Thing A Day, Butchering Lou Reed and Volunteering

I have been sending out resumes and searching for further employment but the current economic situation (Cornell has instituted a 'hiring freeze' and has gone as far as to remove the water coolers from Ryan's department in order to save money) has lifted some of the weight off my shoulders, because I can now, in all honesty claim:

It's not me! I'm still a viable human being even though I can't find a job!

So. I have decided that I am going to try and be more productive for productivity's sake and have registered for Thing A Day 2009. I have also sent an email to the Women's Opportunity Center ("a local non-profit organization dedicated to helping women and men overcome obstacles to gain employment.") offering my volunteering skills, helping teach people how to Microsoft Word, etc. (or, in my brother's terms: M$ Word: The Basil Fawlty of Operating Systems).

I'm losing interest in the dog walking at the SPCA because it's so strangely run. They seem to have an appearance of organisation but there are so many loose ends, like 3 different ways to make notes about each dog, 4 different places to go to find the information you need. I sort of feel totally unnecessary every time I go, but then they tell me otherwise.

I'd also like to help people and I'm not quite brave enough for a suicide hotline. Something that I think my grandmother instilled in all her daughters, is that it is important to be useful and help others. All her daughters, except one (she is no longer living), went into some kind of nursing and they all give generously with their time and/or money to help the community. I admire them all immensely. It's something I feel remiss in not doing more of, so as sappy as it may sound, I think that this sort of thing (volunteering my time and being productive) is important in order for me to become the kind of human being I want to be and to stave off my own personal demons.

It's these sorts of sentiments as well as my unabashed "Get Off My Lawn" kind of outrage at our downstairs neighbours last night for playing some sort of BUTCHERED version of Walk On The Wild Side make me realise that I'm showing my age. We have to shovel the sidewalk outside the property when it snows otherwise the city sends a bill. I wasn't going to shovel the driveway that only these offending neighbours get to use this morning out of spite. Then I felt that was petty. Then Ryan told me not to.

Cornell is about to turn down my application for health insurance

Because I was not insured prior to my petition to be added to Ryan's plan outside of the enrollment period. The reason I did not apply during the enrollment period was because

a)It seemed absurdly expensive for spouses
b)I assumed I would get a job with health insurance

Seeing as my parents have generously volunteered to cover the extra expense of health insurance for me and strangely, Cornell has the cheapest available, I petitioned claiming that I had started a job that did not have health insurance - working for Casey.

This was turned down, infuriatingly, bureaucratically, in very "Computer Says No" terms, because I had applied outside the enrollment window. Which I was aware of. And why I had to fill the forms out in the first place.

I sent an email to someone I had been communicating with earlier on the subject. She got back to me with this:

Dear Alice,
Your petition stated that prior to your employment you could not afford
the student insurance. It did not mention any coverage prior to your
latest position...did you have insurance?
Lori

If I follow the reasoning here, they are denying my health insurance because I was previously uninsured. Uninsured because we moved to Ithaca and I am no longer covered by Ryan's work. I assume then that they are denying my insurance because I didn't 'lose' it unvoluntarily, I was already in an uninsured state before I accepted a position without benefits. Somehow, I chose to be uninsured and thus must remain so.

I'm already composing a letter in my head about how inhumane their bureaucracy is. That in this economy, everyone needs all the help they can get and to deny someone health insurance on the grounds that they were previously uninsured is, ludicrous, greedy and cruel. I can't understand how a country that claims to be as civilised as it does allows this sort of thing to happen.

Cornell does little or nothing for the spouses of it's graduate students besides offering them an id card with their picture on it, unless you have a child, which I don't, nor do I plan on having one anytime soon. The least they could do is make it easier for spouses to get health insurance, as that is in everyone's best interest.



PS. Ryan discouraged me from sending the above video to the woman turning me down.

Yam Soup

Last night, I made Fantasy-ish Fudge from the 101 Cookbooks Blog. It's in the fridge setting at the moment, but based on the spoon licking that I did last night, I'm looking forward to it.

I had leftover coconut milk from the fudge and 2 yams, so the obvious choice for dinner was:

Yam Soup.

First I baked the yams in the oven until they were nice and soft. While this was happening, I tossed some Quorn in a pan with garlic, pepper and soy sauce. I'm not the biggest fan of Quorn, with it's long ingredients list, but it adds some protein and texture when needed. It's better than some other, similar products.

When the yams were ready, I took them out, peeled them (Jeeves had a lovely breakfast this morning of cooked yam peelings and dog kibble) and put them in a bowl with some soy milk and mixed it into a slurry. I'm sure a lot of people at this point would have shoved it through a siv, but I feel like that sort of thing is a little wasteful, both time wise and resources wise. I might do it if we had dinner guests over (and maybe save the leftover stuff for stock?).

I tossed chopped onions and sliced garlic into a sauce pan with some olive oil. I stirred it around a bit so as to get the scrummy browning bits of the bottom of the pan and did this until the onion was translucent. At this point, I added the yam slurry, the coconut milk, ground black pepper, salt and curry powder (about 2 teaspoons). I also added the Quorn (making sure to spatulate the frying pan so as to get the garlic and olive oil into the pot as well) and some frozen peas.

I squeezed half a lemon in, to balance out the sweetness of the coconut milk and yams and a little more salt, to taste.

Yum.

Winter Riding.

Yesterday Casey had some people driving up from Pennsylvania to look at some horses. This was a tricky endeavor because it involved trailering horses from her place to the indoor arena up here for two days in row as well as some creative craftwork on my part, fashioning ear plugs for horses out of pom poms purchased at AC Moore. You see, the normal pom poms they sell there are too small for an averaged sized horse ear, so I stitched 2 together to make one ear plug. I made a total of 3 sets. I was quite pleased with myself.

The earplugs were for Lucy, a 5 year old Oldenburg/TB cross who is just gorgeous and easy to ride, but young and silly. Anyway. We forgot to put the earplugs in after all and she was fine. Raina, because she's perfect in every way, doesn't need earplugs.

The equestrian facilities were surprisingly dismal, considering it's affiliation with a major institution. The school horses appeared to be kept in these funny, old fashioned stalls that are really just made up of dividers, with no 4th wall. That is to say they are made up of the wall of the barn and two perpendicular walls that are about 3.5 feet high. There is no stall door, just a space. There are 2 horses to a "stall" and they are kept "separated" by a plank that is dangling on ropes from the ceiling. The reason this "works" is because in their stalls, they are tied to the barn wall. But that doesn't stop them from kicking out at each other. So you walk down an aisle with nothing between you and 30 sets of hindquarters but air and your own good sense to stay far away. I saw not a few pinned ears and carefully aimed swipes. I'm sure I'd be cranky and snappy too if I spent the day tied to a wall.

The real stalls (presumably the stalls for the boarders) looked so tiny that a biggish horse wouldn't be able to lie down comfortably.

The ring is nice and huge and the footing is great. On Friday we had it mostly to ourselves. I went for a good long gallop on Raina and then switched to Lucy because Casey wasn't feeling brave and there was a 17.2 hh 3 year old gelding who was leaping around at the end of a lunge line. I don't blame her - I may not have health insurance, but she has 3 kids all under the age of 10.

Riding on Saturday however brought back all the hell that was riding at (the old) Stanford during the winter (or really anytime of the year...). Something which, after 10 years of riding at private facilities, I had really not thought about.

Let's see, we had:

The tottery child learning to steer, on a tiny pony. A tiny pony that I could barely see from atop Lucy.

The weird horsie version of a crazy cat lady, insisting on running her poor (very pretty, I might add) Arab at a (our) jump while throwing herself at its ears. It stopped, three times, before she gave up and went back to trotting slowly around in a circle.

Rubber booted undergraduates doing practice rides, trying to remember what they learned in their lesson program when they were 12, white knuckling the reins, terrified because of the people that know what they're doing keep riding near them and thus they are continually stopping suddenly, for no reason, in the middle of the track.

The very serious dressage rider making sudden and violent circles in front of the jump you are pointed at (I know, I know. Dressage is just so much more legitimate than anything else you could possibly do on a horse).

Horses being ridden in a halter. Not something I am entirely opposed to, but given the circumstances, not something I would have chosen to do, considering the amount of time it takes to get the average horse to turn or stop while wearing a halter.

People getting off and letting their horses roll in the middle of the ring (really!). One girl got off and had her horse follow her around without a lead, practicing stopping and starting, while she desperately looked around for someone to notice. I noticed all right - I noticed the poor clip job her horse had and what a dangerous thing to do that was.

The place was rampant with Pony Club Don'ts, and I don't mean draw reins or spurs (I didn't think their were enough of those sorts of things, actually, considering the behaviour of some of the horses, who had obviously been cooped up on account of the winter - if you think there's a possibility that your horse might want to stand up - and I saw 2 horses do exactly that - wouldn't you want something - anything! to attempt to keep its front feet on the ground??). I'm talking about the kind of things that made my inner riding instructor want to start listing loudly to the person committing the error, all the ways in which the particular behaviour in question could/would result in injury or death to either person or horse.

I realise that these places are necessary. I understand that for some people this is the only way they can ride. I'm so very glad that it's not that way for me.

ANYWAY. Sarcasm aside, I had a great time and I can't wait to go again. We'll be riding there again soon because Casey's ring is still frozen solid and will be for another month or so. I was so happy to be riding that despite the fact that I noticed all of these things and laughed about them, none of the difficulty of the situation mattered. I'm sure I'll get used to it again. Besides, in a month or two, I'll be able to go back to my own, private little barn surrounded by miles of trails and mountains, and ride whenever and whoever I want with little to no interruptions. I can put up with the inconvenience for now. Besides, the at least the ring's heated.

Here's some music.

Say what you will about Kylie, her videos kick ass (even the ones that aren't directed by Michel Gondry) and I know you like dancing to her better than Madonna. These days, anyway.

PS. facebook viewers: click 'original post' below to see the video I pasted up.

Dream job! Again!

In order to continue my current, non stressed lifestyle, but also to return somewhat to the lifestyle I became accustomed to in California, I have decided that I need a part time job to supplement the work I do for Paula and still allow me to ride for Casey and purchase avocados willy-nilly, so to speak.

I know in the past, I have noted jobs at Arby's and other such delightful places. Today I bring you a most prestigious of positions, offered by a company known for its quality products, built to last and bring tasteful elegance to your home, the Kmart Corporation. It is also known for its ability to employee marketing geniuses who realise that the word "shelf stocker" may dissuade people from applying for the job as they would have to tell people at cocktail parties that they were a "shelf stocker." Far better to present the job as:

Now you can proudly tell your friends that you are more than just a stocker, you are an associate and therefore an integral part of the Kmart Corporation. Did I say corporation? I meant family. Because you know how well treated and valued Kmart employees are. Why in Santa Barbara, they even employed the mentally handicapped people from the local halfway house, to help build a sense of community. Of course, this meant that Kmart didn't have to pay them full wages but that just made it win-win. Kmart saved money and these people were given a sense of purpose, as replenishment associates.

Sparkly Positiveness and More People Should Watch Peep Show

I was trying to write an email today, recommending a vegetarian recipe website to a friend, but I couldn't make it not sound like spam.

I guess because it was an unsolicited email but still. I know her really well and I know she would dig it. Especially now that she has a real kitchen with an oven and sink, instead of a hotplate and plastic bucket.

I think I'll just call her instead.

***

I've reread over the last few entries on this blog and realised that they all seem somewhat negative. My boss from PAI told me once that he felt I was too sceptical and sarcastic. I spent 3 days in a panic thinking that I was too sceptical and sarcastic. Then I woke up one morning (at 5:30am, so as to be at work on time at 6am) and thought, "What the hell? I've worked damn hard to cultivate a healthy scepticism. I think it's an important path towards growth and learning. What does he know? He thinks going to one Goo Goo Dolls concert consitutes a love of live music and that Burning Man is the end all-be all of creativity." (No. I've never been, I'm sure I don't understand. Or whatever.)

But since living in this grey land of the White Witch, I'm worried if I am actually getting too negative. It might be because I secretly hate it here. Which is most likely my own fault - I am a firm believer in creating your own happiness, it's just it's just a lot harder to create it when it feels like you're 3,000 miles away from the nearest person who understands why "Peep Show" is funny. Plus all my attempts at creating happiness haven't quite worked yet.

So. Here are some New Year's Resolutions to help gussy up this blog in sparkly positiveness.

1. Make more jams and preserves. This will be assisted by the joining of a CSA.

2. Find a place to use my new snowshoes (and use them. Obviously).

3. Knit a sweater. It's time, Alice. You've diddled around with scarves and gloves long enough. Knit something substantial for God's sake.

4. Read more and better books. Watch more and better films (Can you believe I only just watched Cinema Paradiso? I also just watched Night at the Museum, duped into watching a Ben Stiller movie by the additional presence of Steve Coogan and Ricky Gervais in the credits. The less said the better, that movie is terrible.)

Okay. I think that's enough for now. Are we all smiling? Can we think of anything else I should do in my mimimally employed capacity?

Ludicriously tragic ways financiers do themselves in.

Ahh, my strange fascination for the camp ways in which today's financiers do themselves in. I never did get to blog about Bernie Madoff, although I (obviously) followed the case in whatever newspapers I managed to find left behind on the London Underground. You'll remember my entry about the Paul Giamatti doppleganger who faked his own death by parking his car on a bridge and scrawling those immortal words "suicide is painless" across the hood. In that entry, I also mention Norman Hsu, the Clinton campaign contributor and Ponzi scheme operator, caught fleeing from justice on a train on account of his being violently ill. Then there was fund manager and CNBC comentator Seth Tobias, found dead in his own pool, possibly drowned by his wife. His story is worthy of it's very own Lifetime made-for-tv movie (here's a quote from the NY Times article: "Mrs. Tobias confessed to him that she had cajoled her husband into the water while he was on a cocaine binge with a promise of sex with a male go-go dancer known as Tiger.").

The latest in this list is Marcus Schrenker, another financier who faked his own death by leaping out of a plane and making his escape by way of hidden motorcycle. Here's a description of the shenanigans, courtesy Jessica Pressler of New York Magazine:

The Plan: Schrenker, an accomplished pilot, would arrange to fly himself back from Florida to Indianapolis. Near Birmingham, Alabama, he would radio a distress call, parachute out of the plane, and when it crashed later, everyone would assume he died! Or something!
Where It Went Wrong: When Schrenker made his distress call, he overelaborated, saying "his windshield had shattered and he was bleeding profusely." When the plane was later found in a Florida swamp — where it had landed and thankfully not injured anyone — the windshield remained unbroken, and there was no blood in the plane.

The Plan: When he emerged from the woods 200 miles away, he would tell police he had been in a "canoe accident."
Where It Went Wrong: He was still wearing aviation goggles.

The Plan: Check into a motel, then casually disappear. Go pick up red motorcycle stashed in a storage unit and drive into the sunset.
Where It Went Wrong: (1) According to motel owner Yogi Patel, Schrenker was "last seen running into the woods wearing a black hat." (2) He rented the storage unit in his own name. (3) A red motorcycle? Really? (4) Around this time, a self-congratulatory video Schrenker made of himself doing DARING STUNTS on an airplane made him a giant YouTube star.

The Plan: Go to campground, commit suicide.
Where It Went Wrong: Marcus slashed only one wrist, and somehow punctured his elbow.

Dear Sir Richard Branson,

Dear Sir Richard Branson,

In spite of the fact that your name is so similar to that of Branston Pickle, I have a problem with your airplane service. It's not just that the names are so similar that I feel misled that you serve no Branston Pickle on your flights (which is something that should be remedied).

Yesterday or whenever it was, I woke up early (6am) to go to Heathrow and catch my flight to JFK, where I was to catch a bus to the Port Authority Bus Station and then catch another bus to my home in Ithaca, where my husband and dog were patiently awaiting my arrival. I had hoped to find my friend Brian in New York - a friend I haven't seen in several years, have ane nice leisurely meal and a good old fashioned chin wag before departing on my 6 hour bus trip to Ithaca.

Things didn't go according to plan and, Sir Richard, I blame you. Or at least your airline. I was notified of a one hour delay, when I checked my bags. This one hour stretched to 2 hours, then 3 and then canceled. It was by the grace of fortune that the Virgin desk is next to the toilets that I was just leaving when the flight notification board was changed to read: New York, VS003, Flight Delayed to 12:00, Gate Opens 15:45. The fact that the gate was set to open several hours after the flight was supposed to gave me pause enough to walk straight over to your desk. Within 10 minutes everyone else on my flight was standing behind me, including a loud Welsh woman and her mortified daughter (the Welsh woman kept threatening to faint) and a crabby, depressing New Yorker woman with droopy eyelids and a permanent frown who kept making increasingly more rude and scathing comments about the girls behind the desk.

We were then told that we were all to be transferred to the 2pm flight. And this, Sir Richard, this is where I feel there must have been a gross misuse of us as customers. Because, I just don't see how it was at all possible to fit all of us on another flight. I think that one of the flights - and I'm inclined to think it was the 2pm flight, wasn't full. And you'd be damned if you were going to send a plane over that wasn't full to capacity. Even if it resulted in your customers trips to New York (there were a lot of vacationers) being ruined or it meant that it made an already unpleasent trip, infinitely worse. I didn't get home until 25 hours after I woke up to get ready to go. I almost missed the last bus of the evening which would have resulted in my arriving home at 4am.
I felt even more unfairly treated when I opened up my "Sorry Voucher" packet, only to find that I was totally ineligible for any extra miles offered by Virgin, because I was only delayed 5 hours (not 6) and I hadn't paid enough for my ticket. Of course I purchased a cheaper ticket out of stinginess and because I am uncouth and unstylish and don't really understand what the word "luxury" means. Not at all because I couldn't afford a more expensive ticket and that we paid for the trip by scrimping and saving money, so that I could spend at least one more Christmas with my 100 year old grandmother. Which explains why I am so undeserving of any compensation beyond the 5 pounds I was given for 'light refreshments'. The actual flight itself was an interminable 8 hours, not including the extra time we spent circling JFK and subsequently taxiing on the ground at JFK. I had selected an aisle seat, near the front but was given a seat between a 6'3 Swede and a little old lady who applied nauseating perfume twice throughout the trip.

So anyway. My trip was absolutely horrible. And your airline's attempts to make me feel better were weak and infuriating. I am an unhappy customer.

Alice

NYE

I think it can all be summed up in this photograph, courtesy Malcolm Hobbs:

Blustery.

It's blustery today. But you don't really expect any less from England - in fact, it's been quite mild.

Ryan and I have a deal. To use a phrase one of the evil hedge fund managers used to use, irritatingly all too often (read: at all), it's on the DL. So I'm certainly not going to publish it here.

Of course, Ryan'll probably read this and think, "What the hell is she talking about?" and then ask me, and then I'll tell him, and he'll say, "I don't remember making that deal."

The DL is where I was told to keep my insane "work"-related trip to Reno (loudly, so that everyone in the office knew that I was keeping something on this apparent "DL"). Out of some strange sense of integrity, I suppose I'd better not go into the details. Conversely, out of some strange sense of needing to get things of my chest I will enter some words that could be used in the formal description of the trip:

irresponsibility
smelly
rude to the taxi driver
rude in general
obnoxious
smelly
supposed to be moving
"I can't wait to never go"
somewhat exciting
good story after all
...what's wrong with this country today and I can say that with utter seriousness and prove it, by using the current economy as evidence.
no artist I know would be caught dead there, even if it was part of an exhibit and I told them so
sheltered
terrifyingly large
smelly
insular
dusty
overuse of the word "burner"
adventure

Son House to the rescue: I get stared at on a train for an hour.

On the train from the Victoria station to Polegate, I had the very odd experience of being stared at for the entire trip. On the one hand, I think it's great that 19 year old boys think me attractive enough to stare at for over an hour, on the other hand, it was a little disconcerting to say the least, if not utterly distracting. Try reading a book when someone is literally leaning out of their seat staring at you. He moved seats 2 times to get a better view.

So, I fished my ipod out of my bag, found some Son House and stared out the window. To break the tension and relieve the boredom, I pretended to look suprised or interested at things outside or at the other end of the train, in an attempt to see if I could get him to turn his head and look at what I was looking at. It worked on several occasions, but the hard part was trying not to giggle in victory afterwards. I think he had just about worked up the nerve to say something to me when just around the time I had jammed my headphones into my ears, because as soon as I did that, he put his hands up to his face in an expression of utter defeat. Then he moved to the seat next to the one he was in (the second seat move) and continued staring at me through the space between the seats. At one point, he was leaning on the seats in front of him with his eye pressed up to that space.

For Nina's friend, Paul:

Someone found my blog using these search terms:

"Huell Howser, restraining order."

Finally!

Pirates Of The Caribean. Yes, it was terrible and I'm sorry I watched it.

I wish it was possible to make a film with loads of great special effects and awesome action scenes that didn't feature cutesy attempts at humour and irritating actors.

More Liberal Elitism

Call me a member of the liberal elite, but, well, um, duh (from Slate):

Places that went for Obama are richer and smarter than places that went for McCain.

I'm didn't just post this because I voted for Obama either. I'm not so delusional as to think that Obama is going to save the world like we all want him to. He did, after all, choose Hilary Clinton as his Secretary of State. But still. A competent, well adjusted politician verses a past-it (who doesn't use email in this day and age?) toady* and his gun toting, uneducated hillbilly of a running mate who nobody (including the ) even likes?

*and before you even dare think the word "maverick" [shudder, shudder] and start claiming that he's not like other Republicans (he is, he really, really is), what kind of "maverick" allows this man to pick your running mate after being told "no" to your first and second choices.

***

Here are some pictures to calm you down.

My Family

Wonderful though they are, are entirely and utterly predictable. I sent them an email several days ago, asking them what the want for Christmas. In my family, we have a tried and true method of wishlists. Everyone is responsible for submitting one and discussions take place between the other family members. No one ends up with something they didn't want or can't use. Sure, some of the spontaneity and creativity but that issue is mitigated by the fact that you get something you actually want.

So back to this email. I am leaving for England in a scant few days. I wanted to be able to get all my Christmas shopping done and be able to have sent the packages off yesterday. So I sent them the requisite email, then walked into Ryan's office and said, "I've just sent an email asking my parents and brother what they would like for Christmas, but I bet nobody replies."

Sure enough, 3 days later and not even a "Yes, sorry, I'll get to it later" response. Totally ignored.

The same thing happened at the beginning of the year, when I was trying get our trip to England in order - we were going for my grandmother's 100th. I sent out a long email about what dates we could go, how we would work out certain sleeping arrangements, what our tentative plan would be while we were there. Nothing. Nobody even mentioned to me that they received the email until I threw a fit about it.

I'm not really sure what to do, except not buy anyone presents.

Parsley Dumplings

me: Last night I made parsley dumpling soup.

MargoBee: ooh!

post the recipe? Please?

me: Sure.

MargoBee: I have parsley and veggies...

9:58 AM me: It's quite simple. Just start a simple broth and add your vegetables like you would any other soup.

10:00 AM While that's cooking, put 1 cup of flour, 1.5 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, about half a cup of finely chopped parsley, salt and pepper in a bowl.

Combine that, then add 1/2 cup buttermilk, 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

Then, after you're soup vegetables are cooked, drop golf ball sized blobs of the batter in the simmering soup.

10:01 AM Put the lid on for 5-10 minutes.

Then check them to see if they're done.

They should be puffed up and cooked through.

10:04 AM MargoBee: thanks!

Strange Things I've Found On The Internet

Well, to be fair, I did not find this thing on the internet. Ryan and I found it when we were standing in line at Michael's waiting to purchase a crochet hook. I don't recommend going to Michael's ever, let alone during this particular season but when you live in the middle of nowhere and it's them or Jo-Ann Fabrics for knitting supplies, you do what you have to.

I really needed a crochet hook to assist with the thumb making of a certain pair of gloves.

Anyway, we were standing in line when we saw a box containing this:
Now. You may ask what it is. Ryan did, even when he was presented with the name of the product: The Original Candle Warmer. For warming your candles. You know, the awful smelly ones that people inexplicably have in their houses (usually houses with valances). I always assume that they are there to cover up a worse smell. I assume the same about air fresheners. I find this category of product baffling - why don't you just clean your house regularly and possibly open a window every once in a while?

From the Candlewarmers website:

"From it's inception in December of 2000, Candle Warmers Etc. has dedicated itself to providing to the public a superior and safer way to enjoy scented candles without the need of lighting the candles."

"The only way to use a candle today is to use an Official Candle Warmers, Etc. candle warmer."

The only way to use a candle today is to not use it all, just let it sit around your house gathering dust and occasionally cooking it slightly on a hot plate, thus releasing the scent of sparkling cinnamon loganberry delight, which will almost completely cover the smell of your filthy, filthy house and no one will know that you haven't taken the rubbish out in over 3 months.

Walk

Today we went on a magical walk through icy, frozen Ithaca. We found, washed up on the shore of the lake:

A baby seat - I hope that it's contents had been removed before it was callously hurled in to Lake Cayuga.

A rock that had been engulfed by a tree - picture below

A DVD of the movie Noel, starring Penelope Cruz, Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams - despite the fact that littering is terrible, I think whoever had the grace to hurl it into the lake must have been in the middle of a fit of public service. Have you even heard of it?

An oar - we discussed bringing it home and turning it into some kind of unique furniture piece or hanging it on our wall. I thought it would be a fun thing to keep in the bathroom to freak our our guests.


More pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/rdougher/Ithaca_Getting_Cold#

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.