as seen from I-75 south

ok, so...on my tearful drive back from dropping the middle child off at the airport......i did have a few amusing moments.....the suv with the tag.....crzymom....just love it......also a really big vehicle with the tag.....tuff...which also struck me as funny......i suppose it is the little things that make up for the big things.......

running out of time.....

ok, so our brief visit with the middle child is drawing quickly to a close....we have not come to grips with the reality of this departure...that we will not see this child for 5 months.....must keep in mind that this is an adult we are talking about and no longer a child that needs looked after and worried over.....a capable, thoughtful adult......who will surely keep us up to date on his life so far away.....it is the mundane details that mean most to loving parents, by the way......

the brit's take on public toilets....

ok, so this youtube clip is a spoof on public toilets frequented by public servants.....

also amusing from wonkette

ok, so this is just too funny, from wonkette....British portrait artist Jonathan Yeo is totally our new crush. His latest piece is a portrait of George W. Bush made completely out of graphic images from porno mags. Yeo, 36, was inspired to do the project in retaliation after the Bush Library commissioned him to do a painting, and then later backed out. Naturally, members of the GOP are outraged about this, even though, as Yeo says, "I did it to amuse." Mission accomplished!

as if the white house staffers don't have better things to do....

ok, so this from wonkette

When Karl Rove left his car in the White house parking lot while he went to Texas with the president, some “pranksters” covered it in Saran wrap, stuffed eagles, and an “I Love Barack Obama” bumper sticker. Rove will be getting back to DC tonight, at which point the Secret Service will be dispatched to track down and lock up these jokers.

sick.......

ok, so the mm is thinking about going in late rather than than going in now......up most of the night with abdominal miseries too brutal to describe......going back to bed for a bit.....the only good part about being up really late (really early?) was that i was able to confirm that my middle child was home safely....

dinner plans....

ok so there are people staying with my mother who have known me since i was born.....and so i will have these transplanted texans for supper on wednesday.......my question is...are they texans if they are born in cleveland..or are they texans if they moved to an texas army base oh so many years ago.......regardless, at least one is a west point grad and will be buried in arlington.....

passing up yet another summer movie....

ok, so...i was kinda looking forward to the release of the nanny diaries....the book was so deliciously acerbic.....a preppy-girl nannying for the remaining semester of her college degree (child development)at nyu.....her grandma has the real money- her folks less so.....and she is employed by mr and mrs x.....who are nightmares as parents and employers.....and mrs x is impressed at first that the nanny in question went to a-list schools in the city....and then she is intimidated by this, given that the nanny seems to have more to offer this child than the mamma......of course....the film producers cannot let a good story stay a good story.......by the time the scriptwriters are done, the nanny is from a poor single parent family, has already graduated, but in anthropology...and has no prep school connections of any kind....yeah, the poor child in question is neglected/ignored when there is nobody of importance paying attention.....in both book and movie....as if i would know because i've only read the reviews of the movie, not wasted my cash to see it.....sounds like something one picks up for free at the library to watch on a whim......when one has nothing better to do.....

tea time.......

ok, so in my dreams i was struggling to set up a tea table with sweet tea things......cups/saucers, both sweet and savory treats.....and this process seemed to be in slo-mo.......and i never got to sit down with either my tea or my tartlets.....but such is the nature of dreams, where the theme is generally unreachable in some regard.....somebody or something is unobtainable.....and as i ponder this notion i am nursing a very hot cup of hazelnut coffee with lowfat milk.......i could be having tea...nobody is hear to stop me...but tea is usually not the first thing on my mind in the wee hours......

10 years

ok, so.....i am almost embarrassed to admit that 10 years after the death of diana, i am still saddened...and after a year since the crash and burn of c-air flight 5191 i wish we could just move on....and this from someone who actually knew someone on the plane.....so why do i secretly mourn a woman i never met?......why do i worry that her children make their way in the world without her steadying hand?.....and how is it that i didn't even send a card to a widow that i know well enough to speak to on the street?......if i knew i'd surely record my response....but i have no idea why....none at all.....

tomatoes

ok, so.....the neighbor up the street came by today with a full bushel basket of tomatoes that he wanted/needed to give away.....seems his tomato plants were as prolific as mine were barren.....and so i am left to wonder......was he more attentive...does he have more topsoil, does he do a fertility dance of some sort in the twilight......i have hit just about bottom with regards to my lack of gardening prowess.....she whose yard looks so marvelous in the spring has deteriorated to a vast lunar wasteland during the august heatwave...........yeah, well....we couldn't help ourselves but to accept some plump romas.....and a few betterboys.......

life lists

ok, so.....i have been weeding in the hot sun, and pondering these life lists that one hears so much about..ellen has one....there is a current american express ad series that lists crazy things such as parachuting or helicopter-skiing, or reading moby dick and/or ulysses (read the books;will never bother with the crazy dangerous stuff).....or do a marathon (done that)....or get a master's degree (did that a long, long time ago)....and it wouldn't include learn french....i've been trying to do that for 30 years....and while i have made modest gains, i am not sure that i'll ever be able to say that i have mastered that language...c'est la vie.....i have come to several astute conclusions about such lists....first, there is a difference between things i want to do before i die and things i would do if i knew i was dying.....on the things to do before i die list there would be places to visit......like tuscany....but even sayng visit tuscany is not quite as specific as saying that i would love to rent a villa and take cooking lessons and maybe help with a grape harvest......that would be pretty cool.....and i want to not only visit vienna, but take a hovercraft to budapest for lunch......and see the bust of queen nefertiti in berlin......i not only want to visit new zealand...i want to hike across and see some of the places filmed in lotr........and i'd love to take a sailing vacation around the greek islands.....but life lists are not all about travel.....i'd really like to train my right brain so i can use my left hand more efficiently.....just moments ago...as i weeded dead and dying lilyofthevalley from the front/side bed.....i was reminded that i cannot yank weeds nearly as strongly with my left hand as i can with my right......and this had more to do with fundamentals than mere strength...i do not naturally grasp the weeds with the proper angle....something that one just does with the dominant hand without ever thinking about it.....curious for a person who writes and eats left-handed, and cannot begin to grasp a pencil with the right hand......so....my life list involves such small yet vastly personal accomplishments.....i really do want to sort and catalog all of the old photographs stashed around this house.....that would be an accomplishment worthy of an engraved announcement, eh?......and i want to install drip-hoses around my planting beds so i do not have worry so about watering during these drought conditions......curiously, regaining my girlish weight isn't anywhere near the top of my list.....given that lists are what is important to us personally rather than what seems important to others.....but i digress from point number 2...that my list of what i would do if i knew i was dying would be vastly different from list number 1...'d knit sweaters and afghans for yet to be thought-of grandchildren.....just they could have something i made just for them...because i knew before they were even a glimmer in someone's eyes that they'd be special and i'd wish i'd known them.....i'd make a point to make peace with the handful of folks out there with whom i have yet to make peace.....and i'd be going back to my favorite places.....hopefully with loved ones.......forget italy and new zealand...what if i find that they weren't what i'd dreamed of?.........i'd be renting a nice apartment in paris, hopefully one with an aga stove, with room enough for my favorite people and i'd be shopping at local markets and cooking wonderful meals, and drinking far too much of the wines of many regions......and spending entire mornings or afternoons in single museums, reading about each and every painting.....and i'd sit in cafes with my coffee or wine as if i had no better place to be.....and just watch the world go by......and eventually i'd/we'd have to go home and face the music.....it would be with new memories of old favorite places.....and sometimes old means best.......

feedback on 14 transactions

ok, so......i prefer to buy my books through half.com...which allows for the purchase of used/not necessarily brand-spanking new books.....at far less than the new versions might be on a-zon or b-n......even with shipping.....and one of the requisites with this purchase system is that one must rate the seller....half.com will pester you until you take the time to rate the seller(s)...in this case......i seem to have purchased 14 paperbacks since i last left buyer comments.....9 of these were for bookclub....and therefore i have only read the handmaid's tale our of that crop......and then there were the new (to me) m.f.k. fisher books......those who will live in france should read at least one of her memoir-ish food essays....the piece she wrote about eating lunch at a far-flung multi-star restaurant in the off-season while she was out on a day-long walk is priceless...it is called 'i was really very hungry' in some of her collections.....and then the two carson mcculler novels....i have plowed my way through these last purchases......and will now start reading bookclub books early.....which is problematic...in that when that bookclub meeting comes around, my spouse will be reading the book in question, and my access to it for refreshing my memory will be wanting......ah well.....must get some errnads out of the way this morning before i entertain the luxury of settling in with an unread book......

media overload.....

ok, so....on my drive back to d-ville after an indian buffet lunch with my fellas i turned off the radio......the headline story was about a plea bargain....and i wasn't up for the sorted details on this newscycle.....neither did i care to hear again about a slender starlets 82 minutes in jail for her dui, or was it possession, or both?......it is hard to say......and then there is today's body count....this time from friendly fire.....and so i thought i'd take a little time off from thinking about it all.....until i got home and found my long awaited bookclub book...the handmaid's tale......in which the handmaids are not allowed to read, or write......such is not their role....and the notion of never being able to do either....reading or writing is quite chilling.....if i had to choose i'd go for the overload rather than the drought......

friday.....

ok, so....friday....a few hours in anderson county and i have the rest of the weekend to enjoy.......lunch at kashmir, by the way...with my boys.....and then a bit of solo time as i make my way slowly back to d-ville.....

obama on the daily show.....

ok, so i really like this guy.......ya gotta press play, by the way......

lapse......

ok, so....tonight was my first eku class....and i failed to recognize a student who used to work for me back in the trc days......of course....she is now much thinner and has bleached her hair and gotten contacts....but other than that i should have picked her out of the crowd...right?....occasionally i'll have under-5 clients...and the mamma will ask me if i remember them as students......and sometimes i;ll recall but mostly i won't...the context i suppose........i am not looking for people i know when i look at the client list.....just like i am not looking for past clients when i look at my student list.....and there have been a few of those....and i was slow on that uptake as well.....so let's get on to more positive news of note.....my client that was eating 4 eggs and 4 pieces of bacon and 4 sausage....has turned to a 2-egg spinach omelet with cheese and has dropped several pounds.....she was tickled......only term to describe it.....and as clients go......i hope that i'll not easily forget just how sincere she was when she told me that she was surprised how much she enjoyed spinach for breakfast......

class begins today

ok, so....my eku class begins today.....i may have up to 27 students, as i have authorized 2 over-rides to the class limit of 25 assuming that somebody would drop out...sometimes folks never show up the first day......i will be occupied on thursday evenings until mid-december.....

amen

ok, so....amen, amen and amen

readership down

ok, so this from cnn.com........... There it sits on your nightstand, that book you've meant to read for who knows how long but haven't yet cracked open. Tonight, as you feel its stare from beneath that teetering pile of magazines, know one thing -- you are not alone. Women are more avid readers than men, a new poll says.


One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year -- half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

mm's note: the typical reader read 4 books last year?......how very, very sad that so many watch trash t.v. and so few take advantage of that time slot to read a great piece of prose

come thou, long expected visa.....

ok, so.....this old-timey hymn comes to mind when ponder this elusive piece of paper......word is that a trackable package has left the d.c. area and is winging this way...to be delivered to a reliable downtown d-ville address.....hopefully daddy will be so kind as to let us all know if and when it arrives........

nothing to say......

ok, so while the collective we hold our breathe until the postman comes, i seem to have run out of things to say.......had to happen eventually.....

monday, monday

ok, so it is monday morning, and i have just finished a 5-minute stint of cat watching whilst sipping coffee.....our silly feline prefers to eat observed, as opposed to unobserved....and i find that we can get the morning feeding out of the way if i will just go ahead and watch her eat for a few minutes while my coffee cools off and i peruse the headlines on a newspaper spread out on the counter....dainty is not a prissy enough word to describe this cat's appetite......she can nibble for a few minutes without any discernible lowering of the kibble-line in her bowl.....the very bowl that we have had for years, but which my mother just noticed at lunch yesterday......possibly the cat is humoring me for feeding her, and simply wants me to move on so she can go on outside to hunt her preferred prey......songbirds at the feeder.....or possibly she is like me and would go on back to bed if given the opportunity......

k. floyd project

ok, so my sunday school class took up a collection of school supplies and cash to benefit big brothers/big sisters and the d-ville schools resource centers....and as of this day we had several large boxes of supplies and over $1000 in monetary donations.....k. was a lifelong math teacher at bate.....and was passionate about her students, even those who were not drawn to mathematics......wow.....that is double from last year when we started this memorial campaign.....

the bald woman....

ok, so.....i took a little nap in air-conditioned splendor whilst the rest of my blood kin went to the wildlife refuge for a hike in 95 degree desert conditions.....seemed like a no-brainer choice to me....and the dreams i had just before awaking were quite bizarre...i went to check on chickens in the upstairs of a barn....and there were a lot of broken eggs and a live chick in addition to the 2 hens....and when i went and asked our youngest when had been the last visit to her chickens, she tried to tell me she had just fed them.....hmmmm.....and when i went back there was a woman trying to get into the barn with her child....and i shooed them off only to come back in the house (from the barn we don't have) and find a bald woman going through our drawers looking for gosh knows what...and i tackled her to the ground while she was in a bedroom that had the remnants of birthday gift bags on the bed (there had been paper plates and forks in the sink- as if there had been a birthday party....) but i digress from the bald woman....i have her pinned to the ground....and she has tatoos on her bald scalp...almost like polka dots in different colors...like she is from a circus....and i held her down until the 9-11 call was answered.....she said something about wanting to see our computer, as if she was confused that this was a store and not a house......i woke up...very hot and confused....as the upstairs gets hot during the day when we have the a.c. turned automatically down......i must remember for the polka dot scalp in circus shades...that was the best part of this day?-dream......

green grass of home....

ok, so...all of my close kin were home for dinner this evening.....all of those close and those far flung...sadly...the green grass of home is dull and crunchy due to the heat wave and drought conditions.....cannot have everything....

the porch

ok, so.....last evening after supper my spouse and i wandered on out to the front porch to enjoy the cooled-down temperatures and the crickets.....the sky was so overcast that i could barely see to light the citronella candles......gentle readers, i forget just how pleasant a summer's evening on a front porch....rocking back and forth slowly...can be......and when paired with pleasant conversation.....priceless......

september 2003

ok, so....last evening when the electricity went off suddenly, this pc reverted to september 3, 2003...at least so far as the clock goes......midnight to be exact....no other loss of particulars as far as i can tell......everything in this house has had to be reset, of course.....with special attention to the alarm clock.....i hate to hear about others who are late because they overslept....so i best not become one of them.....our upstairs phones are all traditional, with cords.....remnants of the handset-connected-to-the-base era.....and while these phones seem quaint, they are quite useful in a storm when the portable phones are completely dead.....we even have an older corded phone on top of the beer refrigerator....in harvest gold...the phone that was here when we moved in....this has been hooked back up tot he kitchen wall from time to time.....mostly when that phone has hit the floor one too many times...such is the fate of portables.....our yard looks much the same despite the downpour...mostly dead from the bake-oven heat.....ah well...i try so hard to keep the garden going so the yard will look nice for the pound and pedal....and this year it will look the same as it does every year...dried up and near to dying if not already dead........and so it goes.....

30 years ago today.....

ok, so....30 years ago today i was working in the kitchen at mount carmel medical center in downtown columbus, ohio......and we were serving supper on the tray line......and a clerk stumbled in the door, in tears, to tell us that elvis was dead......and there was a great out-cry and gnashing of teeth amongst those old enough to remember him when he was in his prime....i was not in that number...and so i looked on with wonder......though it is not my lack of elvis appreciation that is on my mind this evening.....it was the abrupt power outage that...well...took me by surprise about an hour ago...no real storm to speak of.....just...poof!....and i at once regretted that i had not had the gas in the grill refilled, and that i had not started dinner already......ooops......i did read about half of member of the wedding by the upstairs window...where i could catch the only phone in play when it rang...the only phone with a cord......but now we are back to normal...and i had best get dinner going before the power goes off again.....

coffee and the internet.....

ok, so...so i found this piece on slate.com on starbucks, and the internet and about what you order says about you amusing...or as amusing as any piece of writing can be first thing in the morning on my first cup of hazelnut (kroger-brand) with 1% milk.....the tidbit about nicole kidman preferring a cup of just milk-foam rather than coffee was rather eerie......

still crazy after all these years.....

ok,so......i walked on the treadmill during the 7:30 pm gossip show time-slot....but needed just a bit more quality programming to get my 2 miles in.....and so i lucked into a repeat broadcast of the paul simon library of congress gershwin award show....which featured folks like stevie wonder and paul singing me and julio, and lyle lovett covering 50 ways to leave your lover.....as well as clips of simon singing homeward bound on snl with george harrison....and paul singing mrs robinson at yankee stadium at joe dimaggio's memorial service...the footage ended with phillip glass on the gershwin piano playing variations on sounds of silence...as only phillip glass can.....a nice surprise for a hot and sultry wednesday......oh yeah....and james taylor sang still crazy, but not until lorne michaels, producer of snl, gave a bit of a roast...seems he has lived across the hall from simon in manhattan for 30 years....and conived to get simon on snl numerous times, including the time he coerced simon to sing still crazy on live tv wearing a turkey costume......i actually remember watching snl that evening.....late, late 70's.......gosh how time flies when you are having a good time......and this from youtube.....one of my favorite s&g songs....

craft the vote.....

ok, so this photo of a homeland security warning quilt is just one of many craft the vote projects possible in this dizzying political season.......i especially liked the michael bloomberg macaroni portrait.....

karl rove and plato

ok, so this from crooks and liars blog.......sad that this is so very funny......

bookclub books

ok, so the following are on tap for next year: slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut; small wonder by barbara kingsolver; the road by cormac mccarthy; the handmaid's tale by margaret atwood; the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay by michael chabon; middlesex by jeffrey eugenides; water for elephants by sara gruen; and the namesake by jhumpa lahiri......it is our largest book list to date......and so far i have read only one of these titles...luckily the rest are on order.....from half.com

pins and needles

ok, so one cannot fully appreciate the nuances of the world at large while there are pressing issues in the inner circle.....and as one family friend noted this evening....is it visa or mastercard that we are so worried about?

julia stiles

ok, so....i read today that julia stiles, late of the bourne ultimatum is in pre-production to play esther greenwood in the bell jar, the autobiographical novel by sylvia plath.....she is perfect choice for this role, being of similar facial type....and being naturally serious....as opposed to g. paltrow who played plath most recently in film....her portrayal was rather shallow and certainly lacked the kind of intellectual mania that i detect every time i read the bell jar......my copy is threadbare, by the way.....and not because i have much in common with esther.....but this book is so brutally honest about this woman's feelings that i cannot help coming back again and again

bargains, bargains....

ok, so the sign on the beauty salon i pass on my way to work: buy liter-size hairspray and receive 8.5 ounce can free........what?.....who has hands big enough to manipulate a liter-size can of hairspray?.....who could sue that amount in a year, or in a lifetime?......who even uses hairspray anymore?......

walking to connecticut.....

ok, so.....i went to bed with a slightly queasy stomach.....possibly from overindulging in a tallish rinded cheese from france that seemed closer to butter than to cheese when melted on baguette....and the dream i had was most bizarre, involving a cross-country journey on foot, with a set of maps that resembled the kind found in 5th grade social studies text books...the topography map, the natural resources map, and the agricultural product map....but no road map.....and so i and my traveling companion...a lady from church least likely to take on such a challenge....walked in search of maps.....at one point we were searching under the seats of a parked volvo with open windows for an atlas......and at every meal i seemed to be seated at the same diner asking around for a map as i nibbled on macaroni and cheese or mashed potatoes....not one meat servings or vegetable in this dream......freud would have a hay-day.......and i never did make it past the town with the volvo or the diner.....

bourne 3

ok, so...after another round of weeding at my mother's house, we rushed to the 4:05 screening of the bourne ultimatum......which did not disappoint.....action from start to finish.....a satisfying end that both wraps up all loose ends and/or sets the stage for a sequel....the screenwriters cleverly meshed the plot of bourne 2 into this sequel......so that the end of bourne 2 actually replays in the flow of the plot.....and it is an aha moment.....just in case one had ever wondered how the end of bourne 2 came to pass......one cannot help but respect jason bourne......who seems more and more like the anti-bond.....cannot wait for the dvd release.....

paper trail......

ok, so it appears that the only child left at home didn't believe me when i explained at the beginning of the summer that phone calls are trackable....because she seemed a bit stunned yesterday when the phone bill came, and it itemized each and every call she made....some up to 112 minutes and long distance to boot....seems that the object of her affection uses a cell phone based in n-ville not d-ville......342 total minutes to that single number for the month.....i find this entire fascination with the phone curious, in that i avoid making phone calls, unless the calls are to me spouse or children.......and it now appears that she was making some of these calls while on-line with the same person she was calling.....ah, the age in which we now reside......

another crazy cat story

ok, so this from cnn.com....MANCHESTER, N.H. -- A New Hampshire man has been charged with a felony after he first told police that his cat had accidentally shot itself.

Nicholas Goroff, 24, told officers the cat had knocked over a shotgun, causing it to fire. But beer cans in his apartment and the smell of alcohol on his breath, caused police to question his story.

Eventually, he told police he had pulled the hammer back on the gun and while attempting to release it his thumb slipped and the gun fired. A round hit the cat.

The cat had to be euthanized and Goroff faces charges of felony reckless conduct.

as seen from space.....

ok, so...the crab grass in my mothers flower beds had become so obscene that the three of us went up the hill after supper and triple teamed as many beds as could be done in the dwindling daylight....she had dandelions that were over 1.5 foot tall!...an impressive collection of weeds that completely blocked all view of petunias, hostas and the like.....and with all three of us hard at it, we were able to do a decent job of it before we could see no more.....today was a day of cleaning out.....i filled 2 washbaskets of books to take to the goodwill, taking care to cull those that are not mine...those are piled in the basement bedroom.....i was able to shelve those books that were in piles, in our bedroom at least....and at this very moment there are no piles of any kind in my livable space.....how long this pile-free lifestyle will last is anybody's guess.....

a plague of locusts

ok, so.....i dragged my self out of bed early to water what is left of my foundation plantings and landscaping...i have moved on from worrying about the wilting perennials to real concern over the well-being of the shrubs and smaller trees......when a hedge droops, the stress of the heat and drought is taking its toll......this day was marred by the presence of numerous grasshoppers.....bouncing in and out of my path and resembling an old testament plague......still only a few frogs in the pond....i suppose i should hold off on major panic until the frogs multiply and go on the march......while it would be a sight to see, it would be a terrifying sign of the end of the world as we know it........i sat for nearly 15 minutes holding the water hose in the pond...which has lost quite a lot of depth due to either a leak or evaporation from the waterfall, or both.....and as i sat there, in the midst of quite beauty, i struggled to think of happy thoughts, and not of a child's visa that has not yet come through.....quite frustrating to have no control over the slowness of the embassy visa-issuing process.....even my dreams were of frustration.....in my dream i was holding an umbrella, the cover having come unhooked from the braces at several points, and as i re-attached the cover it would come undone at another spot......and as the dream progressed, the manner of the reattachment would change....from snap-in assemblies to hooks to slots sewn into the fabric......the good news is that our farthest flung child will be home a week from today...flying at an amazingly low fare....which saves me 18 hours of driving.....yes, i do know that if we didn't have the visa to worry about there would be other things.....such is the nature of life on this earth....and things could always be worse....i have a friend who broke severals bones in her foot, wrenched her shoulder in the fall that caused the breaks, and is now home alone and unable to accompany her spouse to a major sporting competition that has become a traditional way for them to celebrate their wedding anniversary......listening to her tale on the phone yesterday briefly cleared my brain of my own troubles...it can always be worse....and it is not until things hit bottom that things tend to get better......

the very last blog on professional cycling...for awhile

ok, so...discovery team has disbanded.....discovery team as in the team that lance helped to form after u.s.postal pulled its sponsorship.....and now with the 2007 tour win under its belt with alberto contador....the team has dissolved....this was not news ot my spouse, who insists that lance's parent company out of austin, tx that actually owned half of the discovery team has its own cycling team separate from discovery.....and that this team will eventually go public as the new american team...all this is too complicated, given that floyd landis's 2006 win is still in litigation, and alberto contador himself has been banned from upcoming races because his name was on a list in the possession of a known blood doper.....hopefully everything will be sorted out by next july.....assuming that the tour sponsors will forget and forgive this years numerous scandals and remember that throngs of folks still showed up to watch.....

seminary subject.....

ok, so this from the worldwideweb....NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers coursework in Greek and Hebrew, in archaeology, in the philosophy of religion and starting this fall in how to cook and sew.

One of the nation's largest Southern Baptist seminaries, the school is introducing a new, women-only academic program in homemaking _ a 23-hour concentration that counts toward a bachelor of arts degree in humanities. The program is aimed at helping establish what Southwestern's president calls biblical family and gender roles.
Coursework will include seven hours of nutrition and meal preparation, seven hours of textile design and "clothing construction," three hours of general homemaking, three hours on "the value of a child," and three hours on the "biblical model for the home and family."

women-only.....so if the wife gets the preaching job the spouse is outta luck?

sweet tea....

ok, so...slate.com had a piece this evening on southern sweet tea.....which i read with amusement because i abhor the stuff.....which may or may not be because i am a northern carpet-bagger.......i never, ever saw any of my blood kin put sugar in their hot or iced tea until i moved below the mason-dixon line......yeah....there was many a'jug of koolaid about...but tea was meant to be tasted untainted.....if this were not so wouldn't jesus have drunk sweet tea at the cana wedding?.......the article quotes dolly parton as saying that sweet tea is the wine list to the south...or something similar......i am blogging late because i have just finished a project....i made a comforter cover out of sheets for my eldest that i am sorry to say, came from the evil empire......i wasted 1.5 hours yesterday scouring local stores for sheets of the specified color, and matching dust ruffle.....and found nothing....over lunch in my thursday county i wandered into the w-mart....and was back out within minutes because they had everything on my list within reach.......i did take the trouble to wash everything lest the fabric shrink.....made in brazil of all places.......so no pesky lead residue to worry about.......i got a late start on this sewing thing because of freshman orientation at dhs.....a required event marred by our child sneaking away to sit with the boy that is not allowed to call her...and his mm, who looks vaguely like her birth mother.......yeah, well....i cannot legally call her a mm because she is deaf....and i am certain that there are laws that cover such things......i will say that my spouse was furious......and i have no doubt that a father's ire has been tested in court long before now.......curiously, our last high school-aged child brought home her books to read them over before school starts.................you may imagine the incredulity of my thoughts at this moment......and it will take more than sweet tea to get over the let down if/when this burst of enthusiasm peters out......

att vs net neutrality

ok,so this from crooks and liars via pearl jam's website......After concluding our Sunday night show at Lollapalooza, fans informed us that portions of that performance were missing and may have been censored by AT&T during the "Blue Room" Live Lollapalooza Webcast.

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were in fact missing from the webcast, and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them.

During the performance of "Daughter" the following lyrics were sung to the tune of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" but were cut from the webcast:

- "George Bush, leave this world alone." (the second time it was sung); and

- "George Bush find yourself another home."

This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media.

AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.

Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality." Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue.

Most telecommunications companies oppose "net neutrality" and argue that the public can trust them not to censor..

ok, so......

ok, so....i had to choose between the monkey in the ponytail story and the dead wife's ashes in the turtle cookie jar story.....time to go to bed...

An Elmira, N.Y., man has the ashes of his first wife back Tuesday after his new wife accidentally sold them at a garage sale over the weekend, the Star-Gazette reports.
Anita Lewis found the ceramic turtle containing the ashes of her husband's previous wife at a nearby Salvation Army Thrift Shop after the Star-Gazette received a tip about their whereabouts, the paper reports.Anita Lewis accidentally sold the ceramic turtle for 50 cents on Saturday. Her husband, Terrence, told her they contained the ashes of his first wife, Marcia, only after she sold the container.The buyer had said she planned to use the urn as a cookie jar. Anita Lewis said she had hauled items into her yard early Saturday while her husband slept. The buyer quickly selected the large turtle container, despite being unable to get the lid open. Her husband's previous wife collected turtles.

some days, the best news is hard to choose.....

a new record......

ok, so......in my hotmail account this day were a record 7 forwarded right-wing leaning emails from the cleveland area......with the time it took to forward that sort of cutesy and flame-fanning tripe the emailers involved could have sent an original email telling those of who care to hear that they are ok after the torrential downpours of the past few days.......go figure.....

stop-gap stories....

ok, so....i did order a few used paperbacks based on npr.org's summer reading pieces.....2 by Carson McCullers......member of the wedding and the heart is lonely hunter.....and then another i actually heard reviewed on fresh air a while back...Eat, Pray, Love One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert....as yet none have arrived.....and so i am rereading mysteries.....a collection of three Lord Peter Whimsey novellas by Dorothy L. Sayers......set in the early 20th century......in an age far removed from my current circumstance.....the London of titled gentry, butlers, clubs, and country house parties.....i fully admit that none of these works are the new Ulysses....but then I have already dispensed with that masterpiece and must move on......as bedtime reading goes....mysteries are just the thing.....especially mysteries i read long enough ago as to forget who-dunnit

tdf scandal continues.......

ok, so this from nytimes......MADRID (Reuters) - Tour de France winner Alberto Contador was banned from the Hamburg Cyclassics event on August 19 because of his connection with the Operation Puerto blood doping scandal in Spain involving doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

"Our basic position is that we don't want to have any riders in the Hamburg race who are on the Fuentes list," Frank Bertling, managing director of the event, was quoted as saying by the German news agency SID.

Denmark's Michael Rasmussen, who was sacked by his team Rabobank and thrown out of the Tour de France last month while leading the race for lying to the team about his training whereabouts, has also been barred from the 229-km race. Rasmussen has denied any wrongdoing.

upscale names

ok so this from gawker.com about a monogram shop in the hamptoms....Right next to the "A Little Bit of What You Fancy" boutique on Newton Lane in East Hampton is the perpetually bustling Monogram Shop. We all love to see our names in print. But only the wealthy have the means to see their names embroidered onto almost everything they own: Baby sweaters, towels, tissue boxes, even diapers. Pragmatically of course, it makes sense. You wouldn't want Reese to grab Blake's towel by accident or Genevieve to mistake her baby sweater (only $85) for Panache's or even worse Epitome's!.....yeah, its hard to see with so small a picture, but reese's baby sweater ($85) is the peach one.....

soccer

ok, so.... we sat in the ungodly heat for a soccer game last evening.....on the new reynolds field, which is actually the old middle school field with lights.....quite a step down from playing in the stadium......off the precious football grass.....we could have sat through the varsity game as well....but when one's child will not be playing, it is difficult to rally and come on over in 95+ heat just because....they played an aggressive bardstown team.....and lost both varsity(4-0) and jv (5-3).....the temperature had started to ease up a bit by 8:15 when the jv game started....but that game didn't finish until well after 9:00 and we didn't eat supper til 9:50.....which is not how I want to spend many more evenings......ah well.....by the time i watered the deckplants and tidied up i just went on to bed.....thankfully the loudish soccer mom who was at the bluegrass state games had already left by the time i arrived.....and when i say thankfully i really mean it....people who are especially negative/vocal at sporting events get under my skin.......

catching up on colbert.....

ok, so i took a few minutes this evening to watch a few snippets from the Colbert report....On Monday’s “Colbert Report” Stephen puts out an all points bulletin to America, warning of the impending superhighway being planned by the North American Union that will run from Mexico, through the heart of America and end in Canada. Colbert proves that he’s no conspiracy theorist because he can back up his claims with data he found on the internet and false reports from The New York Times. Most amusing was when he put up an actual map of the United States, and highlighted nop fewer than 3 existing highways that span the gap between mexico and canada...across the body of america......sad that this urban legend highway illustrates how little our fellow 'mericans know about our country

so very tired

ok, so last evening was my diabetes support group...the one i lead that is 2 counties away......or a mere 45 minutes away.....though i am not certain which of these descriptors is the glass half full or half empty.....a good turnout, and good discussion....as usual...but after all is said and done, i still have to drive home in the looming darkness and then pick where others have left off.....last evening i found a note letting me know that at least one of the remainder had not yet eaten supper...so i was firing up the grill at 9:00 in order to whip up a little something for us both......on these first-mondays i don't get to bed at a reasonable hour, and then wake up feeling beat-up the next day......i get to take off most of friday...but that is little consolation until friday actually comes...i am so tempted to crawl right back in bed.....

vegetarian starter kit.....

ok, so i located the exact information i picked up at my conference on-line.....the rest fo the website is also compelling....the vegetarian information is offered by Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine, which promotes nutrition, ethical research practices, preventive medicine, and compassionate medical policy. Who cannot agree with those things....?

back to reality

ok, so....i must go back to real work this morning.....starting with prenatal clinic and moving on to my anderson county diabetes support group from 7-8 pm....and despite my 8.5 hours of sleep i feel about 100.5 years old......i fully expect my co-workers to continue to fuss about why the state diabetes people funded this educational opportunity, and their programs either did not fund specialty training, or they didn't know it was possible to ask......either way.....this will be a grumbling and whisper-ridden reunion, rather than a nice-to-have-you back occasion.....ah well.....and i don't even have the ipod as my consolation prize.....it has been co-opted by my youngest child.....who also grumbled about why she didn't get to go.....no place to hide.....

a dearth of reading material....

ok, so....i ended up taking my 2007 paris access guide book to st louis for a little light reading...because it is paperback, newish and read-through only once...or twice......and now that i am home i have wandered a bit from room to room and stack to stack in search of the perfect post-leopold/post-harry novel.......oy!...maybe i'd be better off culling all of the books i that i will not read again....or those that have little significance...which would make me feel less guilty about actually buying something new to read...i have consulted npr.org's you must read this..i have referred back to recent new yorkers for literary guidance.....i could go back and read-through the summer's new yorkers to make sure that i read each and every piece.....the book club selection meeting is coming up soon...so i will not remain in the doldrums for long......

home again

ok, so......we ducked out of stephen (steven?) covey early to get an early start to the airport by metro.....covey was not a good speaker, by the way.....i was let-down.....but i digress....the metro cost us $2.00 to get to the airport....quite a savings compared to other ky dietitians we met up with at the terminal who paid $34 for a taxi....i did suffer the indignity of having to remove 4.5 pounds of stuff from my checked bag before it could be checked.....it only took a few hardback books to achieve this weight transfer.....so many drug/meter companies gave books rather than clocks/radios/pens/stuffedtoys.....i gave the stuffed toys i accumulated to my traveling partner because she has much younger children.....ah well.....our flight was delayed due to weather conditions...and so i returned home at 11:30 pm rather than 10:30......and cannot quite bring myself to go to bed.....i did empty out all of the stuff from my suitcase...so i could carry it upstairs....and i will have to give my coworkers carry-all totes and pens to draw-down the random collection of such giveaways that load my dining room table....i do have credible vegetarian resource materials for loved one(s) who want such guidance....so far none have asked...but i have these things if any want to read them......home....home....home....again....home

getting ready to come home

ok, so....we are in line for the last session..steven covey and his 7 thoughts on diabetes management.....we are paying a guy $2 per bag to watch over outr bags, as we have already checked out of our hotel.....i have picked up too much stuff at the exhibits...and my suitcase weighs a ton....lovely lunch of stacked grilled vegetables on a bed of spinach.....looking forward to getting home, sleeping in my own bed.....and seeing my loved ones....or talking to my far-flung loved ones......

middle aged women and camera phones

ok,so.....cyndi lauper sings better than i expected......and plays more instruments than i supposed.....and when she played time after time on a dulcimer she sounded like an angel......

mm's ipod

ok,so......a booth in the exhibit hall offered an ipod shuffle to those who listened to the rep's presentation about their new and improved glucose monitoring technology......answer the quiz correctly....wear their t-shirt....and come back in the morning for your ipod......i showed up with my roommate, along with hundreds of others.....and waited in line for over an hour while company reps searched their database to make sure they hadn't already given you one....we did have time to network with those who stood around us....and i suppose that an $80 ipod is worth an hour of my time....it is blue, and darling....perfect for podcasts....i am thrilled.....the actual learning sessions were less thrilling....but it is hard to compete with such desirable toys.....

what

ok, so......the speaker at the thyroid session yesterday was from elyria, ohio.....and if i closed my eyes it was as if my aunt fromjust down the road in northern ohio was doing medical standup....the terms, the accent, the mannerisms.....the 'what' with an exclamation/question mark as a throwaway remark........no mention of million dollar houses.....

small world

ok,so.....we rode the first bus to the zoo this evening....and we were first in line for wine, pecan-crusted chicken wraps, garlic shrimp, beef tenderloin on bun, grilled vegetabes, and more wine by the time we made it through the above food lines....and i turned around in line to meet a dietitian from my honetown in ohio, who remembered my parents who volunteered at that hospital....and when i called my mother to tell her she said 'who'....oh well....we them drove by bus to the pavilion built for the world's fair for dessert ......glad to out of 95 degree heat

tchotkes

ok,so....the exhibit hall opened this morning....with a mad rush to get tickets to see cyndi lauper(novo nordisk from princeton,nj sponsoring),it would seem....because we were in that line.....it was not until later that we discovered that a new glucose meter company had given ipods to the first 400 to visit their booth......we were too late today....but should we get in line early tomorrow.....we shall see...i did pick up no fewer than 6 tote bags, at least a dozen pens, a laptop mouse, and a stuffed frog......omg.....tonight we take buses to the zoo for a picnic dinner.....and to the location of the world's fair for irish coffee....did actually learn many things today....about thyroid problems and writing low literacy materials......maybe time for a swim before the zoo....

the pool

ok, so after dinner and a day of 12000steps my roommate and i changed and made our way to the hotel rec area....she to the treadmill and me to the pool......it was too small for laps, but fine for walking the perimeter....a refreshing workout, especially in the 4-foot section.....slept like a log.....

mike huckabee

ok,so......the keynote speaker for this event was former rep. gov of arkansas mike huckabee......who was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes a few years back....he lost 110 pounds with the help of a diabetes educator....by taking up exercise and changing his eating habits.....wow.... he had a lot to say about the state of preventive health care in america......i have met my 10.000 step quota yet another day.....walked with our d-ville colleagues to a seafood place on the river.....nice crab stuffed trout.....and now early to bed because our morning starts early....

the arch

ok,so.....we headed down to the arch in early evening....hoping to avoid the heat......and immediately came upon the only other two diabetes educators working/living in b. county.....and so they joined us .......the wait for a ride up was still 2hours......lucky me.......and so we wandered the museum of western migration instead......for the record, the arch is bigger than it looks.......