Pomplamoose and PE Teachers

I love this band. They are so awesome.

Here's another awesome song they do:



In other news, a former classmate of mine was involved in a bit of scandal. Apparently he lied on a resume trying to get a job as a baseball coach at our old high school after working at a skeezy futures broker company (and believe me, I know skeezy finance guys. The money is not worth t). He lied about his position at the fund as well his experiences with baseball in college. I wasn't surprised, the guy was unpleasant in high school, in a way only someone who is totally uncomfortable with oneself can be. I always suspected that he might be closeted, because he was so angry and would use such harsh, homophobic epithets. He defaced a yearbook of mine in middle school. It was kind of a pathetic geek story: all year long he'd been unbelievably cruel to me and I had responded by being bizarrely and ridiculously nice back, thinking that maybe, one day, he would see that I was a nice, friendly person and stop saying horrible things to me and about me. My final attempt was to ask him to sign my yearbook which he did, but not before writing rude things on every page. Surprisingly, I wasn't surprised, only saddened that he had clearly declined my multiple offers of friendship.

I was such a weird kid.

Of course one could argue that this was middle school, forgive and forget etcetera. But he continued to be a total dick all through high school. The most pitiful moment was an outburst in humanities class about how Zorba the Greek had every right to leave his many families, because he needed to do what he needed to do to be happy...the outburst deteriorated into an upsetting admission that his father had done just that and run off with his secretary or something similar.

I felt sorry for him then, sort of the same way I'd felt sorry for him after he'd defaced my yearbook. That doesn't mean I didn't still think he was a dick.

Anyway. Him trying to be a PE teacher reminded me of this Armstrong and Miller sketch:

Green Muffins

3-4 cups of the greens of your choice (I used mustard greens and purple kale, but one could use spinach or something similar)
1 1/2 cups canola oil
4 small farm eggs from your friend's neighbour or 3 large eggs
1 to 2 teaspoon chopped garlic (I used 1 giant clove from our CSA garlic)
2 cups (soy)milk with 2 tbs white vinegar (2 cups buttermilk works as well...)
6 cups all-purpose flour
6 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F and prepare a muffin tin as needed (greased or lined or nothing if it is non stick). Combine the eggs, oil, buttermilk and garlic in one bowl and mix. Add chopped greens and mix it further. In another, combine the flour, baking soda, salt and pepper.

Fold the wet ingredients in to the dry ingredients, stirring just enough so that they are mixed. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin, fill each spot up to the top. I thought about sprinkling sesame seeds on mine and then forgot, so if you were to want to sprinkle anything on top, now would be the time. A nice idea would be chopped almonds or olives.

Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. They are really delicious straight out of the oven but also make for a yummy snack that can be packed in a lunch.

Thanksgiving Menu

I am not, by any standards, a domestic goddess. I can, however cook. Or rather, I enjoy cooking as opposed to laundry, scrubbing toilets and making beds. I've started planning the menu. I'm trying to stay as seasonal as possible and pretty much only using vegetables from the CSA with a few exceptions (brussel sprouts, apples, bell pepper).

Preliminary Thanksgiving Menu.

Lemony Hashed Brusselled Sprouts

Stuffed endive (stuffed with apple, bell pepper, onion, olives, walnuts, sesame seeds, olive oil and basil)

Mark Bittman's Millet Bake, courtesy 101 Cookbooks, brought to my attention by the scintillating Sara Hancock.

Roast vegetables:
Carrots (purple ones!)
Garlic
Parsnips
Potatoes
Onions

Baked, stuffed, delicata squash

Olives (Yay Wegmans!)

Red Onion Chutney

Garlic-Rosemary figs

Toasted Squash Seeds

Cranberry butter

Rolls

Fresh bread

Butternut squash pie (I'm leaving the pies/desserts to Ryan, but I know he's planning this one)

Beverages:

Growler filled with something delicious

More delicious beers

Bellwether cider

Elderflower soda, juice

Currant wine

In more food related news, last night I made a delicious (delicious!) curry, started by making my own curry paste. It turned out so well, that I think I'm going to make quite a large batch next time and can it. Pictures and recipe to follow soon.

GAH.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091116/pl_afp/japanusdiplomacyasiaobama?

I'm not sure how showing respect to a foreign dignitary "weakens" the US's position in anything. Can someone please explain it to me?

Also - how can anyone still take Bill Kristol seriously? He's the one responsible for the Palin.

Oh well. Here's some music.

Oh yeah. This is where I moved to.

Late fall in Ithaca. Beautiful.

Where have I moved to?

This was sent out to the Ithaca Freecycle group.

Crazy Launderette Lady

The joys of working from home include being able to get little odd bits of housework done during the work day. That one is able to do chores during the day doesn't, of course, mean that they actually get done. The last 2 weeks I have been disgracefully neglectful of my regular houseworky tasks, but we had a guest (my brother), so I excused myself.

Since he left yesterday, I have no more excuses not to be a proper domestic, other than malaise or laziness, I went to the launderette with a pile of laundry. It's right around the corner so I can take things over there and then come home and, theoretically, get some work done.

Launderettes are funny places - a really public place full of complete and total strangers watching you literally air your underwear. Kind of like being on an airplane: one would never, ever sit that close to a complete stranger in any other setting. If you both go to sleep, you're probably sleeping closer to them, proximity-wise, than you might with your significant other. You see a different side of a person when you see them in these sorts of situations, such as at the launderette. A side that perhaps might otherwise be only seen in the home. The sweatpanted, messy haired, trashy magazine reading, grumpy side. One is completing a household chore that most people aren't particularly fond of, in a public sphere. In short, often one is often at their worst at the launderette.

This morning's experience was no exception. I went to switch the load from the washer to the dryer*. I had a woman literally shove the laundry cart at me. Apparently I had left the offending cart in front of her dryer.

"Are you done with this?"

"Yes"

"Then get it out of my way."

And she pushed the cart, quite forcefully, in my direction. I had to catch it, to avoid it running into me. I looked at one of the other patrons, to gauge her reaction to this behaviour, just in case I had misread hostility when there was none. The other patron looked as shocked as I felt.

Part of me wanted to say something like, "Yeah. I knew that was your dryer. That's why I purposely left my laundry cart in front of it. In fact, I wasn't even in here doing laundry, I was just in here specifically to put a laundry cart in your way, to inconvenience you, yes, you specifically."

I didn't though, because my statement would have been an effort to convince her that not every red light or stubbed toe was because someone else was so obsessed with her that they went out of their way to ruin her day, but had I said that, it probably would have contributed to her current self absorbed world view rather than forcing her to question it.

Of course that is an awful lot of assumptions to make on my part. I am assuming that people don't want to be the kind of person that shoves laundry carts at strangers, when in fact, this may have been working for years, cultivating that specific part of her personality as a trait she values and admires.


*we used to dry things at home, on lines we strung up in our living room. But then the house started molding, so we had to stop.

Lemming, Lemming, Lemming of the ADA

Apparently there is an American Decency Association (ADA - but not to be confused with the American Dental Association).

Upon the discovering of the existence of this organisation, I (of course) immediately looked up "American Indecency Association". It, unfortunately, doesn't exist. I think I want to rectify that.

On the ADA's home page it has the following statement: "In the last main session (sixth video) of the conference, Mr. Trueman and Mr. Ensley answer questions and discuss in detail not only why we must continue to battle pornography, but how we can battle pornography in our own back yards."

That got me giggling because I imagined a bunch of people in corduroys and turtleneck sweaters running around their back yards after artificially enhanced naked people, while waving crucifixes at them.

I am a fairly normal person and I lead a fairly normal life. I don't live inside a cult housing complex or on an Amish farm. Somehow though, I manage to avoid seeing pornography almost every day and I've managed to do this for most of my life. So how come these people are having to battle pornography every day?