Saturday, December 31, 2005
decemberists on a december afternoon......
ok, so today i helped to wrap up the end-of-the-year inventory at the bikeshop......a tedious but necessary task....that includes counting everything saleable....and adding it all up in monetary terms......the counting part is the part that takes the most time...........though i must say that i found the adding machine part oddly satisfying......banging out the extended prices and then listening for the machine's refrain....i replayed an interview from yesterday's world cafe of the decemberists to accompany this adding machine task........i had no idea that the group included an accordian player....and that the accordian lends a unique and compelling sound to this band.......i couldn't quite follow whether the accordian played on the air was the accordian that had recently been stolen....along with all of the other band instruments excepting a violin......some had been recovered and some had not.....and at times i was distracted by the banging out of dollars and cents to catch all of the witty banter......i especially enjoyed the song billed a sone that didn't make it on their latest album...picaresque.......not sure what it was called.......and i regret that i didn't catch all of the discussion about the main songwriter's feelings that he was always out of synch with other songwriters when he got together with others in portland? or where-ever they come from in oregon.......but enough of december.....i am going to take my last nap of 2005....now that it is mid-afternoon....and the sun is streaming in the upstairs window......
Friday, December 30, 2005
dining disappointments......
ok, so......sometimes ones best-laid dinner plans can go awry......and the recipes don't turn out exactly as hoped.....and the combination of dishes falls flat...such as the layered vegetable pate....i should have portioned it and add the sauce myself rather than passing it around as it didn't slice artfully........or underappreciated.....take for example the goat-cheese toasts for the salad......my daughter carefully pulled the goat cheese off of each and every toast she grabbed from the platter, and then ate the plain bread......leaving a pile of cheese rounds on her plate.....had i been on top of the hostess-game i would have darted to the kitchen for a few slices of plain baguette....but hind-sight is always 20-20...right?.......granted, everything always seems dimmer than usual when one has a headache......and i hadn't even the sense to find an aspirin.......it was nice to see the folks who shared the meal with our family.....and hopefully good company made up for disapppointing food.....
Thursday, December 29, 2005
les temps perdu......
ok, so this from the nytimes......i've never had this dish, but now want a taste very, very badly......
The Lost Strudel
By NORA EPHRON
Published: December 28, 2005
FOOD vanishes.
I don't mean food as habit, food as memory, food as biography, food as metaphor, food as regret, food as love, or food as in those famous madeleines people like me are constantly referring to as if they've read Proust, which in most cases they haven't. I mean food as food. Food vanishes.
I'm talking about cabbage strudel, which vanished from Manhattan in about 1982 and which I've been searching for these last 23 years.
Cabbage strudel is on a long list of things I loved to eat that used to be here and then weren't, starting with frozen custard; this delectable treat vanished when I was 5 years old, when my family moved to California, and my life has been a series of little heartbreaks ever since.
The cabbage strudel I'm writing about was sold at an extremely modest Hungarian bakery on Third Avenue called Mrs. Herbst's. I initially tasted it in 1968, and I don't want to be sentimental about it, except to say that it's almost the only thing I remember about my first marriage. Cabbage strudel looks like apple strudel, but it's not a dessert; it's more like a pirozhok, the meat-stuffed turnover that was a specialty of the Russian Tea Room, which also vanished.
It's served with soup, or with a main course like pot roast or roast pheasant (not that I've ever made roast pheasant, but no question cabbage strudel would be delicious with it). It has a buttery, flaky, crispy strudel crust made of phyllo (the art of which I plan to master in my next life, when I will also read Proust past the first chapter), with a moist filling of sautéed cabbage that's simultaneously sweet, savory and completely unexpected, like all good things.
Once upon a time I ate quite a lot of cabbage strudel, and then I sort of forgot about it for a while. I think of that period as my own personal temps perdu, and I feel bad about it for many reasons, not the least of which is that it never crossed my mind that my beloved cabbage strudel would not be waiting for me when I was ready to remember it again.
This is New York, of course. The city throws curves. Rents go up. People get old, and their children no longer want to run the store. So you find yourself walking uptown looking for Mrs. Herbst's Hungarian bakery, which was there, has always been there, is a landmark for God's sake, a fixture of the neighborhood, practically a defining moment of New York life, and it's vanished and no one even bothered to tell you. It's sad. Not as sad as things that are truly sad, I'll grant you that, but sad nonetheless.
On the other hand, the full blow is mitigated somewhat by the possibility that somewhere, somehow you'll find the lost strudel, or be able to replicate it. And so, at first, you hope. And then, you hope against hope. And then finally, you lose hope. And there you have it: the three stages of grief when it comes to lost food.
The strudel was not to be found. I spent hours on the Internet looking for a recipe, but nothing seemed like the exact cabbage strudel I'd lost. At a cocktail party, I lunged pathetically at a man named Peter Herbst, a magazine editor who my husband had led me to believe was a relative of the Herbst strudel dynasty, but he turned out not to be.
I also spoke to George Lang, the famous Hungarian restaurateur, who was kind enough to send me a recipe for cabbage strudel, but I tried making it and it just wasn't the same. (The truth is, most of the genuinely tragic episodes of lost food are things that are somewhat outside the reach of the home cook, even a home cook like me who has been known to overreach from time to time.)
About two years ago, when I had landed in what I thought was the slough of despond where cabbage strudel was concerned and could not possibly sink lower, my heart was broken once again: the food writer Ed Levine told me that the strudel I was looking for was available, by special order only, at Andre's, a Hungarian bakery in Rego Park, Queens. Ed hadn't actually sampled it himself, but he assured me that all I had to do was call Andre and he'd whip some up for me.
I couldn't believe it. I immediately called Andre. I dropped Ed Levine's name so hard you could hear it in New Jersey. I said that Ed had told me Andre would make cabbage strudel if I ordered it, so I was calling to order it. I was prepared to order a gross of cabbage strudels if necessary. Guess what? Andre didn't care about Ed Levine or me. He refused to make it. He said he was way too busy making other kinds of strudel. So that was that.
But it wasn't.
This week, I heard from Ed Levine again. He sent an e-mail to say Andre had opened a branch on the Upper East Side. It was selling cabbage strudel over the counter. You didn't even have to order it, it was sitting right there in the bakery case. Ed Levine had eaten a piece of it. "Now I understand why you've been raving about cabbage strudel all this time," he wrote.
The next day my husband and I walked over to Andre's. It was a beautiful winter day in New York - or my idea of a beautiful winter day, in that you barely needed a coat. We found the bakery, which is also a cafe, went inside and ordered the cabbage strudel, heated up. It arrived. I lifted a forkful to my lips and tasted it.
Now I'm not going to tell you that (like Proust tasting the madeleine) I shuddered; nor am I going to report that "the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory." That would take way more than cabbage strudel. But Andre's cabbage strudel was divine - crisp but moist, savory but sweet, buttery beyond imagining. It wasn't completely identical to Mrs. Herbst's, but it was absolutely as delicious, if not more so.
Tasting it again was like being able to turn back the clock, like having the consequences of a mistake erased; it was better than getting a blouse back that the dry cleaners had lost, or a cellphone returned that had been left in a taxi; it was a validation of never giving up and of hope springing eternal; it was many things, it was all things, it was nothing at all; but mostly, it was cabbage strudel.
Nora Ephron is a writer and director.
The Lost Strudel
By NORA EPHRON
Published: December 28, 2005
FOOD vanishes.
I don't mean food as habit, food as memory, food as biography, food as metaphor, food as regret, food as love, or food as in those famous madeleines people like me are constantly referring to as if they've read Proust, which in most cases they haven't. I mean food as food. Food vanishes.
I'm talking about cabbage strudel, which vanished from Manhattan in about 1982 and which I've been searching for these last 23 years.
Cabbage strudel is on a long list of things I loved to eat that used to be here and then weren't, starting with frozen custard; this delectable treat vanished when I was 5 years old, when my family moved to California, and my life has been a series of little heartbreaks ever since.
The cabbage strudel I'm writing about was sold at an extremely modest Hungarian bakery on Third Avenue called Mrs. Herbst's. I initially tasted it in 1968, and I don't want to be sentimental about it, except to say that it's almost the only thing I remember about my first marriage. Cabbage strudel looks like apple strudel, but it's not a dessert; it's more like a pirozhok, the meat-stuffed turnover that was a specialty of the Russian Tea Room, which also vanished.
It's served with soup, or with a main course like pot roast or roast pheasant (not that I've ever made roast pheasant, but no question cabbage strudel would be delicious with it). It has a buttery, flaky, crispy strudel crust made of phyllo (the art of which I plan to master in my next life, when I will also read Proust past the first chapter), with a moist filling of sautéed cabbage that's simultaneously sweet, savory and completely unexpected, like all good things.
Once upon a time I ate quite a lot of cabbage strudel, and then I sort of forgot about it for a while. I think of that period as my own personal temps perdu, and I feel bad about it for many reasons, not the least of which is that it never crossed my mind that my beloved cabbage strudel would not be waiting for me when I was ready to remember it again.
This is New York, of course. The city throws curves. Rents go up. People get old, and their children no longer want to run the store. So you find yourself walking uptown looking for Mrs. Herbst's Hungarian bakery, which was there, has always been there, is a landmark for God's sake, a fixture of the neighborhood, practically a defining moment of New York life, and it's vanished and no one even bothered to tell you. It's sad. Not as sad as things that are truly sad, I'll grant you that, but sad nonetheless.
On the other hand, the full blow is mitigated somewhat by the possibility that somewhere, somehow you'll find the lost strudel, or be able to replicate it. And so, at first, you hope. And then, you hope against hope. And then finally, you lose hope. And there you have it: the three stages of grief when it comes to lost food.
The strudel was not to be found. I spent hours on the Internet looking for a recipe, but nothing seemed like the exact cabbage strudel I'd lost. At a cocktail party, I lunged pathetically at a man named Peter Herbst, a magazine editor who my husband had led me to believe was a relative of the Herbst strudel dynasty, but he turned out not to be.
I also spoke to George Lang, the famous Hungarian restaurateur, who was kind enough to send me a recipe for cabbage strudel, but I tried making it and it just wasn't the same. (The truth is, most of the genuinely tragic episodes of lost food are things that are somewhat outside the reach of the home cook, even a home cook like me who has been known to overreach from time to time.)
About two years ago, when I had landed in what I thought was the slough of despond where cabbage strudel was concerned and could not possibly sink lower, my heart was broken once again: the food writer Ed Levine told me that the strudel I was looking for was available, by special order only, at Andre's, a Hungarian bakery in Rego Park, Queens. Ed hadn't actually sampled it himself, but he assured me that all I had to do was call Andre and he'd whip some up for me.
I couldn't believe it. I immediately called Andre. I dropped Ed Levine's name so hard you could hear it in New Jersey. I said that Ed had told me Andre would make cabbage strudel if I ordered it, so I was calling to order it. I was prepared to order a gross of cabbage strudels if necessary. Guess what? Andre didn't care about Ed Levine or me. He refused to make it. He said he was way too busy making other kinds of strudel. So that was that.
But it wasn't.
This week, I heard from Ed Levine again. He sent an e-mail to say Andre had opened a branch on the Upper East Side. It was selling cabbage strudel over the counter. You didn't even have to order it, it was sitting right there in the bakery case. Ed Levine had eaten a piece of it. "Now I understand why you've been raving about cabbage strudel all this time," he wrote.
The next day my husband and I walked over to Andre's. It was a beautiful winter day in New York - or my idea of a beautiful winter day, in that you barely needed a coat. We found the bakery, which is also a cafe, went inside and ordered the cabbage strudel, heated up. It arrived. I lifted a forkful to my lips and tasted it.
Now I'm not going to tell you that (like Proust tasting the madeleine) I shuddered; nor am I going to report that "the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory." That would take way more than cabbage strudel. But Andre's cabbage strudel was divine - crisp but moist, savory but sweet, buttery beyond imagining. It wasn't completely identical to Mrs. Herbst's, but it was absolutely as delicious, if not more so.
Tasting it again was like being able to turn back the clock, like having the consequences of a mistake erased; it was better than getting a blouse back that the dry cleaners had lost, or a cellphone returned that had been left in a taxi; it was a validation of never giving up and of hope springing eternal; it was many things, it was all things, it was nothing at all; but mostly, it was cabbage strudel.
Nora Ephron is a writer and director.
no rest for the wicked......
ok, so i have the next 5 days off.....and though i intended to celebrate this fact with a few extra hours of sleep this morning....extnded slumber was not to be......i failed to consult with either the cat or the dog......who have internal clocks set for 6:30 am outings and feedings....these are not pets to be trifled with.......even in his dotage the dog can manage to whine loud enough to be heard through a closed door and a down comforter pulled over the ears....the cat can be heard without her bothering to climb the stairs.....and so i have been up since 6:40 am......reading the papers, catching up on my favorite blogs, plus mainstream media lik the nytimes, washpost, and others.......and now i am considering crawling back into bed...maybe with a book to read until i get groggy enough to nod off.........kind of like a mid-morning nap......the most delicious variety...........
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
triple word score.......
ok, so our fine family has just completed a cut-throat game of scrabble.....one in which my middle child came from behind to smoke me in the last possible round with the last possbile tile....oy!
match point...
ok, so this from salon.com...."Match Point" is being heralded as a return to form for Woody Allen, which means anyone who doesn't like it is likely to be accused of not bowing low enough at the altar. And the picture is crisply made, at least for the first 45 minutes or so: This is a drizzly dramatic thriller set in London -- as opposed to Allen's usual favorite setting, New York City -- and its structure shimmers with a kind of dark, gunmetal elegance. The movie's meticulous construction alone is something of a relief, considering the half-asleep sloppiness of Allen's recent comedies: Few people, even die-hard fans, were able to muster much enthusiasm for stale Raisinettes like "Hollywood Ending" and "Melinda and Melinda." And "Match Point" -- which bears some resemblance to "Crimes and Misdemeanors," in that both are obsessed with those twin serpent heads, adultery and murder -- has a sheen of seriousness to it. Next to the Bert's Beanery quality of, say, "Small Time Crooks" (worth seeing for the great Elaine May only), it makes for a classy take-in.
But while "Match Point," which opens Dec. 28, may be a return to form for Allen, is it really a form worth returning to? The movie is a window into the lives of the rich and tastefully color-coordinated, seen from the point of view of the less-privileged guy who wants in: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris, a tennis pro who's tired of the circuit and has decided to take a job at an upscale club. There he meets and befriends the upper-crusty Tom (Matthew Hewitt). He strikes up a romance with Tom's sister, Chloe (the always lovely, and here, misused, Emily Mortimer), but also finds himself dangerously attracted to Tom's fiancée, the American femme-fatale actress-wannabe Nola (Scarlett Johansson).
ok, so we were just fine until we got to Nola......omg......in my personal wikipedia....Nola is a man's name......my dad's dad was Nola Otis Crown.....no idea where Nola came from....an actual person, a boxtop.....a babynames book...but there it is Nola.......not a name i replicated when i had my chance.......Andrew came out of thin air.....Stephan was a family name.....and Cayle came pre-assigned only to name herself C.C.........there is the family lore of the time we all gathered in the church basement to be with dad's mother Helen Kreager Crown one last time.....she was not the next to go.....she lost 2 sons before her time was up......I have a vivid memory of chatting with her and Ernst.......and having her ask aloud loudly...to no one in particular...why nobody had named a child after HER mother Cordelia Blanche.......i must admit that i smiled and made no promises......Cordelia Blanche is a lot to promise.....and we ended up having no opportunity to do so......but back to Nola......the man was always Grandpa Crown to me....they fellow who turned 70 the week i turned 7...the guy who didn;t happen to eat tomatoes on the day in question and didn't care to eat cream cheese unless he didn't know it was in the recipe......he once screamed at me to get out of his hayloft....but that is the only time i can remember that he spoke to me directly.....he was always backround noise rather than a centerstage player......not like my grandma Crown....who taught me how to make egg noodles by mounding flour on the counter and cracking a few eggs on top.....and working it all into a baby'sbottom dough....and cutting it with a knife........granted...i have never done this......but i cherish the image nonetheless.........i have oft blogged about my Grandma Crown...she who was the lone democrat in a clan of republicans....and who never learned to drive....and bascially managed a family of children and a farm with no indoor plumbing and no paid help..........and if ever i needed a mental picture of a woman to emulate with my meager days on this earth...it would be her.....wife of Nola.....which reminds me of yet another family joke.......my dad's oldest brother vernon had blue eyes....nobody before or since had blue eyes....and the family used to joke that the milkman had blue eyes.........there are times that i wish that the milkman's blue eyes were no accident and that my grandma crown was nobody's fool and nobody's dogservant........
But while "Match Point," which opens Dec. 28, may be a return to form for Allen, is it really a form worth returning to? The movie is a window into the lives of the rich and tastefully color-coordinated, seen from the point of view of the less-privileged guy who wants in: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers plays Chris, a tennis pro who's tired of the circuit and has decided to take a job at an upscale club. There he meets and befriends the upper-crusty Tom (Matthew Hewitt). He strikes up a romance with Tom's sister, Chloe (the always lovely, and here, misused, Emily Mortimer), but also finds himself dangerously attracted to Tom's fiancée, the American femme-fatale actress-wannabe Nola (Scarlett Johansson).
ok, so we were just fine until we got to Nola......omg......in my personal wikipedia....Nola is a man's name......my dad's dad was Nola Otis Crown.....no idea where Nola came from....an actual person, a boxtop.....a babynames book...but there it is Nola.......not a name i replicated when i had my chance.......Andrew came out of thin air.....Stephan was a family name.....and Cayle came pre-assigned only to name herself C.C.........there is the family lore of the time we all gathered in the church basement to be with dad's mother Helen Kreager Crown one last time.....she was not the next to go.....she lost 2 sons before her time was up......I have a vivid memory of chatting with her and Ernst.......and having her ask aloud loudly...to no one in particular...why nobody had named a child after HER mother Cordelia Blanche.......i must admit that i smiled and made no promises......Cordelia Blanche is a lot to promise.....and we ended up having no opportunity to do so......but back to Nola......the man was always Grandpa Crown to me....they fellow who turned 70 the week i turned 7...the guy who didn;t happen to eat tomatoes on the day in question and didn't care to eat cream cheese unless he didn't know it was in the recipe......he once screamed at me to get out of his hayloft....but that is the only time i can remember that he spoke to me directly.....he was always backround noise rather than a centerstage player......not like my grandma Crown....who taught me how to make egg noodles by mounding flour on the counter and cracking a few eggs on top.....and working it all into a baby'sbottom dough....and cutting it with a knife........granted...i have never done this......but i cherish the image nonetheless.........i have oft blogged about my Grandma Crown...she who was the lone democrat in a clan of republicans....and who never learned to drive....and bascially managed a family of children and a farm with no indoor plumbing and no paid help..........and if ever i needed a mental picture of a woman to emulate with my meager days on this earth...it would be her.....wife of Nola.....which reminds me of yet another family joke.......my dad's oldest brother vernon had blue eyes....nobody before or since had blue eyes....and the family used to joke that the milkman had blue eyes.........there are times that i wish that the milkman's blue eyes were no accident and that my grandma crown was nobody's fool and nobody's dogservant........
mamma's friend jane
ok, so i tracked down my friend jane through her sister, ann maris.........she is simply behind on her correspondence, due to a change in medication that has minimized her fine motor skills......ann maris may bring her down from cincinnati for lunch on mlk day, if that is convenient....we couldn't come up with a mutually agreeable date til then.......these are folks that i have known for 25 years.....in the category of people i knew before i met my spouse.....when i was in graduate school i had 2 beers with them and my roommate and our mutual friend beth on fridays at 5:00-7:00 at the blind lemon bar in mount adams in cincinnati.....we were regulars.....and knew only the bartender and waitress in our little time slot...on the rare ocassion we popped in for drinks on another day or even later on friday.....we didn't know a soul.......we also played backgammon, a game i have quite forgotten but wish to relearn.......but i digress.......i am delighted that jane is still viable....though peeved......ann maris told of her trip to england over the summer with her mother and her 2 children (about the age of my eldest....) a trip that didn;t include jane......wheelchairs are not conducive to a 2-week garden and home tour of england.......which brings back yet another jane flash-back......i remember being shocked when jane charged an entire trip to spain on her charge card.......a novel notion in 1980....but as it turned out....she was wise to travel while her two feet could still carry her......and before her no-good husband left her in the for-worse years.......jane is the kind of friend that can pick up where she left off with conversation......and never asks why i haven't called....she just jumps in wherever things are and takes it from there........i appreciate such niceties as i get older..........
drama....
ok, so my first inkling of the drama that ensued was the emergency squad folks that barged in the back door of the health department and asked who called and where were they to go......'oh...i don't know...but let's go find out....'.....seems that one of two skeleton staff nurses started seeing double and slurring her speech....and the lone clerk hunted down the only other nurse in the building to give her an aspirin while she called 9-11........i am not really sure whether an aspirin is the best thing for a potential stroke victim.....especially if the problem is a bleed-out brain blood vessel rather than a clogged one.......but i digress........the word now is that she likely had a t.i.a......sort of a mini-stroke.....and is to take some time off......ironic....in that this is someone whose homelife has been so intensely stressful this year.......a sister with cancer, a mother passing away, a daughter's nasty divorce.....she came to work for peace and quiet........i feel for her if her stay at home is extended........on the other hand.....this episode is a wake-up call of sorts.......to make sure that i do and say those things i need to do and say asap...because i may not have the chance tomorrow.......i could say that i saw the need for eating perfectly, exercising excessively, and giving up on wine.......but that would be foolish, considering the my colleague with the mini-stroke is a health saint........with no discernable vices......and bone thin.....
march......
ok, so last night we watched march of the penguins en famille.......not something one could do had the title been more honest.....documentary about penguins......but i will give this round to the producers for cleverness.......one really doesn't notice especially that this film could be an oscar contender for long film.....not with the awesomely photographed landscape and the tragic end met by those who couldn't keep up or stay the course......we watched the piece with the french subtitles turned on....made sense as it is a french film........and morgan freeman's tonal qualities and narrator were fitting......films like these should give us all pause for the relative ease in which we live our lives......by ease i mean warmth, satiety, etc.......though i was surprised to discover that these were not the mateforlife pairs that occur in other bird species......nope.....the mother-father-hatchling all say faretheewell at the end of the season........to start afresh with somebody else next year.......could be the penguins have it right and it is us humans who are crazy to think that fidelity is desirable........but having seen the touching scenes between the mating pairs.....it is hard to believe that they just walk away when the job is done.......well...they don't just walk away....they march........
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
behind door number 2
ok, so i have spent much of my non-work day trying to put together travel plans for my mother's spring.......she who will not be going to the chelsea flower show because my brother has deemed foreign travel too dangerous......curious how this conversation didn't come up when others were discussing summer school travel plans......but that is ok with me....the image of my mother abroad is daunting....she who couldn't be bothered to walk from the car 500 feet to see the princeton chapel because her knee was bothering her....the knee that the xray deemed normal that she is having mri'ed tomorrow.......just in case.......anyway...there happnes to be an elderhostel in philadelphia that includes a pre-show tour of the phillie flower show, a bus tour to winterthur and longwood gardens as well as tours of heritage sites inside philadelphia......she seemed placated when i mentioned this as a potential destination on the phone earlier today.......
back to work.....
ok, so i have to go back to work for 2 days,,,,which is not as bad as it sounds.....as there will be few other folks there and there are no scheduled clients.......and being no nurse.......i will not have to contend with the post-holiday std checks......i briefly considered becoming a nurse.....my mom kept bringing it up because nurses can always find jobs.......but at this point in my life i am relieved that i can avoid so many unpleasant sites/sounds/procedures.......as for me i have lots of reading to catch up on.......
Monday, December 26, 2005
feast of stephan......
ok, so on this traditional boxing day there was little to box up...and certainly no snow deep and crisp and even........we have have already eaten most foods as firsts...and tonight only the crown roast remains to be finished........i got up early to see off my brother, and then settled back into a nice late morning nap.....but not until i had cleaned out the plastic storage container cabinet.....tupperware and its many clones do get out of hand from year to year......and then.......to the theatre to see the lion the witch and the wardrobe with stephan........i will say at the get-go that i was amazed that filmmakers took a 900+ page book (harry potter and the chalice of fire) and whittled it down to 2.5 hours........and that the narnia filmmakers took a book that weighed in at less than 200 pages....and expanded it to 2.5 hours........with neither film seeming to last near that long.......this is surely the year of special effects....the oscar race will certainly be tight, when one adds in king kong.....narnia is a film i could see again....much like the harry potter installments......last night we all watched charlie and the chocolate factory....yet another book made into a fine motion picture this year.......and yet another fine effort, if i must say so......i do regret that stephan and i were not able to make it to lex to see pride and prejudice...i opted out on friday night assuming it would still be there on sunday.....only to have it replaced by the usual also-rans of christmas day released films.......i feel bad about this because i would have liked to have discussed this adaptation with him.......now all i can hope for is for the dvd to come out while he is home on a break at some point......ah well.......the microwave beckons with warmed-over roast....and it is time to eat....and then to bed...because mm must go to work for tuesday and wednesday...before a nice 5 day weekend.........
Sunday, December 25, 2005
making a list......
ok, so now that christmas is finally here......i will take the time to make my list.....of people i have yet to hear from......so as to find out why.....is everything ok?.....was there an accident/heartattack/stroke/lastminutetriptojamaica?.......top of the list is my friend jane....who lives in a cozy house with ramps and modified bathroom and kitchen to accomodate her runabout chair.......i did get an email from her earlier in december, but it was one of those forwarded messages that included the email addresses of folks at least 10 times removed from her list.....note to self......one could assume that these are intelligent folks...maybe the list might be worth something to a spammer....or maybe not.......anyway.....jane's health has been tenuous for years......now i need to find out through her sister or her mother if she is ok......or maybe i could just call her up........i am due a pilgrimage to cincinnati to see her......it has been over a year since a took a day off and had lunch with her on her deck.....along with numerous glasses of krug.......we always drink champagne when we get together.......then there is my friend jean kaduk......an osu dietetics friend who have ihave heard from every christmas since 1979.......except for this year......she is much too young for health problems......much too healthy because she was one of the first people i ever met who was a thoughtful vegetarian and planned her meals for adequate protein.......hope she is ok.....i suppose i could go through dietetics channels to see if she is still practicing......maybe she is just late with her cards.......that happened to me one christmas, when i was so busy with the restaurant that i postponed cards until we closed for a holiday break........let's see, who else did i not hear from?.......there are some cousins, but i have already checked this out with my mother, who keeps up via phone with all of my dad's remaining siblings and even some of the children of his deceased kin......this sort of list is much more important that what i shall buy, or what i could receive......keeping up with a select and special group of people is priceless...........
Saturday, December 24, 2005
waiting on the crown roast of pork.....
ok, so i am sorry if this blog offends the vegetarians that occassionally read this site.......we are waiting collectively for the pork roast to reach 145 degrees........and like a watched pot......it is taking its time...luckily there is good conversation and we opted out of church services tonight in favor of tomorrow after the gifts and breakfast......this is my german-themed meal.....with white asparagus with mustard sauce, creamed spinach, pickled red cabbage, spaetzle, and latkes........if only the pork would cook through we could eat............
down to the wire......
ok, so today is christmas eve.....and i would like to say truthfully that i am ready for tomorrow....with regards to food, gifts, cleaning......but i am not totally prepared.....and thus see before me a day of last minute stuff.......not a lot....but enough to jeopardize the potential for a nap this afternoon.....loss of nap on a day off is serious business, especially at my advancing age......the world will not end if i....say....don't get around to making the pineapple kuchen or the breakfast quiches.......or if i don't make the stuffing ahead of time....but these are activities that i enjoy.......so i will make every attempt.......
Friday, December 23, 2005
santa and the tree skirt.....
ok, so somewhere in this house a 12-inch dressed santa and a creamy embroidered tree skirt are hidden from view......not in the marble-topped chest in the corner by the woodstove.....where they always spend their non-holiday hours.....nope....these dear treasures appear to have been put away elsewhere......or moved for some reason that made sense at the time.....the fire wouldn't have entered into this equation.....nor the yard sale......these aren't the sort of things i would have given away....maybe they have found a certain kinship with the book i still cannot find from last christmas......and are now hiding out as a trio......
Thursday, December 22, 2005
THE NEW YORKER.....
ok, so i was amused and affirmed today when i read the bill o-reilly has the new yorker on his website's hit list of offensive media outlets......for the record i want it noted that my re-up for the new yorker topped my personal christmas wish list......but i digress........i am now officially on vacation the next 4 days....and i started off the seemingly endless hours of merriment and leisure with a bit of catch-up.....last week's new yorker....and the article about p.l. travers and the bastardization of her famous book series.....mary poppins........i can recall reading those books in my youth....back when my library card number was a three digit number...something like 123....that i could simply repeat to the librarian without the need for a card........my memory of mary poppins in print involves purchased gingerbread with gold stars atop the portions.....and mary poppins climbing a ladder at night to afix the foil stars to the night sky......not a scene from the movie......in fact if would seem from the new yorker article that very little from the books (there was a series....) made it into the movie......there were 4 children, whittled down to 2 in the movie......and other than mary poppins blowing in with the wind....very little in common.....which was upsetting to p.l. travers....who was a literati in london...and on speaking terms with t.s. elliot and yeats......i can understand the plight of the author who sees the literary masterpiece shredded in the machine that is hollywood.....just today i read a salon.com article about how jane austin would be turning over in her grave over the newest film version of pride and prejudice.....and i was unsympathetic to that cause......despite me own intrinsic concerns with the deviation from the book.....and so.....who is right......author or screenwriter?.......or audience?.........cannot we have a bit of both...my perspective is jaded from my recent road trip with my mother......during which she recalled memories differently on each retelling.....and who is to say which of the renditions is truth and which is expanded/altered/glorified.....do i not embelish my own accounts of personal feats?...........artistic license vs book verbatum?.......regardless....i am certain the though bill o'reilly disses the new yorker he likely reads every word......and....he may be just as upset about mary poppins movie versus book.....he may be the guy who cries out in empathic connection at the prelim showing of the new london staging of the real mary poppins......don't know what i mean by that...then read the online article.......
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
omgomgomg......
ok, so some folks that i really would rather not deal with on long term basis have already contacted my spouse about my tire incident........regarding a class-action movement against the city re: the hazardous intersection.....omg...these are people i wouldn't cross the street for.......
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
juxtaposition......
ok, so.....the 2 photographs have much in common...both are simplistic icons.....one of the purity of the season...the other of .......the honest and wonder of someone who is stuck in the pre-adolescent dreamer mode......say....the idealistic imagination of a 9-11 year old....mr weyman kind of makes pat smith seem like a viable candidate........
ok, so this from the danville advocate messenger.......thankfully, there is a qualified candidate for mayor.....
Mayoral candidate has unusual vision for Danville
By LIZ MAPLES
lizm@amnews.com
William Weyman has a vision for Danville, and he wants to fulfill it as the city's mayor.
He sees a downtown dotted with fountains and lit up with giant palm tree lights like those outside Las Vegas casinos. There would be jobs for every resident, less crime and more attractions such as professional sports teams and concerts.
Weyman, who works in the food service industry, said he worked on mayoral and council campaigns in New Jersey.
"I am deaf, but I know sign language and can speak very well," he wrote in a campaign statement. "I am a very zealous guy who has helped two candidates win elections."
Weyman has ideas on how to transform Danville into a place with less crime and poverty, with a mall, buses, a Bible college and attractions.
To help poor people, Weyman wants to knock down all of the apartments in town and build or buy houses for the residents. Instead of paying rent, the people would pay him and he would pay the mortgage. Once the house was paid off, it would belong to the people who live in it.
Downtown would get a makeover. Weyman wants to build a larger police station in the empty Save-A-Lot parking lot, and then adjoin a new City Hall. In front would be palm lights and a fountain.
"This will make it nice for the city," he said.
Wants another parking garage
Behind the new police station and across from the courthouse, Weyman wants to build a three-story parking garage. To build the garage, he would knock down the building across from the courthouse where the Subway and Three Babes and a Monkey coffee shop are housed.
Weyman said the city will need another parking garage in addition to the one planned for Walnut and Third streets.
This new garage will connect to the courthouse with a pedestrian bridge, a skywalk that will be built over Fourth Street.
Weyman wants to build a mall with a hotel and a garage. Out front there would be a faux mountain, palm tree lights and a fountain of fire.
Would it be like Las Vegas?
"A little, but different," Weyman said.
There would be a cafe and hotel built on the Kentucky School for the Deaf campus. Weyman wants to put palm tree lights and a fountain In front of KSD, the Bible college and Centre College.
Would add liquor stores
He would like to see a bus station with a hotel to house travelers in case it snows. He wants just one building in town for the elderly. It too would have palm lights and a fountain.
Weyman would lobby for alcohol sales from 10-4 a.m. He wants to build four liquor stores on the bypass. The stores would be open from 10 a.m.-9 p.m. He also thinks there will be two nightclubs and a hotel for customers who are unable to drive home.
Weyman said he can convince the businesses to come to Danville because it will be an investment. He said he will attract the performers and professional sport teams by e-mailing the owners and going to visit them.
To build the mall and attract businesses, Weyman said he would team up with the local governments in surrounding counties to lobby a company to come here.
The attractions will create jobs, he said, and jobs, in turn, will bring the crime rate down.
He wants to hire more police officers and encourage the FBI to have a larger presence in the city.
Weyman has lived in Danville since 2001. "I will not sit in office and not get things done," he wrote. "We will build as soon as possible."
Copyright The Advocate-Messenger 2005
a long winter's nap.....
ok, so i got more than 8 hours of sleep last night......darn good sleep....the kind that involves continuous, uninterrupted slumber.....cozy, dream-filled sleep.....i still feel as old and stiff as ever this morning, but quality of sleep cannot change the passing of time with oldbones......today is our 2nd office gathering.....a potluck with the final secret santa gifts/unveiling of secret santa......this group really takes the secret santa thing to a new level......or at least my secret santa has done so.......a found a gift-a-day on my desk..a miniature tree with ornaments, a tiny nutcracker, a christmas-scene candle, a mini-stocking filled with candy, a mug with candy, a travel mug with candy......you get the picture........quite the opposite of the 3 non-christmas gifts that i have given to my secret santa person......things i knew she would like and use all-year......ah well.......i work wednesday and thursday of this week and tuesday and wednesday of next......so as to save vacation time for an actual vacation......nothing will be going on next week and i will be free to do whatever with so many others away......still, i will have a 4-day weekend and a 5 day weekend.....plenty of time to lay about and rest up....and get nice long winter's naps.....
Monday, December 19, 2005
stuffed grape leaves.....
ok, so much for devising a menu with foods my guests would like......i concluded that i must have only been thinking of myself...this thought came to mind as i was devouring the container of leftover stuffed grapeleaves......and wondering why there were so many leftover......'mom, i don;t think anybody liked them as much as you'........well, so much for my pseudo-vegetarian middle eastern feast.....must think of other pseudo-vegetarian fare for our diva dinner.....not thai....i have given up on thai........maybe i should break out some of my 70's era hippie-style cookbooks and go from there.....
flat tire
ok, so......how could i have safely driven 1500 miles over the weekend...only to have a flat tire on the way to work on monday morning.....?.....i had stopped for the danville school bus at a tight intersection on my secret backway to bate....and when the busdriver waved me to go first, we bounced out of a pothole before we could drive on.....and about the time we reached the light on lexington avenue.....we could here the telltale ka-rumphkarumph of the right rear bouncing up and down off of a flat......luckily the tire store we frequent is just down the hill from the middle school, and the fellows were in pit-crew mode...they had the car up on the stand, tire off, ruination of said tire confirmed, discover that there was no replacement in stock, spare tire (the diminutive version from the trunk) installed, and an appointment made for the now on-order tire to be installed the next day......all between 7:35 and 7:50am......i was only 7 minutes late to work......there was the obligatory call to the spouse explaining that the car was in the pothole 'allthesudden'.....i can see the replacement tire under the tree in my mind's eye.....merry chrismas, mm.........
on to christmas....
ok, so our nuclear family observed the tradition yesterday of celebrating our only december birthday prior to decorating for christmas in earnest..belatedly.......for the 1st time our children decorated the tree, requesting that the parents allow them the opportunity to create a masterpiece......the scene was special......and now we can move on to christmas.......this waiting to decorate may be more important to us than the birthday boy involved, but we are not ready to let go of this tradition just yet.......
Sunday, December 18, 2005
corned beef.....
ok, so this morning i awoke at 4:00 am.....stuffy and thirsty....and when i got myself back to bed i started in thinking about what we could fix for lunch....and i knew that there was a corned beef brisket in the refrigerator....so i got back up and crept downstairs to put it in the crockpot so it would be nice and tender for after church.....and then i got myself back to bed and stayed there until after 8:30am......there is 'party' in a sistr sunday school....and our class decided to go there rather than to have a lesson....so i see that as license to skip sunday school.....and so i have read the newspapers, and read blogs, and newspapers online.....and i wish i could say that i feel relaxed and refreshed but......i have food to organize...i have a basement refrigerator stuffed with cheeses, meats, and the like.....all only vague pieces in a grander feedthefamilyfortheholidays scheme...and feed extended family and valued friends....i enjoy this so much more now that i do it for pleasure rather than for business.......
Saturday, December 17, 2005
home again......
ok, so.....we walked in the door to find our eldest home.......so nice to be home with all of us....i have been on the road since 7:30 am......no need to go into the details....all is forgiven and forgotten.............
Friday, December 16, 2005
en route
ok, so i haven't left the house as early as i had hoped.......updated weather calls for light snow in west virginia and rain in new jersey.....and sunshine for saturday.......pray for traveling mercies.....
Thursday, December 15, 2005
from wonkette....
ok, so this piece is bywayof wonkette, bywayof focusonthefamily.........The Soft Sexism of Low Expectations
I've been reading Boundless, this webzine by Focus on the Family, and it's pretty fantastic. The editorial formula: Take a rote, sexist stereotype, dress it up with the personal voice and namedrop brand things and places (to connect to "you" and "your life") and punch it.
Now, I'm not such a humorless literalist that I don't think the differences between the sexes aren't ample ground for humor. Women's complete inability to grapple with even simple arithmetic, for example: hilarious! But when an organization publishes—with a straight face, apparently—a guide called, "Husbands and Wives: How a Husband Should Handle His Wife's Submission," well, that organization will be sleeping on the couch tonight. There's no good humor to back up this jokey column about how men are too goofy, too labrador retriever-y to shop for groceries and succeed and so women should do the shopping. Under any circumstances I'd avoid ending a piece like that with the line "women should do the shopping," but it's especially suspect coming from the folks who believe that "women should do the everything men tell them to."
The tired lines follow the predictable ones (the Hunter-Gatherer emerges!), but along comes this:
John is a kid in a candy store when he steps through Safeway's automatic doors. He pounces on the very items most female shoppers avoid: dried fish, mint chutney, coconut ginger rice and banana-strawberry kefir.
Really? That's what guys eat when their women aren't nagging them? Coming from a place where people really buy into this stuff, Focus on the Family has always struck me as being awfully similar to Focusing on a Bag of Pork Rinds, at least as far as culinary ambitions go. Chutney, coconut ginger, kefir? That's not Family Focused—John's shopping at Whole Foods!
Listless men return from shopping trips energized by their ingenuity. Noodles are replaced by artichoke hearts, milk exchanged for broccolini, the sought-after turkey traded for a single hairy coconut.
I've been reading Boundless, this webzine by Focus on the Family, and it's pretty fantastic. The editorial formula: Take a rote, sexist stereotype, dress it up with the personal voice and namedrop brand things and places (to connect to "you" and "your life") and punch it.
Now, I'm not such a humorless literalist that I don't think the differences between the sexes aren't ample ground for humor. Women's complete inability to grapple with even simple arithmetic, for example: hilarious! But when an organization publishes—with a straight face, apparently—a guide called, "Husbands and Wives: How a Husband Should Handle His Wife's Submission," well, that organization will be sleeping on the couch tonight. There's no good humor to back up this jokey column about how men are too goofy, too labrador retriever-y to shop for groceries and succeed and so women should do the shopping. Under any circumstances I'd avoid ending a piece like that with the line "women should do the shopping," but it's especially suspect coming from the folks who believe that "women should do the everything men tell them to."
The tired lines follow the predictable ones (the Hunter-Gatherer emerges!), but along comes this:
John is a kid in a candy store when he steps through Safeway's automatic doors. He pounces on the very items most female shoppers avoid: dried fish, mint chutney, coconut ginger rice and banana-strawberry kefir.
Really? That's what guys eat when their women aren't nagging them? Coming from a place where people really buy into this stuff, Focus on the Family has always struck me as being awfully similar to Focusing on a Bag of Pork Rinds, at least as far as culinary ambitions go. Chutney, coconut ginger, kefir? That's not Family Focused—John's shopping at Whole Foods!
Listless men return from shopping trips energized by their ingenuity. Noodles are replaced by artichoke hearts, milk exchanged for broccolini, the sought-after turkey traded for a single hairy coconut.
diane keaton.....
ok, so i have been happily diverted by the coverage of diane keaton's newest film...the family stone......in which keaton plays a mm of an extended wearetheworld family.......and one of the son's brings home the anti-daughterinlaw....in hopes of offering the grandmother's heirloom 'rock' as an engagement tribute.......and the cast have largely been quoted as surprised that keaton was ascerbic and prone to practical jokes that could be considered notsonice......sarahjessicaparker was reported to have left the set in tears on more than one ocassion.......and i found this hysterically entertaining.....that these young bucks thought that keaton....she of annie hall/godfather/reds fame would coddle them like the celebs that they have come to see in their collective mirrors.........they are lucky she spoke to them directly at all, let alone condescended to play with their minds......yeah, so parker played a well-heeled bimbette for several years on cable.......so what?......keaton has survived in this business for longer than since parker left eastern ohio.......and if parker wants to play with the big dogs, it will take more than a closet-ful of manola's.......
the river?
ok, so the mm wants to know does honestly old have the river by joni mitchell? if so could ya make it available?
arrested development
ok, so this from reuters.... LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Will the pay-TV environs of Showtime be a friendlier place for the Emmy-winning comedy "Arrested Development," which just got canceled by Fox?
Word around town this week is that Showtime is in talks to pick up the comedy about a chaotic family. Sources stressed that the talks are still exploratory and that it would be a big financial commitment on Showtime's part to pick up the show in its current form with a large ensemble cast that includes Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, Jessica Walter and Will Arnett.
"Arrested" was an instant hit with critics following its debut on Fox in late 2003, but the show never pulled in much of a crowd, even after it won the Emmy for best comedy series in 2004. Last month, Fox threw in the towel, cutting its episode order for "Arrested's" third season from its initial 22-episode ticket to 13.
Representatives for Showtime, and the series' producers 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine TV declined comment late Tuesday.
i cannot say that i am a huge fan....i did enjoy the episodes i watched....but i tend to be a monogamous television watcher....and i was trying to think of a replacement for alias come may.....but showtime is cable....and we all know what i think about cable......
Word around town this week is that Showtime is in talks to pick up the comedy about a chaotic family. Sources stressed that the talks are still exploratory and that it would be a big financial commitment on Showtime's part to pick up the show in its current form with a large ensemble cast that includes Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Portia de Rossi, Jessica Walter and Will Arnett.
"Arrested" was an instant hit with critics following its debut on Fox in late 2003, but the show never pulled in much of a crowd, even after it won the Emmy for best comedy series in 2004. Last month, Fox threw in the towel, cutting its episode order for "Arrested's" third season from its initial 22-episode ticket to 13.
Representatives for Showtime, and the series' producers 20th Century Fox TV and Imagine TV declined comment late Tuesday.
i cannot say that i am a huge fan....i did enjoy the episodes i watched....but i tend to be a monogamous television watcher....and i was trying to think of a replacement for alias come may.....but showtime is cable....and we all know what i think about cable......
pda rage.....
ok so somehow my pda's cradle was unplugged.....and the battery went completely dead...which erases the memory......and this should not be a problem because the pda is synched to the p.c........but several files hadn't been synched sicne creation...despite being hooked up to the pc.......go figure.....and now i will have to recreate them......vexing.....that is how lady catherine de bourgh would have described the situation.......i attempted to print out a christmas card address list from the contacts database on the pc......and this didn't print until after i left this morning.....i could have finished those pesky cards at my thursday clinic....but with a dead pda, and no printed list....i was forced to listen to my coworkers spirited discussion of string theory and alternative universes.........a class occassion for a pocket-sized recording device if ever there was one.......my luck was to change after work, however......because when i went by the aldi store each and every item i had seen in their flyers was available...the crown roast of pork, the duckling....the yukon gold potatoes......the havarti....the corned beef brisket......oy.....so all i have to do now is to pack a few things for my 5:00 am wakeup call.......should be decent driving weather....light rain/no snow/partly cloudy.....should get into princeton around 7:30.......hopefully the greek place on nassau street will be open.......they make really good tabouli.......
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
hi, honey, how was your day?
ok, so i accomplished the following with my free day off......bought christmas tree, discovered that office depot no longer carries any accessories for hp pdas......looked at charts and talked to pre-adolescent behaviorally challenged boys for 2 (billable) hours at the childrens home......drove to l.barn for birthday dinner supplies.....dropped by the harrodsburg road goodwill, whereupon the sales-woman told me that the vest i was trying on was too small.....fashioned a garland to drape over the front door out of greenery from my own yard and pilfered from my mother's holly bushes-which would be lusher with red berries had not somebody cut them back earlier this fall.......drafted the christmas letter.......did 3 loads of laundry.....walked 2 miles on the treadmill.......watched alias.....only to find out that vaughan probably is dead, because the promised reunion was totally in flashbacks....rats................i had planned to leave tommorrow after work, but i concluded that i am much too tired after my thursday county...not from physical exhaustion as much as from frustration......and so we will leave out of here about 5:30 am on friday in hopes of getting to princeton for supper.....
southern in address only.....
ok, so at breakfast today...at the local cracker barrel....(i knew where it was but had never eaten there....)there was an audible and collective gasp when i ordered my 2 scrambled eggs, sugar-cured ham, hash browns......and hold the biscuits, the gravy and the grits.......'you don;'t like grits?.....ytou don';t like biscuits or gravy?......what kind of southerner are you?.......obviously not much of one......i can claim kin who came from england through the shenandoah valley of virginia to ohio.....but that is as south as my family tree is rooted.....and i did not take the opportunity to point out that my german kin in cleveland were part of the underground railroad system......and so when the waitress brought the grits by mistake.....my boss grabbed them and said someone would surely eat mine....and that there was no use sending them back......and sure 'nuff..........somebody did...............
mmxmasmix
ok, so i have today off.....mostly off....i meet with my coworkers for breakfast at crackerbarrell at 9:00....and then off to mine own amusement......i have agreed to an hour or two at the children's home...and then i am determined to find a christmas tree, a few more gifts, and supplies for stephan's belatedbirthday lunch on sunday......a nap would be nice, but it may not fit into my scheme......and because my spouse drove off in the car that has my other christmas mix in one of the player slots.....i made a new one just this morning....a nice of the highest bough, martha stewart's christmas album, sufjan stevens, a hammered dulcimerist named maggie samsone.....and a mix we bought at bombay........mostly it is sufjan, with everybody else thrown in to make up the requisite length.........still cannot seem to print out the jacket without buying into premium.......
dylan as dj...
ok, so this from the washington post....
The Airwaves, They Are A-Changin'
Bob Dylan Signs With XM Satellite Radio to Host a Weekly Show
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page A01
Bob Dylan -- singer, songwriter, former counterculture figure and voice of a generation -- has added another line to his rsum: radio DJ.
The enigmatic troubadour has signed on to host a weekly show on XM Satellite Radio, the D.C.-based pay-radio provider. Dylan will select the music, offer commentary, interview guests and answer e-mail from listeners during the one-hour program, which will start in March, XM said yesterday.
well, yeah, there was more to this piece......but this part is all ya need to know, now isn't it?......i am quite curious as to what songs dylan will play......new stuff, his stuff, indie rock, folk, emo...eminem....raffi......you just never know with dylan....
The Airwaves, They Are A-Changin'
Bob Dylan Signs With XM Satellite Radio to Host a Weekly Show
By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; Page A01
Bob Dylan -- singer, songwriter, former counterculture figure and voice of a generation -- has added another line to his rsum: radio DJ.
The enigmatic troubadour has signed on to host a weekly show on XM Satellite Radio, the D.C.-based pay-radio provider. Dylan will select the music, offer commentary, interview guests and answer e-mail from listeners during the one-hour program, which will start in March, XM said yesterday.
well, yeah, there was more to this piece......but this part is all ya need to know, now isn't it?......i am quite curious as to what songs dylan will play......new stuff, his stuff, indie rock, folk, emo...eminem....raffi......you just never know with dylan....
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
bill o-reilly
ok, so i love when mr o'reilly gets it so very worng....E-mail sent to parents in the Plano, TX school district
Dear Plano ISD eNews Subscribers:
On Friday, December 9, on the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor,"
with Bill O'Reilly and guest Jim Pinkerton, Fox 4 News analyst, it was falsely reported in a segment entitled "More Victories for Christmas" that ...
....."In Plano, Texas, a school told students they couldn't wear red and
green because they are Christmas colors."......
Due to the number of e-mails, inquiries and phone calls to Plano ISD
regarding students "wearing red and green," Superintendent of Schools
Dr. Doug Otto is e-mailing this communication to eNews subscribers (and has posted this message on the PISD website) to assure the school community that this rumor is false.
"The school district does not restrict students or staff from wearing certain color clothes during holiday times or any other school days," noted Dr. Otto, who said that the school district's attorney has requested that Mr. O'Reilly retract the statement.
Dr. Otto said that our attorney requested of Mr. O'Reilly that, in the
future, he ask his fact checkers to do a more thorough job of confirming the facts before he airs them.
"It would be our hope that you would engage in fair and balanced reporting of this nationally recognized school district in the future," PISD's attorney wrote to Mr. O'Reilly.
Dear Plano ISD eNews Subscribers:
On Friday, December 9, on the Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor,"
with Bill O'Reilly and guest Jim Pinkerton, Fox 4 News analyst, it was falsely reported in a segment entitled "More Victories for Christmas" that ...
....."In Plano, Texas, a school told students they couldn't wear red and
green because they are Christmas colors."......
Due to the number of e-mails, inquiries and phone calls to Plano ISD
regarding students "wearing red and green," Superintendent of Schools
Dr. Doug Otto is e-mailing this communication to eNews subscribers (and has posted this message on the PISD website) to assure the school community that this rumor is false.
"The school district does not restrict students or staff from wearing certain color clothes during holiday times or any other school days," noted Dr. Otto, who said that the school district's attorney has requested that Mr. O'Reilly retract the statement.
Dr. Otto said that our attorney requested of Mr. O'Reilly that, in the
future, he ask his fact checkers to do a more thorough job of confirming the facts before he airs them.
"It would be our hope that you would engage in fair and balanced reporting of this nationally recognized school district in the future," PISD's attorney wrote to Mr. O'Reilly.
errata.....
ok, so i enjoyed this blurb on gawker.com...about a sister blog.....The obsessively comprehensive and utterly amusing blog Regret the Error, which tracks noteworthy corrections into newspapers around the world, today published its list of the year’s best corrections. Top honors went to the Denver Daily News, which won Correction of the Year for this squib from its July 27 edition:
The Denver Daily News would like to offer a sincere apology for a typo in Wednesday’s Town Talk regarding New Jersey’s proposal to ban smoking in automobiles. It was not the author’s intention to call New Jersey ‘Jew Jersey.’
my favorite error was on the bottom of a new yorker column once....quoting a small town...somewhereinamerica newspaper....that apologized for the error in the recipe for mincemeat pie in the previous issue......the recipe should have called for 1 pound of raisins....not 1 pound of ground beef..... the new yorker staff added the following.....'the dog liked it just the way it was......'
The Denver Daily News would like to offer a sincere apology for a typo in Wednesday’s Town Talk regarding New Jersey’s proposal to ban smoking in automobiles. It was not the author’s intention to call New Jersey ‘Jew Jersey.’
my favorite error was on the bottom of a new yorker column once....quoting a small town...somewhereinamerica newspaper....that apologized for the error in the recipe for mincemeat pie in the previous issue......the recipe should have called for 1 pound of raisins....not 1 pound of ground beef..... the new yorker staff added the following.....'the dog liked it just the way it was......'
Monday, December 12, 2005
playlist....
ok. so i have mastered the realplayer playlist.......now on to the transfer to the pda.....this technology gap between what i know, what i can figure out, and what eludes me still is reminiscent of a book we were forced to read in high school....future shock.......the notion that times are a changin faster than our collective brains can process...let alone embrace.......
and the house has yet again...not burned down....
ok, so people who have had house fires tend to skittish about all flames......and thus we are just getting around to cranking up our woodstove....my spouse got up on the roof yesterday to check out the state of the chimney......looking for signs of creosote buildup.....and then vacumned out the stove itself....and then got a really hot fire going....supposedly, really hot fires leave less creosote than slow dwindling ones........and so i went to bed partially paralyzed by the notion that we might not hear the smoke alarm(s)....or wake up to smell the smoke in time......of which there was none......the house was really snug with that shot of extra heat before bed.....but i am not sure that i cannot handle the anxiety that comes with the warmth......
Sunday, December 11, 2005
realplayerrage
ok, so i have successfully downloaded marvelous and tastefully selected christmas music....and sucessfully transferred these files from the desktop to my music file.....and sucessfully downloaded a smattering to a cd......buti cannot seem to save this same cd as a playlist.....nor copy out a playlist for showandtell purposes......nor transfer anything to my pda......mostly because i only know how to do this from windows mediaplayer...which seems to be disabled at present....and dell music player has a fatal error.......and shuts down.....leaving me with realplayer......a program which has a dreadful bedside manner......the good news is that i have had a sweet background for baking cookies this afternoon.......blackcurrant shortbread, coconut macaroons, some little chocolate/walnut treats, and dough for cutout cookies that is chilling as we speak.....i also made the dough for my favorite orange poppy seed cookies....but there wasn't enough flour....and the cutouts started to flatten and spread off the pans....so i scooped it all up into a tart pan....and added another cup of flour.....and it will be the base for a tart of some sort......alls well that ends well........i must say that listening to sufjan stevens i see his early raffi influences.......
christmas music....
ok, so i received an early christmas gift.....a simple link to sufjan stevens christmas songs volumes 1-3......lo how a rose ere blooming.....oh come oh come emmanuel....amazing grace....omg....literally.....oldly honest....i do owe you a vegan dinner of some sort while stephan is home.....just pick the date...all i have to do now is figure out how to put these songs into a playlist......
Saturday, December 10, 2005
birthday boy....
ok, so december 11 will be the first occassion that i have not been with a child of mine on a birthday......and though i admit to the temptation to lament, and try to make it all about me.....the bottom line must be focused on my baby boy alone on his 19th birthday........which he shares with such lumineries as....the French composer, Hector Berlioz, the French writer, Alfred de Musset, the Russian writer, Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, the Puerto Rican actress, Rita Moreno, the Indian spiritual leader, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the US Senator and Presidential candidate, John Kerry, and the daughter of Aristotle Onasis, Christina Onassis.........aside from Kerry, they are all dead.....and certainly not worried about being alone on this special day....and though we have sent him surprises, both tangible and online....there is nothing like being with one's children on the anniversary of birth........he will be in our thoughts the entire day.........bon anniversaire......
christmas music....
ok, so over supper we listened to a rebroadcast of world cafe's christmas show.........here is the link from npr......i especially appreciated the 2 song overlap from oldlyhonest's picks.........
yo-yo ma.....
ok, so in looking for something else in my top dresser drawer.....i came across a ticket stub dated may 11, 1999.....for yo-yo ma at newlin hall on the campus of centre college......and i am stymied.....because i cannot recall this concert.....who did i go with?........what did he play?.......how could i forget something this important.....i am playing a piece as i type called rondino....beethoven?.......i am feeling so very old as to be unable to remember things.......reminds me of the movie where the guy who cannot remember anything past the shortterm has tatooed things on his body....and photographed and noted important things.....because he cannot remember anything from day to day....the movie was unusual in that it went backwards rather than forwards.....and of course.....i cannot recall the title.....go figure......
ok, so this if from the nytimes.... The New York Times
December 10, 2005
Tracing Shadows
By CONRAD MULCAHY
It began this spring without explanation: fire hydrants, street signs and bicycles all over Park Slope and Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn were suddenly standing watch over their own distorted chalk outlines, as if anticipating some violent demise. Whoever did this left no clue other than an ambiguous signature: "? Ellis G. 2007," scrawled next to the chalk etchings.
During daylight, the outlines did not make much sense. Shopkeepers and bar owners had little information. Deliverymen muttered to themselves as they moved their outlined bicycles indoors. Parents were just as confused as their young children.
But under the orange glow of the streetlights, the intent became clear: the outlines are shadows, burned into the sidewalk.
The man behind this mystery, who in the last six months has outlined thousands of objects throughout Brooklyn, is "Ellis G.," or as his parents know him, Ellis Gallagher, a Brooklyn artist. His chalk drawings are a private joke between him and anyone in Brooklyn who takes the time to look at his work before the snow or rain washes it away.
"This work won't be around," Mr. Gallagher said. "God knows, it could be gone tomorrow."
His chalk outlines, inspired by his own brush with crime, are "exhilarating for me," he said. "I can do it at any time of the day and I don't have to look over my shoulder. I can do it right in front of the police."
For Mr. Gallagher, 32, keeping his art on the right side of the law is a relatively new endeavor. He spent many years putting graffiti on New York's train tunnels, walls and other public spaces. But graffiti "missions," as they are known in some circles, took their toll on Mr. Gallagher, who works as a waiter when he is not making art. There were the fines, the frantic footraces with police officers (when he was lucky) and the nights in jail (when he was not). A 1999 arrest resulted in a community service sentence and probation, court records show.
But Mr. Gallagher's passion for graffiti was extinguished for good early one morning in 2001, when he and Hector Ramirez, a close friend, were painting in the F train tunnel between Bergen and Carroll Streets. A train roared by, and Mr. Ramirez was struck and killed. Mr. Gallagher was not injured. "After that," he said, "I'd had enough."
He turned to painting, working out of a studio and focused on displaying his work in shows with other artists, including a forthcoming book called "Adhesives" that is a collection of stickers made by graffiti artists from all over New York.
Earlier this year, Mr. Gallagher was mugged on his way home from a shift at Bar Tabac on Smith Street, where he worked as a waiter. "I turn around and this guy's got a two-foot machete in my face," he said.
Mr. Gallagher was unhurt and the mugger was later caught by the police, but one night soon after the mugging, with the image of his attacker's dark silhouette still burned into his memory, Mr. Gallagher was mesmerized by a shadow on the sidewalk. He reached into his pocket and felt the chalk he had used to write the outdoor menu at Bar Tabac, and he dropped to his knees to outline it.
Shadow art was born.
Now Mr. Gallagher heads out on foot or on his bike with a backpack full of chalk, looking for shadows to trace. When he tells you that "everything is fair game," he means it. He has traced everything from hydrants to whole city blocks.
While most people in Carroll Gardens and Park Slope have never seen him, many know his work and they seem to like it. (While the city's administrative code says defacing streets is illegal, it is unclear whether that holds true for sidewalks.)
Patty Wu, owner of Handmade on Smith Street, knows Mr. Gallagher's work because he often stops to trace the shadows of objects in her window display, like women's shirts and lingerie sets. "I love it; It's great, it creates a lot of visual interest and people stop and then see the store," Ms. Wu said of the chalk outlines.
It even stirs a little friendly neighborhood rivalry. "People across the street say, 'How come he does it in front of your store so much?' and I say 'Because I have good lighting,' " Ms. Wu says with a smile.
More than anything, Mr. Gallagher will tell you, his work is meant for pure enjoyment.
"All of my chalk drawings are like graffiti," he said. "It's putting out public art for people who normally wouldn't go to a museum."
Claude DeCastro, the owner of the Hoyt Street bar Kili, saw Mr. Gallagher's chalk art and invited him to put up a show of paintings on canvas in the bar, where it is now displayed.
"I think that public art is important," said Mr. DeCastro, who once owned a gallery. "It expresses what people are feeling in society at the time, and it puts it out there. It's not like a museum, where things are hidden away for 20 years."
On a recent evening, a man named Steve stopped to watch Mr. Gallagher work, despite the cold. "A million times I walked by a street sign, how come I never thought to do something like that with a piece of chalk?" Steve asks. Mr. Gallagher smiles when he hears this, watching a new fan walk off down the street.
"It's very touching," he says sincerely. "People tell me 'you make me smile' or 'you make me stop and think,' and that's cool. I make a difference in people's lives. It inspires me to create more."
Then he's on his feet again, clapping the dust off his hands. He grabs his bag of chalk, and a bright smile flashes across his face when he sees a bicycle is casting a hard shadow on a wide stretch of sidewalk nearby.
"Oh, that's a good one," he says to no one in particular.
Before you know it, he's back on his knees, tracing another shadow.
* Copyright 2005The New York Times
ok, so this via npr.org.... Fisk University plans to sell an iconic Georgia O'Keeffe painting donated by the artist in 1949. The sale, designed to raise money for the cash-strapped Nashville university, could break an O'Keeffe sale record of $6.3 million.
The sale of Radiator Building - Night, New York (1927) also may violate the terms of O'Keeffe's gift, which specified the modern art collection of her late husband Alfred Stieglitz not be broken up. Rebecca Bain of member station WPLN reports.........this is the trouble when gifts have strings attached......on the one hand there are o'keefe's wishes that her collection stay together....and then there is fisk, which is cashstrapped.....enough to part with something so valuable.....maybe some rich person could buy it from fisk, and donate it back.....for the tax break if for no better reason........
winzip.....
ok, so of late i have been blessed with access to some lovely new music selections....from a variety of sources dear to my heart..an ethereal oboe concerto and a calming piano piece......the christmas mix is especially nice, by the way..honestlyold never ceases to amaze me with her catalogic knowledge of all music.....i especially enjoyed raffi's douglas mountain....we used to listen to it and the entire raffi christmas cd once upon a time.....and i had forgotten until this morning just how sweet the song was and is......thanks so much.......
Friday, December 09, 2005
grace hopper
ok, so this from garrison k.'s daily writer's almanac....It's the birthday of one of the people who helped invent the modern computer: Grace Hopper, born in New York City (1906). She began tinkering around with machines when she was seven years old, dismantling several alarm clocks around the house to see how they worked. She was especially good at math in school.
She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale. Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. Her father had been an admiral in the Navy, so she applied to a division of the Navy called WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. She was assigned to work on a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets.
She learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use. She went on to work on several more versions of the same machine. In 1952, Hopper noticed that most computer errors were the result of humans making mistakes in writing programs. So she attempted to solve that problem by writing a new computer language that used ordinary words instead of just numbers. It was one of the first computer languages, and the first designed to help ordinary people write computer programs, and she went on to help develop it into the computer language known as COBOL, or "Common Business-Oriented Language.
i have frequently pondered on exactly who set the precedent for manuals.......which tend to be maddenly detailed all the while so absolutely impossible to understand.......
She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale. Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. Her father had been an admiral in the Navy, so she applied to a division of the Navy called WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. She was assigned to work on a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets.
She learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use. She went on to work on several more versions of the same machine. In 1952, Hopper noticed that most computer errors were the result of humans making mistakes in writing programs. So she attempted to solve that problem by writing a new computer language that used ordinary words instead of just numbers. It was one of the first computer languages, and the first designed to help ordinary people write computer programs, and she went on to help develop it into the computer language known as COBOL, or "Common Business-Oriented Language.
i have frequently pondered on exactly who set the precedent for manuals.......which tend to be maddenly detailed all the while so absolutely impossible to understand.......
living out the fantasy....
ok, so i confess that many mornings i fantasize about just how wonderful ti would be to be able to go right back to bed......this particular morning i am taking advantage of a stuffy head to do just that......too bad one cannot fully enjoy a day off when one feels so very awful.....
Thursday, December 08, 2005
the new yorker
ok, so the new yorker magazine is annually updated as a kindly gift from my family to ....me.......and let this blog serve as a remember ..i have oft mentioned the longevity of the connection......of monday mornings walking into the university of cincinnati medical center pavillion annex when i was in graduate school...to find the latest new yorker waiting for me on the waiting room coffee table....i would leave said issue on my way out on friday.......i had only been to nyc twice at that point.....once in 1965 for the world's fair with my family and once on spring break in 1975 ...oy......everybody else i knew went to fla...but i went to moma and mmoa.......and chilled to the bone...but i digress.....i have so enjoyed the cartoons in this new yorker issue.....
honestly old
ok, so today i quoted a steely dan song.....erroniously...midnight cruiser......that i have long thought referred to thelonious monk.....i thought the lyrics began with thelonius my old friend.....ha!...the lyrcis are as follows...
Felonius my old friend
Step on in and let me shake your hand
So glad that you're here again
For one more time
Let your madness run with mine
Streets still unseen we'll find somehow
No time is better than now
CHORUS:
Tell me where are you driving
Midnight cruiser
Where is your bounty
Of fortune and fame
I am another
Gentlemen loser
Drive me to Harlem
Or somewhere the same
The world that we used to know
People tell me it don't turn no more
The places we used to go
Familiar faces that ain't smilin' like before
The time of our time has come and gone
I fear we been waiting too long
felonius/thelonius......i am getting to be so old....at least where oldness matters............
Felonius my old friend
Step on in and let me shake your hand
So glad that you're here again
For one more time
Let your madness run with mine
Streets still unseen we'll find somehow
No time is better than now
CHORUS:
Tell me where are you driving
Midnight cruiser
Where is your bounty
Of fortune and fame
I am another
Gentlemen loser
Drive me to Harlem
Or somewhere the same
The world that we used to know
People tell me it don't turn no more
The places we used to go
Familiar faces that ain't smilin' like before
The time of our time has come and gone
I fear we been waiting too long
felonius/thelonius......i am getting to be so old....at least where oldness matters............
tech guys......
ok, so in my thursday county the tech guys were switching the 'system' over from something to something.........which only means to me that i only have one password to remember rather than 2.......and having seen said tech guy in mercer co. yesterday........i was tickled that he took such pains to finally set up the communal computer so that i could access my state email account directly........and amused that he had thumb drives attached to his name tag...on a neck laniard....and his key chain..........what....a binary filing system?............
skank
ok, so today happens to be the birthday of the skank otherwise known as ann(e?) coulter...this from wonkette re: her appearance last night...."I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am," Ann Coulter said onstage at the University of Connecticut. No, she wasn't explaining why she appears on The O'Reilly Factor so much. Instead, she was mocking UConn students for making her job even easier than it usually is. The UConn Undergraduate Student Government paid the controversial pundit $16,000 to speak -- and DC's own Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute kicked in untold thousands as well -- but Coulter lasted only fifteen minutes before using chants of "You suck, you suck" as an excuse to cut her speech short and go straight to the Q & A section of the evening.
Sample Q & A:
One student asked what she would do if she had a child who came out as gay.
Coulter replied: "I'd say, `Did I ever tell you you're adopted?'"
After a half hour of that, Coulter went back to her hotel room, counted her cash, and licked a Diet Newport for dinner. If she had better legs, we would swear she is the new Don Rickles'............i want it known that there are few women who deserve the 's' designation, but i swear she is tops of that list........
ok, so i came home from work early to prop up the gnarly redbud tree that is a true specimen of eclectic landscaping......not that we did anything special to make it so...i suspect that an icestorm years ago bent it over originally....and now it is almost doubled over before it sweeps back up over a perennial bed....the rain has turned to ice...just as our family landscape architect predicted when he emailed earlier today.....i have 3 supports...2 under the right end and 1 under the left.....if said gardener thinks that i can add to this scheme...he has only to call........i do thank him for thinking of the tree when he learned of the winter storm......redbuds are quite susceptable to ice damage.......
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
vaughan isn't dead.....
ok, so alias is just now over.....and the previews confirmed what the celebrity gosip shows already hinted at...that michael vaughan isn't really dead.......and for this alias junkie/hopeful romantic.....that is very good news indeed......now that the end is near.....well.....may is the end of the series.....i could not imagine the show ending without sidney settling into parenthood with her baby's father....and the rimbaldi business tied up....and maybe her parents back together as well.......or maybe not......and it was a nice addition to this evenings episode to have a reprise of julian sark....the freelance agent we just love to hate....tomorrow is my lincoln county...which is a good thing because the office staff share my fondness for alias......and where else would an alias junkie want to be the morning after than with folks who are almost as possessed.........
i need new music
ok, so listened to the tunes on my pda today during lunch.....and i must say.......i need to start over......at least for a while.....the 64 or so songs have already become tiresome......which is why radio really took off.....because it was random..or so it seemed.....and one could hear something new now and again......i do sometimes listen to wuky over lunch via the internet......as well as world cafe when i am out....but it never occurs to me to stop and either pay to download any of those songs....or buy an entire cd.....and so i am stuck in my little time-lag with songs from alias or with pre-80's stuff like csn&y, led zepplin, the beatles, neil young, indigo girls, .....beck.....all desirables....but i really do need something refreshing to stir things up........at the very least i need 5 good mountain goat songs........at this point i know of none.....
landscaping dreams....
ok, so last night i dreamed that we were staying in a large house that had at least 2 floors of bedrooms as well as a theatre....a venue that had wooden seats with a lovely grain......and right next door was a water park surrounded by mother gardens...explained to me in the dream as gardens meant to entertain the mothers who didn't want to get wet......and i was asked to see about the white accent plants that had died....whatever shall we do about those? ......in the dream, the white plants were a kind of fluffy grey dusty miller rather than really white......and just outside the fence there were truly white plants growing as volunteers out of the cracks between paving stones..like white mums only with white leaves that resembled baby spinach...and when i asked why those plants couldn't be moved into the flower beds to replace the grey dead ones.....the woman in charge looked at me like i had 2 heads.......and i don't recall what happened next.....because the poor old dog woke us up and wanted out.......sad to dream something in such delicate detail....and not know how it all ended.......
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
to and fro...
ok, so i have come down to the dregs of blogs.......the comings and goings of my work day.......the sights that i pass and think about....either .i must remember to blog about that or.....omg......maybe i'll remember this moment when and if i ever write a novel.......first...i must comment on the blowups.....somebody must have made real deal on blow-ups......frosty, santa.......bambi....no i suppose that must be rudolph.......each in line in somebody's front yard......on the main drag in h-burg there is actually a silver aluminum tree with blue lights beside the blowups.......and this spectacle is just a few doors down from the house with the renovations going on....the house that has the fireplace directly in back of the front door...like the door opens so close to the fireplace as to be a fire hazard.......poor design.......and then there is the house newly built that has the steam rising out of the mole holes in the front yard......gentle readers.....when steam rises out of one's mole holes....this means that there are serious sink holes that escaped the crack design team......hopefully, the house in question will not sink along with the yard........today i dealt with a couple whose baby was born at 34 weeks.....and the spouse of the couple was highly agitated at the mom who smokes 2ppd despite having a baby born at 3 pounds 6 ounces.....and the spouse was the one explaining to me how nicotine is a vasoconstrictor and that might explain why this mom is having a hard time breastfeeding......go figure.......and yet they both wanted me to figure out how she could restore adequate milk supply.......and then there was the new mom whose spouse leaves for iraq the first week of january..she hadn't tried to breastfeed, but now that she couldn't she was having second thoughts.....and i am required to ask her if she could get pregnant again...........and if so might she continue her prenatal vitamins just in case......... a good day in public health......
oscar......
ok, so our old dog is failing.....rapidly it would appear......i was surprised to arrive home last night to see that my child and spouse were washing her bedclothes....event he comforter....seems the dog has somehow gotten into her room....and spent the day on her bed.....sleeping interrupted occassionally by coughing up his breakfast....poor sod......up all night, sick all day.......we are not yet ready to make a move....not just yet.....one doesn't just discard an old friend just because of a few newly acquired bad habits.....but........the subject has come up......and that is such a sad subject to discuss without tears............
Monday, December 05, 2005
world cafe.....
ok, so while i do not especially like working late, i do relish the opportunity to listen to world cafe on my way back home from wherever....this evening th emiddle piece was about an illinois native named abigail washburn who plays the banjo and sings in chinese......not your usual combination of influences.....but breathtakingly lovely......especially the piece she played with cello as backup.....wow....makes me want to understand chinese....just to know what she was actually singing to the angelic melodies....i like david dye.....he has this organic knowledge/appreciation/enthusiasm for world music that is so engaging.......i could see someone like honestlyold doing something similar with her considerable talents......maybe as oldlyhonest....her nom de plume........and thewinding wheel already has his own radio spot.....maybe the two could partner up for a tagteam format of banter and indie ballads.......just a thought.....
killin' time......
ok, so i have a support group to do at 7:00...in a town 18 miles away....and so i am occupying my time online......i read an interesting article on the protection that caffeine may give to people who drink copious amounts of alcohol....tried to email this washington post piece to a friend...only to get the daemon-message......appears my email is blocked from that address...or at least that is how it looked to me......could be my intrinsic paranoia.....a curious monday in public health......our office is doing a sceret santa thing....and odd things keep showing up on my desk...today it was a stoneware santa....in earthtone shades......now that is something you just don't see often.....santa claus in rust and sage green.......there is also a candle and a 8 inch christmas tree that boasts a new ornament every few days.....i have only given my secret santa a box of christmas thank you notes....i best get busy with the trinkets.......
checklist.....
ok, so my life has become a checklist of sorts....with my pda's calender alarm reminding me what lies just ahead....last night i completed the task at hand.....youth supper at church.......there were far fewer youth there than i prepared for.....so the minister offered to take extras to the family with the kidnapped child......i did open my mouth to argue the point.....but decided it wasn't worth it....the family did go through a lot and i had all of that leftover lasagna.....and now the task is checked off my mentallist.....and i can go on to the next item.....diabetes support group this evening in anderson county......eventually the reminder will beep with drive to princeton......and then it will be almost christmas.....i dreamed last night about being on a yacht (spelling?)....which is strange because i have never been on one.....and there is nothing scheduled on my pda calender that resembles such an event.....gentle readers.....please do not get the impression that my life is busy....it is now so decidedly unbusy when compaered to the past when i did not have a pda calender to flash and beep with my next appointment....but somehow this arrangement makes me feel just as rushed.......could that be why i dream of yachts....for some real leisure time...unscheduled time....at least in dreams.....?
Sunday, December 04, 2005
custodial inteference...
ok, so the big talk at sunday school was the front-page account of the (20's/30's?)babysitter that left danville on friday morning with her 3-year old charge in tow....and didn't arrive back with said child until nearly 4:00 am the next morning...meanwhile an amber alert had been announced and police involved...she claims to have been christmas shopping...and visited friends in winchester....and to have lost track of the time....and the child was unharmed and not especially upset....as this woman had kept her since she was born......and though the parents have conceded publically that they do not believe that the sitter meant any harm to their child, the sitter has been charged with custodial interference...a class d felony.....and could face 5 years in jail.......this situation all the more interesting because the family of the 3-year old go to our church and sit near us in the balcony....and i i couldn't help but wonder today in church as i noticed this reunited family during worship......how can they send woman who has watched their children for 3+ years to prison for failing to call and let them know where she was and that their daughter was o.k........yes....i can see them insisting that the woman get psychiatric help.....and maybe probation and a ban from watching children in future......but a five year prison sentence?.......i just canot see the justice in that............no justice, and certainly no christian family values like forgiveness or turning the other cheek.....
Saturday, December 03, 2005
renig........
ok, so my brother called this evening....wanting me to be the one to tell our mother that it isn't safe to travel....and that maybe she should go somewhere domestic rather than the chelsea flower show......ok...so i have personally traveled to brussels, strasbourg, amsterdam, barcelona, bilbao, madrid and paris since 9-11.....and not once has my brother called and told me not to go......but when our mother wants to go see the flower show......then it is dangerous........i am not going to be the one who breaks this to her......not when i would board a plane in a moment's notice......nope.......he will have to do that dirty work himself......
a compliment.....
ok, so this evening we watched a library copy of the diane keaton-jack nicholson comedy...something's gotta give.....and while i consider the plot tired...i must say that when my daughter commented that diane keaton reminded her of me......well....i almost cried.......not because she mistook me for someone 10 years older......but because she identifies me with someone who laughs big and yearns to spend her birthdays in paris......
payback is a bitch......
ok, so i have always heard that the payback is a bitch....payback for what, you ask?........payback for all of those years of homework that didn't call out for my involvement...our brilliant older children just did their assignments well without much need for intervention......this week we have spent way too much time dealing with a 7th grade science project on simple machines......too much drama has gone down for my taste....and since it is my day off....it was up to me to help our 12 year old to make a second simple machine to go along with the pulley that she and daddy built at the bike shop and to finish off the assignment with documentation........and while i can say that i created a lever/fulcrum setup by stapling used underwear elastic to the triangular block and the wooden ruler and then stapling the pulley string to the long end...in about 10 minutes.....it still has taken the entire afternoon to oversee the drawing of this masterpiece....and the summary and the bibilography........i am emotionally exhausted......i am trying very hard not to make any sweeping judgements on this child's abilities......but let me just say that......payback is a bitch.................
Friday, December 02, 2005
enough of engineers....
ok, so one of the more irritating parts of this miserable 2 day training was the bit about m.eq.......traditionally....physician orders for renal diets come as milli-equivalents of sodium, potasium and phosphorus....rather in millgirams....as is stated on food labels or in reference texts....and an extraordinary amount of time was dedicated to converting milligrams to milliequalents.....and so i asked the fundemental question...why not turn the milliequalents into milligrams, since that is the only term that our clients have any shot at understanding......and the instructor went into a diabtribe about how it is only the engineers in kidney failure who care about such details.....that is a ridiculous simplification.......that only math-oriented folks can possibly be asked to add up millgrams from either label or reference pamphlets.....and that since physicians still use milliequavalents we should go along with their lead..i suppose i spend so little time with other dietitians that i forget that some are absolutely anal and/ or rigid about some issues......
overheard.....
ok, so after i got back to danville, i finally got around to returning the books on cd from the 50-miler weekend.....and whilst looking for a few dvd's to borrow i overheard a rather loud woman complaining to the desk folks that what the library really needed was a special christian section...so that christians could be assured that books they checked out were the ones that they should be reading.....this woman used to work at a christian bookstore...and she could be sure of every book sold there....but she couldn't seem to identify the right books when there was no mark nor definitive sign......just a suggestion.....she said........by the way...to my kin who have worked the desk at the danville library......grace says hello......
listening to paint peel.....
ok, so this morning was the second portion of a kidney disease training....led by an esteemed colleague who appeared to be billing by the hour rather by than the event.......by 11:00 this morning i had heard enough of....'any more questions...we have plenty of time.....?' and so i got up and left without my certificate of continuing education hours.......because i already have enough for this fiscal year (that began november 1).......and because i have already turned in my portfolio of 5 years of continuing education to the american dietetic association way ahead of the may 2006 deadline......not needing to stay....i left..........i will admit to a timetable of sorts.....i had at least 1 stop to buy a gift certificate in the u.k. area......and i needed to eat lunch....before a 12:10 pm matinee of...pride and prejudice at lexington green.......i ended up having a nice salad bar lunch at wild oats......several interesting salds with quinoa, and barley, and couscous, and curried tofu/spinach.......and arrived at the theatre across the parking lot at 12:00....only to find that p&p didn;t start til 12:25.....and so i sat in on the 1st 25 minutes of harry potter.......just til his name is spit out fo the goblet of fire.....and then rushed across the hall to see the opening credits of p&p.......and i almost laughed out loud......for the theatre was nearly full.....of women sitting alone......at least 27 women sitting alone.......scattered throughout the smallish venue......just think of all of their male significant others breathing a collective sigh of relief at not having to sit through this particular film......and that notion is a sad misjudgement......i will admit to said same sad misjudgement......or as miss elizabeth bennett said so concisely...'please do not remind me of what i said then...'.....this was a stellar piece of filmmaking......much more intimate and earthy than the others......dustier, more agrarian, more cluttered, more vulnerable....and though it was streamlined for characters.....the married mrs hurst and her drunken spouse are gone.....and neither sir william lucas, or his wife or charlotte's younger sister....the details in this film set it apart.....the country fashions of the sisters are ever so much more visibly 'homemade'......than in any film adaptation of austin's i have seen......i say this as someone who sews.....they went to lengths to show us the homemade aspect...as was the hair less coiffed and more like it would be if one dressed it oneself.......and the somewhat shabby state of a stone home that seen from afar looks quite impressive.......i especially appreciated the addition of animals to this version......a family (hunting) dog that is ever under foot, chickens and geese in the barnyard.....cows, and several memorable swine........if you have read any of the reviews...the exact angle of the swine shots was a major talk point.......and then there was the casting question.......i had my doubts that any could match austin's tale after the performance by colin firth or jennifer ehle......certainly not keira kneightly.....but i was wrong on that count....the producer must have seen her in pirates of the carribean and rightly deduced that she had a little of e. bennett's spark living in her......i was impressed....and the unknown actor who played darcy............my......he played the role with more earnest feeling than colin firth.......the only real disappointment i had was with dame judy dench as lady catherine.....she simply wasn't crone material....and crone is called for in that role..........ah well.....i am back home.....and thinking ahead to the dvd release.......
emily the cat......
ok, so this was a bit that we heard on thursday on npr just as the alarm was going off....from the washington post.....
Emily, the Stowaway Cat, Is Coming Home
PARIS -- Emily the cat is heading home, in style. The wayward tabby from Wisconsin that disappeared two months ago and wound up traveling across the Atlantic to France boarded a Continental Airlines flight Thursday _ in business class.
Travel conditions leaving Europe promised to be a bit more comfortable for Emily, who arrived as a stowaway in a cargo container after straying from home in Wisconsin.
"I don't think she'll drink champagne but I think she will be happy to rest," said Continental spokesman Philippe Fleury, at Charles de Gaulle airport to see Emily off. The airline offered to fly the cat home after her tale spread around the world and she cleared a 1-month quarantine.
"This was such a marvelous story, that we wanted to add something to it," Fleury told AP Television News. A full-fare ticket for Emily's seat would normally cost about $6,000 and the airline provided a company escort for the cat.
Emily vanished from her home in Appleton, Wis., late September. She apparently wandered into a paper company's distribution center near her home and crawled into a container of paper bales.
The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found Oct. 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France. Emily, who turned 1 year old that very day, was thin and thirsty but still alive.
Workers at Raflatac used her tags to phone her veterinarian in Wisconsin, and the vet called her owners.
Emily faced one last packed day of travel before her homecoming. She was due to arrive from Paris in Newark, New Jersey midday Thursday and board a connecting flight to Chicago and then be driven home to Wisconsin, Fleury said.
Emily's escort, George Chiladze, a Continental employee based in Newark, said he was thrilled to be the one taking Emily back across the Atlantic.
"I will make somebody really happy to deliver this poor traveler back home," he said.
Emily, the Stowaway Cat, Is Coming Home
PARIS -- Emily the cat is heading home, in style. The wayward tabby from Wisconsin that disappeared two months ago and wound up traveling across the Atlantic to France boarded a Continental Airlines flight Thursday _ in business class.
Travel conditions leaving Europe promised to be a bit more comfortable for Emily, who arrived as a stowaway in a cargo container after straying from home in Wisconsin.
"I don't think she'll drink champagne but I think she will be happy to rest," said Continental spokesman Philippe Fleury, at Charles de Gaulle airport to see Emily off. The airline offered to fly the cat home after her tale spread around the world and she cleared a 1-month quarantine.
"This was such a marvelous story, that we wanted to add something to it," Fleury told AP Television News. A full-fare ticket for Emily's seat would normally cost about $6,000 and the airline provided a company escort for the cat.
Emily vanished from her home in Appleton, Wis., late September. She apparently wandered into a paper company's distribution center near her home and crawled into a container of paper bales.
The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found Oct. 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France. Emily, who turned 1 year old that very day, was thin and thirsty but still alive.
Workers at Raflatac used her tags to phone her veterinarian in Wisconsin, and the vet called her owners.
Emily faced one last packed day of travel before her homecoming. She was due to arrive from Paris in Newark, New Jersey midday Thursday and board a connecting flight to Chicago and then be driven home to Wisconsin, Fleury said.
Emily's escort, George Chiladze, a Continental employee based in Newark, said he was thrilled to be the one taking Emily back across the Atlantic.
"I will make somebody really happy to deliver this poor traveler back home," he said.
yesterday....
ok, so yesterday the mm attended a conference in lex at the radisson...on chronic kidney disease....and though the speaker is the state's acknowledged expert on the subject.....she has a speaking cadence that is about 2 beats too slow....and is therefore as pleasurable an experience as listening to paint dry.....and clearly a woman who enjoys her limelight....she ran out of both steam and powerpoint slides 1.5 hours early....and rather than dismissing the crowd, opted to mumble on...with intro's like.....'what else should we talk about......since we have the time.....?'......i put up with that for 10 or so more minutes, then i merely gathered up my stuff and left......precisely why one sits at the back.....granted, had i entertainment...like pda intenet with free wi-fi.....i wouldn't have been so bored....but the radisson charges for wi-fi......and the battery on my h.p. pda isn't reliable enough for more than 45 minutes without pooping out......so i opted for.....shopping.....or rather.....boutique browsing.......first the clay's mill goodwill and then boston road.....whereupon i found the gem of all gems.......a black coach purse in precisely the style that i have coveted over the years......in good shape....for $7.50....i consider this find as a sure sign of god's grace.....and then i met acw for dinner at the bookstore cafe (j.beth).....the mothership......i didn't take the time to browse the there after my greek/grilled salmon salad.....but i did try out the handlotion in the bed/bath products section that is adjacent to the cafe....i would have preferred to try the provencal bathsalts......but that isn't an option...go figure........enough of this....i am going back to bed.....gentle readers....do check out the time......the dog wantedout and i am only up waiting to let him back in.......now that i have blogged i can go right back to sleep.....rather than to lay awake for a bit thinking about what i must remember to blog in the a.m......just before i drive back to lex for day 2 of the kidney training....oy....
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