putting back grandpa.....

ok, so....now that the playoffs and the world series are history......it was time to put away the portrait of grandpa and grandma broughton...my cleveland connection...out away means to rehang the framed photo taken on the occasion of their 50th on the nail amdist the other pieces of framed art behind the p.c. in the hall......until such time as the indians decide to make another run for glory.....oh lord, please let that be in my lifetime.......

an academic low......

ok, so..the c-dubs have reached a new low.....and while i am not pointing fingers.....the milestone is a recordable event......a generational event.......an atrocious event.......oh well...ranting will not make this go away.......

happy halloween

ok, so.....here's hoping your day is filled with gladness rather than ghoulishness.....

that singer in that ad......

ok, so...there has been catchy ad with a catchy tune...involving a woman in shiny blue dancing with people in bright colors.....and until this evening i did not know that this was feist.....and so....given that this was the day the britney spears new cd dropped...i opted to buy feist's newest..and support indie-rock.....rather than be somehow co-dependent for that poor pitiable pop singer.....not that i'd actually buy something of b.spears.....

absinthe......

ok, so this piece by stephen colbert on why we should all abstain from absinthe is just precious.....

trick or treat......

ok, so.......we passed out candy at the store this evening...til it ran out around 7:20........then treated ourselves to subway.....no use cranking up the stove at that late hour......a really huge crowd downtown...and an extraordinary number of parents smoking while holding their babies.....or worse.....handing an open bag toward us with a cig hanging out of the mouth.....yecch......the best costume was a 9-10 year old....with a grandpa porkpie hat, and a skinny tie and skinny jeans...and a guitar hanging from a strap behind his neck...and when he came up for candy, he tipped his hat to us, like a street musician might ask for tips......wow...what chutzpah........not something you see in d-ville....where most kids wore lead-laden chinese imported spiderman or dora garb......curiously, treatortreat was tonight...rather than wednesday, which is sacred is these parts and church night...but our church canceled prayer meeting and youth activities because it was halloween.......and so we will all be home for supper tomorrow......when i shall be studying for my eku lecture on the evils of tobacco......

gingerale.....

ok, so....i had a detailed dream about my family's house in cleveland......looking for a glass in the cupboards, writing a grocery list from a piece of paper taken from a plastic paperholder on the desk in the corner...by the violet window that featured 3 shelves bearing african violets in small pots......and then there was my grandpa, who was busy feeding a throng of youngsters at the dining room table.......this never happened, not even the artfully decorated tomatoes (faces were carved into each tomato, and highlighted with inset carrots, green beans and yellow roasted peppers.....these were quite beautiful, as dream food goes......but the highlight of the dream was my grandpa asking me to drive him to the store to buy gingerale; the list would be later lengthened to include bread and lettuce.....and no clue as to who would be watching over these tomato-eating children at the set dinner table......outside, there were many people milling about, trying to get a truck out of a mudhole.....that was filled with clear water.....so clear that one could see jewelry stuck in the actual mud....except that nobody was trying to get out the jewelry....only to get the truck wheel out......we never did leave for the grocery, by the way.....

15 laterals.....

ok, so....in a youtube moment that my dad would have loved....trinity college beat millsaps in the last moments of their saturday game with a play that lasted over a minute.....7 different players touched the ball, and 15 legal lateral passes were recorded before trinity scored their winning touchdown....wow.....

a first.......

ok, so...at work today i met a woman who came in for services with 2 toddlers...with birthdays close but not the same day......these sweet girls looked very much alike....and when i noted this similarity verbally, the woman gushed.....'oh- they are not sisters....the one on the left is my daughter and the other one is my grandaughter....they were born pretty close together, and since they both live with me now i am thinking of raising them as twins.....'......wtf?.....seems the mother of the grand-daughter either ran off....or isn't around enough to object......and it was not until the mamma left that a colleague added to the story.....that the woman has 2 daughters pregnant at the same time.....one with a sister to the grandaughter.....and they will all live with mamma....at this point i was losing count on just how many under 2's would be under the same roof......but not forgetting to thank god that it wasn't MY roof........

a bit too detailed.....

ok, so.....on npr on my way to pick up child #3 i heard all about a fellow who was so obsessed with recording his life in detail that he typed it out in 10 minute increments......he left all 91 volumes of his diary to a college near his home...to be kept sealed until 50 years after his death (recently, it would seem)...but npr had covered his story back in the 90's, when he was in his 70's...and he read from his day......which included the outdoor temp, the indoor temp: including the temp near the floor, by the window, and by the door jam in the room where he types.....he does not read what he has typed later on, because he'd just have to turn around and record that he read what he typed.......puts this blog to shame...because i go to great lengths to leave out.....

counting down.....

ok, so......we are counting down til liftoff.....and all the sudden there seems so much to do.....as much associated with travel as with getting one's affairs in order at home......and at one's work....both the first and second jobs...as an example.......my goal is to leave the copies of the test that will be given next thursday in my mailbox at eku....so that i can point them out to the people who will give the test in my absence....which means i have to actually write the test before i have finished the lectures....must get busy....

cathy

ok, so......i turned to read some of my favorite comics this morning while the coffee brewed.....and could not find an old-standby...cathy was missing.......i wondered if the illustrator/writer had died or quit for some reason...unlikely because she'd be younger than me.....but i was able to find today's installment online...so the strip's demise in the lexherald has to do with......who know what it has to do with....this semi-local paper has shrunk most of its strips to fit in new ones....mostly bland ones featuring animals...though i do enjoy get fuzzy.......the other new strips are not memorable......maybe i am just too old for comics.....

nondescript....

ok, so we watched a few innings of baseball...but the rockies were so flat that it was not fun to watch another loss, so we turned off the tv and went to bed before the game was half over.......

thought for the day.....

ok, so this was on my google-reader page.....Cato the Elder: "After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one."

oh-H.......eye-oh!

ok, so......i watched much more of the ohio state victory over penn state that i did the baseball game in mile-high stadium...especially when it became clear that the rockies were not going to win in their own stadium.....and while watching the ohio state buckeyes win yet another game, it is clear that the commentators show insufficient respect for both osu and the big ten...and seem to frame this season entirely on osu's loss to florida in last years finale.....they fail to mention that florida has lost more than once at this point when they wax philosophically on just how superior the sec is this year as in last season.....sometimes i forget that these guys babble on to fill airspace, and that they will, from time to time, talk just to hear themselves talk.........it is only when they talk foolishness about an undefeated team that is winning on the road in front of 110,000 that i have to take umbrage.....

vicarious travel.......

ok, so.....my middle child is heading to italy for the toussaints break...and i have amused myself gloriously this day researching this trip...from the ultimate backseat.......whether he takes any or all of these tips to heart is not the point...the point is that i so love to study destinations...figure out what is open when...what is must-see and what can wait til next time.......you know the drill....and the pleasure extends to trips i will see only as close as the uploaded pictures......

making another plan.....

ok, so....another morning with clogged sinuses and a face that feels about to explode.....and it is clear that i cannot go on like this, with symptoms that my $83 sinus medication does not appear to relieve......i can only imagine how a plane flight will make all this worse.....yesterday i tried using salt water sprays, but i have since read that i was not aggressive enough in how much i used and what i did after using the spray.....yecch.......the good news is that it is not keeping me up at night...so i am waking up feeling rested, wretched, but rested.....

no rest for the wicked....

ok, so...i decided sometime yesterday afternoon.....as i shivered in a cruelly cold thursday workplace, that if i still felt the least bit achy today i would utilize a bit of my valuable sick time and take the day off......and so i dragged me and my sinus headache back to bed after the rest of our dwindling clan went to school/work.....and may have slept soundly...until i was awakened by the sound of something or someone on the roof.....omg....there was somebody on the roof...not the usual route of crooks to the stash....roofers?.....a notion confirmed when i called my spouse from under the covers.....he did suggest that i go out and greet these folks and find out if they located the source of our drip......but by the time i got out of bed and brushed my hair and put on something presentable...they had driven away.....the drip is not inside the house...more an issue with the front porch....the reason that many of the posts rotted out so quickly (if one can call 20+ years quickly).....and now that i am semi-dressed i will drive into town to retrieve an early dismissed child...and maybe go on back to bed when i am back home......i cannot swear that i feel bad enough to seek medical help.....just the side of sickly that cried out for a tad of sympathy......

fw:fw:fw/sad news.......

ok, so i rarely open forwarded email...but this was really funny:

With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world at the moment, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week.

Larry LaPrise, the man that wrote "The Hokie Pokey" died peacefully at the age of 93.

The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the coffin. They put his left leg in. And then the trouble started....

clean and tidy

ok, so......when the internet was so very slow to load yesterday we decided to run the hard-drive cleanup program...the one that takes care of those pesky temp files....and the internet has loaded so much faster now....but then...my pull-down menu of favorite sites is gone and i am having to recreate it from my feeble memory.....some faves....are easy....and some are locatable by google...and some still made it to favorites (go figure)...but as i sit and try to recall the obscure ones.....some may well be lost until they pop up again as links.......at which time i will shriek...oh my...that was where to find that site......well, maybe not shriek....

jonathan franzen

ok, so when a book includes bad reviews on the cover, you know that the author must be either self-confident or blissfully oblivious to critics.....this from jossip.com...The Discomfort Zone, Jonathan Franzen’s book of essays, is out in paperback. And what better way to promote it than with an ad that connotes Franzen’s own warm spirit?

The magazine spot includes some choice words from Michiko Kakutani, who called the book, “Odious…incredibly annoying” in the Times and Daniel Mendelsohn, who described it as “perverse” in the Times Book Review

Obviously, the ad folks for Farrar, Straus & Girous have tapped into th psyche of Franzen’s fan base. They’re a self-hating bunch, who alternate between thinking their lives are failures and believing no one understands their true genius. Nothing could appeal to them more than condemnation from the Times.

cold.......

ok, so.....yesterday the heating and air people did longawaited work on both the upstairs furnace/airconditioner as well as the basement unit.....as well as insulated pipes and caulked leaks in our closet where cold breezes are palpable on especially frigid evenings.....we had a new warm air vent put right over our bed......so.....in the middle of the night...when i woke up cold ...why had i not the sense to get up and turn on the heat so as to utilize all of that expensive service upgrades?......heck...i am still cold and loathe to turn on some heat......i suppose it is memories of outrageous k.u. bills from last winter.....tonight i will get out an extra blanket, just in case.....i hesitate to get out the down comforter just yet.......crazy how we can go from so very hot to so very cold...and miss comfortable sleeping weather.....completely......

frustration......

ok, so....i have blogged about frustration before...but the concept bears repeating......this internet connection this evening is such that i could not open hotmail at all...and only the html version of gmail would open...which is necessary to run blogger....i rebooted our adelphia box.....and have no earthly idea what is wrong.....our bookclub has been postponed due to dhs boy's soccer elite 8 appearance in lexington at lexcath.....the hostess teaches at lexcath and 2 of our members are soccer parents.....just as well...because the cold rain has put quite a chill over the area...and all i want to do is to curl up with an afghan and watch...the world series...yeah...cleveland no longer rocks when it comes to the series.....but i might as well watch a game or too just to see how boston does.....i have also gotten really into knitting these days...and one knits best watching tv.......

48 hours of rain......

ok, so.....we are on our 48th or so hour of rain...give or take......and when i walked to the road to get the newspaper.....with an umbrella......our lawn almost looked green...in the near-darkness one cannot see the black holes of deadness amongst the remaining patches of living grass.....survivalist grass i should call what has outlasted the drought.....sadly, the fires are still raging in southern california as we soak up the longawaited rain......here is what actress jamie lee curtis (a fine role model for feminine aging) had to say about the fires and this silly notion of the fires as an act of god.....her comments last only 2 minutes, but are well worth your time......

the end of the world as we know it?

ok, so......a small but vocal group of my workmates entertained themselves with talk of the end of time......they were adding up katrina to the san fransisco earthquakes to the drought in goergia to the fires in san diego...and they came up with signs of the last coming/the judgementday/wrath of a vengeful god.....what?.......when one person in particular started in about believing in a vengeful god....i nearly took her on......but that would just keep her going....and so i walked away......if for no other reason than to deflate her rhetoric.....now...if she wants to argue non-sustainable housing and the foolishness of rebuilding in a drought-prone area that has little water resources...or on a known fault...or in a hurricane-prone area......than we'll talk...but blaming this on god rather than on ourselves?...we have nothing to talk about.........

still raining.....

ok, so...the rain continues and for this we are thankful......

a late entry.....

ok, so......on the subject of annoying and embarrassing tattoos....w semi-workmate of mine has recently lost a lot of weight...so much that she has taken to wearing clothing a tad too revealing.....which has led to the exposure....the oh too public exposure of tattoos that should have remained private.....especially since they have been visibly stretched and now un-stretched....so to speak.....omg.....this is almost as bad as the postnatal client who raised her shirt and lowered her drawers to show me how the ob/gyn failed to match up her lower abdominal tattoo when he closed up her c-section.....so just what has she got tattooed fore and aft......it is hard to describe a tattoo that is swirling and flowery as anything but...swirling and flowery...and one hates to stare long enough to get a decent fix on the design.....all i know is that i was not the only one to notice.....another workmate took great pains to inquire about when she got both tattoos.....pre-children....i had already figured that out...but i failed to get a good feel for the reason from what i overheard...gentle readers....strategically placed tattoos are best reserved for women who plan to have no children and can be relatively certain that no weight will be gained or lost.....

the lovely rain.....

ok, so....the rain has lasted off and on all day.....ranging from drizzle to downpour....and i have loved every minute of it....even the fact that i was in the other car and therefore had no umbrella available......i handled that detail by not bothering to stop at the grocery....decided that there must be something edible at the house to fix for supper.....we are going to make broccoli/cheddar soup from a mix that has been around far too long and tuna salad sandwiches and raw carrots and cut-up pears.....sounds just fine to me......but i digress from the lovely rain...which i can feel soaking into my dying flower beds....and my patch of what used to be grass.....and into my lily pond.....and all of my deck flowerpots......ah.....life is so very good when it rains.....

the end of the playoffs....

ok, so we only stayed up til 10 watching cleveland lose to the boston redsox....and now that the sox are going to the world series, i am somewhat ambivalent about watching the colorado rockies/sox matchup.....other than the fact that i am making tremendous headway on an afghan that has been lying fallow for at least a year.....knitting is a television watching activity, and i do not watch television on most days....any reader knows that television interrupts one's concentration and that the best reading is done with the television off...not even turned down low......i have yet to email my cleveland kin with my condolences.....though i doubt they were surprised at their loss...when i saw them during the summer, on our way tot he wedding in new york...they seemed to think that this year's team was a bunch of bums.....the only light at the end of the tunnel that i can see for northern ohio is that these folks tend to also be ohio state fans.....

o.c.d.

ok, so.....the collective we have straightened bedrooms this weekend......read this as hung up and re-arranged clothing, tossed clothing into baskets to give back to the goodwill, sorted through books that are no longer appropriate.....and discarded loose-leaf papers, spent inkpens, and other flotsam that was getting in the way.......mostly while the room's current inhabitant pouted and carried on about how precious these items are/were/will be......the threat of such a full-on cleaning assault has been on the table for some time....and today the time came to carry through......too much precious stuff is still too much stuff......

personal best

ok so our child ran a personal best at woodford today.....

the torch is passed

ok, so...at woodford this afternoon, there were no morgans for the first time in memory...but the eldest of the andersons ran his first varsity race......yeah...his mom is the coach, but it takes an intrepid elementary school child to run with the big boys......

dumbledore is gay?

ok, so this from cnn.com ....in the half-blood prince dumbledore stays a bit long in the w.c. looking at knitting patterns...but then don't we all?.......

155

ok, so....when we returned home from the woodford invitational...it was to the following phone message.....'hello, this is_______from 155 _______in old bridge....and we have your mail.....a new yorker, and what looks to be something official from eku.....should be drop it off somewhere, or do you want to come and get it?'...omg....how does our mail make it to old bridge....which is nowhere near to us.....seems the only thing we have in common is the 155 before our addresses......they will drop it off in town...but it seems that they have gotten junk mail of ours before.....very strange.....

the cat in autumn

ok, so......the cat is in her autumnal glory on this cool october morning.....and this vision reminds me to blog about an article in today's lexington herald about a couple in cleveland who have set up an unusual business...they will photoshop a picture of your deceased pet into the arms of jesus.....we got quite a chuckle over this notion at breakfast.....it seems wrong on so many levels....especially since the jesus in question doesn't look jewish at all......

getting closer.....

ok, so.....three weeks from today i will be sipping my cafe creme in some sweet corner place watching the world go by....in paris......i have not yet dragged out the luggage options...though i am quite certain to 1)wear my coat rather than pack it 2)bring essentials in my carry-on bag.....though delta is not likely to lose my bags 2 trips in a row...but why tempt fate....we are ferrying goods for 2 of our favorite folks....which will work out well as we are not heavy packers and at this point are not big buyers...recall my april paris trip...when i was questioned at customs about just why i had not bought a lot of stuff!!!.....go figure......i will still make a pilgrimage to my favorite kitchen-ware store...i just love dehillerin, because it is paris and i just love paris......

panties for peace....

ok, so this from the boston globe......

Women send panties to Myanmar in protest

October 19, 2007

BANGKOK, Thailand --Women in several countries have begun sending their panties to Myanmar embassies in a culturally insulting gesture of protest against the recent brutal crackdown there, a campaign supporter said Friday.

"It's an extremely strong message in Burmese and in all Southeast Asian culture," said Liz Hilton, who supports an activist group that launched the "Panties for Peace" drive earlier this week.

The group, Lanna Action for Burma, says the country's superstitious generals, especially junta leader Gen. Than Shwe, also believe that contact with women's underwear saps them of power.

urban camouflage

ok, so...i was greatly amused by the this nytimes piece about urban camouflage in japan...... if you look closely the last pop machine has feet.....

the road not taken.....

ok, so i read this piece on salon.com with tears in my eyes....for i did not have to go these lengths to birth adorable and talented children......

aldi antics......

ok, so friday is my current aldi day.......the crowd was such that it must be aldi day for a whole lot of budget minded folks.....i had a nice chat with a natural-born german speaker from my church, who was delighted to know that my boys will visit germanic countries over christmas...i am to give them her best....but i digress from the point of this blog.....it is my custom to let folks in front of me in line if they have no cart and are carrying an armload...and so i motioned for a woman dragging her bag to go in front....but the woman in front of me, who also had a cart, not only did not let this lady in front of her.....she asked bag-dragging lady if she recognized her....and cart lady semi-taunted this poor bag-dragging woman with...nope, that isn't where you know me from....through several ring-ups at the cashier's station, and then out into the parking lot.....until they reached cart-lady's car...and recognition of immediate.....all well and good....but these ladies were 75+ and the guess who game was wearing thin on the crowd.....i tell you mutiny was near if these ladies hadn't taken it outside.....what makes otherwise reasonable people act like fools?.....i passed by a woman who was asking nobody in particular just where to find the catfood, when her spouse pulled up with the cart, and sher laid into him with almost foul language that she wasn't buying a g-d bag of catfood that big and what was he thinking bringing her there(the aldi's)......gracious sakes....and to think that i almost stopped to help her find the blessed catfood...she'd have bit my head off before her husband ever showed up....and she looked perfectly meek and mild.....how wrong we can be about people.....and so now i am home and have put all my aldi groceries away...and i hope to locate the new yorker with the sasha frere-jones article where she reportedly trashes indie rock......what's up with that?.......maybe she will be even more outrageous than the ladies at the aldi......

square plates.....

ok, so.....somewhere in between the wicked storm, and the alarm this morning...i dreamed about a detailed overnight visit to one of the carolinas.....to a victorian mansion that had 2 floors of restaurant/bar...and the rest rentable accommodations space...there was a lovely appetizer buffet in the front room and a white wine dispenser that could only exist in dreams...but i digress from the buffet....grilled artichoke halves that could be filled with eggplant caviar...along with garnishes like fresh feta, marinated roasted red pepper and asparagus....i also recall grilled shrimp and lobster tails......and we ( i have vague recollections on exactly who was there with me...but i will say that my middle child brought in his suitcase from the car mid-way through the dream....and asked me to fill his plate for him....so this was not meant to be a current sequence....though it is not anything close to a real event....what i recall most about the others at this place was that the men were wearing green jackets like the golf master's tournament winner wears....and the men in my party were issued jackets to make sure that we all fit in.....there was some talk about why we had not purchased this house...and the wife of the owner was very curt about just what we had found wrong with it that prompted us to buy elsewhere.....i recall being in a parlor that had carved shelves and alcoves to put knick-knacks....and recall telling this woman that the ceilings had been too high for my taste....which is a true statement, i suppose....i like cozy lairs rather than train station waiting rooms.....no idea where this dream was going....because when i woke up we were explaining why we were too full to order dinner, and the owner was upset......i could go for a nice grilled artichoke right about now....and i suppose i might could manage to recreate this buffet at some point...maybe for bookclub?

strike......

ok, so i read with horror about the french transportation strike.....it may be only a 24 hour thing, but the prospect of walking from the airport into paris is not a pleasant thought.....especially dragging a suitcase.....let us all pray that the strikers get what they need from the govt, so i can move on from this worry......

stephen colbert

ok, so i do not know where stephen is going with this bid to run in both primaries in south carolina...but he could not be worse than many who have been campaigning for months.....

speaking of drugs......

ok, so.....i am lecturing tomorrow on legal and illegal drugs.....and i had a repeat this day of a stunning scenario.....the client who has a valid appointment, but is really drug-seeking.....this was a fellow referred by a local mental health agency for control of his diabetes...and when he discovered that the only medications we keep on hand or dispense are birth control pills...he got up and left.......seems he really wanted something for his back pain.....ouch!

baseball ......

ok, so in october my interest in baseball soars if.....somebody has a shot at beating the nyyankees......and/or cleveland is playing......or cincinnati...but this has not happened in quite some time......my grandpa from cleveland was a lifelong fan...and as i type his photograph is on top of the television cabinet....and i credit him for the rejuvenated tribe......though even my grandpa cannot take credit for the pitching last evening of a fellow by the name of byrd.....who looked like a crazy combination of jack nicholson and garrison keillor......i half-expected this guy to break into a really good tale.......the indians need a win tomorrow evening to earn their world series berth......my eku lecture tomorrow starting at 6 pm is on a single chapter....on drugs, by the way.....my auditor today cited us for failing to warn each and every client of the dangers of illegal drugs (and alcohol and cigarettes).....this is a touchy subject to weave into conversation without the client replying with an angry 'do i look like i do drugs?'....this has actually happened to me...and this is why i am loathe to bring up more than secondhand smoke....but i digress.......i will be able to make it home by the first pitch......

omg!

ok, so this from jezebel.com.......Bush does it again: The forty-turd president has appointed birth-control opponent Susan Orr -- who thinks contraceptives encourage our "culture of death" -- to head the family planning branch of the Department of Health and Human Services. [Washington Post]

the dead cell phone.....

ok, so my cell phone refused to come on monday......my first assumption was that it's battery had run out by being left on over the weekend....i always try to turn the thing off when i am at home because we get no reception at home so there is no point........but i digress.....plugging it into the recharger gave no signs of life.......i stopped at the cingular store on the way home...wondering aloud if the battery was dead and unable to retain a charge on this aging handset.....the sales rep asked me if the phone had given any signs of impending death......like what, i asked....finding humor in the notion that the phone would give some sort of sign....wtf?.....phones either turn on or they don't.....and so she proceeded to pry off the back, remove the battery, remove the sim card, and then reassemble the pieces....voila...the conundrum phone came back on...like it had been rebooted.....no explanation of why it was dead only to be reborn...but at least for now i can make do with this phone for a while longer.....

David Crosby/Graham Nash

ok, so....crooks and liars has a marvelous interview with my 70's heroes about war protest songs and war protest in general.....scroll down til you find it.....

ham biscuits.....

ok, so......most of my workmates were required to set up a drive-thru flu shot clinic at 7:00 am.....and in thanks for not having to be there...at 7 or at any other time today....i made ham biscuits.....to be specific...i made onion biscuits with herbed butter and shaved country ham.....made with my little half-circle fluted cutter from Dehillerin.....gosh, i just love that little cutter....and so when i dropped off these biscuits...and mini-blueberry muffins at 7:45...at the flu shot clinic on my way to work.....there was a great rejoicing.....yeah, well....i made nothing for the vegetarians....but then...there are no vegetarians in the crowd that i work with.....and they would not likely understand the time i have spent studying menus and reviews of vegetarian restaurants in paris.....my aim is to at least be pescatarian during this extra visit....this bonus visit....frankly, i would be happy for warm goat cheese salad and sancerre at every meal...well...maybe an omelet at breakfast....

k2,yo,k2tog......

ok, so....i have finished a few knitted scarves while watching baseball....and have picked up an afghan i started a while back with hopes of finishing it also.....the conundrum?......i couldn't recall the 8-row pattern......thankfully i had blogged it awhile back as protection against this very situation...and i simply copied and pasted it.....

delusions.....

ok, so many of my workmates have become delusional since saturday's big win over lsu, and yesterday's bump to #7......and there was trash talk about the favorite area football team making a run for a national championship.....and i must ask...just what are they smoking?.....the wildcats beating my buckeyes......isn't going to happen.....

a coup d'moi

ok, so maureen dowd of the nytimes challenged stephen colbert to write her sunday op-ed piece, since he thinks that it looks so easy......this piece is worth your time.....my favorite passage, in which colbert is musing on the current crop of presidential candidates.....Well, suddenly an option is looming on the horizon. And I don’t mean Al Gore (though he’s a world-class loomer). First of all, I don’t think Nobel Prizes should go to people I was seated next to at the Emmys. Second, winning the Nobel Prize does not automatically qualify you to be commander in chief. I think George Bush has proved definitively that to be president, you don’t need to care about science, literature or peace...........

a memoir of women in paris

ok, so i finished my book this day....true pleasures by lucinda holdforth......or rather....my second read, for i have read sena jeter nasland's book about marie antoinette in between my first and second readings....and i marveled at the last women featured....germaine de stael a liberal mind when so few women had the gumption to have minds of their own, let alone put it all down on paper.....there is a marker on rue de varenne that not only points out tallyrand's home, but also the place at which napoleon and madame de stael began their mutual hostility....wow...mutual hostility......she had her own salon, and had great sway when it came to public opinion.....and she was against napoleon's totalitarian tendencies....and wrote not only pamphlets about her views, but also novels. The first, Delphine was described as politics disguised as literature, and was a best seller. British tourists were reportedly holed up in their rooms for days when it came out, passing it amongst themselves until all had finished it. The book so infuriated napoleon that he expelled her from france.......only for her to write an even more political novel called Corinne or Italy (blatantly anti-empire) while she was in exile.....amazing that she was a comtemporary of jane austen, and wrote wildly successful novels under her own name when jane was using a false name.......a fascinating woman.....who i had never heard of before reading this book......

the best quote about paris comes not from germaine, however, but from gertrude stein....another brilliant saloniere......she said "it's not what Paris gave you but what it didn't take from you that was important"......wow......

story corps

ok, so....frequently npr runs pieces that bring me to tears...that require me to stay in my car until the piece is over...and this piece was no exception.......

more on the musee de luxembourg

ok, so....the mm is slow on the draw these days......i was so excited about the Arcimboldo exhibit at this location that it never occurred to me that i was previously unaware of this location........it is in none of the guidebooks....and according to the website has been designated as a site of special exhibits for some time.....hmmm.....there appears to be a cafe on site....and a gift shop that sells art posters......curious that it has been under my radar......even the paris museum pass people do not mention it....unlike the new musee de quai branley or the reopened musee l'orangerie.....

more on the tragic defacement of art

ok, so this from the nytimes.......

problematic.....

ok, so.....our faithful contractor/builder showed up yesterday afternoon with his new assistants and proceeded to rip out the posts and railings. He had installed or repaired these same posts 20 years ago, and is replacing them with fiberglass components that will hopefully last longer than the originals. He was able to position 2 of the new vertical supports before heading home for his weekend.....and it was at this point that he came to me in all serious about an unanticipated consequence.....'with the new posts there is no place to put the spare key.......i went to put the key back only to realize that there is not there anymore'.....omg...these columns lack the little shelves near the top that so handily allowed us hiding space for keys, and sometimes birds for nests......our builder seemed to feel the loss as much as i......must now try to figure out where next to hide a house key...change is difficult..........

for the cat who has everything.....

ok, so this lovely piece of cat furniture was part of a nytimes article about high-end furniture for cats......

architectura

inspired by the work of frank lloyd wright, architectura is a pet house designed for dogs and cats. slatted walls on two sides provide excellent ventilation and a fun place for pets to hide but still see what's going on around them.

available in s/m/l with larger sizes finished for outdoors, comes with textured carpeting.

some assembly required on md. and lg. models

choose natural or orange stained slats $359-$999 depending on size

if the tables were turned....

ok, so....it is laughable to think about how dubya would have spent his time if the election had gone differently for gore.......he most certainly would not have embraced a cause, and earned an emmy, an oscar or a peace prize.....

from this week's new yorker...

ok, so i just love this cartoon from this week's new yorker.....i also enjoyed an article about the search for a contemporary portrait of lady jane grey.....

nobel lauriates!

ok, so.....this from the nytimes........The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Al Gore, the former American vice president, and to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for their work to alert the world to the threat of climate change.

nobel season......

ok, so...nobel season brings out the worst in me......as i annually send condolences to the only economist i know who fully expects to be on the nobel short-lost...at least one day......this morning i listened with amusement to the story on npr about betting on the nobel prizes for both peace and literature.....seems doris lessing wasn't high on that list....when she heard about her prize she was returning to her flat in london and assumed that the crowd of reporters gathered near her doorstep were covering a film-scene of some sort....and she proceeded to sit on her doorstep and give her interviews...i was impressed.....i was also impressed to read today that the good money is on al gore to win the peace prize......which means he won;'t win the peace prize...because the good money is always wrong in these categories.....

'erase my emails...'

ok, so...one of the more poignant moments on my npr-driven ride to my thursday county had to do with the internet......as a preface to a story on the medical uses and abuses of the w.w.w.....the commentator used her grandmother as an example of how folks of all ages have embraced the web for a multitude of amusements and scholarly uses.....and the commentator's grandmother was such an avid internet user that on her deathbed...at age 95+....she motioned for a daughter to draw close....and with her dying breathe said......'erase my emails'.....'...gentle readers...i have already erased any incriminating emails....but i would appreciate that those blood kin who aspire to writing careers would at least download the bulk of my prose into a....what....4 gig portable hard drive?......realistically, if i live to be 95 it may take 10+ gigs...but i digress......i would hope that this body of work is not deleted by some web manager in the sky who sees it lie dormant.....and how would one sign off for a blog...ok, so....and a link to the obit.....i suppose that i will have to trust whichever of my offspring signs me off permanently.......

no proofreader on the payroll?...

ok, so the folks in arkansas are in the spotlight over a major faux paux.....

amusements

ok, so......i am amusing myself in my spare time by perusing downloaded menus from french parisian restaurants......few go so afr as to include a menu on their website and so few actually have sites at all.....the menu i like the best is a semi-vegetarian place near notre dame.....that offers a fish soup with aoili and bread......and a personal assiette du fromage avec an ballon de vin rouge.....sounds good and i haven't even located this place yet...it appears to be on the street right in front of the cathedral...only across the bridge in the 5th (6th?)....and while this place makes its own bean curd...i am going to paris to taste the tofu.....

old bones, old bones......

ok, so...i know that is not my line.......but i am so very tired that i plan to skip greys anatomy and go to bed early......exam #2 is over for this semester, and i do have to turn in midterm grades tomorrow...but as scarlett would so rightly aptly say....tomorrow is another day......

jazzed.....

ok, so i cannot sleep because i am still upset about a work incident and cannot sleep because it cannot be resolved here and now......it involves inconsistency: about how we (work) can allow a client with insurance to pay us out of pocket for one vaccine but refuse to give her another vaccine by saying that it would be more cost-effective to get that vaccine elsewhere.....either we give her both vaccines, or neither vaccines...to do one without the other is irrational, and possibly fraudulent.... and because i had words with a coworker over this matter i cannot sleep.....oy

Arcimboldo

ok, so...i have reprints of this guy's work from many major art museums...and as luck would have it, there is a show in the musee d'luxumbourg til january...don't ya just love how he uses his fruits and veggies?.......

i wish i was a rebellious ex-nun...

ok, so this from cnn.com/.........

ok, so.............

ok, so..... i get rnc emails, for no good reason that comes to mind....and this link was included, should i desire to buy clothing/accoutrement that looms vaguely gay........

if jimmy says it

ok, so...if jimmy says it, it must be true......

a long comic relief....

ok, so this is from crooks and liars.....and though kinda long..i needed the comic relief after a long and troubling work day......

fat bottom girls.....

ok, so i had yet another food service dream last evening.....somehow i was back cooking, and the people helping me tipped the scales at over 300 pounds.....imagine oodles of sagging flesh encased in stretch polyester......no earthly idea why i would dream about heavy women, who appeared to be related......and had some connection to nursing homes......

forgotten links...

ok, so yesterday i read this piece in the washington post about the nobel prize winner in medicine, then forgot to blog about him......about how growing up in northern italy he witness the gestapo arrest his mother and how he survived on the streets til his mother finally found him dying in a hospital after she was liberated from a nazi prison camp after the war....she had searched tirelessly for him.....what a tear-jerker story.....

even more unbelievable art vandalism news......

ok, so this from the nytimes about some vandals in sweden ...possibly neonatzis who broke into a small town art gallery and destroyed photographs, all the while photographing themselves doing...the episode is already on youtube......

chocolate and zucchini

ok, so.....i found this piece on line about paris and food by the woman who does the afore mentioned blog......makes me so very hungry......i also found some cafe reviews by a woman who goes by the tag shrimp83...or some numbered shrimp......but thse reviewed the entire of paris so i cut and pasted a smaller more distilled version of her more modest picks in the 7th, 6th and the 4th.......we will be in paris 1 month from today......and i am already hungry for warm goat cheese salad......

incredible.....

ok, so this from the nytimes about a woman kicked out of a women's room because she looked like a man.......

the cat

ok, so...i woke up in the middle of the night with the cat curled up next to me....something she could not have gotten away with if my spouse was home.....the bike trip ends this afternoon....hopefully they will ride in before it rains.....but i digress from the cat......she has been especially needy while they have been gone....wanting to be held, and fed extra tidbits....

cle@bos friday at 7:00

ok, so....the postseason continues with my family's sentimental favorite the cleveland indians playing boston for the al championship and a bid to the world series.....i did stay up a bit too late last night following the indians last game with the nyyankees on mlb.com......of course, my cleveland kin are otherwise engaged with my aunt in the hospital with some mystery disease.......the story as my mother tells it is conflciting: either my uncle is negotiating with the nurses on her floor to allow him to bring the dog abby over for a visit to perk up my aunt; or my aunt is coming home today and bringing over the dog would seem silly......

unbelievable....

ok, so...this from the nytimes.....Intruders broke into the Musée d’Orsay early Sunday and one of them damaged a work by the Impressionist painter Claude Monet, the latest in a series of acts of vandalism and thefts at cultural sites in France.

A nearly 4-inch tear is seen in renowned work by Impressionist painter Claude Monet, "Le Pont d'Argenteuil," at the Orsay Museum in Paris.

Christine Albanel, the minister of culture, said the intruders left a tear close to four inches long in the painting “The Argenteuil Bridge,” from 1874.

The break-in was “an attack against our memory and our heritage,” Ms. Albanel told French radio France Info. She said the intruders, believed to be four men and a woman, appeared drunk and “left various bits of filth” before “one of them stuck a fist into the magnificent masterpiece by Monet.”

unseasonably warm weather....

ok,so i was saddened to read that the chicago marathon was called off after only 4 hours because so many runners were overtaken with heat exhaustion and when one runner actually died on the course....the autopsy did show that he had undiagnosed heart troubles...but at the time it must have looked to the organizers that things were getting out of hand.....i read a quote from a woman who was advised at mile 18 to stop running and walk instead.....an soon after that the race was officially over and to go home.....i felt so sad for her...not be allowed to finish...when i walked my marathon....mile 18 was way out in the boondocks......and having no cab fare or a cell phone i'd have had to walk into town anyway.......

op-ed

ok, so i enjoyed this piece from the nytimes by paul krugman about the republicans......the Talking Heads-eque end was the best part......Now, as they survey the wreckage of their cause, conservatives may ask themselves: “Well, how did we get here?” They may tell themselves: “This is not my beautiful Right.” They may ask themselves: “My God, what have we done?”

But their movement is the same as it ever was. And Mr. Bush is movement conservatism’s true, loyal heir.

$83 sinus spray

ok, so....i woke up at 4 am because i could not breathe....seems i forgot to use my newly refilled sinus spray yesterday morning, and with all my frantic cleaning of my mother's house before her dinner guests arrived i came into contact with enough allergens to completely clog my air passages.....and so i was forced to get on up and go downstairs to root through my purse for the conundrum medication.....which i figure costs me $3 a squirt.....a price that seemed worth the money in the middle of the night......cannot wait til january when i change insurance plan ........

things i wish i'd said, part une

ok, so....i am re-reading true pleasures by lucinda holdforth.....a memoir of women in paris......and she starts early...with incredible women from the 1600's.....but i just want to record a g.stein clip from ...well...her time......just because she was quoted first:

And so I am an American
and I have lived half my life in Paris,
not the half that made me but the half
in which I made what I made.

alone for a few days

ok, so the rest of my emptying nest just rode out on a three day bike journey......their route will take them no further than 50 or so miles from home.....since this is a maiden voyage for the youngest......and so i have many options on how to spend my time....well....other than going to work.....no reason to take valuable vacation time to sit at home alone......i have the option of going out for indian food in lexington with our friends....an outing planned before the fall break bike excursion came about......but i have just found that not all of the wives are going, and that leaves some of the more outspoken spouses (think centre econ)...and i am rethinking my going at all.....i have promised my mother my time for part of the afternoon...she is having company and i know that she has not tidied up to 'company' expectations.....and then i have these books i bought about paris.....and a pond to sit by while i read.....and then a nap might be nice.....i'll keep y'all posted.....

passport update.....

ok, so the renewed passport has arrived......which makes the extra cash well worth the expedited time frame......we are now good to go....

the new new yorker

ok, so.......i just love the new yorker cartoons......and i so enjoy the weekends, because they involve a new new yorker to peruse in my spare time.....

sometimes it works out this way.....

ok, so after spending part of the day at a parents thing at uk, i slipped into the matinée of the jane austen book club....fully expecting it to be a pale reflection of what i recall to be a good book......a good book for an austen fan......what a pleasant surprise.....the movie was much better than i recalled the book to be......i must admit that it has been awhile since i read this particular book, but i am hesitant to reread it anytime soon....as i rather remember the prose exactly as the screenplay flowed through jane's 6 novels.....i especially appreciated that the characters were cast with a broad mind.....no real big names to confuse or confound us......just actors who seem very ordinary aside from their interest in reading austen......i also felt that the screenwriters were true to the spirit of bookclub banter- the conflict of views and the appreciation that each reader comes to a very personal relationship with jane's characters.......not a movie for everybody.......but a nice interlude for this blogger, whose jane action figure keeps watch on my every (typed) word.......

more books.....

ok, so.....i treated myself to books that i wanted to read...as opposed to random selections from the area goodwills......all having to do with paris, naturally....and i have already finished the first.......about how the widowed shopper person moved to paris and then to provence.......sounds like renting in paris is not for the faint of heart......and i will admit to kinda keeping half-an-eye on the nyy-cleveland game...cleveland just won in the bottom of the 11th 2-1....they lead the playoff series 2-0.......i half-follow cleveland baseball in tribute to my grandpa who was a real fan.......if a close my eyes i can almost smell his cigar wafting in from the screened in porch where he listened to games on radio on warm summer evenings.....we have his picture on the television as a talisman.......tomorrow i go to lexington for a gaines program parent's event...have never done the parents thing before so i am looking forward to it.....and then on to jane austen book club...i opted out of an extra trip to lexington, as i am also going up on sunday evening to supper at an indian place with my spouse's tuesday-thursday running buddies and their spouses.....he won't actually be there.....he and our daughter are taking their first over-night bike trip......as it is fall break......and he could find some coverage........i am going out with this crowd mostly for the spinach nan......and the large kingfisher......and hopefully some good conversation.........maybe about jane austen, but i doubt that............

yet another dream sequence......

ok, so......for no apparent reason i have continued with my week of brilliantly detailed and vivid dreams......last night i was going out to eat with a group of women, including a celebrity who refused to make an actual reservation at the place we were going, which turned out to be in a building with gloriously refinished woodworking and a 20-foot tall door....but we could not get a table there and moved on to a place that was accessible only by climbing up outside steps that clung to the side of a cliff......and the food turned out to be a german buffet.....i was drawn to a platter of cold asparagus- both green and the lovely peeled white- garnished with hard-boiled eggs, pimento, and caviar......and i was trying to arrange the vegetables on my plate in the manner they had been arranged and others had piled their plates high by the time i was finished with my salad course.......i find this dream salad recipe worthy of repeating at some point.....no idea if there was a dressing- if anything it was their bottled salad creme that tastes like marzetti's signature slaw blend.......but enough of food for this friday morning...i need only work 1 hour....and i have scanned the papers for the jane austen book club.....at lexington green at 1:45, or at the nich-road cinema's that are in the new plaza in jessamine county at 11:40 am......that sounds like a good bet, considering that nobody else currently living in my house would consider seeing this film........

enough of the sex, already......

ok, so....i finished my last lecture that has anything to do with sex this evening......and aside from the exam i must prepare by next week...i am done with sex for this semester......oy vey......tonight was the std lecture with the graphic photographs of nodules, sores, growths, dripping yellow ooze....and the like......i would think that this being my third time out with the subject matter that the pics would be easier to handle......i am becoming more comfortable with the words.....which is a very good thing......and curiously this lecture was easier to get through than the one about contraceptives, the one about abortion, and the one about basic body parts.......maybe the pics are gross enough as to give me the upper hand because i have seen them a time or....three......frankly, i'd probably do the lectures on cancer and heart disease and immunity and depression for free.......they really do have to pay me the big bucks to get up and talk about sexual issues for three weeks running.......and for the benefit of my gentle readers......use protections each and every time and this lecture will never pertain to you.........

more vivid dreams

ok, so....in my dreams w were flying somewhere, and the middle child was in a car seat fastened into the plane seat.....and this dream was so vivid that he dropped his woolie and laughed, not cried, to get someone to get it back for him.....a curious scenario given that we never flew when he was that age.......must mean i am looking forward to traveling to visit my baby boy.....

eerily funny

ok, so....i do not get cable, and though i could watch comedy central after-the-fact...i admit to never seeing this comedian before now...but i find this eerily funny.......

more military madness....

ok, so i am still upset about the blog comment from yesterday.....if y'all have not read it scroll back and read all three comments listed below.......as for my feelings on the war.....i agree with this veteran.....

ok, so......

ok, so.....i went to a web-site building training today...at which point i was forced to admit that i knew quite a lot about using a template and updating and cutting and pasting and uploading images........and i kinda fibbed when i said that my blog was family-only......of course...i do happen to consider my friends and the friends of my children as family......so the sin is diminished in my mind.....i did learn a lot about making one's site accessible to read-aloud services for the blind.....every photo i upload without alt text, and every copy/paste job i upload without cleansing on notepad to remove all html jibberjabber messes up reader programs for the blind.....who knew that i have messed up my blind constituency...?......i also learned a lot about what legally can be on a dot.gov site as opposed to a dot.com site......at this point i have to convince my administrator that i am the woman to build our site.....without admitting that i am bored to tears most days on the job...and this is with my eku 3.0 hr teaching gig........ah well......i also must report that i mentioned this day to those who don't know me well that we will be visiting our middle child in paris this fall.....omg...i cannot repeat the comments in this forum.....

mad about the military

ok, so.....i arrived home first, and automatically discarded a packet from the marines addressed to my eldest promising a t-shirt if he'd return the enclosed card......it is a mother's prerogative to sift through mail that her children need never see.....and so it was with great amazement that my daughter brought forth at supper a packet of information she'd giddily picked up at her school's career days about the marines......omg......2 children of mine targeted for military service in a single day....seems my daughter and her cohorts think that a career in the marines would be a great way to get their college paid for....and a great way to meet guys....and get tattoos.....the list of perks with the military alludes me, it would seem......while taking my customary hot whirlpool bath i had a flash-forward to her military funeral.....that is how much confidence i have in her military service, or any body's military service at this point......i did mention that there is an entrance exam......but this fell on deaf ears.....

web-site building training

ok, so i am at an unusually interesting training.....who knew i was worthy?

not commenting on custody.....

ok, so......no matter how badly a mother treats her children it is still sad when a mother loses custody....and sadder still when a 14 year old whose life was once in that scenario feels the need to comment on poor britney's troubles.....

fab photos

ok, so......my middle child took this photo over the weekend of upholstery at le Château de Fontainebleau...i am impressed by the camera as well as by the time taken to frame such a lovely bit of fabric and accouterments.....all his photos can be viewed by asking him directly for the link.....though really clever folk could probably find the link on their own by googling...but so far i have not been able to find them on my own by google.....

radiohead.......

ok, so.....i might not be their biggest fan, but i do admire the gumption that led radiohead to not only sign with a record company to distribute their new album, bu also to download it directly to consumers from their website......salon.com has links to youtube versions from their recent concerts, in case y'all want a sample......yet another financially-rooted webpage applauded radiohead, and spun the numbers...seems itunes takes about 30 cents of every downloaded single song....and the record company and the artist split that 70 cents....even at radiohead's rumored paywhatyouwant pricing scheme.....they could probably do better than what itunes brings in......whatever...october 10 is the release date.......

october

ok, so.....october arrived with a chill in the air......i regretted my coatless stroll to the road for the paper and am still trying to warm up over the coffee steam....so much to do this week.....the price of my personal procrastination.....ah well.....i got nothing done in my dreams as well......