ok, so.......

ok, so this is blog number 3976...or so.....i had intended to reach 4000 blogs by years end......at this reach i should be at the milestone somewhre in january...not that numbers matter...this blog has always and will always be for my personal pleasure as well as for my created myth of self, so to speak....while i may say that this blog records my life thus far as an antidote to my eventual forgetfulness, it can only be said to reflect my life as i choose to remember it...... and if i decide to remember somethings in a better light than they actually happened, this is acceptable in my eyes....nobler to recall things better rather than worse......i like to think of my cup as always half full not half empty.....have a happy and safe new years.......

bbc world service.....

ok, so one of the pleasures of sunday mornings is to wake up to the radio, and listen to the bbc world service....this morning's broadcast involved snippets of interviews from the past year.....one of the more interesting pieces was of an autistic fellow whose particular talent involves numbers....he sees them as shapes/colors/textures.....and this extraordinary response to numbers in his brain allows him to remember number sequences as well as do calculations.......he recently recited pi to the 22,000 place over a 5-hour stretch in oxford simply because nobody had ever done so before......with regards to calculation, he claims not be be doing the math in his head, however........rather, he sees the numbers to be manipulated in their colors/textures/shapes and visualizes the answer......go figure.......there was also an inflamatory exchange with karen hughes, dubya's pawn/undersecretary of state for diplomacy.......who seemed not to have a diplomatic bone in her body.....when asked why it was the view of her govt that resistence to occupation was seen as terror she would not concede that such people as the palestinians had the right to fight back......that any act against israel was a terrorist act......which is curious given that americans who resisted the british occupiers are seen as patriots....which the interviewer failed to point out......ah well.....the most laughable interview was with david hasselhoff.....who expounded on the extent of his world-wide fame......i chuckled aloud, as i have never actually seen the televisions shows for which he is supposedly famous.....and i am unsure if i could pick him out of a lineup.......he put himself in a list if recognizable faces that included lady di, mohammed ali, elvis......what an ego...for someone i wouldn't know from adam......

so very sad.....

ok, so...we got a late christmas card from a couple that i hadn't thought to mention in my earlier blog about missing greetings......and their note was so sad it was painful for me to read.....they had been elated in last year's card about their upcoming trip to one of the 'stans to adopt a pair of siblings...older children with some health problems....she is a nurse and he is a physician...so it seemed a good fit......they underestimated the degree of difficulty....turns out the problems were mental as well as physical......and they ended up relinquishing custody to a couple in oregon who had experience with this sort of thing.....and so they are back to square one....and unsure if they will make a second attempt.....not many options given that they are over 50...china is now off their list.....so very sad...the business of over 50 and off the list.......an aquaintance of ours is having a hysterectomy(we suspect...she is using the euphemisms for her female surgury) soon....and is in quite a funk over it..... she is over 50 and has never had children....and now she can't ever......the finality of the missing uterus must be quite difficult to accept......i cannot imagine......my parents have friends from college, married 50+ years like my folks.....and childless.....i trust they couldn't have children..i cannot imagine that such loving people opted out of parenthood.....i keep in touch because i have fond memories of summer trips to see them.....and because i know that they will mourn with me when my mother passes on......but did they mourn their childless state......ever come to grips with it....or was it so painful as to not be put into words by either party...that their lives were somehow a tad emptier for lack of offspring.....or did they focus on what was right with the picture.....time with each other undivided by the responsibility or the expense of progeny......one cannot know....this is the stuff from which novels spring......books that i will put down because it is pain that i cannot bare to shoulder even for the length of the storyline........

discarded.....

ok, so i have reshelved the stacks of books my youngest discarded from her own shelves of late....and i am disheartened by the quality of literature she finds not worth her time......the newbury award winners of the past 20 years, caldecott medalists.....you get the picture......the decision to discard based solely on the subject matter not being 1)wolves 2) horses 3) girls who ride horses 4) marauding cats ......she has not bothered to read the last 2 harry potter books...what's up with that...how can anybody not read any book in that series once through to get the plot and at least once more to take in the details......how can any person growing up in a bookish family not be drawn to read all of the hundreds (thousands?) of books we have on hand.....

one more bit of dubya craziness.......

ok, so this from crooks and liars......

Grand Canyon National Park is not permitted to give an official estimate of the geologic age of its principal feature, due to pressure from Bush administration appointees. Despite promising a prompt review of its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah's flood rather than by geologic forces, more than three years later no review has ever been done and the book remains on sale at the park, according to documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

"In order to avoid offending religious fundamentalists, our National Park Service is under orders to suspend its belief in geology," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. "It is disconcerting that the official position of a national park as to the geologic age of the Grand Canyon is ‘no comment.'"

In a letter released today, PEER urged the new Director of the National Park Service (NPS), Mary Bomar, to end the stalling tactics, remove the book from sale at the park and allow park interpretive rangers to honestly answer questions from the public about the geologic age of the Grand Canyon. PEER is also asking Director Bomar to approve a pamphlet, suppressed since 2002 by Bush appointees, providing guidance for rangers and other interpretive staff in making distinctions between science and religion when speaking to park visitors about geologic issues.

end-of-year greetings.....

ok, so this morning i have sent out a few emails to folks i failed to hear from thus far this holiday season......it was only in the taking down of the holiday cards (by tradition we tape them around the door to the kitchen..) that it occured to me that i had not heard from my friend jane, nor beth, nor jean.....some folks we never hear from...certain of my spouse's sibling never send cards, despite a recent retirement....at least two cards came exactly 2 days after i sent out my cards......which may or may not mean anything.....but it is the ones i have heard from yearly for 25 years or more are of concern....why stop contact now.....what has gone wrong.....divorce has crossed my mind as a reason.....or failing health.......or both.......certainly not incarceration or bankruptcy or homelessness......hopefully their lives were just too overwhelming this year to send out cards.........i understand overwhelmed and would not want to repeat that chapter (chapters?) of my life........

100 things i didn't know last year

ok,so this lengthy piece is from the bbc.....

100 things we didn't know last year

• Posted Thursday, 28 December 2006 at 12:22 UK time

Each week, the Magazine chronicles interesting and sometimes downright unexpected facts from the news, through its strand 10 things we didn't know last week. Here, to round off the year, are some of the best from the past 12 months.

1. Pele has always hated his nickname, which he says sounds like "baby-talk in Portuguese".

2. There are 200 million blogs which are no longer being updated, say technology analysts.

3. Urban birds have developed a short, fast "rap style" of singing, different from their rural counterparts.

4. Bristol is the least anti-social place in England, says the National Audit Office.

5. Standard-sized condoms are too big for most Indian men.

6. The late Alan "Fluff" Freeman, famous as a DJ, had trained as an opera singer.

7. The lion costume in the film Wizard of Oz was made from real lions.

8. There are 6.5 million sets of fingerprints on file in the UK.

9. Fathers tend to determine the height of their child, mothers their weight.

10. Panspermia is the idea that life on Earth originated on another planet.

11. An infestation of head lice is called pediculosis.

12. The Pope's been known to wear red Prada shoes.

13. The fastest supercomputer in the UK can make 15.4 trillion calculations per second.

14. Online shoppers will only wait an average of four seconds for an internet page to load before giving up.

15. Donald Rumsfeld was both the youngest and the oldest defence secretary in US history.

16. Spending on Halloween has risen 10-fold - from £12m to £120m in the UK, in five years.

17. Coco Chanel started the trend for sun tans in 1923 when she got accidentally burnt on a cruise.

18. Up to 25% of hospital keyboards carry the MRSA infection.

19. The UK population grew at a rate of 500 per day last year as immigration out-stripped emigration.

20. Sex workers in Roman times charged the equivalent price of eight glasses of red wine.

21. English is now the only "traditional" academic subject in the top 10 most popular university courses.

22. The number of people committing suicide in the UK has fallen to its lowest recorded level.

23. More than one in eight people in the United States show signs of addiction to the internet, says a study.

24. One third of all the cod fished in the world is consumed in the UK.

25. In Kingston upon Thames, men on average live to be 78. In Kingston-upon-Hull it is 73.

26. Each person sends an average of 55 greetings cards per year.

27. Just one cow gives off enough harmful methane gas in a single day to fill around 400 litre bottles.

28. More than 90% of plane crashes have survivors.

29. Tony Blair’s favourite meal to cook is spaghetti bolognaise.

30. The brain is soft and gelatinous - its consistency is something between jelly and cooked pasta.

31. The Mona Lisa used to hang on the wall of Napoleon’s bedroom.

32. Barbie's full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts.

33. Eating a packet of crisps a day is equivalent to drinking five litres of cooking oil a year.

34. Plant seeds that have been stored for more than 200 years can be coaxed into new life.

35. There were no numbers in the very first UK phone directory, only names and addresses. Operators would connect callers.

36. The InterCity 125 train was designed by the same man who came up with the angle-poise lamp and Kenwood Chef mixer.

37. Pavements are tested using an 80 square metre artificial pavement at a research centre called Pamela (the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory).

38. A common American poplar has twice as many genes as a human being.

39. The world's fastest supercomputer will have its speed measured in "petaflops", which represent 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

40. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus".

41. Some Royal Mail stamps, which of course carry the Queen's image, are printed in Holland.

42. Helen Mirren was born Ilyena Lydia Mironov, the daughter of a Russian-born violinist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

43. There is only one cheddar cheese maker in Cheddar, even though cheddar is the most popular hard cheese in the English-speaking world.

44. For every 10 successful attempts to climb Mount Everest there is one fatality.

45. Cows can have regional accents, says a professor of phonetics, after studying cattle in Somerset

46. Involuntary bad language, a symptom affecting about one in 10 people with Tourette's syndrome, is called "coprolalia".

47. Watching television can act as a natural painkiller for children, say researchers from the University of Siena.

48. Allotment plots come in the standard measure of 10 poles - a pole is the length of the back of the plough to the nose of the ox.

49. When filming summer scenes in winter, actors suck on ice cubes just before the camera rolls - it cools their mouths so their breath doesn't condense in the cold air.

50. There are 60 Acacia Avenues in the UK.

51. Gritters come out in hot weather too - to spread rock dust, which stops roads melting.

52. Forty-eight percent of the population is ex-directory.

53. Red Buttons - real name Aaron Chwatt - took his surname from the nickname for hotel porters, a job he did in his teens.

54. The CND symbol incorporates the semaphore letters for N and D for nuclear and disarmament.

55. While 53% of households have access to a garage, only 24% use them for parking cars.

56. Mortgage borrowing now accounts for 42% of take-home salary.

57. The word "time" is the most common noun in the English language, according to the latest Oxford dictionary.

58. Forty-one percent of English women have punched or kicked their partners, according to a study.

59. Dogs with harelips can end up with two noses.

60. The clitoris derives its name from the ancient Greek word kleitoris, meaning "little hill".

61. A domestic cat can frighten a black bear to climb a tree.

62. Thirty-four percent of the UK has a surname that is ranked as "posher" than the Royal Family's given name, Windsor.

63. The Downing St garden is actually a Royal Park.

64. Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobiacs is the term for people who fear the number 666.

65. The more panels a football has - and therefore the more seams - the easier it is to control in the air.

66. One in four smokers use roll-ups.

67. Music can help reduce chronic pain by more than 20% and can alleviate depression by up to 25%.

68. The egg came first.

69. Humans were first infected with the HIV virus in the 1930s.

70. Sir Paul McCartney is only the second richest music millionaire in the UK - Clive Calder, is top.

71. Publishers have coined the term "Brownsploitation" for the rash of books that have sprung up in the wake of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code blockbuster.

72. Modern teenagers are better behaved than their counterparts of 20 years ago, showing "less problematic behaviour" involving sex, drugs and drink.

73. George Bush's personal highlight of his presidency is catching a 7.5lb (3.4kg) perch.

74. Britain is still paying off debts that predate the Napoleonic wars because it's cheaper to do so than buy back the bonds on which they are based.

75. Five billion apples are eaten a year in the UK.

76. In Bhutan government policy is based on Gross National Happiness; thus most street advertising is banned, as are tobacco and plastic bags.

77. Metal detector enthusiasts are referred to as "detectorists"; there are about 30,000 in the UK.

78. The Labour Party spent £299.63 on Star Trek outfits for the last election, while the Tories shelled out £1,269 to import groundhog costumes.

79. The best-value consumer purchase in terms of the price and usage is an electric kettle.

80. Camel's milk, which is widely drunk in Arab countries, has 10 times more iron than cow's milk.

81. Iceland has the highest concentration of broadband users in the world.

82. There are 2.5 million rodent-owning households in Britain, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association.

83. Rainfall on the roof and gutters of a three-bed detached house can amount to 120,000 litres each year.

84. Thinking about your muscles can make you stronger.

85. The age limit for marriage in France was, until recently, 15 for girls, but 18 for boys. The age for girls was raised to 18 in 2006.

86. Six million people use TV subtitles, despite having no hearing impairment.

87. Goths, those pasty-faced teenagers who revel in black clothing, are likely to become doctors, lawyers and architects.

88. Nelson Mandela used to steal pigs as a child.

89. There are an average of 4.4 sparrows in each British garden. In 1979, there were 10 per garden.

90. The Himalayas cover one-tenth of the Earth's surface.

91. Lord Levy, recruited by Tony Blair to raise money for the Labour party, made his own fortune managing Alvin Stardust, among others.

92. In a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win.

93. If left alone, 70% of birthmarks gradually fade away.

94. There are two million cars and trucks in Brazil which run on alcohol.

95. US Secret Service sniffer dogs are put up in five-star hotels during overseas presidential visits.

96. Flushing a toilet costs, on average, 1.5p.

97. Tufty the road safety squirrel had a surname. It was Fluffytail.

98. A "lost world" exists in the Indonesian jungle that is home to dozens of hitherto unknown animal and plant species.

99. The term "misfeasance" means to carry out a legal act illegally.

100. In the 1960s, the CIA used to watch Mission Impossible to get ideas about spying.

whew!...so much not to know before now.....

humerous asides......

ok, so i shopped this morning....in multiple groceries...and i was quite amused to see that in my save-a-lot checkout aisle one could pick up a quick and easy pregnancy test- from a display box nestled right between the breathmints and the candybars......no condoms in sight.....i am pretty certain that a family-values store like save-a-lot which sells cigarettes, baby formula and little debbies would have no interest in selling any form of birth control........

gerald ford's funeral....

ok, so this from wonkette......Bush himself will not cut short his precious 200th day of vacation by actually leaving his Crawford estate and paying tribute to Gerald Ford on Saturday night when the pretend president’s body is rolled into the rotunda........what's up with that?......not the pretend president part......technically bush lost the popular vote on the last election.....but the part about bush not going to attend because it interferes with his vacation.....ford was a republican, one would think that bush held some loyalty there........

what to do with my day......

ok, so i have 5 more days off, including this day......and i really should do something useful with this extra time, like going through books and taking a load to the goodwill...of those that i will not read again or that lack intellectual merit.....i could also get books back into their 'sections'....the bookcase by the dining table is cookbooks/travel/gardening........but i noticed some novels here and there yesterday......and i may have to move my shelf of female authors upstairs to my personal bookshelves that line the walls on either side of and above my window/loveseat reading area......andrew's book overflow has taken over the shelving in the guest room...i may have him go through those books as i can no longer tell which were mine before his started to take over.....the upstairs guestroom has stacks of books that my daughter removed from her shelves....which i must go through before i load them up....as she tends to want to give away books that belonged to the boys that are too nice to give away.....or ones that i would want to read to grandchildren......i could start on all of this now......but i have not yet read any of my on-line newspaper sites (nytimes, wpost) and i am thoroughly enjoying my coffee sitting right here in this chair......doing nothing especially useful.......

i dream of blueberries.....

ok, so the last thing i remember before i woke up this morning involved shopping for blueberries....which were curiously available in alternative container shapes.....like round with a screwtop lid and in a sort of starbucks carryout cup......i remember distinctly popping these luscious berries into my mouth one by one......there was an agatha christie undertone to the plot of the dream.....i was suposed to be protecting somebody but i was distracted in the produce aisle...and there were twins dressed in identical suits trying to get into the apartment of the personage in question......no idea what all that was about...but the blueberries were good.....

what goes around.....

ok, so i got up this morning determined to clean closets.....mine and anybody else's who would not stand in my way......and so the final count as i drove to the goodwill as 54 shirts, 30 pairs of pants, 3 dresses, 4 jackets, 2 coats, 8 assorted uniform pieces, 4 pairs of shoes, 1 purse, 4 belts...and a few stuffed taco bell dogs.......the entire backseat of my spouse's car was filled to the brim......and after rearranging our closet, i can fit the dirty wash basket further back.....which in turn makes the closet look huge...by comparison to what it used to look like.....it is worth noting that every single thing given away, with the exception of the taco bell dogs and the shoes...came from a goodwill......and since i get a tax deduction for the donation.....it is like wearing free clothing.....right?

come thou fount of every blessing.......

ok, so i arrived home from the goodwill/retail deathmarch with a package from asthmatic kitty records in lander, wyoming.....sufjan's christmas cd package....omg.....i just love how he does my favorite hymn...come thou fount of every blessing.....which i already have on my pda, along with amazing grace and lo, a rose ere blooming.....but we didn't compensate sufjan for those until now.......this day has been a fount of every blessing.....we set out from d-ville with the goal of 6 goodwills....the 127 corridor of h-burg, l-burg, and frankfort before lunch...then kashmir buffet....than clya's mill, boston road and beaumont plaza on our way home.....we ended up dropping boston road for lack of resolve....and adding a chinese place in l-burg where we purchased eggrolls as an appetizer about noon to see us through til lexington......and we also added target across from fayette mall...and the old navy behind it...and a curious store next door whose name i cannot recall because the script on the sign was so forgettable.....and marshall's...where we actually purchased a black wool not-a-peacoat for my middle child......and along the way we were able to decipher the essence of reese's sucessful semester at school......and purchase treasures for my daughter like a pair of bonafide cowboy boots.....and yeah....i did buy myself a few things....the most memorable moment was when the three of us stopped stone-cold dead in the entrance of target....and realized collectively that we had never been here before and had no idea how we were to proceed.........other than to search out the free and clean restrooms.....back right-hand corner, btw......whereupon i found charming xmas cards 50% off for next year.......there was a mother with several unruly young sons in the restroom....she immediately explained that she was not comfortable setting them free in the men's of yet.......omg......i learned that reese does not go by reese in her own home......and that i agree with her mother that turkey carcasses are best left to the cat of the house.........somewhere along the line i bought a bracelet that i cannot find...and we did find reese's t-shirts in a bag in the bottom of my spouse's car...whcih we drove becauce my car was making a painful noise when in reverse....it made no such noise while he drove it.....but i digress from the theme of blessings....this day was a blessing....good company, good bargains....good........music.....from the found of every blessing......

aftermath.....

ok, so....my brother just left for d.c........he will listen to the book on cd that i gave him to get through the 9 hour journey.......and for those of us who are here for the duration.......we have a refrigerator full of leftovers that must be consumed in the next few days.....much as i dislike leftovers....i am grateful to have something to fill in the gap between my frenzied bouts of cooking......i am a bit tired of cooking just now.....and of eating......maybe i'll do neither for a few days.......on this day i believe that we are doing the goodwill rounds......i am not quite certain, as i was awakened from a really cozy slumber at some point last evening by a child wielding a portable phone and saying something about 'between 9 and 10'........ah well......i may alter my usual route by going to h-burg, then l-burg then frankfort before turning toward the lex locations......last time i was in frankfort's goodwill there were lots of good clothing options.....at some point i need to tidy up this house....which is still strewn with the aftermath of opened packages.....but it will not be this day........

merry christmas.....

ok, so.....the lovingly selected and wrapped gifts are strewn through three rooms....the breakfast dishes are washed and the counters cleared......the crown roast is in the oven....and it is time for the mm to relax a bit......i got up at 6:30 to make the pineapple kuchen, which is ever so much better when made the day of rather than the day before....and i was on such a roll that i went ahead and made the 2-potato latkes, and the maple-smoked bacon and the scrambled eggs before most folks got up......i am so stuffed on breakfast treats that i may not be able to eat lunch til mid-afternoon.......maybe after we have watched little miss sunshine and elf and the davinci code.......the best gift of all was my string of amber beads......thoughtfully purchased in st petersburg......they are just precious....... hopefully my small cadre of gentle readers are off to a merry holiday as well......

cleansed.....

ok, so at the prodding of those who are embarrased by my blog i have cleansed slips of the key that have mentioned direct family reference......after a 2-week period even google should be unable to track this blog........

the past....

ok, so....this morning our minister went down the nostalgic path of christmas past, as i knew he would...for far too long given that he brings up the past far too often on any given sunday...i have nothing against the past....i have very pleasant childhood memories...but i consider my present to be my greatest joy...... and hope for my (our) future next in line...this explains why i was annoyed enough to turn in early when my mother started in a lengthy revisiting last evening of how she figured out that she is allergic to morphine......this is a statement of fact that should have taken up 1 minute our collective time......or less, considering that we all know this and none of the litany of surguries past is news to any of us, including michelle (a friend to andrew who we adore...)..she has heard it all before as well......let us not dwell in what cannot be changed, but move on to where we are now and where we are headed...i found myself so very annoyed that i almost spoke up with words that one can never truly take back.....and so i went to bed early....3 hours early.....and never really went to sleep-i blame the hot tea at shakertown that was not decaffeinated-and somewhere around 1:00 am i got sick and was up for another 2 hours in private misery.....i resolve as an aging person to refrain from dredging up anybody's past-my own, and that of my children and spouse......unless...of course...i am asked to expound on some subject of mutual memory.......

a sweet poem....

ok, so this from writer's almanac....

An Old Man Performs Alchemy on His Doorstep at Christmastime" by Anna George Meek, from Acts of Contortion. © The University of Wisconsin Press.

An Old Man Performs Alchemy on His Doorstep at Christmastime

Cream of Tartar, commonly used to lift meringue and
angel food cake, is actually made from crystallized fine wine.


After they stopped singing for him,
the carolers became transparent in the dark,
and he stepped into their emptiness to say
he lost his wife last week, please
sing again. Their voices filled with gold.
Last week, his fedora nodded hello to me
on the sidewalk, and the fragile breath
of kindness that passed between us
made something sweet of a morning
that had frightened me for no earthly reason.
Surely, you know this by another name:
the mysteries we intake, exhale, could be
sitting on our shelves, left on the bus seat
beside us. Don't wash your hands.
You fingered them at the supermarket,
gave them to the cashier; intoxicated tonight,
she'll sing in the streets. Think of the old man.
Who knew he kept the secret of levitation,
transference, and lightness filling a winter night?
— an effortless, crystalline powder
That could almost seem transfigured from loss.

christ-centered.....

ok, so......i am cynical enough as to be offended by the email from my least-favorite niece (i really like the rest of her clan...but i digress).....the message was to remind us the reason for the season.....which is hilarious given that christ was likely born in the spring....nearer to easter...and that the date for the celebration of the birth was chosen purely to appease the masses who celebrated saturnalia or the winter solstice...or both......it is an invented holiday at best....and so to belittle those who fail to give it due reverence is pititable.......

suspicious.....

ok, so......we were asked to watch over a neighbor's property over the holidays....and when my daughter and i went over this evening...the keys were not in the designated spot...and so we called the cell phone number provided to receive instructions on finding the spare set...which were not in the bin on the green tractor attached to a float.......and the neighbor immediately offered to come right home from where they are staying for the holidays...(somewhere in ky but not nearby) to check this out..... and i was so suspicious that i photographed both spots where keys were to have been....hmmmm......if i wanted to come back unexpectedly from where ever i was over the holidays i might have done the same thing....if my suspicions are true....i will be furious...i hate to be played......if i am wrong i will be humbled.....though i will have photos to back up my error.......

father of 11 receives truckload of gifts....

ok, so i had to go to great lengths to view this cnn video about an iraq vet in georgia who reeived an early christmas present for his 11 children via walmart.....firefox is a difficult system when it comes to plug-ins...i had to resort to ms explorer.....but enough of that tale of woe.....this story had all the elements of tear-jerk until i heard the part about the reason the guy is alone with 11 children......his wife left him.....gentle readers......somebody must take up for the woman who would leave 11 children, and attempt to see the other side of this tragic scenario.......why did she have 11 children in the first place.....did she feel pressured by this army-spouse, by her church, by her family......was she kept stealthily away from birth control methods by her faith or by her lack of insurance coverage for such products......and was nobody there to support her emotionally with those 11 rowdy souls i saw on the video......i can recall sobbing in the doorway of my home when my parents drove north and my spouse went on to work after my second child was born......i had mastitis, my newborn had jaundice and didn't nurse well....and my eldest was rambunctuous........and hormonally i was unprepared for any and all of the above......if i could have walked away i might of.....at that singlular moment in time........but we settled in the made the best of it...as most women will do....but not all women can rise to that occassion...for whatever reason......and this woman may deserve our collective amnesty.......considering the parenting role models out there these days....such as the pantyless britney spears out for night-after-night of cavorting while her 2 undertwo children stay at home (hopefully) with a nanny.........if a half-decent looking poolboy made advances on this mother of eleven....i could not blame her for being so gratefully flattered as to stray.......so let us not judge this woman too harshly until we know all of the particulars......after all.....we know up front that anybody who would birth 11 children must be insane .......

the cheney baby

ok, so this from salon.com...

Lord, deliver us from dunderheads like James Dobson! This week, Mr. Focus on the Family offered up an editorial on the topic of Mary Cheney's pregnancy and the problems of being raised in a lesbian home. The piece was teeming with moronic generalizations and scientific errors -- but what can one expect from a Bible thumper so bigoted he once compared same-sex marriage to slavery and suggested that same-sex marriage was worse?

Not surprisingly, Dobson disguised his virulent anti-gay politics as "concern" about "what kind of family environment is best for the health and development of children, and, by extension, the nation at large." He began with a doozey of a lie: proclaiming that the "majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father." As "evidence," he cited a book called "Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child," as well as that ground zero of scientific data, Psychology Today, which, in 1996, argued that the role fathers play in children's lives is indispensable. He even trotted out Carol Gilligan's archetypal ideas about nurturing mothers and authoritative fathers. Theories extolling tough papa love may carry some currency when talking about families in which the father abandons his children, but in discussions of gay families they're a red herring.

The facts are that (whether the social conservatives like them or not) there is no scientific evidence that children raised by lesbian or gay parents fare any worse than their hetero-raised counterparts. If anything, there may be some benefits to being raised by gay parents: In 2001, a meta-study (subscription required) by two University of Southern California sociologists concluded that children with lesbian or gay parents show more empathy for social diversity. A 1994 study conducted by Charlotte Patterson of the University of Virginia found that children of lesbians exhibited "a greater overall sense of well-being" than kids with straight parents. Indeed, in study after study, researchers have found that children with gay parents grow up with similar psychological and physical outcomes as children with straight parents.

So it's not really an issue of dueling research; it's more a case of studies on each side producing peer-reviewed research pointing to different conclusions. It's a consistent enough finding that mainstream children's advocacy groups -- from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the Child Welfare League of America -- have come out in support of same-sex parents. The American Psychological Association came to similar conclusions after reviewing research over the last 40 years: "Not a single study has found children to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents," the association said.

Even Dobson's closing caveat that "we should not enter into yet another untested and far-reaching social experiment" bears the markings of his factually challenged thinking. Like it or not, this isn't an experiment -- in 1990, an estimated 6 to 14 million children had a gay or lesbian parent, and, nearly 17 years later, it seems likely that those numbers have grown.

But here's the burning question: Why would Time magazine publish Dobson's drivel without any attempt at fact checking? Sure, opinion pieces get more latitude in the truth department, but really, shouldn't there be a limit on fictional hallucinations in one of the country's most influential newsmagazines? If Time editors received an opinion piece that claimed science proved the moon was made of green cheese, would they consider that view just another part of the editorial mix? Rather than use good judgment, Time waited two days, then published another editorial by "an advocate for gay families." Jennifer Chrisler dissects Dobson's distortion of the facts as best she can given the short-format forum, but it's still shocking that Time decided that this was the best it could manage. Not surprisingly, the editorial has gotten LGBT advocates seriously pissed: Soulforce has launched a petition campaign to get Time to check Dobson's facts. Let's hope it does. In the meantime, we can take yuletide comfort that at least some voices are recognizing that Cheney's immaculate conception is more blessing than bane.

crazies from va.......

ok, so this is a letter from the crazy rep from va that is so upset that the legally elected fellow from minnesota will be sworn into office on a muslim holy book....seems his own constituents are non-christian, and asking why he has no interest in representing their interests........seems he didn't quite get the part of freedom of religion that gives other people the right to believe differently than you.......

Congress of the United States
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515-4605

December 7, 2006

Mr. John Cruickshank
7—— S—————————— ; Dr.
Earlysville, VA 22936

Dear Mr. Cruickshank:

Thank you for your recent communication. When I raise my hand to take the oath on Swearing In Day, I will have the Bible in my other hand. I do not subscribe to using the Koran in any way.

The Muslim Representative from Minnesota was elected by the voters of that district and if American citizens don’t wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran. We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country. I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

The Ten Commandments and “In God We Trust” are on the wall in my office. A Muslim student came by the office and asked why I did not have anything on my wall about the Koran. My response was clear, “As long as I have the honor of representing the citizens of the 5th District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, The Koran is not going to be on the wall of my office.” Thank you again for your email and thoughts.

Sincerely yours,
Virgil H. Goode, Jr.
70 East Court Street
Suite 215
Rocky Mount, Virginia 24151

it is worth noting that the rep from minnesota is a u.s.-born citizen, not an immigrant...so tightening immigration will not help this crazy goode guy one bit.......

eight days of fried delights....

ok, so i enjoyed the npr piece about the treats made during the eight days of the jewish holiday of lights that i cannot spell.....either with an h or a c ....i was intrigued about the latke part......mostly because these marvelous concoctions are considered holiday fare by some....and saturday at the c-dubs by others.......my current version includes white and sweet potatoes along with scallions......despite the e coli risk.......with sour cream.....and an omelet if i am in an especially maternal mood.......if the potatoes are especially large...there may be enough latkes to chill and bring out later on as a little afternoon repast.....mostly they are gone by the time i decide it is time to shower and dress....i am planning on my latkes for monday morning after the presents....along with pineapple kuchen (my grandmother clara stephan broughton's recipe)...and bacon and eggs......life will be very good with a menu like that...............

frenzy......

ok, so.....i got home from work just after 1:00 pm...and i dove right into a frenzied cooking spree......more walnut cookies (had already made up the dough and wanted to get the bowl out of the fridge...).....i made stuffed portabellos for those who don't eat crown roast of pork (for monday)...and raosted a red pepper to stuff with spinach and goat cheese for those who don't eat smoked turkey (for sunday)....and then i made the stuffing for the pork roast, our traditional artichoke heart spinach casserole (in the traditional brown clay bunny casserole) and then i rubbed the catfish with cajun spices for tonight and made a scalloped sweet potato/white potato casserole for sunday, and made the trc cole slaw to go with the catfish.....and then i sat down....with my new paris access guidebook......i decided that mr steves ahd little else to tell me about my favorite city....but the access people cleverly arrange their chapters by neighborhoods....and i want to know what kind of dinner fare is nearby so that i have options....i have my favorite lunch spots are on the itinerary: musee d'orsay dining room, musee jacquemart-andre's dining room (frescoed-just precious) cafe marly, the cute place off giverny's parking lot...lunch is covered...but with supper i like to eat near the hotel so that i am not too far afield after dark......not that i have had problems...i have not...i operate in such a way as to avoid problems......i have almost convinced myself that the train out to versailles is obligatory....especially since my daughter saw the sofia coppola film......and i think she just might like giverny......abloom with tulips on it's first open week of the season.....we shall see......but all that is ahead of me...and i have still to buy stocking stuffers.....and actually wrap gifts.......

a hundred bucks.....

ok, so the mm won a cool hundred today.....in my thursday county their were 5 of us who had a money-on-the-table weight loss competition for the past 10 weeks.......$2 a week.......and i won....mostly because my 5.5 pound weight loss beat out the woman who lost only .5 pounds and certainly the three that gained weight.....there were sneers, of course...from those who claimed that donating my hair was part of the loss....and those who asserted that it is my job to be able to know how to lose weight.......and thus i have decided to donate this ill-gotten cash to god's pantry...seems like an appropriate cause......

a moveable feast.....

ok, so......my workplace held its annual snack day today...which essentially means that everybody brought something outrageous to eat....and we snacked upon it all day or until we deemed it too questionable to eat at all.......in our defense...most items were place on ice, or in electric heating devices......but even i will not eat shrimp that has been out all day.......curiously, i got an email first thing reminding me of the lincoln county lunch at ocharleys......gentle readers....i have known of their christmas lunch for many weeks...and the administrator had numerous opportunities to invite before the last minute..but i smiled and showed up as asked....and enjoyed thoroughly my 7 ounce steak and crisp fries.......and then went back to mercer county for afternoon clients, and more snacks.....i will admit to having at least 6 ruffles potato chips adorned with a marvelously tasty cheeseball that was heavy on the green onions......why bother with ritz crackers when one can have chips?.......most of my walnut petites were gobbled up...and many asked for the recipe...which i will retrieve from my purse to post as promised.......after all of this was a staff meeting...that was kafka-esque in reverse.......suffice it to say that the majority of my workmates have no clue as to where the money comes from, that funding is tenuous at best...and that positions that were once filled might not ever be filled again if there is no funding at this moment for that sort of expertise......at one point the state and federal folks were throwing money at disaster planning.....but so many folks squandered their funds on frivolities that the money has dried up...yet my workmates debated the need for a full-time disaster planner for a full 40 minutes....like we could cough up the cash for that person .......i did try to make the point that we already had a disaster plan.....and that we should be able to manage to train the county as best we could as to how we shouldwouldcould proceed in the event of a disaster...but these folks are convinced that if a body once sat in an office, than another body should replace that body.......ah well......now that i am home the feast continues, not with chips or dip or cheeseball......as we have none of the above.....no...this feast is for the mind.....an accessparis 2007 guidebook i ordered arrived today......and though this will be my 11th trip to paris, there is nothing like new restaurant and museum infomation......which i will transferinto my brandnew moleskine journal....still wrapped and fresh in my billbin on the kitchen counter.....must get through christmas before i can turn my mind to this trip......thankfully there is a trip to look forward to in the dim days of winter......for raising ones spirits...paris is always a good idea.............

from my email inbox....

ok, so i usually hit delete with forwarded emails...but this one had the main message near enough tot he top for me to see its cleverness......

Christmas Carols for Psychologically Challenged People

1) Schizophrenia---- Do You Hear What I Hear, the Voices, the Voices?

2) Amnesia-- I Don't Remember If I'll be Home for Christmas

3) Narcissistic-- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

4) Manic-- Deck The Halls And Walls And House And Lawn And Streets And Stores And Office And Town And Cars And Buses And Trucks And Trees And Fire Hydrants And...........

5) Multiple Personality Disorder----We Three
Kings Disoriented Are

6) Paranoid---Santa Claus Is Coming To Get Us

7) Borderline Personality Disorder--- You Better Watch Out, You Better not Shout, I'm Gonna Cry, and I'll not Tell You Why

8) Full Personality Disorder--- Thoughts of Roasting You On an Open Fire

9) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder---Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

10) Agoraphobia---I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day But Wouldn't Leave My House

95%

ok, so i was highly amused to read this from the nytimes......More than nine out of 10 Americans, men and women alike, have had premarital sex, according to a new study. The high rates extend even to women born in the 1940s, challenging perceptions that people were more chaste in the past.

"This is reality-check research," said the study's author, Lawrence Finer. "Premarital sex is normal behavior for the vast majority of Americans, and has been for decades."

Finer is a research director at the Guttmacher Institute, a private New York-based think tank that studies sexual and reproductive issues and which disagrees with government-funded programs that rely primarily on abstinence-only teachings. The study, released Tuesday, appears in the new issue of Public Health Reports.

The study, examining how sexual behavior before marriage has changed over time, was based on interviews conducted with more than 38,000 people -- about 33,000 of them women -- in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002 for the federal National Survey of Family Growth. According to Finer's analysis, 99 percent of the respondents had had sex by age 44, and 95 percent had done so before marriage.

mm note:......dubya's persistent funding of abstinence hasn't worked, one might surmise.....and isn't ever gonna work........the best we can do is to encourage younger girls to wait til they have the sense to use protection and to choose tender, abuse-free partners.......

cat and cookies

ok, so.......blogger has switched over to a new and improved version....forgive me if i know not what i would be/should be doing with such unbridled power.......as for my evening, i baked a new cookie recipe....walnut petites....from an old gourmet magazine..when i get around ti it i'll post the recipe......haven't had one yet because i'd rather use my spare calories for fine cheeses......but i digress....at some point we noticed that the cat was sitting with one eye closed....at random moments she would rub her paw over it....and then sit quietly with it closed again.....we tried to look in her eye......cat-holding for such an endeavor is dangerous business....saw nothing.....then opted to hold and repeat for a drop of visine.....figured if human eyes are soothed with the stuff then maybe it will help her......of course...if the cat loses sight in that eye we shall know who to blame.......

barbara pym

ok, so took a tip from my middle child's roommate that i have yet to meet.....and i have ordered three random volumes of this author.....descirbed by her amazon.com fans as the most underrated auther of the last century......sounds like someone i must read through and through......

oh tannebaum auf deutsch.....

ok, so we received a christmas card today from our german cousin edwin stephan.....but we cannot read it because it is in german and our eldest offspring who can read german has gone to lexington for a few days...he has yet to give me the translation of our christmas letter so that i can send that to edwin......no idea why he and his wife anna are not speaking to their neighbors/kin......

meth grandbabies and postlunch children in pj's

ok, so........today was the underbelly of my usual clientele.......not what i needed on this monday morning...but one deals with the hand as dealt......first up was a grandma who has custody of her newborn grandbaby who tested positive for meth.....omg.....and this was not the first grandbaby she has opted to raise as her own......in her words.....she thought was was going to retire, but she will spend her retirement raising her children's children....i did my best to be of comfort to this sad and burdened woman who is likely younger than me.....how very tragic.....the mamma has not been to see the baby since leaving the hospital......and then there was the mamma. grandma and toddler...all reeking of ciggies...who came by afer lunch...with the toddler in an obviously loaded diaper and still in her jammies....no shoes....because shoes won't fit over a zip=up fleece onepiece......and neither the mamma nor the grandma seemed the least embarassed that they had bothered to change nor dress this child......i read them the riot act...over the cigarettes in the car and the house...one must pick the battles.....and the mamma noted that she expected me to say something......i took the time to ask what it would take for her to quit...given the cost, the health risks, the offensive odor...and she could not come up with an answer for diverting $2000 a year away from her child's upkeep..........

wishlist....

ok, so i want this album for christmas......i want to hear ron sexsmith sing beautiful dreamer...and john prine sing my old ky home......

the television.....

ok, so our 15 year-old television set had died....but not before a curious swan song of swirling colrs that resembled a the northern lights.....we moved it out of the cabinet, and are temporarily using the set that andrew brought home from school (so he could write without temptation)....buying a new set will require a bit of consumer report investigation......in a field limited to sets that will fit in the cabinet...which takes us out of the big television market.....would be overkill in are small back room anyway to have a mega-theatre setup......

congrats to brown u......

ok, so this from the nytimes......Senator Lincoln Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, has accepted a job at Brown University after losing his seat to Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat, last month. Mr. Chafee, left, will start in January as a distinguished visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies. He will lead an undergraduate study group on American foreign policy and will work on writing projects. One of the Senate’s most liberal Republicans, Mr. Chafee was chosen to fill the Senate seat in 1999 after the death of his father, Senator John Chafee. He won election to it the following year. Before that, he was mayor of Warwick and a City Council member. Mr. Chafee earned a classics degree from Brown in 1975.....i saw mr chafee on the daily show after the election......and he seemed like a fine fellow......nice that he is landing on his feet, so to speak.......

color coded.....

ok, so my middle child and i drove down to campbellsville to a 3rd generation-owned men's shop whereupon he bought a lovely grey wool suit.....and then on to the goodwills in both campbellsville and lebanon....both were new to us....a few good finds.....a really nice black purse/tote.....and the don delillo book underworld....and a sweet mossy green linen spring skirt and a matching leather belt.....the lebanon goodwill had a large portion of its women's clothing color coded......with entire sections of white and beige separates grouped together (pants/skirts/sweaters/shirts....the same for greens, and blues and pinks....you get the picture......it was quite clever and very useful for those of us searching for just the right white blouse....it wasn't there, but at least i could be certain it was not there and did not have to search through the racks one shirt at a time.......later on in the evening we played team scrabble.....my spouse got a possibly illegal (under rules we do not use....) word worth 121 points because it spanned 2 triple-word score spots.....wow......

mushroom ragout

ok, so last evening i made a luscious mushroom sauce.....more than a sauce because it was so substantial........the idea came from martha stewart's unsolicited emails to my inbox......

1 package button mushrooms
1 package portabello muchrooms
1/2 cup imported dried cepes, soaked in 1 cup red wine til softened
1 sweet onion, trimmed and sliced thinly
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tbsp minced garlic
1 tsp italian blend seasoning
1 package frozen artichoke quarters (kroger's private collection)
1 can tomato paste
1 cup bottled marinara sauce
salt to taste
8 ounces pasta (we used this flat semi-lasagna kind from the aldi)
shredded romano

wash and trim the mushrooms; saute with onion and garlic in large kettle with olive oil til soft. add softened cepes, along with red wine, italian seasoning, artichoke quarters, tomato paste, and marinara. simmer until your children get home from the airport, add salt to taste. serve over pasta cooked in salted water with a touch of olive oil

mm's note- in a perfect world i'd have added capers, but given that some in my family do not share my adoration of the lily bud..i left them out.....this time.....

home.....

ok, so my children come home this evening.....i am so happy that there are dance moves to the joy....or at least variations on the meanmammameandaddy dance.........

10:32 pm

ok, so.....the student who swore to me that she would email her project is getting close to her deadline.....i have already resolved to give her zero credit, and to give 50% credit to the student who was honest enough to tell me he has so much going on with his divorce that he never started the project......i feel much more sorry for him than for her...who lied to my face.............

ok, so this, and many other altarpieces are on display att he national gallery of art this christmas season....hopefully they will depict realistically depicted breast-tissue.....not like this icon, which features a singular breast placed much like a goiter......... 

plans.....

ok, so.....our friends who wear suits daily tell us that we need to go to a family-owned business in Campbellsville to buy a suit...which means that our trip to Lexington on Saturday can be postponed to such time as the majority of our far-flung college students can gather here for Indian Vegetarian Carryout from Kashmir.....ya gotta let me know when you can come so we can manage the Lex upandback.......and y'all know who(whom?) I am referring to.......

light at the end of the tunnel.....

ok, so it is a sad day when i am thrilled to read on-line that there are 2 moderate senate republicans considering a switch in light of the medical emergency of the sentaor from south dakota......and it is equally tragic to realize that the governor of south dakota is unlikely to honor a fallen statesman by appointing the spouse...given that the governor is a republican and the fallen is a dem.....too sad for words.....

hea 281 final exam

ok, so 50% of my students answered the following question incorrectly: A recommendation for improving communication in relationships is to frequently offer unsolicited advice to your partner...... This would explain the nearly 50% divorce rate in America.......

domestic violence....

ok, so earlier this week i had a client who had all the signs of being a victim of domestic violence........black eye, missing tooth....her newborn was 6 weeks early....and had just been released from the hospital on a special formula (which triggered our visit)...seems she needed an emergency c-section...and the date of the c-section was curiously close to the date she told me she got the black eye and lost her tooth.....only she blamed her 19 month old toddler....claiming he hit her with a cordless phone.......yeah, right......when she left the clerk asked me how the eye happened.....and i was surprised by her reply to the cordless phone story....seems the woman andher spouse have a history of fights.....sometimes she loses, but sometimes she wins.....'wonder what her husband looks like.....knowing her he probably got the worst end of that fight....'...omg......what sort of people physically fight when there is a baby's life at risk......are they crazy, drugged-up, or just plain mean........sadly, the infant may have brain complications due to being born early (and to everybody in the home smoking like there is no tomorrow).....and will have a brain scan soon......too tragic for words.......

foodstuffs.....

ok, so on my way home from work it dawned on me that we will be doubling the appetite quotient here at the house over the next few weeks....and so i stocked up on a supply of vegetarian-friendly items, cheeses, pitas....you get the picture.....cannot wait til friday

countdown....

ok, so my far-flung children come home friday evening.....and i am in countdown mode.....making lists, stopping at the grocery, sketching out potential activities.......you get the picture.......so many things that one can do in preparation for the holidays......can do....not necessarily must do.......there's the rub......i will be making the apricot bars (per request) but i could also make cut-out cookies with green icing (holly leaves)......so many options.....so little time.......

ennui

ok, so....on my way home the evening business report guy used ennui in a sentence about the sluggishness of the stockmarket today......and i thought i knew whaty it meant, but was determined to keep that word in my head long enough to go home and look it up to be sure.......Listlessness and dissatisfaction resulting from lack of interest; boredom an underused word,eh?......though the sentiment it describes takes up more of my workday than i would prefer.......

thomas hardy

ok, so.....my side bar does not mention thomas hardy as an influence, good or bad......and that is...ok...but after watching the Masterpiece Theatre production of Under the Greenwood Tree i must change this position...Thomas Hardy has been an influence of my reading these 30+ years.......i dutifully read The Return of the Native as a senior in high school.....and to this day the spector of Eustacia Vye comes to me as the iconoclastic vision of beauty and danger combined.......and then there was Tess, of the D'Ubervilles.....and Bathsheba Everdene of Far from the Madding Crowd ......i also read the Mayor of Casterbridge...but I recall little from that volume......

mix cd.....

ok, so saturday i made a mix of christmas songs...drawing heavily from sufjan and the highest bough......and presented it to our friends who drove us all to the historic inn......and it would seem that mixed cd's are not something they are accustomed to receiving.....go figure......i learned from my children that a drive as short as danville-lexington calls for a mix cd......over my 10-day holiday vacation i do intend to revamp my pda songlist...and clear from my harddrive the insipid downloads......and maybe make a few mixes for commuter purposes...........

happy birthday

ok, so my middle child turns twenty today....far away from home.....we will not cut his cake or sing his birthday in until Friday.......he maybe one score, but he will always be my baby boy....

sufjan stevens.....

ok, so the nytimes lists sufjan's chirstmas collection as one of the best of the year...it includes prose pieces as well as musical tributes beyond what i downloaded last christmas....those who are in a position for giftgiving might note that this would be a thoughtful present......

ok, so....my spouse and i spent last evening, with a party of friends at the pictured doe run inn in brandenburg, ky...just down from otter creek park......we dined in a comfy enclosed porch just above the rapids.......and i must say that i made the better choice.....of staying behind to eat breakfast and read the louisville paper rather than venturing out at the crack of dawn for the 8-mile or 16-mile trail runs.....the building was built in 1821...and the rooms had ceilings that looked very much like my front room.....only not recently painted......quaint.....we arrived back home after an unnerving car-ride.....the friends we rode up with had to make it back to danville for an event at dhs...and we had no time to spare for speed limits and safe passing of slower vehicles......omg......rather....there must be a god if i am home safe and sound....... 

wait,wait don't tell me....my source of news

ok, so in addition to the laura bush 4-way fashion stand-off that i first heard about on wait,wait don't tell me this morning on npr....there was this story about beach combers in north carolina that found doritos on the shore....and this piece about colorado springs, colorado...whereupon a secret military plane caused all remotre control garage doors in the area to open up....after complains the secret device was disabled, at which point none of the remote control garage doors in the area actually worked anymore...causing people to have to open and close them by hand......just too funny....

ok, so at the kennedy honors event a few nights ago these three women each showed up wearing the same $8500 oscar de la renta dress as laura bush.....i somehow missed this....and was amused to hear about it on wait,wait don't tell me as i was running errands...their take on the episode was as follows.....dubya asked her to stay the course with regards to the dress, but laura sent some secret service fellas home to fetch another outfit from her closet........seems she is the one who still has some sense in that family...... 

ok, so this picture, of dubya getting advicefrom his dog barney...alone in the oval office kinda explains why we are losing the war in iraq..... 

mm's mostly-off-from-work friday....

ok, so....i only had to work til 9:30 am yesterday.....given my monday night work in my third county that only happens once a month....and so i headed to lexington.....making the goodwill rounds, prior to meeting my eldest for lunch/shopping.....we ate at ramsey's, the one in his neighborhood north of campus.....a neighborhood sort of place, very homey.....and then we ventured down nicholasville road toward the malls....omg.....i do this so infrequently....head to malls....that i was unprepared for the mayhem....the office depot....the one by the best buy....is only accessible by a most inconvenient sideroad....and once in this captive parking lot....one might as well plan on staying a spell....we returned the office chair i bought for andrew 2 weeks ago....and upgraded to a chair that adjusts in numerous ways....the manager was somewhat distressed that it came back in one piece rather than in the box.....saying something about it not being professionally assembled and they couldn't resell it unless they took it apart and reassembled it....but she relented and agreed to take it back if we bought another chair.....the process of test-sitting chairs took some time......but did give us some peace from the throngs of shoppers, as office depot was clearly not the destination of choice in a strip mall that also boasts bedbath&beyond, bestbuy, and toysrus......it took us as long to get out of that parking lot as we had spent doing the return......and then we headed upstream into the belly of the beast-fayette mall- just to dillards, and only because that was where i bought jeans for andrew the last time we had such an outing.....4 years ago.....and this also took some time.....to select the perfect pair of jeans is exacting.....for some.....i was wearing flannel-lined jeans that i bought at the l-burg goodwill before my group on monday evening.....i grabbed them from the rack, exclaimed 'these are in my size'.....and put them in the cart......i don't even try things on in goodwills anymore....it is worth the $2.50 per item to take them home without disrobing in their dressing rooms.....if i choose not to keep something i bring it back before the deadline(with receipt) or donate it for the tax deduction of $2.50 per item.....works for me....and takes up far less time.....but i digress from the jeans......he tried on 12 pairs and bought 1 pair.....as we pulled out of the dillard's lot, we opted to make out way through the backlots, believing that there is now a connector to man-o-war through the brand-new mall extension (old navy, etc)....this proved a reasonable alternative to the gridlock that is northbound nic-road traffic.....we made pretty good time going north on clay's mill and then harrodsburg road......taking him back to his place before i turned south again.....i did make a stop at l.barn.....which is something i had never doen on friday evening.....they were doing wine tastings....this time with bordeaux reds in many price categories....most were free, with the margaux tasting costing $1.....heck, i spend a buck to taste a margaux.....after the cheaper vintages, the margaux was supurb....and i'll keep that in mind if-and-when i am moved to spend $35 on a single bottle of red......i was gone from home 12 hours, counting my brief stint at my paying job....and i was ever so glad to reach home....to dine on the beef that i had thoughtfully put in the crockpot before i left home.....1 pound of beef tips, a can of mushroom soup, 2 cans (drained) of mushrooms....serve with some buttered noodles.....mighty tasty dinner entree for the tired and hungry shopper.....

educator's remorse......

ok, so.....my last lecture was this evening.....and i have spent the last little bit of time remembering things i had meant to bring up......the final class was on chapters 19(aging) and 20(death and dying).....and i regret not mentioning that women who keep a separate bank account have less difficulty when a spouse passes on, because there is working capital to tide one over while the deceased's funds are frozen......as they will be while the will is probated......and i neglected to mention that a positive attitude about aging goes a long way toward...living longer......my grandpa broughton's answer to every inquiry about the state of his health and well-being was '...pretty good...'....even when he was blind......that is optimism and positive thinking.....ah well....i have 18 projects to grade and a final to give before i am done with this class.........

turn that light this way......

ok, so i have been listening to last year's mixes....and may i say that those who mix with a passion do so brilliantly..........is there a major for mixing?......

mamma's day off......

ok, so....i freely admit that if i were more organized, i would have made better use of my freebie day off.....i returned home after my departmental christmas breakfast and a stop at the h-burg kroger's with the ingredients to make 1)chocolate truffles 2) brazil nut sticks 3) lemon shortbread crescents 4) apricot bars 5)orange poppyseed cookies......and when i reached for the recipes....they were not in the (new-ish) recipe box......and not in the old one......i did track them down to a basket on my desk upstairs....no clue how they ended up in that particular spot.....all but one recipe, i should add....the recipe for the apricot bars is from the back of an old gourmet magazine....the entire last page was apricots and there was a photo of these bars......i have searched high and lo for this single scrap of paper...because my eldest specifically requested them when i mentioned my cookie-baking goal for my day off....oy!....i tried epicurious.com...which catalogs newish gourmet recipes....but this preceeds such newfangled recipe banks......granted, the doughs for the rest of the recipes are chilling as i type......and chilling is essential for most cookie dough.....it is just the notion that i reached for it where it always was, and i probably didn't put it back when i last used it.......only my feeble self to blame.....

troubling dreams.....

ok, so in my dreams i was supposed to be putting together some sort of takeout order......out of my parents basement in ohio......and i was having trouble arranging cole slaw in a plastic container.....and i could not find the cookies to put on a tray....and when ever i thought i was done i was starting over.....and this conundrum seemed to go on and on.....kind of like the greek myth guy trying to push the rock up the hill.....and since catering is something that i gave up for lent long ago, i have no clue as to why it still torments my dreamlife.......

yet another reason why breast is best.....

ok, so....not every news outlet included this angle on the family in oregon that got lost in the snow thanksgiving weekend....the papa is still missing...but the mamma and the little ones were rescued.....

Dec. 5, 2006 — Trapped miles from civilization in a snowbound car in subfreezing temperatures, Kati Kim had to ensure that her children survived until search parties rescued them.

Nine days later, the helicopters came.

Remarkably, Kim's daughters, 4-year-old Penelope and 7-month-old Sabine, were reported to be in good condition after the ordeal.

The key to this fortunate ending may have been the fact that Kim breast-fed both of them to keep them alive amid the harsh conditions once no other food was available.

Experts say the episode suggests how mother's milk, in a disastrous pinch, can make the difference in whether a child survives.

"The fact that Kati Kim was able to breast-feed both of her children for the amount of time that they were stranded most likely was lifesaving for them," says Dr. Sheela Geraghty, assistant professor of pediatrics and medical director at the Center for Breastfeeding Medicine at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati.

"Breast milk not only provides the calories needed to sustain life, it also helps prevents dehydration," Geraghty says.

"I'm really, really grateful that the mother had breast milk available for the baby, as well as for her other child," says Judy Hopkinson, assistant professor at the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

gratuitous day off.....

ok, so....i have the day off tomorrow, save the the breakfast at wyonette's in h-burg that is not smoke-free......our christmas outing early enough so we can go shopping or whatever.....the day was planned without consideration that we don't get paid until friday...putting those of us who use a debit rather than a credit card at the disadvantage......and so i will likely stop at the h-burg goodwill on my way home from breakfast.....and make christmas cookies....and/or sort through the books my daughter sorted off of her shelves...and maybe make a donation run to the danville goodwill....and i might just go through her closet to weed out things she has never worn.....this could be a good thing.....although we no longer have the van to haul away such a volume as could be taken away from her room alone.....ah well.......i'll deal with that issue if and when it comes up........

baby, it's cold outside.....

ok, so when the mm opts to wear a coat on her daily walk to the mailbox to retrieve the newspaper, then it is officially cold.....cold enough that the cat balked at the chance to walk with me......cold enough that there was an audible crunch when i stepped off the walk onto the grass by mistake....ironically, the chill kept me awake as i drove home last night from lawrenceburg's diabetes support group......hard to doze off when it takes a while for car to warm up......christmas preparations are coming together...not much left to do, given that none of us had any real needs...or wants.....so with just a few items per person to go under the tree......i may have time to bake a few batches of traditional cookies........its never too cold for cookies....

russia in chaos.....

ok, so the neat stacks of photos from the middle child's summer in st petersburg were swept into a pile today when my spouse was sweeping under the treadmill and the entirety of the machine came down upon the bookshelves behind...at one point there were russian photos between the machine and the belt.....omg.....and so...when the middle child comes home he will be faced with the chore of putting these pictures back into some semblance of order....i had purchased an album with every intention of organizing them...but at this point only he who traveled can do this job.....

the bathroom.....

ok, so i spent the entire afternoon/early evening in the upstairs bathroom......wallpapering.....omg.....the chore is tedious as to defy description, expecially for someone like me who lacks the urge to be precise.....my house was empty for the most of the ordeal, which is problematic when a long strip of damp paper is coming down on one end whilst one is trying to afix the other end......another set of hands would have helped a bit.....but as it is......the end product is good enough to last until it falls off on its own, or i come to loathe the pattern......whichever comes first.....the best part of the process was listening to the npr sunday afternooon lineup.....prairie home companion, this american life, le show, girls night out......i rarely listen to radio when i am not driving, so in the regard this was a treat......for the record...the paper is green mini-check so as to match the towels, with a border of primroses in chinese export porcelain pots on a burgundy backround...so as to match all of the towels that aren't green........it will do.......

48 hours and counting.....

ok, so....i am 48 hours since the haircut and i am yet to be met with more than 'you got your haircut'......rather...i am yet to be met with....'and it looks good/great/acceptable/tolerable'.......and i am becoming slowly accustomed to the notion that there isn't enough hair to style...i can dry it without looking in the mirror for all the good it does to swirl with a big brush......curiously, i find myself doing the same nonverbal mantra i repeated in my brain when my hair was long...i can do this.....i can do this.......

football......

ok, so after i put up the christmas lights and the outdoor greenery displays.....i watched ucla beat usc, denying them a chance at osu for the national championship......and while my spouse was surprised that i support the notion of an osu/michigan rematch...it just might happen if florida cannot make it past the championship computers......ah well...it was a great game to watch, having no real dog in that fight......

ky treasures.......

ok, so i have sat up til this late hour watching a ket fundraiser special showing of thomas clark's 11 ky treasures.....why 11?.....nobody knows because clark died at 102 before publishing this list himself......one of his treasures included the speed museum in louisville...and in the ky room there is a portrait of Sally Ward ..here is a bit from a Clark book....

From the chapter “Born to Be a Princess,” a portrait of Sally Ward (Lawrence Hunt Armstrong Downs 1827-1896), a Southern Belle who easily outdoes Scarlet O’Hara:

It did not take the young widow Lawrence long to get back into the social whirl. She made her first public appearance at the famous ball given in honor of Madame Octavia Walton Le Vert, daughter of the governor of Florida. No one could tell from her frolicsome manner that she had undergone “that horrible experience at Boston.” It seemed that divorce had only increased her attractiveness. She now drew men to her because they, perhaps, found her as a divorcee more exciting than before. Outwardly she was the same lively girl who had dashed through the Louisville market house on her pony, or the one who had presented the colors to the Louiville Legion.

Her indulgent parents gave a grand coming-out party in her honor. Again Sally was the center of attraction. At ten o’clock the Ward house was fully lighted, and Cunningham’s band struck up the grand march. The gay dance kept up until one o’clock, and then dinner was served. After the dinner the band played again, and the ball continued in a lively vein.

Never before in all her experience of dazzling hilarious Kentucky parties had Sally reached the grand heights which she attained that night. When the evening began she appeared as Nourmahal from “The Light of the Harem.” She wore “a pink satin shirt, covered with silver lama, the bodice embroidered with silver and studded with diamonds; the oriental white sleeves adorned with silver and gold; the satin trousers spangled with gold. Her hair was braided with pearls and covered with a Greek cap; her pink slippers were embroidered with silver,” and splendid jewels formed extravagant decoration for the whole costume.

When the ball began once again after supper, Sally appeared in a second dress, this time as Nourmahal “at the Feast of the Roses.” The dress was “white illusion dotted with silver, with a veil of silvery sheen and wreath of white roses, and white silk boots with silver ankles. She bore the charmed lute.”

mm notes- the curator of the speed museum told a story about sally ward's short first marriage.....at a ball in boston her mother-in-law was furious at the low-cut dress she wore to a ball, and said to her....'sally, take that dress off this instant.....'.....and she did....right then and there.....which was something of a scandal in the antebellum era.......the curator noted that she was the sole reason that woman today dress up to attend the derby in louisville...she made it the thing to do......she should have been a ky treasure in her own right...not somebody mentioned in passing because her portrait hangs in a museum.....we need more sassy women like her..........

oh, christmas tree.....

ok, so...i dorve the truck into town so that i could buy a christmas tree before the available options were picked over.....and ended up buying the last spruce tree on the lot from the boyscouts who set up each year across from the arts center......better them than the box stores out on the bypass.....not that we will put it up anytime soon...we always wait until the birthday candles for the middle child have cooled......it is a tradition that i am loathe to break at this point......however, i am working diligently on the greenery arrangement above the front door.....made mostly of branches pilfered as i walked back from putting the truck back into my mother's garage.....accented with boxwood, cyprus, and taxus and whatever else i can rustle from my own yard.....i cannot seem to find the red bow from last year's presentation....may have to make a new bow from gold ribbon i found while searching for wire and nails.....this creation is almost bolted to the house to keep it stable......maybe a few pinecones here and there.....the day is just cold enough as to make the work tediously slow.....manipulating wire and wood with gloved hands is clumsy at best.......this flurry of decorating activity is but a stall tactic....i also bought wallpaper for the upstairs bathroom...and that project cannot begin until i treat the walls with bleach, and repaint the ceiling and woodwork......and even this project procrastinates from the grading of my health class projects.......frankly, i'd prefer to take a nice nap on the upstairs loveseat, where the sun is streaming in...dreaming that these chores were done....

out of body.....

ok, so i got my hair cut over lunch today.....and the bulk of it is in a ziplock in my purse, awaiting tranport to the locks-of-love folks.....and the stylist did the best she could with what was left..the experience in the random salon i chose was surreal...the radio blared the mercer consolidated titans state final game live from papa john's stadium in louisville....the crowd could taste their first state win.....the salon had been empty because anybody who could make the trip to louisville to see the game had done so...in a convoy behind the team and student buses....cheers for the home team while i sat alone trying to keep my reserve as i completed a year-long endeavor....growing hair for charity is not much of a spectator sport......but i digress from my haircut.....which is quite short as to resemble my aunt virginia....and so far nobody who has seen this version of the mm has said more than...'you got your hair cut'......my own spouse never went so far as to say something vaguely supportive like....and it looks great.....ah well.....it will grow out and i will be able to look in mirrors again......the experience was curiously emotional....as the stylist asked if i had gone through the process for a reason, or had i grown out my hair over the past year on a whim.....and i got teary over her question, and could barely explain that it was in memory of friends/kin who died in the past year of cancer....it was at that point that i recalled missing my daily alotment of estrogen......some things are better explained pharmaceutically.....the hair is gone, i look like someone else, and i will deal with it until i become myself again.........

weather warnings.....

ok, so we had been promised a day of outrageous weather....and i was not surprised when the wind the and rain woke me up.....the howling wind and the torrential rain...omg.....i came close to heading to the basement in case the howling meant worse than wind......at this point the tornado warnings are until 10 and the thunderstorm warnings are until 4....and the temperature is to drop from 58 down to the upper thirties.....ouch!...not a great day for the titans and the ads in their state title games......