Arguing On The Internet: One More Entry Involving The LDS Church and Proposition 8

I came across this article in a Mormon person's blog - I was reading someone else's blog and this blog was linked to their blog. I think arguing on the internet is silly, which is why I did not leave a comment on the blog, but I do believe that ignorance is a terrible, terrible thing, which is why I chose to include it in my blog, with my own comments. The author, appears to have thought about the issue a great deal and I commend him for that. He also appears to have completely misunderstood what the issue was.

A crisp, cold vitriol is in the airwaves; must be an election year---and with it the caustic smell of heated brain cells. Good arguments have shaped this great Country; ideas that oppose in the extreme move actions that benefit the majority to somewhere in the middle.

[The word "country" is capitalised in every instance in this article. At first I thought it must be poor use of grammar, but on second thought, I realise that it must be some strange way of expressing beliefs, rather like when feminists use the word "womyn".]

And right now, we are in the extreme season waiting for more common sense on Prop 8 to blossom so we can all be friends again. The problem is not so much with media, but with the way we read media (or don’t). We tend to react to sound bites with fear, disgust, or self-righteous cheers (and jeers). It’s difficult not to react and vote emotionally. Scientists tell us that the Hypothalamus [more poor grammar], the part of the brain that controls emotions has much more influence than the part of the brain responsible for logic and reason. That’s why men buy SUVs and women fall in love with men who do---logic might dictate that an SUV in Southern California is a waste of money, fuel, and environmentally stupid; and marrying a man that insecure and self-absorbed might leave the spouse of such longing to be cuddled.

[Actually, not quite. I'm not even going to bring up the argument that a lot of women buy SUVs, because while the author is oversimplyfying, I take his meaning to be "expensive, flashy cars". The reason why women are attracted to men with expensive, flashy cars is because they display perceived resources, the idea that he will be able to provide for offspring, much in the same way a peacock has a big flashy tail: a liability and waste of resources, but because of this, proof of the peacock's supposed infallibility. Things like being environmentally conscious don't really enter to the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, so therefore can't really be counted as a reason why women should have better sense - they have perfectly good sense, evolutionarily speaking, as they are reading the cues provided to them with the tools that they have]

And yet those emotional decisions are made every day. Campaign managers know basic psychology-- a mediocre, emotionally charged campaign, beats a well-thought out, logical and reasonable campaign.

[Several months ago, I would have agreed. And then Senator McCain introduced Sarah Palin as his running mate and Senator Obama won the election.]

Witness the Prop 8 campaign asking voters to say yes to legally defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Seems simple and logical enough: Men and women are biologically created to fit anatomically together to become “joined” as marriage defines. Now, that’s not to suggest that any other two or three or five people of any gender combination could never live happily and emotionally fulfilled together. It also doesn’t mean that a biological match makes an emotional one---that’s the mystery of love, and love and marriage do not always go together. But that’s not the point. We are talking about the meaning of words, and therein lies the bigger problem. The meaning of a word, one word can stall an entire judiciary system for years. A word can have so many meanings that it no longer means anything and needs an attorney to decide based on a client’s emotions.

Unfortunately, emotion leads many people away from civilities and mutual respect into using their personal beliefs to change laws that would better accommodate them whenever they feel threatened.

[I agree with his idea that "...emotion leads people away from civilities and mutual respect into using their personal belief to change laws..." but if the author truly understood the issue at hand, he might change his mind. Proposition 8 is exactly this, an emotional outcry that lead people away from civilities and mutual respect towards a change in California's constitution.]

At a little-league game we define those people as sore losers who “let their emotions get away from them.” Seems to be a lot of soccer-parents on both sides of the Prop 8 issue. And both are wielding the “Right to believe” stick; or “make it-fair-for-everybody” rule. Some are even absurdly comparing the issue to Women’s Suffrage and Equal Rights; an emotional sucker-punch if you ask me. Homosexuals may be discriminated against by individuals, maybe even communities (and for a time, the military [I would argue are still discriminated in the military - how many straight members of the military are forced to live double lives?]), but there has never been a law on the books that prevented them from voting or sitting where they like on a city bus. No extermination order was ever issued against them [except Hitler's and Stalin's], as it was the Mormons.

[The addition of this last sentence seemed more self-serving than anything else - what have the Mormons, specifically, got to do with this?]

Hate crimes now merit a more egregious sentence and justice to all minorities is more attainable than ever before in America.

[So why stop now?]

Homosexuality even enjoys chic status among Hollywoodites, intellectuals,

[What does he mean by intellectuals? People who read books? Is he referring to the words of Boyd K. Packer?]

artists,

[Well, they're just so emotional]

and on college campuses.

[Seriously? Is he referring to LUGs?]

It’s hard to argue homosexuals being treated as second-class citizens when being out of the closet is so in. That gives the emotional victimization campaign about as much credence as “God will kill us all if we let gays marry” argument.

[This implies that homosexuals are homosexual because it's a fun fashion accessory. And while to Hollywoodites, intellectuals , artists and on college campuses , homosexuality might be accepted as just part of who someone is, that does not mean that the people in say, Provo, Utah, will do the same thing. The reason why one might think it's "in" to be gay, is because we live in a world where it is becoming increasingly more accepted and less of a big deal. So more people are coming out - people who would, in earlier times, have been forced to live double lives.]

A little common sense: Let’s have a look at the bigger and better things to worry about: Government. I know, it’s a nasty word right now given the missteps of our elected officials this past decade and again, that’s the point: They sent us to war, they failed to fight the war with enough resources, they failed to react to the worst natural disaster in our history; policies and pressure from both sides of the aisle plunged us into the worst economic depression since the great depression (few remember it, but many remember the scenes from Cinderella Man and don’t want to go there). It’s been a tough decade. Our government has failed us in many ways. And now we entrust them with a new definition and all the legal entanglements that will come with it?

[Once again, Steve, you've missed the point entirely. You complain about big government here and further on in your article, but what you don't understand is that Proposition 8 was about adding legislation. A vote against it is a vote against changing the California constitution. I can't understand how any self respecting republican couldn't see that.]

William Borah said: “The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.” Well, I think we have been patient enough. Are we really prepared to propose a change in the definition of a word that will allow Judges and Legislators to parse meanings, create ever-burdening laws that clog our courtrooms and drain our tax dollars, our savings, our time---just to engage in the sophistry of “new definitions?” When will it stop? The slicing and dicing and diluting will only leave our passionate citizenry dispassionate, apathetic, cynical. When Bill Clinton was on trial for his moral misjudgments, he asked for a definition of “it”. What a bold obfuscation! Oliver North must’ve been his secret defense attorney---can’t you hear him: “No matter what, don’t make a point, or make one then retract it or retract a point of an unknown origin by definition of its locale in the present.” What a waste of tax dollars that trial was, what an exercise in obfuscation from everyone involved beginning with the crusade by Kenneth Star. Can you imagine the same type of trial being played out in courthouses all over the Country as they battle to apply a new definition of marriage to man and woman, but not with man and woman, and therefore what said parties of and/or are entitled to? What a calamity our judicial system will be if judges and lawyers and clerks are suddenly burdened with the task of redefining marriage, sexuality and all the implications foreseen, assumed, and perceived both publicly and privately.

[The only reason this would happen is because of the people who argue that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry. But I don't see how this is a reasonable argument for Proposition 8 - you don't want to vote against it because if it doesn't pass, other people will complain about it? I'm also confused as to how you equate grassroots movements to change a philosophy long held by this and many other governments to Bill Clinton sticking his cigar where he shouldn't have.]

John Adams wrote: “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” The same can be said of government.

[As it was, by John Adams when he said: "“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”]

Our system is already a Jabba The Hutt government---bloated, immovable, on the verge of cardiac arrest. Why feed it? Better to trim it down so it can get back to work for us.

[YES. So don't change the constitution. Exactly.]

Personally, and emotionally, I have enough faith in the American people that they will come to treat homosexuals as they deserve to be treated: with love, respect, dignity---much sooner without involving government intervention.

[By virtue of the fact that you belong to a church that breeds misogyny, misinformation and prejudice, I find it hard to believe that you are not, at least, naive, if not hypocritical.]

Now is the time to accept all human beings as human, to grant them the rights of legal companionship without imposing another redefinition into a governmental and judicial system already long-listed with frivolous lawsuits, absurd constitutional challenges and the clamor of self-interest groups. Now is the time for all of us, gay, straight, Christian, Jew, celibate, Atheist and undecided [What an odd combination of categories!] to stand up for the bigger issue: we don’t want more laws, more interpretations, more filibusters, more sophistries. Now is the time to remember the words of Bob Wells: “For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.” The future of our democracy depends not on an appointed government, but on self-government. We can throw off the weight of an increasingly Orwellian system of laws and demonstrate our respect for each other without being ordered to. It’s time for homosexuals to stop acting like religious zealots,

[I think that it's time for religious zealots to stop acting like religious zealots. Also, I'm not really sure how homosexuals have been acting like religious zealots, any more than any person who feels that they have been wronged and then uses the democratic system of government to make a change such that the wrong will be fixed, is a religious zealot]

and religious leaders to go back to their core beliefs of love and charity toward others---more important than living and preaching a sinless life is loving all, even the sinner. It’s also time for all of us to be honest, to stop living the selfish lie… “Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.” (Oscar Wilde).

[Yes. So how is disallowing homosexuals to marry not imposing your way of living on others?]

The government is already in our pocketbooks and our facebooks. Do we really want them in our bedrooms? I’m certain we can come up with a solution that treats homosexuals fairly without spawning a Pandora department in the justice system and setting Gay rights back fifty years because of the resentment and reverberations this redefinition will cost. We talk about tolerance, but there are some things we should never tolerate: a compromise in our integrity, the abuse of power. Let’s also have little tolerance for the tyranny of stifling confrontations that would redirect our energies and our money into the bottomless sea of judiciary pontifications.

Emotionally, I wish prop 8 were only about being with the one you love---I’m all for that. But logically, I can’t see an already overloaded Justice [Again with the odd capitalisation!] system weighed down with the obligation of seeing to every lawsuit and counter lawsuit doing any community or individual any good at all---homosexual, heterosexual or otherwise. Common sense would dictate that before we take down any fences, let us be sure of what’s on the other side of the fence.

As obfuscation would have it, voting yes on prop 8 is a vote against a judicial Sisyphusean circus.

[Again, NO, it's a vote for it. It's a vote to change the constitution. That is more legislation, not less.]

So yes, let’s leave the definition of marriage the way it has always been, the way it is generally accepted in our society today so our judicial system and our public servants can devote their time to issues like Education, Poverty, Environment, and Taxes before there is a movement to redefine those words as well.

[Sure. Let's leave things exactly how they've always been and totally avoid progress in any way, because you don't want to deal with the paperwork. Redefining values, words, beliefs etc. is how people and countries grow move towards the greater good. Change isn't bad!]

--Steve Wunderli

Addendum, January 2009. The offending blog entry has been removed from the blog I found it on, instead replaced with a number of wedding photos. Did you know that Utah is ranked first in the nation for googling such terms as : "pornography," "naked girls," "striptease," "topless," "nude," "strip poker," "lingerie," "blonde" and "brunette"?

My favourite action hero: Huell Howser

When I lived in SB, I became a fan of Huell Howser. His grasp of the overtly obvious, his almost cartoonish mannerisms and accent and his terrible, terrible clothes. I love it when he does things he's been expressly instructed not to do. I could go on, but it's all summed up here in the Huell Howser Drinking Game.

Here's a clip of him talking to the border patrol - while the first bit is hilarious, what with the Mexican making a break for it while the interview is happening, make sure you continue to watch the whole thing, because the ending is classic Huell, with him repeating himself constantly while irritating/confusing his interview subject with inanity:

***

Here's some more Huell:

Odetta

I remember when I first discovered Odetta. It was the first time I went over to John's house and he had this video of a big black woman with an unbelievably powerful voice. She strummed along, singing "Water Boy", her face curling and contorting and on the rests she would making this loud, barking noise like she was expelling all the air from her lungs. John kept rewinding the tape and we must have watched it seven or eight times. It was part of the beginning of my fascination with blues and folk Anyway, here it is via YouTube:



Here's some more:

Delicious Dinner plus an article about Pirates.

Apparently a cruise ship was attacked by Somali Pirates yesterday. I include this because everyone loves a good pirate story.

***

Tonight I was finally feeling almost well enough to make a proper dinner. My compromise was to use up not-quite-leftovers. I made a butternut squash gallette on Saturday for Thanksgiving II. Some of the filling didn't make it into pastry (as usual) so it lived in my fridge as not-quite-leftovers until this evening. I tossed the uncooked but sliced squash, apple and onion (already coated in butter, thyme, salt and pepper) in a baking dish with 3 cubes of homemade stock after preheating the oven to 400. While this was cooking I made some buttermilk biscuit batter, with the added deliciousness of cheddar cheese (I also periodically checked on the stuff in the oven, giving it a stir now and then and making sure that the everything was getting nicely coated with juices):

2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs cold butter
1/2 cup (or more) grated cheddar cheese
1 1/4 cup chilled buttermilk

I mixed all the dry ingredients thoroughly, then added the butter and cheese. I used a pastry knife to mix it all together until it was fairly coarse. Then I made a hole in the middle and poured in a cup of butter milk and started to bring it together. I found it too dry, so I added another 1/4 cup of buttermilk. Once it was a beautiful sticky dough/batter, I pulled the squash, apples and onions out of the oven (making sure they were done). I spread my batter over the top, making sure it was nice and even, pushing it up to the edges.

I put it back in the oven and did some dishes, interviewed a house sitter and then took it out (after testing it with a toothpick, making sure none of the biscuit topping stuck to the toothipick upon withdrawal). It was nice and browned on the top and the filling was bubbling and boiling. Delcious. Next time, I would prefer more filling, but since I made it out of not-quite-leftovers, I was a little limited.

This sort of thing can be done with all sorts of other stuff - just toss some vegetables in a baking dish with some liquid (the homemade stock works), some fat (olive oil, butter, etc) and flavour (salt, pepper, thyme - whatever goes best with your choice of veggies) and let it cook while you make the batter. You can make vegan biscuit batter by substituting soy or rice milk, so the whole meal could be vegan.

Hearty and theoretically, fairly quick.

Long Island Wal Mart Worker Trampled to Death

Umm.... this is just horrible. (That is a NY Daily News article).

Here's what Fox News (shudder, shudder) had to say:

"MINEOLA, N.Y. — A worker trampled to death when customers stormed a Wal-Mart for bargains on the day after Thanksgiving had no experience in crowd control and was placed at the entrance because of his hulking frame, police and a lawyer said Monday."

Hulking frame. Hulking frame.

I just don't even know what to say. This is just so ludicrously tragic.

Room available in SF

Go live with my brother:

Hello all,

Please pass this on to the homeless nearest and dearest to your heart.

Thank you kindly. And yes Stephen, I still live amazingly, stupendously far from the mission. At least 10 minutes.

Jon

———————————

Bright, beautiful br w/ bath. Cheerful roomies.

About us:

- I am a San Francisco State graduate student in my mid thirties, studying research psychology. Former room mates have described me as easygoing, cheerful and pleasant.
- My girlfriend Kate is a designer, and creates product packaging for one of those fancy-pants design firms that San Francisco is famous for. You have seen her work at your local supermarket/grocery/corner store, or the hackneyed “been living under a rock/on a desert island/in a monastery” applies. (That is a bit of an exaggeration. I am sure I will get into a lot of trouble when she reads this.) She is also a nice person to be around.
- I am vegan and Kate is vegetarian. Neither of us faint at the sight of meat, nor have we lived with a vegetarian roommate. We enjoy to cook and do so often. Our lives are busy and cluttered, but we do our best to make sure that common areas are not. We smoke cannabis. We don’t smoke cigarettes. We have our friends over every so often for dinner.

We are looking for:

- An easy going, considerate roommate knows how to pick up after themselves, pay their share of the bills and plays well with others. We are open to well-behaved, well cared-for pets. There are hopes to add a dog to our household, though these are still in the early stages* – we intend to figure out the ifs-and-whens when you are here to discuss them.

The apartment:

The room is about 14 x 13 with a 15 foot ceilings, and a full length built-in closet. The house itself is a bit over 1000 ft.², a top (third) floor corner unit with views of McClaren park. Amenities:

- Washing machine and dryer
- Dishwasher, microwave, gas stove, garbage disposal.
- Full bathroom of your own (We use the other one).
- Back deck (We should use it more often)
- Internet access, and a generous selection of digital media: several terabytes movies, tv shows, documentaries and music. And every xbox game ever created, though we never play those these days. We don’t have cable – bit torrents make it a tad redundant. There is a cable hook-up in your room, should you require it.
- Plenty of permit-free street parking (Hah! Let’s see the other ads you read today top that :>), and parking space for a motorcycle in the garage.

Location :

- Less than two miles from the Balboa Park BART station and the 280 freeway, and an equal distance in the opposite direction from the 3rd St Muni line, the Bayshore Caltrain station and the 101. The 9x bus stops right outside, and the 29 stops about five minutes walk away. Kate takes the bus and Muni to work. I take the bus to school. Stonestown and Serramonte Malls are a few minutes drive.
- Right next to McLaren Park, the second largest stretch of open space in the city after the golden gate, and just below San Bruno Mountain. McLaren Park has a leash free zone, multiple basketball courts, and plenty of open space for games and picnics. There’s also lovely long walks with views — this is not a park you will get bored walking your dog with. If you like the outdoors, San Bruno mountain is one of San Francisco’s best kept secrets. Fortunately, the fires last week did not do much damage.

We are taking pictures today. Let us know, we’ll send them to you.

*There has been a dog added to the household.

In Which Alice Accidentally Shoves Her Thumb Up Some Guys Nose

This weekend, I accidentally stuck my thumb up some guys nose. Here's how it happened:

We got into Boston late Thursday night. I had had several panic attacks getting there. The first one due to a harrowing experience for which I blame Google. The map it had given me lead us absolutely astray, onto snowandice covered dirt roads, into the middle of the snowy wildernessy woods of Central New York all in order to try and get to the kennel we booked Jeeves into. In the first place, I was anxious about leaving the dog at a kennel and in the second place, we were nearly lost in the wilderness with nowhere to turn around. I envisioned starving to death in the middle of the forest, cursing Google with my last, dying breath. I also envisioned being stranded for awhile, then finally rescued, then writing a nasty letter to Google. Then I stopped the car and burst into tears.

We eventually did find the kennel which was okay, but not wonderful and had the horrible experience of literally sneaking out on the dog when his back was turned. He gave a few pitiful barks as he heard our voices in the parking lot. It was terrible.

We left the kennel and then drove 6 hours, across the rest of New York State and all of Massachusetts, towards Boston. I would love to tell you about the scenery and how beautiful it was, but it was completely dark the whole way there. We had a plan to drive to a train station outside of Boston to leave the car in order to avoid exorbitant parking fees at our hotel, but in part due to our shenanigans trying to find the kennel as well as a chain of other events that thwarted our journey (starting with a 3 hour oil change), we had set out later than planned and I was concerned we would miss our friends or get lost in Boston or some other horrible fate befalling us. Which led to my second meltdown, in the parking lot of the Needham Heights train station. I also had eaten literally nothing all day (this was part of the chain of events).

Nevertheless, we ended up on the train and headed towards the Financial District and our hotel which was a 4.5 star hotel that was ridiculously cheap through Hotwire. Once we got there and dropped off our bags, we took a cab to the bar where our friends were.

Larke is there getting her LLM degree from BU and before she and I departed for the East Coast, we made these plans with Nikki, Stuart and Amy to have a sort of convergence in Boston. To be honest, I'm a little surprised we all made it there, but I think sheer determination and an explicit dedication to the art of enjoying ourselves certainly stacked the odds more in our favour than would be otherwise. Cheers to not being stay at home wet blankets!

After a few drinks, we headed back to the hotel and went to sleep. Well, not straight to sleep, but sleep eventually after we had done things you normally do in a hotel room. You know, check out the soaps, look in the mini bar, deface the bible. That sort of thing.

The next day, we arose and went to breakfast, before meeting up with the others. We were a man short as we were a man down. Stuart had taken ill and was unable to join us on the Duck Tour as planned. The Duck Tour was interesting and campy the way all touristy things worth doing are, although we were spared the trademark Boston accent from the tour guide, as he was from Los Angeles.

That evening, we went to a delicious Italian restaurant, the name of which escapes me, but it was quite, quite good. By this time, Stuart was feeling better and we had been joined by a college chum of Nikki's, named Justin.

This brings us to the bar where I inadvertently stuck my thumb up some guy's nose. After dinner we went to this great bar, where I ordered dessert (a Godiva martini, sans cream). Then I had a beer. Then I had another beer. I think. At some point, Ryan decided he'd had enough, so he went to the hotel. It was then time to hit the dance floor, which Nikki and I did.

At some point, while dancing, some guy oozed up behind me and whispered something in my ear. I think he said, "You're the brave one - none of the others are dancing." but I wasn't quite sure. I was too excited that the band was playing David Bowie. I turned around, my hands were still in the air from waving them around maniacally as one does (or at least as I do) while dancing. My hands were in sort of a loose fist and my right thumb was sort of sticking out. I twisted my upper body around to say, "WHAT?" as he simultaneously leaned closer towards me. My right thumb made contact with the outer edge of his nostril. It was too late to stop the momentum of my upper body that had somehow focused it's force directly into my right arm and thumb. He jerked his head backwards, somewhat awkwardly and made a vague attempt to bring his own hands up to protect himself, but it was too late. I withdrew my thumb as quickly as I had made contact, wiped it on my jeans and went back to dancing. He didn't say a word or even look in my direction for the rest of the evening.

All those years of going to bars and dance parties and getting hit on by strange men in the worst, most unimaginitive way - if I'd only known that minor physical assault in a somewhat humiliating manner would have gotten rid of them I would have been saved the aggravation.

The bottom that insisted on following me around the dance floor of Q's on my 21st birthday (I never did see his face) or the man who leaned on me at the Joyce and slurred, "You're the worsht dartss player I've ever sheen...C'I show you how?? Whatsh your name?". The guy who followed me down State Street trying to hold my hand or the other guy who followed me down State Street and kept trying to get me to go to a reggae show with him (yuck on two counts). The toad who followed me around on New Years Eve 2007. All these people would have been saved at least time if not effort had I just done something like jam my thumb up their nose.

Ah well. There's always next time.

Lessons in Compulsive Hoarding: The Collyer Brothers

I stumbled upon this Wikipedia article today. It's about the Collyer Brothers, Homer Lusk and Langley, who lived in a Harlem brownstone and hoarded over 100 tons of:

"...baby carriages, a doll carriage, rusted bicycles, old food, potato peelers, a collection of guns, glass chandeliers, bowling balls, camera equipment, the folding top of a horse-drawn carriage, a sawhorse, three dressmaking dummies, painted portraits, pinup girl photos, plaster busts, [their mother's] hope chests, rusty bed springs, the kerosene stove, a child's chair (the brothers were lifelong bachelors and childless), more than 25,000 books (including thousands about medicine and engineering and more than 2,500 on law), human organs pickled in jars, eight live cats, the chassis of the old Model T Langley had been tinkering with, tapestries, hundreds of yards of unused silks and fabric, clocks, fourteen pianos (both grand and upright), a clavichord, two organs, banjos, violins, bugles, accordions, a gramophone and records, and countless bundles of newspapers and magazines, some of them decades old."

They guarded these things vehemently, setting up booby traps all over the house to protect against intruders. They died in this gruesome manner:

Langley was crawling through a tunnel of newspapers in order to bring the blind and paralyzed Homer some food. One of his booby traps was set off and killed him. Homer died a few days later, of malnutrition, dehydration and cardiac arrest.

They found Homer first, because a neighbour called to complain about the smell. He hadn't been dead long enough in order to be the culprit, so they realised that Langley must be dead in the house as well. It took them several weeks before they discovered him, after:

"...removing 3,000 more books, several outdated phone books, a horse's jawbone, a Steinway piano, an early X-ray machine, and even more bundles of newspapers. More than nineteen tons of junk were removed, just from the ground floor of the three-story brownstone. The police continued to clear away the brothers' stockpile for another week, removing another 84 tons of rubbish from the house."

***

I don't really know why this sort of thing fascinates me as much as it does. It's not just hoarders, it's all sorts of stories that suggest the frailty of man. I laugh, often, because it's either that or cry; my heart breaks for these people at the same time as I am thoroughly irritated and/or titillated by them. It's just so ludicrously tragic.

Hoarders are just another example of human machines with faulty wiring: and there, but by the grace of fortune, goes any one of us, if we haven't already got faulty wiring.

***

I lived with a borderline hoarder as well as have known one or two socially. The crux of the disorder is that the hoarder (usually angrily or defensively) refuses to admit that their hoarding is a problem, seeing as it doesn't harm anyone. The person I lived with had t-shirts from the 8th grade - that he couldn't wear because he was a fat kid in the 8th grade and as such, the shirts were too big for him. They also had holes in them. He kept packaging materials from products he'd purchased, had several different collections of things and a permanent grudge - almost a vendetta - against his mother for disgarding some cherished childhood objects of his. He also had a storage unit full of stuff that he refused to talk about and that I was never allowed to see. Moving house was always a nightmare (at least more so than normal) because instead of the cathartic and traditional throwing away of crap you don't need anymore, he clung on to it, and so ended up packing boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of garbage. Someone else I knew would save the sides of dot matrix printer paper, coin wrappers and literally trash he found on the road - he picked up a road cone once.

Of all the hoarders or people with hoarding tendancies I've known, the common theme is that they are trying to cling on to some memory. As if the objects around them will help them keep something from fading away. Or they're stuck at some point in their life when something awful happened and they can't move past it. The inanimate object has become some sort of touch stone or remembrance. Often, the inanimate objects must be 'saved' in the emotional as well as the physical sense, as it often has become almost animate in the eyes of the hoarder. Here's a way to explore the reasoning behind hoarding. Think about people who name their cars - a lot of people do this. I, myself, feel sometimes, what I think is a strange attachment to my car. After all, it drove me back and forth to college, has made countless trips to the barn (whichever barn that happened to be), was given to me with all the love and affection a father could possibly have for his daughter and drove me and my new little family across these United States. I am sentimental about the old thing - I actually took a picture of it this morning as it had spent it's first night in the snow.

This makes evolutionary sense - our prehistoric brains are not designed to deal with inanimate objects that so closely simulate a living creature. We assign the same affection to our cars as would to domesticated animals. So then multiply that affection by a lot (due to say, some faulty wiring) and we have an unhealthy attachment to an inanimate object. What triggers this faulty wiring? Perhaps a specific incident or repeated specific incidents.

***

Anyway. Enough amateur psychology. I'm going to finish knitting a scarf.

Kilgore Trout and Dog Shit. Also: Need More Books.

I had a disappointing experience yesterday. I started to read The Loop by Nicholas Evans, which seemed like it might be an interesting book, all about wolves and what not. I remembered liking The Horse Whisperer.

Then I remembered, I read The Horse Whisperer when I was 14.

Because that's exactly what his books read like: romance novels for 14 year old girls. He and John Irving should have a slumber party together (I want the hours I spent reading Widow for One Year back, dammit!).

Which brings me to the current dilemma. Both Ryan and I spent a good portion of time over the last few days, standing in front of our bookshelf, frowning. We've either read (or reread) all the books on our bookshelf or they're a text book from college that one of us couldn't bear to part with. This was how I came to pick up The Loop, as I had been given it years ago and never bothered to read it. It made it all the way across the country, I thought I might as well read it and it seemed as if there was nothing else.

When this happened in Palo Alto, I would just go and peruse my parents library as my father for years has made a frequent habit of picking up books at libraries from the free pile and driving my mother nuts.

So the current dilemma. Need more books. I spent some time yesterday looking at what Google has to offer and there are some good ones but the tactile pleasure of curling up in bed, holding the book and turning the pages is lost when you are staring at a laptop screen. Libraries are terrible for me: I always forget to return the book.

***

Speaking of books, I reread Breakfast of Champions the other day. I also took the dog to the dog park. I thought about a story that Kilgore Trout might write. The story is about an alien who comes to earth and ends up arriving in a dog park. The people on the planet he comes from don't keep other organisms as pets, so he doesn't understand what the dog park is. He assumes that the dogs are some kind of livestock and the people are harvesting the shit, and saving them in plastic bags to preserve them.

***

Faith in Atheism.

The new "A" in the sidebar is a link to Richard Dawkins "OutCampaign." I think it's more important now than ever, to be absolutely open and clear about one's atheism. Not to waffle and hedge about it, in order to make other people feel comfortable. Our cultures spends so much time making sure that people of all religions feel good about themselves as long as there is some religious affiliation or even the desperate claim of being 'spiritual'. But 'god forbid' someone takes an active, informed, well thought out claim that they do not believe in God. From Slate:

"Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: "Where there is no God, all is permitted."

Religious people often have a misguided belief that atheism is a negative, selfish, grim and morally corrupt way to be. That somehow, unless you answer to God, you are less capable of goodness and kindness. I think, however, a far more difficult person to answer to is yourself. Dostoevesky is correct in the quote Schlessinger uses, misguidedly, that "Where there is no God, all is permitted". Isn't it a much better way to be, to do good and kind things out of goodness and kindness, not out of fear of recrimination - because all is permitted and you can choose to be good and kind? Isn't it far more magical that this world functions, exists and grows all on it's own, with all it's amazing creatures, plants, organisms, systems, etc., than to believe that someone essentially waved his hand and created it just so? Isn't it far more elegant to study the world around you, learn about it and question it, be skeptical of it, and try to understand it and take responsibility for yourself in it than to lazily suggest it's all up to someone else?

Yesterdays adventure and why the "revoke the LDS tax exempt status" idea is stupid.

2 things.

My adventure yesterday:

I rode up to the top of a big hill (the locals called it a 'mountain') and down again, through the woods, with intermittent blizzarding, in search of a lost pony, Trixie, who is about the size and colour of a deer. We spent about 4 hours looking for her - at one point following her tracks for about half a mile - before giving up and turning around. We came to the edge of a clearing we had gone through several times already, when Raina stopped and swung her head to the right, ears pricked. Trixie was standing several yards away, partially hidden by trees. We shook the grain bucket and called her name. She paused and then burst towards us trotting that big trot that very excited horses have, with her tail raised high and her neck arched. She plunged her nose into the grain bucket, we put a halter over her and took her home.

Silly pony! She had spooked at some sheep the day before and literally run for the hills.

second thing.

Some friends on Facebook have joined a group called 'Revoke the LDS Church's Tax-Exempt Status' the grounds for this being that since they asked their congregations to participate campaigning in favour of California's Proposition 8, this was a violation of the statutes requiring seperation of church and state and therefore they should no longer be tax-exempt.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is small potatoes. It is also, I fear, an example of 'jumping on the morally outraged bandwagon'. I say that 'I fear' this because it is exactly this kind of pants wetting, energy wasting, misguided enthusiasm that results in liberals getting nothing done other than a tiz-woz. It's what the conservatives hate about liberals. It's also what lost the Prop 8 fight (the loonies won because they did not waste time clinging to themselves, being outraged and targetting people who already had their vote; they targeted the undecideds in the middle of the state who so unclear on what the matter at hand was, they were led to believe it was about "teaching gay marriage in schools").

I am just as appalled as the next person that some people feel that the sanctity of their own marriage is somehow threatened by men being allowed to marry men or women being allowed to marry women. I was angered that Utah was, essentially, able to change California's constitution. I kept my residency in California partially so I could vote againste Proposition 8 - I am a Californian at heart and I intend to return there. I am also usually not one to cry out "Stop picking on the Mormons!". I find the basic tenants of their religion - the misogyny, the racism, the rampant breeding and and virulent spreading of misinformation - offensive. But let's look at the big picture. The line between church and state is so blurred in this country, is so wrought with loopholes and hypocrisies, that asking the government to take away the LDS Church's tax-exempt status is like walking up to a group of bullies beating someone up and asking only one of them to stop, then walking away, leaving the rest to pound it's victim into the dirt; In short, it's Pointless.

Let's not pick on just the Mormons. Let's pick on all religions. Let's get rid of tax exempt status for all churches, unless they can prove that they truly fall into the category of a non profit organisation. There's a lot of people out there making a lot of money by that are taking advantage of others in the form of tithes or donations or whatever you want to call it. They do it by convincing people that they need to buy their own salvation. They do it by taking advantage of people who are poor, uneducated and scared. It's time that this ridiculousness stopped being virtually sanctioned by the government, and it's time churches, all churches, stopped getting their way with people who aren't idiotic enough to be a part of them.

Adventure.

I went on a proper adventure today.

A real adventure.

Apple tarts and red cardinals

More deliciousness was created in my kitchen yesterday as I made and subsequently ate an apple tart with a cream cheese filling.

I did this in order to avoid folding the laundry in the living room, although one can argue (and I certainly did, to myself) that the apples needed to be used and that laundry...well laundry is always going to be there. In fact, it's still there. And I'm going to go and ride, so it will be there a while longer.

Ithaca is amazingly, eerily and strangely beautiful right now. All the leaves have come off of most of the trees, leaving roads and paths and electrical wires visible where once they were hidden away. The footpath that leads along our Fall Creek is now completely exposed and noticeable from the street (which some how makes it seem less magical) and has a thick carpet of bright yellow leaves (which somehow makes it feel more magical). Since all the insects have stopped their buzzing, chirping and rattling and because we've had a lot of rain, we can hear the waterfall at night. It's much fuller and more energetic, almost angrier than when we first arrived, which makes me think that the crippling humidity and unbearable heat had perhaps made the waterfall a little lazier as it had made me not want to leave the couch.

We have a red cardinal and his mate that have visited our back garden twice now. They're quite cheerful and spend there time either flitting across the garden with the sparrows or else sitting patiently in a big yellow bush.

We're all going to be let down.

So I suppose I should comment on this election thing, seeing as it was quite a historical moment. I'm riding the current optimism wave as best I can, but to be honest:

I think Barack Obama is a smart man. He ran his own campaign, made smart choices and as far as foreign policy is concerned, at least it's no longer as embarrassing to travel to foreign countries. He at least appreciates the concept of diplomacy and we can finally rid ourselves of this ridiculous idea that America is somehow superior to the rest of the world or at least shed the fear based need to present itself that way. With Obama as president and winning as he did with such a resounding victory, we can sort of say "Um...yeah, those last 8 years... we're, really really sorry. Look, we've tried to fix it." This is opposed to McCain/Palin which would be like giving the rest of the world a big middle finger. I mean any vice president who gets prank phone called by a Montreal radio host with an outrageous accent and overly personal topics of conversation can't have a grip on reality. I mean has she ever had a conference meeting?? With anyone?? Let alone with someone important?? And anyone as deceitful as someone like McCain would not show any foreign country that the US is worth dealing with:



But and here's the secret: Obama won't be as great as we all want him to be. He's going to let us down within the year and we'll all be terribly, terribly sad.

I want one of these

Okay, I realise that this might not be the most exciting idea, but I really want a root cellar in the off the grid, partial subsistence farm that Ryan and I want to build.

Stores of food for the winter and a place to store the pickled things! Like very advanced squirrels!

Ravioli!

Last night I made ravioli from scratch, in continuing with this winter's obsession with squash.

I used this recipe for the pasta and these instructions for ravioli-ising it, it only required regular flour and eggs, which I had on hand. I also ended up adding a lot more water than the recipe recommended, to get the dough to the correct consistency. For the ravioli-ising, I think next time, I would use wax paper in order to be able to roll the pasta thinner than I was able to (or Ryan was able to, after I got tired of it). That way, one could pick up the second sheet more easily, for the "covering of the first sheet" step and also, one could use less flour which would make the sheets stick together more easily.

For the filling, I sliced a butternut squash in half, scooped out the seeds and stringy stuff (reserving the stringy stuff for stock and and the seeds set to soak in salt water overnight to be ready roasting and snacking on) put it face down in a baking dish in quarter inch of water. I put it in the oven at 375, for about 45 minutes. Once that was done, I scooped out the flesh into a bowl and mashed, adding about 2 tablespoons of butter, salt to taste, fresh ground black pepper to taste, oregano to taste and about half a cup to a cup of flour. I added 4 cloves diced garlic (you could add less if you don't like garlic) that I had tossed it in the frying pan with some butter, on a lowish heat, so as not to cook but not brown it.

This all got stirred vigorously until it was smooth and then turned into ravioli. It made enough for dinner last night (served with sauteed onions and broccoli in olive oil) and another batch to freeze for another evening when I have less time.

It was time consuming but quite fun and also delicious. I started thinking about all the other sorts of ravioli I could make: eggplant, fresh pea, red pepper, pretty much anything with a nice strong flavour that goes well with pasta.

I'll post pictures when I have a bit more time.

More cats!

In continuing with today's cat theme, the following was a post on today's Ithaca Freecycle Digest:

RECEIVED: cat absorber

Posted by: "C--------------- S----------------" ---------@yahoo.com

Wed Oct 29, 2008 10:50 am (PDT)

thank you so much for drop it off to our home and may god be with you alway amen c-------

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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Reply to sender | Reply to group | Reply via web post
Messages in this topic (1)

First of all, I'm very glad this man's prayers were answered and he received a cat absorber. Secondly, what's a cat absorber?

Ahh! A fluorescing cat!

F'reals!

"Named Mr Green Genes, he look likes a six-month-old cat but, under ultraviolet light, his eyes, gums and tongue glow a vivid lime green, the result of a genetic experiment at the Audubon Centre for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans." - From the Telegraph

I wonder if Frank Zappa had any idea?

Homeless people walking around in pant suits.

When I first heard that Sarah Palin spent that ridiculous amount of money on clothes for the campaign trail and that "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign"according to a campaign spokesperson, all I could think about was homeless people walking around in pant suits.

Scarf

Injury update: I stayed mostly immobile today and yesterday and as a result am in much less pain. HOWEVER. I feel like a lazy slob as a result of this, so am not sure which is worse.

***

My husband has asked me to knit him a scarf. I love scarves. I love scarves so much that I have one of those Ikea shoe holder things just for scarves...I also have them for the various pairs of shoes I own, but that's another entry.

Ryan however, has never worn scarves. Apparently he isn't constantly cold, like I am. Of course I start knitting again and start having all these fantasies of knitting all my Christmas presents for everyone. Socks! Bags! Felted Slippers! Watch out, friends and family members! Start practicing masking your disappointment with fake smiles as well as the phrases, "Well, it's the thought that counts really. She meant well."

***

In other news, I have just learned that there are two kinds of biodegradable when it comes to biodegradable plastic bags for dog shit. The kind that actually biodegrades and the kind that is labeled "Biodegradable (except as defined by California)."

I discovered this by Googling '100% biodegradable except as defined by California' after Ryan pointed it out on the label of the packet of 120 "faeces bags" (as they are written on our shopping lists) that we bought today. How depressing.

further injuries to my person

To add insult to injury to pre-existing injury (the broken rib is from a few days ago), I have a problem of an indelicate female nature, in the form of a mild UTI.

After drinking a bunch of cranberry juice (which is fine, because I love it) and monitoring my discomfort, much in the same way that La Nina does in this entry, I finally asked Ryan to drive me to the drugstore, to get some of that stuff that makes your pee orange (I had to ask Ryan to do it, because, I remind you, I cannot turn my head left which makes driving a rather precarious activity).

I found the pharmacy version of Phenazopyridine Hydrochloride, called "Urinary Pain Relief" - very succinctly titled I might add. When I went to purchase it, after a bit of a kerfuffle about the bag, he said,

"Have a nice evening."

And I thought, clearly, based on my one purchase, my evening has been anything but nice. That's the one thing you can be sure of, when someone is purchasing a product labeled "Urinary Pain Relief." But I suppose one can't make assumptions like these, after all, I may have been purchasing them for someone else. I'll never forget my horror, when purchasing condoms at Target once, when the cashier (female) picked up the box, examined it and then exclaimed, loudly,

"Oh, I've never tried these. Are they good?"

As if they were candy or something. I mumbled something to her about not have tried them either and then fled the store and my shame.

Injured and watching Stephen Fry Documentaries.

I have a cracked or sprained rib and woke up this morning unable to turn my head to the left. After a hot bath and 2 aspirin, taken with watered down cranberry juice, I settled down to watching Stephen Fry documentaries. The first was about his secret life as a manic depressive, which was entertaining, but didn't really give me much information that I wasn't already aware of with regards to depressive disorders.

I am now on to Stephen Fry in America, which should prove interesting. The first episode starts with him driving from New England all the way to Washington DC.

Why is it that British comedians get old and then start making documentaries?

Ice Wine

I went wine tasting with Larke this weekend. It was so wonderful to see her and really exciting to find local wine I enjoyed!

We had a Cabernet Franc Ice Wine from Sheldrake Point Winery (Larke and I decided that we need vacation homes in Sheldrake Point, by the way) that was unbelievable. I'm still thinking about how delicious it was. We made our way all the way round Lake Cayuga and I think we are at the autumn "peak" where all the trees are in the midst of changing colours and the hills are a sort of tortoise shell of oranges, reds, pinks, maroons, purples, greens, yellows - it's truly everything everyone's ever told you about Autumn on the east coast. Wine tasting in the Finger Lakes costs a dollar a tasting and the whites are actually quite reasonable (I even bought a bottle of Miss Chevious from the Lucas Vineyards - which is maybe the first time I've ever bought a bottle of white wine that wasn't expressly for Nikki). Sheldrake Point even had some real red wines that tasted like red wines are supposed to - the others generally left a little to be desired. They were not full bodied enough and the wine didn't "sit on your tongue" as Larke put it, the way you want a red wine to. For some reason I have yet to find a Pinot Noir from here that is the right colour.

We went to dinner at Just A Taste, a tapas place that I've been meaning to try and was excited that we finally had a good reason to go there.

All in all, a very successful weekend.

Moving to Idaho

So...I don't know if it's because I'm spending time in a former communist country, or because I've been noticing how strenuously Sarah Palin is branding dissent as "Unamerican", or if it's because I'm expecting my period tomorrow and that usually guarantees one day of feeling completely hopeless, but I am suddenly scared about the possibility of America becoming a police state in the near future. And this didn't help at all:

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/

"They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control"

Um, anyone want to join me in buying fireams and forming a separatist militia in Idaho? Or something?

My friend La Nina sent that out today. I'm sure it was partially in response to all the uproar about Barack Obama's alleged ties to a Bill Ayers. I read about/saw it on the BBC news site - Sarah Palin smugly shrugging that she'd read about it in the New York times (like she reads the New York Times. Like she even reads). So smug, yet unable to do the math to calculate that Barack Obama was 8 years old when Bill Ayers was blowing up buildings. It was a little sickening to see how excited she was because she didn't really know what she was excited about, she was like a child who'd been given a pat on the head by a normally inattentive parent. The worst part though, the absolute worst part, is that it doesn't matter to the McCain campaign that no media person or anyone with a brain will take her seriously. All that matters is that there are some idiots - plenty of idiots (people cheering when she "revealed" this "dramatic" piece of sensationilistic tripe that has no bearing on anything whatsoever) - that will actually believe that this piece of information means Barack Obama has the intentions and connections to blow up the Pentagon.

ARRRGH. I've complained about it before and I'll complain about it again: WILLFUL IGNORANCE.

For extra creepiness, because it's nearing Halloween and I have yet to find anything scarier than this picture:


(I guess they have to use a lot of fake tanner in Alaska because of the lack of sunlight part of the year? Maybe it's a safety thing, being that orange, so you don't get shot? This is a seriously weird picture.)

Redemption! Acorn Squash! Apologies!

I have redeemed myself. Tonight I made the most perfect meal I've made to date. Not only was it delicious, it turned out exactly the way I'd planned it and looked beautiful too! You'll have to believe me because we ate it before I could think to take a picture of it.

I have given it the fancy title of Autumnally Themed Galette or How I Redeemed Myself From The Last Cooking Disaster* and it is based on this recipe.

Crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Pinch salt
8 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, diced
1 large egg, slightly beaten

Filling:
1 Acorn Squash, peeled (this is annoying and tricky but possibly with a potato peeler and sharp knife)
1 Crispin apple (any good baking apple would do, I happened to have Crispin apples handy - complain as I do about Ithaca, the apples here are plentiful and delicious)
1 small yellow onion, peeled but leave the root intact to hold it together (I love onions, but they don't really like me very much - this recipe allows thorough cooking though, which always helps mellow them out)
3 tbsp melted butter (I melted mine in a bowl suspended in boiling water as I do not have a microwave)
1 tbs1.5 tsp zata (you can just use thyme or thyme and rosemary or whatever. Fresh would be best. I used zata because I had no thyme, rosemary or anything really like that. Plus zata is delicious. The amount is approximate)
salt (to taste, I have no idea how much I put in, maybe 1.5 teaspoons?)
fresh ground black pepper (I started with about a teaspoon of peppercorns)
2 teaspoons real mustard (the dark coloured stuff with actual mustard seeds in it, none of this bright yellow crap. The original recipe called for more, but I really hate when mustard overwhelms things that are a little sweet already. This amount provided enough bite without making it too mustardy)
1/4 cup grated sharp chedder (what I had in the fridge - stilton or bleu would go wonderfully as well)

Measure out the flour in a large bowl and stir in the salt. Add the butter and mix with a pastry knife or fork until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal with a few bean-size bits of butter in it. Add the egg and mix it together more. The dough should be a little crumbly. If the dough seems very dry (as mine did), add a few drops of water, bit by bit, as you mix it in - do not over water. Bring the dough together by hand - if this is proving difficult, add a few more drops of water as needed. Form into a ball, the dough should be flaky but still sticky enough to do this. Flatten dough into a disk about 6 inches in diameter, wrap in plastic, and let rest in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour (I did 1.5).

For the filling: Halve and core the apple. Cut each half into 8 wedges and put them in a large bowl. Slice the squash about 1/4 inch thick and add to the bowl. Cut the onion into wedges; some of the wedges may not hold together, but that's okay. Add the onion to the bowl. Add the melted butter, zata, salt and pepper to taste, and toss gently to combine.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Roll the dough on a lightly floured work surface into a 12-inch disk, the dough should be about 1/4 inch thick. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet and brush with mustard. Starting 2 inches from the edge, arrange the slices of apple, squash, and onions, alternating and forming overlapping circles. You may have leftover filling, as I did. You can either roast them on their own or reserve them for a second galette or toss them in a soup or do whatever you like.

Fold and pleat the dough over the edges of the filling. Bake until the crust is deep golden brown, and the apple, squash, and onion are tender and caramelized, about 35 minutes. Scatter the cheese over the filling and bake until melted, about 5 more minutes. Cool the galette briefly, then cut into wedges and serve.

I served it with diced tomatoes, spinach and diced garlic that I steamed quickly while the galette was in the melted cheese step - I tossed the garlic in a cast iron skillet with some olive oil, then tossed in the diced tomatoes. Then I tossed in de-stemmed spinach leaves (put the stems in your container in the freezer that you keep for stock flavoury bits), squirt a bit of lemon juice over it. The liquid from the tomatoes both steams the spinach and, because it's acidic, picks up a some of the iron from the skillet. That combined with the high iron content of the spinach makes this a very good source of iron for those of you who are in need of it.

Once you the spinach is sufficiently wilty, serve it along side the galette for a great contrast.

*Samantha from Earthbound Farm commented on that entry where I grumble and groan about the butternut squash gnocchi recipe. She said that they had taken the recipe down until they could further test it. I'd like to say that I really appreciate the attentiveness and it furthers my faith in Earthbound Farm, even beyond their delicious boxed salads that I used to buy when I lived in California - theirs was the only packaged salad that I have ever found to be satisfactory. I would take them on airplanes with a 3 oz container of homemade dressing and be ever so happy. I did not mean my blog entry to reflect anything negative about the company, merely that I had had an unsatisfactory experience with that particular recipe - which I wouldn't have even tried, had I not felt it came from a good source.

Axel F and Williams-Sonoma styrofoam

Last night I spent about an hour with Ryan trying to cram our "new" mini couch in to the spare room. We ended up [sssh!] taking part of the door frame out because our house was built 100 years ago and I guess people were narrower then.

A fat person could not live in our house. Yesterday I was carrying bags of styrofoam packing material (damn you Williams-Sonoma! Can't you think of a friendlier way to pack wedding presents than stuffing the boxes full to the bring with such guilt-giving material??) and imagining what it would be like were those bags of styrofoam actually unshiftable collections of fat, attached to my body and yes, you would not be able to maneuver comfortably from the front door to the living room, nor would you be able to enter the spare room or reach the closet in the bedroom.

Morbid? Yes. But it was for science.

We took the bags of styrofoam to a dumpster near Wegman's because Ithaca has this really strange way of collecting garbage where they charge you by the amount as well as weight. You have to buy tags for each collection, which on one hand works great because we never had enough garbage in Palo Alto for weekly collection, but we had to pay for it anyway. This way, we put it out when we have enough and stick a tag on it and they pick it up. The tags are for 35 lbs of garbage per bag/can. The silly thing is, they will not take your garbage if it is more than 35 lbs, even if it's all in one can. This leaves you the difficulty of having even more garbage the next time - this has happened to our neighbour twice now. They don't even give you a "warning" as I'm sure they would in the litigious neighbourhoods of Palo Alto, they just leave your garbage. And if you have lots and lots of lightweight garbage (ie styrofoam), you have to put multiple tags on it anyway, despite it being under the weight limit by a lot, because it has to fit in so many conatainers. I'll be damned if I have to pay $16 for the garbage men to take away 5lbs of styrofoam! So we went dumpster hunting and were successful in thoroughly shirking our responsibility, in the name of being cheapskates, all the while pretending that we were doing something highly illegal instead of marginally immoral and that "Axel F" from Beverly Hills Cop was playing in the background.

Breast milk and arguing with hippies.

Apparently there's been a saga going on with regards to the breastmilk ad I saw on Craiglist:

re breast milk..

---

Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-09-30, 8:38PM EDT

THAT IS JUST GROSS, AND I DO BELIEVE YOU REALLY SHOULDN'T DO THAT.MAYBE AGAINST HEALTH CODE.. SOMEONE SHOULD CALL HEALTH DEPT.AND HAVE SOME ONE ELSE FEED THEIR BABY YOUR BREAST MILK, UMMM NO.. NOT RIGHT... THROW IT AWAY.

I've complained before about people who TYPE IN ALL CAPS when placing an ad. Usually the ads written in all caps are the ones that make the least sense. Anyway. There was a response:

Those who are bashing my Breast milk

---

Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-10-01, 8:30AM EDT


I'm sorry you are offended. I am trying to help someone in our area who would like to give their baby the best milk they can and can not breast feed themselves. Where do you think babies in NICU's get their milk from when the mothers are not able to BF. Most NICU's try not to give formula's (at least the one's i know.) that way they give their child the best start they can. You can buy BM threw banks so no it's not illegal to sell it. You want my medical records, i am clean and have been. They test you every pregnancy for any STD's or anything else you can transmit.

to the one who posted the link. Thanks...I never got a response from them when i did try and donate with them

Damn hippies, arguing without having all the facts again. It's still gross, no matter how wonderful you think it is - who knows what kind of crap you eat, drink or smoke and why should anyone believe you when you say otherwise?

***

One time I got in an argument with a hippy who told me paying attention to politics was a waste of time - that the real path to change was communal meetings with other people, in the mountains and in the forest. He'd just got back from a "gathering" in New Mexico that was so awesome, I wouldn't believe. I told him that hanging out with your friends in the desert, smoking pot and talking about yourself for a week sounded like a lot of fun but it certainly wasn't an instrument for the sweeping reform this country needs. He said I didn't understand the power that can be created at gatherings. I asked him what they had accomplished during this particular gathering that he had just returned from. He said it was just the love that they all grew together. I said giggled and said no, that was from the mushrooms. He told me I didn't get it. I told him he was taking the easy route. It's disheartening and depressing to follow politics but going and hiding in the desert while your whole world is coopted by evil millionaires is irresponsible. He gave me a disgusted look. Or maybe it was disgusting. He did have horrible greasy dreads and hadn't showered or changed his clothes (admittedly! he admitted it!) in about 3 weeks.

***

Addendum!

Breast Milk Is Best!

---

Reply to: see below
Date: 2008-10-01, 9:18AM EDT


Studies have found that breast fed babies are healthier through life than non breast fed babies. They have less infections and colds and overall health and brain function is better. Hats off to you girl'! If you can produce it good for you and god bless the babies that get iT!

Cooking, cocaine and 419 scam baiters.

Butternut squash bread a success! Ryan made it, so I do not know the recipe but I do know that there are two loaves of bread sitting on my oven, one is a braided loaf with cinnamon, sugar and butter (3 of my favourite things!) inside it and the other is a delicious crusty normal loaf. It was a great way to save my pathetic gnocchi dough - I -think- he just added yeast to my floury eggy squashy mixture. Yum.

***

I really love cooking. It satisfies the creative leanings I have as well as accommodates my tendency to ignore instructions. I would love to go to cooking school, but I have no inclination to be a chef. Shitty hours for shitty pay plus it's a high stress job. Most of the people in that sort of business that I've known have had real problems with cocaine and other stimulants. I knew one cook who would keep lines of the stuff ready in the big freezer. He and his friend would sneak back and do lines between orders. They thought that one of the busboys was stealing from them so they (in a typical coke head move - vindictive and poorly thought out) laid out a line of bleach or something else similar in consistency and colour. The busboy reappeared after a few minutes with his eyes red as tomatoes and streaming tears. Some fucked up retribution, that.

***

This reminds me of an episode of This American Life I was listening to yesterday about the 419 scam baiters. I have to say that I admired Ira Glass even more after listening to it. Previously, I had thought the 419 baiters to be funny and great examples of vigilante justice. One scambaiter got 2 West Africans to do the entire Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch. But as I listened to these people talk about what they did - getting a guy to go all the way to Darfur without food or money and then lying to him about his mother dying, all for the promise of $200,000 - made me feel a little sick. I thought that they were being a little childish. $200,000 may be pittance to us, but it's a lifetime of wealth for someone in his position. I realise that they are scamming scammers and the point of what they do is to drag out the scam as long as possible, tieing up the scammers time so that they are unable to scam unwitting, lonely, (stupid) people out of money. (Take a shot for every time I used the word "scam" in that sentence). But it's one thing to lead someone (who, yes, is trying to steal from you and yes, is probably a very nasty, unpleasent person) on for days and days and days, making him do humiliating things, it's quite another to send him to possible death, arguing, well, he was an idiot for getting suckered in the first place (which he could then turn around and say about the morons who do send him their life savings in an effort to free King Charles Xavier N'Dogo Felepwe). But anyway. Ira told them that he didn't think it was very funny to send a man into such a dangerous situation. I agreed (maybe I'm getting old??). Even watching the Monty Python sketch - fairly innocuous stuff - was hard, whether or not I think they are getting what they deserve. However, nobody deserves endangerment.

[annoyed grunt]

I made really good gnocchi the other night. I used a combination of this recipe and this recipe, from Heidi Swanson's blog, 101 Cookbooks (I did not make peach gnocchi but I did bake the potato instead of boiling). Heidi has a great blog and I've gotten many ideas from it. I was so excited about the gnocchi as well as about the butternut squash I stuffed the other night that I thought I would combine the two.

I used this recipe from Earthbound Organic Farm's website, because it seemed the simplest. It also was a terrible recipe and I don't recommend it. The squash did not drain at all and the dough ended up all floury and lost all of the squash flavour, because I had to add so much flour in order to try and get it to a reasonable consistency, which I never actually achieved - we tried one dumpling because the "dough" was so questionable. I think that the recipe required the dough to be wetter than the potato version I previously made which would be fine, except that if I'd used the dough that would have resulted from following the exact instructions (less flour and assumably more butternut flavour), I would have been pouring it into the water instead of scooping it. Bollocks to that! Ryan's turning it into butternut squash bread as I type. Jerks.

In addition to that attempt, we pickled mushrooms yesterday and I'm soaking onions in brine for pickling tomorrow.

Music

A few days ago, Ryan hooked up my record player and receiver (vintage 1970's - with tubes!!). It was a wonderful surprise to come home to, especially because now I can exact my revenge on my downstairs undergrad neighbours that insist on coming home at 1am, blasting their stereo system and smoking cigarettes. Unfortunately, I do not own any Kylie Minogue on vinyl (yet!), so my revenge will not be complete.

Today I listened to Blood On The Tracks and I started thinking about all the music phases I've gone through.

1. Ages 6-10. The Beatles. That was pretty much it.
2. Age 10. I discover Faith No More and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
3. Age 12. I discover Green Day. The deep fondness I have for punk rock is rooted. I still don't really like the Ramones very much though. Surprising (horrifying for some, I know), but give me Social Distortion or the New York Dolls anyday. I also discover that I like the bass and funk music.
4. Age 13. I discover that Green Day kind of sucks, but George Clinton is pretty cool. I'm still ridiculously into the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have my first kiss at a Duran Duran concert (I'm sure there's a Facebook club for this) and spend a lot of time listening to 80's music and watching the Big 80's while talking to Sara on the phone. I still love Duran Duran and all that goes with it. I wish I could have had the Talking Heads play at my wedding.
5. Age 14 - 17. I listen heavily to funk influenced music and stuff that is "technically" good. Buckethead, Praxis, etc. I can't really listen to that stuff anymore, I find it a little cloying. The Red Hot Chili Peppers consistently let me down. I tried to listen to a Primus album the other day and it just didn't feel right.
6. Age 18-19. I discover Glam Rock. A (so far) life long love affair has begun. I went on a date once with a guy principally because he looked like Marc Bolan. I think David Bowie should be president. I also start listening to poppier music that somehow doesn't typically make it on to the radio - things like Blonde Redhead and Ween.
7. Age 20-22. I live with Jay, Casey and Anna in Santa Barbara. It's at this point I discover Nick Drake, Cat Power, Elliot Smith, Yves Montand, Zoot Sims, Manu Chao. I become further enamoured of Ween, T Rex, David Bowie, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, the Flaming Lips, Beck, Air and the Violent Femmes among other bands. I start listening to everything I can get my hands on that Matador Records puts out (particularly Yo La Tengo, Belle & Sebastian and Arab Strap) and also listen to the best music radio program ever broadcast, Morning Becomes Ecletic with Nic Harcourt. I also began a fascination shibuya-kei music, electro-lounge and start listening to samba and bossa nova like mad. I develop a slight crush on João Gilberto as well as fantasize about learning Portugese. I started going to LA a lot to see shows as well as going to every live show I can possibly make it to in Santa Barbara and Ventura. I start to hate Phish and all things reggae. I also start building my vinyl collection.
8. Age 22-25. In addition to continuing listening to everything in the last phase, I have a boyfriend who wails on the harmonica. He reintroduces me to Bob Dylan and introduces me to Muddy Waters. I leave Santa Barbara and resume going to shows in San Francisco.
9. Age 25-6 months ago. Because he wails on the harmonica, I go with the then boyfriend to meet a friend of my friend Jessie, who has an old style, finger picking blues band he's trying to get together. I break up with the boyfriend but continue going to John's house nightly to hear the music and drink beer. I learn to love Etta Baker, Son House Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt in addition to old time, hokum and bluegrass. I start going to as many shows as I can afford. Some notable shows I went to during this time: Ween (4th time), Flaming Lips (3rd time), Old Crow Medicine Show, Air, Chris Cotton & The New Hokum 3's, Deerhoof, Cat Power, Bob Dylan (notable only because it was Bob Dylan, Ladytron. It was at the Bill Graham and I just don't really go to shows at large venues - what's the point?).
10. I leave Palo Alto Investors and no longer have money for concerts. John Henry's Farm plays at my wedding. Then I move to Ithaca. There are some good vinyl stores here, but I'm too broke to shop in them.

This is just a short summary. I could go on and on, but the point is: I'm excited about my record player being up and running again.

Stock I

I've decided to experiment with making my own stock. I think it will end up being a useful thing in the kitchen and really not very hard as I peel a lot of vegetables anyway. The first attempt is on the stove right now (right next to the pickling mushrooms cooking in their vinegary, salty, lemony brine!). I used:

Squash pulp
Potato peelings
Top of a tomato
Carrot peelings
Courgette peelings
The outer fleshy bit of an onion
Mushroom stem ends
Peppercorns
2 Bay leaves
Leftover garlic and chili peppers from the pickled green bean brine

Very appetizing, I'm sure.

For the water base, I boiled some and poured it into the dish I roasted the vegetables in for lunch and left it for awhile, so that I was able to pick up the left over starchy garlicky olive oily goodness that would have been washed down the drain.

I'll strain the mixture and freeze the liquid in ice cube trays, for use later. Cheap vegetable stock! Yum!

2 Penguins & Stuffed Butternut Squash

Two penguins are walking along an iceberg. The first penguin looks at the second penguin and says,

"You look like you're wearing a tuxedo."

The second penguin replies,

"Maybe I am."
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I'm still in Ithaca. Nothing much happens here, so I don't have a lot to report. Instead I must resort to silly jokes and Alfred Hitchcock movies.
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I've been looking for employment beyond pony jockey (we went to a horse show on Sunday! Fun!), but have thus come up unsuccessful. Blame the economy, the fact that I am surrounded by The Nothing (at least it feels that way sometimes) or that I got a fairly useless degree.
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Oh wait, there was something. I made stuffed butternut squash this evening. I sort of made up the recipe, so I wanted to document it:

Butternut Squash
Olive oil
Garlic (minced, 4 cloves)
Onion (chopped, 1 small)
Spring Onion (sliced, eh...half a cup?)
Veggie Ground (3 tbs)
Cheddar Cheese (grated, half cup - maybe more)
Salt
Pepper (fresh ground)

Slice squash in half and then cut of the long bit above the bulb. Once you've scooped out the seeds, you should have a nice bowl shaped squash. Drizzle the "bowls" with olive oil and bake in the oven for maybe half an hour (til they're cooked...) at around 400 degrees. In the meantime, peel the "stems" of the squash and dice. Heat up olive oil in a pan, add onions and garlic. Once the onions have become a little translucent, add the diced squash and spring onions. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Once the squash has softened a little bit, add the veggie ground. Cook until delicious.

Remove squash bowls from oven once they are done. Spoon in the stuffing, pack it as firmly as you can, as it will shrink a little in the oven. Cover the stuffing with grated cheese, put back in the oven to bake for another half hour.

Remove and serve with a nice salad made out of tomato, bell pepper and avocados that your friend Margo sent you from California, because you're too poor to buy them in Ithaca. Enjoy!

3ish

Yesterday we made dinner with the neighbours. They made spring rolls (delicious!) and we made the pad thai and the apple pie. Cosmo spilled my beer on me which was alright, he's only 3ish.

On Wednesday, I went and rode some more. After I was finished riding her and was leading her back to the barn, Mira spooked sideways and in the air at a Barbie Jeep. She sort of jumped right into me and stepped on my thigh, creating a large bruise. It was alright though, she's only 3ish.

Raina

Here's me, trotting around on Raina. She's for sale if you're interested. Quite reasonably priced too for what she can do, she's just out of shape at the moment (as am I):

I'm taking her to a little show on Sunday. I also went along with Ryan and volunteered at this weird bike place in Ithaca, trying to get parts for my new old bike.

Vincent Price Cooks Pork Chops

Found this song on April Winchell's site. It's a mix using samples from Vincent Price's cooking tutorial LPs from the 1970's. If you or anyone you know owns a copy of these, I will Gladly Pay Top Dollar. Friends, family, if you really love me: that is what I want for Christmas, Birthdays, etc.

I think it's maybe the funniest thing I've ever heard. There is more hilarity here, including actual entire recipes from the LPs.

Awful, awful woman.

Someone must stop this awful, awful woman. She's a menace and I'm certainly not comfortable with her being a 72 year old heartbeat away from the presidency and neither should you!

Just read this editorial she wrote in the NYT about why polar bears should not be on the endangered species list. Note how she never actually tells you what reasons there are not to, just that she doesn't think we should.

OR how about this YouTube video of her standing on stage while her pastor or whoever claims that Alaska is a refuge state for after the rapture:




Note the poor grammar and nonsensical statements. ("Let's give the Lord a hand for our Governor!") Can you imagine the kind of people that take that sort of language seriously? They must be drooling morons!! There aren't strong enough words for that kind of stupidity!!

This hockey mom, average joe bullshit I find intensely irritating. I don't want my leaders to be average joes like the rest of America. I want them to be smart, open minded, quick witted and WELL READ. I want them to be able to name a philosopher besides Jesus Christ (who is arguably not a philisopher). I want them to have traveled and seen the world. I don't want a sniveling, vindictive little shrew who can't see past the end of her own nose.

That is all.

Hurricane Ike

Hey Tal, how did the storm treat you? Are you okay?

A
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Yup, we are ok. House is in good shape, but crazy winds and rain, streets are flooded, trees are down, roof tiles everywhere. No power, no water, but we have supplies, so we are ok! We took some pics, I'll send them when we have internet again. Lots of love, tal
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!!!

Words I Hate

I hate it when people use the word "hubby". I think it's demeaning. It's irritating the same way the word "preggers" is. It's like when people refer to themselves as their pets "mommy" or "daddy." It is the same passive avoidance of labeling something what it is, because somehow, in this puritanical and American society, that's considered forward or even offensive. It makes people uncomfortable.

I think it's sick and weird to claim parenthood of your pet - I can almost guarantee your pet doesn't think you're it's mother and I also can't understand why one wouldn't call their husband "my husband." "Hubby" is awkward to say, just as many syllables as "husband" and gives one a sort of uncomfortable feeling of forced intimacy - which is another weird thing that is all too rampant.

I realise some of my best friends use this sort of vernacular but I still don't understand it.
---------
Another word I hate: "Proactive"

I hate it because it means nothing. It's just space filler on the myriad of job descriptions or something for your boss to ask you to be, when they have no idea what they're doing themselves.

I blame Steven Covey for the inexcusable proliferation of this word. My senior class had to take a course called 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teenagers, for reasons that were never fully explained to us. That was where I heard this word first. He instructed us, through his series of workbooks and lesson plans to be "proactive" as well as "shift our paradigm." Nice, pretty, daring words from a Mormon. Keep Sweet!

I realise that I have known a lot of people who were probably instructed to Keep Sweet or who's sisters, mothers and possibly wives were instructed so. I hope for everyone's sake that they didn't. What an insulting thing to say to someone.

--------------------

Back to pets. I hate when breeders combine 2 breeds of dogs and then name them some annoying combination of the 2 breeds names.

Labradoodle.
Cockapoo.
Golden Doodle.

I don't care how friendly or hypoallergenic these breeds are supposed to be the names are moronic. They're not cute or clever or amusing in the least. Maybe I should be "proactive" and suggest something else. What's wrong with Labrador Poodle? As in Doberman Pinscher? Or naming them after some region where they are bred? Or the activity for which they are bred? Perhaps these are too traditional and doesn't appeal to the breeders self-endowed ideals of their own uniqueness.

--------------------------

Crapspeak. A Business Lexicon.

I started collecting words and phrases when I worked for The Hedge Fund. One partner in particular was guilty of loudly shouting these annoyances across the office, the same way he would raise his voice when mentioning a famous persons name, at the same time looking around to see if anyone had heard him.

"Well, Alice, I'd like you to keep this fundraiser stuff on the downlow. Don't mention to anyone that your working on this stuff for the GAVIN NEWSOM FUNDRAISER." [shifty eyed glance around the office. "Oh yeah, YVES BEHAR may be comeing by the office later. Could you coordinate that?"

Crapspeak phrases include:

"Circle back"

"touch base"

"ping"

"shoot you an email"

the word "love" in regards to setting up meetings, conferences and phone calls

I guess this entire entry all stems of my frustration with mediocrity and the conscious acceptance and embracing of it. People who don't believe that not reading is something to be ashamed of. People who think that being uneducated is something to be proud of. The same people who want their politicians to be "average" and "just like them." I'd better stop writing. I could go on all night.

Tonsillitis.

Last night Ryan said that he'd managed to scrape weird white stuff of his tonsils. Now I have tonsillitis. I'm not sure how he exhibited primary symptoms and yet I managed to be the one to be sick, but there we are. I mean I didn't even take his last name, I certainly don't want his illness.

Tonsillitis is something my mother had a lot as a child and (I think) my brother did too. I had it frequently as well. I wonder if my kids will have it often. I wonder if I'll have kids, first of all.

I don't think people get their tonsils out anymore, as it was determined a bad idea to mess around with people's immune systems. But my mother had hers out and she was given strawberry ice cream as a result.

Which is such a classic story, it's practically a meme. It also makes me think about how much I love my mother.

Black Eyed Susies

Is my new favourite band this week. I saw them at a bar called Castaways that had a vaguely nautical feel, despite the fact that we are about 230 miles away from the ocean. The nautical feel wasn't overwhelming, it was just enough to feel a little desperate. Mostly it was just a bar for locals, which was what I had been looking for. It was the after party for something called Beerfest, which I had not gone to, not being able to afford the luxury of a ticket. I'm such a cheapskate lately - I made us go an hour early, to avoid a cover charge (I'm cheap about cover charges in general though, I think paying more than $5 to get in somewhere is exorbitant and won't do it unless there is live music in the place that I know I want to see, because then I can equate it as a ticket price in my head) and I nursed my beer for as long as I could, before breaking down and buying another one.

The headlining band was terrible. I didn't stay for them, I only know they were awful based on their 50 minute sound check. They were called Hubcap and were so unoriginally poppy that they were boring. Not a creative spark in a one of them and they took themselves so seriously that it was palpable. There is nothing worse than a pop band that takes themselves too seriously. You're playing pop music. I mean really - you're whinging away on your guitar, playing at a bar, not quite in the downtown neighbourhood of Ithaca, NY where the words "Men" and "Women" are written in rope on the bathroom doors - how seriously should you really take yourself? It was a little painful because I could also tell how nervously excited they were to be playing a show, almost like a 16 year old boy going on a date where he's pretty sure he's going to get laid for the first time. I'm sure that was why they took 50 minutes to do their sound check - probably mistaking their nervousness for appropriate anal retentiveness that "real musicians" should have.

Give me the gritty old timers or at least people who play old time that are just happy to be playing their music whereever they might happen to be. On the side walk, on someone's porch, just for the joy at plucking those strings. I saw a homeless man in Santa Barbara once with my friend John Henry. We sat and watched him play slide guitar for an hour on the boardwalk.

The Black Eyed Susies were refreshing after that terrible sound check. They showed up, late, got up on stage, played one song to check their vocals and then after a short break, put up a tight, polished performance. 3 women having a great time, just happening to be in front of an audience, playing mountain music and blues on the banjo, upright bass and guitar.

Heaven

Oh kids! I've been riding again!

There's a lady a little over half an hour from here that lets me ride her horses! She has baby horses! Between yesterday and today, I "backed" 2 year old. His first time and mine! Yay!

A snippet

Here's a snippet of my Ithaca Life:
Today I saw a man in the grocery store with a scraggily grey beard and scraggily grey hair who looked immuno-compromised, banging on a cardboard box shouting to his wife/daughter/grandaughter/girlfriend/ who knows, "They don't have my soda!" - he looked really angry about it. Not that this wouldn't happen in a California, it's just the sort of thing that has happened more frequently since the move. Then the check out girl asked me what exactly my kale was and I wanted to cry.