The cat circus reminds me of the dog and cat I was taking care of for a friend. I tried putting them both out in the dog pen, which was some sort of mortal cat insult. The dog was running the perimeter of the enclosure, and the cat just waited until she passed by. Then he ran, jumped on the dog’s back, and thence leaped over the fence to freedom! It was as if they had rehearsed it! Sandy, the dog, is still with me. Ben the cat is long gone. He slipped out one night, saying he was going to get some cigarettes. I never saw him again.
I’m still accessing DTWOF from the public library, but now that I’ve submitted my grades for the semester, I plan to make the reaccessability of DTWOF at this university my top priority! Not just for me, but for all the young dykes out there who need to have their own ephiphany moment walking across the quad!
Taa-Daaah!
Cats have an amazing ability to climb trees.
(#1 – claws and determination always work nicely for a feline.)
Nice jump at the end. Guy Laliberté would be proud!
Happy Holidays from snowy, lovely Quebec City!
: )
Hmmm, I think it was well-rehearsed. I did notice the way the good Dr stared at Holly holding the video camera to make sure all was well before she made her jump …
Thanks AB, was feeling a little rough and that cheered me right up!
Charming! I like the ta da gesture that you did at the end. My own cats would have Mocked me if I tried that kind of thing. Actually, I have tried to get them off the garage roof and it usually results in a trip to the first aid kid.
Happy holidays, AB and all you other dtwofers out there!
Happy Pagan New Year Revels to all! (or any other flavour you choose.)
I’m with Ian (@12). Personally, I’m celebrating the novelty of having the place to myself, Radio Four in every room, and SMOKING IN THE KITCHEN!!! Eek, heresy.
Everybody have a Cool Yule. Today is the day we observe the traditional Xmas day ritual of going to the Mexican buffet place and loading up with cheese enchiladas. But save room for dessert tamales!
And I wish everyone on this blog gobs of Irish bacon for breakfast, with blueberry pancakes. I then fried chicken livers in the bacon fat and made pate. To vegetarians, I apologize. To fellow carnivores I say you should be so lucky!
Thanks Alison! That was a way-fun addition to a very mellow holiday. I spent a lot of time rereading Fun Home. Thanks for being such a great part of my reality!
Mentor, you’re a Steeleye Span fan! I recently saw them on their 30th anniversary US tour – Maddy Pryor – as feisty, energetic, gorgeous and beautiful-sounding as ever!
Glad tidings, dykely friends & allies. May your lives breathe deeply during these shortened days pf winter as we barrel forward into a new decade.
(And may I return home soon so that I’m able to view Alison’s cat video! — not to mention return to my two cats!) 😉
I vote for more cat videos. I know that your day job is as a writer (and don’t get me wrong- I enjoy the writing) but the cat videos always make my day. My favorite is still the expensive cat toy video.
Therry and St. Jerome (#22) I don’t have irish bacon, but someone sent me what looks like a leg o’ canadian bacon (if bacon can come in a leg). I’m, like, hoping that will do, eh?
This is off-topic, but as party of my Holiday Movie Binge, I’m watching “The Queen.” Sigh. Isn’t Helen Mirren just the best? Can I make her an honorary Dyke to Watch Out For? Pretty pleeze?
I mentioned previously that I was encouraged to make a chocolate espresso pecan pie from watching a NiftyButton video. I just served a pie based on a “mash up” I made of two different recipes (one by Evan Kleiman and one by Karen Barker). Now that I know that this works well–it makes a GREAT pie–I’m happy to fulfill the request that I share the recipe. Happy holidays!
Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie
1 baked pie crust in deep dish pan
4 oz. Scharffen Berger bittersweet bar chocolate, broken into chunks
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup (or light Karo corn syrup if you cannot find Lyle’s)
2 Tbs. melted butter
2 Tbs. brewed espresso
2 Tbs. Kahlua
2 cups chopped pecans plus 1/2 cup intact pecan halves
1/4 cup cocoa nibs (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Scatter chocolate chunks over pie crust.
In medium bowl, beat eggs slightly with a fork. Add sugar, Lyle’s (or Karo) syrup, butter, espresso, and Kahlua, then mix until blended. Stir in chopped pecans and cocoa nibs. Pour into pie crust. Arrange the intact pecan halves around the perimeter of the pie and atop the filling, placing the backs against the crust and the tips pointing in toward the center.
Bake 55 minutes or more until the filling is firm and just starting to crack. Remove pie from oven and let cool for at least 4 hours before serving.
Happy Holidays! I have been reading and not commenting for a while – lacking in wit due to extreme over excitement on the part of my children – resulting in sleep deprivation for weeks!!! I wish you ALL the very best for 2010. Was hoping for a DTWOF festive strip as last year – but circus cat also gets a thumbs up!
Alex: Interesting suggestion re: the orange zest and the Maoism (let a thousand recipes bloom).
Ali: Perhaps next year we should have a contest among fans for end-of-year holiday letters for various DTWOF personalities (Alison could post those she deems worthy). I got the idea while attending the John Waters Christmas Show in Alexandria, VA, this month–he declined to dwell on an audience request to suggest such a letter for Sarah Palin (“But I love to spend time thinking about Little Levi,” he added). That led me to muse about letters for other celebrities (“It has been an interesting year for the Gosselin family “) and for fictional characters.
holiday? was there a holiday? How come nobody told me?!?!?!?
wait, is it related to all that AWESOME music i’ve been hearing everywhere i go and every time i turn on the radio or the tv? i hope they keep playing that stuff, it’s great!
Amen, Bean! I’m especially grateful to all of the young folk/rock/punk/pop/indie pseudo singers who felt compelled to give their very own heartfelt tribute to such classics. God knows the world was in need of one more AWESOME version of (name it).
Sadly, I believe a respite from such artistic musical genius is coming, for Valentine’s Day must be marketed, and STAT!
On a cooking note, does anyone know how carrots can still be rock hard, despite being roasted in the oven for 3 hours? I’m never roasting the bastards again.
Those carrots, son, are past roasted. They are desiccated. Mummified.
You may have thought that they were pining for the fields; but no. They have passed on. They are no more. They have ceased to be. They have expired and gone to meet their Maker. They are stiffs! Bereft of life, they rest in peace — if you hadn’t nailed them there, they’d be pushing up the daisies! Their metabolic processes are now history — they’re off the twig, they’ve kicked the bucket, they’ve shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!
Oops — did you say “carrots”? Not “parrots”?
**cough**
Wrong sketch. Sorry. When is the next train for Bolton, please?
Hi everyone–Still in northern CA. My brother-in-law purchased a quince,which looked to me like a very large mango,only yellow. It has a faint pineapple smell.
I’m not sure yet what he plans to do with it,but I’ll keep you posted.
Alex K–you rock,as usual.
It’s been pretty low-key here; as per winter holiday tradition,we watched Monty Python DVDs,always good for laughs. We also watched a digitally enhanced DVD of the 1961 film,West Side Story. Our family saw the movie in ’62 and later bought the record. My sister and I at one point had the entire soundtrack memorized.
For those of you non-Boomers,the movie version of West Side Story featured the excellent creative talents of Leonard Bernstein,Jerome Robbins,and Stephen Sondheim.
Feminista, we’re in synch once again – I just returned from seeing the revival of WSS on Broadway on XMas night (non-updated and a lot more bilingual). It brought it all back for me! (I was a Shark – claro que si! – in my suburban town’s summer youth theatre in 1981). Wheeee!
Hey Ian,
Carrots, parsnips and many other root vegetables roast really nice in the oven anywhere from 300-350 F for several hours, but… they can dry out! Try slicing some onions in thin rings, busted apart and spread out underneath directly on the baking sheet to kind of act like a rack or grill, they also add moisture. Drizzle generously with olive oil to start, then half way through brush the root veg’s with butter to create a nice roasted color! (More olive oil is okay too but less carmalization). The onions will likely be uneatable but the bigger root veg’s sitting on top will be wonderful!
Roasted root veggies make for an interesting soup base, as opposed to sautéing veggies in the soup pot before adding liquid. So, if those carrots are roasted to the desiccated stage, you might be able to salvage them in a soup or stock, there’s probably a lot of flavor in them.
Other veggies are also good roasted. I had some roasted brussels sprouts recently, and they were fabulous. Roasting them prevents the house from smelling like a giant fart.
I was told they were tossed with olive oil and kosher salt, and roasted on a baking sheet (they were quartered or halved to speed cooking). Halfway through the roasting, the sprouts were tossed with freshly-minced garlic (the halfway point wasn’t specified with an exact time, but the idea is that the garlic was added later to prevent it from burning.)
If you know someone who doesn’t like brussels sprouts, this preparation might change her/his mind. No mind-changing necessary for me, I like all the cruciates.
Yeah, braising and roasting is what brought me around years ago with regard to brussel sprouts and beets. Reading all this is awakening a winter hunger in me, but it’s almost 3 a.m. and my cooking caoacity is limited right now anyhow, so I’ll feast vicariously.
Howdy girl. Glad to see you in better shape these days.
Beets have a lot of natural sugar in them, so they caramelize quite nicely when roasted.
As a kid, I liked playing with the brussels sprouts, I peeled them leaf by leaf to eat them.
I think the smell of them cooking (hydrogen sulfide, aka the giant fart) is what turns off many folks to the cruciates.
I take leftover steamed brussels sprouts and marinate them like artichokes; lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, salt, pepper. I serve them on top of a pile of organic spring mix/mesclun and roma tomatoes, the marinade serves as dressing. Shave some parmigiano reggiano on top, toss some pignoli (raw or toasted) if you have them. It’s a good way to serve brussels sprouts to folks who think they don’t like brussels sprouts.
@Tori Poppy et al: Sorry, I’d like to point out that the carrots were not dessicated, or dried out. They were simply uncooked! This is despite parboiling them AND putting them on a bed of onions and adding plenty of olive oil, as well as balsamic vinegar. Strangely, the butternut squash was in a similar condition, but the roast potatoes were fine.
My own favourite way of cooking brussels sprouts is to steam them, then saute them in butter with garlic and sage. Braised red cabbage (google Delia Smith for the recipe) is also fantastic.
Ian, I have noticed that when I roast a mix of things it’s less successful than just one or two. It’s possible that there’s no science whatsoever to that statement, and that it’s entirely coincidence, but I seem to remember a lot “hm, that one thing is not cooking at all but the rest of the pan is so overcooked that it’s dead” moments.
Also, now that I think about it, a friend of mine tried to do roast parsnips and carrots for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, and had to give up and serve still very hard and tough veggies, because it had been an insanely long time and they just weren’t getting cooked.
It’s just about 2am here, and I’m not super coherent (although that beer was tasty), so I’m going to stop trying to type. Goodnight all!
Oh, Maggie, are you saying I need to apologize for a Monty Python reference?? Never!!
Following up on Andi#30’s reference to Helen Mirren:
I first became aware of HM in the BBC/PBS series of the complete Shaxespere in the late 70s/early 80s, where she played Titania and Rosalind (and a couple other roles). I’ve been a great fan ever since.
For any Americans who’ve not seen it, definitely check out her BBC series “Prime Suspect” (it shows up on PBS occasionally and is available through NetFlix; BTW it was the basis for the American TV series “The Closer”. The original is vastly better.)
Similarly, like most Americans I became aware of HM comparatively “late” in her career (a curious term to apply to someone in their mid/early 30s), she having done movies as early as her late teens[*] before joining the Royal Shackspere Company. Moreover, as beautiful as she is now, early in her career she had something of a reputation as “sex babe” –something that apparently caused her some trouble, as this Truly Embarrassing Interview will make clear.
Feminista — comedy is part of hour holiday tradition also — on Xmas eve we watched the SCTV Xmas show — third season, with Ed Grimley, and Count Floyd’s “Scary Little Christmas”, and the Schmenges! “Now I must remove my shoes because I am the guest!”
Alex and Kat, I wasn’t “demanding an apology”, I was being a good “straight man” (what alternative term can we come up with THERE?)
With regard to Cleese and apologies..wink wink nudge nudge…
In other news, I am in a sniveling mood. Only slept 5 hours again (4 hours the night before) and no nap yesterday, either. I woke up actually having a vocabulary crisis in a dream, trying to come uo with the precise word for something and stumped. Pathetically nerdy, and it’s not the first time. I also occasionally dream in rhyme, and from the few times I’ve been able to jot down remembered lines upon awakening, it’s complicated meter, not Seussian, Nashian, or Partonesque.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the writing of any of those three.
I have onerous tasks to do today. Usually my reward would be either culinary or TV. And my standby, PBS, does have what I’d generally regard as tasty viewing, an American Masters look at Louisa May Alcott (LOVE her) and an Independent Lens examination of people obsessed with paper folding (a skill I’ve never been able to acquire despite frequent tutoring by an ex who drifted paper cranes in her wake). But when I’m fatigued, Grey’s Anatomy is more my speed.
And I just discovered that the person who does my grocery shopping for me, unable to find the pitted dates I requested, substituted prunes instead. Which is not even close to being the same thing, in my opinion, despite their being actually a good idea for me at the moment.
From the ages of 8-12, we lived in a rent house bordered by a vigorous plum thicket. When the bushes came ripe, my little brother and I were forced into the waspy, sweltering thicket with empty coffee cans and told to pick until there was no fruit left, a several-day proposition. Mama would be standing over vats of bubbling fruit in an even hotter kitchen, foul-tempered, to scald old jars and melt paraffin and seal the tops of rows of red plum jam. It was the only jelly or jam we ever had those five years, and I can’t abide it now, don’t like plums in any form (forgive me, but you can have the fucking cold plums in the refrigerator…)
Mostly I just need a nap. And a better body. And to not be at a really painful part of the novel I’m writing. And health care legislation that isn’t Obama’s giveaway to corporate insurance giants.
From my hera Digby: “For those of you who aren’t covered by your employer for health insurance, here’s a handy tool to figure out what you’d owe under health care reform under the two plans. (Be sure to put in your age in 2014.)” Concrete data for comparison…
Re: roasting veg:
Whether parboiling or not, keep the oven temp kinda in the milieu / middle range, like 350-400 deg. F. Cook for 1 hour to 1.5 hours.
Also pierce/poke them all over with a fork before placing in oven. It won’t dry them out, trust me.
For bigger veg like rutabagas or sweet potatoes, after poking wrap lightly in tin foil. You can make a kind of surprise veggie packet, like a Pappilote with aluminum.
Brussel Sprouts are best when cooked directly from being removed from the stalk (ideally still resting in the garden), whether they are covered by snow or not. Keeping them on the stalk retains their natural sweetness, and the house won’t stink so much after cooking.
Your experience with the carrots unwilling to become cooked (naughty veg!) reminds me of a scene from Notting Hill.
The Hugh Grant character is on a blind date, having dinner, and his date says that not only is she a vegetarian, but she only eats fruits and vegetables that have fallen on the ground, or “given their lives voluntarily.”
He says, “So these carrots have been….”
and she replies, “Murdered. Yes.”
Perhaps what you experienced was the Revenge of the Veg?
Seriously, don’t give up on roasted carrots. They are yummy. And roasted veggie soup is to die for. No pun intended. Oh jeez, I better go back to work now!
Ah…..Maggie was being the “straight man”……got it….
Calico, I have never noticed a bad smell after cooking brussels sprouts. Then again, I love them passionately (and have, all my life). Is it one of those things that you only notice if you think it’s gawdawful?
My favorite way to do brussels sprouts is to cut them in half lengthwise, par-boil them in some chicken broth for a couple minutes in a skillet (till most of the liquid evaporates), then add a healthy blob of butter and sautée them in the butter till they’re tender and the delicious smell of browned butter knocks your socks off.
You can do the same technique (with less broth and less time IN the broth) but shred the sprouts in the food processor. Or use chopped up bacon instead of butter. That’s pretty amazing, too.
From the “Bizarro in Chicago” Dept, comes this news piece about GOP Senate candidate Andy Martin’s homophobic allegations about another GOP candidate, Rep. Mark Kirk:
Also note that Mark Kirk is currently on active duty in the US Navy, so if he really were gay, this would be a rather interesting situation to watch.
Quoting from the article:
—
Martin has never won elective office. His is a textbook case in explaining the power of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Character and Fitness Committee to determine who can and cannot practice law in Illinois. Although he was able to complete law school and pass the bar exam, the committee refused to grant him a law license.
Martin objected at one committee meeting when staffers retrieved a document from his Selective Service file labeling him unfit for military service because of a “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” Martin called committee members “scum.”
When reporters report these facts, Martin sometimes sues them alleging libel. His penchant for filing so many lawsuits later dismissed as frivolous has enraged some judges who have held him in contempt of court over the years. Some of his court filings have included anti-semitic comments.
Martin garnered some national attention for pushing rumors that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that the Hawaiian birth certificate Obama posted on his Web site early in his campaign was a fake.
—
Seems the Illinois GOP is recruiting from Second City. Ginjoint must be laughing her butt off.
In “Geeks Gone Wild” news, comes word of a guy who developed a £30,000 “fembot” named Aiko (Japanese for “love-child”), a vaguely female robot that talks, speaks English and Japanese, suggests dinner and drinks, and does who-knows-what-else.
Quoting from the article:
—
Le has built up huge debts working on his fembot and is still trying to find a technology company to sponsor his research.
But in the meantime he has had to move back in with his parents and they will all be spending the festive period and New Year together.
“My family found it a bit odd at first, but now they all love Aiko,” said Le.
“My mum and dad chat away to her. It helps by talking to her, as it improves her vocabulary.”
Le suffered a heart attack two years ago caused by stress after working long hours on Aiko.
As he recovered he vowed to complete her so he could market the prototype as a home-help for the elderly or people recovering from hospital treatment.
Le has made his fembot as womanly as possible, in order to make a human-like companion.
Aiko, whose age is “in her early 20’s,” is 5ft tall and has a perfect 32, 23, 33 figure.
She has real silicone skin and a real-hair wig made by a Japanese doll company. Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.
“Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways,” said Le.
“If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you. She has all senses except for smell.”
“But Aiko is always helpful and never complains. She is the perfect woman to have around at Christmas.”
—
And from the sound of it, I’ll bet he thinks she’s the perfect woman to have around the rest of the year too. Sure hope he’s got a lifetime’s supply of batteries, he’s gonna need them.
A long, long time ago, when I attended such events, there was always one person at an LSD, mescaline, mushroom or ecstasy party, whose job it was to stay straight and keep the rest out of trouble. That person was known as the “Abbot” after the straight man to Mr. Costello.
The female equivalent would obviously be “Abbess.”
Hairball – Andy Martin’s a nutcase who’s been around for years. Sound and fury, signifying madness. Also, that guy with his “fembot”? L.O.S.E.R. I mean, that is truly pathetic. I wonder if he realizes that he’s essentially broadcasting (ouch) his sexual insecurities for one and all to see. I’ll take it even further – I’m glad the asshole had a heart attack. Anyone with that little regard for women doesn’t deserve sympathy.
Off-topic: It’s been an exciting 24 hours at here at the Melody Ranch. My ’93 Ford Escort survived a broken timing belt last night. I was driving along when I smelled something funny, saw smoke coming from the engine, and pulled off on a side street. I don’t have a cell phone, so as the sun went down last night, I knocked on a stranger’s door and borrowed their cell phone. I’ve been told that I have a kind face, and I guess I do, because I sure don’t know what I would have thought if someone I didn’t know showed up at my door at sunset asking to use the phone. I didn’t have my motor club card with me, but the person who answered the phone for my oil company charge card put me in touch with them, and they called a wrecker for me. The auto repair shop was still open, and they gave me a ride home. My dog, however, was very upset that I hadn’t been home before dark! I’ve got the car back, now, and it runs great. The repairs (for both the broken timing belt and a broken water pump that may either have caused the timing belt to break or have been broken by the timing belt) were much less than I feared. It just goes to prove what my dad always used to say, “Something will turn up; it always does!”. OMG, did I just say that?? And he’d always say it in what I can only describe in a relentlessly cheerful voice. I haven’t mastered that, yet.
Calico!
Thanks for the link to the Champlain Bridge demolition! I forgot to watch it on tv on Monday. Man. It was kind of upsetting to see! I have many fond memories of crossing that rickety thing.
Hope the dog didn’t piddle on the floor in annoyance or distress at your late arrival.
(… old gearhead here …)
Lucky you don’t have an interference design engine, you would have ended up with a mangle of bent lifters and crank arms, and probably a hole punched through the block, aka a total loss for the engine (and the car, unless you had a source for a cheap used engine and labor to install it). Also very lucky for you the engine didn’t seize, the oil pump runs off the crankshaft.
Timing belt typical spec is to be replaced around every 60,000 miles. Check your owner’s manual. Usually the water pump gets replaced at the same time because you have to do all the exact same labor to get to it, so you might as well replace it, it’s only another $150 or so, and they are designed (bearings, impeller, etc.) to wear out around the same timespan as the timing belt. Also change the timing belt tensioner and idler, same labor, a few more bucks for parts, and bad/worn ones can shred your new timing belt.
Hopefully whoever did the work also looked over the serpentine belt (external belt, not internal like the timing belt), belt tensioner, alternator, power steering, and A/C bearings when s/he put everything back together. It was probably time for the serpentine belt to be replaced as well. When it’s off, it’s a good idea to spin all the components by hand which run off the belt(s) to feel for bad bearings that could lead to a future breakdown.
Marj’s grandfather is right, worse things do happen at sea. Best techs I’ve ever hired and/or worked with were Navy techs, followed close behind by Air Force techs, two areas where you can’t exactly just pull over to the side of the road when something breaks.
Navy techs have the edge (particularly submariners) because they have to use ingenuity and improvisation to fix stuff while underway, USAF techs ground the plane, shut down the radar or whatever, they’re not in the middle of nowhere cannibalizing parts to make stuff work, but they’ve got the same mindset of zero tolerance for error and breakdown.
#79 – You are welcome AB!
Upon watching this, my partner told me there is a bridge in Trois-Riviéres that looks like the now dearly departed Champlain span. Interesting.
Bridges are really quite the things of beauty to me, physically and symbolically.
#76 – Reading back, I didn’t notice you had an Auto Club Card. Silly me, making suggestions that aren’t really necessary!
Glad your vehicle is working well now.
#71 Helen Mirren is an inspiration – along with so many other older women like Judi Dench, Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem (to name only a few), as well as some I know personally. They show me that growth and life can continue, rich with identity, even better as a result of the life and experience that has come before. As I approach 40, I get this from women in their 60’s and 70’s, certainly, but also from those in their 40’s and 50’s. I’m watching generations of women come into their own and show me what’s possible. Thank you all!
Dear Alison, nice video. Compliments to Dr. W. Tulip, my cat, would instead climb up the rest of the tree upwards. I’d have to call for rescue. I’ve felt a little envious of that snow and chill. 101ºF at shadow in São Paulo (Brazil) these days. Down to 95º when it rains, which happens thrice a day. Poor neighborhoods flooded. Sad, sad.
Yes, the recommendation holds, but depending on what model Volvo you are driving, the timing belt replacement schedule is different, I think it’s around 100,000 miles. Check your owner’s manual, it will have the recommended service intervals for all the major scheduled maintenance.
Make sure the idler and belt tensioner pulleys are replaced along with the timing belt and water pump. Those two little doodads are not expensive parts, but they can fail and cause the timing belt to fail catastrophically. On an interference design engine (that’s an engine where the valve rods/lifters would crash into one another if not for the careful separation/alignment via the camshaft vs. crankshaft timing, maintained by the timing belt), a timing belt failure will almost always require an engine rebuild or a new engine (both expensive propositions).
I’m pretty sure the Volvo uses an interference design engine. If that’s my car and my money, I’d be replacing the belt, pulleys, and water pump a bit before the recommended interval just to be sure nothing goes pop/crash/kaboom prematurely.
Folks who have engines that use a timing chain instead of a belt don’t have these worries. Timing chains last a long, long, time. Also note that sometimes diesel engines (you didn’t say if your Volvo was diesel or gasoline) use timing chains or a timing chain and cam belt. Diesels need a lot more torque to turn over when cold, and a chain is much better at that than a belt.
Nice when worlds collide: Blue Gal writing for Crooks & Liars has a ling to GoodReads list of Books of the Decade, and Fun Home is currently #97. But the ranking is being determined by voting, so go participate if you wish.
Side note: For my daily dose of information and thinking about the world in a mostly political sense, I read
(1) Crooks & Liars
(2) Hullaballoo
(3) Brilliant at Breakfast
(4) FireDogLake
(5) Echidne of the Snakes
Art and literature would be a different blog list as would be science, cartoons/graphics, humor, and personal faves. What’s yours, out there?
Maggie, that’s a great idea! Especially as I’m fed up with many of the feminist/political sites I’ve been visiting. Right now, however, I’m way past time to jump in the shower and get to work. More later.
My alumni magazine has a really nice photo of women geologists at the university’s geology field camp. They are standing in a circle, holding their double-headed geology hammers in the air (!)
At the stroke of midnight tonight, U.S. Central Time, I’ll be standing at the top of the stairs in my house (where I grew up), saying “Happy New Year!” to no one but my dog. I do this is memory of my mother, who shouted that down the stairs to me from that very spot on her last New Year’s Eve, now some 22 years ago. She passed away 18 days later. Am I weird for doing this?
Maggie, and Kat: after I finish the social network trifecta of email, LJ and FB, I turn to the Stranger Slog (http://thestranger.com/slog) for my bearings. It’s somewhat Seattle-specific.
plus, of course, dtwof, maggiesmetawatershed and my own SeeSaw.
Most of mine are design/culture related. I mostly avoid the political talking heads (or more accurately, typing hands) these days because I am sick to death of pundits. They all seem to think they own the truth and I think that’s just so last century.
—
To be sure, many pet owners have thrown in the towel after making an honest effort at toilet training. Janet Rosenbaum, a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, lives in a Baltimore apartment and wasn’t thrilled about the way her cat Ninja tracked litter all over the bathroom floor. So about a year ago, she began efforts to toilet-train him using a plastic mixing bowl filled with litter inserted into her toilet—but the mess Ninja made became a turnoff to guests who came over.
“The guy I was dating at the time stopped using the bathroom at my house,” she recalls. It also required her to remember to clear the toilet before visitors came or they might have to deal with some unpleasantness if they needed to use the bathroom. “I felt bad inflicting that on my guests,” she says. She and Ninja finally gave up after six months, and he seamlessly went back to a litter box.
—
Interesting that she felt bad about her human guests and not about foisting behavioral modification on her cat. I think there’s a simpler way to deal with cat litter tracked on the bathroom floor. It’s called a broom.
Daily blog reads… I don’t actually have time to read blogs EVERY day, sometimes I go a few days between reads, sometimes I read all day, depends on my work/travel/sleep schedule.
I do read news sites nearly every day, but those don’t count as blogs. I read tech stuff, but increasingly I find them shills for the latest PR flacks from tech companies trying to push product enthusiasm and stock price jumps. (Does anyone REALLY care that Apple grabbed the domain name iSlate.com in 2007? I sure don’t, and I don’t want to read any more thinly-veiled product placement crap for Apple’s purported new tablet PC.)
I doubt there’s more than a few folks here who would want to wade into the forums on distrowatch.com, except for the confirmed geeks and Linux heads (maybe NLC, ksbel6, not sure who else).
I also am having some trouble figuring out where the blogosphere ends and conventional website-ishness begins as blogs evolve and grow. Such is the case with lifehacker.com, which I read pretty regularly. It seemed much more blog-like in its early years, but now it’s more like an interesting website that mixes whimsical DIY tech ideas (check out the magnetic coffee cup holder) and practical recommendations for software and organizational/productivity aids.
I also read How To Spot A Psychopath, dansdata.blogsome.com. Dan has the best links to stuff in his articles, I always get a laugh from them. Don’t be put off by his mostly tech focus, his latest post is about what constitutes Art (with a capital “A”). He also has little tolerance for hucksters and pseudo-science scam artists, and skewers them mercilessly with heaping doses of sarcasm and reality.
Happy New Year, y’all. I’m off into the light snow to celebrate with some friends.
Although the posting time may indicate otherwise,it is 9:21 PM 12/31 PST as I write this.
Back from CA last night; spent the day catching up on mail,phone calls,unpacking,grocery shopping.
I’ve been gone 3 weeks,so one cat (Jasmine) has been glued to my side,soaking up attention. The other one,Oreo,has been avoiding me,but will come around soon.
Bellinis? Are those blinis? The Russian/Eastern European things that are also known as blintzes?
Blinis with caviar?
I stuffed my face with a gastronomic ethnic mishmash from at least three continents, and now I’m feeling the effects.
My plate was heaped with salad, Hoppin’ John (black-eyed peas), spiced lentils, tomato chutney, Nova (smoked salmon), pickled lotus root, spanakopita (spinach pie), tzatziki, lime pickle, jasmine rice, sun-dried tomato something-or-another, kalamata olives, and I forget what else. I took a pass on the goat cheese and a few other things. There was no sushi this year, the guy who makes it has been ill (he owns a sushi restaurant), otherwise I would have loaded up on that too. Also wine, champagne, and coffee. And cake.
Gee, I can’t imagine why I can’t get to sleep.
(… starts singing “Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is” …)
Happy New Year! May we see in the new year people helping people, people helping animals, and people helping the planet as a whole.
(For the past few years I have been sending out
a winter solstice/new year card with one of my
NYC-street-photos. This somewhat leaden text
starts with the words of this year’s photo
of an East Village storefront.)
I just read the obituary of Rachel Todd Wetzsteon,
a poet previously unfamiliar to me. Does anyone here know her work? There’s such pain that comes before the decision to take your own life…
The NYT obituary printed such a wonderful poem of hers.
freyakat (#99), thank you for directing me (us) to the Times piece on Rachel Wetzsteon. After reading it, and the beautiful “Sakura Park” poem, I spent some time reading more about, and by, her. Feels like a kindred spirit, and I am grateful to have been introduced to her words. So, thank you. A somber but heart-swelling way to start this morning of a new year.
Special thanks to Mentor, world champion pooper scooper, who smells the shit so we don’t have to. And of course to Alison for drawings, cat videos, and hosting this Wild Rumpus.
5 political/social blogs I like:
– Paul Krugman. He blogs actively — he doesn’t just post his M/F op-ed columns.
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
– J. Bradford Delong
– Juan Cole
– Bruce Schneier, not someone I read regularly but very helpful on public security issues, e.g. the response to the undie bomber.
Google for the URLs. I don’t want to trip the spam filter. Looking forward to other peoples’ blog lists.
And here’s wishing everybody a year of good health, woman geologists, possible crushes, wheelchair accessibility, good jobs, family sanity (if possible), and all the other good stuff I’m forgetting.
oh, and i used to live with a man who had a 6th floor walk up apartment and a cat. he had trained the cat to use the bathtub so that there would be no lugging of litter up six flights of stairs. after that cat died and we adopted another cat, he trained our guy to use the tub. it took about two days, with no mishaps. it did confound overnight guests. the cat and i live together alone now, he uses a litterbox, and i am so tempted to switch back to the tub arrangement! it was seriously cheaper, never smelled, and took approximately three seconds to clean up in the morning.
Ours were in (*gasp*) south-of-the-river-I’m-appalled-and-ashamed London instead of just off the Piazza San Marco, and with Tropicana’s peach-orange juice mix from the carton instead of the regulation fresh peach puree, and with prosecco spumante instead of Champagne…
So, Bellinis faux. But you take what you can get, innit? And they went SO well with crispy bacon!
—
Ms. Wetzsteon’s work was often rooted in her Morningside Heights neighborhood. In the title poem of “Sakura Park,” here in its entirety, she wrote of the small park near Riverside Church, known for its cherry trees:
Bellini. Hmmm. Now you’ve added to my random knowledge file. Don’t think I’m going to order one, I’m not big on fruity alcoholic drinks.
The juice in question was a mix of peach and orange, so I suppose the drink was a cross between a Bellini and a Mimosa. What to call it… Bellosa? Mimini? Or perhaps in honor of its creator and imbiber, Alexir?
So I am not the only person who read the Rachel Wetzsteon obit and wondered about her. I read “Sakura Park” out to K at breakfast and we both agreed that it’s a very good poem. It’s (sadly) an apt poem to quote in an obit, and a very good poem to quote re the end of last year:
Happy New Year everybody! It’s technically 2/1/10 here, but still 1/1/10 over there so I can say it!
Thanks everyone for the carrot roasting suggestions. I still think I’ll stick to steaming them, then drizzling them in honey.
@Alex K: Of course you couldn’t find proper Bellinis SOUTH of the river! 😉 They do sound nice though. I’m not a huge fan of champagne – I generally prefer cava.
london sounds pretty good to me at the moment. it’s been ages and i’d love to come back. but i’ll skip the bellini and have a pint of dry blackthorn, if you don’t mind.
@Hairball (#107): The E. 4th St. animal rescue place is indeed special. But no, my photo is of a building on the northeast corner of E. 3rd Street and Second Avenue. I think that the building may be more or less abandoned at the moment, but for a brief time last March both sides of its facade were painted blue, and someone had painted the message ‘People Helping People’. I liked that a lot, and I always carry a camera, mainly for this type of situation.
I learned the word as a teenager. My leftist social worker dad used to bring home copies of The Paper,Michigan State University’s underground newspaper,starting ca.1965. MSU’s prez at the time was George Hannah,so The Paper thought they’d have some fun with his name: “Hannah revealed to be a palindrome.” Ironically,his wife’s name was Anna Hannah,but that wasn’t mentioned.
While not a well-written rag,I did learn about the FSM (Free Speech Movement),the beginnings of student rebellion against bureaucratic nonsense at a “multi-versity”–MSU at the time had ca.30,000 students–and some info about the anti-war movement.
Dad also introduced my sister and me to Ramparts,a leftist magazine which exposed MSU’s network of advisors who influenced the corrupt puppet Diem regime in South Viet Nam. (Viet Nam is how its people prefer to spell it.) LBJ consulted regularly with poli sci professor Wesley Fishel,the father of a classmate.
Palindromes… now I’m hunting for my copy of “Gödel, Escher, Bach.” Douglas Hofstadter wrote the most amazing palindrome, Crab Canon. I remember reading that book awestruck at how he weaved string theory, Bach fugues, word play, and art into a coherent opus.
On a practical level, I wonder how he wrote the book outline and sold it to a publisher. That must have been more difficult than writing the book itself. Cynic that I am, I doubt any publisher would take it on today, too many pages, too esoteric a topic, no well-defined audience (unless there’s a PBS series it can be tied to/cross-promoted with). Also no editor with an attention span long enough or with enough background to intelligently edit it.
A few weeks ago, I was in the grocery store when I noticed a man with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes watching me as I looked at vegetables. He said, “Hi”, but I did not realize who it was until I was walking away. It was the man who sexually assaulted me four and a half years ago. Today, this same man has posted to the newsgroup of a local human rights group that I serve as executive board secretary. What a way to start of new decade.
Oh, Kate….I can’t imagine what that must be like, but I send love and strong vibes….
My best friend’s new year started with the death of her grandmother. I was really, really, really hoping for a non-repeat of the awful crap that seemed to fill 2009.
This man is stalking you. Kansas (I think you live there, if I’m not mistaken) has clear cut stalking laws. You already have enough to have this guy arrested. Read this:
In Kansas, you can also get a Protection from Stalking Order (PFS). Document all contact from this creep (date, time, etc.) This would be your first step to take. This is what you do:
Kate L., I quite agree with Renee S. Please follow her advice, whatever your feelings — ask for help woth your feelings, you deserve help and advocacy at every step, you are not alone in this.
Aw shucks I came here to announce today’s Palindromic Day and, natch, y’all’s already been there.
***
Kate – ugh – I feel for you. 🙁 Stalkers thrive on fear and silence. I know you’re active in the women’s center on campus and its Take Back the Night activities. Are there peers in that group who can support you? The guy’s a creep who enjoys menacing you. I’m with Renee: call him out!
***
Thinking of the one year anniversary of Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza. Many well-documented analyses have emerged – esp from Amnesty International – but alas, not much has changed, and the people are still living in a kind of Gitmo prison in Gaza.
***
To peace and justice, women and our kinfolk (including all you guys out there), wimmin, womyn, queers, dykes to watch out for, the smart folk of this blog, good food, music, literature, and kitties in 2010.
Reading all this, I seem to recall that Kate thought there may have been an unauthorized person in her office building after hours (this was several months ago?).
I don’t want to push any uneccessary buttons or be an asshole, but it’s just something I recall.
Thanks, everyone, for the concern you’ve shown for me. I’m in the process of checking out the links. Two incidents seem to be key to the law here in Kansas. I think that there may be at least two, but how to prove it? Here’s a sample of what I mean: Five days before I was assualted in 2005, I was at a wine and cheese party given by the perp’s mother (the last time I attended). I had to leave to go to a PFLAG meeting after just an hour, but I didn’t announce that until I got up to leave. By then, the perp had offered to get me the only drink I had while I was there – one glass of white wine. He had gone to the kitchen by himself, and brought it back to me. 20 minutes later, I’m at the PFLAG meeting when I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak and couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I could hear everything going on around me. Some people from the local PFLAG chapter had to drive me and my car home. I don’t remember anything afetr that, except waking up the next morning with no hangover. If I had stayed at the wine and cheese party, the perp would have been the likely one to drive me home. Needless to say, I don’t attend those wine and cheese parties, anymore. Also, to follow up on a comment by Calico, that same thought has occurred to me. Two weeks ago, I was in my campus building at night when I found that the first floor lights had been turned off. I turned them on, got what I needed out of the dept. office, and walked back up the long. open stairway back to my office on the second floor. A short time later, I had to go down to the first floor again. The lights were back off. I had thought that I was alone on the building, but since the light switch is the regular type that might be found in a private homw, it had to have been flipped off by a person. But how to prove anything?
You don’t have to prove it. You just have to document it, (dates and times as accurately as possible),report it, and get the PFS order. They are not difficult to obtain. You probably will have to appear before a judge. Make sure you tell the judge that this creep’s stalking behavior makes you feel fearful. Don’t forget to mention the episode in the campus building, no matter even if you think it could be unrelated to your case. Once the order is in place, then ANY contact that he initiates with you will result in his arrest. Period.
In your state, as well as mine, stalking is defined as 2 or more UNWANTED contacts! There are folks on those websites I posted who can offer you both the support and guidance necessary to get the PFS order rolling.
Please, please, call the victim hotlines, go to the websites I suggested, and MAKE THE CALLS!
To ignore this is not worth the risk. He also may be doing this to other women as well. Be safe. Take care. Make the calls. Keep us posted.
Kate, this is not the first time this jerk has peered out from under his ugly baseball hat in some public place and said “hi,” thereby alarming you. He needs to be stopped. He is making you a nervous wreck and you deserve better!
I know there’s a way to Google the DTWOF blog for specific posts (Hairball – can you remind?). If you haven’t been keeping a written record of this jerk’s advances, you could locate your previous posts on the topic, note the date and time, and add those incidents to your record of unwanted contacts.
Kate – you don’t have to suffer in silence. Restraining orders often have the impact of getting a perp to move on.
You also don’t have to decide about the restraining order now. Talk first to the folks who know the law – the victim hotlines Renee linked – pour out all your stories, including those you’ve told here, and listen to their responses. Then you can decide on the next step.
Kate – I really wish I was there in Kansas with you. Your experience at the party is completely unnerving, and this asshole is up to no good. Please, please act on this, and as Renee said, keep us posted. We are here for you, always.
138 Responses to “vermont cat circus”
I”d like to know how the silly cat got up there in the first place. I doubt she used your back.
Being a circus cat, she obviously walked up that tightrope on the left. Go Doctor Winn!
snicker…
Hey, A.B.! 🙂
The cat circus reminds me of the dog and cat I was taking care of for a friend. I tried putting them both out in the dog pen, which was some sort of mortal cat insult. The dog was running the perimeter of the enclosure, and the cat just waited until she passed by. Then he ran, jumped on the dog’s back, and thence leaped over the fence to freedom! It was as if they had rehearsed it! Sandy, the dog, is still with me. Ben the cat is long gone. He slipped out one night, saying he was going to get some cigarettes. I never saw him again.
I’m still accessing DTWOF from the public library, but now that I’ve submitted my grades for the semester, I plan to make the reaccessability of DTWOF at this university my top priority! Not just for me, but for all the young dykes out there who need to have their own ephiphany moment walking across the quad!
Kate
It’s a modern art circus thing, right?
Russian judge says 8.7!!!
Taa-Daaah!
Cats have an amazing ability to climb trees.
(#1 – claws and determination always work nicely for a feline.)
Nice jump at the end. Guy Laliberté would be proud!
Happy Holidays from snowy, lovely Quebec City!
: )
Perplexity, vexation, indecision. What an EXPRESSIVE tail.
‘Fess up, AB. Did you put Dr W up there?
:::::clicking “Like”:::::
Yes, I did. But she likes it!
Hmmm, I think it was well-rehearsed. I did notice the way the good Dr stared at Holly holding the video camera to make sure all was well before she made her jump …
Thanks AB, was feeling a little rough and that cheered me right up!
Merry Christmas one and all! Best wishes for a happy, peaceful Christmas, Bonne Anniversaire, Feliz Navidad and Frohliche Weinachtsfesten.
Sending out peace and love to everyone else who doesn’t celebrate Christmas.
Charming! I like the ta da gesture that you did at the end. My own cats would have Mocked me if I tried that kind of thing. Actually, I have tried to get them off the garage roof and it usually results in a trip to the first aid kid.
Happy holidays, AB and all you other dtwofers out there!
Um, Alison? Are you getting a new hat for Xmas? You’ve been drawing yourself in that chapeau for eons. May Santa bring you something fun to wear.
cute cat video!
“moderately annoyed’?
ha! you’re a fellow paul klusman fan!
@10 / AB:
Clearly, then, that tail is ALSO saying — Do it again, Ma! Do it again!
Bravo!
Happy Pagan New Year Revels to all! (or any other flavour you choose.)
I’m with Ian (@12). Personally, I’m celebrating the novelty of having the place to myself, Radio Four in every room, and SMOKING IN THE KITCHEN!!! Eek, heresy.
Everybody have a Cool Yule. Today is the day we observe the traditional Xmas day ritual of going to the Mexican buffet place and loading up with cheese enchiladas. But save room for dessert tamales!
I’m going to take a break from my lurking to wish a Merry Happy Day to you all (including circus kitties, puppies,etc.)
And I’d like to wish everyone a happy holiday, and the best for the new year.
Except, of course, the jackass who invented the ringtone.
And I wish everyone on this blog gobs of Irish bacon for breakfast, with blueberry pancakes. I then fried chicken livers in the bacon fat and made pate. To vegetarians, I apologize. To fellow carnivores I say you should be so lucky!
Thanks Alison! That was a way-fun addition to a very mellow holiday. I spent a lot of time rereading Fun Home. Thanks for being such a great part of my reality!
Mentor, you’re a Steeleye Span fan! I recently saw them on their 30th anniversary US tour – Maddy Pryor – as feisty, energetic, gorgeous and beautiful-sounding as ever!
Glad tidings, dykely friends & allies. May your lives breathe deeply during these shortened days pf winter as we barrel forward into a new decade.
(And may I return home soon so that I’m able to view Alison’s cat video! — not to mention return to my two cats!) 😉
(’twas me)
And a Happy Boxing Day to all as well !
My excuse is that I’m not entirely awake, but here’s what came to me — to the tune of “O Come All Ye Faithful”:
Time now for winter
Time for naked axe play
Time to put cats in trees
and coax them down again
Let’s have some bacon
brushed with maple syrple
O come let us make comments
O come let us make comments
O come let us make comments
Mentor protects
I vote for more cat videos. I know that your day job is as a writer (and don’t get me wrong- I enjoy the writing) but the cat videos always make my day. My favorite is still the expensive cat toy video.
Therry and St. Jerome (#22) I don’t have irish bacon, but someone sent me what looks like a leg o’ canadian bacon (if bacon can come in a leg). I’m, like, hoping that will do, eh?
This is off-topic, but as party of my Holiday Movie Binge, I’m watching “The Queen.” Sigh. Isn’t Helen Mirren just the best? Can I make her an honorary Dyke to Watch Out For? Pretty pleeze?
Stay warm all!
“part” not “party.” Hello Preview!
I mentioned previously that I was encouraged to make a chocolate espresso pecan pie from watching a NiftyButton video. I just served a pie based on a “mash up” I made of two different recipes (one by Evan Kleiman and one by Karen Barker). Now that I know that this works well–it makes a GREAT pie–I’m happy to fulfill the request that I share the recipe. Happy holidays!
Chocolate Espresso Pecan Pie
1 baked pie crust in deep dish pan
4 oz. Scharffen Berger bittersweet bar chocolate, broken into chunks
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup (or light Karo corn syrup if you cannot find Lyle’s)
2 Tbs. melted butter
2 Tbs. brewed espresso
2 Tbs. Kahlua
2 cups chopped pecans plus 1/2 cup intact pecan halves
1/4 cup cocoa nibs (optional)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Scatter chocolate chunks over pie crust.
In medium bowl, beat eggs slightly with a fork. Add sugar, Lyle’s (or Karo) syrup, butter, espresso, and Kahlua, then mix until blended. Stir in chopped pecans and cocoa nibs. Pour into pie crust. Arrange the intact pecan halves around the perimeter of the pie and atop the filling, placing the backs against the crust and the tips pointing in toward the center.
Bake 55 minutes or more until the filling is firm and just starting to crack. Remove pie from oven and let cool for at least 4 hours before serving.
@32 / Cathy:
Maybe with a tablespoonful of orange zest? And a soupcon of Maoism? (Soupconner tous et tout, c’est le maoisme pur…) Ah, the memories!
Happy Holidays! I have been reading and not commenting for a while – lacking in wit due to extreme over excitement on the part of my children – resulting in sleep deprivation for weeks!!! I wish you ALL the very best for 2010. Was hoping for a DTWOF festive strip as last year – but circus cat also gets a thumbs up!
Alice (Alis?) and the Cheshire Cat. Next stop–tea with Johnny Depp?
P.S. Love the hat, Alison!
OOH! REcipes!
Alex: Interesting suggestion re: the orange zest and the Maoism (let a thousand recipes bloom).
Ali: Perhaps next year we should have a contest among fans for end-of-year holiday letters for various DTWOF personalities (Alison could post those she deems worthy). I got the idea while attending the John Waters Christmas Show in Alexandria, VA, this month–he declined to dwell on an audience request to suggest such a letter for Sarah Palin (“But I love to spend time thinking about Little Levi,” he added). That led me to muse about letters for other celebrities (“It has been an interesting year for the Gosselin family “) and for fictional characters.
holiday? was there a holiday? How come nobody told me?!?!?!?
wait, is it related to all that AWESOME music i’ve been hearing everywhere i go and every time i turn on the radio or the tv? i hope they keep playing that stuff, it’s great!
Amen, Bean! I’m especially grateful to all of the young folk/rock/punk/pop/indie pseudo singers who felt compelled to give their very own heartfelt tribute to such classics. God knows the world was in need of one more AWESOME version of (name it).
Sadly, I believe a respite from such artistic musical genius is coming, for Valentine’s Day must be marketed, and STAT!
oh dear, did I sound like a scrooge? sorry to all who are digging the season!
HEE! 🙂 Love ya’s, anon et al & bean!
@anon et al(41): Bah humbug!!!
On a cooking note, does anyone know how carrots can still be rock hard, despite being roasted in the oven for 3 hours? I’m never roasting the bastards again.
@43 / Ian:
Those carrots, son, are past roasted. They are desiccated. Mummified.
You may have thought that they were pining for the fields; but no. They have passed on. They are no more. They have ceased to be. They have expired and gone to meet their Maker. They are stiffs! Bereft of life, they rest in peace — if you hadn’t nailed them there, they’d be pushing up the daisies! Their metabolic processes are now history — they’re off the twig, they’ve kicked the bucket, they’ve shuffled off their mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!
Oops — did you say “carrots”? Not “parrots”?
**cough**
Wrong sketch. Sorry. When is the next train for Bolton, please?
This Is an EX CARROT!!!
(sorry….)
Alex and Kat, hysterical.
Now apologise.
What’s that I hear from the roasting pan with the carrots?
“Not dead yet.”
Hi everyone–Still in northern CA. My brother-in-law purchased a quince,which looked to me like a very large mango,only yellow. It has a faint pineapple smell.
I’m not sure yet what he plans to do with it,but I’ll keep you posted.
Alex K–you rock,as usual.
It’s been pretty low-key here; as per winter holiday tradition,we watched Monty Python DVDs,always good for laughs. We also watched a digitally enhanced DVD of the 1961 film,West Side Story. Our family saw the movie in ’62 and later bought the record. My sister and I at one point had the entire soundtrack memorized.
For those of you non-Boomers,the movie version of West Side Story featured the excellent creative talents of Leonard Bernstein,Jerome Robbins,and Stephen Sondheim.
Feminista, we’re in synch once again – I just returned from seeing the revival of WSS on Broadway on XMas night (non-updated and a lot more bilingual). It brought it all back for me! (I was a Shark – claro que si! – in my suburban town’s summer youth theatre in 1981). Wheeee!
Wish I could see the play/musical about Coming Out in Ireland playing at the Public Theatre in January.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/theater/27broken.html?8dpc
Alex K. – Hillarious! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Hey Ian,
Carrots, parsnips and many other root vegetables roast really nice in the oven anywhere from 300-350 F for several hours, but… they can dry out! Try slicing some onions in thin rings, busted apart and spread out underneath directly on the baking sheet to kind of act like a rack or grill, they also add moisture. Drizzle generously with olive oil to start, then half way through brush the root veg’s with butter to create a nice roasted color! (More olive oil is okay too but less carmalization). The onions will likely be uneatable but the bigger root veg’s sitting on top will be wonderful!
@Ian (#43)
Roasted root veggies make for an interesting soup base, as opposed to sautéing veggies in the soup pot before adding liquid. So, if those carrots are roasted to the desiccated stage, you might be able to salvage them in a soup or stock, there’s probably a lot of flavor in them.
Other veggies are also good roasted. I had some roasted brussels sprouts recently, and they were fabulous. Roasting them prevents the house from smelling like a giant fart.
I was told they were tossed with olive oil and kosher salt, and roasted on a baking sheet (they were quartered or halved to speed cooking). Halfway through the roasting, the sprouts were tossed with freshly-minced garlic (the halfway point wasn’t specified with an exact time, but the idea is that the garlic was added later to prevent it from burning.)
If you know someone who doesn’t like brussels sprouts, this preparation might change her/his mind. No mind-changing necessary for me, I like all the cruciates.
Yeah, braising and roasting is what brought me around years ago with regard to brussel sprouts and beets. Reading all this is awakening a winter hunger in me, but it’s almost 3 a.m. and my cooking caoacity is limited right now anyhow, so I’ll feast vicariously.
@Maggie (#52)
Howdy girl. Glad to see you in better shape these days.
Beets have a lot of natural sugar in them, so they caramelize quite nicely when roasted.
As a kid, I liked playing with the brussels sprouts, I peeled them leaf by leaf to eat them.
I think the smell of them cooking (hydrogen sulfide, aka the giant fart) is what turns off many folks to the cruciates.
I take leftover steamed brussels sprouts and marinate them like artichokes; lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, salt, pepper. I serve them on top of a pile of organic spring mix/mesclun and roma tomatoes, the marinade serves as dressing. Shave some parmigiano reggiano on top, toss some pignoli (raw or toasted) if you have them. It’s a good way to serve brussels sprouts to folks who think they don’t like brussels sprouts.
@Tori Poppy et al: Sorry, I’d like to point out that the carrots were not dessicated, or dried out. They were simply uncooked! This is despite parboiling them AND putting them on a bed of onions and adding plenty of olive oil, as well as balsamic vinegar. Strangely, the butternut squash was in a similar condition, but the roast potatoes were fine.
My own favourite way of cooking brussels sprouts is to steam them, then saute them in butter with garlic and sage. Braised red cabbage (google Delia Smith for the recipe) is also fantastic.
Ian, I have noticed that when I roast a mix of things it’s less successful than just one or two. It’s possible that there’s no science whatsoever to that statement, and that it’s entirely coincidence, but I seem to remember a lot “hm, that one thing is not cooking at all but the rest of the pan is so overcooked that it’s dead” moments.
Also, now that I think about it, a friend of mine tried to do roast parsnips and carrots for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago, and had to give up and serve still very hard and tough veggies, because it had been an insanely long time and they just weren’t getting cooked.
It’s just about 2am here, and I’m not super coherent (although that beer was tasty), so I’m going to stop trying to type. Goodnight all!
Oh, Maggie, are you saying I need to apologize for a Monty Python reference?? Never!!
At our house we have stuffed cabbage. (You vegetarians can have them stuffed with buckwheat groats.) It makes the place smell like a Polish wedding.
And cooked parsnips are yummy when mashed with potatoes and garlic.
Following up on Andi#30’s reference to Helen Mirren:
I first became aware of HM in the BBC/PBS series of the complete Shaxespere in the late 70s/early 80s, where she played Titania and Rosalind (and a couple other roles). I’ve been a great fan ever since.
For any Americans who’ve not seen it, definitely check out her BBC series “Prime Suspect” (it shows up on PBS occasionally and is available through NetFlix; BTW it was the basis for the American TV series “The Closer”. The original is vastly better.)
Similarly, like most Americans I became aware of HM comparatively “late” in her career (a curious term to apply to someone in their mid/early 30s), she having done movies as early as her late teens[*] before joining the Royal Shackspere Company. Moreover, as beautiful as she is now, early in her career she had something of a reputation as “sex babe” –something that apparently caused her some trouble, as this
Truly Embarrassing Interview will make clear.
[* E.g. search YouTube for “Age of Consent”.]
Feminista — comedy is part of hour holiday tradition also — on Xmas eve we watched the SCTV Xmas show — third season, with Ed Grimley, and Count Floyd’s “Scary Little Christmas”, and the Schmenges! “Now I must remove my shoes because I am the guest!”
“our”
Alex and Kat, I wasn’t “demanding an apology”, I was being a good “straight man” (what alternative term can we come up with THERE?)
With regard to Cleese and apologies..wink wink nudge nudge…
In other news, I am in a sniveling mood. Only slept 5 hours again (4 hours the night before) and no nap yesterday, either. I woke up actually having a vocabulary crisis in a dream, trying to come uo with the precise word for something and stumped. Pathetically nerdy, and it’s not the first time. I also occasionally dream in rhyme, and from the few times I’ve been able to jot down remembered lines upon awakening, it’s complicated meter, not Seussian, Nashian, or Partonesque.
Not that there’s anything wrong with the writing of any of those three.
I have onerous tasks to do today. Usually my reward would be either culinary or TV. And my standby, PBS, does have what I’d generally regard as tasty viewing, an American Masters look at Louisa May Alcott (LOVE her) and an Independent Lens examination of people obsessed with paper folding (a skill I’ve never been able to acquire despite frequent tutoring by an ex who drifted paper cranes in her wake). But when I’m fatigued, Grey’s Anatomy is more my speed.
And I just discovered that the person who does my grocery shopping for me, unable to find the pitted dates I requested, substituted prunes instead. Which is not even close to being the same thing, in my opinion, despite their being actually a good idea for me at the moment.
From the ages of 8-12, we lived in a rent house bordered by a vigorous plum thicket. When the bushes came ripe, my little brother and I were forced into the waspy, sweltering thicket with empty coffee cans and told to pick until there was no fruit left, a several-day proposition. Mama would be standing over vats of bubbling fruit in an even hotter kitchen, foul-tempered, to scald old jars and melt paraffin and seal the tops of rows of red plum jam. It was the only jelly or jam we ever had those five years, and I can’t abide it now, don’t like plums in any form (forgive me, but you can have the fucking cold plums in the refrigerator…)
Mostly I just need a nap. And a better body. And to not be at a really painful part of the novel I’m writing. And health care legislation that isn’t Obama’s giveaway to corporate insurance giants.
From my hera Digby: “For those of you who aren’t covered by your employer for health insurance, here’s a handy tool to figure out what you’d owe under health care reform under the two plans. (Be sure to put in your age in 2014.)” Concrete data for comparison…
Health Reform Subsidy Calculator
Re: roasting veg:
Whether parboiling or not, keep the oven temp kinda in the milieu / middle range, like 350-400 deg. F. Cook for 1 hour to 1.5 hours.
Also pierce/poke them all over with a fork before placing in oven. It won’t dry them out, trust me.
For bigger veg like rutabagas or sweet potatoes, after poking wrap lightly in tin foil. You can make a kind of surprise veggie packet, like a Pappilote with aluminum.
Brussel Sprouts are best when cooked directly from being removed from the stalk (ideally still resting in the garden), whether they are covered by snow or not. Keeping them on the stalk retains their natural sweetness, and the house won’t stink so much after cooking.
Papillote, I mean. Oooopsie!
Ian,
Your experience with the carrots unwilling to become cooked (naughty veg!) reminds me of a scene from Notting Hill.
The Hugh Grant character is on a blind date, having dinner, and his date says that not only is she a vegetarian, but she only eats fruits and vegetables that have fallen on the ground, or “given their lives voluntarily.”
He says, “So these carrots have been….”
and she replies, “Murdered. Yes.”
Perhaps what you experienced was the Revenge of the Veg?
Seriously, don’t give up on roasted carrots. They are yummy. And roasted veggie soup is to die for. No pun intended. Oh jeez, I better go back to work now!
RIP Pont Champlain (yes, I shed a tear when I saw this live on WCAX).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fM_78_v06w
Ah…..Maggie was being the “straight man”……got it….
Calico, I have never noticed a bad smell after cooking brussels sprouts. Then again, I love them passionately (and have, all my life). Is it one of those things that you only notice if you think it’s gawdawful?
My favorite way to do brussels sprouts is to cut them in half lengthwise, par-boil them in some chicken broth for a couple minutes in a skillet (till most of the liquid evaporates), then add a healthy blob of butter and sautée them in the butter till they’re tender and the delicious smell of browned butter knocks your socks off.
You can do the same technique (with less broth and less time IN the broth) but shred the sprouts in the food processor. Or use chopped up bacon instead of butter. That’s pretty amazing, too.
From the “Bizarro in Chicago” Dept, comes this news piece about GOP Senate candidate Andy Martin’s homophobic allegations about another GOP candidate, Rep. Mark Kirk:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1961750,mark-kirk-gay-attack-ad-election-122809.article
Also note that Mark Kirk is currently on active duty in the US Navy, so if he really were gay, this would be a rather interesting situation to watch.
Quoting from the article:
—
Martin has never won elective office. His is a textbook case in explaining the power of the Illinois Supreme Court’s Character and Fitness Committee to determine who can and cannot practice law in Illinois. Although he was able to complete law school and pass the bar exam, the committee refused to grant him a law license.
Martin objected at one committee meeting when staffers retrieved a document from his Selective Service file labeling him unfit for military service because of a “moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character.” Martin called committee members “scum.”
When reporters report these facts, Martin sometimes sues them alleging libel. His penchant for filing so many lawsuits later dismissed as frivolous has enraged some judges who have held him in contempt of court over the years. Some of his court filings have included anti-semitic comments.
Martin garnered some national attention for pushing rumors that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and that the Hawaiian birth certificate Obama posted on his Web site early in his campaign was a fake.
—
Seems the Illinois GOP is recruiting from Second City. Ginjoint must be laughing her butt off.
In other LGBT news, the Senate has confirmed Sharon Lubinski, the openly-lesbian asst police chief of Minneapolis, as US Marshal.
http://minnesotaindependent.com/52601/senate-approves-lubinski-nations-first-gay-u-s-marshal
In “Geeks Gone Wild” news, comes word of a guy who developed a £30,000 “fembot” named Aiko (Japanese for “love-child”), a vaguely female robot that talks, speaks English and Japanese, suggests dinner and drinks, and does who-knows-what-else.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1238324/Robot-Romance-Inventor-Le-Trung-takes-fembot-girlfriend-Christmas-dinner.html
Quoting from the article:
—
Le has built up huge debts working on his fembot and is still trying to find a technology company to sponsor his research.
But in the meantime he has had to move back in with his parents and they will all be spending the festive period and New Year together.
“My family found it a bit odd at first, but now they all love Aiko,” said Le.
“My mum and dad chat away to her. It helps by talking to her, as it improves her vocabulary.”
Le suffered a heart attack two years ago caused by stress after working long hours on Aiko.
As he recovered he vowed to complete her so he could market the prototype as a home-help for the elderly or people recovering from hospital treatment.
Le has made his fembot as womanly as possible, in order to make a human-like companion.
Aiko, whose age is “in her early 20’s,” is 5ft tall and has a perfect 32, 23, 33 figure.
She has real silicone skin and a real-hair wig made by a Japanese doll company. Her touch sensitive body knows the difference between being stroked gently or tickled.
“Like a real female she will react to being touched in certain ways,” said Le.
“If you grab or squeeze too hard she will try to slap you. She has all senses except for smell.”
“But Aiko is always helpful and never complains. She is the perfect woman to have around at Christmas.”
—
And from the sound of it, I’ll bet he thinks she’s the perfect woman to have around the rest of the year too. Sure hope he’s got a lifetime’s supply of batteries, he’s gonna need them.
A long, long time ago, when I attended such events, there was always one person at an LSD, mescaline, mushroom or ecstasy party, whose job it was to stay straight and keep the rest out of trouble. That person was known as the “Abbot” after the straight man to Mr. Costello.
The female equivalent would obviously be “Abbess.”
@ Helen Mirren – seen this?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1035510/Helen-Mirren-bikini-queen-reigns-supreme-63.html
Drool.
[sorry]
#66 – That sounds lovely.
I’ll try your sprout recipe this weekend, perhaps with mashed potatoes!
Hairball – Andy Martin’s a nutcase who’s been around for years. Sound and fury, signifying madness. Also, that guy with his “fembot”? L.O.S.E.R. I mean, that is truly pathetic. I wonder if he realizes that he’s essentially broadcasting (ouch) his sexual insecurities for one and all to see. I’ll take it even further – I’m glad the asshole had a heart attack. Anyone with that little regard for women doesn’t deserve sympathy.
@71 / Pam I:
Even the DAILY MAIL has its uses, eh?
8^)
Now back to bogus asylum claimants whose filthy diseases and illegitimate babies are bankrupting the NHS…
I have always admired your candor, Ginjoint…
Off-topic: It’s been an exciting 24 hours at here at the Melody Ranch. My ’93 Ford Escort survived a broken timing belt last night. I was driving along when I smelled something funny, saw smoke coming from the engine, and pulled off on a side street. I don’t have a cell phone, so as the sun went down last night, I knocked on a stranger’s door and borrowed their cell phone. I’ve been told that I have a kind face, and I guess I do, because I sure don’t know what I would have thought if someone I didn’t know showed up at my door at sunset asking to use the phone. I didn’t have my motor club card with me, but the person who answered the phone for my oil company charge card put me in touch with them, and they called a wrecker for me. The auto repair shop was still open, and they gave me a ride home. My dog, however, was very upset that I hadn’t been home before dark! I’ve got the car back, now, and it runs great. The repairs (for both the broken timing belt and a broken water pump that may either have caused the timing belt to break or have been broken by the timing belt) were much less than I feared. It just goes to prove what my dad always used to say, “Something will turn up; it always does!”. OMG, did I just say that?? And he’d always say it in what I can only describe in a relentlessly cheerful voice. I haven’t mastered that, yet.
#76 –
If you can, join AAA. They are really quite amazing, and not too costly.
My Grandfather used to say, “It’s always something!”
Mine used to say, “worse things happen at sea”.
Calico!
Thanks for the link to the Champlain Bridge demolition! I forgot to watch it on tv on Monday. Man. It was kind of upsetting to see! I have many fond memories of crossing that rickety thing.
@Kate L
Hope the dog didn’t piddle on the floor in annoyance or distress at your late arrival.
(… old gearhead here …)
Lucky you don’t have an interference design engine, you would have ended up with a mangle of bent lifters and crank arms, and probably a hole punched through the block, aka a total loss for the engine (and the car, unless you had a source for a cheap used engine and labor to install it). Also very lucky for you the engine didn’t seize, the oil pump runs off the crankshaft.
Timing belt typical spec is to be replaced around every 60,000 miles. Check your owner’s manual. Usually the water pump gets replaced at the same time because you have to do all the exact same labor to get to it, so you might as well replace it, it’s only another $150 or so, and they are designed (bearings, impeller, etc.) to wear out around the same timespan as the timing belt. Also change the timing belt tensioner and idler, same labor, a few more bucks for parts, and bad/worn ones can shred your new timing belt.
Hopefully whoever did the work also looked over the serpentine belt (external belt, not internal like the timing belt), belt tensioner, alternator, power steering, and A/C bearings when s/he put everything back together. It was probably time for the serpentine belt to be replaced as well. When it’s off, it’s a good idea to spin all the components by hand which run off the belt(s) to feel for bad bearings that could lead to a future breakdown.
Marj’s grandfather is right, worse things do happen at sea. Best techs I’ve ever hired and/or worked with were Navy techs, followed close behind by Air Force techs, two areas where you can’t exactly just pull over to the side of the road when something breaks.
Navy techs have the edge (particularly submariners) because they have to use ingenuity and improvisation to fix stuff while underway, USAF techs ground the plane, shut down the radar or whatever, they’re not in the middle of nowhere cannibalizing parts to make stuff work, but they’ve got the same mindset of zero tolerance for error and breakdown.
Helen Mirren in a bikini = Bodacious!
Rrrrrow!
#79 – You are welcome AB!
Upon watching this, my partner told me there is a bridge in Trois-Riviéres that looks like the now dearly departed Champlain span. Interesting.
Bridges are really quite the things of beauty to me, physically and symbolically.
#76 – Reading back, I didn’t notice you had an Auto Club Card. Silly me, making suggestions that aren’t really necessary!
Glad your vehicle is working well now.
#80 Would these suggestions hold for a ’99 Volvo?
#71 Helen Mirren is an inspiration – along with so many other older women like Judi Dench, Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem (to name only a few), as well as some I know personally. They show me that growth and life can continue, rich with identity, even better as a result of the life and experience that has come before. As I approach 40, I get this from women in their 60’s and 70’s, certainly, but also from those in their 40’s and 50’s. I’m watching generations of women come into their own and show me what’s possible. Thank you all!
Dear Alison, nice video. Compliments to Dr. W. Tulip, my cat, would instead climb up the rest of the tree upwards. I’d have to call for rescue. I’ve felt a little envious of that snow and chill. 101ºF at shadow in São Paulo (Brazil) these days. Down to 95º when it rains, which happens thrice a day. Poor neighborhoods flooded. Sad, sad.
@deborah9 (#83)
Yes, the recommendation holds, but depending on what model Volvo you are driving, the timing belt replacement schedule is different, I think it’s around 100,000 miles. Check your owner’s manual, it will have the recommended service intervals for all the major scheduled maintenance.
Make sure the idler and belt tensioner pulleys are replaced along with the timing belt and water pump. Those two little doodads are not expensive parts, but they can fail and cause the timing belt to fail catastrophically. On an interference design engine (that’s an engine where the valve rods/lifters would crash into one another if not for the careful separation/alignment via the camshaft vs. crankshaft timing, maintained by the timing belt), a timing belt failure will almost always require an engine rebuild or a new engine (both expensive propositions).
I’m pretty sure the Volvo uses an interference design engine. If that’s my car and my money, I’d be replacing the belt, pulleys, and water pump a bit before the recommended interval just to be sure nothing goes pop/crash/kaboom prematurely.
Folks who have engines that use a timing chain instead of a belt don’t have these worries. Timing chains last a long, long, time. Also note that sometimes diesel engines (you didn’t say if your Volvo was diesel or gasoline) use timing chains or a timing chain and cam belt. Diesels need a lot more torque to turn over when cold, and a chain is much better at that than a belt.
(… once a gearhead, always a gearhead …)
Nice when worlds collide: Blue Gal writing for Crooks & Liars has a ling to GoodReads list of Books of the Decade, and Fun Home is currently #97. But the ranking is being determined by voting, so go participate if you wish.
Side note: For my daily dose of information and thinking about the world in a mostly political sense, I read
(1) Crooks & Liars
(2) Hullaballoo
(3) Brilliant at Breakfast
(4) FireDogLake
(5) Echidne of the Snakes
Art and literature would be a different blog list as would be science, cartoons/graphics, humor, and personal faves. What’s yours, out there?
you know, Maggie’s got a great idea!
I’m terribly bored by my daily blogroll, and would love to see what others are reading. Perhaps it will give me ideas.
Maggie, that’s a great idea! Especially as I’m fed up with many of the feminist/political sites I’ve been visiting. Right now, however, I’m way past time to jump in the shower and get to work. More later.
Thanks for the auto advice, hairball! 🙂
My alumni magazine has a really nice photo of women geologists at the university’s geology field camp. They are standing in a circle, holding their double-headed geology hammers in the air (!)
At the stroke of midnight tonight, U.S. Central Time, I’ll be standing at the top of the stairs in my house (where I grew up), saying “Happy New Year!” to no one but my dog. I do this is memory of my mother, who shouted that down the stairs to me from that very spot on her last New Year’s Eve, now some 22 years ago. She passed away 18 days later. Am I weird for doing this?
Maggie, and Kat: after I finish the social network trifecta of email, LJ and FB, I turn to the Stranger Slog (http://thestranger.com/slog) for my bearings. It’s somewhat Seattle-specific.
OK Maggie, I’ll jump in with my daily reads:
1)Jackandjillpolitics.com
2)jeweatyet(dannymiller.typepad.com)
3)loriangille.blogspot.com
4)thebespokenfor.net
5)colourlovers.com
6)amycrehore.blogspot.com
plus, of course, dtwof, maggiesmetawatershed and my own SeeSaw.
Most of mine are design/culture related. I mostly avoid the political talking heads (or more accurately, typing hands) these days because I am sick to death of pundits. They all seem to think they own the truth and I think that’s just so last century.
Happy new decade everyone.
This segues from an earlier thread about scooping cat poop and litterboxes… the Wall Street Journal had an article today about toilet-training cats.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704152804574628241970012858.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle
Quoting from the article:
—
To be sure, many pet owners have thrown in the towel after making an honest effort at toilet training. Janet Rosenbaum, a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, lives in a Baltimore apartment and wasn’t thrilled about the way her cat Ninja tracked litter all over the bathroom floor. So about a year ago, she began efforts to toilet-train him using a plastic mixing bowl filled with litter inserted into her toilet—but the mess Ninja made became a turnoff to guests who came over.
“The guy I was dating at the time stopped using the bathroom at my house,” she recalls. It also required her to remember to clear the toilet before visitors came or they might have to deal with some unpleasantness if they needed to use the bathroom. “I felt bad inflicting that on my guests,” she says. She and Ninja finally gave up after six months, and he seamlessly went back to a litter box.
—
Interesting that she felt bad about her human guests and not about foisting behavioral modification on her cat. I think there’s a simpler way to deal with cat litter tracked on the bathroom floor. It’s called a broom.
Kate (89) not weird at all. Plus I LOVE the labyris-wielding geologists.
Good 2010 all.
Daily blog reads… I don’t actually have time to read blogs EVERY day, sometimes I go a few days between reads, sometimes I read all day, depends on my work/travel/sleep schedule.
I do read news sites nearly every day, but those don’t count as blogs. I read tech stuff, but increasingly I find them shills for the latest PR flacks from tech companies trying to push product enthusiasm and stock price jumps. (Does anyone REALLY care that Apple grabbed the domain name iSlate.com in 2007? I sure don’t, and I don’t want to read any more thinly-veiled product placement crap for Apple’s purported new tablet PC.)
I doubt there’s more than a few folks here who would want to wade into the forums on distrowatch.com, except for the confirmed geeks and Linux heads (maybe NLC, ksbel6, not sure who else).
I also am having some trouble figuring out where the blogosphere ends and conventional website-ishness begins as blogs evolve and grow. Such is the case with lifehacker.com, which I read pretty regularly. It seemed much more blog-like in its early years, but now it’s more like an interesting website that mixes whimsical DIY tech ideas (check out the magnetic coffee cup holder) and practical recommendations for software and organizational/productivity aids.
I also read How To Spot A Psychopath, dansdata.blogsome.com. Dan has the best links to stuff in his articles, I always get a laugh from them. Don’t be put off by his mostly tech focus, his latest post is about what constitutes Art (with a capital “A”). He also has little tolerance for hucksters and pseudo-science scam artists, and skewers them mercilessly with heaping doses of sarcasm and reality.
Happy New Year, y’all. I’m off into the light snow to celebrate with some friends.
I forgot to mention the blog by Acilius and friends. It rocks.
losthunderlads.wordpress.com
Although the posting time may indicate otherwise,it is 9:21 PM 12/31 PST as I write this.
Back from CA last night; spent the day catching up on mail,phone calls,unpacking,grocery shopping.
I’ve been gone 3 weeks,so one cat (Jasmine) has been glued to my side,soaking up attention. The other one,Oreo,has been avoiding me,but will come around soon.
Happy New Year to y’all!!
Starting the New Year right —
Bacon.
And bellinis.
AB, Holly, Dr W, Mentor — thanks for making this space available
and keeping it friendly. Joy to all your worlds!
@Alex K (#97)
Bellinis? Are those blinis? The Russian/Eastern European things that are also known as blintzes?
Blinis with caviar?
I stuffed my face with a gastronomic ethnic mishmash from at least three continents, and now I’m feeling the effects.
My plate was heaped with salad, Hoppin’ John (black-eyed peas), spiced lentils, tomato chutney, Nova (smoked salmon), pickled lotus root, spanakopita (spinach pie), tzatziki, lime pickle, jasmine rice, sun-dried tomato something-or-another, kalamata olives, and I forget what else. I took a pass on the goat cheese and a few other things. There was no sushi this year, the guy who makes it has been ill (he owns a sushi restaurant), otherwise I would have loaded up on that too. Also wine, champagne, and coffee. And cake.
Gee, I can’t imagine why I can’t get to sleep.
(… starts singing “Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is” …)
Hi everybody,
Happy New Year! May we see in the new year people helping people, people helping animals, and people helping the planet as a whole.
(For the past few years I have been sending out
a winter solstice/new year card with one of my
NYC-street-photos. This somewhat leaden text
starts with the words of this year’s photo
of an East Village storefront.)
I just read the obituary of Rachel Todd Wetzsteon,
a poet previously unfamiliar to me. Does anyone here know her work? There’s such pain that comes before the decision to take your own life…
The NYT obituary printed such a wonderful poem of hers.
freyakat (#99), thank you for directing me (us) to the Times piece on Rachel Wetzsteon. After reading it, and the beautiful “Sakura Park” poem, I spent some time reading more about, and by, her. Feels like a kindred spirit, and I am grateful to have been introduced to her words. So, thank you. A somber but heart-swelling way to start this morning of a new year.
Happy New Year all.
Special thanks to Mentor, world champion pooper scooper, who smells the shit so we don’t have to. And of course to Alison for drawings, cat videos, and hosting this Wild Rumpus.
5 political/social blogs I like:
– Paul Krugman. He blogs actively — he doesn’t just post his M/F op-ed columns.
– Ta-Nehisi Coates
– J. Bradford Delong
– Juan Cole
– Bruce Schneier, not someone I read regularly but very helpful on public security issues, e.g. the response to the undie bomber.
Google for the URLs. I don’t want to trip the spam filter. Looking forward to other peoples’ blog lists.
And here’s wishing everybody a year of good health, woman geologists, possible crushes, wheelchair accessibility, good jobs, family sanity (if possible), and all the other good stuff I’m forgetting.
@hairball, a bellini is a cocktail consisting of peach puree and champagne. i think it originated at harry’s bar in venice.
oh, and i used to live with a man who had a 6th floor walk up apartment and a cat. he had trained the cat to use the bathtub so that there would be no lugging of litter up six flights of stairs. after that cat died and we adopted another cat, he trained our guy to use the tub. it took about two days, with no mishaps. it did confound overnight guests. the cat and i live together alone now, he uses a litterbox, and i am so tempted to switch back to the tub arrangement! it was seriously cheaper, never smelled, and took approximately three seconds to clean up in the morning.
@102: Spot on, Cybercita!
Ours were in (*gasp*) south-of-the-river-I’m-appalled-and-ashamed London instead of just off the Piazza San Marco, and with Tropicana’s peach-orange juice mix from the carton instead of the regulation fresh peach puree, and with prosecco spumante instead of Champagne…
So, Bellinis faux. But you take what you can get, innit? And they went SO well with crispy bacon!
Re: cats using the toilet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ug7WEUxH68
Yes, it’s kind of icky but we all do it, and it’s kind of funny/sad at the end.
(Prolly NSFW)
On that note, Happy New Year!
No hangover, no belly ache. Yay.
@freyakat (#99)
Words of an East Village storefront… is the photo of the animal rescue place on E. 4 St in Alphabet City?
Thanks for the reference to Rachel Wetzsteon’s obit, I had never heard of her either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/01/books/01wetzsteon.html
Quoting from the obit:
—
Ms. Wetzsteon’s work was often rooted in her Morningside Heights neighborhood. In the title poem of “Sakura Park,” here in its entirety, she wrote of the small park near Riverside Church, known for its cherry trees:
The park admits the wind,
the petals lift and scatter
like versions of myself I was on the verge
of becoming; and ten years on
and ten blocks down I still can’t tell
whether this dispersal resembles
a fist unclenching or waving goodbye.
But the petals scatter faster,
seeking the rose, the cigarette vendor,
and at least I’ve got by pumping heart
some rules of conduct: refuse to choose
between turning pages and turning heads
though the stubborn dine alone. Get over
“getting over”: dark clouds don’t fade
but drift with ever deeper colors.
Give up on rooted happiness
(the stolid trees on fire!) and sweet reprieve
(a poor park but my own) will follow.
There is still a chance the empty gazebo
will draw crowds from the greater world.
And meanwhile, meanwhile’s far from nothing:
the humming moment, the rustle of cherry trees.
—
@Alex K, cybercita
Bellini. Hmmm. Now you’ve added to my random knowledge file. Don’t think I’m going to order one, I’m not big on fruity alcoholic drinks.
The juice in question was a mix of peach and orange, so I suppose the drink was a cross between a Bellini and a Mimosa. What to call it… Bellosa? Mimini? Or perhaps in honor of its creator and imbiber, Alexir?
So I am not the only person who read the Rachel Wetzsteon obit and wondered about her. I read “Sakura Park” out to K at breakfast and we both agreed that it’s a very good poem. It’s (sadly) an apt poem to quote in an obit, and a very good poem to quote re the end of last year:
.. I still can’t tell
whether this dispersal resembles
a fist unclenching or waving goodbye.
Happy New Year everybody! It’s technically 2/1/10 here, but still 1/1/10 over there so I can say it!
Thanks everyone for the carrot roasting suggestions. I still think I’ll stick to steaming them, then drizzling them in honey.
@Alex K: Of course you couldn’t find proper Bellinis SOUTH of the river! 😉 They do sound nice though. I’m not a huge fan of champagne – I generally prefer cava.
@alex k,
london sounds pretty good to me at the moment. it’s been ages and i’d love to come back. but i’ll skip the bellini and have a pint of dry blackthorn, if you don’t mind.
@111 / Cybercita:
The three-litre bottle of White Lightning has your name on it. Doesn’t mean you get it all, mind you!
See you behind the bike shed… bring the cigarettes.
@Hairball (#107): The E. 4th St. animal rescue place is indeed special. But no, my photo is of a building on the northeast corner of E. 3rd Street and Second Avenue. I think that the building may be more or less abandoned at the moment, but for a brief time last March both sides of its facade were painted blue, and someone had painted the message ‘People Helping People’. I liked that a lot, and I always carry a camera, mainly for this type of situation.
#112/alex k, i’ll bring the cigarettes if i can sneak them out of my mother’s purse again. she’s on to us, i think.
Today it’s 01/02/2010 (American version) – Palindrome Day.
#107 – What a beautiful, bittersweet poem.
Thanks for posting it.
It makes me sad that often we only learn of one’s genius after they have left…
#115 –
Emil, asleep, peels a lime.
#115 & 117: Gotta love those palindromes.
I learned the word as a teenager. My leftist social worker dad used to bring home copies of The Paper,Michigan State University’s underground newspaper,starting ca.1965. MSU’s prez at the time was George Hannah,so The Paper thought they’d have some fun with his name: “Hannah revealed to be a palindrome.” Ironically,his wife’s name was Anna Hannah,but that wasn’t mentioned.
While not a well-written rag,I did learn about the FSM (Free Speech Movement),the beginnings of student rebellion against bureaucratic nonsense at a “multi-versity”–MSU at the time had ca.30,000 students–and some info about the anti-war movement.
Dad also introduced my sister and me to Ramparts,a leftist magazine which exposed MSU’s network of advisors who influenced the corrupt puppet Diem regime in South Viet Nam. (Viet Nam is how its people prefer to spell it.) LBJ consulted regularly with poli sci professor Wesley Fishel,the father of a classmate.
Rogue Republicans = Palin Drones
Palindromes… now I’m hunting for my copy of “Gödel, Escher, Bach.” Douglas Hofstadter wrote the most amazing palindrome, Crab Canon. I remember reading that book awestruck at how he weaved string theory, Bach fugues, word play, and art into a coherent opus.
On a practical level, I wonder how he wrote the book outline and sold it to a publisher. That must have been more difficult than writing the book itself. Cynic that I am, I doubt any publisher would take it on today, too many pages, too esoteric a topic, no well-defined audience (unless there’s a PBS series it can be tied to/cross-promoted with). Also no editor with an attention span long enough or with enough background to intelligently edit it.
@Renee (#119)
Brilliant!
I looked up the roots of palindrome:
[1620–30; < Gk palíndromos recurring, equiv. to pálin again, back + -dromos running (see -DROME)]
Interesting that the meaning of both the Greek word palin and the candidate Palin is to go back, in her case to go back to the Dark Ages.
A few weeks ago, I was in the grocery store when I noticed a man with a baseball cap pulled down over his eyes watching me as I looked at vegetables. He said, “Hi”, but I did not realize who it was until I was walking away. It was the man who sexually assaulted me four and a half years ago. Today, this same man has posted to the newsgroup of a local human rights group that I serve as executive board secretary. What a way to start of new decade.
Oh, Kate….I can’t imagine what that must be like, but I send love and strong vibes….
My best friend’s new year started with the death of her grandmother. I was really, really, really hoping for a non-repeat of the awful crap that seemed to fill 2009.
sigh.
#122 – Wow – I am so sorry.
Can you get this scuzzbag on an offender’s database and inform the local or State Police as well?
Also, can you bar him from this newsgroup site?
@Kate #122
This man is stalking you. Kansas (I think you live there, if I’m not mistaken) has clear cut stalking laws. You already have enough to have this guy arrested. Read this:
http://www.ncvc.org/src/main.aspx?dbID=DB_Kansas530
Also, you can call the National Center for Victims of Crime Hotline: 1-800-FYI-CALL (M-F, 8:30 am to 8:30 pm).
@ Kate L # 122
In Kansas, you can also get a Protection from Stalking Order (PFS). Document all contact from this creep (date, time, etc.) This would be your first step to take. This is what you do:
http://www.kcsdv.org/pfs.html
Kate L., I quite agree with Renee S. Please follow her advice, whatever your feelings — ask for help woth your feelings, you deserve help and advocacy at every step, you are not alone in this.
Another resourse for Kate L.
http://www.womenslaw.org/laws_state_type.php?id=519&state_code=KS
Aw shucks I came here to announce today’s Palindromic Day and, natch, y’all’s already been there.
***
Kate – ugh – I feel for you. 🙁 Stalkers thrive on fear and silence. I know you’re active in the women’s center on campus and its Take Back the Night activities. Are there peers in that group who can support you? The guy’s a creep who enjoys menacing you. I’m with Renee: call him out!
***
Thinking of the one year anniversary of Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza. Many well-documented analyses have emerged – esp from Amnesty International – but alas, not much has changed, and the people are still living in a kind of Gitmo prison in Gaza.
***
To peace and justice, women and our kinfolk (including all you guys out there), wimmin, womyn, queers, dykes to watch out for, the smart folk of this blog, good food, music, literature, and kitties in 2010.
Happy New Year, y’all!
Reading all this, I seem to recall that Kate thought there may have been an unauthorized person in her office building after hours (this was several months ago?).
I don’t want to push any uneccessary buttons or be an asshole, but it’s just something I recall.
Get the PO.
Thanks, everyone, for the concern you’ve shown for me. I’m in the process of checking out the links. Two incidents seem to be key to the law here in Kansas. I think that there may be at least two, but how to prove it? Here’s a sample of what I mean: Five days before I was assualted in 2005, I was at a wine and cheese party given by the perp’s mother (the last time I attended). I had to leave to go to a PFLAG meeting after just an hour, but I didn’t announce that until I got up to leave. By then, the perp had offered to get me the only drink I had while I was there – one glass of white wine. He had gone to the kitchen by himself, and brought it back to me. 20 minutes later, I’m at the PFLAG meeting when I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak and couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I could hear everything going on around me. Some people from the local PFLAG chapter had to drive me and my car home. I don’t remember anything afetr that, except waking up the next morning with no hangover. If I had stayed at the wine and cheese party, the perp would have been the likely one to drive me home. Needless to say, I don’t attend those wine and cheese parties, anymore. Also, to follow up on a comment by Calico, that same thought has occurred to me. Two weeks ago, I was in my campus building at night when I found that the first floor lights had been turned off. I turned them on, got what I needed out of the dept. office, and walked back up the long. open stairway back to my office on the second floor. A short time later, I had to go down to the first floor again. The lights were back off. I had thought that I was alone on the building, but since the light switch is the regular type that might be found in a private homw, it had to have been flipped off by a person. But how to prove anything?
Kate,
You don’t have to prove it. You just have to document it, (dates and times as accurately as possible),report it, and get the PFS order. They are not difficult to obtain. You probably will have to appear before a judge. Make sure you tell the judge that this creep’s stalking behavior makes you feel fearful. Don’t forget to mention the episode in the campus building, no matter even if you think it could be unrelated to your case. Once the order is in place, then ANY contact that he initiates with you will result in his arrest. Period.
In your state, as well as mine, stalking is defined as 2 or more UNWANTED contacts! There are folks on those websites I posted who can offer you both the support and guidance necessary to get the PFS order rolling.
Please, please, call the victim hotlines, go to the websites I suggested, and MAKE THE CALLS!
To ignore this is not worth the risk. He also may be doing this to other women as well. Be safe. Take care. Make the calls. Keep us posted.
Kate, this is not the first time this jerk has peered out from under his ugly baseball hat in some public place and said “hi,” thereby alarming you. He needs to be stopped. He is making you a nervous wreck and you deserve better!
I know there’s a way to Google the DTWOF blog for specific posts (Hairball – can you remind?). If you haven’t been keeping a written record of this jerk’s advances, you could locate your previous posts on the topic, note the date and time, and add those incidents to your record of unwanted contacts.
Kate – you don’t have to suffer in silence. Restraining orders often have the impact of getting a perp to move on.
You also don’t have to decide about the restraining order now. Talk first to the folks who know the law – the victim hotlines Renee linked – pour out all your stories, including those you’ve told here, and listen to their responses. Then you can decide on the next step.
Stay strong. (Women geologists naturally are!)
@R2A, Kate L (#133)
The incident in question can be found in the following thread, starting at post #21:
http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/stonewall
@R2A (#133)
Google site-specific search tips here, in post #38:
http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/alisonfail
Kate – I really wish I was there in Kansas with you. Your experience at the party is completely unnerving, and this asshole is up to no good. Please, please act on this, and as Renee said, keep us posted. We are here for you, always.
Thanks, everyone! It’s nice to know someone takes me seriously!
Hell yeah we do, Kate!