ok, so today is friday, which means i have to work late.....i do not do well on long days.....in fact, the last half of a long day seems to unfold like slow-mo, but my control over actions seems on a 5 second delay.......i do not know how nurses working 12 hour shifts can do anything right..as i cannot seem to cook well after the 8th hour.......now that we have hired a real chef to work the new nightly hours, i am prepared to be humbled by my cooking...i have always had more guts than talent, and this will certainly shine when a trained and talented individual joins me in the kitchen on a regular basis.....i do not even use pro knives...just ones with big black built up handles designed for the elderly (elderly meaning at least 30 years older than me....) with arthrtis.......of course, these knives help my hands and wrists tremendously........i do hope to be the old dog that learns new tricks during the next few months.......

ok, so i heard today that centre college food service will soon file for a liquour lisc..........presumably for cowan, the rac, and the warehouse.......rather ironic for a college that discourages alcohol to sell it.....

ok, so mean mamma listened to gwb for the ride home from work tonight, and became too upset to listen to the rest of the bless-ed speech on tv when she got home......he has no clue......there is not much more to say beyond this fact.....

ok, so mean mamma has just found out that she has a court date in the morning...it appears that i am the executrix of my father's estate only after the probate judge deems me so, and that i must sign any checks written on my father's account until the will is settled, even though the account is a joint one with my mother, and that she cannot collect his life insurance until the probate process is settled......and she will have to pay me a stipend for doing this......even though everything in question is already hers, with her name on it all .......i won't question tge stipend, however...maybe it will be enough for a ticket to florence......

ok, so i watched the school/business closings this morning,....and scw commented ..what are you waiting for ? kcw 1 hour delay? ......well, yea.......i don't want to go to work any more than you want to go to school...i would love to hunker down on this really cold day with a cup of coffee....maybe even go back to bed for awhile.........

ok, so scw and i set out to see adaptation, but by the time we reached burgin the snow was coming down to the point that we slowed down to 35 mph, and we ended up missing the 3:30 start time.......man-of-war alone seemed to take an hour, and semed to have 18 traffic lights, all red.......we ended up seeing about schmidt, which had characters and props/locations/vehicles/situations eerily similar to my family experiences.........the r.v., the hummels, the tacky wedding soloists, the tourist attractions....it is still not clear to us whether this film was comedy or tragedy or drama...because there were elements of all three........and having seen kathy bates naked getting into her hot tub i will just have to kick start my walking program........

ok, so mean mamma is thinking about going to a movie this afternoon...in lex...maybe adaptations...there are so many movies i would like to see now....the hours, the rabbit proof fence, chicago, and so many more that i could see on video if i would only drive out to the video place........i guess it is not the drive out there, it is the drive back out there the next day....or eventually if i rent for more than one day.....

speaking of driving, mm drove over to lawrenceburg yesterday to purchase a few of the prospective 'beverages' for our wine and beer list.....some sugestions that were made by a potential distributor regarding beer- ky ale and siera nevada ale are not memorable...quite a bite......i do like the australian white suggested....by austin vale and another by mcpherson.....someone else will have to pick the reds, because i do not care for reds.......while drinking our biting ber, ecw and i watched our video a room with a view.....this is an oldie but goodie...and we had forgotten how much we like it...of course the discussion went to 'why have you been to france 11 times but never to italy?' well, i do not know...maybe i could be forced to go to florence.......as long as my room has a view.........

ok, so mean mamma had a brush with true meanness and walked away....well...not really walked away...as i am still sitting here, but resisted the temptation.....by mistake, when choosing a site, mm chose by mistake something that dealt with bin-login.cgi or something......and mm sat looking at a greymetter login page, with a really nice emily dickinson quote....not knowing......i open every door.......isn't aging horrible...can't remember 10 words for 10 minutes...but anyway....i resisted the temptatrion to sign on as scw......not really a temptation, as no one would have believed it for a moment.....

ok, so the mean mamma is overjoyed......ecstatic.......over-the-top.......our whirpool bathtub, the one that wouldn't drain for the past 24 hours because the drain pipe goes through an un-insulated section of our ancient home.....AND WAS FROZEN....has now decided to thaw enough in this marvelously sunny afternoon to let all of the water out.....life is good when the pipes all drain.......life is also good because i have returned something that i had forgotten that i had.....last year, in strasbourg, when the weather was so bitterly cold, helen willis lent me a fur-lined lumberjack hat....i found it in my suitcase when i packed for the spain trip......now a year as passed by, so what does one do when one discovers such a breach in memory? one takes the hat back along with a sutiable peace offering...........we had a nice visit, especially the part when the precious willis cat was sitting on my car roof........

i drove over to the rasmussen/willis home in ecw's new mid-life crisis car- a vw cabrio (used, of course) black with tan leather interior and a convertable top.....it is much too nice for me to drive.....of course, now that i am again used to a 5 speed.....this is a piece of cake.....

ok. so i am up much earlier than i would like, as we have a brunch thismorning...some sort of shower.....the timing is laughable, as if it is a baby shower, the poor mamma would rather be in the bed til the sun is way up and if she is getting married, well, let's not go there.......we had reservations for about 30 last night, and ended up feeding 60...we ran out of almost everything...the last customers got the last 6 stalks of asparagus......in the lex herald leader, in the saturday section on gardeing/decorating/ etc there is an article featuring a mother and daughter in their new sunny laundry room,,,which appears to be bigger than my family room, along with cathedral ceiling and cabinets nicer than i have in my kitchen........now that i am starting on kitchens.....let me just say that in my 2.5 years of catering i find that the people who have the kitchens hire caterers for parties and eat out.....which means they spent a lot of cash on the grand spaces with high-tech counters, equipment, cabinets, etc...and use them basically on thanksgiving and christmas.....on the other hand the people who actually cook in their kitchens tend to make do with minimalist space and equipment......where is this rant going? gentle reader, please do not presume than the mean mamma is bitter that she does not have a grand kitchen....if i had the cash to buy a better kitchen, i would spend it on plane tickets, hotels, and rental cars in far away places...........and still make do with the kitchen i have.....i am thinking about investing in a new pasta pot, however............

ok, so when my husband cleaned out the crawl-space in the eaves beside our bedroom, he came up with some unexpected things.....among them a portfolio of art pieces i did in a class at osu...my one and only art class which explains why i majored in a science.....there is a self-portrait, a collage, a textural piece, a van gogh wannabe, the requisite charcoal drawing of a cylinder, block, etc,........i will store these along with the 'portrait' done of me by my boyfriend freshman year...which portrays me as a clown....he must have thought he was being clever....crown/clown..... get it? he found many of his college belongings...among them reel-to-reel tapes and a tape player......lots of jazz, blues, etc.....one doesn't see reel-to-reel anymore.....

somewhere i might be able to lay my hands on poetry i wrote in college and graduate school......certainly not too involved nor rhythymicbut mine......i also have some pen and ink drawings that i have framed and on display that i did in graduate school as a form of procrastination.....again, not particularly good, but matted and framed and placed with framed photographs they are almost pleasing.....

tonight david anderson and a group of centre people ate at trc as part of an interview process......i always greet d.a. with condolences that the nobel committee excuded him yet another year......i generally joke and say that david is my only shot at actually knowing a nobel winner.....he always laughs, but he really believes down deep that he will win one day.........anyway, this time i had to stop and think, because there are so many talented people in the current sophomore class.....i may actually know a future nobel poet/literature laureate......of course, she keeps changing her web page, just when i was really liking the blinking, sultry eyes......

ok, so for what it is worth, mean mamma thinks that danville should have called off school today....it is just too cold for kids who walk to school, and that is the point of a city school system.....most kids walk.....and some of them have no gloves or hats to wear.....well, the c-w children have rallied and located at least 1 matching pair of gloves apiece.....as a mother, i am so proud.....

ok, so there is this paramedic in england who stitched up prince william's head in 1991, and recieved a thank you note from prince charles and princess diana......and now he is to auction it off next week, with a minimum bid of $2400.........i am aghast at this notion of auctioning off thank you notes.....especially ones from charles and di...if i had one i would have it framed and in a place of honor.....but i wouldn't sell it......given that sentiment, i should theoretically save every thank you note i have ever received in case the sender becomes famous..........of course i expect that some of my favorite bloggers will become famous, but that is another story entirely.....i have few actual live encounters with the famous....last year i was within smacking distance of mitch mcconnel, but smacking him would have been bad for business so i demurred.....i also saw the guy who plays niles crane on frasier in the louvre....and i have the autograph of don ameche (an oldies but goodies actor) that i got in the waiting area of charles degaulle years ago....it pains me that charles degaulle loks mispelled and i cannot think how it shoud be......for that matter mispelled looks mispelled........ah well.....

ok, so there is snow on the ground, and a windchill of negative proportions, and neither of my children at home can find matching gloves/mittens...somehow each has managed to lose one or both of every pair provided by their parents.....we may be going back to the mittens connected by a little string thing.............

ok, so i enjoyed the piece in the new yorker about demetri martin, who writes palindromes, and poetry, and palindromes that are poetry,.......he wrote this funny little piece called 'All The Words Written on a Bottle of Rolling Rock in A Different Order'... in part....

Women, your ability to operate extra tender springs from birth.
Good machinery comes as your contents cause enjyment.
Cash, beer, a car: rock and rolling.
During 'it' the general warning:
'We may risk pregnancy acording to old problems'

it has occured to me that the talk of the town section fo the new yorker is nothing but longish blogs......

on other subjects....roe vs wade has been on my mind.....30 years of reproductive rights that the religious minority may be able to pry from the grasp of american women....i heard a piece on npr this afternoon about how the bush administration has had government web sites pull any reference to contraception, as bush is pro-abstinence and contraception information could push young girls and boys into premarital sex......frankly, i don't see bush as 'virgin at time of marriage' material, so lightening will strike him eventually for his hypocracy........speaking of lightening strikes...his stance on michigan's affirmative action policy is laughable, in that the only way that bush got into yale was because his family connections was like catching the golden snitch- an automatic 150 points.....not just a measly 20 out of 150 points given to students of color at u of m.....

ok, so in my eku class tonight i made reference to myself as the m.m...it was in context of food buying habits...ie we don't buy candy, cokes, cookies, chips, etc.....and someone asked me how my family handled the deprivation, and the term mean mamma just came out of my mouth......of course, i am mean liek that when it comes to not buying junk food.....i won't buy it of it is not a holiday with food traditions.......but i do not deprive my children of these treats...they are allowed to buy whatever they want with their own money......anyway, i changed the subject, because my mean mamma-ness may be for the anonymous worldwide web but not for my nutrition class......

ok, so mm's neighbors have yet to remove all of their lights....last night walking on the treadmill i spied the glow of multicolor through the side window.....strange, by the placement of the glow it would seem that they put lights around their hot tub........and liked them so much they are to stay through out the winter......

ok, so when mlk day has come and gone, it is time to bring down the christmas decorations...not the mean mammas...her have been down for many weeks....mm is talking of the following....the house on alta with green and blue lights all over the front door and bushes,........ the house on the main road as i go to work that has both a santa hanging over the door and fake pointsettias on either side of the door.....the house on alta that still has silvery christmas garlands around the door frame and porch posts......come on now...get out the ladder and bring these things at least as far as inside the house......whether they make it into storage is not my worry.......

ok, so mean mamma has a soft spot in her heart for award shows.......not all award shows, but i will confess to watching the entire golden globes last night...i was pleased to see meryl streep win for adaptations (supporting actress) and nicole kidman will for playing virginia wolfe in the hours...i read that book several years ago, and wish to see it on the screen....kidman plays along with juliane moore and meryl streep...not alongside, as that is not how the storyline goes.....it is a complicated story line, but it works.....virginia wolfe is one of my favorite authors.....nicole kidman managed to capture her essense in the clips i have seen.....i do like to watch these shows to see what is being worn..some wear just stunning dresses, while some look merely foolish.....last night renee zellweger was perfect in a black off the sholder in a swirled satin, while sharon stone was frightful in a modified flapper get-up......she was so 'up' dancing about and jumping to her feet at every award as to be chemically altered....poor thing..what was she thinking......one more award, tony sheloub won for monk......he is so perfect as that character....my kind of humor....

ok, so for those who follow these things, the dvd of spirited away comes out 4/15/03..........