Pomegranate Molasses

I bought some pomegranate molasses yesterday. I found a recipe for it in one of my cookbooks and then visualised making it myself. Spending all that time separating the little garnets from their little honeycombs of protective skins and then...not eating them by the handful?

Clearly, that wasn't going to be possible. It's like pomegranate jelly or other preserves - I'm sure they're delicious but how to you make it without just eating the pomegranate?

(also: it's much cheaper to buy a 10.5 oz bottle of molasses than to buy enough pomegranates to make 10.5 oz of molasses)

You also can't always buy pomegranates, because they are a fruit that you have no choice but to eat seasonally - although, one could argue the same for a lot of other fruit, despite the fact that they are available in the store year round - who wants to eat a yucky, bland, dry, out of season orange?- but pomegranates aren't even available when they aren't in season.  

As much as we try and buy local (the CSA really helped with this one), I am an Arab, and Arabs crave things like tomatoes, lemons and most importantly, with regards to this blog entry, pomegranates. All things that are somewhat readily available in a Mediterranean climate, but not so readily available locally here in upstate New York. So about once a year, I crack and buy a pomegranate. One of the ideas of slow food living, so if you can't buy local then at least buy from the region that is known for the particular ingredient/food. So I bought Lebanese pomegranate molasses.

***

Yesterday, driving home from buying the above mentioned molasses, we saw that Pancho Villa's is taking down its sign. It looked like this:

 

Which reminded me of this sketch, from about 2:00 onwards:

Knitting and Bananas

I've been watching a lot of these videos recently - brought to my attention by my father in law. I think they're great. Mainly I've been watching the "Why people laugh at creationists" series, although I did try and sit through Thunderf00t's discussion with Ray "The Bananaman*" Comfort. What struck me as interesting was Comfort's inability to get his head around the fact that people who aren't religious do not have an "origin story". He asked Thunderf00t how the earth began and Thunderf00t starts discussing the scientific concept of the unknown. This became Comfort's "aha" moment and he claimed (repeatedly) "You don't know, but I do know". As if having any kind of answer trumps not having an answer. Nevermind the millions of people who share this planet who have a completely different answer. He says some (mostly) other ridiculously inane things (like "Where I'm from, in New Zealand, up is down!") and then I turned it off. I'll try again later. But back to the "can't get his head around the fact that people who aren't religious don't have an origin story" - that is a fundamental problem with discussing religion with a lot of religious people. They can't even begin to put themselves in the shoes of someone who doesn't have any belief in a supernatural being - the question: "Do you want to be an atheist and go to hell?" seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to ask if you can't get your mind around the fact that atheists aren't choosing hell, because they don't believe there is a hell. 

***

I've also been knitting again. I'm about halfway done with a new hat for Ryan:

I want to attempt something bigger next but I'm concerned that I'll not finish it and buying all that yarn is expensive! I feel like I ought to use up my stash before I get going on anything large like a sweater. Or this sweater dress that I'd like to make, but I'd change the cable pattern to be just one cable up the left hand side so it goes all the way up the dress and make the rest of it ribbed. I also think I'd prefer it in a warmer colour, like a beige or brown or even the light olive.


*If you only click on one link in this blog entry and you haven't seen Ray Comfort talk about the Banana being the atheists nightmare (I can't do that phrase justice, not have a kiwi accent), click on this one. And remember, it is not a tutorial for masturbation, which is what my mother thought it was.

Mystery ingredients.

It's been too long since I posted here. So, here's a picture of some ingredients. I'm trying to remember what I made with them.

Whatever it was, I bet it was delicious.

[Edit: I remembered! Curry paste! and it was delicious]

Fight!

Last night Ryan and I were in the middle of discussing our Christmas shopping details and we heard shrieks - shrieks followed by a woman screaming, "GET OFF ME!" repeatedly. So, we walked outside and heard more shrieks. Ryan went to put on his shoes and I ran over to where I heard the shrieks from. As I was running across the cul de sac, a boy - maybe 17 or 18 - wearing what seemed to be nothing but a towel, appeared from the neighbours house. I heard more screams, so I yelled back to Ryan to call the police. The boy in the towel yelled, "No - DO NOT call the police! Just go home!" Which seemed so ludicrous at the time I just ignored him - to me it sounded as if a woman was being attacked. We turned out of the cul de sac and saw two women fighting, one was pulling on the other. I wasn't sure which one was screaming. Ryan walked over to the girls but before he had gotten to them the boy in the towel darted between Ryan and the girls, yelling at him to "Just go home!" I ran back to the house and called the police, who arrived before I finished talking to the dispatcher. When it came time to make his statement to the police, he seemed to be trying to make it about Ryan intruding, instead of that there were two women fighting. That is, until his father walked up to him, leaned down -the kid was sitting on the pavement in his towel, shivering- and said, "Shut up."

According to Ryan, the kid stank of alcohol and kept saying that he knew the women involved and would take care of it.

I was baffled, frankly, by this kids behaviour. I attribute it mostly to the alcohol and an inflated ego. What did he expect was going to happen in the middle of Palo Alto? What kind of person would ignore someone shrieking like that? I doubt I was the only person to call the police.

It was a similar situation when our neighbours burglar alarm went off and no one responded. We called the police and the neighbours who's house it was, were furious because the police came and took a set of keys they found lying on the floor in the kitchen. Apart from the "wouldn't you want your neighbours to call the police if there was legitimate cause to believe a burglar had broken in" argument - their burglar alarm had been going off for a whole hour and was preventing anyone from going to sleep.  What were we supposed to do?

Marmaladey Apple Jam.

I found this recipe last night, when I was trying to figure out what to do with a giant back of pie apples that had not been turned into a pie. We leave Saturday and I'm going to be gone for almost a month, so a pie or anything that needs to be consumed soon was out.

For the most part I followed the recipe, but I did do a few things differently. Here is what I did.


From Just Hungry:

• For every 1 lb /450g of peeled, cut up apple -
• 11-13oz / about 320g-370g sugar - more if you have sour apples, less if you have sweet
• 1 whole lemon, organic/unwaxed

My version:

3lbs apples
1 32oz bag of brown sugar
2 unwaxed lemons,  juice and rind
2.5 unwaxed limes,  juice and rind (I had half a lime in the fridge that I wanted to use up)

I peeled the apples, then chopped them in quarters, then chopped the core out then cut the quarters in half. I rinsed them and then put them in a pot with the lemon and lime juice and the sugar. I let that sit for half an hour, with some stirring, as directed. The sugar draws out liquid from the apples and that liquid, along with the juice and sugar, became a beautiful brown syrup. I then turned on a medium low heat, still stirring occasionally, to make sure there was no burning. I brought gradually up to a boil and kept it boiling until it reached 220 degrees F. It doesn't mention this in the original recipe, but I wanted to make sure it would set. I've heard of the metal spoon method and the cold saucer method, and I try these each time, so that I can get a feel for what to look for in case I ever make jam and don't have a thermometer handy, but I still prefer the thermometer method. That way, if it doesn't set, I can say, "I don't understand, it certainly got hot enough!" instead of doubting myself on whether or not the jam was really moving in sheets down the back of the spoon. I never use pectin so this is sort of crucial. I'm not sure why the original recipe doesn't talk about this, but perhaps the 4 hours of recommended simmering would help ensure that the jam will set. After it started boiling, I added lemon and lime zest and chunks of rind, instead of tossing in the whole juiced lemon half. I turned it down and let it simmer for about 2 hours. It started tasting really, really delicious at some point along the way, so I pulled down my jam jars and sterilised them in boiling water, along with my metal ladle, my tongs and the jar lids. Oh and a spatula.

The jam was set perfectly this morning and I just had a piece on toast. It's got all the lovely bitterness of marmalade and all the sweetness of apple. Definitely one of the better preserves I've had.

Curry.

I have decided that I'm not buying ground spices anymore, if I can help it. I've made my own curry powder a few times now and it is vastly superior to the pre-made stuff, with the added bonus that I can make it as hot as I like. I've been making it with mostly unground spices in the coffee grinder. I knew that black pepper is only really worth using if it's fresh ground and I guess the assumption would be that it is the same for other spices, but I didn't know the joys of making proper curry from scratch until just recently. Shocking, to say the least. 

I made the following delicious dal the other day. I was proud of it because it was exactly what I was craving - something spicy and just a little tomatoey, but not so much that it became a tomato dish, per se.

1/2 diced onion
3 cloves minced garlic
knob of minced ginger
tsp coriander seeds - toasted*
tsp cumin  seeds - toasted*
tsp turmeric
tsp cayenne pepper
2 cardomom pods
salt
olive oil
stock
1 cup red lentils
1.5 tbs tomato paste

*Toss the coriander and cumin into a hot pan and keep heating until they start to become aromatic and you hear a "pop" or two coming from the seeds.

Heat up olive oil. Once olive oil is hot, add onions. Cook until soft, reduce heat, add garlic and ginger. Cook until aromatic. Add a little bit of water/stock and deglaze pan. Add more stock, lentils and spices and salt. Cook until lentils are almost done, then add paste. Serve while hot. 

Last night, Laila and I made this dish from the Rhymes with Vegan blog, with a few changes. Instead of roasting the squash in halves, we chopped it in to chunks and I didn't have any leeks, so we used half a red onion and we skipped the mock chicken and the peas (Laila doesn't like peas...). We served  a bowl of quinoa, with the squash on top and then a ladle of curried chickpeas over the top.

I recommend it and I recommend making your own curry powder for it. I used Mark Bittman's:

2 small dried chiles
1 tbsp black peppercorns
1 tbsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seets
1 tsp fenugreek
1 tbsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp ground ginger
cayenne

Heat the chiles, peppercorns and seeds in a pan until browned and aromatic. In the last minute of cooking, add the ground spices. Cool and then put in the coffee grinder and add the cayenne. You can store it or use it.

Death at a Funeral

I have walked out of exactly 2 movies in my life. I am a picky movie watcher and spent a lot of time watching movies for free when I worked for Landmark. The first was Julien Donkeyboy. I don't remember why I walked out, just that I did. The second was Death at a Funeral. I remember why I walked out of that film, oh boy, do I remember.

It was somewhere around when a tallish guy got in a physical altercation with a dwarf that was supposed to have been his dead father's lover. It was attempting to create an awkward situation that was so awkward, it was funny. It didn't succeed, it just felt really, really contrived and pandering to some sort of sophomoric frat boy humour community that clearly would never have come to see this film in the first place (Mr. Darcy is in it? It's playing at that obscure theatre where my mother dragged me to see The Piano? Come on guys, let's go!). Up until the gay dwarf fight, I hadn't noticed any attempts at jokes in the movie and neither had anyone else in the audience. I really kept thinking that we were watching the first 10 or 20 minutes of the film, waiting for it to warm up before the hilarity would start, until I looked at my phone and realised the movie was already half over and it was probably time to leave.

It's odd that Ewen Bremner was in both of those films, because I sort of like him. I also count Dirty, Rotten, Scoundrels as one of my all time favourites, which was supposedly made by the same people as the above described waste of time and celluloid. Anyway. They've decided, in all seriousness, to remake it.

I can only assume that the new version, which they're strangely calling the "American" version, despite the first one being made mostly by Americans, is to try and rectify the mistakes of the past with a new cast (Chris Rock) and new setting ("Urban America" as opposed to "Upper Class England") Unfortunately, the cast and setting was not the problem in the last version.

***

I did see a movie that I loved the other day, called Mary and Max. Narrated by Barry Humphries and voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette. Here is the preview:

Old chestnuts and badly breaded cauliflower.

Of all the cooking techniques I have mastered, breading is not one of them. This evening's dinner was rather a miserable failed attempt at breaded cauliflower with garlic, capers and red wine vinegar, sauteed chestnuts and mashed fava beans with carrots.

The last recipe was my own invention and by far the most successful. I heated some olive oil and tossed in half an onion and let those soften. Then I added one chopped carrot to soften and followed that with a can of favas, liquid and all. Finally, in addition to salt and white pepper and 3/4 teaspoon of stock paste, I added some coarsely chopped garlic. Other two dishes were recipes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. The chestnuts would have been fine, except that the chestnuts were old and dry, thank you very much Wegmans. Old chestnuts and the gone-off soy milk with a sell by date of February 2010 that you sold me 2 weeks ago which resulted in a full hour of me lying very still on the couch, willing myself not to vomit, have made me a little concerned about the drop in the quality of your merchandise. The real pity was that Ryan had never eaten chestnuts before, so his first experience was not starchy, sweet comforting nutty warmth as it should have been, but instead, a chewy and rather dry experience.

The breaded cauliflower, however was down to technique, which I do not have and am considering not trying to have anymore. It's so much mess that it doesn't quit seem worth it. The last time I tried something similar was when I attempted tempura vegetables. That was even worse than the cauliflower. Oh well. Live and learn.

Divine Watermelon

There's a full sentence! There's punctuation and everything!

Atheists that are silly.

After literally years of wanting it, I finally purchased Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I then proceeded to read it from cover to cover and then cook a lot of things, including beer-glazed black beans, olive oil bread, sea-salted brown sugar cookies, and a celeriac and bean bake.

I have so many more plans and I keep imagining bringing it to California, despite it being huge.

***

I read this blog entry today, discussing something called Atheism 3.0. Which is the new "New Atheism", "New Atheists" being a group of people that are "vocally vicious" about there being no god, as opposed to "Old Atheists" who just kept to themselves and were nice and didn't make people uncomfortable. Atheism 3.0 is for people who think religion is a good thing, they themselves just don't believe in god. It reminds me of my old boss saying that he himself didn't recycle because he knew it didn't actually do any good, but he though it was a nice thing to do and certainly encouraged his 6 year old son to do so.

The argument for faith given in the RNS article:

Faith provides meaning and purpose for millions of believers, inspires people to tend to each other and build communities, gives them a sense of union with a transcendent power, and provides numerous health benefits, Sheiman says. Moreover, the galvanizing force behind many achievements in Western civilization has been faith, Sheiman argues, while conceding that he limits his analysis, for the most part, to modern Western religion.

These "many achievements" may or may not have needed religion in order to reach fruition. The real question is, why are we still relying on it? Surely we've come out of the dark ages, we understand why a lot of things happen and we're continuing to move forward. The things moving society forward today, towards bigger, brighter and better achievements, are arguably not religion and faith. You could even argue that religion is sending us backwards, what with the absurd creationism-in-public-schools-thankyouverymuchOklahomaandKansas. I'm not even going to get started on all the horrible things religion has been responsible for. You can watch a debate about it for yourself.

And this is where I start to pine optimistically for a beautiful, Utopian society full of well read people who appreciate, value and seek intelligence and common decency.

Chocolate Milk

This story about the current chocolate milk war going on reminds me of the Cupcake Wars of ought seven. It also reminds me of something I read somewhere (location escapes me) of parents feeding kids McDonald's food through the gates during lunchtime at school, so the kids would "eat something" as opposed to going hungry because they wouldn't eat the healthier lunch offered by the cafeteria.

I say this with regards to this quote:

"We know that when flavored milk is taken out of the school, kids' milk consumption goes down," says Ann Marie Krautheim, senior vice president of nutrition affairs for the National Dairy Council."

Yes. So? You're worried about calcium and growing bones? Feed them broccoli. Or any of these vegetables. Kids don't need to drink milk, chocolate or otherwise. They certainly don't need the sugar (3.1 grams per ounce) that comes in chocolate milk.

"Krautheim argues that children don't drink enough milk as it is. And if schools remove chocolate milk, kids will choose less-nutritious drinks. "

Then don't offer less nutritious drinks. Is that so hard? Why is that so hard?

Dream: I find a new light source

I've been having some really vivid dreams lately. Last night I had a long dream about an old friend and my cousin.

The other night, there was another long dream but the only part I could remember was when I standing in a someone's kitchen - it was one of those super modern kitchens that you see in magazines, where the fridge, stove and dishwasher are the brushed metal kind. It was an Eichler, and one side of the kitchen was completely sliding doors that looked out onto a nice but small garden. In the middle was a large island, which I was leaning against and looking out the windows - it being between me and the windows - and along one wall was a sort of galley kitchen, with a fridge, then counter space, then sink, then more counter space, under which was the dishwasher and somewhere in that mix was the stove. Above the sink, stove, dishwasher and counter space were cupboards made out of light wood. At the end of the galley was a big cupboard, presumably used as a pantry. The counters, including the island, were all covered in shiny polished black granite, which as a rule, I typically do not like but it seemed to work here, I think mainly because of all the sun streaming in from the windows. And the sun was really streaming in. It must have been late afternoon and at just the right time for the sun to hit the windows directly. So on my right was the galley kitchen and on the left was a black wall that didn't reach the ceiling, nor did it reach either side of the room I was in. It looked like something that someone had put up to divide the kitchen from the living room, and indeed, on the other side, a big white couch with huge, oversized pillows were leaning against the wall. Someone - I don't remember who, was watching sports on a huge flat screen television that was on another wall, facing the couch. The wall that the television was on did reach the ceiling, but was otherwise, the same width as the wall dividing the kitchen from the living room. There was more ambient light coming in from somewhere.

So, I was leaning against the island, which was covered in newspapers and playing with a sort of succulent or cactus flower. I had the whole plant in my hand or else it was just the root, I couldn't tell. But it was bright green at the more root-looking end and then shifted into a bright pink end that was flower shaped, but it was sort the same texture as the rest of the root - thick and slightly bristly, with short, tiny tendrils coming off of it. I had a small glass bowl next to me, full of water. It was similar to the fish bowl that comes with a beta fish. I took the root and dropped it in the bowl and instantly, the light in the whole house changed to a dark blue. It was very similar to scenes in movies that are shot in the day time, but made to look like it was night by shooting through a blue filter or whatever is they do. Whoever it was watching the television yelled

"What's going on? What did you do?"

I couldn't explain it, so I took the root out of the bowl and the light went back to normal.

Ryan woke me up and some point. He was standing next to the bed, wearing a pair of pleated trousers that I hate. He hates them too, so his wearing of them is infrequent. I said,

"Why are you waking me up with pleated pants?"

Pomplamoose and PE Teachers

I love this band. They are so awesome.

Here's another awesome song they do:



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

I was such a weird kid.

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

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

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

Green Muffins

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

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

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

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

Thanksgiving Menu

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

Preliminary Thanksgiving Menu.

Lemony Hashed Brusselled Sprouts

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

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

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

Baked, stuffed, delicata squash

Olives (Yay Wegmans!)

Red Onion Chutney

Garlic-Rosemary figs

Toasted Squash Seeds

Cranberry butter

Rolls

Fresh bread

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

Beverages:

Growler filled with something delicious

More delicious beers

Bellwether cider

Elderflower soda, juice

Currant wine

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

GAH.

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

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

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

Oh well. Here's some music.

Oh yeah. This is where I moved to.

Late fall in Ithaca. Beautiful.

Where have I moved to?

This was sent out to the Ithaca Freecycle group.

Crazy Launderette Lady

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

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

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

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

"Are you done with this?"

"Yes"

"Then get it out of my way."

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

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

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

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


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

Lemming, Lemming, Lemming of the ADA

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

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

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

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

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

Wine and arguments

I've eaten a lot of kale today. Kale with scrambled eggs and then kale with rice. My favourite way to eat it is with soy sauce and lemon juice.

***

Ryan is making croissants. We had a fight earlier because I feel like his enthusiasm on the search for a second dog has waned. Among his claims after I snarkily said, "Should I just stop looking? Because you don't seem to really want a second dog." was that it was hard to get excited about a dog on the internet. I'm not sure how he expects to find a dog. To me, the beauty of the internet is that we find a few dogs that fit our requirements and then go and look at them. I don't want to go to the SPCA once a week and feel miserable for hours afterwards. Among his other claims was that it was hard to walk two dogs on a leash.

I found both of those arguments thin.

He said, "How can I get excited about a picture of a dog on the internet?"

I replied, "I'm not asking you to get excited, I'm asking you to participate in the process of finding a second dog."

And it made me feel like one of those baby crazy women. It made me sympathise with those baby crazy women (shit!). I took a bath while I was still angry. I thought, if I ever decide that I absolutely want children, I'm going to have to have the same damn argument. This sort of thing is always going to be up to me.

***

Which drives me nuts!

***

As such, I'm still a bit angry. Maybe I'll have some wine. Maybe I'll buy a horse.

***

We bought wine on our trip around lake Cayuga. We only ever buy wine when we go wine tasting because of New York's inexplicable liquor laws: One cannot buy wine in a grocery store, only beer (as far as alcoholic beverages are concerned).

***

Jeeves is learning a new trick: turning the floor lamp on. He's not quite there yet, but he's getting it.

***

Email to my husband.

from: Alice
to: Ryan
date: Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 10:54 AM
subject: You can't have a poodle.

I had a dream last night that we (including Jeeves) were wandering around in some big city. There were lots of stray dogs. There was a little brown dog that started following us around. You found a piece of twine and tied it to the dog and we brought it home - we were living in the big, nameless city in a 3 room apartment. All 3 rooms were living rooms and over filled with old, 70's-80's ish furniture. Things like dusty old futons with Indian wood cut print cover sheets loosely draped over them. There were lots of wood, lot of rugs and a large, old desktop computer. We were getting ready for a party. I was trying to find the new dog to show to some people only to discover another, different dog. This one was a gray miniature poodle cross. I found you and asked you where the brown dog was and you said you'd taken it back and found this one instead. I was furious with you. For one thing, I thought it was awful to bring the dog home and then just let it go and for another I did not want a poodle. I told you these things and you told me I didn't have any good reasons for not wanting a poodle, implying that it was just my snobbery. I started listing all the reasons I didn't want one - their hair doesn't stop growing, so you must cut it or have it cut, which costs money, they get really filthy and gross and need a lot of bathing, I didn't want small dogs...etc. You said that you would take charge of all the grooming and bathing. When you said that, I looked at the dog and it was wearing its hair in a little top knot held in place by a bow - which you had done to prove to me that you were going to do all the grooming necessary. I couldn't stop feeling awfully for the little brown dog and couldn't make you understand how reprehensible I thought 'replacing' it was.

The dream ended with me watching you play with the poodle on the floor and telling me I would grow to love it. At that point I could see that it wasn't all poodle, it had a bit of spaniel in it. And the more I looked at it, the more it looked like a black spaniel.

Sorrel Soup

From my mother:

The sorrel I have is perennial and has grown into a huge plant. I don't know how it stands up to snow and frost but it definitely grows in England. Though I never had it there, it was probably regarded as a poor persons food.

Ingredients:

A big bunch of sorrel leaves, stems trimmed off. Wash well.
Potato scrubbed but leave skin on. Chop into cubes and parboil or put in microwave for 4-5 minutes.
Bunch of spring onions chopped fine including greens
3 Cups of vegetable stock
2 tablespoons Olive oil
Nutmeg, salt & pepper

Heat oil, medium, add onions and sorrel leaves, stir and cook for three minutes till leaves turn bright green.

Add potato, vegetable stock, cook for about 6 minutes or until potato is fully cooked.

Grate in nutmeg

Leave to cool a bit and blend til smooth, return to pan to heat through if necessary.

Taste, add salt & pepper to liking.

It has it's own flavor and doesn't taste like anything else.
(The original recipe called for thickening with corn flour but I find potato does just as good a job.)

Oh I also added a large pinch of dry mint with the potato & veg stock.

How many uterus related arts and crafts projects can there be?

I've spent a lot of time on Etsy because I can find reasonably priced unique clothes that (most importantly!) fit me. I think the fitting me part is because when I buy vintage, it was usually made in a time when my size was closer to the average as opposed to the tiny people side of things.

I have, though, come across some really hideous items for sale and I'm very glad to say, someone finds them as hideous as I do.

My ex roommate Shawn passed this along:

www.regretsy.com

Enjoy!

Nonsense is good for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/health/06mind.html?em

Of course. If something was a little weird, and it turned out to be a
lion shoulder blade above the tall grass, one would have needed to
figure it out, right soon. We still need to be able to spot
unsettling things. "That's odd, I saw movement in the car. There
isn't supposed to be movement in the car. Aha! There is a man laying
in ambush in the backseat."

That's a neat article. Thanks for sending it to me. I hear the devil
calling, "Back on your heads!"
-Ryan

Dreams: David Mitchell Lookalikes

Last night I had a dream I walked into a pub that was having a David Mitchell lookalike contest. Everyone in the pub looked exactly like David Mitchell, even the kind publican that sold me a pint.

I was the only one not competing.

Death and grieving.

My ex-boyfriend died on Thursday night. We lived together for three years, had a dog together and cared a great deal about each other. He played the harmonica and the guitar and he was quite a good photographer.

I'm not going to go into the nasty, awful, messy details of breaking up, except to say it was a bad one. I think, partly, because everyone, except me, towards the end, thought we were going to end up together, married, etcetera. The awful details of the death are this: he had a brain aneurysm, in his sleep. They found him with our dog licking his face, trying to wake him up.

I didn't go to the funeral, for a number of reasons. I think that funerals are probably a really healthy thing - everyone gets together and decides to grieve together for a certain amount of time and then, one can move on - but for me, I didn't need to see a lot of strangers to grieve. Not to sound melodramatic, but I've already grieved over the death of our relationship and I've already grieved over Al. I realised somewhere along the way he was never going to be well, I was never going to be able to make him well, and I had to leave him to so that he could begin to figure things out on his own.

I spent most of Friday morning sobbing, I mean really sobbing. I think I even screamed a few times. Then I went to the barn because you can, or rather you should, for your own safety, leave your emotions on the ground when you get on, so I thought it might help me feel normal again. But instead of riding, I went to a school fete with my friend and her children. I ended up drinking a beer with a man who went to the same tiny, smaller-than-a-lot-of-high-schools, photography school that Al went to, Brooks.

So there I was, in the middle of central New York (well, actually closer to the Pennsylvania border), talking to a complete stranger about my life in Santa Barbara. Reliving moments and reminiscing about things that happened during my life with Al. It was a little surreal.

******

I keep waking up in the middle of the night and remembering that he's dead. It's really awful. I did it three times last night. I start going through conversations that we had - everything from the mundane to the excruciating. No particularly vivid dreams yet, though. Just an awareness of his presence in a lot of them.

******

On Saturday night, I left a strange party early and went to bed by myself. I called Margo and started crying almost instantly. I'd gone from being tremendously sad to feeling abjectly guilty. I'd read his obituary and it just seemed so trite and banal - I think he would have hated it. Well, I hated it anyway. It made me a little sick. I don't know what else I expected - it was filled with all the usual obituary stuff. I think it was because it reduced someone who was larger than life down to a few lines on a piece of paper.

*******

So here I am, Wednesday morning and getting back to work, finally feeling more normal. Still tired: I overslept this morning - it's 11:16 and I haven't even made a cup of tea yet.

I think I'll do some work and then head out to the barn. My mother said something that struck me as apt: "You know, I just can't quite get it into my head that there's a world without Al in it."

I'm not paying $50 to hang out with people I went to high school with.

http://www.paloaltothemovie.com/home.html

"Someone watch that trailer and tell me this isn't utterly absurd. If these people are trying to represent Palo Alto as Any Town, U.S.A. that is just patently false; and if they are representing Palo Alto as the rich niche that it actually is, well, I can only say with devastating honesty that that is just not a very interesting story, Tom Arnold or no."
-JT

"It looks shallow, cliche, and vapid. much like its namesake."
-BB

I just found a website announcing my ten year high school reunion. It's at a shitty bar in the town I went to high school in. And by shitty, I mean overpriced, loud and lacking in any personality, but still full of sweaty 20 and 30 somethings dry humping each other and yelling over the terrible music. The last time I went there, I ended up having to leave early to preemptively remove one drunk member of our party, before what she was doing started counting as sexual assault. Blame my drunk friend if you will, but I don't think that behaviour is out of the ordinary for that place.

It's also exactly where and how I would have pictured my high school reunion happening.

My complaint though, is not really about the bar, it's about the cost. Because I would probably go if it were, maybe ten bucks. But it's not ten bucks, it's fifty.

My apologies to any one who doesn't find fifty dollars an obscene amount of money for this particular event, but really? Really? Fifty dollars? Fifty dollars to go and hang out at a crappy loud bar in downtown PA? And have awkward conversations with people? I can do that for free pretty much anywhere else, the only difference being that I may not have already had awkward conversations with those people, 10 years ago. It would be a hundred if I want to bring my husband. We could have a nice meal for that. I can pay $35 dollars and go and see a show in the city at an awesome bar instead of a shitty one.

There was an alternative - the organiser suggested that if we didn't wish to drink, $10 or $15 dollars at the door would be fine, in order to help defray the costs of the reservation. That solution isn't really workable for me though, because being I don't think I could manage the evening sober and it seems like it might suggest a substance abuse problem or at the very least be regarded as a little tacky, if I showed up already inebriated.

I'm not sure what a high school reunion is for, anyway, these days. Isn't one of the wonderful things about facebook that you can keep in touch with/stalk people you want to keep in touch with but you can fairly successfully avoid those you don't?

Mosquito Bites.

I am the indignant sufferer of mosquito bites, all on my foot. Two of said mosquito bites are on the sole - one on each.

Since moving to the East Coast, I have started suffering rather more severely than in the past from mosquitoes. At the beginning of the summer, I was horrified by the dragonfly sized mosquitoes that insisted on suckling my blood while I was asleep. It was during a camping trip with Ryan when I fully came to realise exactly how much more flavourful I must innately be than he, because for every 1 bite he had, I had 7.

And not just 7 little bumps. These were giant welts that were painful. It's not that they didn't itch - the itching and all the indelicacies of scratching the itch came later. First was sore, aching pain as my immune system went into overdrive.

These giant winged monsters, however, have proved nothing compared to the gnat sized mosquitoes I encountered the other day, whilst walking through the woods near my house.

At firsts I thought that they seemed more like the mosquitoes I was used to, out west. Small, irritating, but not of the agony causing variety.

Not so. I smacked one, absently on my left arm, just below my elbow, while looking at something else. I know that killing them mid-suckle is usually a bad idea because it makes the bite that much worse, but I felt a small tickle and I reacted to it. I had already found and killed one eating my right elbow, so had become a little reactionary.

Within minutes both bites had spread into flat, white, raised bumps, which would have been a quarter inch in diameter, if they had been more circular. They had, instead, bumpy and uneven edges.

That evening, my left arm was swollen. The next morning, it was a third again its normal size, red, and inflamed. My elbow ached. I spent the morning looking up things like "Really horrible mosquito bite" and "mosquito bite inflammation" on Google. I self-diagnosed myself with skeeter syndrome and moaned a lot about it to my husband.

I was finally back to normal when yesterday morning I woke up scratching the bottom of my feet. One bite in the very middle of the arch of my right foot and the other on the side of my left foot.
There is no more irritating a place than the bottom of your foot for an itchy insect bite. People can tell you all they like that "scratching just makes it worse!" but try not scratching an itch that you are reminded of every time you stand up. Or put on shoes. Or bring the bottom of your feet in any contact to anything.

Then, this morning I sat down to read my email, only to discover a second bite, this one on the bottom of my left foot. Swollen, uncomfortable and itchy. When I notified my husband of the new development, he had this to say:

You ought to stop sticking your feet out from under the covers. Don't give the little bastards the opportunity.

Japanese food experimenting.

It's late and I'm trying to make red bean paste.

I've been, lately, really getting into trying to make Japanese food, to some degree of success. I'm finally getting the hang of onigiri and last night I even made a carrot sesame furikake for the on going onigiri experiments.

Most of my instruction has come from 2 places.

1. Just Bento/Just Hungry - 2 unbelievably friendly, informative blogs by the same person. There is SO MUCH there and it's all good.

2. Cooking with Dog - a YouTube channel that is campy and informative! The show is apparently hosted by a miniature poodle named Francis. At first I thought that the dog just hung out watching the cooking - I didn't realise that he was the host. Francis' voice is provided by a very polite Japanese man who has to be heard to be truly appreciated. I watched several of the videos yesterday and walked around saying, "Mix it well" over and over again. You'll understand when you've watched one. The cooking is done by the cutest little Japanese lady who always tells you how enjoyable the food is at the end of each segment.

Tonight I decided to attempt red bean paste because a) it is delicious and b)we found the asian markets in Ithaca and I had to get something. The red beans, the sweet rice flour and the aloe vera juice sufficed.

It is now 11:56. I started boiling the beans 2 hours ago and there's no end in sight. I soaked them for 22 hours, I boiled and drained them then boiled and drained them again and now I'm just waiting. Waiting and sleepy.

Radio Dream

I had a dream last night that I was hosting a radio show, which I was using to plug this blog.

Birthday picnic.

Birthday picnic in the house tomorrow. It's supposed to pour, so my grand plans of having everyone hang out in the back yard drinking gin t's and listening to chansons by Edith Piaf and Yves Montand have been dashed.

The Menu.

Hummus

Tomato basil thing

*Pickled green beans

Flat bread

Cornelian cherry soda

Lemonade

Cous cous & cherry tomato salad

*Just White Beans

*Pickled Red Onions

Zata

*Chili

*Cornbread

Asterisks indicate that the item has already been prepared.

It's late and I've spent the evening listening to British panel shows.

Preserves.

When we decided to join our CSA, I told Ryan that an important thing I wanted to do this summer was do more preserving and pickling.

I'm very excited that I've actually done this. The final results have, for the most part, been successful and if they weren't successful, they were at least delicious.

One exciting part of it is that we gathered all of the ingredients ourselves. And the plums came from my mother's garden while the Cornelian cherries were scrumped!

The next plan involves scrumping crabapples from the Ithaca airport and making crap apple and lavender jelly along with green tomato chutney from our sad little tomato plants that will have to be put to sleep soon as the have come down with late blight.

I'm also keeping tabs on the roses in the neigbourhood, because I like the idea of making rose hip jelly. It's in keeping with my little old lady fascination. Sort of goes along with Coty face powder and sachets of lavender. Basically, I'm thinking of my grandmother although I have honestly no idea if she's ever made rose hip jelly or not.

Healthcare Reform! Yay!

I was going to have a big announcement about my prodigal return to blogging, but what the hell. Linking to someone else's blog is much easier. Particularly when they've accurately described sentiments which I share.

This won't hurt a bit: Mob Scene

Here's the bit I liked best:

"As a nurse, I cannot speak strongly enough in favor of discussing end of life care with your doctors when you have the chance. Hell, I think all adults should have advanced directives. And your doctor should get paid for the time s/he spends talking to you about your options. No one is lining up to exterminate your disabled child or elderly parent. The fact that I have to write that makes my brain hurt."

Kids, now is absolutely the time to be reforming the health care system. Why? Because our economy is in the toilet (excuse the vulgarity) and people are out of work, and thus without adequate health care. What kind of barbaric society allows its people to suffer needlessly?

More overly intimate facebook photos and strawberry scones.

It's happened again. I happened to glance at Facebook pictures featuring people I know in an overly intimate position.

Is nothing sacred? Am I just a prude?

Wait. I know I'm not a prude. I just don't want to see you kissing someone. I'm sure you have kissed people and I'm sure that some people regard you as kissable and therefore, attractive, I just don't need photographic evidence.
***
In other news, I made Strawberry Scones last weekend and they were a success. By success, I mean all eaten within 24 hours as opposed to Ryan's recent biscuit attempt, which have been designated as dog biscuits (and not eaten at all). Somehow he got too much baking powder or soda in them and they tasted, as I described to him, not unlike "licking quarters." Oh well. He's made a lots of good things. And the proportion of good things to things that taste like quarters is quite satisfactory.

Strawberry Scones

2¼ cups all purpose flour
¼ cups sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 egg
¼ cup plain yoghurt
½ cup milk
orange zest from one orange
1.5 cups sliced and diced fresh strawberries

1. Preheat oven to 425F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a small bowl, combine the egg, yoghurt, milk and orange zest. Whisk to thoroughly combine.

3. Place the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt) in a large bowl. Pulse to combine. Add the cubes of butter and cut the butter into the flour with a pastry cutter, to just before a coarse meal texture.

4. Add the strawberries to the flour mixture and mix to coat. Add the wet ingredients and fold them into the dry ingredients, mixing just until the dough comes together and all of the flour is hydrated. Don't mix too much or you will lose fluffiness.

5. Scoop out onto prepared baking sheet and sprinkle some sugar. Bake until slightly browned on top, for about 15 minutes (use a toothpick to test doneness).

6.Remove the baking sheet from the oven and let the scones cool on the sheet for a few minutes. I had leftover dough, which I froze for quick scones next time.

YUM.

The Garden and It's Spring!

We planted a garden. Well. Ryan did most of the work - I supervised while managing a bottle of Ithaca Brewing Company's finest pale ale.

Still, it's very exciting. This morning I went down and checked our little plants - all of the tomatoes (Cherries and Black Prince heirlooms) and about half of the peppers (Lady Bell and Jalapeño) have little buds or flowers on them. We also have oregano and Thai basil in pots and Lauren and Matt from downstairs have some parsley, sweet basil and cilantro (apparently some people seem to disagree with me that it tastes like soap) seeds going. Now if we can just convince the other downstairs neighbours not to throw their cigarette butts and trash onto the vegetable plot we'll be set. I think this is manageable because they are moving out in a week.

I also packed up all our woolly winter clothing and started eying my bathing suits, not to mention getting rid of clothes I never wear (to make room for....more clothes!). Today is supposed to be 72 degrees and clear all day long. We're planning a backpacking trip along the Fingerlakes Trail.

Yesterday was pretty idyllic as well (except for folding a huge pile of delinquent laundry) - we went to Huntervale and I rode 4 ponies, who were (mostly) fabulous, while Ryan fished for bass. Next week, a trip to Devon Horse Show.

The weather has been unbelievable. Everything from mid-nineties and humid, to thunderstorms, to nighttime frosts, to grey and cloudy and then, finally, on Saturday, hail. HAIL. I guess this is "spring."

What do you do for money?

So I haven't been a prolific poster recently. I think that the main reason is that my mind has been really focused on my current job and I don't feel comfortable talking about it on the internet. It's not fair to my students/clients/staff.

I haven't been knitting, I haven't been cooking, I haven't been taking care of the house properly, I haven't been writing here. I have also come to the conclusion that I really don't want to work more than 3 to 4 days a week, if I can help it. It goes against everything I was raised to believe (work hard! get rewards!) but I am finding that I think the leisure to do what I want is really the best reward. Also that I shouldn't be defined by the work that I do - even if that is something that I love doing, like riding horses.

I'm going to go as far as to say that the question "What do you do?" as in implying "What do you do for money?" is almost rude. Maybe I think so because I started to hate answering it so much when I worked for the hedge fund. My standard answer to the question became, "I work for a hedge fund but I'm not a republican. Yes, they are just as evil as you've been told."

When I was a horse trainer, the answer was always greeted with: "I rode a horse once." So while I originally liked answering the question, I got tired of the stories about someone going on a trail ride and the horse "bucked them" or "started going really fast."

Now I have such a convoluted answer, I really don't like bothering. Every answer seems like a betrayal to everything else I do. And I can't really list everything and I don't really feel that what I do for money is the same as what I, well, do.

But I suppose it's a question, like any other, that people use to learn about other people. Obviously I've asked the question myself, but I think I tend to wait until the person volunteers the information. I mean, what if you want to not work at all. How do you answer the question then?

I think this all stems from my frustration with being defined or boxed into a category and my frustration with defining or categorising others. I'm sure I do it though much my own chagrin. It just seems like a lazy and more importantly harmful thing to do. Lately I've been feeling very categorised all too often.


Well this has turned into a bit of a ramble. Oh well.

Bad Behaviour.

Today at Wegmans, I heard a (grown) woman drop a 24 pack of beer (causing a mess) and then watched her (literally) run away. RUN. I thought, after seeing this, that no matter how old she was, she wasn't old enough to be drinking alcohol.

I want to start a website called: I Judge You When You Behave Badly In Public.

Today At The Dog Park

I arrived and standing on the big hill in the middle of it, were two people who could not keep their hands off each other. In a fit of disgusting displays of affection, he had his hand in various nooks and crannies that are usually only explored within the privacy of the bedroom, not to mention his tongue in places that are usually the realm of ENT doctors.

They had a sort of labby-collie type black and tan dog that tended to be on the less socialised side. On more than one occasion I saw Jeeves adopt his ears back, snapping stance, the one where he is clearly trying to tell the other dog, "I am uncomfortable with your behaviour, leave me alone" by way of a high pitched bark.

Also at the park was a mother and her little girl, also on the less socialised side of things. The girl had not been taught how to be around a dog which, from my point of view, from the moment they arrived and she was instantly knocked over, created a dangerous situation. She was knocked over because she ran right into a dog from behind, who in turn, chased her and ran her down.

I was standing and chatting with a few people, while our dogs played together. A woman walked up to one of the people I was talking to, a man, and said, "Is this your dog?" gesturing to the black and tan dog that belonged to octopus couple.

"No." He replied.

"Well, that dog just pissed all over my daughter. "

The man made some sort of noise indicating acknowledgment.

"Do you know who's dog it is? It pissed all over my daughter."

The man's girlfriend said, "I don't know, I'm sorry."

The woman replied, "It's just disgusting."

The wet little girl stood their, with a blank expression on her face.

When the woman finally discerned who owned the offending dog, she didn't go and talk to them about the matter. She complained about it some more to us, saying that they had stood their laughing while their dog defiled her daughter. She bided her time until they made a move to leave the park, at which point, she shouted at them from across the park.

Then she took her child, left the park and went to the police.

I'm not kidding.

Bad Manners All Around. The nauseating couple should have made a good faith effort to stop their dog from micturating over the poor little girl and the stupid woman should have set a much better example for the little girl. Dragging her around the park to yell at strangers? Going to the police? There are worse things than piss in this world. Instead of teaching the girl to get over shitty things that happen to you, by being sympathetic (but not angry!), she taught the girl to make ineffectual complaints and be thoroughly rude to strangers (by whom I mean the man she accused of being the dog owner in the first place). She didn't even show her how to voice her grievance like an adult - if she really wanted some kind of apology or closure, she should have approached the couple and addressed the issue with them appropriately instead of shouting across the park.

She took the dog pissing on her daughter personally.

So while I started my trip out to the dog park, wishing that there was some kind of posting about dog park etiquette for dogs (i.e. it is not safe to bring a leashed dog into the dog park, it is disgusting not to pick up after your dog, etc.) I realised that these sorts of things are probably as ineffectual as that woman's outrage. People are just jerks sometimes.

The Wombles

Facebook is so weird. Not that I'm judging.

I've seen pictures of old friends, posted on Facebook, that make me feel as if I've walked in on them having sex and then turned around, only to find the door locked behind me and to then discover that they don't care that I'm in there and are continuing with their...machinations.

I guess that's a rather long metaphor, but the pictures are just so unabashed, so "out there" that the only choice one has is to start making pop psychology diagnoses. At least that's what I do.

"She has always used her relationships with men to validate herself, so therefore she is posting these pictures of herself in these blatantly sexual positions in order to appear more attractive in the eyes of others. What she doesn't realise is how transparent this is and also, how quickly she needs to get herself into therapy."

One picture in particular, the person looks like they are being date raped. Date raped.

In addition to inappropriate pictures, there are jokes occasionally made on peoples posts that I think are childish, inappropriate and rude. A (straight) male friend changed his relationship status and it was met with, "Can't wait to meet him" and "What's his name?" jokes.

This is a funny place for me to be in. I am far from prudish and certainly far from anyone who gets offended by pretty much anything -I do have my fair share of somewhat scandalous pictures posted up on Facebook. I'm not particularly fond of political correctness (don't get me drunk and started on cultural relativism. Or Garrison Keillor, for that matter). It is just weird to want other people to see a lot of this stuff. Or know about it.

Maybe it's not them, it's me. Maybe I'm showing my age - I feel like I missed the everyone-knows-everything-about-you-in-digital generation by a couple of years. Young enough to know what it is, too old not to be horrified or totally grossed out. I mean, no one even had a cell phone when I was in high school until my senior year and even then, it was a rarity.

*******

Richard Coyle, Bad Movies and Sleepiness.

It's 1 in the morning, I fell asleep for several hours after I returned home from work this evening and now I am perky and wide awake. I didn't get enough sleep last night because Jeeves had a panic attack due to fireworks being let off somewhere nearby. I'm not sure why dogs hate fireworks so much. And so, I'm going to go to bed quite late again and thus beginning the endless catch-22 of the proverbial night person.

***

I just finished watching a really weird movie called the Libertine. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I'm not even going to link to it, because it really wasn't that interesting enough. It's starring Johnny Depp in the somewhat biographical role of John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester. He does a great job, but the plot is confusing and just not very interesting. I found it because I was looking for things Richard Coyle has done - he had a small role in it.

Why Richard Coyle? Because I had a strange dream the other night where Richard Coyle was a friend of mine. I realised when I woke up that I wouldn't mind having Richard Coyle be my friend. I bet he'd be a lot of fun.

employment

I've started my new job!

I like it. So far.

I Thought Winter Was Over

What the hell is wrong with this crazy place? 60 degrees yesterday and then tomorrow:

Stranger's Babies.

I'm in the lobby of the site of my new job, doing my last volunteer shift. I start getting paid Monday.

I like this place because I like meeting all sorts of people. Right now there is a girl in here (I say girl because I think she must be younger than me) with the youngest of her 3 babies. This one is nine months old. It just spit up on the carpet.

I feel odd sometimes because I never have anything to say to mothers or to babies. Motherese isn't something I am prepared to use. Other women can, with the greatest of ease, slip right into that language, no matter whose baby it is, say the right things, ask the mother the correct questions and everyone seems happy. Their faces light up at the sight of a baby. I don't seem to regard them as anything more interesting than just another person, one that's a little younger than me. It's a social interaction that I just do not have the tools for.

It's not that I absolutely don't want children of my own (I go back and forth). I've just come to the conclusion that I have no interest in stranger's children, particularly babies. I just don't know what to say. I feel like I did not "get the memo." When it is the clear topic at hand - because you are in a lobby with a talkative mother, I have a difficult time. I have little or no opinion, interest or knowledge on the subject - I have literally nothing to say. Which is quite rare, for me. Under a certain age, children seem to be fair game for all sorts of women to gurgle. And that just seems weird to me - I mean, what's so special about a baby?

I'm sure that sounds callous, but I really mean it. I get the whole "it's a new life" thing and that babies are absorbing the world around them at an astounding rate. That is actually pretty cool and actually interesting to me. Little tiny beings programming themselves. I have, oddly and for various reasons, made quite a personal study about children and learning and parenting: In part because of my interest in evolutionary psychology and anthropology, in part because of my utter frustration with the Palo Alto Unified School District, and also, in part, because I am aware of my lack of knowledge in this area, but understand that it is a part of the human experience (whether or not it is part of my experience). But that is where my interest ends. I simply cannot muster the strength to talk to anyone about their baby, especially right out of the blue. But somehow, babies, like cigarettes, are a socially acceptable way for people to start conversations with strangers.


I realise that every mother thinks their baby is special - and they should (within reason: my old boss forwarded a bulletin board post to me that his wife had found on one of her mom websites. It was all about how this woman felt she was selling her child short, not giving him the advantages that he deserved and how she needed a way for him to express his gifts or else his life would be ruined. Therefore she was seeking a chess tutor. Then she mentioned his age: 2 and a half). But I still am not sure how that translates into other women cooing and burbling at stranger's babies. It just smacks of false intimacy (at least it would be for me, because the emotions I would be supposed to be emoting would not be real) and I can't stand that.

I'm sure a lot of has to do with the fact that I was never around tiny babies. I'm the youngest but one, in my generation, on my mother's side of the family and the next oldest is my brother (8 years difference). My cousins have started having children but I rarely ever see them - and they are all old enough now to hold conversations (well, they're almost conversations). My brother certainly hasn't had any. In addition to this, gender defined roles were never a subject in our household. My brother and I were both expected to go to college and become earners. No one ever said to me, "When you get married and have children..." rather, it was "When you grow up and are fully capable of supporting yourself."

So here I am, sitting in the lobby of my soon to be place of employment, finally feeling comfortable because I have been given means of supporting myself and my family, wondering what on earth to respond to this woman when she starts muttering about her baby and how on earth the other women in the office know just what to say.

And so it goes.

So, my father has been laid off. This is terrible news. At his age, he should be leaving work, not having to search for it.

We are heading into another Great Depression.

More from the Florence Extended Stay America

This hotel stay wouldn't have been complete until this evening.

I am all packed up, sandwich and fruit ready for tomorrow's plane flight (I never, ever buy airport food and neither should you). Annie and I have been sitting at our respective computers for awhile. She turned to me a few minutes ago and said,

"Am I going nuts or is your computer making a funny noise?"

I replied,

"I hear it too. I think it's coming from outside."

I got up and looked.

"It sounds kind of like a quack. Something quacking." she said. I agreed with her.

My exploration out the window proved fruitless.

"I can't think what it is." I said, sitting back down at the computer.

"I don't know either. Unless...." She raised her eyebrows and then gestured to the wall us from the room next door. I raised my eyebrows in kind. Then she put her head on her desk and I groaned. I found a cup, held it up to the wall and pressed my ear up against it. The distinct noise of bed springs squeaking was clear.

"Is that what it is? I think from the expression on your face that that must be what it is." Annie looked at me and then put her head back on her desk.

I frowned and looked embarrassed. Then I nodded, replaced the cup and went back to my seat by the computer.

I actually don't care very much, I kind of think that's what you're supposed to do in hotel rooms. It's just kind of weird to overhear it - like when you overhear someone peeing - the act is such an intimate, private moment yet you know everyone does it and don't really care or think about it very much.

Anyway. Back to New York tomorrow.

Alice's Adventures in Kentucky...wait, actually it's Ohio this time.

I'm still staying in Florence, but today we ventured up to Beulah Park, which is just outside of Columbus, Ohio in a small town called Grove City.

Why did we go? The same reason Annie and I go anywhere, ever.

That's right, you're looking at my latest investment scheme. Of course, I won't be getting any money out of it, someone else will (they'll be putting in all the money too). But the point is to prove I can do it: take a (free) racehorse off the track, retrain it and sell it to someone else. One of these horses will be coming back to Ithaca (maybe).

Anyway. One of my singular joys in life is going out to breakfast. Ryan is anti-this because...well...I'm not sure why. Regardless. Annie and I went out to breakfast before driving up to Beulah:

Yes. This place sells rocking chairs outside and plays Dolly Parton on the loud speakers. No hound dogs, whittlin' sticks, horehound candy or shotguns though. I checked in the gift shop:

On the way to Beulah, there were two signs that listed the 10 commandants. Really made me regret all that coveting I've been getting up to. On the way back, the same signs were decorated with these two gems, supposed to be read one after the other:

I think this sign is funnier if you just read it by itself:


Then there was this bumper sticker:


All I can say is: Beware of liberals taking pictures of your stupid bumper stickers and posting them on the internet in order to ridicule you and your sensationalistic, militant, small-minded, bigoted, little brain.

Some terrifying articles

Brought to my attention via friends of friends on Facebook; I believe dissemination is important:

First: Oklahoma State is preparing to pass legislature that will require teachers to give students who give "religious" answers to exam questions in science classes, passing grades.

http://www.edmondsun.com/opinion/local_story_067125346.html

I think we've now begun the entrance into the New Dark Ages.

Second: What Obama wants to do about it.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/obama-text-town.html

Finally: More terrifying news.

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind08/pdf/c07.pdf