.......

ok, so...i was half-way through burning a collection of newish downloads when i remembered the one song i forgot.....and i was thus forced to assemble another songset for a second cd........i don't suppose one can start over on these things....as electronics equipment fails to recognize ooooops as a directive........and so i have 2 mixes to take along for the trip to cincinnati and back........mostly songs sent to me, and songs i have sent others........with a few standards mixed in....as if csn&y protest songs could possibly be out of date........

on top of things......

ok, so........my middle child is ocming home on thursday....and i have delighted in preparing supper for his homecoming celebration.......a bit ahead...but this way i do not have to cook while we are getting him settled in......tortilla espagnol, and a cold lentil salad and walnut brownies....so far...to go along with yet-to-be-purchased cheeses and breads.......sounds just yummy.........i am reading a prequel to a book-club book while the tortilla cools.....a book called zippy.......about a girl who grows up in mooreland, indiana....which sounds like the makings of boring drivel....except that her memoir is gigglingly funny, with bits and bobs that remind me of my own childhood, without the dysfunction.......or the dead piglet piles.......her renditions of relationships....with family as well as with friends are poignant to the point of enviable.......gentle readers....thsi is a book soundly voted down by the bookclub last year........only for its sequel....she got up off the couch to rise from the ashes as a solid pick this year.......i am reading zippy before...couch because that is how the friend who vetted the book felt it should be done.....and she is right, of course........first things first.......i have to undersatnd all of the players before i can understand why it was such a big deal for zippy's mamma, depressed for years, to reinvent herself by going back to school, losing weight, and getting a job........i cannot wait to finish book one so i can move on to book two........but i digress from homecomings......we are all anxious for our boy to be home.....bon voyage........