I Wiggle It, Just a Little Bit

My 500th Wiggle!

2009-09-03T21:18:00.003-04:00

Well! It is my 500th blog post! Can you believe it? I certainly can. I feel every single one of those 500 entries deep within my bones. To celebrate, here is a cheerleader thing that I made:

She is cheering me on to victory. This craft came from a kit that cost $1. Apparently, if you spend $1 on a kit, then you get a bunch of yarn and felt and instructions that say “Make the thing look like it does in the picture.”

Anyhoo, I thought since it was the 500th blog we could look back in time a little bit. I started this blog in Seattle on Jan. 2, 2007, which probably aggravated me at the time cause I’m the kind of person that would have preferred to start on the first. Ah well. For the first five or so months, only my dear friend Matthew knew about the blog. Things I wrote about when only Matthew read my blog: books, spam email, things I ate for lunch, beverages I consumed, my horrible knee injury of 2007.

Matthew eventually told me that being the only reader was creepy, and so then I started telling other people. When other people started reading it, I started writing about other things, such as concerts and readings I went to, things that happened that day in history, Bryan Adams music videos, movies and television. Plus, the introduction of special guest bloggers! And I learned how to put pictures up!

Hey! Then do you remember when I decided to up and move back across the country? Oh, man I do. Cause I blogged all about it, from my annoying landlady to going to post office 25 times to mail all my books to the big drive cross country. Then I lived in Candler for two months, answering phones at Dad’s office, so I had plenty of time to blog blog blog. Mary Henry and Brad helped get me to my goal of 200 posts in one year, setting a deadly dangerous precedent for the next year.

And speaking of the next year, that’s when I got a job and moved to Atlanta! In Atlanta, I’ve pretty much blogged about things I’ve always blogged about, such as concerts and books and trips and award shows and pictures and whatnot, but in Atlanta I’ve had the additional advantage of writing about Chick-fil-a and its wondrous and creepy bad spelling cows.

Hey, speaking of the Chick-fil-a cows, yesterday I went to Chick-fil-a for lunch, and a guy dressed in the cow costume was in the store! He made a small child cry. A middle-aged man got really excited though, and whipped out his fancy phone for pictures with the cow. I was in a hurry, so I couldn’t stick around and give that cow a piece of my mind on his spelling habits, but that’s okay. I think if I had gotten much closer to that cow I would have cried like the small child. That cow was very big and wanted hugs.

So, several weeks ago, I realized that I was coming up on my 500th Wiggle. And I thought to myself, what sort of special thing should I do to celebrate this occasion? Immediately, the thought came to me, as if from somewhere outside my body: “That’s the post where you quit the blog. That’s your last post.” And I was like, whoa, that’s weird, I wasn’t even thinking about quitting the blog. But really, as soon as I had that thought, I knew it was the right thought. This is the last post.

Let me explain why this is the last post. When I started this blog, I was somewhat frustrated in my job. I was in a funk and needed a creative outlet. And the blog filled that need and became something special and fun in ways that I could have never imagined. It’s nice to hear that other people have enjoyed it, but at the end of the day, I didn’t really care if anyone read it. I wrote all the entries as if only I would read them, and I think that experience made me more creative and observant and disciplined in ways that I would be lacking in if I hadn’t kept the blog.

However, I am in a much different place now than I was when I started the blog For one thing, I’m like 33 months older. But I live in a different city and I have a much different job, one where I write something daily. It can be really hard to read and write for 8 or 9 hours and then come home and muster up the energy to read and write some more. But lately, when I do come home with that energy to write and create, I’m not inspired to pound out a blog entry. I’ve been trying to do the kind of writing that eventually becomes a short story or a book. I don’t know if any of it will ever become a proper short story or a published book, but that’s what I’m working on now.

I just tried to find a blog I read once where a writer explained why she quit her blog – it’s like, you start a blog because you love to write and see it as a gateway drug to bigger and better writing. But you never get to the big stuff because you’re so distracted by the blog. So that’s basically why I’m quitting the blog. Also, I find the internet more and more disappointing every day and it’s probably best I stay off it.

Anyhoo, I have no idea who reads the blog anymore. But thanks for reading. And please know that you can always email me or pick up the phone and chat. In some ways, that would be a really nice thing for me. When you write a blog, people kinda know what you’re up to, but you have no idea what other people are up to. It’s a very weird one-way mirror. But again, thanks for reading.

And now, to symbolize the end of the blog, here is a picture of me on a bulldozer, symbolically running it into the ground, but also digging up the fresh dirt that symbolizes a new beginning or something like that.

And here are some posts I consider my greatest wiggles:
First blog: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/01/in-bloghouse.html

Knee injury: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8

Bryan Adams: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6

David Letterman: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/04/happy-da-birthday-ve.html

Easter: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/04/happy-easter.html

Kink: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/06/kink.html

Why I am warped: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2009/03/trophy-story.html

Why I am warped, Part II: Interviews with family: Dad, Mom, George, William, Dad again

Cats: Tiki, Tiki Writes a Letter, Ronde

Special guest bloggers/guest: Brad and Mary Henry, Matthew, George #1, George #2, George #3, William

Sweet memories of Seattle: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/08/bev-night.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/08/another-view.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/08/people-on-bus.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/08/capitol-hill.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/09/to-market-to-market.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/09/home-sweet-home.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2009/03/crawl-back-under-my-stone.html

Worst day ever: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/01/welcome-to-atlanta.html

Thomas Jefferson: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/01/little-molly-and-thomas-jefferson.html

Great Food Court Project: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/search/label/the%20great%20food%20court%20project

July 30th, a play: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/07/july-30th-play.html

Worst haircut of my life: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/08/running-with-scissors.html

When I bought a car by myself! http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/08/that-new-car-smell.html

George’s wedding: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/10/four-weddings-and-funeral-except-just.html

Goats: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/search/label/goats

Chick-fil-a: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-got-bone-to-pick-with-chick-fil.html
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/search/label/plan%20to%20steal%20the%20chick-fil-a%20cows
http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2009/03/lost-weekend.html

I am awesome at games: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2007/12/points-that-i-should-have-been-awarded.html

Political buttons: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/03/lbjs-dead.html

Popetacular: #1, #2, #3, #4

A viewer’s guide to Indiana Jones: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/search/label/Indiana%20Jones

George came to visit: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/search/label/B-b-b-b-b-b-b-best%20weekend%20ever

The most beautiful meal I ever made: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-food-network-application.html

Fun with stuffed animals: #1, #2, #3, #4

Cousin reunion: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/search/label/cousin%20reunion%202008

Three and a half hours in a car: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-funny-because-its-about-furniture.html

My Funny Valentine: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/02/kind-of-valentine.html

books and pictures

2009-08-24T20:58:00.002-04:00

Today on CNN, it was reported that Barack Obama took 5 books totaling 2300 pages with him on vacation. Well, I don’t know how many pages my books totaled, but I ended up taking 12 books and 10 magazines with me on my vacation. And of course I didn’t read them all. I just wanted to have the luxury of lots of choice. And I suppose it’s kind of a poor showing that I only read 2 books out of the 12. But what can I say. The activities schedule was pretty packed.

What was weird about the books I read on vacation was that they both ended up dealing with childhood sexual abuse even though I had no idea that that’s what either book would contain when I started them. So that may also be why I only read two books. Perhaps I was scared of starting another book that somehow also involved childhood sexual abuse, because then I would have had to question why I was buying all these books that somehow featured childhood sexual abuse without my knowing. What’s up with my subconscious?

Anyhoo, the two books I read were:
--Book #15: Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith by Martha Beck
--Book #16: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

I chose “Leaving the Saints” cause I wanted to read about some crazy Mormons, and this memoir did not disappoint on that count. It’s about how Martha Beck, the lady who I hear appears on Oprah sometimes, relocated from Cambridge, MA to her childhood home of Utah. Her father is a bigwig in the Church of JC of LDS, so she re-explores her family’s religion while trying to come to grips with her own spiritual beliefs. It’s interesting enough as a memoir of faith. But then you have to throw the aforementioned childhood abuse in there; Beck alleges that her father molested her when she was young, something she repressed until adulthood. If you look at the reviews on Amazon, they’re pretty divided on whether this book is truthful or not, which seems like kind of a weird thing for strangers to debate but oh well. I can’t say I want to hang out with the lady, but the book was interesting enough to me.

Well, after reading the Mormon Memoir, I decided to switch over to fiction. I chose “Case Histories” because I’d heard it was a real page-turner. Eh, it was okay. It didn’t wow me. Basically there are three sets of characters and all of them have a decades-old mysterious death in their past and a private investigator tries to solve everything so that the families have closure. There was sexual abuse in this one too, as well as multiple families in which one child was loved way more than another one, which is not exactly a fun thing to read about at a family reunion. It really wasn’t a mystery as described in all the blurbs, though the characters that were wandering around the book were interesting enough. Even though when perspective changed, the author’s style didn’t, meaning that all these characters expressed their thoughts in parentheses (which made it hard to distinguish the differences between people). Just alright.

Hey, are you kind of depressed after reading about these sad books I read on vacation? Me too. Let’s look at vacation pictures to cheer ourselves up.

Abe Lincoln's boyhood home:

Lincoln birthplace memorial:

Lincoln statue in Hodgenville:

ZOOOM in:

Rough River Lake:

More of the lake:

Holding Mickey Mantle's bat:

Stealing some chicken from the colonel:

getting lucky in kentucky

2009-08-23T20:44:00.002-04:00

Two weeks ago I was in the state of Kentucky, enjoying a big ol’ family reunion and vacation. Having spent the last week in that daze you experience once you get back from a vacation and have to re-enter the real world, I’m finally ready to write about this amazingly relaxing and refreshing week.

The ultimate destination was Rough River Dam State Resort Park, in western Kentucky, where we were meeting up with the Iowa branch of my dad’s family – my uncle, aunt and my two cousins, along with the spouse, two children and significant other that those two brought along (I guess for accuracy’s sake, my cousins don’t live in Iowa anymore. But they shall always be my Iowa cousins. Anyways). But the Candler branch of the family decided to take their time getting up to the state park so we could hit some Kentucky attractions.

First up: Maker’s Mark Distillery, which is in the middle of nowhere and has very limited visiting hours, which made getting there practically a race. Not helping matters, in my opinion, was my father’s new GPS system, which was named Greta. Anyone in my immediate family can probably speak for an hour about how much I hate Greta. Here I was, sitting in the back, with printed directions that were as good as Greta’s, and yet whenever Greta did something correct, like tell us to turn right, everyone was just amazed. I CAN DO THE SAME THING! I WANT COMPLIMENTS TOO!! And if I was wrong, man, I bet they’d really let me have it. Whereas when Greta was wrong or off, it was just chalked up as an endearing fault. Ugh, I hate this technology and I really don’t think we should become too dependent on it. But I digress. That is a lengthy topic for another time.

Anyways, Maker’s Mark was fun and located in a pretty spot. After a family argument about lunch that I shall not discuss here, we ate at a little café on the distillery grounds before our tour. We heard about the Maker’s Mark recipe, saw bourbon aging in the barrels, and then we had a little taste of the white dog that comes out of the barrels, before it’s diluted with water. My sister-in-law Courtney claimed it smelled like alcohol poisoning, and it didn’t taste much different than that, either. I think that burned off my tastebuds, leaving me unable to appreciate the Maker’s Mark. Or, it’s possible that bourbon just isn’t my drink. But it was cool to watch my brothers dip a bottle of Maker’s Mark in that distinctive red wax.

After Maker’s Mark, we headed off for another distillery called Heaven Hill. The tour at this one was a bit more informative as far as Kentucky Bourbon goes, and the place as a whole was a bit more swanky. But the bourbon still tasted gross to me. Oh well. All the other things I tasted that were made with bourbon, like candies and barbeque sauces and beer….those were all delicious!

After Heaven Hill we headed into Bardstown for the night. The only thing open in Bardstown past 5 p.m., it seems, is the Old Talbott Tavern, which is probably one of the coolest places I’ve eaten. The place was built in 1779, and all manners of famous people have been there, including native son Abraham Lincoln. There, we tasted Kentucky delicacies like Burgoo (a stew of sorts) and Kentucky Hot Browns, which is a sandwich dipped in like gravy sauce and topped with bacon. You know, healthy stuff!

The next day was all about Abraham Lincoln. From Bardstown we drove to his boyhood home at Knob Creek Farm. Well, it’s not actually his boyhood home, it’s a replica/reconstructed cabin, but the Park Service seems to think it’s in the right place and you can walk down to the creek where Abe almost drowned. A little further down the road is the more impressive birthplace site, which had a tearjerking introductory video, a massive monument built to enclose the cabin, and yet another little cabin, which again, is not the real, actual cabin but as close to the real thing as possible. This state has a lot of fake cabins, but you do get a real sense of what it might have been like to grow up in a tiny cabin with nothing around you, if only because the land is still so undeveloped.

Then it was off to the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Hodgenville, which has got to be the best three bucks I ever spent. The life story of Abraham Lincoln is depicted in dioramas featuring wax figures! I won’t put the pictures up here because I fear it could get me sued, but suffice it to say that it’s both awesome and creepy. We had to drag Dad out of the gift shop.

After loading up on some supplies at Wal-Mart, it was off to Rough River, where we spent a few days. I won’t go into detail on all the days, but most involved some combination of the following: yummy meals, sitting by/swimming in the pool, walks through the park, mini golf, real golf, card games, board games, swimming in the lake and riding on boats. One day, we headed to Mammoth Cave National Park, which, like the Lincoln Museum, was awesome and creepy, but in a different way of course. The two-hour tour we took was a real workout, cause we had to practically crawl through these tight spaces and then climb all these steps to get back out. I can’t imagine being the first person who decided it was a good idea to go into a cold, dark, underground cave.

Overall, the reunion was just great, a relaxing fun time, and it was nice to spend so much quality time with that side of the family, as I don’t get to see them that often. Plus, Kentucky is a beautiful state. I was very impressed with it.

On the way back to Candler, we attempted to squeeze in a few more Kentucky attractions. We drove to Louisville to hit up (pun intended) the Louisville Slugger Museum. We went on a tour to see how they make the bats, and it was pretty cool. They show you all the choices that a player can make, and then they put a piece of wood into a machine and boom….there’s a bat.

On our way out of town, my family very patiently indulged me as we stopped at my beloved Half Price Books, which has like 10 locations in the greater Seattle area yet NONE in the south. Please, Half Price Books honchos, if you read this, please please please come to Atlanta. That Louisville one is the closest one to me and I really think that’s unacceptable. I think I can guarantee that if you come to Atlanta, my purchases alone will keep you in business.

Once I had bought enough to keep me in books for the rest of the year, we made the long drive back to Candler, stopping one last time in Corbin, KY, the site of the first Kentucky Fried Chicken. I’m not a huge fan of KFC, but I can tell you that if you eat at the one in Corbin, it will taste better than all other KFC you’ve ever had in your life combined. The ghost of the Colonel must hover overhead, ensuring that the chicken, biscuits and sides are just extra delicious. And that concludes the account of my Kentucky vacation.

Book #14: Infinite Jest

2009-08-03T20:44:00.004-04:00

Alright, so people have started to notice that I have not posted in a good long while. Hopefully this post will explain why, in part. The thing is, I have been very busy reading “Infinite Jest,” which is a book that has more than 1000 pages if you count the endnotes. Lots of people have been reading “Infinite Jest” this summer thanks to the online book group at Infinite Summer. Well, as you likely know, I can’t stand not having read a book that many other people had read, so I decided to join in. But I decided to make it even harder on myself—while the Infinite Summer readers were taking from June 21st to Sept. 22nd to read the book, I wanted to go a little faster. I made it my goal to read “Infinite Jest” in just one month: July 1 to July 31.

To do this, one has to read about 30 pages a day, and woe unto me if I skipped a day because of like, a social life, because then I was attempting to read 60 or so pages a day. And these aren’t the kinds of pages you read real fast; there’s a lot of contemplating and trying to figure out what’s going on. Now, I didn’t have to do it this way, but I wanted to, so I’ve been reading a lot and that’s part of why I haven’t been blogging lately.

Well, I’ll just go ahead and admit that I didn’t finish the book til last night, August 2, two days off the goal mark, but oh well. I’m still glad I read at the pace I did, because I think that if I hadn’t set aside such large chunks of time to read this book, I might have given up on this book like so many others do. But because I kept going at quite a clip, I think I got to a place of acceptance with it faster, and it became like this dedicated mental exercise time, when I sat down to read. A recent blogger at Infinite Summer likened it to yoga, and I completely agree.

And I ended up really loving it, and being absolutely in awe of how David Foster Wallace’s brain worked (and of course, at the same time, sad about how his brain worked, as he committed suicide last year and lots of the book deals with awful awful depression, but that’s not what I want to focus on). Some days, this book made me want to write my own book, and some days, I felt it was useless to even call myself a writer because what could I ever produce that would match this? It’s such a weird, funny, scary, heartbreaking world he created in this book. The plot is impossible to summarize, but it involves a tennis academy, alcohol and drug addiction, filmmaking, depression, alienation and Quebec separatists.

“Infinite Jest” seems like one of those books that people think they’re not smart enough to read, but all the intro posts to the book posted at Infinite Summer were a big help. Then it was nice to see what other people thought, but then, thanks to my advanced reading schedule, I zoomed ahead of everyone, and stopped checking the internet for what people thought. Then, last night, after I finished, I finally checked the internet again to see if my understanding of the book was remotely close to what I was “supposed” to think, and it seems like I did okay in terms of understanding everything, which is good, I guess, but I suppose that’s not the kind of thing you’re supposed to worry about, and the fact that I’m even giving myself the intellectual pat on the back now seems kind of weird. But I guess what I’m saying is that if you’ve ever been intimidated by the book, you shouldn’t be. The things you’re supposed to understand, you do, and the things that aren’t addressed or resolved, well, they’re good in their own way too. I think I’ll be re-reading passages in this book for days and months to come, if not re-reading it altogether, which is an impulse I very rarely have about a book; usually I consider re-reading to be a waste when there are so many other books to be read.

So that’s what I’ve been doing: reading a really really long book in a short timeframe. And if that’s not enough for you, I’ll show you something else I’ve been working on in the last few months. It’s a cross-stitch of Pope John Paul II!!!!!!

At the top you see what it will be one day, and at bottom you see where I am with it now. I have a headless pope. But this is what I like to do while I watch junky tv, when I wasn't reading Infinite Jest or at work or hanging out with people. So hopefully now all my time is accounted for. And as a warning---I'm going on vacation starting Friday where I will be blissfully internet-free, so hopefully this post can tide y'all over for awhile.

animal cruelty

2009-07-14T21:49:00.003-04:00

Today I was driving home from work, and there was a truck going in the opposite direction. The truck driver stuck his head out the window and let loose a big old gob of spit, which landed right on my windshield. It was so gross. Grosser, I think, than having a bird poop on the windshield, because I have higher expectations from humans than I do from birds.

One time, I was walking down the street in Seattle, and this guy walking past me let loose some spit. I guess he was aiming for the ground, but since there was a slight breeze, the spit stayed aloft and hit me right on the arm. Neither the dude nor the lady he was with thought it was that big a deal, if the half-hearted apology I got was any indication. I suppose it's possible they were on drugs. People spit all over the sidewalks of Seattle. There's not as much walking around in Atlanta as there is in Seattle, but today I learned that even if you don't have to see everyone's deposits of spit on the sidewalk, then you still might have to see them on your very own car.

Look, I didn't mean to get off on such a spitting tangent. I am tired. The whole reason I started to blog was to share this picture of how I was cruel to my fish this past weekend. I thought it might help keep the little guy in line if I put a package of tuna fish right next to his bowl. As you can see from his body language, of keeping still and facing straight ahead, he was not amused. I probably made a bigger deal than I should have in making and eating those tuna fish sandwiches.

Geez, now that I am writing about what I put poor Alvin through, I feel I kind of deserved that spit globule. I am the worst fish owner in the world. I am sorry, Alvin. I promise to never chunk you up and mix you with mayonnaise, dijon mustard, onion and relish for a sandwichy treat, no matter how hungry I may get. Please don't spit on me.

images of america

2009-07-07T21:43:00.003-04:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I went dishwasher shopping with my parents this past weekend. When we were walking up to Home Depot, on the day before the 4th of July, I was very struck by this image:
I think this picture encapsulates the American Dream, which to me, clearly, is flag + tractor. Actually, it's about owning a home with a yard that requires a tractor, and a trip to a nice American-owned business like Home Depot means you have the financial security to acquire such an item. Or something like that. I didn't have a lot of time to think about it, because taking pictures in a parking lot is quite a dangerous thing to do.

What other images of America did I capture over the holiday weekend? Well, here is a picture of a grill with all sorts of meat on it, along with some spiced pierogies:

What, you think that the grilled meat could be made more American by the addition of a beer, some french fries and a little ketchup? Me, too:

And last but not least, here is a kitten playing a video game:

You may notice that even though this is a post full of images of America, there is only one American flag. Well, that is because everyone in Candler, NC was violating the flag code, which I read up on as preparation for the 4th. You have to take your flags down at night if they're not properly illuminated, people!

important life lessons

2009-07-06T18:36:00.002-04:00

Well, I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that it was tough to go back to work today, after a nice, long, holiday weekend. I spent my 4th of July in Candler with the family. Though our activities mostly involved eating, I was still able to learn lots of things on my trip home. I decided to blog about all the things I learned, each day. Here we go.

Thursday: In which I drive from Atlanta to Candler, eat at Mellow Mushroom with my brothers and go to a Jenny Lewis concert with my brother George.

I learned that…..
….Atlanta traffic is not that bad if you get to leave work at 1 p.m.
…..Ronde the cat is still impossibly cute
…..Tiki the cat is still rather grumpy when I am around
…..my brother William is starting to look and act eerily like my father.
…..waitresses who show up for their Mellow Mushroom shift directly after “gardening” are often too spacey to be very effective in serving.
…..the Mellow Mushroom in Asheville was out of nearly every local beer.
…..my brother William has some frightening sort of mojo or reverse psychology that can make me agree to eating Hawaiian pizza when I really want to eat White Pizza.
…….it’s better to just compromise and order two pizzas, particularly if one of the pizzas is a White pizza.
….short people who are pissy about having to stand behind taller people at a concert should get to the concert earlier
....the Heartless Bastards are a good opening band, and the lead singer of that band looks like a Muppet.
….a new stylish look, as worn by Jenny Lewis, is a cut-up white t-shirt with a black bra underneath.
….Tecate is a tasty beer suitable for performers, as evidenced by Jenny Lewis’s enthusiasm for it.
…..Jenny Lewis posters are nigh-impossible to get, as they sold out just before I was able to buy one for my brother, and none of the staff members were willing to get the one out of the locked marquee for us.

Friday: I ate coffee cake, cold cuts and chicken, went shopping with my parents and sat on the porch.
I learned that……
….Sara Lee coffee cake is delicious
…..I might be allergic to Ronde the kitten
….shopping for dishwashers is difficult
….dishwasher salesmen might be creepier than car salesmen
….trying on hats at antique stores is fun
….if Hardee’s is out of lids for their medium-sized cups, they will upgrade you to a large.
…..a large soda at Hardee’s is way more soda than any person has a right to drink
…..sitting out on the porch, in weather that was at least ten degrees cooler than Atlanta, is delightful.
….Ronde can climb trees
……my mom used to win roller-skating competitions and win a giant Hershey’s bar for her efforts
….if you let the boys cook, they will come up with something delicious, thus meaning that they should always cook while the ladies sip drinks on the proch
…3 adults can easily polish off 3 bottles of wine.

Saturday: A day to celebrate America by eating and watching things.
I learned that….
…..Tecate is more delicious than I remembered. Thanks for the tip, Jenny Lewis.
…..pierogies with spicy seasoning cooked on the grill are delicious
….how to make ribs from my brother’s father-in-law. Sorta.
…the renovated movie theater on Hendersonville road is awesome, because it has all these big comfy couches and footrests.
…The Hangover is an immensely funny movie
…..when you hear a rustling in trees near the house, it’s best to assume that it’s a bear.
…fireworks that emit a loud boom without also emitting any beautiful sparkles are awful fireworks and should not even be sold.
…..there was much I did not know about our nation’s first sixteen presidents, thanks to the History Channel’s marathon of “The Presidents.”
….the History Channel thinks that Jimmy Carter succeeded Abraham Lincoln in the presidency, if the way they ordered the episodes of “The Presidents” is any indication.
….I get too tired to stay up til 4 a.m. to watch the entirety of any television marathon, even if it is about the presidents.

Sunday: I ate some things, read some stuff, and drove back to Atlanta.
I learned that….
…..my mom can make a mean breakfast sandwich
….the show “Rome Reports” is a must if you like popes, and if you get that channel about Catholics, which my parents do.
….reading “Infinite Jest” while your parents watch the Wimbledon finals is kind of weird.
…ribs are delicious
…..it’s best to shower after you eat ribs
….though you may be expecting heavy traffic on the last day of a holiday weekend, it won’t come in the spots that you expect.

Guacamolly!!!!!

2009-07-02T10:43:00.000-04:00

Oh man, last night as I was drifting off to sleep I had realized that I should have titled my last post GUACAMOLLY. That's what I'm going to call guacamole from now on. You try it too and see if anyone says anything. Guacamolly. I just googled it and apparently other people have already thought of it, but since I came to the idea independently I shall still claim it as my own.

Anyways, I was too tired to get up and edit the title of the last post, so I am posting this as an addendum to the last post. Unfortunately, no dreams about guacamolly pools and popcorn stars last night. Instead, I dreamt that Sarah Palin made fun of me and that I did this really fancy dance down a flight of stairs. If this dance were to be performed in real life, it would likely result in a broken neck, so in dreams it shall stay.

a dream is a wish your heart makes

2009-07-01T21:54:00.002-04:00

You know how people tell you to have "sweet dreams"? Well, last night, I definitely had a sweet dream. Actually, sweet and savory. I dreamt that I was floating on a giant tortilla chip in a pool filled with guacamole. I could break off little pieces of the tortilla chip and get some guacamole without ruining my raft. The moon was a chocolate chip cookie and the stars were made of popcorn. Here is a drawing depicting my dream:

Dreamers's note: I did not dream that there was an ice cream cone next to the pool of guacamole. It was just something I added in while I was drawing, because it seemed like a good thing to have there.

why don't you climb down off that movie screen

2009-06-30T23:15:00.002-04:00

I have a long-standing blog tradition, which is every six months, I list all the films that I’ve seen for the first time in the previous six months. It is that time of year again, and even though I am uncomfortably full of cheeseburgers and beer, I shall review the films watched in the first half of 2009. Think about that people. 2009 is half over. What do I have to show for it? Well, for one, I have these 31 films.

1. Made of Honor
When I watch movies with Patrick Dempsey, I get to reminisce about the time I stood less than a foot away from him in Seattle. He was so beautiful. I think he should be in all the romantical comedies.

2. Fred Claus
For a film that included Vince Vaughan, Paul Giamatti and Kevin Spacey, it probably could have been better. But as a kids’ Christmas film, it also could have been a lot worse. So I was pleased with the effort, particularly the origin story of Santa and Fred at the beginning.

3. Step Brothers
I probably shouldn’t have let myself get my hopes up, because I’ve been burned too badly by Will Farrell and/or John C. Reilly (oh, Walk Hard…). I remember laughing kinda hard at something in this movie, but now I don’t even remember what it was. Probably not a good sign.

4. Smart People
Wasn’t impressed.

5. Definitely, Maybe
Man, combine the charm of Ryan Reynolds and the sassy precociousness of Abigail Breslin, with a few little dabs of Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks and Rachel Weisz, and you have a very enjoyable two hours. On the one hand, I was kind of surprised that it wasn’t a bigger hit, but on the other hand, it’s not like I ran out to the theaters and watched it. I watched it on DVD.

6. Night at the Museum
Oh man, I thought I would like it because I like museums, and how can you go wrong with a movie about a museum? But I ended up adoring this movie. Even Robin Williams, who has become fairly annoying in most every movie these days, was enjoyable to watch.

7. Igor
I don’t even remember watching this movie, which is pretty rare for me as far as John Cusack movies are concerned. But I watched it during what was probably my worst week ever in a good long time, and there was so much going on that I think this got crowded out of my brain space.

8. He’s Just Not That Into You
I enjoyed watching this movie, because there were a lot of likeable people in the cast, but my main problem is that the whole premise of the book/movie is that you shouldn’t sit around waiting to suddenly be the love of someone’s life all of a sudden, because that’s not the way things happen. And the movie is built around teaching the characters that, but in the end, they get what they want anyways, even though the book/movie was about teaching them that they couldn’t have those things. Was that supposed to be ironic?

9. The Bank Job
I liked this movie a lot.

10. Iron Man
I liked this movie too, but it was kinda long for my taste.

11. Sunshine Cleaning
It’s definitely a weak movie where plot’s concerned, but I thought Amy Adams was great.

12. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist
In some ways, this movie made me wish I was a teenager who lived in New York City. In other ways, this movie made me very glad I wasn’t a teenager anymore. Though if I was a teenager who knew Michael Cera…..well, I could probably deal with that.

13. Zack and Miri Make a Porno
It was okay for what it was. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me that people that destitute would spend so much on equipment and other things necessary for making a porno, but I guess if you can buy into that premise it’s not so bad.

14. Rachel Getting Married
Man, aren’t you glad you didn’t have to go to that wedding? What an annoying wedding, what with all that singing and dancing and the long speeches and the faux intellectualism. I mean, some might say that Anne Hathaway’s character is a train wreck who ruins everything around her, but if I were at that wedding, I’d want some relief from all the pretentiousness.

15. Milk
I don’t know how anyone could have doubted that Sean Penn would win the Oscar. I liked this one quite a bit.

16. My Kid Could Paint That
I liked this documentary very much. It’s about modern art and a four-year-old prodigy, and the questions that start to arise about whether the child actually did the work. Was it the frustrated artist father? I kinda think so.

17. The Wrestler
I had pretty high hopes based on the reviews and wasn’t that blown away. Mainly I was just made uncomfortable my all the staple guns and breaking glass and whatnot. I used to really like wrestling when I was little, because it had all those outsized personalities, but I never really associated it with pain, if that makes sense. More like dancing with storylines. Mickey Rourke was impressive, but I wasn’t outraged at his Oscar loss as some people were.

18. Frost/Nixon
I liked Sean Penn in “Milk” an awful lot, but I would not have been sad if Frank Langella had won the Best Actor Oscar. I wish all movies could have a retired President wandering around in them. Even if it’s not based on fact at all. Here’s how I see this working: two characters have lunch at a café, and discuss an issue of some importance to one of the characters. Then Millard Fillmore wanders by and asks them if they want refills. And you have sort of comforting sense that an ex-president is nearby. Think about it.

19. The King of Kong
I don’t know much about video games, but this documentary about breaking video game records made me briefly care about them.

20. What Happens in Vegas
Sometimes I forget how entertaining Ashton Kutcher is.

21. Patty Hearst
One day, feeling sad that Natasha Richardson had died, I was adding a lot of her movies to my Netflix queue. I noticed this one, considered one of her breakout roles, was only available instantly. Being interested in the story of Patty Hearst, I sat down and watched it then and there. Intriguing. Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but interesting. Now I’m looking forward to some Patty Hearst documentaries that are in the queue.

22. The Nanny Diaries
I have really fond memories of reading the book “The Nanny Diaries,” which I did while I was studying abroad at Oxford. We had to go on a really long bus trip to Scotland and when there wasn’t any scenery, I read this book and was enchanted by it. I didn’t really have any plans to see the movie, because I’m not the biggest Scarlett Johansson fan, but then I watched the “John Adams” miniseries, and I immediately wanted to see everything that Paul Giamatti had even touched, which is how I ended up finally watching this movie. I have to say: eh.

23. Last Chance Harvey
Sometimes Dustin Hoffman seems so weird and mannered in interviews that I lose all desire to watch him in movies. But with Emma Thompson to balance him out in this endeavor, I was okay. Better than okay actually…somewhat enchanted by this short, sweet film.

24. Wendy and Lucy
I’m not a dog person, so this indie film about losing a dog was a little hard to identify with, but I think Michelle Williams did a fabulous job. But don’t watch it unless you’re up for a good dose of hopelessness.

25. Troop Beverly Hills
I wanted to see Jenny Lewis in her younger days.

26. Pineapple Express
I like it when cast members of “Freaks and Geeks” work together. I thought it was just alright, though.

27. Doubt
Holy cow. Meryl Streep was so good in this movie, I thought. I wish her character could be in every movie too, like the ex-presidents, just wandering around and saying things sharply.

28. The Proposal
This movie made me all warm and fuzzy. I found myself helpless against the combined charisma of Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock.

29. The Doors
This movie made me never ever want to do drugs. I think they should show it to kids who are pondering taking drugs, because I think it would make them not want to do it. I mean, I even felt like I was on drugs while I was watching this movie and I did not feel well afterward.

30. Blades of Glory
I remember finding one line in this movie REALLY funny, but I just read all the Memorable Quotes for this movie on IMDB.com and I can’t find that funny line. I just watched this movie a few days ago, so that’s probably not a very good sign for my memory. But in reading all those memorable quotes, I found another one that I liked:
Chazz (Will Farrell): Mind-bottling, isn't it?
Jimmy (Napoleon Dynamite): Did you just say mind-bottling? Chazz: Yeah, mind-bottling. You know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?

31. Confessions of a Shopaholic
Okay, so I REALLY like the Shopaholic books, so I was bound to be disappointed by the movie, right? Probably, and I was disappointed. Isla Fisher was good, but here were my problems:
1. The love interest did not look or act anything like I pictured.
2. I did not like the filmmakers changing the setting from London to New York.
3. They crammed several of the books together. This does not bother me because I don’t think they need to make a sequel…but it left some gaping holes in plot.
4. Somehow, it’s easier to sympathize and root for a character who shops compulsively when you’re reading her thoughts. When you’re just watching her, it’s very hard to care. A few monologues by Isla does not explain why the character has this shopping problem. Just something that’s easier to read, I guess.
5. That’s all I have right now.

Book #13: Bait and Switch

2009-06-28T20:28:00.000-04:00

I don’t know why I decided to read “Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream” by Barbara Ehrenreich. Perhaps it was because it looked like a quick read, and I’m about to dive into a big book. Perhaps because it seems like the kind of book that if you don’t read soon after its published, it becomes too dated to read. Perhaps because I liked “Nickel and Dimed,” Ehrenreich’s most famous book. All I know is that after reading “Bait and Switch,” I’m terribly depressed about the job market and pretty fed up with Barbara Ehrenreich.

Here’s the premise of the book: having gone undercover with the working class in “Nickel and Dimed,” Ehrenreich decides to go undercover with the middle class with a white collar job. She gives herself a few months to find a job in the corporate world, and then she will work at this job for a few more months, to learn all of the corporate world’s secrets, and then she will quit. So she fashions a fake resume and goes about doing the kind of job-searching things that make great book anecdotes, like going to a religious networking event and getting a wacky career coach and getting a makeover.

Now, here’s the thing that made this book so hard to read: Ehrenreich’s immense derision for everything that doesn’t fit within her prescribed world view practically drips off every page. I just kept thinking, man, it must be exhausting to be Barbara Ehrenreich because you never get to have any fun. To make matters worse, one of the places that she did her job-searching was Atlanta, so she took some potshots at Atlanta that seemed a little unfair. Perhaps not unfair, but it just showed how little research she did in the course of her journalistic undertaking. Perhaps research doesn’t make a good book anecdote.

The process of being unemployed and looking for a job is one that many, including myself, can relate with. But it quickly became tiresome reading Ehrenreich’s complaints, particularly when you consider that she really shouldn’t get an interview or a 60k a year job on the basis of her slightly exaggerated resume. Boo hoo Barbara. She rambles for 200 pages and then ends with a call for better unemployment insurance and universal health care. Hope that wasn’t a spoiler for anyone.

While I couldn’t stand Ehrenreich’s condescension to everyone who wasn’t her, I will say that this book was immensely useful in one important way: it made me want to stay at my job for a good long time, if only because this book was like an awful nightmare flashback to what job hunting is like. And I do think that the difficulty of finding a job that pays you enough to live the American Dream is a worthy topic. It’s just not a topic that Ehrenreich should have left her pearl-crusted room to undertake.

Happy anniversary, New Jersey

2009-06-24T09:53:00.002-04:00

Almost every day, I check to see what happened on that particular day in history. If I find something that's relevant to me, or something that I'm interested in, I try to write about it. Last week, I was looking at upcoming events in history, and I noted that on June 24, 1664, the colony of New Jersey was founded. That is relevant to me, because New Jersey is where my dad grew up.

The whole family went to New Jersey when we were little, but the only thing I remember is that at the hotel we stayed at, you could get a Belgian waffle with ice cream on top at the breakfast buffet. So I decided to call up my resident expert on New Jersey to learn some interesting factoids about this state. Below, I share my findings:

Molly: First off, the issue on everyone’s mind. How are Tiki and Ronde doing?
Dad: They are fine. They're starting to get a little closer, but there's still some hissing.

Molly: Okay, before we start, I want to make sure you’re really from New Jersey. So tell us what the state insect is.
Dad: Hmmm. Praying mantis?
Molly: I'm sorry, it's the European honey bee.
Dad: Oh.

Molly: Tell us some interesting facts about New Jersey.
Dad: Well, in 1976, the year of the bicentennial, New Jersey was the third largest state, but the most densely populated. Only 37 percent of the state was actually inhabited.

Molly: Why was 63 percent of it uninhabited?
Dad: There are a lot of pine forests, and the meadowlands, a lot of which they've gotten rid of now. Back then it was a swamp.

Molly: Any other interesting facts?
Dad: Well, it's called the Garden State because it's known for its truck gardens. The farmers would put their produce in their trucks and take it to market.

Molly: How did your parents end up in New Jersey?
Dad: My dad had a job in New York City, so before I was born, they lived there. But as my brother and sister started to get older, and when my mom was pregnant with me, my dad decided to move out to the country. And New Jersey at the time was the country. They moved to Westwood.

Molly: What was Westwood like?
Dad: Westwood was a small town that had a railroad running through it. It was a nice little town at that point. It's still a nice little town.

Molly: How does Westwood compare to other towns in New Jersey?
Dad: It was very middle class. In that part of New Jersey, one little town runs into another little town all the way to New York City. Some of those towns were more working class, some of them were very affluence, but Westwood was very middle class.

Molly: What was it like to grow up in New Jersey?
Dad: It was the kind of town that when I was little, I could ride bikes all over town. Things were very accessible. There were a lot of kids in the neighborhood, so it was easy to ride your bike and meet up with everyone to play baseball or to play football or to play army. Or we'd all ride our bikes somewhere together. But there were a lot less diversions back then. There was no internet. There were only a few channels on television.

Molly: You mentioned sports. Do you have a favorite New Jersey sports team?
Dad: This is something that bugs me. My favorite New Jersey sports team is called the New York Jets. They're called that, and they started in New York, but they play in New Jersey at the Meadowlands.

Molly: Did you have to leave the state due to illicit dealings with the mafia?
Dad: No.
Molly: Did you ever see any people who were in the mafia?
Dad: One time I went to a house where the guy had an indoor swimming pool, and that guy was reportedly in the mafia. Then there was a guy across the street, he was the head of a union, and he might have been in the mafia. But when I was in the newspaper when I was little for collecting political buttons, that guy called me over and gave me a button. And now that button sells for like $400 or $500.
Molly: You don't think he was trying to buy your silence?
Dad: Nah, it wasn't worth that much in 1964.
Molly: Well, I hope he doesn't see this blog and try to come after you.
Dad: I'm sure he's dead. If the mafia didn't get him, then old age did.

Molly: If the aliens were to come down to earth, and they wanted to know the best things to see and do in New Jersey, what things would you tell them to see?
Dad: We have great delicatessens and great homemade ice cream stores. We have nice little towns with nice downtown areas. People think New Jersey is nothing but concrete, but I grew up in a small town with white picket fences, the kind of town where I could ride my bike. Then later, I could walk to the bars when I was home from school.

Molly: I know you like state quarters. Do you have any comments on the New Jersey State quarter?
Dad: It's an excellent quarter. It shows George Washington crossing the Delaware from New Jersey to attack the British.

Molly: Are there any other New Jersey historical factoids you'd like to share?
Dad: The area where I was originally home to a lot of Indians, and then it was settled by the Dutch. Since the Dutch settled lots of New Jersey, there are lots of Dutch names up there. It was known as the Pascack Valley, and there was a team that called itself the Pascack Valley Indians. That may be insensitive today, but it was to honor the Indians in the area we grew up in.

Molly: True or false: Bruce Springsteen is the greatest person --other than you -- to come out of New Jersey.
Dad: False. We have lots more interesting people like Bruce Willis. Hold on, I'm going to go get my almanac so I can tell you some famous people from New Jersey. Like Charles Lindbergh. He lived there when his kid got stolen. Now Bruce Springsteen may be a friend of New Jersey, and he's certainly more famous than me, but I wouldn't put him at the greatest.

[Dad is still trying to find his almanac at this point]

Another great thing about growing up in New Jersey is that we had many different nationalities and religions represented. IT was a nice place to meet people and to realize that there were good people from all different backgrounds.

[finds almanac]

Okay, here we go. Some other famous people from New Jersey include Jason Alexander, Samuel Alito, Judy Blume, Jon Bon Jovi, Aaron Burr, James Fenimore Cooper, Danny Devito, James Gandolfini, who grew up in my hometown. Ed Harris, who I played football against. Ed Marinaro, who I also played football against -- he was on Hill Street Blues. Antonin Scalia, Joe Pesci, Martha Stewart. Meryl Streep, who lived the same county. Her father owned a tire store. Woodrow Wilson was one of our governors, even though he was originally from Virginia.

[Dad continues to read from the almanac]

New Jersey is 47th in size. It was the site of many battles during the American Revolution. It was the first state to approve the Bill of Rights. It's famous for its shore -- not the beach -- the Jersey Shore.

Molly: Would you ever want to live in New Jersey again?
Dad: I don't think so. Now it's crowded and expensive and the weather is a lot harsher than it is here. I think I would probably like to live here, but it was a nice place to grow up. Oh! Also, Frank Sinatra and Jack Nicholson are from New Jersey? How do you like them apples? The state motto is "Liberty and Prosperity." And if you had asked me the state flower or the state bird, I would have known those, because I have it on a little trivet in the basement.

Introducing Ronde!!

2009-06-22T19:11:00.005-04:00

Even though I was afflicted with a terrible illness on Thursday and Friday, I still managed to make it up to North Carolina to spend Father’s Day weekend with my dear old dad. And boy, am I glad I made it, because something big happened at our house this weekend!

Our Saturday started off normally enough. Dad goes out to breakfast and to the flea market with his buddies every Saturday, but since it was Father’s Day weekend, William, Mom and me went him instead. Breakfast was at J&S Cafeteria, and it was epic. Probably four pounds of breakfast meat was consumed between the four of us. Then it was off to the flea market. Great deals were found by all.

Then we decided to stop by Michaels, the arts and crafts superstore, because there was a seasonal centerpiece that Mom wanted to show me. Michaels is right next to a pet store; two weeks ago, my family saw an adorable little kitten at that pet store and they have not stopped talking about that kitten since. As we pulled into the parking lot, Dad and William agreed that if the kitten was still there, he was coming home with us. Even Mom, who doesn’t like having to worry about new cats coming in and scratching things, said it was okay if the cat came home, mainly because she thought that kitten had long since been adopted.

Well, Dad didn’t even go into Michaels with everyone else. He ran straight to the pet store and guess what—the kitten was still there!! But since flea market days start very early---you have to be at the cafeteria at 6 am so you can get to the flea market before the good things are gone---we figured we weren’t going to be able to hold the kitten, because the adoption ladies weren’t due to show up for a few more hours. This made me sad because this kitten truly was the most adorable cat I had ever seen. Luckily for us, though, an adoption lady showed up early! While you could tell that she just wanted to set up and get things ready, she let us play with the kitten. And, because that kitten was just too cute to give back, she let us go ahead and start the adoption process a few hours early!

Dad had to fill out eleventy billion papers, probably more adoption papers than Madonna had to fill out when she adopted her orphans from Malawi. While he did all the paperwork, William and I traded off holding the kitten and tried to think of some names. Eventually we got to go home, and the little guy was just captivated by the world. So captivated that he pooped in the box.

But now, as loyal readers know, Mom and Dad already have one cat at home that we all dearly love – lil’ Tiki. Tiki is, how you say, spoiled rotten. So she was none too happy to see this little version of herself show up in the house, and I don’t know that we did a great job introducing the two because there was some hissing involved. No one wanted to go with my idea, which was trying to make Tiki think that she had given birth to the kitten. How would I have done that? By getting Tiki so sick that she threw up, then quickly covering the kitten in vomit and presenting it to Tiki. Then she would care for it as if it were her own. Genius, right? Sadly, we did not use this idea.

During the introduction process, my heart was torn in half. On the one hand, the experience brought up some subconscious memories of what it was like to be an only child, the sole apple of my parents’ eye, until one day when they brought my baby brother home. My life was never the same. So I knew how Tiki was feeling. But on the other hand, Tiki has never been that nice to me. She has a tendency to scratch me and never let me pet her, whereas the new kitten had already proved to be an affectionate lovebug. So while I knew how the first cat felt, the second cat was rapidly stealing my heart.

Over a lunch of hot dogs, we decided to name the kitten Ronde. As you might remember, Tiki is named for Tiki Barber, who played football for Dad’s alma mater, the University of Virginia. Ronde is the name of Tiki’s twin brother; the name Oronde means first-born son in Swahili. For the rest of the day, Tiki was moody, while Ronde was adorable.

Since we decided that Tiki should get to sleep at the foot of Mom and Dad’s bed, per usual, so that she didn't feel like she'd been replaced, I got to take little Ronde up to my bedroom for the night. Ronde woke up every two hours, which made me very tired, but every time Ronde woke me up, he’d try to make it up to me by putting his little paws on either side of my face and giving me little cat kisses. Geez. I just don’t know if I’m getting across how frickin adorable this little guy is.

Tiki was none too pleased when Ronde and I emerged the next day; perhaps she thought it was a bad dream and the kitten would be gone in the morning. I had to leave the cats to come back to Atlanta, but I hope that by the next time I return, they’ll have become good buddies. My greatest fear is that Tiki will tell Ronde not to be so sweet to me. But hopefully Ronde will have better persuasive skills, and I will have two cat friends in Candler.

I couldn’t get a great picture of Ronde, one that captures all his cuteness. Here he is with his eyes closed:

And this is not a very good picture of me, but at least Ronde has his eyes open:

And this is how Tiki looked all weekend. She literally shot green lasers of hate at all of us.

this day in popes

2009-06-16T09:26:00.000-04:00

As we all know, I just love popes. In fact, if it seems like I haven’t been blogging too much lately, it’s because I’ve been spending a fair amount of spare time cross-stitching the likeness of Pope John Paul II. If you have never cross-stitched before, I can tell you that it takes hours and hours for it to look like you’ve done anything at all, but it is a good activity to do while you watch junky summer television.

Anyhoo, one of the reasons I’m big on popes is the concept of infallibility, which as super powers go, is a pretty good one. However, papal infallibility is a relatively new concept, brought about by Pope Pius IX. And today we shall discuss good ol’ Pius IX, because it was on this day in history in 1846 that he was elected pope.

Things started getting exciting as soon as Pius IX was elected pope, and I mean that literally, because Pius’s election was confirmed at nighttime, so there was no chance to spread the word about what had actually happened during the conclave. People assumed that this other guy had been elected pope, and as per tradition, the other guy’s pals went to his home and burned all his vestments because he would get new papal ones. Then, the next day, they find out that actually, that other guy wasn’t elected pope. AWKWARD.

Pius IX came into office at a tricky time during Italy’s history – the Risorgimento, or unification of Italy. At first, it looked like Pius IX was a liberal pope in favor of unification, because he did things like install streetlights and railroads, which his predecessor wouldn’t do because he claimed that the world should remain exactly as God made it. Pius also granted asylum to political prisoners and got the Austrians out of Italy. Though he was super popular, Pius IX didn’t want to be some sort of symbol for unification. By 1848, he had given a speech that writer Eamon Duffy, in his book “Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes,” called “a douche of icy water on the overheated enthusiasm which had surrounded his first two years as pope.” What an awesome sentence.

Anyways, people didn’t like the papal states holding up the unification process, so Pius IX went from super popular to super unpopular. Then Pius IX’s papal minster was assassinated. So Pius IX disguised himself as a priest, which I guess was not really that much of a disguise at all, and fled to Naples. By this point, Pius IX saw people working for unification as working for the devil, while he of course, worked for the Lord. Eventually Pius IX returned to Rome and the papal states fell. This is part of why papal infallibility came about. Because the pope lost so much political power in the transition, many people wanted to grant him increased spiritual power.

But before Pius IX pushed through infallibility for himself, he had some other things to attend to. One of his biggest accomplishments was the dogma of immaculate conception, as well as a publication entitled the “Syllabus of Errors,” which I think we must all agree is one of the most wonderful titles of anything in the history of the world. He was involved in this bizarre situation whereby a Jewish boy was taken from his parents, baptized as a Christian, and then kept away from his parents based on some rule that Christians couldn’t be raised by Jews; one of my pope books includes an anecdote of the pope playing hide-and-seek with the boy under his papal robe, a regrettable description in the light of recent sexual abuse in the church. Pius IX also called Vatican I, arguably in the top two as far as Vatican councils go. Pius IX was the first pope to be photographed, and he also got all this work done while suffering from epilepsy.

However, by the time he died, Pius IX was not liked that much. He spent his last years as the “prisoner of the Vatican,” which is not too bad a gig, and Pius actually did quite a bit in terms of sprucing up St. Peter’s and the Vatican. Still, he considered himself a prisoner because he didn’t like the financial arrangements or power structures that were offered to him after the Risorgimento. When his dead body was being moved to its burial place, people threw rocks at the procession and tried to throw his body into the Tiber River.

Despite all the controversy, though, John Paul II beatified him in 2000; one has to wonder if John Paul II thought that he would break Piux IX’s record as longest-serving pope (after Saint Peter). However, John Paul II only served as pope for almost 27 years, meaning that Pius IX is still the longest-serving pope, at a whopping 31 years and 7 months. The fun facts just don’t stop with Pius IX. Actually, they do. Longest-serving pope was the last fun fact I had at my disposal.

Book #12: Bel Canto

2009-06-15T22:49:00.000-04:00

A few years ago, I was at a friend’s apartment, and she had a copy of “Bel Canto” by Ann Patchett sitting in the bathroom. “I love this book,” she said. “But I can never seem to finish it.” Now, having finished up “Bel Canto” myself, I can see why she said that. When I was reading the book, I was completely enthralled. But then, I would put the book down for days at a time and care little what happened to the characters inside, despite the fact that they were in a very life-or-death situation: a hostage crisis. It’s the most leisurely hostage crisis you will ever read about.

Here is the basic plot: a group of notable people have gathered in an unnamed South American country for a Japanese businessman’s birthday party. The attendees think that the Japanese businessman will build a factory in the town, but the businessman is only interested in the night’s entertainment, which is his favorite opera singer. After she finishes singing, terrorists take the group hostage, and the ordeal lasts for months and months, which gives the characters some time to make unlikely connections. While staying suitably vague, I can only say that the way some of the connections panned out only made my stomach hurt, the way your stomach can hurt sometimes for fictional characters that you wish had better endings waiting for them.

Well, here is what I learned about hostage situations from this book:
--It’s essential to have a good translator on hand.
--It’s also good to have wonderful musicians on hand, because they can entertain everyone and unite different people with the common language of music.
--Chess is a good way to pass the time while you’re waiting for your demands to be met.
--Hopefully one of the hostages knows how to cook.
--A priest is also helpful in such situations.
--Use your spare time in captivity to learn foreign languages.

$3.25 worth of awesomeness

2009-06-09T21:06:00.004-04:00

Tonight I went to a nearby Goodwill because I heard through the grapevine that this particular store location was a good place to pick up quality used books. Well, I only ended up buying one book, but it was a doozy:

It is a book called Molly!!!!!! And here is something freaky: it came out the year I was born. I love the cover of this book more than words can say. I think I am going to keep it on my dresser so that I can style my hair that way.

Now, I admit that I probably would have bought this book for its cover alone, but listen to the intriguing text found on the book jacket:
“Molly” is storytelling at its dramatic best – the fast-paced, engrossing tale of a feisty young Irish girl whose spirit triumphs over poverty and personal tragedy.

Fleeing her fanatical republican family, Molly O’Dowd arrives nearly penniless in London at the end of the nineteenth century. With the aid of a social worker, she escapes the world of East End gambling houses and brothels and invests what little money she has in a typing course – an investment that will lead to the founding of her own employment agency and her establishment as a woman of power and means.

Along the way Molly wins – and then loses in the Boer War – her first love, makes a marriage of convenience, is widowed, and marries again. But her energy and determination never flag, and finally she meets the man who will be her match in business and in love.

From the rough-and-tumble world of the London docks to the luxurious hotels and restaurants of the fashionable West End, “Molly” captures the temper of the times – the unrest of the laboring classes, the courage of the suffragette movement, the ravages of the First World War. And through it all moves one of the most appealing and fully realized heroines in years: the indomitable Molly O’Dowd.

Can you believe that? And that’s just the book jacket!! Who knows how much more plot acclaimed author Teresa Crane stuck into this book?!?! It sounds like that Molly really gets around. Even if I never read this book, the book cover and jacket description make it well worth the $1.25 I spent on it.

Then, even though it seemed like my night couldn’t get any better, I wandered into the dollar store that was next door to the Goodwill. And there, I found some outfits for my bears Barnabas and Chester. For just $2, I was able to outfit an ENTIRE BEAR ARMY. Dressed like this, these bears will CONQUER THE WORLD.

Now, I do think that the material of Barnabas’s outfit is the same kind of material used for those kids’ pajamas that would spontaneously combust. So he might have to sleep out on the couch when he’s wearing his army outfit. But the real find, I think, is Chester’s outfit. While Barnabas is sort of a standard size bear as far as clothing goes, Chester is not. So far he only has an Appalachian State t-shirt to wear. He is petite, yet he has big hips. I’m not exactly sure what other stuffed animals or dolls this army outfit could fit, so I guess the only way to describe it is Chester–size. Though, since the outfit doesn’t have any Velcro, I’m not sure it will ever come off. So Chester Bear, you are in the army for life.

This is Chester trying to comfort fictional Molly, after he heard about her tragic loss in the Boer War:
And that is how you entertain yourself for hours with only $3.25. Plus tax.

for your screensaver consideration

2009-06-07T14:15:00.004-04:00

Though my last post is a lot of babble about how tired I am and how the world is going to end and a lot of photos of the weird statues that live in the Atlanta Botanical Garden, I did see some mighty lovely things this morning. Here are the best of my pretty flower photos:

(To be honest, I took a lot of pictures of bluish flowers that I liked better than the red flowers above. But those didn't come out as well. So this picture got a sort of symbolic nod.)

Impossible to capture the color of these beautiful orchids!

This next picture doesn't have pretty flower per se, but a funny sign. Right now, there's an exhibition of Henry Moore statues, which necessitates a sign that says "Mind the hot bronze!"

I like to think this sign meant, "hey, don't miss that incredibly handsome bronze statue behind you," with hot being a measure of appearance as opposed to temperature. Or I would like it if this sign meant "obey the bronze statues."

squirrel burgers

2009-06-07T13:57:00.002-04:00

I did not sleep very well at all last night. I only got a few hours of sleep, and most of those hours were spent dreaming that the end of the world had come. I guess we were all getting ready to head into some sort of nuclear winter scenario, so everyone was trying to make an end of the world survival bag, which would have some necessities to get us through. I remember I was really focused on trying to get a toothbrush for my survival bag, and then I went to a “Build Your Bag” party sponsored by some celebrities, and the celebrities had nothing useful to offer for the bags. I kept trying to tell them what nuclear winter would actually be like, based on my reading of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road.” Then, this guy I went to high school with showed up and we decided to go watch a boat race, because what better way to celebrate the end of the world than a boat race with a guy you haven’t seen in nine years? But it was a terribly sad boat race, because everyone was upset about nuclear winter.

As you can tell, I had a pretty rough night, and I woke up very early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Eventually, the sun rose and businesses started opening so I figured it might be nice to go outside and try to calm down a bit. It was also the free museum weekend sponsored by Bank of America, so eventually I ended up at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Usually, the garden is crowded, but since I was there so early, there was no one there, I started to get kind of nervous that maybe the world had ended and that I was the only person still alive. For the first hour or so I was there, the only person I saw was literally made of stone! Like the people at Pompeii, she was frozen in time.

Just like this creepy little boy, who I guess spent his last minutes on earth naked and holding frogs.

Everywhere I turned, things had been turned to stone. No humans anywhere.

Well, except for their decapitated heads under trees!

Here was a stone thing I found comforting, though: A frog sitting on a bench pondering the end of the world.

Normally I’m not a fan of holding one’s arm out to take a picture of oneself, but since there was no around, I kinda wanted evidence that I still existed. I went for it:

While I was sitting there, trying to ask the frog about potential food sources, I did spot something living – a squirrel. Good news, everybody, squirrel meat!

But I was still creeped out. WHERE WAS EVERYBODY? Not helping matters, I don’t know a lot about how to take pictures, which means that I probably don’t angle properly in terms of light, which meant that there was this kind of reflection-y glow in my pictures, which made it look like THERE WERE GHOSTS IN THE PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

Luckily, though, I found our new overlords, and they seemed friendly enough.

Finally, finally, after I walked around for awhile, I started seeing other people walking around. There were a lot of young families, dressed up all preppy and trying to get artsy photos of their children with the flowers and the statues. I felt better about the world immediately. Clearly, everything was still right in this weird world of ours. So I went to the grocery store, bought some eggs, and came home to make a veggie omelet. Hopefully I will get better sleep tonight.

Both sides of an issue: Do mosquito bites confer super powers?

2009-06-03T20:09:00.002-04:00

People, I don’t mind telling you that I am COVERED in mosquito bites. COVERED. From what I can gather, the mosquitoes needed my blood so they could break it down into amino acids and lay eggs or something. But what about me? Do I get anything out of the deal?

So I asked myself, “Molly, what would you like to get out of this deal?” And I quickly came to an answer: super powers. So today I pondered this question: What is the likelihood that mosquito bites can confer super powers? My conclusions follow.

Yes—Mosquito bites confer super powers.
--If a spider bite gives Spiderman power, than surely a mosquito bite does something.
--The constant itching clears our mind and forces all distractions out of the way, thus leaving us open for greatness.
--The scary appearance of huge red bumps keeps people, including potential enemies, away.
--Sucking blood is a pretty powerful thing if all these vampires are to be believed.
--Why else would Bill Gates want to get rid of them?
--I’m intrigued by the word “thorax.” (this was more just a thought I had when I was reading the Wikipedia page on mosquitoes.)
--Ready-made costume: mosquito nets?
--Malaria would be a good name for a superhero.
-- Larviciding sounds more ominous than Kryptonite, thus giving the superhero a realistic achilles’ heel

No—There is no way that mosquito bites can confer super powers.
--Too busy itching to really put up a good fight against possible enemies
--An infectious disease is not a super power, Molly.
--Mosquitoes can lay like hundreds of eggs at a time. If they haven’t already banded together to take over the world, they’re probably incapable of doing so, and the probably won’t share their life force with humans.
--Mosquitoes are pretty tiny.
--Nectar = empty calories
--I have not really developed any super powers as of yet.
--The natural predator of mosquitoes is the dragonfly, which is a much better name. If there is any insect that can confer super powers, then it is probably the dragonfly.

So after a good 15 minutes of hard thinking, the tally stands 9 in favor of mosquito bites conferring super powers, with 7 items on the other side. More studies are needed.

Book #11: Around the Bloc

2009-06-01T23:49:00.000-04:00

Here’s a disgusting anecdote to start off this book review: I have some brown and tan candles in my bathroom. Yesterday evening, as they were burning, one of the brownest candles overflowed and wax started leaking everywhere. I didn’t notice for about an hour, which meant there was plenty of time for brown wax to accumulate and make it look like someone living in my apartment had severe bathroom issues. I think it was my fish, Alvin.

I start with this gross anecdote about candle wax because I don’t actually have a whole lot to say about the book I just finished, which was written by Stephanie Elizondo Griest and titled: “Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana.” The book covers Griest’s time studying abroad in Moscow, working for a newspaper in Beijing and taking a quickie holiday to Havana. Since they are/were Communist countries, Griest has a nifty little link for tying them all together.

There were some moments when this book was pretty interesting and made me want to pack up a backpack and just get out of town. However, when people in their very early twenties travel the world and write about it, they have the tendency to become annoying very very quickly. Perhaps if I had been a few years younger when I read this book, I would have had more sympathy for all of the writer’s whining about her identity and how she couldn’t witness any revolutions and how people were just not acting like she was expecting them to. It all struck me as very selfish and immature, which is probably what my travel journal would sound like to an outside reader. But hey, I didn’t publish mine, and this girl did. So much of it also felt calculated, because people spoke in incredibly unrealistic profundities all the time and I have the sense that perhaps certain episodes were inflated to serve the author’s sense of who she is/was.

All in all, though, that’s kind of the nature of the beast when you’re abroad at that age, I think. You need things to be amazingly profound and you just think about yourself all the time. I would like to think I was an exception to that rule, though, because when I studied abroad in Italy, I didn’t think about myself all the time. I thought about popes all the time.

Even though I am being kinda negative about this book, I still had a decent enough time reading it. The author did have some interesting experiences and anecdotes even despite all her self-importance. And man oh man, let’s hope this author doesn’t have a Google alert for herself set up! Even though I bitch about travel literature sometimes, it’s still a big weakness of mine, if only for those rare moments in the book that capture the funny and the unexpected of traveling. So if you travel to some interesting places and then plunk your experiences in the travel literature section of the bookstore, I am probably going to get to it at some point or another. For now, though, I gotta go clean up some candle wax.

robot riding a cat

2009-05-28T20:30:00.004-04:00

The other day I was in a meeting at work. I had a pad and a pen to take notes. I started to write something down but ended up drawing a cat instead. Then the speaker said something about robots so I ended up drawing a robot also. But since I didn't really plan to draw either thing, they just happened, I didn't really plan out the page very well, and it ended up looking like the robot was standing on the cat.

I ended up being kind of taken with the image so I decided to try to replicate it in crayon:

Then I decided to draw a clown fish pulling a clown along:

Then I drew a cowgirl riding on a turtle, lassoing the moon.

The turtle has cowboy boots also. I'm still thinking about what my pictures mean, and I think it has something to with the interactions between man and nature?

It turns out I might be trendy!

2009-05-28T20:06:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, I was reading a local weekly paper because they had the results of the Reader's Choice Awards, and I just love awards of all types. But these awards were particularly handy since they were about Atlanta, and I figured I might pick up some ideas about neat new places to eat and consume beverages. I was kinda flipping through the non-eating and drinking awards when my eye caught something on the fashion page. And let me tell you, that never happens. I am not terribly fashionable. But there, right beside Andre 3000 (Best Dressed Local Celeb) was the Best Atlanta Fashion Trend, and a picture of a shoe that I had tried on very recently. I gasped, audibly. Was it possible I was fashionable?

The page in question:

A close-up of the evidence:

Basically, this little blurb was saying that shoes called gladiator sandals are the most awesome trend to hit my fair city in the last 12 months, right ahead of something called "statement necklaces." Apparently these shoes go well with everything from summer maxi dresses to jeans to rompers.

This blew my mind because I had tried on shoes like the ones in the photograph not one week before! But I didn't try them on because I knew they were stylish. I tried them on because I thought they looked like the most ridiculous shoes I'd ever seen in my life. No offense if you wear these shoes in your daily life, but they looked so foreign to the kinds of shoes that are in my daily life (mainly flip-flops and sneakers) that I had to have a picture.

These are my feet in the Best Atlanta Fashion Trend:

I talked to one fashionable person who said that the shoes that I am wearing are definitely not gladiator sandals, and I'm not going to argue with that. Still, they look like the shoes in the paper, and they contain all the same elements, by which I mean there's a zipper, a high heel and lots of straps involved. Also, it looks like strippers could wear both pairs.

Plus, you have to admit, the paper was right. These shoes truly go with any outfit:

Book #10: My Sister's Keeper

2009-05-23T15:30:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, even when I am in the midst of another book that I am absolutely in love with, I can’t help but think ahead to what book I will read next. After reading 776 pages of “The Brothers Karamazov,” I was ready for something that would be really quick and easy to read. Then I saw a commercial for the movie “My Sister’s Keeper,” which is coming to theaters soon and which features Cameron Diaz, Alec Baldwin and Abigail Breslin. Since I have to read books before the movie comes out, whenever possible, I decided to pull my 50-cent thrift store copy out of the book closet and see what this book was all about.

“My Sister’s Keeper” was written by Jodi Picoult, who, if my understanding of her is correct, writes a lot of family melodramas with ethical conflicts at the center. The ethical conflict in this book comes in the shape of Anna, who was conceived in a test tube as a perfect genetic mix for her sister Kate, who had leukemia. As soon as Anna is born, her cord blood goes to her sister, and then as she grows, she has to donate all sorts of things, including bone marrow. When she’s asked to donate a kidney to her ailing sister, though, Anna seeks out a fancy lawyer and files for medical emancipation.

All this is being relayed to us through shifting narrators; everybody related to the court case (except the dying sister) takes turns narrating chapters, though frankly, they all kind of sounded the same, which is especially problematic when you realize you’re trying to read a chapter from the point-of-view of a 13-year-old, and she sounds like she’s 42. It’s hard not to feel emotionally manipulated when all the chapters seem to paint the mom as a huge bitch or if there was any chance to actually fall in love with the dying sister. As it is, both of them are so unsympathetic that you kind of don’t care if they get that kidney or not. I feel like books that have an ethical conflict should actually, you know, have a conflict.

Anna’s lawyer and her guardian ad litem have conflict, though, as it appears they dated for like a week in high school and she’s still hung up on him. Since I read this book knowing Alec Baldwin was playing the part I got terribly confused, because how was I supposed to feel about this woman who hung onto something for like 40 years? But from what I can tell from IMDB, they cut the guardian ad litem from the movie and dispensed with that subplot of ick, so that’s good. How many other subplots of ick did they cut away? I’ll have to wait til the movie comes out on DVD to find out, because I don’t think I’ll see this one in theaters. For one, Cameron Diaz kind of annoys me, and for two, this movie would just be way too sad to pay money to see.

Still, while I may not be painting the rosiest picture of this book, it’s hard to complain about something that only took me a few hours to read. While this is exactly what I needed after “Brothers Karamazov,” I did get worried that the epic nature and intensity of “Brothers Karamazov” had ruined me for fluffy books. I kept waiting for the devil to show up or for some character to recite an epic poem he’d written on the nature of sin, but that never came. Instead, I got a Lifetime television movie. I hope this condition isn’t permanent. I still have a lot of fluffy books in my apartment to read.

By the way, under no circumstances should you go to the Wikipedia page for this book/movie if you don’t like spoilers, because it gives the entire (twist?) ending of the book away, but I did get this little factoid for you: apparently, Dakota and Elle Fanning had signed on for the movie version of this, with Dakota playing the sick sister and Elle playing the reluctant kidney donor sister. But Dakota backed out because she found out she’d have to shave her head to play someone with leukemia, and Elle backed out shortly after. I just find this funny, whether it’s true or not. I like to think that a director said to her, “You can’t just ACT like you have no hair, Dakota,” or something like that.

Book #9: The Brothers Karamazov

2009-05-22T16:39:00.002-04:00

It’s commencement season, which means that pretty much every day there’s another picture of a celebrity or a dignitary getting a fake diploma and giving a speech. One day I hope to do something that gets me invited to speak at a graduation, even if it’s just a preschool graduation. I’m not picky.

Well, I had a graduation of sorts this week, but there were no fancy speakers for me. For the past seven weeks, I have been dutifully attending two classes at Emory at night. Not real classes, but personal enrichment or continuing ed or whatever they call it when nerds want to go back to school but not so badly that they go to graduate school. One of my classes was Introduction to Pilates, and the other was a literature class on “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The classes just came to a close, but rather than a diploma, I get slightly more toned abs and the satisfaction of having read a literary masterpiece. In this blog, I intend to discuss the latter.

Though I have made my way through epic Tolstoy books, reading Dostoevsky has always intimidated me, I guess because I see him as so much darker and twisty than Tolstoy. So I was very eager to take this class to be guided through the process. If you wonder why I haven’t blogged terribly much lately, it’s because reading such a long book in seven weeks takes up a lot of your spare time. Still, the class definitely helped me notice some things that I don’t know that I would have noticed otherwise.

This book, as you might guess, is about a family named Karamazov. The dad, Fyodor, is a real asshole. He has four sons by three women, if you count the son that is illegitimate and never fully claimed by Fyodor, which most people do. That illegitimate son was born to a mentally handicapped homeless woman who died after giving birth, which should tell you something about this guy’s character.

If you could made a line graph of the human psyche, with one side representing enlightenment and the other side representing meanness, with various degrees of selfishness and hopefulness in the middle, then each of the brothers would fall in various places. The “good” one is Alyosha, and our class spent a lot of time discussing him because the professor believed that he was the model by which people should strive to live their lives. He lives his best life, to borrow a term from Oprah, because he doesn’t judge, he doesn’t covet and he doesn’t destroy himself the way the others do. The rest are too blinded by their desires and their shortcomings.

We spent a lot of time discussing ego vs. real self, with real self being a somewhat perfect state of grace in which life could be peaceful, creative and whole, and the ego being seduced by illusions, alienation, fear, guilt and manipulation. I hesitate to write too much more about it, though, because I got the sense that this was the basis for our professor’s next book. I don’t want to get sued. The last time I wrote a book review the author commented on the blog, after all. While Dostoevsky might be dead, my professor isn't.

During the class, the professor kept talking so seriously about “good literature,” with the type of conviction that makes you believe good literature is so amazing and transformative that it could make a person give birth to a duck. Therefore, we spent a lot of time discussing what lessons Dostoevsky was trying to teach through his “good literature.” Still, for all our lectures on philosophy, psychology and religion, and the external vs. the internal, and morality and free will, and the nature of transformation, and everything else in the world that is “heavy,” this is a very enjoyable, readable book. As one of my classmates said, it reads like a soap opera, what with its love triangles, its murders and its poignant deathbed scenes.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and even though I was skeptical of my professor sometimes, I think it did make me into a better person, or at least one who notices more often which way the path to better personhood is pointed. In conclusion, I am glad I read this book in a class that was just for fun, as opposed to a class where I might have actually had to write a paper on it, because just writing this non-complex blog entry made my head hurt.

recollections of reading: the early years

2009-05-17T13:39:00.000-04:00

To kick off this, the last day of Children’s Book Week, I decided to read the two children’s books that I have in my apartment right now: “Barack” by Jonah Winter, illustrated by A.G. Ford and “Barack Obama: Son of Promise, Child of Hope,” written by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Bryan Collier. These books were Christmas presents from my brother and sister-in-law. I read them when I got them, and I take them down pretty regularly to look at the pictures, because the pictures in both books are beautiful. But reading them again this morning got me thinking about children’s books I loved when I was little.

One of my very first memories is from when I was 2 or 3. This was before we moved into the house that we live in now, and my new baby brother George and I had to share a room. I remember begging, just begging, to be able to go into the room where George was sleeping so I could get some books. I remember being bored and just thinking I would die if I couldn’t get in there and get some books. But Mom would not let me go in, even though I really didn’t understand what the problem was, because I was sure that I would be super quiet and not wake the baby.

Still, despite Mom’s refusal to let me get books on that day, she rarely ever refused me a book again. She took us to the library all the time. I can still distinctly remember one of the librarians we frequently saw, who had this long red hair that looked kinda gross, perhaps because this particular lady always seemed to have a cold and your books always seemed in eminent danger of getting sneezed on. Still, I loved to go to the library, particularly when summer reading programs would start up.

Well, to be honest, of course I loved any reading program, particularly Accelerated Reader when that came along. Back in my day, kids, the reading list was just two legal-sized sheets, back and front. I’ve seen the list you guys have now and all I can tell you is that if there had been that many points up for grabs when I was a kid, you all would have been TOAST. As it was, I did set an Accelerated Reader record at the elementary school, which was only crushed once kids got that supersized list of books they could choose from. There was also the Book-it program, where for reading books you could slips for a personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut, and also a sticker for a button. Dad thought Pizza Hut was dirty so we never got our buttons completed.

But again, I am not trying to bring up old grievances against my parents by telling you these horror stories of not being allowed to go into the baby’s room or not being allowed to go to Pizza Hut, because my parents have always been very supportive of my book habit. Mom would let me order copiously from book orders and book fairs (and oh, I can remember the excitement that occurred when a new book order form arrived from the teacher), and Dad retrieved the dozens of boxes full of books that I mailed to him from Seattle when I was moving. They even tolerated me reading at inappropriate events, such as an Easter service and football games. They were somewhat less tolerant of the bag of books I needed to take everywhere, which was alluded to in a previous post about Children’s Book Week. What happened is that I got convinced the house would burn down, and I didn’t want to be without books for however long it would take us to get some money to get more books. I was also pretty convinced that I would finish whatever book I was reading before I could get back home again, and I wanted to be sure I had something new to start. And by something new to start, I mean, at least 25 options for something to start.

So what did I read? I remember reading Rainbow Brite books a lot when I was small. I had two, and one was green and one was purple. I liked Berenstain Bears books, and I also liked this book called “We Help Mommy,” because I wanted to believe I was the kind of sweet girl who helped her mommy, even though when push came to shove I didn’t like the getting down and dirty that sometimes accompanied helping out. I think “The Monster at the End of this Book” is an extremely important book that everyone should own.

But that’s all I really remember of straight-up picture books. Very early on I considered it vital that I be allowed into the big kids’ section of the library. I heard later that everyone doubted that I actually read the books, but starting in the first grade I could check out a book a day from the non-picture book section. I liked these books…I don’t know what brand they were or anything, but they were biographies of famous people that focused pretty much exclusively on their childhoods. Like, you would read 180 pages of what Ben Franklin or Juliette Gordon Low were like as children, and then there would be one chapter tacked on the end about how they grew up and became famous. The books were very distinctive looking, but I have no idea who put them out. I wish I knew. I’d like to work for those people.

Along those historical lines, I loved the American Girls books, of course; though, not to sound like an old woman, but back in my day there were only three American Girls (Kirsten, Samantha and Molly) and there were not emporiums where you could go and pick out clothes and dolls – there was a catalogue that came quarterly and that was it. Oh, Molly the American Girl, I can still picture you at your kitchen table refusing to eat your vegetables, and your mom saying you couldn’t leave the table until you ate them, but still you sat there. So stubborn and plucky!

What else? Like most kids, I loved E.B. White, Roald Dahl, Encyclopedia Brown and Beverly Clearly, particularly anything with Ramona in the title. I loved the “Little House” series as much as I loved the television show. I read my way through God knows how many Babysitter’s Club books, including the spin-off titles like Babysitter’s Little Sister and the Summer Super Specials. I was even a member of the fan club for awhile, which was fun because you got cool stuff in the mail, but somewhat sad because a good portion of the mail was about starting your own babysitters’ club, and I just couldn’t get one together. I read Nancy Drew, Anne of Green Gables, and Judy Blume (“Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret” when totally over my head because I read it when I was far too young but I adored “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing”).

“Bridge to Terabithia” was the first book that made me cry, and also the first book that slightly scandalized me because there was a “dammit” or something like that in the first few pages. I refuse to see any movie that is based on that book. I liked Avi. I liked Louis Sachar’s “Sideways Stories from Wayside School” and still occasionally find myself referencing some of the stories in conversations. I took a Super Saturday class on the Chronicles of Narnia, and debated with people about whether it was better to read the books in chronological order or in the order that they came numbered in the box set. One year the church did a Lenten program on “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe,” so they showed a bit of the cartoon movie each Wednesday night. One of my best memories of my grandmother Kink is when she got up to do a recap of the previous week’s episode, and she told that story better than C.S. Lewis himself.

Pretty early on I did start heading for slightly more adult fare, like Mary Higgins Clark and Agatha Christie. But I still go through phases when I read a lot of kids’ books. Particularly when I lived in Seattle—that’s when I read most of the Newbery and Caldecott medal books, just for the hell of it, cause I was unemployed and had lots of time to sit in bookstores and libraries. That’s when I devoured the Lemony Snicket books and where I read the last half of the Harry Potter series.

I think those are the majority of my children’ book-related memories, and you gotta admit, those are some pretty great memories. So that’s why a week like Children’s Book Week is so important. I hope kids read more and don’t just play on the internet or watch the television, though I do think there’s enough time in childhood to do those things too. Well, actually I don’t know about the internet thing, we didn’t have that til I was in high school. But I think in honor of Children’s Book Week we should all go read something right NOW, and if you have kids, make them read something too. Sometimes I worry that if I have kids that don’t like to read, I won’t know how to relate to them, but that’s an anxiety to discuss on another day. For now, let’s all go read.

a night at the ballet

2009-05-17T10:40:00.001-04:00

On Friday night, to celebrate Children’s Book Week, I headed off to see the Atlanta Ballet perform a literary-inspired work, Don Quixote. Well, it wasn’t only to celebrate Children’s Book Week; I’d had the tickets for weeks. But it felt like an apt way to observe the event, because there were a lot of children there, and it was literary inspired.

Though the ballet is called Don Quixote, the man himself plays a very minor role; while he does make a half-hearted dash at a windmill, he mostly sits on the sidelines and watches other people dance. My theory on this is that if he did dance, people would get all the songs from the musical “Man of La Mancha” stuck in their heads. Cause I for one know that I was subconsciously listening for songs from that fine film when the orchestra started playing.

So, Don Quixote doesn’t dance. He leaves that to the young whippersnappers Kitri and Basilio, who are madly in love and must express this emotion through DANCING. So dance they do, all through three acts. But sometimes their dancing is foiled by Gamache, described in my program as a wealthy fop, who, from my seat, somewhat resembled Austin Scarlett from Project Runway Season 1. Gamache is good comic relief, as was Sancho Panza, as were the little girls who were seated three rows in front of us who were clearly enjoying a night in their fancy dresses. There was one girl, wearing this green sparkly dress, and I wondered of her, if this is what she wears to the ballet when she’s 12, what will she wear to the prom when she’s 17? But I digress.

In the first act of this ballet, all the dancing takes place in a marketplace, which is a convenient setting because there’s lots of reasons why lots of people would wander through a marketplace and suddenly feel compelled to DANCE. In this act, I was somewhat uncomfortable watching the dancers who went up on their toes, and I kept thinking, “NO! You’ll ruin your feet, pretty girl! Please stop dancing like that!” but by the end of the ballet, I was more like, “Get up on your toes and dance for me, dancing monkey!”

After the marketplace, action moved to a gypsy camp, where Kitri and Basilio get the blessing of some gypsies who read their palms to get married, and they head off-stage to do some private dancing, one imagines. Don Quixote makes a feeble stab at a windmill which so immediately exhausts him that he must fall to sleep at once and have a beautiful dream of dryads and little cupids dancing.

When he wakes up, it’s time to go to the tavern where Kitri and Basilio manage to get rid of that Gamache through ingenious means and then they get married. Marriage is symbolized in ballet by a lot of beautiful dancing, to the point that I made a mental note that I must get ballerinas for my wedding. It would be ideal if I could get the girl who played Kitri cause she was amazing. Seriously, it was an immensely beautiful scene and if all the little children who were at the performance didn’t leave with a burning desire to read Don Quixote at once, then they at least left with the unrealistic dream that they should become ballerinas. Or maybe that was just me.

Well, while I haven’t seen a ton of ballets in my day, I must say that this was definitely the best one I’ve ever seen. The costumes were beautiful, the sets were amazing, the music was fantastic and all the tiny little dancers gave it their all. In the case of Basilio, I say that quite literally cause he was wearing nude tights at one point and you could definitely see everything.

One Evening... (prompt 7 of 7)

2009-05-16T17:00:00.002-04:00

As I noted on Thursday, we are in the midst of Children’s Book Week! However, we only have a few days to celebrate, because it ends tomorrow. One of the main ways for celebrating this event, based on my perusal of the website, is to write stories based on prompts that are provided by famous authors as well as people just connected with the event.

So today I sat down and worked my way through all the prompts. I only gave myself 15 minutes to complete each prompt (because I don’t want to shame the kids who might be participating). So what you will find in bold, below, is the prompt given on the website, and then in non-bold, you will see where I decided to take the story. Happy Children’s Book Week!

Prompt Seven: “One Evening…” Begun by Lemony Snicket and completed Molly.

This is the sort of story you should never read at night, because it is full of things that are frightening to think about when it is dark, such as hungry wolf, a bottle of poison, and a locked box with a terrible secret inside. However, the story is not at all frightening at the beginning, when a young girl named Roweena is living in a small cottage in the middle of the forest with two lumberjacks who are both named Tim. One evening, when Tim, Tim and Roweena were all having dinner, there was a knock on the door, but before anyone could answer it,...

Roweena’s cell phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Hey, it’s Molly!”

“Oh, Molly, I might have to call you back, we just had a knock on the door.”

“No! Don’t answer it!”

“Why?”

“Because if you answer that door, then you will begin a story that involves a hungry wolf, a bottle of poison, and a locked box with a terrible secret inside!”

“Oh my! Well, that does make sense. After all, we are in a story that was begun by acclaimed author Lemony Snicket.”

“True enough, and though I am a fan of Mr. Snicket’s work, I must demand that you not open that door, because I am finishing the story, and I am frankly just too tired to think of a scenario that includes a hungry wolf, a bottle of poison, and a locked box with a terrible secret inside!”

“You’re terribly lazy, Molly!”

“True enough. Fine, Roweena, if you want to open the door, do it.”

“Then I will, you lazy horrible writer.”

Roweena opened the door where she was greeted by a hungry wolf holding a locked box with a terrible secret inside. Luckily, Roweena had the key for the box right around her neck. She opened the box and was greeted by a note. It said, “You just drank poison, Roweena.”

“What a horrible secret!” Roweena exclaimed before she died. “Turns out that bottle of Diet Coke was actually a bottle of poison!”

Once Roweena had expired, the hungry wolf sat down at Roweena’s place and ate her meal. Tim and Tim vowed never to doubt Molly or call her lazy again.

One Morning... (prompt 6 of 7)

2009-05-16T16:56:00.000-04:00

The Secret I Can't Actually Tell People Yet! (prompt 5 of 7)

2009-05-16T16:29:00.001-04:00

As I noted on Thursday, we are in the midst of Children’s Book Week! However, we only have a few days to celebrate, because it ends tomorrow. One of the main ways for celebrating this event, based on my perusal of the website, is to write stories based on prompts that are provided by famous authors as well as people just connected with the event.

So today I sat down and worked my way through all the prompts. I only gave myself 15 minutes to complete each prompt (because I don’t want to shame the kids who might be participating). So what you will find in bold, below, is the prompt given on the website, and then in non-bold, you will see where I decided to take the story. Happy Children’s Book Week!

Prompt Five: “The Secret I Can’t Actually Tell People Yet!” begun by Barbara Park and completed by Molly

Dear first-grade journal,
I’VE GOT A SECRET!
I’VE GOT A SECRET!
Only Mother and Daddy said I can’t actually tell people yet!
But a journal is not even people! And so I am just going to write it in these pages. And that’s all!
Last night, ….

I got to hang out with the Jonas Brothers and Miley Cyrus! It’s because Daddy kidnapped them, and that is part of why I am not supposed to tell anybody. Mother says Daddy is mentally disturbed and that’s why she gave everyone two scoops of ice cream instead of just one. She cried when Miley Cyrus said that she was going to make sure that we went to jail for a long time, and she kept crying because Miley Cyrus just kept talking. Mother has told me before that she finds Miley Cyrus’s voice very annoying!

Miley got mad when I asked how to do the “Achy Breaky Heart” dance that her father is so famous for, but the Jonas Brothers don’t get mad about anything! So far we have played ping-pong, air hockey, and four games on the Wii! I don’t think they even know that they’ve been kidnapped. They just keep asking what exactly it is that Daddy does for Disney. They are always talking to cameras that are not even there and they always ask what time they have to perform. I found one of them in the bathroom with Mother’s flat iron.

Daddy hasn’t done very much since he brought Miley and the Jonases home. He kind of curled up in a ball on the couch for awhile, and then he asked me to bring him my High School Musical DVD’s. He smashed them, but I don’t mind. I’m going to have Miley and the Jonas Brothers act out High School Musical for me everyday! I also have some big plans involving a remake of the Wizard of Oz. Miley will play Dorothy, and the Jonas Brothers will be the scarecrow, tin man, and lion. It is going to be the most awesome thing ever and I am going to be the only one who sees it because this is a big secret! No one but me can know who we’ve got in our basement! Don’t tell, Journal!

Obviously, everyone at school is pretty concerned, and I hear the bigger kids talking about all the rumors that are floating around on the Internet. Some people think that Miley and the Jonas Brothers moved to Utah and all got married to each other, and now they are living out some polygamous lifestyle, whatever that means! Other kids are saying that they faked their own deaths and are out living on an island with Tupac, who is going to teach them how to release posthumous albums, whatever that means.

And the last crazy thing I heard was that some security guard grabbed them at their last concert and is going to sell them on the black market China so that he can pay his mortgage. I don’t mind telling you, Journal, that that rumor hit a little close to home because I know we are having trouble paying our mortgage in the middle of this recession. However, Daddy doesn’t even work as a security guard, because he doesn’t work at all, so I know it can’t be true!

Anyways, after school today I am hoping we can all play some Uno! Hooray for secrets!

Tutu is a Funny Name for a Guy (prompt 4 of 7)

2009-05-16T16:03:00.001-04:00

Surprise on the Mat (prompt 3 of 7)

2009-05-16T15:50:00.001-04:00

As I noted on Thursday, we are in the midst of Children’s Book Week! However, we only have a few days to celebrate, because it ends tomorrow. One of the main ways for celebrating this event, based on my perusal of the website, is to write stories based on prompts that are provided by famous authors as well as people just connected with the event.

So today I sat down and worked my way through all the prompts. I only gave myself 15 minutes to complete each prompt (because I don’t want to shame the kids who might be participating). So what you will find in bold, below, is the prompt given on the website, and then in non-bold, you will see where I decided to take the story. Happy Children’s Book Week!

Prompt Three: “Surprise on the Mat” begun by Lola Schaefer and completed by Molly

Crocker never wanted to be on the wrestling team. He really didn’t.

But here he was – on the mat, not ready at all for his first match.

He turned to face his opponent.

“It can’t be,” he said under his breath.

But it was.

Crocker was going to have to fight Macho Man Randy Savage.

You see, tough times had fallen on Macho Man Randy Savage ever since the Slim Jim money ran out, and since he couldn’t get a regular television wrestling gig anymore, he had started taking small paydays to face high school wrestlers. Schools were willing to pay because it got more people to come to wrestling matches.

“Crap,” Crocker whispered under his breath as Macho Man Randy Savage ran around the ring in his fringed jacket, yelling “Oooooh yeah!” Crocker had thought the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance” that he had heard earlier were just band practice. But no, it was Macho Man entering the gym. Now Crocker was going to get his ass kicked by a former childhood hero.

“I’m gonna go Mickey Rourke on your ass,” Macho Man said.

“Please don’t, Macho Man,” Crocker pleaded. Macho Man hit him in the gut.

The referee stepped in. “High school wrestling, Mr. Savage,” he said.

“Sorry, ref,” Macho Man said, before getting Crocker in a headlock that was no less painful than being hit in the gut.

“Please don’t hurt me, Macho Man,” Crocker gasped. “You were my favorite wrestler growing up.”

Macho Man loosened his grip a little bit. “Really?” he asked. “You liked me better than Hulk Hogan?”

“Of course,” Crocker said. “I was with you through your feuds with Ted DiBiase, the Million Dollar Man. I was with you even when you replaced Miss Elizabeth with Sensational Sherri and became the evil Macho King. I watched Hulk Hogan defeat you in the career match at Wrestlemania VII, and then I shed a few tears as Miss Elizabeth came and rescued you from Sensational Sherri.”

“Did you know that both Miss Elizabeth and Sensational Sherri are dead now?” asked Macho Man.

“Yes, I did, Macho Man, and don’t think I didn’t let the occasion pass without shedding a few tears. I’ll still never forget how you married Miss Elizabeth in the ring at SummerSlam, only to have the wedding reception crashed by that bastard, Jake the Snake.”

By this point, the Macho Man had completely released his grip on Crocker. The baffled referee asked, “Are we going to wrestle today, gentlemen?”

“No,” said Macho Man. “This kid is playing the Evan Rachel Wood part in the movie that is my life which would be called ‘The Wrestler’ if that title had not just been taken. So I am going to take him out for some ice cream and some thrift store clothes.”

And that is how Crocker avoided getting his ass kicked by Macho Man Randy Savage.

The Unexpected Blast (prompt 2 of 7)

2009-05-16T15:36:00.002-04:00

As I noted on Thursday, we are in the midst of Children’s Book Week! However, we only have a few days to celebrate, because it ends tomorrow. One of the main ways for celebrating this event, based on my perusal of the website, is to write stories based on prompts that are provided by famous authors as well as people just connected with the event.

So today I sat down and worked my way through all the prompts. I only gave myself 15 minutes to complete each prompt (because I don’t want to shame the kids who might be participating). So what you will find in bold, below, is the prompt given on the website, and then in non-bold, you will see where I decided to take the story. Happy Children’s Book Week!

Prompt Two: “The Unexpected Blast” begun by Elaine Landau and completed by Molly

It all started the summer we visited our uncle in South America. The volcano near the village where we were staying was supposed to be inactive, yet lately steam had been leaking from it. My little brother and I were near the foot of the volcano the morning it began to shake. Suddenly, its north side collapsed. Clouds of rock and ash shot into the air. Lava and mudflows now blocked our path back to our uncle’s cabin. My little brother was crying, and I knew I had to think fast. So I……

…immediately started searching for someone we could sacrifice to the volcano. Clearly, the volcano gods were angry, and I had to appease them with live flesh. My crybaby little brother seemed like a good option, but I had a feeling that my family wouldn’t forgive me and since I was only nine I really couldn’t stand to lose their financial support at this point in my life.

So if I couldn’t sacrifice my brother, who could I sacrifice? Tom Hanks was nowhere to be seen, though I allowed myself a few seconds to chuckle at such a clever joke, even though at the age of 9 I really shouldn’t have been seeing a movie such as “Joe Versus the Volcano,” and may I note that the person writing this story really shouldn’t have wasted valuable writing time looking up the rating of “Joe Versus the Volcano” on Netflix? As it turns out the movie was only rated PG, so maybe there was a chance that a 9-year-old could have seen it. But I digress.

“Who can we sacrifice?” I asked my little brother. “I must get out of this adventure so I can see the new Tom Hanks movie! Because it takes place at the Vatican and you know how I love popes!” At this moment in my life, with lava and mudflows running toward me, I was starting to wonder why Tom Hanks was completely consuming my life. After all, I was only 9, and here I was having numerous thoughts about the work of Tom Hanks. If I died in this horrific volcano accident, there was a good chance I’d miss the inevitable “Forrest Gump” sequel I’m convinced he’ll make if he gets desperate enough!

Shit, time was running out and now all I can think about is Tom Hanks’ moving performance in “Philadelphia!” And how great he was in “A League of their Own!” I try to channel Tom Hanks circa 1995, which was when “Apollo 13” came out, because in that movie TH was confronted with a life-threatening situation just like this one! Except the difference between me and Tom Hanks is that in that film, Tom Hanks was working with a script based on a book by astronaut Jim Lovell, and I am working with a writer who seems more interested in updating her Netflix queue than in getting me out of this mess in her allotted 15 minutes of writing time.

In the end, I sacrificed my brother to the volcano gods, mainly because time was up and I didn’t want to die without seeing “The Great Buck Howard,” featuring both Tom Hanks and his son Colin Hanks, which is coming to DVD in the near future.

And then... (prompt 1 of 7)

2009-05-16T15:22:00.001-04:00

As I noted on Thursday, we are in the midst of Children’s Book Week! However, we only have a few days to celebrate, because it ends tomorrow. One of the main ways for celebrating this event, based on my perusal of the website, is to write stories based on prompts that are provided by famous authors as well as people just connected with the event.

So today I sat down and worked my way through all the prompts. I only gave myself 15 minutes to complete each prompt (because I don’t want to shame the kids who might be participating). So what you will find in bold, below, is the prompt given on the website, and then in non-bold, you will see where I decided to take the story. Happy Children’s Book Week!

Prompt One: “And Then….” Begun by National Ambassador Jon Scieszka and completed by Molly.

The guy at the pet store said he was pretty sure it was a Green Basilisk Lizard egg. But man, was he wrong. He could not have been more wrong. Now the newspaper wants to know what happened to my little brother, that nice old lady down the street, the left side of Washington Elementary School, and the three jets, two helicopters, four tanks, and 36,000 gallons of Marshmallow Fluff. They will probably cover up the true story. But here’s what really happened….

When this alleged “Green Basilisk Lizard egg” hatched, it hatched not my long-awaited Green Basilisk Lizard but in fact a little army of sea monkeys. It was freaky to see that many sea monkeys emerge from the egg, it was sort of like a clown car, in fact. But I had no idea how freaky it was about to get, because as soon as all the little sea monkeys were out of the egg, they started lining up in formations that spelled out words. Here is what they said:

“No more Mr. Nice Sea Monkeys…We are here to destroy your planet….First, though, we are hungry. Would you mind getting us 36,000 gallons of Marshmallow Fluff?”

That took about 20 minutes to spell out because they are so tiny. At this point, I was pretty hungry too, and now that they mentioned it, I could really go for some Marshmallow Fluff, so we headed down to the corner market and started going to town on every single thing of Marshmallow Fluff we could find, which was quite a lot actually, because I live in a town that manufactures Marshmallow Fluff. My little brother came along and started eating Marshmallow Fluff also, but it turns out he’s a diabetic so he really shouldn’t have been doing that. He died.

Another person who died while me and the sea monkeys ate Marshmallow Fluff was that “nice” old lady down the street, who tried to prevent us from eating any more Marshmallow Fluff. I was pretty hopped up on sugar by that point so I killed her with my bare hands. After eating so much Marshmallow Fluff, the sea monkeys were gigantic! They decided they wanted to steal three jets, two helicopters and four tanks from the local army base, and who was I to stop them? A sad little boy who had just watched his brother die from eating too much Marshmallow Fluff. Plus, I was still covered in all that little old lady’s blood.

The sea monkeys went off to steal their equipment from the military, and I was left to my own devices, which for awhile just consisted of eating chocolate and graham crackers in an effort to make smores in my stomach. Then I started feeling kind of gross so I went over to Washington Elementary School and threw up all over the left side of it. I mean, all over. I think I was throwing up things I ate last Tuesday.

So no matter how the newspaper, which is just a mouthpiece for fat cat conservatives, decides how they want to spin this story of what happened to my little brother, that nice old lady down the street, the left side of Washington Elementary School, and the three jets, two helicopters, four tanks and 36,000 gallons of Marshmallow Fluff, just remember this: never buy a Green Basilisk Lizard egg from the local pet store. Not that you’ll have much of a chance. From what I hear, the sea monkey army went after all the local pet stores first.

we are in the midst of a holiday!!

2009-05-14T23:11:00.001-04:00

Guys! Did you know that we are smack dab in the middle of Children’s Book Week??!!? Well, we are, and even though we are getting a late start, we are going to celebrate this monumental occasion on the blog. To get us started, here are some fun facts about Children’s Book Week!

--It is being observed from May 11 to May 17 this year. In 2010 it will be celebrated from May 10 to May 16 and in 2011 it will be from May 2 to May 8!

--It has been celebrated since 1919!

--Every year they announce the Children’s Choice Book Awards Winners! This year that Twilight book won in the teen category; it was the only winning book I had heard of.

--The anchor sponsors are Toys for Tots and Amazon!!!

If you go to the Children’s Book Week website then you can learn tons of other awesome facts very similar to the ones above. You can also download the official 2009 Children’s Book Week bookmark and poster, but frankly, those things didn’t really do it for me. Didn’t have quite the pizzazz Children’s Book Week deserves. That’s why I took it upon myself to design three new posters:

More fun to come!!! We’re going to have the best 3 ½ day celebration of Children’s Book Week possible!!!

happy birthday, tiki

2009-05-14T15:26:00.000-04:00

My dad doesn't text me very often, by which I mean, I don't think he's ever texted me until today. But today I got three texts from him. The first two were about my brother William, who had shoulder surgery today. Dad sent me a message that he was doing fine and then he sent a picture of my little brother recovering in his hospital gown. So those, obviously, were important. It was good to know how my brother was doing.

Then came the third text message of the day:

"Don't 4get 2day is tiki's birthday."

I should probably note, for the sake of accuracy, that the message didn't have any apostrophes in it, because I am guessing that dad might not know how to access the punctuation marks on this phone. But still, this message was a bit perplexing. As I noted, he wouldn't have texted me unless it was important, and clearly anything having to do with Tiki the cat is very very important to my dad.

That's right, Tiki is a cat, I shall note for people who may not read this blog with much consistency. This is the cat that has a picture on my dad's entertainment stand…right next to the pictures of his kids. This is the cat that hisses and scratches at me if I even so much as try to touch her. May 14 is a birthday that my dad made up for her based on an estimate given to him by the veterinarian.

So even though Tiki and I don't really get along (and that is all your fault, Tiki, because I am nothing but loving toward you), and even though it is only your fake birthday and not necessarily your real birthday, I shall offer you three pieces of advice as a gift on this day.

Piece of advice #1: Don't waste your time with Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry, Tiki. Even if you love both Diet Dr. Pepper AND Cherry Coke, as I do, you will not find the combination anything special. Or, at least I didn't. You just have to accept that these are drinks that are meant to be enjoyed separately, and the combination of them does not result in some sort of super drink.

Piece of advice #2: Never ever leave a kitchen cabinet open. I am sure Dad has told you this numerous times, Tiki, because he told all of his kids this numerous times when we were growing up. Do you know what happens if you leave a kitchen cabinet open? You poke your eye out and end up with a glass eye like one of his teachers! So never ever do it, Tiki! Because you will hear the anecdote about the glass eye and it will creep you out, which is unfortunate because if you are in the kitchen, it's probably because you just ate something, or you are about to, and no one needs to hear about glass eyes in those circumstances.

Piece of advice #3: Tiki, if you're ever on a talk show, make sure you wait until they cut to commercial before standing up. If you stand up before they cut to commercial, the host freaks out, even though everyone knows that you have to leave sometime in the next few minutes anyways. For some reason, talk show hosts still insist that you remain seated until they go to commercial. I think it's because they want the audience to think they are friends with their guests and also that they have good hygiene habits.

Well, that's about it. I did just call my dad, and he said that he taught himself to text during William's surgery. He only remembered it was Tiki's birthday because she is the picture on his cell phone. He was worried that her morning schedule was all thrown off because of William's surgery, but I'm sure she'll survive. Happy birthday Tiki! Hope they give both you and William a Skinny Cow tonight.

no reason to go on

2009-05-06T09:35:00.001-04:00

Awful news, everybody. The Chick-fil-a cows are gone. My beloved Chick-fil-a cows have been replaced by a garish, horrific Fanta billboard. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, let alone steal them and make them mine forever. Life is so fleeting.

Pickle Spaghetti, a poem

2009-05-03T16:02:00.000-04:00

Last night I dreamt I invented a recipe
It was called pickle spaghetti.
The ingredients were pickle relish and spaghetti.
It was pretty damn good.

When I woke up, I got on the internet
And I googled “pickle spaghetti.”
Apparently it doesn’t exist
So I guess I really did invent it.

Now that I think about it – here’s something that would be really good:
Get a tubular pasta,
Like cannelloni
Or manicotti
Or penne
Rigatoni and ziti would also work.
Stuff the pickle relish INSIDE the tubes.
Put pesto or something green on top.
Then you have spaghetti that looks like a pickle
And tastes like a pickle.
Man, that would be wild.

I wrote this in poem form
Because from what I can tell
Poetry is words and sentences that become profound
When they are broken up into many lines.
And when there are words, incongruous words
Jumbled together for no apparent reason
It is also profound.
So, for that reason, I say to you:
Pickle spaghetti.

Book #8: The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging

2009-05-03T15:59:00.001-04:00

In September of last year, I had the opportunity to attend a health journalism conference. Over dinner one night, our speaker was S. Jay Olshansky, who aroused everyone’s interest by passing around a vial of pills. The pills were offered to anyone who wanted one, and the company who made them claimed that with this pill, you could live forever. It turns out the pills were Tic-Tacs. You gotta be flashy when you’re a dinner speaker, I guess.

Olshansky went on to detail the ways that humans have tried to find immortality and prevent aging over history. He detailed a few of the key theories out there now about postponing aging, so that we live longer, but with fewer of the infirmities and frailties of old age. Then he proposed that a pill that could just that might be available on the market within our lifetimes. It was terribly exciting stuff.

Which was why I had high hopes for a book that S. Jay Olshansky co-authored with Bruce A. Carnes, entitled “The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging.” I’ve been writing about some aging-related issues at work lately, and I have an upcoming article about whether we could end aging, the central theme of Olshansky’s speech. I’ve been looking forward to reading this book, churning out a magnum opus of an article, and then sitting back and waiting for this immortality pill to appear.

Well, this book had very little of that optimism and fun that I remember from Olshansky’s speech; perhaps the wine and chocolate cake served with dinner had me too giddy for my own good. Instead, this book is kind of a Debbie Downer sort of book, that basically tells us that we’re lucky we live so long in the first place, because none of our ancestors did. And the only reason we live longer is because we figured out the issues of sanitation and malnutrition and immunization that were affecting newborn babies – by fixing the conditions for babies, the average lifespan for everyone went up. But once it did, and more people aged, then we realized that aging sucks because it includes things like dementia and convalescence and cancer. Whoopee.

Olshansky and Carnes review the work of scientists who view aging as yet another disease, something we can conquer, and they don’t turn up much in the way of a solution. The only thing we could conceivably do, based on my reading of the book, is freeze our eggs and sperm, sit around and see who lives the longest and healthiest, and then only use their eggs and sperm to continue the species. Not too appealing. Once we hit puberty, we are ticking time bombs. We need to reproduce, and once those years are over, then nature doesn’t care if we live or die.

So, to review, this is what I got from this book:
1. Why are you complaining about aging, you punk? The people alive today are the only people who have ever gotten to. WHY CAN’T YOU BE HAPPY ABOUT THAT?

2. Have a baby! It’s what you’re here for. Then go ahead and die, because you’ve served your evolutionary purpose and your baby needs the resources.

3. Okay, if you are looking into ways to live longer, better not believe anything anyone tells you because no one but S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes can read scientific data correctly, so what everyone else tells you is just a LIE to get your money.

4. Also, even if you imagine a cutting-edge world where doctors can fix things in your body that go wrong, then they will probably inadvertently make tweaks that screw up something else.

Hooray! So that’s what I have to write about in the coming week in a simplified nutshell. I guess I’m ultimately not too concerned about it. We’ll probably all evolve into robots that won’t have to worry about disease sometime soon anyways.

And if anyone wants to know, I read 230 pages to find out that regular exercise is the only thing that can truly be proven to be good for you, and that I personally, as a 27-year old, have 19,577 days of life left.

An Open Letter to Domino's

2009-04-26T22:12:00.001-04:00

Dear Domino’s Pizza,
Look, I know times have been hard lately. You had those people make videos of themselves doing unholy things to the food, and that certainly kept you in the news for awhile. I wouldn’t be surprised if sales were down. But my brothers and I decided to take a chance on you on Saturday night, when we were too exhausted to go out. My brother William, a public relations guru, applauded how you had handled the crisis, and my brother George and I figured that everyone who works at Domino’s was probably on high alert for bad apples who do unspeakable things to food. We all figured that it just might be the safest time to eat Domino’s Pizza.

First off, let me compliment you on your online ordering system, Domino’s. I appreciate immensely the fact that you’ve removed the need to ever speak to a human when ordering. Instead, all I have to do to order is dial you up online, find a coupon special that fits my needs for the evening, and plug in all my desires – I can even take advantage of a feature that lets me see what my pizza would look like if I put pepperoni on it instead of green peppers. Then I can just sit back and watch this amazing little ticker that lets me know who is making my order, whether it’s in the oven or not, and whether the driver has left yet. Even if this order monitoring system isn’t completely accurate, I still have to salute you and say that it’s quite a country when you can watch the status of your pizza order in real time.

And, as someone who dislikes speaking on the phone, I’ll say once again that I appreciate not having to explain what I want to a human being. Human beings are fallible. Human beings make mistakes. And oh, Domino’s, how your people made mistakes on Saturday evening.

Here was the situation: my brothers and I ordered a meal deal that came with two pizzas, cheesy bread and a 2-liter of Diet Coke. About 30 minutes from the time the order was placed I got a call from the delivery guy wanting to clarify which number was my apartment number, and which number was my street number. This concerned me greatly as my street number and my apartment number are thousands of numbers apart, and if he’s looking for a street address featuring my apartment number, then he’s probably miles away. Also, Domino’s is really nearby so hopefully he’d be familiar enough with the area? So I was concerned, but tried not to show it.

Ten minutes later, a knock on the door. I sign the receipt and I am handed two pizza boxes. “Um,” I say. “We had cheesy bread and a 2-liter Diet Coke as well.” Dude looks at my receipt and says, “Aww, my bad, I’ll run back to the store and get it.” Frankly I had my doubts, cause he’d already gotten and paid and tipped. I figured we’d never see him again.

And actually, we didn’t see him, not the next time a knock came at the door 10 minutes later. There was a different delivery guy, offering me a thing of cheesy bread. Now, maybe I shouldn’t have done this…I feel a little bad that I did, cause it wasn’t so terribly important, but I said, “Um, we had a two-liter of Diet Coke also?” And the guy got very confused, and he’s like, “I don’t know what you had, they just told me to bring this to you. I’ll call the store.”

So another ten minutes later, another knock. It was the original delivery guy. He said he was sorry and he asked if we had gotten the cheesy bread, and then he handed me a two-liter of Diet Coke and a 12-oz Sprite “for my troubles.” And that’s how it took us three separate visits by Domino’s to get our entire four-item order.

Now, Domino’s, as I started this letter, you’ve had troubles lately. That means that until things die down some, you should probably make sure that you don’t screw up the orders of the people who are ordering from you in this crisis. Because now I think that I shouldn’t order from you ever again, Domino’s, because now I think I’m probably on some Domino’s watch list at that store as demanding, and if I do order again, then you probably will spit in my food and do other bad things to it. Do you see how you screwed up? Do you offer me a lifetime of free pizza to make up for it? Think about it.

Fondly,
Molly

a weekend with my brothers

2009-04-26T22:10:00.001-04:00

Would you like to know what my brothers and I do when we’re not busy interviewing one another? Well then, today is your lucky day, for I shall recap the events of this weekend, which I spent with my darling brothers in recognition of the fact that we all have birthdays between April 1 and May 1.

The weekend began on Friday afternoon. I was stuck in god awful traffic on my way home from work, which left my brothers stranded outside my apartment, playing with George’s Blackberry . The original goal was to head for a brewery to taste beers for a few hours, but I was none too eager to get back in the car after my commute home, and since both the breweries had in mind stopped serving at 8 pm, it would have been a matter of drinking 6 beers in an hour to get the full experience. While there are nights when we wouldn’t shy away from such a task, we decided to take it easy and get into vacation mode. Thus, we skipped the breweries, a decision both brothers hailed as instrumental in the fact that no one got hungover or sick the next day.

Instead of heading for a brewery, we had a few beers at my apartment before making a leisurely stroll down the street for dinner. Whenever I have a brother in town, I like to go to a place called George’s, where you can get the best burgers in town. Maybe even the world. If you come visit me, I will take you to this magical place. At one point, I was eating a Barbeque Bacon and Chedder burger and musing aloud, “Why do I not put barbeque sauce on everything?” William was sweating, because William was sweating the whole time. George was documenting the whole process on his Blackberry. We ate our burgers and fries, polished off a few pitchers and then headed a few doors down to another bar.

William was pretty happy with this new bar because the waitress gave us the beers that were on draft in order of ascending price, which meant you could stop listening as soon as you heard a beer that you liked. We settled for Yuengling. I don’t mind telling you that with as much beer as we had consumed at that point, we found the following to be good ideas: calling our parents despite the late hour, singing Jenny Lewis songs loudly in our booth and taking Blackberry pictures of the urinal in the men’s bathroom (I had no part of that last one).

We made our walk home. Now, all through the night, George and I had been telling William not to let us go to this place called Frogs, because George and I have a tendency to drink too much tequila when we go to that place and we end up being dreadfully sick the next day. As we stumbled home, we started talking about Frogs and William was actually encouraging that we go!! Bad form, William. Instead, George and I managed to have some willpower and go back to the apartment. William kept everyone hydrated and we went to bed at a fairly reasonable hour, since it had been a long day and because we are all getting older now.

The next day we arose and confronted the fact that I had nothing to eat or drink in my apartment other than beer. So after showering, we headed over to a Dunkin’ Doughnuts and enjoyed a nice breakfast. Then we went to Borders because I have a tendency to make people go to bookstores with me. Then we went to a variety store to look at doodads. George really appreciated the variety of it all, and William found me a magnet with the pope on it. Good form, William. You redeemed yourself from that Frogs misjudgment the night before.

After all this wandering about shops, it was time to eat again, and it had been at least 12 hours since we had had a beer, so everyone was starting to get the shakes. We headed off to a place called Brick Store, which is known for its long beer list and its good food, meaning that my brothers and I are its target demographic. We split some Bavarian pretzels and some fish and chips, and we all enjoyed an IPA that was very very hoppy but very very enjoyable.

Then we were off to a street festival that was being held in a nearby neighborhood. Our search to find a parking spot at this festival was very long, but we all had enough fun at the festival that we deemed the frustration worthwhile. We saw some of the street parade, browsed through all the booths and drank some beer, though not necessarily in that order. I bought some apple cider doughnuts for the next day from a bakery in North Georgia to compensate for not providing breakfast earlier. As for the most important purchase, however, that was….KETTLE KORN. God help us, my brothers and I are suckers for a giant bag of Kettle Korn, and this was the freshest batch possible. It literally went from the kettle straight into our mouths. Basically. It was so good, and easily matched any meal that we had during the entire weekend in quality, and I don’t mean that statement as a knock on any of our restaurant meals.

The festival left us sweaty, so we headed back to my apartment to shower. We were also exhausted from all that walking around in 90 degree weather, so we decided to have a quiet night in. We ordered some pizza (the difficulties associated with this deserve their own post, which should be posted directly after this one) and watched “The Wrestler.” We had high hopes for this film because the three of us spent many an hour in our youth watching all sorts of wrestling and following the careers of our favorite wrestlers. After watching the film, though, I would just say “enh.” I’d rather re-watch a classic Wrestlemania, preferably the one where Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage have a retirement match and Macho Man loses (but he had turned bad, so he was supposed to!) and in his defeat reconciles with Miss Elizabeth.

Even though we’d had showers, William still sweated throughout the evening. He can’t live in Atlanta, apparently. Too hot. They don’t call it Hotlanta for nothing.

The next day, we had the apple cider doughnuts, all three of us deeming them delicious. After watching the Travel Channel for awhile and some more showering and a little bumming around the apartment, it was off to another Atlanta institution, The Varsity, where we enjoyed hot dogs in various states of chili, cheese and cole slaw coverings, as well as French fries, onion rings, and Frosted Orange drinks. Just typing out all the food we ate is making me slightly sick, but that is just how my brothers and I roll. We drink and we eat to excess. Eat, drink and be merry and whatnot.

While we ate, I asked George and William which events were so memorable as to be included in the blog, and they both said, "all of them," so that is basically what I have recounted. After the Varsity, it was time for the boys to depart and head back to North Carolina. The weekend was far too short, which I know because I still have beer left in my fridge. Though I guess my gut is grateful.

So, anyways, if you’d like to know what it’s like to be in my family, find two other people and recreate this weekend for yourselves. You get a bonus point for any instance in which someone who is with you points out that you are acting like one of your parents.

one badass bear

2009-04-22T22:12:00.003-04:00

When I first got my adorable bear, Barnabas, I was living in Seattle and I needed someone to keep an eye on the place when I wasn’t around. I wanted some security for when I was home alone at night. And Barnabas, in addition to being a wonderful companion, has kept things very safe. I haven’t been burgled once in the entire time that I’ve owned Barnabas, and I don’t think that’s just a coincidence.

Now, I envisioned that Barnabas would be able to stay at home and make my protection his full time job and life’s mission. But, no one can deny that times are tough these days, and I have asked Barnabas to get a job to cover a few household expenses. For example, I didn’t expect that my fish would live an entire year and now we’re going to have to keep buying fish food. Also, we have another mouth to feed since little Chester Bear came into our life at Christmas.

Man, if this is the first blog entry that you’re reading, you’re really confused and disturbed, huh?

So Barnabas sat down about a month ago and started thinking about what job he might like. At first he wanted to be a puppeteer, but as always, nobody’s looking for a puppeteer in today’s wintry economic climate. Then he thought he might like to be a sports coach, because he’s been really interested in things like the Final Four and the Masters lately. But he doesn’t really excel at any one sport. He is however, athletic, and when I considered that, in combination with the fact that he came along for the express purpose of personal protection, I told him that maybe he should consider being a police bear or a bodyguard or something.

Well, Barnabas did a little investigation and talking to other local bears, and I am proud to announce that little Barn is now fully trained and employed as a member of the Bear SWAT Team. Here he is with Alvin the fish before his first day of work:

Here are some fun facts about SWAT teams that I got from Wikipedia:
--SWAT stands for Special Weapons and Tactics.
--The first SWAT team was established in 1968 in Los Angeles.
--The first significant deployment of that SWAT team was a four-hour confrontation with the Black Panthers in 1969.
--The most common weapons used by SWAT units are submachine guns, assault rifles, shotguns and sniper rifles.
--SWAT duties include perimeter security against snipers for visiting dignitaries, countering terrorist operations in U.S. cities and stabilizing situations involving high-risk suicidal subjects.

Now maybe you are thinking, “Whoa! Molly! How can you handle sending your sweet little bear into such a big bad world?” And I cannot lie, it is hard for me. But from what I understand, the bear SWAT units are a little bit different, in ways that Wikipedia hasn’t quite caught up to yet. And Barnabas assures me that he is always very safe and that he feels it is his duty to go out and protect other bears, like Chester.

I did worry when he came home from his first day on the job, because the first thing he did was head for the fridge, get a beer, and sit in front of the tv. He didn’t say a word, and it was only because I pestered him that he mumbled something about a bear hostage crisis. Here he is, looking kinda rough:

So of course I’m concerned that he may become hardened by this job. However, after a beer, he was back to his old Barnabas self, and we had a good discussion about how we both hate the song “Maggie May” by Rod Stewart. Like, we both REALLY hate it. I asked him if he thought I should add black beans to the hash browns I was making for dinner, cause I’m all about adding black beans to everything these days. Barnabas voted no, that I should get my hash brown technique more finely tuned before I start experimenting with add-ins. And friends and neighbors, that bear was right. My hash browns still need work.

21 questions about ceiling fans

2009-04-21T09:28:00.002-04:00

I have interviewed my dad. I have interviewed my mom. I have interviewed my brother William. If you're seeking insight into what my immediate family is like, there's only one more source of information, and that is my brother George. I think most everyone who reads this blog is pretty familiar with George, either because you are related to him or because he's a regular presence on this blog, providing guest entries and funny comments to name but a few of his contributions. On Easter weekend, the time had come to get his side of the story. The family, including George's wife, Courtney, gathered around to watch the interview take place, a decision that both George and I would come to regret, because a certain member of our family decided to keep interrupting. Get your own blog, Dad.

The only ground rule for the interview was a request by George that none of the questions deal with ceiling fans, since George had spent approximately 27 hours that weekend trying to hang a new ceiling fan, and it still didn't work completely (the lights wouldn't come one).

Molly: George, you have a birthday coming up. What was your most memorable birthday?
George: Probably my 21st birthday.
Dad: Great, none of us were there.
George: We went to Pk’s Pizza for some barbeque chicken pizza. Then we went out and had pitchers of beer at Hokie House. I came back and opened presents from our parents, including a fifth of Captain Morgan’s, an Anthony Kiedis book, and a picture of Sigmund Freud.

Molly: What is your fondest memory of me?
George: When I came down to Atlanta when I was 16 and I stayed in your freshman dorm for the weekend. You took me a bar and we drank underage (Editor’s note: What? I have no memory of such criminal behavior). You took me to the cafeteria at Emory and you told me to get multiple drinks so I wouldn’t have to get up for refills. So I told everyone to do that in college. Then I left early to go to an Outkast concert even though our parents told me not to.

Molly: What’s the number one thing you learned from Dad?
George: When someone says, “Looking good, Billy Ray,” you say, “Feeling good, Lewis.”
(At this point, Dad gets upset that his greatest accomplishment as a father was to teach us a line from the movie “Trading Places.” “I thought I would have taught you something meaningful, like honesty,” Dad said. I reminded Dad that he actually taught George more about lying because George used to be told to pretend he was younger that he really was, in order to get reduced admission prices for attractions like amusement parks and presidential libraries)

Molly: What’s the number one thing you learned from Mom?
George: Always to say thank you.

Molly: What’s the number one thing you learned from William?
George: You gotta get g’d up from the feet up to get d’d up.

Molly: Who is your favorite historical figure and why?
George: Thomas Jefferson, because he taught me I could create my own Bible.
Dad: Plus he created a great university that you could never understand.
George: No, I’ll say Sigmund Freud. He was interesting.

Molly: If you could have a dinner party with three people, alive or dead, who would you invite?
George: I couldn’t get more than three people to come? Well, I’d want to invite one more. I’d invite all of my grandparents, so they could tell me funny stories about my parents.
Dad interjects again to say that this is a waste, because George already met his grandmothers and he should invite other people.
Molly (trying to get the interview back on track) What would you serve at this dinner party?
George: I would serve Kink soufflé. (Editor’s note: Kink soufflé is a mix of ham, cheese and bread deliciousness that we always ate at my grandmother’s when we had dinner over there.
Dad: Well my parents won’t like that, because they’re more meat and potato people.

Molly: What skill that you don’t have would you most like to learn?
George: Honesty.

Molly: George, you’ve offered me tons of job interview advice, since you do so many job interviews for your job. So I have a very stereotypical job interview question for you: What is your biggest weakness?
George: Sometimes I forget to hydrate before I go to bed after a night of drinking.
Courtney: That’s it?? What about peeing in the refrigerator? (Editor’s note: One time George got drunk and peed in the refrigerator.)

Molly: If you weren’t in your current job, what would you want to do?
George: I would own a bar or a record store or be a rock musician. My bar would be [redacted].
(Editor’s note: When George revealed the name of his bar, I suggested that maybe he shouldn’t reveal it on such a public forum as this blog, because it’s an excellent idea and I don’t want anyone stealing the concept. So I said that I would put “redacted” and then Dad and William got on my case and told me that redacted was a stupid word.)

Molly: How would you describe your alma mater, Virginia Tech, to an alien?
William: Here we go with the fucking aliens again.
George: I would say that Virginia Tech is a place you go after high school, which is after middle school, which is after elementary school, and schools are places where you learn a lot of stuff.
Molly: Well, the aliens are familiar with the concept of higher education. What they want to know is how Virginia Tech is different from other institutions.
George: It’s the best.
William: I like how you’re short with the aliens. We don’t need them to have too much information.

Molly: How were you most warped by your family?
George: I’ve inherited (deep breath) an incurable fixation to collect lots of things without throwing much away, in combination with some very weird body hair.

Molly: Describe your perfect day.
George: Hmmm, well it could have been today (Editor’s note: that day, George had gone to breakfast with dad and dad’s friends, then gone to the flea market, then to Chick-fil, then ran some errands, then dinner with the family). On my perfect day, I would get up pretty early but fully rested. Take a shower. Have breakfast and read the paper. Coffee. Probably go to a CD store, then have lunch at Chick-fil-a with the family. A little DG (editor’s note: Disc Golf) with my brother, where I’d hit another hole-in-one. Key word there is ANOTHER because I’ve already hit one. Then a nice little dinner...meat, potatoes, a cigar. Then going out. Just getting g’d up from the feet up to get d’d up. Then I’d go to sleep well-hydrated.

(Editor’s note: Then things took a horribly disturbing turn when my dad pointed out that George hadn’t had sex on his perfect day. Then my youngest brother and my father had a conversation about sex that remains fairly traumatizing to me, while I try to point out that sex is not really something I discuss on the blog and that I don’t really need that level of detail on the perfect day scenario. Just even thinking about that moment again has me in a weird mood.)

Molly: Um, to get this interview back on track, George, if you could go back in time for one week, what period of history would you go to and why?
Dad (interrupting): Uncle Bill and I would go back to the week of Jesus’ crucifixion, so we could see how it all went down. (Then Dad and I have a discussion on the nature of faith, and whether that’s something you need to see to believe it happened)
George: I would go back in time one week and have this interview at a time where Dad wasn’t around, so he couldn’t keep interrupting.

Molly: What is something that would surprise everyone in this room, including Courtney?
George: (thinks for a long time) Hard to say. I’m pretty much an open book.
Molly: Okay, what about an interesting fact for my blog readers?
George: Uh, I can’t think of anything.
Molly: Well, since you have no secrets, how about you just give some advice to my blog readers.
George: I would say leave comments on the blog posts.
Molly: Why do you think comments are so important?
George: I don’t know, I think it provides affirmation of what you like and what you don’t like.
Molly: But what if the blog writer tries not to care about what gets comments and what doesn’t?
George: The readers should know that comments are sometimes better than the blog itself (I made a face at that part). And the blog writer should learn not to be so selfish and demanding and controlling.

Molly: If you could be a character in any movie or television show, who would you be?
George: Jerry Seinfeld. He had a big New York City apartment and always had a lot of girls, he was just a real funny guy.
William: But his neighbors were always causing shenanigans.
George: Well, he just lived his life.
Dad: Something was always wrong with those girls. He was never happy with them.

Molly: Where in the world would you most like to live?
George: New England – Portland, Maine. It would just be fun.

Molly: Alright, so since this was alluded to earlier in the evening, I’d like to ask you to describe me as a driver.
George: Molly as a driver is a complex thing. Molly has two speeds: breaking really fast or speeding full throttle. And don’t touch the radio. There are very quick movements, so I can’t drive with Molly when I’m hungover. There are very quick turns at 90 degree angles. Kinda scary. It’s like being in a Third World country driving with a taxi cab, but with no smells, but with her music. You’re at her mercy. I’ve been in a few accidents with Molly, though none were ever her fault. Even though one of them was just backing up into a wall. (Editor’s note: At this point my hand was very tired and sore so I stopped writing things down. I think I got it all. Pretty sure.)

Molly: What do you remember most about your childhood?
George: Playing outside, wrestling, not being able to talk, riding my bike. Not in that order.
(Editor’s note: Then Dad reminded everyone about how George used to love nails. He would take scrap wood and nail it all together. Dad got a lot of flat tires that year)

Molly: Okay, if you woke up and there was $1000 from the tooth fairy at the bottom of your bed, and you only had one day to spend it, what would you do?
George: Well, first I would secure it so that Bailey doesn’t eat it (editor’s note: Bailey is one of George and Courtney’s dogs). I’d give some to Dad because I have some outstanding loans. Then I’d go to the mall and shop. Get some CD’s, some books, some clothes….might buy Courtney something. I’d buy her a green cardigan or a green sweater or a green shirt, because green is her color of the year. Green ring, green necklace, green hair dye. Then, I’d take everyone out to dinner somewhere nice, like Frankie Bones.
William: I’d give it to charity.

Molly: Final question: What do you think the world will be like in 2050?
George: Well, Dad will be 100 years old, so I’ll probably be driving him to Chick-fil-a on Saturdays, or he’ll be the old man who works there who gives out the mints. No, wait. There will be a Chick-fil-a in Candler. There will be green environmental hybrid cars, but I hope in 50 years I don’t have to drive to South Asheville for a Chick-fil-a sandwich. Is that too much to expect?? Barack Obama will be…[Dad interrupted at that point to say that Barack Obama will be in jail for crimes against the country]…Barack Obama will have been pardoned by then. Hopefully I will have a laser gun so I could steal the Highway 311 signs that are located in Winston-Salem. I won’t have to put ceiling fans up anymore.

Also, Hokies will win all championships, and Appalachian will be Division I. Beer will come out of the tap. Fridges will have sensors so that if urinals pop out if someone tries to pee. There will be a Jimmy John’s in Asheville. There will be no more hangovers – we’ll have cured that by then. I Wiggle It Just A Little Bit will be in its 43rd year. There will probably be some little George II’s running around, hammering stuff and trying to talk. Well, maybe we’ll have fixed the talking thing by then, too. It’s gonna be pretty fun. Also, there will be grown-up sized Big Wheels.

happy birthday to the best fish I know

2009-04-20T09:21:00.001-04:00

Today is a big day in my apartment. Today is my fish Alvin’s birthday!!! Well, technically it is merely the anniversary of the date he came to live with me, but that is far more depressing and time-consuming to say and surely he wasn’t swimming around in that little cup in the pet store for too terribly long before I came to rescue him and put him into a slightly larger home. You can read the story of his arrival here: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/04/something-fishy-is-going-on.html

In honor of Alvin’s birthday, I decided to see what was happening on this date in history. And it is not good at all. It’s the anniversary of Columbine. It’s Hitler’s birthday. If I had gotten him a day earlier, he could have shared an anniversary with Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI and with Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, as both couples were married on April 19. Plus he could have shared an anniversary with Pope Benedict XVI, who was elected pope that day. Or, if I had gotten him on April 21, he could have at least shared a birthday with Queen Elizabeth II. But noooooooooo. I had to give him Hitler and Columbine. I am such a bad fish owner.

Overall, though, Alvin and I have had a pretty good year together. I think it was a good year for me because I didn’t kill him, and also because I stopped having elaborate fantasies that I would come home from work to find him dead. I’m glad those ended because they were really messing with my head. And I think Alvin would say it was a good year for him because he doesn’t live in a little cup at the fish store anymore, and he could have gone home with some crazy person who might have had cats that would have eaten him by now.

That’s not to say it’s all been roses. As I have mentioned before on my blog, Alvin is a pretty emotionally needy fish, and he gets very upset when I leave for work or vacation, particularly the latter, because it means I leave a feeding pellet in his bowl that leaves the water cloudy and smelly. And that means I’ll have to change the water when I return, and Alvin does not like that one bit because he becomes convinced that I am trying to kill him, even though I speak sweetly and reassuringly to him the entire time I clean his bowl.

Still, we have come to an agreement. I will give him two pellets a day and in return, he won’t die and traumatize me. I can put up with his attitude if he can put up with the fact that he has to live in a tiny bowl with a fake frog. To celebrate his birthday, I am going to make taco salad and we will watch Dancing with the Stars, because most of the costumes resemble the fringe and flash that Alvin himself has. Happy birthday, Alvin!

everything's better on a big screen

2009-04-19T19:48:00.001-04:00

Here are two things that are probably only interesting to me:

1. Last night I had a dream that I was supposed to give a speech and I had lost my notes. I don’t know what I was supposed to talk about. Before I went on, someone told me just to speak from my heart, so I got up to the podium and said, “It is a stain upon our entire society that we haven’t found more uses for Cadbury eggs.” Whatever that means. Then, in the same dream, I found out that my stuffed bear Barnabas could lay Cadbury eggs and I was scared he would get stolen. This dream may or may not have been brought to you by some Cadbury eggs I consumed last night.

2. This morning, I sat down on the toilet (hopefully that is not too graphic an image for you) and at the very same time, there was this clattering in the kitchen. I felt pretty bad about myself. Did I weigh so much that by sitting on a toilet I could cause the kitchen to settle? No, as it turns out. It was just the toaster waffles being released with a giant whoosh from the toaster. There were two upsides to discovering this: 1, I was not in fact heavy enough to cause things to clatter, and 2, I had some toaster waffles waiting for me.

Now, on to more pleasant things. Today I had one of my best cinematic experiences, ever. And it probably won’t be topped, so I should just stop going to the movies. Today I went with my friend Katie to the Fabulous Fox Theatre to see my favorite film of all time, Gone With the Wind, on the big screen.

First off, it’s cool enough to do something at the Fox. It is a very neat place. But to see Gone with the Wind there, in recognition of GWTW’s 70th anniversary? Well, that is something else entirely. It was insane to see the movie that large. I kept seeing things that I don’t notice when the movie is on my television. I also noticed that some things were funnier with an audience than when you watch them by yourself. Never have I really laughed out loud at Gone with the Wind, because, you know, an awful lot of bad things happen. But when people started laughing in certain parts, I was like, hmm, this movie can be pretty funny in places. And that just means that this movie has it all….romance, drama, history and COMEDY.

However, the weird thing about seeing this movie with 4800 people was the compulsion that some people had to clap at certain parts. Like when the movie started, people started clapping when the title went across the screen. Okay, I thought, they’re excited and bursting with pent-up emotion and I can deal with this. But then, they kept clapping through all the introductory credits, to the point that I wanted to turn around and be like, you know these people aren’t here, right? The only person still alive from the movie is Olivia de Havilland, who is in her 90s and lives in Paris. Speaking of which, here is one of the most awesome things of the day---Robert Osborne of Turner Classic Movies was there to introduce the film, and he said that this morning he called up Olivia in Paris to let her know that there were two sold-out screenings of the film in Atlanta. And she said, “Oh, I know all about that. I have my spies.” And then Robert Osborne said that Olivia de Havilland sent us all her regards.

When I recovered from the fact that Olivia de Havilland had sent me regards, I had two thoughts. 1--How do I get to be one of Olivia de Havilland’s spies? And 2—How can I get a job that just allows me to introduce movies and call up Olivia de Havilland? I need that job.

There’s not much else I can say about the movie that I haven’t said a million times before, except to reiterate how cool it was to see it on a big screen. Even though people kept clapping at random parts all through the movie, even clapping at weird parts that I still haven’t quite made sense of. Maybe these people were Olivia de Havilland’s spies. Hmmm.

Book #7: The Complete Maus

2009-04-16T22:46:00.000-04:00

"Maus," by Art Spiegelman, is a book I never would have read if it didn’t keep popping up lists of books that I should know about and consume. Best of the best types of lists, and it makes me uneasy when there are books on best-of lists that I haven’t read. So I sat down with “The Complete Maus,” in which Spiegelman tries to make sense of his father’s life story. He has to make sense of the horrific life his father lived before he was even born, as a Jew forced into concentration camps during the Holocaust. And he has to make sense of the man that his father has become, a cranky, miserly, demanding old man, a man so miserable that his wife, Spiegelman’s mother, committed suicide.

Well, if you’re going to conquer a story like that, you might as well use a graphic novel format and draw your main characters as animals. In this book, Jews are drawn as mice, and the Germans are drawn as cats. There are all sorts of deep things going on with this – the Germans called the Jews “vermin” and using animals shows how dehumanizing the whole period of time was. And the format makes this story on the one hand palatable, since it’s very easy to keep reading a comic book than to consume massive amounts of text when you’re trying to understand the awful things happening…but even in comic book form, the horrible things that happen to a mouse are enough to make you stop, pause and remember this happened to humans. I feel like I’m not being very insightful or original about this because I’m tired, but suffice it to say that you know, I can see how it won the Pulitzer Prize and is considered so influential and whatnot. But then, I haven’t read a ton of graphic novels, so maybe it’s easy for me to buy into the hype.

I also just liked the story on a writerly level; Spiegelman inserts himself into the story as a guy trying to drag this story out of his grumpy dad. I know he was doing that so he could write a book that could be published, but I read it more just as a diary, as a way for this guy to write down the story so it could always be there, unlike his mother’s journals, which his father burned. It may not be a perfect record of what happened to his family in the past, but it’s all he has, and at the end of the day, all kids have is what their parents told them, whether it was true or not. Or whether it was as historic as this or not. It was what it was. As Spiegelman the character tells a reporter in the book, “I never thought of reducing it to a message.” So maybe I should stop trying to find one, and go to bed.

i know that i was your favorite

2009-04-15T22:44:00.005-04:00

Every year, Oprah Winfrey says a few things are her favorite things, and all those things become enormously popular. But, let's say you can't buy a Kindle or a ton of electronics and you don't like Oprah's taste anyway. Well, maybe this post will appeal to you, because it features some of my current favorite things. I'm not giving any of them away, like Oprah, but I am giving you my knowledge about these tremendous products, and I think that should be enough. However, should any of the makers of these fine products want to contact me, I think that would be good.

First off, do you ever wear slip-on shoes, the kind that don't allow you to wear socks without looking unfashionable? But you don't want your shoes to get all smelly, the way they sometimes do when you go around wearing shoes with no socks? Then you will absolutely love the first product I am about to recommend. These are little shoe liners made by the fine folks at Wal-Mart. Egads! you may be thinking if you are a raging liberal. How tacky to recommend something made by Wal-Mart. And yet, I tell you, these are the best sock liners I have found. They stay in place, and they are not made out of the same material that pantyhose is made out of. I really really hate pantyhose, and I don't want sock liners made out of it. And anyways, this my favorite things list. If you don't want to buy from Wal-Mart, then make your own favorite things list.

Here are my feet. Sorry for the veins. On the left, you can see a sock liner, but on the right, you see how it's completely invisible once I slip my foot into the shoe. MAGIC. Sweet, non-odorous magic.

And here is another view of my sock-lined foot. I find myself doing laundry just to have clean foot liners.

Now, my next thing has to do with my recent adventures in the kitchen. Suddenly, I have a lot more dishes, and I find that my dishwasher can't cut it when there is actually real food on the plates to be scraped off. So now I have to do the dreaded pre-wash of dishes. For this task, I recommend Ultra Palmolive Oxy plus Odor Eliminator, because it really does eliminate odors!

And let's not forget that it's hot pink! Which, I will admit, is the whole reason that I picked this product over all others available to me in the detergent aisle. I mean, look how well it goes with my decor:

I know, it's like that detergent was made for my kitchen! If your kitchen also has lots of bright colors, then I think you should get this product.

Now, a product that you should get, no matter the color of your kitchen, is Delallo Dipping Spices. Here is how this works. It's a cannister filled with four delicious spice combinations. On this side, you are getting a peek of "Rosemary and Garlic" and "Roasted Garlic and Cheese."

And on this side, you see "Sundried Tomato and Basil" and "Garlic and Tomato":

So you select a spice combo that suits your fancy, and you put it in a bowl. Then you put olive oil on top, and get out some bread that you bought at a nearby store. Then you pretend that you are in a nice restaurant where they bring you bread and oil with spices, except you are really in your apartment watching Letterman. That's essentially how this product works, and I have to tell you, I think it's genius. All the flavor combinations are absolutely delicious, though it looks like I've consumed the most of the Sundried Tomato and Basil section, so perhaps that is my favorite. Now, I'm not saying that it's a good thing for my waistline and overall health that I come home in the evenings craving olive oil and bread, but for now, I'm going with it.

And now, in a very un-Oprah like move, I'd like to tell you my three least favorite things right now:

--people who don't use blinkers when they're switching lanes, as well as people who leave their blinkers on despite the fact that they have no plans to change lanes.

--people who spit on sidewalks where people have to walk, leaving giant gobs of spit in their wake

--tornadoes and rain storms that create massive traffic and power problems, in combination with local media that doesn't mention these problems, so that you get horrible surprise detours on your commute home.

I meen bizness

2009-04-14T22:43:00.001-04:00

I went back to Candler for Easter, and as usual, the family made their Saturday pilgrimage to the South Asheville Chick-fil-a for Saturday lunch. We were sitting there, finishing up a delightful array of chicken products and waffle fries when my dad said, “I don’t get that advertisement hanging from the wall.” (or something like that; since he is very detail-oriented I don’t want to get sued if he didn’t say those exact words)

What was hanging from the wall was one of the infamous Chick-fil-a cows with a banner that said “Eat Chicken Q1 through Q4,” except with the zany misspelled words that are the unfortunate trademark of the Chick-fil-a cow. We told Dad it had to do with corporate lingo—Q standing for “quarter”, which is a unit of time of three months. Here, I’ll use it in a sentence: “You better do better in Q2 or you won’t be here in Q3, or in other words, if I don’t see improvement between April and June over your performance between January and March then by July you may not be here. But probably more like August because it takes people half of the next quarter to figure out what went on in the previous quarter.” Oops, that was two sentences.

Anyways, everybody agreed that if the cows are speaking in corporate lingo now, then they really should be spelling correctly. I know that I harp on this and harp on this to the point of obsession, but I just can’t tell you how much it bothers me. These cows have gone out and found business clothes, learned corporate lingo that even my dad doesn’t know, and yet they still can’t use spell check? That’s just not endearing, Chick-fil-a. At this point they stop being darling animals begging us not to eat them in their own befuddled way as much as they become lazy animals that just don’t try hard enough. And do you know what we do with people in this world who don’t try hard enough?? WE EAT THEM.

Here I am with a Chick-fil-a cow. This clearly illustrates how far these cows are taking their campaign…to business offices. I just don’t think anyone would love these advertising darlings any less if some of them were sophisticated beings who spelled correctly and maybe even had fancy handwriting. IF A COW CAN TIE A TIE, IT SHOULD KNOW HOW TO SPELL.
In good news, though, I had no desire to steal this cow the way I want to steal some Chick-fil-a cows I could mention. I think it’s the 2-D vs. 3-D thing. This is just a cardboard cow. I want a cow that takes up some space in a room. Plus, this cow is already dressed, and I would TOTALLY want to make the Chick-fil-a cows cute costumes after I go to the trouble of stealing them.

Book #6: A Thousand Days in Venice

2009-04-08T22:37:00.000-04:00

Here’s the thing I feel compelled to tell you: I love Italy, and I love books about people falling in love with Italy, but there is no way that I would ever buy this book in a bookstore for full price. I bought “A Thousand Days in Venice” by Marlene de Blasi at the Seattle Public Library sale a few years ago. It was during one of those shopping trips where you’re drunk with the bargains all around you and don’t feel bad getting a few throwaway books because they’re only 50 cents, after all.

And yet I ended up reading this book before even getting around to some of my more desired purchases. Why? Well, for one, it is very short and I couldn’t make a real commitment to a book at the time that I needed something to read. Also, Italy has been in the news for the past few days, unfortunately, which has me thinking about it a lot. And despite the fact that I wouldn’t want to be spotted reading this book on public transportation, there’s hardly a time when I’m going to turn down a tale of someone falling in love both with a person and with a country, particularly when that country is Italy.

So here’s the deal. Marlene de Blasi hangs out with this dude a few times in Venice, and then he comes to St. Louis for a few days, and based on this she’s ready to uproot her entire life and move to Venice. I don’t find this part implausible, because who wouldn’t move to Venice? She claims she’s in love but the man in question has all the personality of a lazy grasshopper the way de Blasi depicts him. She saves all her adjectives and praise for Venice, which again, is perfectly understandable, but unfortunately, she has far too many words. This book is short, and doesn’t say much, and despite that is still too wordy. Things are described as being fig-like an awful lot, as I recall. And she has a lot of ongoing metaphors to clue us in to the fact that she is going through something magical and life-changing here. Sometimes this can be charming, particularly if you just let yourself get swept away in the Italian-ness of it all, but when you remember that this is purporting to be someone’s memoir of their own true life, well, then it gets to be a bit much. Although I did enjoy learning how difficult it is to have a wedding in Italy. I’m gonna file away that info for later use, since I plant to marry an Italian count.

In conclusion, here are the things I learned from this book:
1. Venice is nice.
2. Marlene de Blasi is a very good cook!
3. Her husband is pretty bland and frankly seems like not that good of a catch.
4. Venetians are nice and giving when you get to know them.
5. We are always changing, even when we are standing still, and to help deal with this fact you should go look at the water in Venice or perhaps cook a gigantic meal, particularly if you are a very good cook like Marlene de Blasi!

Book #5: I Love You, Beth Cooper

2009-04-08T22:36:00.000-04:00

I think it’s only natural that when someone ages a year, but doesn’t really want to, as happened to me recently, there’s a tendency to want to regress a little bit. Witness, if you will, the fact that there’s a movie coming out where Matthew Perry wakes up to find himself Zac Efron. But perhaps since regressing to the age of 5 wouldn’t be very interesting to many filmgoers (though it’s an age I would love to regress to, so I could get some coloring done), movies and tv and books only tend to present high school regression back to us. After all, it’s a time of life fraught with drama that’s grown up enough to appeal to our older selves and a time with just enough freedom to have fun without the tangle of responsibility. It’s also an easy stage of life to see the coolness of a person, to know that they will turn out alright if they keep on being themselves, despite the fact that all the high school Neanderthals make their lives miserable.

Anyways, I’ve noticed this theme of high school a lot because I guess I’m subconsciously embracing it – just a few days ago my Netflix brought me the high school flick “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and now it’s bringing me the discs of “Freaks and Geeks” one by one. And perhaps that’s why I stopped at the library one recent afternoon with a single thought: I must read the book “I Love You, Beth Cooper” by Larry Doyle right this minute or I will explode.

Now, I probably did want to read this book in part because my Entertainment Weekly alerted me to the fact that it’s being made into a movie, and you know how I am about books being turned into movies: I must consume them. But perhaps I also just longed for a good ol’ high school romp of a book that featured back-of-the-jacket blurbs by Tom Perrotta and Dave Barry.

It makes sense that this book is being made into a movie, because it reads like a movie or tv show at times, and according to some quick internet research, the author did put in some writing time at “The Simpsons.” Here’s the general plot: A geek announces his love for the super-cool Beth Cooper during his graduation speech, and then deals with the fall-out from that announcement over the next 12 hours or so. It all takes place on that one fateful graduation night, and it might be giving too much away to detail all the things that happen to our hero, but suffice it to say that at one point he gets beaten up by a skeleton and covered in blue and orange hummus. There were a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments, though, like most teen movies, it was also a touch overlong.

So, if you’re depressed at how old you are, or just looking for a quick mindless read, then you might enjoy “I Love You, Beth Cooper.” Like all good high school films, shows and books, it makes you grateful that at least you’re not still in high school.

mooooooooving on up

2009-04-06T20:58:00.002-04:00

Alright, so I had another blog lapse. I trace this recent lapse to 4 distinct causes.

Cause #1: I turned one year older, which was fairly traumatic for me, as many people who were around me at the time can attest. I mean, I don’t want to get too specific about it, but I went from MID-twenties to LATE-twenties and I was none-too-happy about it. Luckily, with the help of some beer and some Funfetti cupcakes made by my kind friend and editor Katie, I am much more at peace with my new age.

Cause #2: I was pretty busy. First up there was my birthday party. Then I went to see Neko Case in concert (it was incredibly awesome). Then I threw a party for my coworkers, which involved making both dip and punch. I was pretty busy all last week, and then came the weekend and cause #3.

Cause #3: I got pretty sick. Well, not sick, because it wasn’t a virus or a bug that felled me but instead my sinuses. It has felt like an elephant was sitting on my head, which made it to even get out of bed, let alone blog. Maybe I am getting weak and infirm and frail in my old age.

But the real reason for the gap in blogging is Cause #4.

Cause #4: The Chick-fil-a cows have spoken again.

Now, you know all about me and the Chick-fil-a cows. How I love them. How I want to steal them. Better yet, how I want to just open my door one day and see them there. I would sit them down with a dictionary and I would teach them how to spell, letter by letter, with the patience that Annie Sullivan showed to young Helen Keller.

Now, in all the time that I have known them, the Chick-fil-a cows have been guarding a sign that says “After Counting Sheep, Count Some Chicken,” except, you know, horribly misspelled. Then on Tuesday, without warning, there was a whole new message! Take a look at this:
I am of two minds on this billboard. On the one hand, I am kind of thrilled that these cows are going to give me different messages each week or so. It makes them more mythical and magical, and that’s why blogging last week was delayed….I have just been sitting under the billboard, hoping to catch those cows in the act of painting something new much the way that children try to glimpse Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

But I also have some consternation about this billboard. As you know, it drives me up the wall that these cows can’t spell. But now I am supposed to believe that these cows know so much of the world that they know what text messages look like? And they know about emoticons and text message abbreviations they can do? And they know how to modify their sloppy painting style so that it looks like electronic print? They know all this and they still don’t know how to spell? I can’t reconcile these facts, and that’s also why blogging has been delayed over the past week. I have just been thinking and thinking about the situation.

Though I’m confused, I’m more intrigued than ever about these cows. I think I am officially reviving my plan to steal the cows, so I can study them further. However, I would be willing to suspend these plans if someone from Chick-fil-a headquarters were to offer me 3 value meals a week for the rest of my natural-born life. I’m just throwing that out there as a starting point. Let’s talk, Chick-fil-a. You can communicate with me via the comments on this blog, or have the cows paint a message to me on my billboard. You know the one.

my food network application

2009-03-31T22:42:00.002-04:00

It is time to recount my third experiment in the kitchen. I have been trying to decide how to recount this latest adventure, because I can hardly believe it even happened. I look at the pictures that I’m about to post, and I still can’t believe it. I’ve been eating leftovers for a few days, and I still can’t believe it. Good thing I have a blog, because if there weren’t a place to document this, I might not believe it happened in like a month or two.

On my last cooking blog, there was a comment from my cousin Mary. You may remember Mary as the cousin who showed me the wonder of hot air popcorn poppers at the cousin reunion, thus illustrating yet again that when she says something about food items, you should listen; I first had this hunch about her knack for food when I went to visit her family in Charlotte when I was little, and she made me an ice cream sandwich with fresh baked cookies. It was a culinary delight unlike any I had known in my young life. In her comment, Mary gave me some words of encouragement and said she’d try to send some recipes for me to try.

While that was an extremely heartening comment, nothing could have prepared me for the wealth of information that was sent me to via email just a few days later. I got an email that included three recipes: pork tenderloin, shepherd’s pie and creamy cheesy chicken. I’m still pondering how to do this, but I’m hoping to give these dishes some fancy names, like Elvis Porkley’s Love Me Tenderloin. Although they will probably just have Mary’s name somewhere in there; just as I grew up with a dish called Anna Cay’s Potatoes in honor of the aunt who gave my mom the recipe, my children will likely grow up with something called Mary’s Pork Tenderloin or Cousin Creamy Cheesy Chicken. Anyways, like I said, I’m still working on that part.

All of the recipes looked doable, which is saying something as I have expressed before my extreme apprehension about cooking meat. I decided to try the pork tenderloin first, because Mary used the word “foolproof” in describing it, and that was a word that appealed to me immensely. And so, after having committed the recipe to heart (it is only a paragraph long, but I can recite it for you), I headed off to a new corner of the grocery store: the meat section.

Finding the meat was kind of like a scavenger hunt, because never ever have I bought a big ol’ hunk of it before. I was to find not pork loin, but pork tenderloin, a small one. Well, just like when you can’t find a fork for all the spoons, all I could see were pork loins, but thanks to the very specific instructions I had memorized, I knew that was not for me, and I persevered, finding a tenderloin that weighed in at 2.25 pounds. Do I know how much I weighed when I was born? No. But I think I shall always know how much that pork tenderloin weighed.

Then it was time for another scavenger hunt in the spice aisle, cause I needed garlic pepper. And garlic is a word that shows up on a lot of different things in the spice aisle, but yet again I persevered. Those were the only two ingredients I needed for this recipe! Then I got some bread and some beans for a side dish, but I can go ahead and tell you now; the side dish will not prove very important to this story.

At home, I preheated the oven to 500 degrees. Another reason this recipe intrigued me was because it called upon the full power of the oven, and I wanted to see what that bad boy taking up so much room in my kitchen could do. I rubbed garlic pepper all over the pork tenderloin and then cooked it for an amount of time that is an ancient family secret. It has to do with the weight of the pork tenderloin, but I can tell you no more.

While the pork tenderloin was cooking and my apartment was filled with delightful smells, I managed to make a side dish, which was green beans and tomatoes, a recipe described on the internet as Fagiolini di Sant’Anna, or Saint Anna’s Beans. I have wanted to try side dishes, since so far I have made things that are like self-contained meals that don’t require side dishes. This one was okay. As you will see below, it added some beautiful color to the plate. However, next time I make this dish, I will just make the meat and I will only eat that until my stomach explodes.

When the meat came out of the oven, I got to use my utensil that is like a big fork. Uh, I just googled and I think it is called a carving fork. But I used a regular knife. I carved that meat into medallions and I placed it on a plate that also contained the green beans, two slices of fancy cheese and some bread. I got out my fancy Biltmore Estate wine and poured a glass. And then I looked around to see if there were any magazine photographers because man oh man I have never been so pleased with myself in my life. Here is my creation:

And here is another close-up of the food, because a vision like this deserves another image.

Now, I think I would have been okay if it just looked nice. But that meat melted in my mouth like butter, and I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Like I said, next time, I’m just making the meat. It is also very good as leftovers, and today I had a pork tenderloin sandwich, with Italian bread, cheese and Dijon mustard. It was so good that it made me think I could open a deli, and the deli would only be known for pork tenderloin sandwiches, to the point that if someone orders something else, everyone else rolls their eyes and there’s an old woman in the back making pork tenderloins all day while I supervise. I’m not sure who the old woman is yet, but she’s in my daydream about this. It would be good if she spoke only Italian and wore black and was hunched over. I must have seen this woman in a movie about a deli.

But I digress. The point of this entry is to celebrate the fact that I cooked meat and to celebrate my cousin Mary who gave me this incredible recipe. Thank you very much Mary. You are the official chef of this blog until I think of a better title. The rest of you, should you feel compelled to send me “fool-proof” recipes, I regret to inform you that you have a lot to live up to.

railroad lady

2009-03-30T23:33:00.001-04:00

Writing about the Margaret Mitchell House yesterday reminded me that I went to another historical house a few weeks ago. I haven’t written about it because instead of inspiring me to write, as the Margaret Mitchell House did, that house inspired me to sit around and wait for a gigantic railroad inheritance. Three weeks later, and that hasn’t happened. I am speaking of the Biltmore Estate, which is the largest privately owned home in maybe the universe? And was built by George Vanderbilt with his piles and piles of railroad money.

Despite its status as Asheville NC’s premiere attraction, I had only been to the Biltmore Estate twice before. Once, when I was a baby – that night, our house caught on fire and we couldn’t have Christmas there the next morning. And once on a school trip roundabouts the fifth grade. When you tell people from around the country that you’re from Asheville, they tend to ask about the Biltmore Estate, and you have to tell them that Biltmore is just too expensive for the peons that actually live its shadow to make a habit of visiting. The railroad fortune didn't trickle down to us.

Now, the long-ago night that our house caught on fire, we were all saved because my mom was pregnant with my brother George, and she had to get up in the middle of the night to pee and she smelled the smoke. Now, 25 years later, George came to the rescue again by his status as a Biltmore Estate passholder. I guess he has mad connectionz now and he was able to get my parents and me some free passes to tour the house, complete with audio guide. So off the four of us went to tour this grand estate. (Though this may get me in trouble later, I do want to note that my other brother, William, was invited to come on this outing with us. However, William fell under the sway of some lady at the piano bar the night before and didn’t make it home in time to go. I guess he has some crazy connections of his own.)

Now, the thing that might drive you crazy during a Biltmore Estate tour was that this was only the “country home.” It was not the main residence, despite the fact that it had 250 rooms outfitted with tip-top of available luxury. It was not the most encouraging tour to take during this economy, but I did gain a wealth of fun facts! (pun intended!)

One of the most interesting things that I learned from the sweet soothing voice on my audio guide player was where the name “Biltmore” came from. Living in Western North Carolina, I took that name for granted and just assumed that it was a common name that was proper for shopping malls and hotels. However, it comes from combining “Bildt,” an area in Holland from which the Vanderbilts originated, and “more” meaning rolling hills. One fact I did not learn was how much the house actually cost, and that is because that’s a secret that George Vanderbilt took with him to his premature grave.

Premature grave: good name for a band or a short story? Or too morbid? I’m torn.

Anyways, this house is gigantic and I’m getting pretty tired just thinking back on my adventure through it. The highlights for me were the banquet hall, because it just had the most amazing walls, an organ and a triple fireplace. Most of the basement, which includes a swimming pool, a bowling alley, and all the kitchen-related rooms, is pretty awesome. And of course I loved the library, which had more than 10,000 books, a secret passageway, a fireplace and a massive painting on the ceiling. The furniture may not have looked immensely comfortable, but maybe by sitting straight up, George Vanderbilt got more reading done. The audio guide man estimated that G.V. read two books a week, which made me feel supremely inferior as a reader in addition to the feelings of inferiority that were already raging within me at not being a railroad heiress.

Anyways, after going through a ton of beautiful bedrooms and sitting rooms, trying to decide which one I’d want to stay in, it was off to the gift shop, where we spent a fair amount of time around the free dips and snacks you can try. Once we had a little something in our stomach, we went to the winery. It was a rainy day in the off-season, and George said the winery was the least crowded that he’d ever seen. Plus, he said we got to sample more wines than usual. I hope he was not saying those things just to make me feel better about not having inherited enough money to build myself a castle complete with its own village yet. My favorite wine was the Cabernet Sauvignon Blanc du Noir, described in my tasting brochure this way: “Semi-sweet raspberry and citrus flavors with hints of melon round out this wine’s laid-back approach.” In addition to being extremely delicious, the man pouring wines mentioned it paired well with barbeque, and whenever I hear the word “barbeque” my ears tend to perk up and pay attention. So I got a bottle of that, in the hopes that that Vanderbilt magic would rub off and suddenly I would have some mansions and whatnot.

One final note about George (my brother, not the Vanderbilt)….in addition to saving our lives in that fire years ago and snagging us free passes to the Biltmore Estate, he’s also become quite the Biltmore tour guide, as he’s been on so many special passholder tours now that he’s chockfull of fun facts, much in the same way that Raisin Bran is full of raisins. I am really not doing all the things that I learned from him during the tour justice in this blog because I am tired. So if you have any questions about the house, you should direct them to him, or hire him to take you around the house, because all I will do is whine about how I have no railroad inheritance.

speak to me, lion

2009-03-29T23:17:00.002-04:00

If you’re a careful reader of the blog, you might have noticed that despite my Lenten resolution to blog once a day, I – how you say? – lack the motivation to do so on some weekends. I just skip it. And I can’t say I’m proud of all the weekday entries either. We can’t crap gold all the time, I guess.

This weekend, though, I got some much-needed writing inspiration. Along with my editor and friend Katie (a faithful blog reader), I headed over to the Margaret Mitchell House, because there was a deal to get in free if you said “Southern Literary Trail.” I had been to the Margaret Mitchell House once before, with my parents, but that was before I even went to college in Atlanta, so I was ready to revisit the place in which one of my favorite books, the basis for one of my absolute favorite movies, was written.

If you want to re-live the tour I took, then you can click here: http://gwtw.org/tour.html. But here were my impressions:
You enter the home on Peachtree Street level, and you go into a room with lots of photographs. A tour guide explains who all the people are, how Margaret Mitchell knew them, and how they formed the basis for characters in “Gone With the Wind.” For example, on one side of Margaret Mitchell’s family, there really was a lady named Melanie who fell in love with her first cousin. But instead of marrying the man, she became a nun, and instead of being a pansy ass, the man went west and became Doc Holliday, a far superior outcome than that that awaited Ashley Wilkes. You see a few pictures of how the house and Atlanta used to be at the time; Katie was quite taken with the pharmacy for some reason. I guess she takes a lot of drugs.

Then you go downstairs, to the apartment where Margaret Mitchell lived with her husband John Marsh. There were 10 apartments in the home at the time, and Margaret Mitchell would have entered below the street level we came in on. The tour guide pointed out that while the furnishings we would see would not be originals, the floor we were standing on was. STANDING ON THE SAME FLOOR AS MARGARET MITCHELL DID!!! At first that was really exciting to me, and I was trying to breathe deep and get a hole of that southern writing magic. But then I remembered how many people had stood on the floor in the meantime and the feeling was a little diminished.

The tour guide said that Margaret Mitchell was very superstitious, and as she came into the tiled hallway that we were standing on right that very minute, she would rub the nose of the lion’s head that formed the bottom of the stairway, so that she would have productive writing sessions. The tour guide said we should do it, too, even though it was a reproduction. So I did, because I was trying to capture the spirit of Margaret Mitchell, and also because my editor was watching and if, God forbid, I have any trouble finishing my assignments this week, I don’t want her to say that I missed a golden opportunity by not touching that lion.

Then it was into Margaret Mitchell’s apartment. You enter her living room, which was also where she wrote the book. She kept a towel at her desk so that if she had any visitors, she could throw the towel over her typewriter; she was very self-conscious about what she was writing. As I glanced at the tiny typewriter replica, I couldn’t help but think that my apartment just doesn’t lend itself to writing the way this apartment immediately screamed “Write!” to me. It is probably because I am lazy when I am in my own apartment, and inspired when I am in an apartment that has already produced something notable, but all the same. I don’t care that the apartment was tiny, or that Margaret Mitchell called it “the dump”…Margaret Mitchell House people, please let me move in. I think if I had a week there I could write a book too. Not one as big as “Gone with the Wind,” but maybe a thin volume of quatrains or something. At least 10 good blog entries.

Then into the bedroom, which has a beautiful bedspread and a very tiny bed. Then into a tiny kitchen. They don’t let you linger too long in these rooms because you might steal all the Margaret Mitchell magic. Instead, you go into an exhibit hall where there are letters from Margaret Mitchell and her husband which prove that both had an excellent sense of humor.

Then you get to go to another exhibit hall that has movie memorabilia. The highlight for me was the painting of Scarlett that was hung in Rhett and Scarlett’s home….the one where she’s wearing a blue dress, the one that Rhett throws his drink at after Scarlett tells him she doesn’t want to have any more babies? That one was there. Apparently the painting is owned by the Atlanta School Board and has been hung in places like elementary schools but was being loaned to the museum. Can you imagine going to school and sitting in the cafeteria and getting to see that painting? I THINK I WOULD FAIL SCHOOL SO I COULD CONTINUE TO LOOK AT IT.

That’s pretty much the whole tour, and frankly my dear, I am glad I got to go for free because otherwise it’s a little overpriced. I don’t know if I would have felt quite so much Margaret Mitchell magic if I’d had to pay $12 for it. However, for the very same price that admission would have been, I got to take some of that inspiration home with me. In the gift shop was a bookend of that lion’s head that Margaret Mitchell used to touch on her staircase every day, so I got one, brought it home, and set it up next to my laptop. Now, when I don’t want to blog, I shall touch the lion’s nose and try to have a productive writing session. Then maybe one day girls will get excited when they stand on a floor where I once stood.

sorry, God.

2009-03-26T16:15:00.001-04:00

As I wrote yesterday, God has definitively shown me that I cannot steal the Chick-fil-a cows without risking some sort of trouble with the police. So I just want to let God know that when I pulled into the parking lot of an adult entertainment place this morning at 8:30 a.m. to take a picture of the cows, it was not because I was in any way casing the joint or planning any future crimes. These pictures are just for my records.

Here are the cows that consume me. Can't you hear them calling out to me? Because I can. I hear them begging to be taken down and put in my car (or a flatbed truck, should I decide to use one for the purpose of transportation and also for the purpose of not having my actual license plates possibly photographed).

Those cows call my name. Even now, 15 minutes away and 15 stories high, I can hear their pleading moos.

But as I said, I AM DEFINITELY NOT PLANNING ON STEALING THEM. Even though they are located very low to the ground, as I have mentioned and as I captured in this photograph.

And yes, now that you mention it, it would be very easy to use the roof of that building as a staging area for my hijinks. But unfortunately, I am absolutely, most definitely, without a question, not going to steal those cows. No matter how good they would look in my apartment, I will not do it. Not even the prospect of silencing all the voices in my head that talk to me about cows would motivate me to steal anything off that billboard. If I say it enough times, I shall believe it: I WILL NOT STEAL THE CHICK-FIL-A COWS.

update on my commute

2009-03-25T19:04:00.002-04:00

This morning, like all mornings this week, I was pondering how to steal the Chick-fil-a cows that are on a billboard near my apartment. As I wrote on Monday, this is my new obsession, and each time I drive by, I become more and more convinced that those cows could be mine. I even know where I would put them in my apartment (in the bedroom; maybe in the kitchen when I cook beef).

Then, a vehicle changed lanes, entering mine. It was a police van, and painted on the back were these words: "Stay Back - Prisoner Transport." I took this as a sign from God that I need to stop thinking about how to steal the Chick-fil-a cows.

The rest of my commute was very scary! After being ordered from God to stop thinking about cows, I was forced to think about just what kind of criminal(s) might be in the van ahead. It turns out I have an overactive imagination when it comes to awful criminals and I arrived at work very frightened and worked up. I will not think of those cows anymore, because I don't want God to have to send me any more scary signs.

But I just have to say, I wish I ran a prison of bad spellers. Then I could drive a prison transport van and arrest those cows. I'm just saying.

Book #4: The Post-Birthday World

2009-03-24T20:49:00.000-04:00

I just finished up “The Post-Birthday World” by Lionel Shriver. This book caught my eye when Entertainment Weekly named it the #1 novel of 2007, and, as I think I have mentioned before, I tend to pay attention when Entertainment Weekly makes declarations like that. The book is about a children’s book illustrator named Irina McGovern, who’s been in a long-term relationship with a boring but stable nerd named Lawrence. They have a friend named Ramsey Acton, who’s a dashing, handsome, rich snooker player (the book takes place in London, which left me thinking “shite” in my head the whole time I was reading it). One night, alone with Ramsey, Irina realizes that for the first time in her life, she wants to kiss a man that she’s not in a relationship with.

From that moment on, the chapters in this book alternate, with one set following what happens if Irina does kiss Ramsey, and the other half following what happens if she resists the urge. It’s a very clever concept, as you see the same events (for example, a trip to Irina’s mother’s home for Christmas) from both points of view. You see both the benefits and consequences of each choice, and there are neat little echoes from one parallel life to the other. In some ways, it seems, the decision doesn’t matter, and in other ways, it makes all the difference in the world which man Irina chooses.

This is the kind of book that if you had to read it for a college lit class, it would practically hit you over the head with essay topics. For example – in each of her lives, Irina writes a children’s book. One tells two stories diverging from a single decision, and the other features an ambiguous ending—so meta! But the only thing about this book is, I didn’t read it for a college lit class. I kinda wanted to be entertained by each alternate life, and to root for one guy over the other. Based on some things I read on the internet, I thought this would be somewhat light reading, despite the fact that it’s about such a life-altering decision. And it most definitely is not. I guess that makes it more grown-up and realistic, but it was extremely depressing to cringe along as lives are ruined and as expectations are dashed. Surely I’m not giving anything away to say that both good and bad things happen in each of Irina’s parallel lives, but there are definitely times (by which I mean hundreds of pages) when it seems more bad things happen than good. In the end, I was pretty frustrated that she only had two choices. But such is life, I suppose.

Monday morning so far

2009-03-23T09:50:00.001-04:00

There's a new billboard up on the road I take to work. It's for Chick-fil-a, and instead of just having pictures of cows painting out their horribly spelled words, it has three-dimensional cows. When I see this billboard, I am consumed by just one thought for the duration of my commute:

I WANT TO STEAL THOSE COWS.

Now, I have seen these three-dimensional cows on Chick-fil-a billboards before, but never have the cows been such low-hanging fruit. And I mean that quite literally…the billboard seems lower to the ground than other billboards, and I think that I could make those cows mine, depending of course on what kind of adhesive is used to keep them up there.

MUST HAVE COWS.

In other Monday morning news, I rode the elevator up with this lady who was on her cell phone. She said "holy manoley!" in response to something on her call, and it really irked me. She was just trying too hard. However, it gave me the idea for a new phrase that is infinitely more adorable: "holy cannoli!" Look for me to drop this gem into conversation as much as possible.

this day in stream-of-consciousness

2009-03-22T20:36:00.000-04:00

On this day in 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a bill into law that legalized the sale of beer and wine. As a resident of the state of Georgia, I can’t help but note with sadness that this anniversary fell on a Sunday, a day on which no one in this state can buy beer or wine, or any alcohol for that matter.

Well, I should amend that to say that you could drive to a restaurant, have as many beers as you want, and then drive home drunk, but you couldn’t drive to the grocery store, pick up some beer, and make the return drive perfectly sober to enjoy the beer in the comfort and safety of your own home. That is just not allowed.

To mark the passing of this day, I opened up a beer right at the time I started composing this entry (8:08 p.m.). I intend to type about whatever pleases me until the beer is gone. I have nothing else to say, really, about the stupidity of the Georgia no-Sunday sales situation, except to note that I was reading an article earlier today about how Georgia has some of the worst smoking ban laws in the country. So to recap, a typical Sunday here would be driving to a bar, inhaling a lot of smoke and booze, then driving home with carcinogens in your system and alcohol in your bloodstream. I guess there’s a joke in there about how living in Georgia fosters death wishes in people, but I’m too tired to think of it.

The main thing that bothers me about the Sunday rules is that I tend to do my weekly grocery store shopping on Sundays. Or, well, I used to. Now there’s no point, because you’ll have to make a separate trip back to get the wine and beer, so you might as well just move the shopping to another day, even though that totally messes up your schedule but we wouldn’t want to offend God by buying beer on Sunday.

The beer I am drinking is a Yuengling, by the way. I feel there have been lots of references to alcohol on the blog lately, but have no fear. I am not a lush. It’s just that it’s that perfect time of year for sitting out on the patio and having chardonnay. Except for the damn bees. The bees came back today. I have a balcony, and there are some bees that love to eat the wood that makes up said balcony. The bees are dumb, and frequently they fly into the glass sliding door that leads to the balcony. I could hear them from my bedroom this morning, when I was waking up. I could hear the thwack of bee against glass, and I knew those bees were back. Soon everything will be covered with pollen, and when it rains there will be streams of yellow water making their way down the road.

I just spent some time on Wikipedia, and though Wikipedia claims that Kansas has some of the strictest alcohol laws in the country, that state has allowed Sunday sales in some locations since 2005. Even in Massachusetts, where the Puritans live, they’re okay with Sunday sales now. I really can’t find another state that has laws as strict as these….I would settle for no sales until after 12 p.m. Earlier this year, with the economy so bad, there was a bill to permit Sunday sales, with the thought that people needed as many opportunities to earn money as possible (or that people were so down in the dumps that they needed to be able to get trashed on a Sunday), but that was killed by, as I understand it, religious children coming in front of the legislature to plead God’s case. It just seems like God might have more important things to worry about.

The no sales on Sunday thing is probably the worst thing about living in Georgia. It’s even worse than being a liberal in a red state. But though I have rambled on for several hundred words about the situation, I don’t want it to seem like this problem defines my life. Sometimes it makes me sad, but I never need a drink so bad that I am saddened by the roped-off beer aisle at the grocery store. I think if this is the worst problem I have to deal with, then my state is probably okay.

But then, I might be feeling lovey-dovey since I just killed three-quarters of a beer on an empty stomach. Speaking of which, after I finish this entry I’m going to have dinner, which is some Indian food. Trader Joe’s makes theses lovely boxes of things like Punjab eggplant, and if you put it over some rice, it is just wonderful. I will probably have orange juice with dinner, though, since this was my last beer, and in case I haven’t made this clear enough, I can’t buy anymore until tomorrow. On that note, it’s 8:32 and I have finished the beer. Cheers to FDR for doing the best he could on this day in history.

an atlanta institution

2009-03-20T14:00:00.001-04:00

This blog is about Coca-Cola. Writing this blog has been on my to-do list for awhile, because it contains the details of something that happened over a month ago -- my visit to the World of Coke museum in Atlanta, GA with a houseguest who was in town for a week. But it kept getting pushed to the side, first for all the cruise blogs, and then because writing about soda during the first few days of Lent, a time in which I had given up soda yet wanted one very very badly, seemed too hard. But now, with less than a month to go before Easter, I don't really miss soda that much anymore! So this seems like a safe topic to cover now.

Unfortunately, I don't have a ton to say on this long-awaited entry about the World of Coke museum. I think I came to the conclusion that the museum is sort of like Coke itself, in that it has a lot of bubbles at the time, but is kinda forgettable later.

When I was growing up, we all went to the Coke museum in its old location, which I remember being a lot more cool, but then I was younger and probably more easily impressionable. When I went to the museum that time, I got laughed at by some Asians who told me I was drinking the "poo-poo drink" of their country. The old museum also had these cool fountains that sprayed your Diet Coke or Sprite up into the air before depositing it in your cup.

The museum was moved though from those golden oldie days, and this was my first trip to the new location. The highlight is still getting to try different Cokes from around the world, though they got rid of the fountains that sprayed drinks in the air. From the experience, I learned that I never really want to go to Africa. Or if I do go to Africa, I don't want to drink Cokes there. None of the other continents had Coke that stood out as offensively to me as the African ones did, but then, none of them really grabbed me in their awesomeness either.

My houseguest wanted pictures taken of his reaction to every single beverage he tried, but I just wanted pictures of myself with giant objects, preferably inanimate. To wit:

I consider it a feat of strength that I wrote this entry during Lent without succumbing to the power of soda. But I shall always have a weakness for giant bears and funny statues.

some cat correspondence

2009-03-19T22:04:00.001-04:00

Remember when I posted the absolutely adorable picture of my dad’s fourth child…I mean, my dad’s cat eating a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich? No? Well, then you should go here and scroll to the bottom to review one of my favorite pictures of all-time: http://iwiggleitjustalittlebit.blogspot.com/2008/12/fiery-tempered-king.html

I guess Barack Obama reads my blog, and he found a Skinny Cow coupon in his Shape magazine a few weeks ago, and he mailed it to Tiki in a card that had dogs sitting in front of the White House. This is the letter he enclosed:

Dear Tiki,
You may have read in the press that I am looking for a new dog for the White House. A few options are indeed on the front of this card. However, I don't want the cats of our great country to think that I am forgetting about them. For we are not just red states or blue states, not just cat lovers or dog lovers, we are the United States and we embrace all pets. Even those that belong to men who voted for John McCain.

Tiki, perhaps you have been watching the news and have been wondering just how my economic plan will benefit you. Well, for cats like you, I have included a Skinny Cow stimulus. If you love Skinny Cows, then I am bailing you out! Enclosed please find a coupon for a delicious Skinny Cow treat. Yes we can…enjoy ice cream!

Also, Tiki, I hope you will remember in these hard times to be nice to all siblings, particularly your sister Molly. To truly move forward, we need to reach across party lines and embrace those who we may not want to embrace. It is time to put away childish things and stop scratching her so much.

Tiki, for me to continue my goal of sending Skinny Cow coupons to all cats, I'll need your help. Please consider a donation of $5 to me now. You can send it to Molly.

Love from your friend,
Barack Obama

So when I was home this past weekend, Dad showed me the reply that Tiki had been working on in the meantime. She is one smart cat, I guess:

Dear Mr. President Barack Obama,
Thank you for my stimulus Skinny Cow coupon. I appreciate your attempt at a bailout, however, I think you are definitely not thinking big enough. We need a full-fledged Skinny Cow program. We need to give each American a Skinny Cow. We also need to give each person in the world a Skinny Cow. Everyone would love them. Production and jobs would increase as would sales tax receipts.

In the world people would love them too! Your poor half brother from Kenya would love them. It would lead to third world development. They would need electricity, freezers, delivery trucks..all of which we would hope they would buy from America. This would further help our economy.

People would also be so happy – there would probably be no more wars as long as each country had an adequate supply of Skinny Cows! My plan would lead to full employment and world peace.

As to the dogs, you are not being fair to cats! What about Socks? Cats are self-sufficient. Dogs need to be walked. Do you really expect Sasha and Malia to do this? Kids won’t do it. Just check with George and William. They didn’t do squat when they had a dog. Remember: Cats are cool, dogs drool.

As to Molly – she attacks me on a regular basis. She needs to be nicer to me. But in an effort to help her work through her own aggressive problem, I am enclosing a “Cats for Obama” button your campaign sent me. I backed McCain and could not wear it. You can give it to her. I will attempt to get $5.00 from her and then I’ll see about sending some money to you. The way you are spending it, the government will need it and we poor catspayers won’t have it too much longer.

Your friend and worthy opponent,
Tiki

the madness that is march

2009-03-18T23:12:00.002-04:00

Last year, I presented an extremely successful and accurate way to complete your March Madness bracket. I’m sure that way still works, but there’s a certain fluidity in sports that really requires figuring out new methods of bracketology each year. Whatever that means. Anyways, here is the Molly-approved method of filling out your 2009 March Madness bracket:

My methodology this year is based on how fun it is to watch people fight. A shocking statement, you say? Well, what is sports but individuals and teams meeting in a form of combat? But what if, instead of thinking of these college teams as groups of individuals worthy of their own merit, we thought of them as more interesting famous people?

Here is what I mean. I took the first letter of every team as it was written on the bracket that I downloaded from ESPN. Then, I thought of a famous male (since we’re doing men’s basketball) with a last name that began with that letter. I didn’t know what famous man I was assigning to each team. Here’s how the teams shaped up.

Louisville --> John Lennon
Morehead St. --> Karl Marx
Ohio State --> Roy Orbison
Siena --> William Shakespeare
Utah --> Bill Paxton (I couldn’t think of any last names that started with U, so I went with Paxton, because Utah=Mormons and Paxton plays a Mormon. This was one of the few exceptions in which I knew what man symbolized which team)
Arizona --> Neil Armstrong
Wake Forest --> Steve Wozniak
Cleveland --> Stephen Colbert
West Virginia --> Walt Whitman
Dayton --> Charles Darwin
Kansas --> Henry Kissinger
North Dakota State --> Richard Nixon
Boston College --> Rod Blagojevich
USC --> Socrates (I couldn’t think of any last names that started with U, so I went with the “S” instead)
Michigan St. --> Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Robert Morris --> Joseph Ratzinger
Connecticut --> Dana Carvey
Chattanooga --> Coolio
BYU --> Beethoven
Texas A&M --> John Travolta
Purdue --> Brad Pitt
Northern Iowa --> Nero
Washington --> George Washington
Mississippi St. --> Nicolo Machiavelli
Marquette --> Monet
Utah State --> Romney (See the note about Bill Paxton)
Missouri --> Mussolini
Cornell --> George Clooney
California --> Winston Churchill
Maryland --> Moses
Memphis --> Bernie Madoff
Cal State Northridge --> Bill Cosby
Pittsburgh --> Pele
East Tennessee State -->Albert Einstein
Oklahoma State --> Barack Obama
Tennessee --> Donald Trump
Florida State --> Sigmund Freud
Wisconsin --> Bruce Willis
Xavier --> Malcolm X
Portland State --> Pablo Picasso
UCLA --> Elvis Costello (U was really really hard! Went with the next letter on this one)
VCU -->Martin Van Buren
Villanova --> Vincent Van Gogh
American --> Aesop
Texas --> Harry Truman
Minnesota --> Nelson Mandela
Duke --> Charles Dickens
Binghamton --> Napoleon Bonaparte
North Carolina --> Noah
Radford --> Ronald Reagan
LSU --> David Letterman
Butler --> Bono
Illinois --> Henrik Ibsen
Western Kentucky --> Andy Warhol
Gonzaga --> Bill Gates
Akron --> Johnny Appleseed
Arizona State --> Andre Agassi
Temple --> Leo Tolstoy
Syracuse --> Bruce Springsteen
Stephen F. Austin --> Patrick Swayze
Clemson --> Jesus Christ
Michigan --> Barry Manilow
Oklahoma --> Laurence Olivier
Morgan State --> Maharishi

Now, when I assigned famous men to each letter, I kept them in the order that the teams were placed on the bracket. Then, I filled out my bracket based on what would happen if the two men fought. This was not just a matter of randomly picking names, guys. This involved laying on my floor and very clearly imagining a physical fight between the two contenders.

Here’s how Round One went.
In the Midwest division, Marx trumps Lennon cause Lennon won’t fight as a pacifist. Shakespeare trumps Orbison because while Shakespeare is a little effeminate, at least he’s not blind. Neil Armstrong easily takes Bill Paxton while Colbert defeats Wozniak in a close contest. Darwin takes Walt Whitman by beating Whitman with a turtle. In one of the strangest Round One match-ups, Nixon takes Kissinger. Socrates beats Blagojevich though it’s a very close contest, as Blago never answers a question straight and that pisses the hell out of Socrates. Last, Joseph Ratziner, the man known now as Pope Benedict, takes Mozart because Mozart is weird. You’ve seen Amadeus, right?

In the West, we have two past-their-prime stars dueling, but Coolio is able to pull it out over Dana Carvey, who is too busy doing impressions from the early 1990’s to put up an adequate fight against Coolio’s Fantastic Voyage to victory. Beethoven takes Travolta because he’s not bogged down by the “religion” that starts with the letter S that is known as being very litigious. Nero plays his fiddle around Brad Pitt for the win, while in a very close match, George Washington’s brute strength outtakes Machiavelli’s cunning. It also helps that Machiavelli only sent mercenaries to do the job. Tsk tsk. Romney beats Monet, probably the one person he can beat. Mussolini beats the dapper Clooney, who, while being against everything Mussolini stands for, can’t stand to get hit in that beautiful face. Moses takes out Winston Churchill because of the all-powerful God Factor. Bill Cosby takes out Bernie Madoff cause Madoff is in jail.

Off to some exciting match-ups in the East! Pele has a strong kick, but Einstein knows all about the physics behind the kick and is able to pull out a win. Obama tells Trump, “you’re fired.” Bruce Willis takes out Freud who barely bothered to get up off his couch for the fight, while Malcolm X defeats Picasso. Elvis Costello is just punk enough to get past Van Buren, though the Vans have a win when Van Gogh takes out Aesop. Harry Truman, the man who dropped an atomic bomb, has an easy win over Nelson Mandela, while Bonaparte’s battlefield experience easily overpowers that pansy Charles Dickens.

In the South: Noah (of ark fame) takes out Reagan due to the God Factor (take that conservative Christians!). Bono defeats Letterman just because Letterman can’t be bothered to care. In a bizarre match-up, Warhol takes Ibsen. Bill Gates defeats Johnny Appleseed just by dropping money on him, Tolstoy defeats Agassi, and Springsteen defeats Patrick Swayze because I unfortunately imagined present-day, cancer-fighting Swayze, and not in-his-prime, ass-kicking Swayze. Next year, Swayze. In the easiest match so far, Jesus Christ beats Barry Manilow. The Maharishi takes out Laurence Olivier.

The second round doesn’t really hold any surprises, but the third round is where things start shaping up. Some highlights:
--Charles Darwin faces the Pope. The Pope loses. Critics say that if the fighting pope had been John Paul II, then maybe Darwin would have lost. This pope is just not as powerful. I take that to mean that the team represented by Ratzinger (Robert Morris) was probably better in other years.
--God’s right hand men fare better elsewhere, such as in the west where Moses defeats fascism by taking out Mussolini.
--Bono faces his African aid relief partner when he faces off against Bill Gates. Bono wins, because he has the cooler glasses and the power of rock and roll.

Those highlights lay the groundwork for the Elite Eight. In which:
--Colbert finally admits defeat to Darwin.
--Washington cedes to Moses (God factor)
--Bruce Willis takes out Bonaparte in a very hard-fought match, but as it turns out, Bruce Willis really does die hard.
--Two men with Messiah complexes meet when Bono faces Christ in the South. Obviously, Christ wins, but the crowd could just not believe the symbolism.

To take a step back, Darwin, Moses, Willis and Christ are going to the final four. Those real life teams are: Dayton, Maryland, Wisconsin and Clemson. Sure, that may be a far cry from what all the statisticians are telling you….but did they consider what would happen if men with last names beginning with the same letter as the team fought in my imagination? Of course they didn’t.

In the final four, Darwin defeats Moses cause Moses is soooooooo old testament. Christ defeats Willis. That means the big game will be between Darwin and Christ. I know, my mind is blown too! I can’t even decide who wins…..evolution or the bible. So, I won’t tell you. Decide for yourself and fill out your brackets accordingly. You can thank me when either Dayton or Clemson win the whole tournament. Cause I guarantee you’ll be the only person who picked those teams.

just like martha

2009-03-17T14:33:00.003-04:00

Last night, Monday night, was the second installment in my five part series, “Try to Cook Some Things During Lent Because This Is a Skill You Really Need to Acquire.” I selected my recipe from the “Everyday Food” cookbook, which as I understand it, is kind of like Martha Stewart for Dummies, in that Martha Stewart is in some way involved, but too embarrassed by the simplicity of the recipes to have her name front and center. The recipe I chose: Tortilla and Black Bean Pie.

I chose this recipe for several reasons. One, I love black beans. Two, the recipe called for 12 ounces of beer, which thoroughly intrigued me. While I may not need some of these spices I have to buy ever again, I can sure put the rest of that beer to good use. Lastly, it featured no meat, and as I mentioned in my last cooking entry, preparing meat scares the hell out of me. The middle ground between raw and burnt? I do not know how to get there with meat.

Anyways, Monday at 5 I left work and set out for the grocery store to procure such exotic ingredients as canola oil and scallions (known pseudonym: green onions). Well, Monday at 5 was a hellacious time to be on the roads. You stand-up comedians out there might be saying that anytime is a bad time to be on the roads in Atlanta, and to that I say, hardy-har-har. Most days, I have a fairly easy commute, but yesterday, the City of Atlanta thought it would be a good idea to get three lanes of traffic down to just one for some road work. It took me an hour-and-a-half to go five miles. Make no mistake about it, I was testy. Then it was off to the grocery store for more stress. After bumping buggies with my fellow 9-to-5ers for awhile and trying to figure out exactly what a jalapeno chile was, I was exhausted. And frustrated. It turns out no one makes 10 ounce packages of frozen corn, Martha Stewart! I can go 16 or 32 but I can’t go 10! And I don’t want any leftover corn! WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS SO HARD ON ME?

It just occurred to me that not everyone calls shopping carts “buggies,” but that’s actually what they’re called. Don’t let any damn Yankee tell you any different.

As I loaded my groceries in the car, shooting stink-eyes at the nearby shopper who was going to leave his buggy in his parking space rather than returning it to its appointed carrel, I had to fight the urges rising in my body to abandon the plan. Just go get a nice burrito, instead, the voices whispered. You’ve had a hard day. You’ve been sitting in traffic forever. The last thing you want to do is go home and cook. But I resisted. “Oh no,” I said to myself. “We’re going to see if all those people who said cooking was relaxing are full of shit or not.”

So off to home I headed. I laid out my ingredients. Here they are:

Before I started anything, though, I watched a YouTube video on how to dice an onion because I’ve had a lot of insecurity about that act since high school, when a friend’s mom told me I chopped onions wrong. A bunch of girls were trying to make tacos for a sleepover, and apparently I was the only one who couldn’t handle my assigned task. Actually, probably a lot of my issues with cooking, as well as some issues with self-esteem, stem from those sleepovers. But I digress.

With some YouTube knowledge behind me, I began dicing and mincing and grating and whatnot. It went pretty well. One frustrating thing to me is that the instructions say 25 minutes of prep time, but that doesn’t include all the chopping and so forth. It assumes 25 minutes once everything is ready to go. But you know Martha Stewart or her minions are not allowed to buy pre-chopped onion, so I don’t know why they don’t add a little chop time in there. Maybe if I ever get a cooking show, it can be called “Prep Time,” and it will just show what happens before the recipe actually ever gets going. It will basically just be me watching videos on the internet and trying not to cut my finger off, I guess. Oh, and drinking. If the hypothesis was to see whether cooking can be relaxing, then the experiment was actually rendered null and void by the wine I consumed while working my culinary magic. Was it the wine, the cooking or the television on in the background that relaxed me? Too many uncontrolled variables.

As I drank, most of the ingredients went into the skillet for some skillet time. The beer was all boiled off or distilled or off to beer heaven I guess. Here is that very process in action!

Then it was time to layer the bean and corn mixture with the cheese and tortillas. So here was my big downfall. Whenever I read that the tortillas were supposed to be cut to fit the shape of a springboard pan, my eyes kind of glazed over. I figured a tortilla was a circle, and why should I cut off some of the tortilla just to end up with another circle? But when I started assembling the layers of the pie, I realized that the springboard pan must be some circular pan that would help my creation keep its shape. Without this so-called springboard pan, the pie ended up being a little unwieldy. But now, at least I know what a springboard pan is. It would have been nice if they just called it a circular pan. Is it that one with the thing that goes around at the bottom? I guess that's the thing that springs it from its form. Not that I had one, but still.

The uncooked pie. You can't really see all the layers here.

The pie after some baking:

One slice for dinner, served with salsa, the rest to be eaten throughout the week.

The verdict: This recipe was delicious. It is hard to go wrong with cheese, tortillas, black beans and onions. But, I do have to point out that this took almost an hour for me to make so that it was in this arrangement, and most of those things probably could have been, like, microwaved and smushed together to create the same taste, right? So was it worth it? I don’t know. All I know is that only two recipes in, I am learning countless lessons about myself and about kitchen vocabulary.

the lost weekend

2009-03-16T22:30:00.001-04:00

So, though I vowed to blog everyday during Lent, I hit a bit of a stumble this weekend. And I have to say, once the blogging went, all of my Lenten resolutions fell off track. I had some soda. I didn’t do any stomach crunches. And then I figured that I’d done so poorly that I might as well have some chocolate as well.

What got me so badly off track? Here’s the thing. Earlier in the week I had been scanning what was happening this week in history on Wikipedia – that’s right, just because I’ve abandoned my weekly TWIH in history doesn’t mean that I don’t still check to see the week’s events. Lately they’ve been kind of boring, though, so I haven’t felt too bad about not posting a recap. Plus it seemed that no one liked that feature anyways. But I digress. In my Wikipedia research, I noticed that famed Chick-fil-a founder Truett Cathy’s birthday fell on March 14, a Saturday this year. And wouldn’t you know it, I was scheduled to eat with my family at the South Asheville Chick-fil-a on that very Saturday!

As you might imagine, the excitement was palpable. That’s why I didn’t blog on Friday. I was just too keyed up, wondering how each franchise would choose to celebrate their founder. Would we all get free chicken or ice cream? Would we all get our own dwarf, in recognition of the fact that the first Chick-fil-a was called the Dwarf House? Would there be, God help me, a Funfetti cake?

Well, there was cake alright, but it was only for a little girl who was having her birthday party at Chick-fil-a. For everyone else, there was nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nothing to honor the man that gave the world and its food courts a tasty variety of chicken products and waffle fries six days out of the week. Even those stupid cows couldn’t get it together to produce a misspelled sign along the lines of “Happi Berthdayy Truett.”

The fact that the South Asheville franchise was not honoring Truett Cathy sent me into a blind rage. I threw my box of chicken nuggets against the wall and smashed the little girl’s birthday cake. I ran into the play area, knocking little children out of my way. I climbed to the top of the playset, took some shots of honey mustard sauce and proclaimed for the whole restaurant to hear that this was Truett’s day, dammit, and we needed to bless our chicken sandwiches in his honor. At that point I think I went into an off-subject rant about how it’s nearly impossible to prove that he actually invented the chicken sandwich, as the store’s marketing claims, but then I got back on subject by singing an impromptu opera about pickles. After my song, I spread my arms and fell backwards into the ball pit.

Then, as I rested in the ball pit, a vision of Truett Cathy appeared to me. He extended an arm to me, as if he was offering me a college scholarship for my commitment to the company. He pulled me up, and we waltzed around the store. I whispered “Happy birthday” and thanked him for the dance, and he whispered, “My pleasure,” just as every employee does when they refill your drink. But his “My pleasure” was not perfunctory or accompanied by a scowl, the way some employees say it. His was heartfelt. I think I fainted in his arms.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground with my family standing around me, pouring the contents of their Styrofoam cups on my face to revive me. I did not feel guilty, for I knew they could get refills. I was drenched in iced tea and sweat, but I had done my duty. I had honored Truett.

Slowly, I got to my feet and headed for the condiment station, because I wanted to fill out a comment form to let this Chick-fil-a franchise owner know what I thought of his lack of loyalty and tradition (for those very loyal blog readers out there, this was in fact the same Chick-fil-a where I filled out a comment card regarding the lack of Diet Coke. You may have thought that was silly, but there’s currently Diet Dr. Pepper and Coke Zero at that Chick-fil-a. Who’s laughing now?). Anyways, they didn’t have any comment cards available, which in and of itself is an offense that I would mention on a comment card, if one were available. I think that’s what they call a Catch-22.

Anyways, that’s why I didn’t blog, and why everything went downhill so fast. But I’m back on track now. I think we can all agree that being tempted by the devil in the desert is basically the same as your hometown Chick-fil-a not recognizing its founder. Totally and completely the same.

ER, the good ol days

2009-03-12T22:59:00.001-04:00

Okay! I was going to figure out a blog for today after I watched my Thursday night tv of “The Office” and “30 Rock.” But do you know what I learned while watching those two shows? It’s the “ER” where all the old doctors come back, the doctors from the glory days of “ER.” All the commercials showed Eriq LaSalle doing that karate move that he used to do on the original opening credits! Hooray! So I thought I would live blog it because then I don’t have to feel bad for watching “ER” instead of doing other things. I guess you shouldn’t keep reading if you have tivo’d ER or if you care about how this episode shapes up or whatnot.

The commercials are trying to be all coy about whether George Clooney will show up, but they just had his name in the opening credits. That’s good, cause let’s be honest, if I watch an hour of ER and George Clooney doesn’t show up, I will be PISSED. That was in fact going to be whole gist of this blog…will George Clooney show up? When? At the last five minutes? And will he have his hair cut in that Caesar style that was so popular in 1995?

Let’s talk about my history with the show ER. I started watching it at the end of the first season, because do you remember how critically acclaimed it used to be? Unfortunately, I think now it’s overstayed its welcome, and people take it for granted, and even Uncle Jesse is on it now, and so people don’t remember how amazing that show was when it first started. Then I watched it through all the George Clooney seasons, and probably a little bit after he left. Actually, definitely after he left, because I remember when Julianna Marguiles left the show, and she went out to Seattle to be with him. He was in the last five minutes. He was sanding a boat. Dear God, please don’t wait til the last five minutes to show me George Clooney on ER again.

You can tell this is a special episode because other guest stars include Susan Sarandon and Ernest Borgnine. Unfortunately, I fear this doesn’t leave much time for George to do his thing. From what I can tell of the plot, Noah Wyle is deadly ill and so I guess all his old friends will have to come back to say goodbye. Or maybe for his kidney operation.

Okay, at just 10:09, we have Julianna Marguiles! A minute later we have George! Oh my god, they work at the University of Washington now! Between this hospital and the Grey’s Anatomy hospital, Seattle is full of really hot doctors. WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THIS WHEN I LIVED IN SEATTLE???????

Man, this is going to be so super touching. J-mar and G-Clo are waiting to get organs that will go to Noah Wyle! But Susan Sarandon is the grandmother of the boy with the organs in question and she’s not ready to let go yet! ONCE THEY FIGURE OUT THESE ORGANS ARE GOING TO NOAH WYLE THERE IS GOING TO BE A SCENE THAT WINS EVERYONE A FUCKING EMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, now I have to kill time with these characters I don’t know. I looked up some stuff on the internet, but now we have George again. Unfortunately, and I’m not quite sure how this happened, but Juliana Marguiles said “Spokane” wrong. AWKWARD. I guess George and Julianna are still together? They talk about their kids but it’s unclear if they all live together? Now George and the Chicago people are comparing names. The fact that they don’t know any of the same people is a testament to how many frickin’ characters have been on this show. But they didn’t compare Noah Wyle’s name. OMG missed opportunity. Do you think it bothers John Stamos that he’s the poor man, the very poor man’s George Clooney on this show?

Now Eriq La Salle is back and he is having a talk with Noah Wyle. What a great coincidence that Eriq La Salle works at this very hospital where Noah Wyle is waiting for a transplant. As it turns out, they don’t have all that much to talk about. I guess too much time has passed. And they are both strong men who can’t show emotions. Imagine if you were about to have a life-saving surgery and all the co-workers from your first job showed up? I think that would be bizarre. I wouldn’t want it filmed for a television show.

This is a very touching show about organ donation. How much longer til Doug Ross discovers that he is saving John Carter’s life? AND WHEN WILL THE GHOST OF ANTHONY EDWARDS APPEAR TO THEM ALL?

Actually, I think he already did his return episode, didn’t he? I think I read about it in Entertainment Weekly. Man, I bet Anthony Edwards regrets coming on too early, though maybe he didn’t want to get too upstaged by George Clooney. Maybe he doesn’t care about what’s going in Darfur and so they have horrible on-set fights. That’s just a conjecture.

All sorts of other random things are going on. A baby was abandoned. An old lady married to Ernest Borgnine wants to die at home. The organ transplant ladies from the ER hospital lost their plane and now I guess they are hitchhiking back? Maybe I should be paying closer attention. Eriq La Salle is having another talk with Noah Wyle, and now they are bonding over…wait hold up, now the scary ER music is playing and they are taking Carter away so I guess something dramatic will happen! But George Clooney is still in Seattle and I don’t want this to happen without him! Also there is an adorable little girl whose mom will get a new heart!

Wait, is the message of this show that doctors don’t even know whose lives they save in the course of their jobs, and it just turns out that sometimes they save their friends without even knowing? That would make me sad. But there’s only 15 minutes left so I fear that such a situation might be underway. I just don’t like George Clooney being deprived of this information about Noah Wyle. Noah Wyle would be all alone if Eriq La Salle weren’t there, and even though that is somewhat poetic since they used to be such rivals, I just want the whole staff there! I’m not sure if Gloria Reuben ever died from AIDS on this show, but if she’s still kickin’ I want her to come back too! And maybe Sherry Stringfield can work in the coffee shop that they all go to for ice cream?

I just checked Wikipedia, and Gloria Reuben’s character did not die. According to Wikipedia, “she is one of the only regular characters in American television history to contract the HIV virus without eventually being killed off by the writers.” Sorry I implied as much, Gloria Reuben.

Eriq La Salle just taught all the doctors doing the transplant surgery an important lesson in preparedness, just like lessons that he used to teach Noah Wyle!

The other people’s plotlines are boring and depressing me all at the same time. But without giving too much away, Noah Wyle is okay. George Clooney and Susan Sarandon live in ignorance of the unbelievable coincidence that they were a part of today. All George and Julianna know is the kidney went to “some doctor.” But don’t worry, we got a shot of George Clooney shirtless and sleeping in bed, and those were always my favorite ER scenes anyways.

a special request blog

2009-03-11T22:14:00.004-04:00

Tonight I was talking to my brother George. I said, “George, what am I going to blog about in the next three hours? I have no ideas.” I asked him to give me an idea. Without pausing, he said: “Go over to your cd player, and write about what’s in there. Why, of all your cd’s, is that the cd in your cd player? Where did you get it? Why do you like it? [He listed off a whole lot of other questions here but I forgot every single one]” He ended by saying, “I’m just glad that you don’t have a 5-cd changer.”

What’s kind of weird about George’s prompt was that earlier this evening, when I got home from work, I poured some wine and listened to the cd that is in my cd player twice while I experimented with colored pencils. And I remember thinking, “I wish I could figure out a way to write about this cd, and how much I like it.” Lo and behold, the time has come to do so.

The cd currently in my CD player is “Middle Cyclone” by Neko Case. It came out last week, on the same day as the new U2, as a matter of fact. I ordered both CD’s from Amazon, and while I’m not quite ready to say that I’m underwhelmed by the new U2 yet (though everyone tells me I will be), I haven’t really given it a chance because I’ve been too busy listening to Neko. The few reviews I’ve read of “Middle Cyclone” have been decidedly mixed, but I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

Here are some things about Neko Case, in case you’ve never heard of her. Rolling Stone’s online bio of her says she is “a teenage punk-rocker turned alt-country chanteuse” but she has said repeatedly that she dislikes the term alt-country so now I feel bad even having typed it. She sings occasionally with pop super group the New Pornographers. She loves animals. She grew up in Washington and has said that she had a hard upbringing, and she left home at 15. She creates amazing conceptual packages for her albums. She was banned from the Grand Ole Opry for taking her shirt off at a Nashville party (she says she was getting overheated). She just bought a farm in Vermont. She looks different in almost every picture I’ve seen of her. She’s on a very short list of people that I would actually like to meet and hang out with, but I don’t think that I could keep up with her.

I just wanted to mention that I do feel bad that I bought the cd on Amazon, and not from some independent record store. Amazon is so cheap, though! And the economy is so bad! But it’s sad because all the cool artsy places are going out of business and there will be no arts left soon! I guess that is a subject for another post.

Anyways, I think I started off on that rant because I’m having a hard time thinking of what I’m actually going to say about this album. The thing that most people are talking about, it seems, is that she recorded the frogs on her farm and included 30 minutes of their croaking at the end of the album. But no one talks about the 40 minutes of music that precedes that. (For the records, I love the frogs so far. Today I lay on the floor with my wine and listened to them croak. I’m not saying I’m always going to listen to them. But still.)

To address the music….most people love Neko for her voice, and I am one of them. But I guess the thing I like most of all about Neko Case music is that each song is this mini-world that is evocative in a way that very little other music is to me right now. And more than just being this little world of its own, it kind of brings me in and makes me want to create something, immediately. When I’m listening to Neko Case in my car, I tend to want to pull over and write short stories, which is an urge that strikes me at almost no other time, unfortunately. And this evening, as I said, I listened to the new cd while I played with my new crayons and colored pencils (I’m trying to be more artsy). I just kind of doodled and then wrote down words and lines that I liked from the songs. When something that I see or listen to makes me want to do something of my own….well, I don’t take that lightly.

Each listen of this cd is still revealing things to me, so I’m not quite ready to go track-by-track through it, which was one of George’s suggestions, now that I think about it. I would say, though, that if you are looking for a place to start with Neko Case music, most reviews I’ve read have said that “Middle Cyclone” is no “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood,” which was her last album, and that one is also excellent. I don’t know which one I like better yet…I will probably end up making a mix of the songs that move me most and listening to that.

I don’t know. Sometimes I don’t think I explain why I like music very well. But that’s what in my Cd player, and will probably continue to be for quite a while. Thank you for the blog idea, George. The only problem I foresee is that I'm going to see Neko Case in concert on April 2, and now I might not have anything to write about then.

If you want to hear some songs and whatnot: http://www.myspace.com/nekocase

embroider this on your pin cushions

2009-03-10T22:01:00.005-04:00

It was either this or try to read a book really fast.

what sound does the sheep make?

2009-03-09T22:52:00.005-04:00

This weekend I went to the Atlanta History Center, because it was the weekend where you could get into some museums free with a Bank of America card. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised by the place. There were exhibits on the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta’s growth, folk arts in the south, Bobby Jones and golf, and a pretty awesome Civil War exhibit.

Unfortunately, my experience of the Civil War exhibit was slightly marred by a school group that was present. Apparently the kids and their adult sponsors were assigned to find one fact to share with the rest of the group. So the kids would walk around with a friend, and then they’d get to a spot and read one random thing aloud. One kid would shout, “that’s my fact!” And then the other would say, “No, I want that one!” Even the adults were pretty annoying about it.

My favorite part about the history center, though, were the historic homes and the gardens. First up, I toured Swan House, which was owned by a very rich family with many things named after them in the 1920s and 1930s. The house was absolutely beautiful inside, and the voice on the audio guide was oh so soothing. Apparently the home is one of the most photographed sites in the country:

Beside the home was this garden:

And this playhouse:

Why oh why couldn’t I have been a rich kid in Atlanta in the 1930’s? I mean, I’d be happy living in that playhouse even now.

After Swan House, it was off to a farm. When you go from 1920s opulence to an 1840s farm complete with an outhouse, smokehouse, blacksmith shop, slave quarters, etc, it’s a bit of a letdown, no matter how much you love pioneers. It’s much more fun to fantasize about living in the other house. But the farm did have sheep!

Although this got me paranoid that I smelled like sheep for the rest of the day. Sheep and sweat--the most alluring scent known to man.

lose an hour...to cooking

2009-03-08T23:10:00.003-04:00

When I tell people I don’t cook, I am usually greeted with disapproval. Apparently everyone needs to know how to cook. And though I’ve made it this far without learning much more than how to work a microwave, sometimes I do wish I knew more about cooking. Like when I’m staring down the options of another frozen Lean Cuisine or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. So one of my Lenten resolutions, in addition to blogging every day, doing stomach crunches every day, and abstaining from soda and chocolate, was to cook 5 new things for myself.

Tonight was my first attempt. After perusing several cookbooks checked out from the library, I decided to with a recipe for “Vegetable and Couscous Stacks,” as written by one Rachael Ray. As someone who doesn’t cook, I have often been told I should check out Rachael Ray, since she promises to get you in and out of the kitchen in 30 minutes. Well, I have one complaint off the bat about her cookbook. Instead of beautiful pictures of the finished dish that inspire you to push forward to your goal, the only pictures in this cookbook were of Rachael Ray. I did not like that one bit. If I wanted to see Rachael Ray, I could watch her on television; however, there is something to be said for a Rachael Ray image that cannot speak to you, because she is two-dimensional. She’s loud and perky, is what I’m trying to say there.

I picked “Vegetable and Couscous Stacks” because I’m deathly afraid of cooking with meat. I am scared it will turn out raw so I tend to overcook it. I will conquer meat before this Lent is over, but I figured I would start out with something that wouldn’t give me salmonella, as far as I could tell. I did have some problems in the grocery store, because I didn’t know how to pick out an eggplant. Also, I didn’t buy fresh herbs the way Ms. Ray suggested; there is a recession on and the Food Network is sadly not footing the bill for me to learn how to cook (though I would be amenable to discussions regarding that prospect – surely everyone would like to sit at home and watch someone bumble through something they already know how to do, right? Plus, I would cuss a lot).

Here’s what I came home from the store with:
All laid out the way it is on tv!

Trouble began immediately, when I realized I copied down my ingredient list for the grocery store without including the ingredient of zucchini. This made me sad because I love zucchini. There was also trouble when I realized I didn’t really know how to get into garlic. Rachael said smack it with the flat of a knife but that didn’t do anything. So I just kind of broke it with my hands and now I smell bad. I also only skimmed the recipe beforehand, and I didn’t notice that grilling was involved. I don’t have a grill, so I had to do that thing where it just sits in a skillet thing on the stove. Skilleting?

Making this recipe was a non-stop fun ride of cutting things up. Unfortunately, I am not good with knives so it really wasn’t a fun ride for me. First I cut eggplant. Then I was off to my onion; during the cutting of said onion I sliced into my thumb. So now I’m bleeding everywhere. I don’t have bandaids in the house. But I have to keep moving! Because now eggplant is roasting in the oven and if I don’t continue at a fast pace I might not be done in 30 minutes! It’s okay to consume a little bit of your own blood, right? I’m not saying I did but I feel some probably got in the food. Other things I sliced included mozzarella and tomatoes.

It was a pleasant surprise how easy couscous was, though I didn’t know if I was supposed to put in 2 cups dry couscous or put in enough dry couscous so that the finished amount came out to 2 cups. I still will never know, I guess. While the couscous was cous-ing, I was supposed to remove the bottom and top of the can that the chicken broth came in, because that’s how you made the titular stacks in this recipe. You kind of pushed everything way down in the can and then pulled the can up and voila! Stacks.

Except I couldn’t get the bottom of the can off. Maybe I just wasn’t strong enough, or maybe it was the weird rounded edges that I ended up blaming my failure on. Either way, I abandoned the can and decide to just use a plastic cup. It would yield slightly bigger servings than intended, but according to Rachael Ray, these stacks were merely designed to be a side dish to some sort of hummus entrée, so I figured that if it was my main and only dish, it could be a little bigger than normal. By the way, was the 30 minutes supposed to include making that hummus dish and the paired dessert? Because there was no way. It took me 45 minutes just to do these f’ing stacks.

Okay, so here are all the ingredients that go into a stack. From left to right: couscous, seasoned eggplant, basil, tomatoes, mozzarella, red pepper and onion.

I assembled the stack in a Jimmy John’s plastic cup and turned it over onto a plate. I had a stack!

As soon as I turned my back, though, it became this:

I made two other cups out of all the stuff. Tomorrow for lunch all I have to do is grab a stack in a cup! Portable party cup indeed!

Then I’m just going to dump it out into a Tupperware bowl, because what I learned from eating my concoction is that this dish is really impossible to eat as a stack. You kind of just have to mess it all up and eat it as a veggie couscous cheese salad. But it was enjoyable. Maybe, if I had an extra 45 minutes, I would make it again.

I didn’t take a picture of the kitchen mess, but it took awhile to clean up. Lots of leftover pieces of food from all that slicing and lots of bloody towels. This is why I don’t cook, people. But I shall persevere, four more times before April 12.

crawl back under my stone

2009-03-07T20:11:00.000-05:00

Last night I went to see Richard Thompson in concert at the Variety Playhouse. It was an absolutely stunning show…just the man and his guitar, playing some of my favorite songs. Recently my dad said that I had never been good at playing the piano because I couldn’t get the messages from my head to my fingers fast enough. Seemed particularly harsh, particularly since that was 10 years ago. But watching RT play, it’s hard not to be amazed at how fast his fingers move. It’s like the messages start down there or something. I don’t know. I don’t play guitar so I can’t say.

Watching the show, I marveled again at how lucky I am to live in Atlanta and have access to the Variety Playhouse, which is probably my favorite place to see a show. I could have never seen Richard Thompson in Seattle because he would have played someplace with jacked up Ticketmaster tickets. The Variety is a fun place with big-name acts that’s general admission. I’ve always been able to walk right in and get right up by the stage. It’s much more intimate than anywhere I ever went in Seattle and for less than what I would have paid there. But in thinking about that, I couldn’t help but realize that there are a lot of things in Seattle that don’t have equivalents in Atlanta that I really miss. Like:

The Seattle Public Library
I’ve waxed rhapsodic about this place before, I’m sure. And I don’t miss the books, because you can get books anywhere, and I don’t miss the movies, because I have Netflix now. But I sure do miss a library system that really invests in music. I heard so much good music by borrowing library cd’s in Seattle. That’s how I heard Richard Thompson, in fact. I feel like I can’t keep up with music as well without spending an arm and a leg here in Atlanta. Speaking of which….

Easy Street Records
This was a music store in my old neighborhood that I absolutely adored, particularly because they had so many indie, off the radar cds for cheap. Plus they had a ton of listening stations, and a pretty sweet rewards program. Even if I never bought much (since I also had the library at my disposal), it was an awesome place to while away a Saturday afternoon. As was:

Half-Price Books
Okay, this is a chain, but I love it. Talk about a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon…browsing bookshelves that have a better selection than Barnes & Noble but for half the price. Not to mention all the $1 and $2 mass market paperbacks. I mean, I don’t need any more books for the duration of my life. But that was a fun place to go for just looking at books.

Coffeeshops
This one is my fault, because I haven’t been trying very many new coffeeshops lately. And of course Seattle is the granddaddy of coffeeshops and you can’t duplicate that experience. But even the duddiest of coffeeshops there beats any of the ones I’ve tried here. But I will try more! That’s a new resolution.

Happy hour specials
I read somewhere recently that happy hour specials are technically illegal in Atlanta. And whether that’s true or not, it certainly feels that way. Gone are the days of $2 cocktails and $3 appetizers from 4-6 pm.

My gym
I always enjoyed going to my old gym. Affordable, good classes, nice equipment, DVD players on machines, right on the way home from work. Who would ever thought I’d miss a gym? But I do.

Riding the bus to work
I don’t always miss this. I love the convenience of driving to work and running errands on the way home if I need to. I certainly don’t miss being stuck on a slow bus or waiting for a bus that never seemed to come. But I do miss all that spare reading time.

Mountain and water scenery
Seattle was pretty.

And of course, the people I knew out there.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not itching to move back there all of a sudden. I could easily do a list of things Atlanta has that Seattle doesn’t, and I’m very happy here. All the same, I do miss these things, after about a year-and-a-half of being gone.

Book #3: Catch-22

2009-03-06T19:10:00.000-05:00

Whenever I read a book that has been deemed a classic, I want to read that book and immediately understand why it’s a classic. I want to love that book. I want that book to change my life. I don’t want to listen to any arguments about why listing any book as a classic is a bad idea. These are books I judge not by their covers, but by their reputations. Once named a classic, even by obscure organizations or publications, I feel the need to consume the item.

Recently I finished up “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller. Widely hailed as a classic. Selected by my office book club by popular vote. Staring me down at bookstores everywhere. I wanted to read this book, and I wanted to like this book. But I just did not. I’m kinda amazed that I even finished this book.

Now, I knew going in to reading this book that it’s something of a dude book, the way ladies have their chick lit and whatnot. And I knew it was about how ridiculous war is. But I didn’t expect the book to be that ridiculous. I know that’s the point, but still. The only way I got through this book was by essentially skimming the dialogue and not caring too much about which character was which. Now, certainly, there were passages in the novel that I could latch onto and ride with, but they didn’t add up to a larger experience for me.

But you know, certain things in real life have lately just seemed very absurd to me. So maybe I didn’t need a literary reminder that life in any time, in any circumstance, is merely ridiculous and meaningless, and there’s nothing to be done about it. Maybe it was too much salt in a wound.

pop rocks in my brain

2009-03-05T23:34:00.001-05:00

Here are 5 random thoughts from this week, none of which seem big enough to be their own post. But I need a post in the next 41 minutes, before the day ends. I am trying to cultivate blogging discipline.

1. Tonight I got to go see "A Powerful Noise," a documentary about women making a difference in Mali, Vietnam and Bosnia. Obviously their stories were very empowering, and then the movie was followed by a panel of people that included Madeleine Albright. But the panelist I was most surprised by was Christy Turlington Burns. Apparently she is very involved in the issue of maternal health, to the point that she travels around the world and is taking classes toward a master's in public health. That is not even on her Wikipedia page, guys. I did not expect to be so inspired by a fashion model.

2. Since giving up chocolate and soda for Lent, I'm realizing how much of what I consume daily is chocolate and soda. Sometimes I literally don't know what to do with myself. The sound of an opening soda can in the office is such a heartbreaking sound to me now. This week I got this big tub of animal crackers to snack on, because it was the only sweet thing I liked that didn't have chocolate and that wasn't egregiously bad, like sheet cake from the grocery store. So I might turn into an animal cracker if we really are what we eat. But is eating that many animal crackers worse than eating chocolate? Time will tell.

3. Maybe you saw this on the news, but since I was all busy blogging about the cruise, I didn't get to mention that it snowed in Atlanta this past Sunday! Big fat snowflakes! A sight very rarely seen down here, made the more enjoyable by the fact that it was Sunday and there was no need to worry about driving home from work or something. It must have snowed for six hours, including this time when it thundered and snowed at the same time and apparently that is called THUNDERSNOW if a website that I read is to be believed. But don't worry about us, it will be back in the seventies on Saturday. Mwa ha ha ha.

4. Guys, don't be so hard on The Bachelor. I happened to watch this season for the first time ever because a friend turned me on to it, and I can just tell you that I don't think he did such a bad thing breaking off his engagement to the girl he broke off the engagement with. I didn't like her, and I like the girl he did pick better. Why is everyone so offended? That is all I read about in the past few days, how horrified everyone is. You're watching a show that is designed to end in an engagement after people have spent like eight weeks together. Of course there's going to be a few mistakes. The set-up is ridiculous. We don't need people getting all offended because a ridiculous set-up yields ridiculous results. We have more important things, like maternal health and other things Christy Turlington Burns supports, to worry about.

5. According to a tech guy, my work laptop is "riddled with viruses." The tech guys are going to think I am so dumb, clicking on pop-ups and believing in internet scams. Listen, tech guys, if you ever read this, I don't go anywhere illicit or do anything suspect on the internet at work! I don't know how I get so riddled with viruses! I have a blog, so you know I am not completely dumb about the internet, right? RIGHT?

top ten list, part two

2009-03-04T20:49:00.002-05:00

Okay, as promised, here’s the second half of the “Top 10 Things I Did on the Cruise Ship List.” This entry will represent the last of the cruise vacation entries. I managed to stretch a four-day cruise into eight entries, which seems pretty respectable. Hopefully I will have something to blog about tomorrow!

6. Shows
Each night of the cruise, there was a big show, and the nightly show was by far one of my favorite thing about the vacation. On the first night, the show was sort of an intro to cruise entertainment, emceed by our cruise director Noonan. Noonan was very funny and had a dry wit. There was a game played with people on the cruise ship, and his comments to each of the contestants were very funny. That first show also featured a few brief numbers by the dancers and singers as well as a brief stand-up bit by a comedian. On another night, there was stand-up by two other comedians.

But the best shows in my opinion were the ones with the singing and dancing. One show was sort of a French nightclub sort of thing in which all the dancers were practically naked. The other show was singing and dancing to nightclub standards from around the world. Just watching those shows once exhausted me, but I can’t imagine performing them twice. That is an awful lot of costume changes. To do all that AND help with Bingo games during the day?!?! The dancers have a pretty big workload, it seems to me. We also watched one adorable dancer teach the cha-cha to some cruisers. I could not be a dancer on a cruise ship, because it is just too much work and too much nudity.

7. Karaoke
One cruise ship job that I wouldn’t mind is running the karaoke bar, which is a place where my family spent quite a bit of time. The first night we just watched and got a feel for it. By the end of the evening, Dad had the karaoke bug and told me he would sing if I did. The next day, he was a man possessed, thinking about his song and racing off for the lounge as soon as dinner was over. Before the place got too crowded, I karaoked my way through “Werewolves of London.” When Dad took the stage, though, the place had many more people, including a raucous bachelorette party. However, he absolutely nailed his song, a George Jones number known as “White Lightning.” It’s a fast song with a lot of words, and the whole time I was watching I couldn’t believe that that was my dad up there. He was really really good. After he finished and sat down, this lady came out of nowhere and gave him a big kiss on the cheek and told him how awesome he was. We plotted our karaoke encores the next day, having learned about what was successful in the karaoke bar. But the greatest heartbreak of the trip may have been that the karaoke bar was closed the next night, which was also the last night, for a public event. Stardom foiled!

8. On Deck for the Cure
Carnival has this thing where you can make a small donation and do a mini-walk for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. The walk was held on our day at sea and Mom and I decided to do it, since we really needed to get some exercise after all that eating and it was a pretty cool opportunity all around. Carnival has raised tons of money for breast cancer this way. We did a mile on the ship’s jogging track as part of the walk, and then we did another mile just on our own. Maybe if we had discovered that jogging track earlier on in the trip my jeans would fit better now, but frankly that’s unlikely. I just would have eaten more. But anyways, walking on the 10th level of a ship is pretty cool….very pretty, great view of the water.

9. Read
This one sounds a little boring and obvious, I guess, but it was so nice to have some time to read. I read Catch-22 (review on the way). The last day, the day at sea, I read mostly on the deck, but my comfy little bunk and some couches overlooking the water were also nice places to read. The only bad thing about reading on the deck was the pressure of chair wars. A lot of people would put their things on a deck chair and then just disappear for 5 hours, which hindered the other people who just wanted to sit in the sun. It was very uncomfortable. Apparently there were fights. The last day they put a notice in the cruise newspaper that people shouldn’t save a deck chair if they were going to be gone for more than 30 minutes. The last day we sat next to some claimed chairs for like three hours and we never saw the people who had claimed them. Meanwhile people are passing behind the chairs, all sad that there’s nowhere to sit. As I said, very uncomfortable.

10. Towel Animals!
Each night, while you’re off gallivanting about the ship, the steward comes in and turns down the bed and leaves an animal made out of a towel! It’s the most wonderful thing ever! Here is an elephant we received, as well as a creature that I think is a pig. It's hard to tell cause I think you make pigs and dogs the same way.
On the last day, Mom and I went to a class to learn how to make towel animals from the stewards. I just looked back over the pictures of the ones I made, and I don’t want to post them next to the professional examples. I learned how to make an elephant and a dog. If stewards didn’t also have to make beds and tidy rooms, I would want to be a room steward so I could bring joy to all the people with my towel animals.

a top ten list, in two parts

2009-03-03T22:57:00.001-05:00

So far on this epic cruise recap, I have mostly detailed what my parents and I did on our trips off the boat. However, we did spend the majority of this trip on a boat. In fact, the entire last day was just a day at sea. But time at sea is never boring. Oh my, no. There is so much to do on board, including the trivia challenges that I mentioned yesterday. There’s so much that you can’t even do it all – for example, we didn’t really hit up the casino, the dance clubs or the mini golf course. But I did compile a top 10 list of things that we did do aboard our cruise ship. However, I am going to break the list into two parts, because now that I’m blogging every day I don’t want to run out of material too fast. So here’s the first five:

1. Eat
This one is pretty obvious. Cruise ships are famous for the amount of food that they carry on board, and I certainly was not disappointed in this respect. As soon as we got on the boat we were sent up to the ninth floor of the ship, which had various eating stations as well as a full buffet. You know a trip will be good if you get fresh-carved roast beef within an hour. And then have a fancy dinner just a few hours later. I can’t even remember all the things I ate on this boat, but they included lobster tail, a ooey gooey warm chocolate cake, a Mexican midnight buffet, steak, eggs benedict, fried chicken and several types of breakfast meat. I probably should have taken more copious notes on all I consumed, but it would likely make me feel bad now. I have gained weight, y’all. I have been wearing fat pants since I got back. I am trying to exercise, but unfortunately, I still get hungry every 2.5 hours, which was roughly the feeding schedule I was on during the cruise.

2. Drink
I guess one follows the other. Now, my parents and I didn’t go as crazy as some of the people did on this traveling bar, but I think we did a respectable bit. Every day, Mom and I got the specialty cocktail, which came in this cute cruise cup of which I now have a set of 4 (Mom has the other half). These are the kinds of cocktails that have numerous types of fruit on the edge of the glass, as well as an umbrella. They were usually pink. We also had delicious mojitos and ice cold beer. Dad drank wine. And at the cocktail reception that was thrown by the captain, I had champagne and a lime daiquiri. That captain, he throws a good party. His name was Giuseppe. We learned that because on the first day the televisions in the room have a video that shows on repeat in which Giuseppe tells you how important it is to take part in the life jacket safety drill. We did do that, but it’s not going to merit its own entry on the list.

3. Watch the Academy Awards
Speaking of having televisions in the room, I was able to see an hour or so of the crown jewel in my annual television watching schedule, the Oscars. No doubt many of my readers were disappointed that I was not around to type drunken thoughts on the event this year, but frankly, I am glad I was on a boat and not in front of the computer. For the obvious reasons that being on a boat is far superior to being in front of a computer, but also because from the little that I saw, the Oscars sucked. Everything was too predictable, and I definitely did not like the feature where past winners came out to announce the nominees. It was too uneven; some presenters loved their nominees, while others didn’t even know who they were. It made me uncomfortable.

4. Fend Off Paparazzi
Much like the celebrities at the Academy Awards, I spent day after day having my picture taken even when I didn’t really want it. Cruise lines employ all these photographers, some of whom are stationed to photograph you at the most inopportune moment, such as when you’re stepping off a boat and getting wind all in your hair. Or when you’re trying to juggle all your travel documents before you get on a boat. Or when you’re eating dinner and they want to bring a pirate around to everyone’s table. It was an awful lot of photography, it seemed to me. But it was still fun to walk through the photo gallery and look for yourself amidst all the photos, even if it was only to cringe at how bad the photos turned out.

5. Waterslide!
One moment that I prayerfully hope wasn’t captured on film was the time I spent walking around in my bathing suit after four days of cruise eating. But I had to do it so I could spend some time in the hot tub and go on the waterslide! My dad went on the waterslide as well. We made three trips on that waterslide, along with several little kids. If a waterslide can entertain everyone from children to grownups, then I think that’s a pretty good waterslide.

the trophy story

2009-03-02T18:23:00.002-05:00

For better or worse, I have a long memory. I am -- how you say -- good at keeping grudges. Unfortunately for my family, that means I am able to remember obscure things they did to traumatize me during my childhood. And there is no anecdote that I pull out of my little twisted mind more often than “the trophy story.”

When I was a girl, I played softball for a few seasons. I was not very good; I am not very good at many sports at all. I distinctly remember one unfortunate incident when I swung at a ball that was BOUNCING. ON THE GROUND. That was not my finest moment.

Anyways, one season my dad was the coach of my team, Pink Panthers. Coach sat the team down at the beginning of the season and said that the only thing that mattered was whether we had fun. It wasn’t about winning or losing, but about doing our best and having fun and being a team. I would say that mission was accomplished. We certainly didn’t win every game, but we won a few. We had fun. It was a good season.

Until the end of the season, when my dad revealed that we wouldn’t be getting trophies. BECAUSE WE DIDN'T WIN ENOUGH.

Now, I certainly don’t believe that mediocrity should be rewarded. But I will tell you that it was somewhat implicit in that league that if you played softball as a kid, you got a trophy at the end of the season, usually presented at a pizza party. It was a memento of a summer in your life and I still have all the ones I got from playing on other teams. Teams, that I might add, may have lost more than the Pink Panthers did that season.

My other problem with this scenario is that in that heartwarming talk that Dad gave us at the beginning of the season, winning was in no way defined as a metric for our success. The only metric provided was that we have fun. We had fun; therefore, didn’t we deserve a symbol of our accomplishment? If he had said, “If you girls win a lot, we will get trophies,” then a merely decent record would not have sufficed. But he never brought up the parameters of receiving a trophy, because at that age, they were implicit: If you played, then you got a trophy.

I mean, the parents paid for them. I think they were reasonably priced.

Now, this is an anecdote that I bring up a lot. When people come over for dinner, I ask them in front of my father about the fairness of this situation. Dad has tried to make it up to me over the years, giving me little fake trophies or trophies with masking tape labels recognizing my accomplishments. BUT IT IS NOT THE SAME.

Now, maybe you are wondering what this has to do with my cruise vacation, which I was in the middle of recounting. Well, on the cruise ship, one of their little activities is playing trivia, and the prize is a little trophy of the cruise ship. I told Dad that if I won a trophy, then I would put this anecdote to rest.

I do just want to state, however, that I made that deal when I thought we’d be playing as a team. In actuality, we had to play as single individuals. So I don’t know if this deal still holds up.

The trivia game was 15 questions. Four people playing in the room got 9 out of 15, including both Dad and me. Which means we had to go to a sudden death tiebreaker, which some other guy won. It was especially heartbreaking, because Dad and I had both changed an answer at the last minute, and if we had only kept our original answer, either of us might have won without having to deal with the tiebreaker.

But there was another chance to win a trophy, and that was for a game called “Famous Faces.” They would flash people up on the screen for just a second, and you had to identify as many of the 60 shown as possible.

I got 54 correct. The guy who had won the first trivia game got 56, so he got another trophy. But the guy who was running trivia said that my score was so impressive that he gave me a trophy too! Hooray! A trophy for me!
What is especially significant about this trophy, to me, is that I didn’t have to win first place to receive it. I just had to do my best, which is what Dad said I had to do all those years ago when I was playing softball. Sure, that trivia guy may have just given me a trophy because the other guy had already won one, but doesn’t a ragtag team of softball playing girls deserve trophies too, maybe especially because all the other teams already got one?

Please feel free to tell me how correct I am on this matter in the comment section. You can also forward me emails that mention how I deserved a trophy when I was 10, and I will make sure my father sees them. But I will, on my honor, try to put this trophy anecdote to rest now.

like a whole other country

2009-03-01T21:55:00.003-05:00

After Key West, our cruise ship headed off for Cozumel, in Mexico. Unlike Key West, in which we had a lot of ideas about what we might want to do, we didn't have much of an idea of what to do in Cozumel. There were a lot of excursions offered through the cruise line but they were expensive, and furthermore, I didn't find anything that was too appealing. Apparently I have no desire to swim with dolphins or go to Mayan ruins. Oh well.

So I did some research, and basically we decided that we'd walk through the town of San Miguel and then go to a beach. We came in at a port that was a few miles down the road from San Miguel, so we hopped in a cab and the guy let us out downtown. Which looked like this:

We walked around for awhile, going into shops. Mom and Dad started to find this stressful, because each shop had someone outside yelling at you to come in and take a look. Then the salesperson follows you around. It's not a very enjoyable way to shop. Also, most of the shops have the same souvenirs, so after just a few shops you feel like you've seen it all.

After awhile, Dad was ready to go back to the ship, and the plan was for Mom and I to continue to a beach club for a few hours, before we too would head back in time for dinner. We passed a place advertising $1 Coronas, however, so we decided to stop and have a drink. Plus the place had shade, and this was a very hot day.

It turns out all the beers were $1, so Dad asked the waiter if there were any local ones on the list. He and I enjoyed Montejo, a Yucatan beer.
Look at all the fun we're having in the picture above! And for only $2! I also split a strawberry daiquiri with Mom, which was $4. I guess there's a reason kids go to Mexico for spring break. It's so cheap to drink! Too bad I didn't figure this out earlier, before Mexico got all dangerous!

Another plus for Mexico is you can wander the streets with a beer in your hand. That's what I'm doing below, with the Mexican flag carefully placed in the background, so as to prove that I did in fact leave the country:

After all the drinking, it was getting late so we decided to head back to the cruise ship together and forego the beach trip. We did take some time to walk along the coast. We walked out on this pier and saw these little fish that looked like sharks! Also I saw these fish out of water:

There are all sorts of these statues along the main road along the coast.

We walked down to Senor Frog's before we caught a taxi back to the boat, because when I see giant frogs, I must have pictures with them. Luckily, my parents support me in this quest. If you have a real eye for detail, you might notice that I've moved on to a beer in a can. Dos Equis in a souvenir shop for $1 a can!
A few more swigs of Dos Equis led to this:

Then I was drinking and driving!

After my froggy photo shoot, we got in a real car, though. And it turns out Mexico doesn't have any of those pesky open container laws so I enjoyed that beer all the way back to the cruise ship.

At the dock there was like a little miniature downtown Cozumel, only the drinks were more expensive and the shops catered to American tourists that don't want Mexican shopkeepers shouting at them. I found a nativity scene made in Mexico at one of those stores that was far cheaper than anything I saw in the real downtown, so that was my Cozumel souvenir. (I'm sure it will get a picture post when it becomes my seasonal centerpiece!)

Apparently, all those shops were brand new and built after damage done during 2005 hurricanes. While that part was nice to walk around, I'm glad we got to go into the real town. We met some ladies who only went to that part, and that seemed sad. Granted, they didn't seem like ladies that drank, so I guess they wouldn't have been impressed with all the cheap alcohol prices.

the best of the rest of key west

2009-02-28T09:16:00.002-05:00

Well, this is the third and last posting about our stop in Key West on our cruise. I’m kind of amazed I got three posts out of the stop – the whole stay was only a few hours. Key West is definitely some place that I would like to go back to, so I could really get in laidback mode and wander the streets and whatnot. February seemed like a really nice time to go…not too hot.

If it had been hot, I don’t know if we would have made it down to the southernmost point in the United States. We got there by walking about a mile, I guess, down Duval Street. At that point we were only 90 miles from Cuba, which a helpful marker alerted me to. There was a line of chumps waiting to take a picture with the marker, but we just snapped pictures in front of the monument right after the person posing walked away. In my opinion, the people waiting in line were chumps.

The rest of our time in Key West was devoted to walking around, peeking in shops and partaking in the local delicacy of key lime pie. It was a piece of pie put on a stick and then dipped in chocolate, and let me tell you, it was heavenly. The lady in the shop said they had been on Rachael Ray, so take that for what it’s worth.

Right before heading back to the cruise ship, we visited Mallory Square. It’s a famous spot for famous sunsets, but we were setting sail at 2 so you’ll have to use your imagination as to what a sunset might have looked like here. Or, you know, just find a picture of what it would have looked like on the internet.

All around Mallory Square you can hear chicken and roosters squawking. Apparently the chicken and roosters can run free on Key West, something that about half the people like and half the people hate. I think that visually it was neat, but it was hard on my ears.

And that was our few hours in Key West. I leave you with a picture of the sailor I hope to return for one day. Our time together was brief, but our love remains fiery.

the ghosts of Key West

2009-02-27T20:55:00.004-05:00

After you see where Harry S. Truman vacationed, there are two other men who are indelibly linked with the town of Key West that you have to pay tribute to. Those men, of course, are Jimmy Buffett and Ernest Hemingway.

If you were raised a faithful Parrothead, as I was, then Key West is a sort of mecca. If Jimmy Buffett hadn’t gone to Key West, then he might just have been a failed country singer. But instead, he went to Miami for a show, only to find it cancelled. Jerry Jeff Walker drove him down A1A to Key West and the rest is history. All the good old Jimmy Buffett albums were made there. This was back in the day before Jimmy Buffett became a brand and started selling $400 margarita makers. This was back when Jimmy had a guitar and a boat (just one) and did a lot of drugs. When cruise ships didn’t stop in Key West but instead there might have been real pirates. It sounds kind of awesome.

Since I listened to nothing but Jimmy Buffett until I was like 12, I knew there were many locales we should be looking for as self-respecting Parrotheads. We found one early enough: Caroline Street. According to Jimmy, at one point, there was a “woman going crazy on Caroline Street.” In the song, the woman drinks beers and hits on men from shrimping boats. Jimmy sings it, “she slowly guzzles twenty five cent beers.” I only recently realized that there might be a hyphen between twenty and five. I thought she drank twenty beers that cost a nickel. I guess 25 cent beers might be more realistic in any economy. But when I thought that lady could put away 20 beers, I really thought she was a badass. So anyway, there is a picture of me going crazy on Caroline Street, but it’s not on my camera so I can’t show you.

Now, Jimmy sings one song about how “Duval Street was rocking,” which caused his eyes to start a popping. That street was very easy to see because it’s the main drag in Key West, and we walked the length of it. Off Duval, though, is Capt. Tony’s, which is mentioned in the song “Last Mango in Paris.” But I knew all about it from my family’s repeated listenings to the 1990 live album, “Feeding Frenzy,” in which that song gets an extended intro that goes:

“I’d like to do a song that was written about a good friend of mine down in Key West, where I spend a little bit of time. This particular friend ran a bar in Key West for a long time before we got fed up with all the other alternatives to politicians and elected our favorite bartender mayor. Our mayor’s name is Captain Tony Tarracino (Molly’s note: when I was little, I thought Jimmy said, “our mayor’s name is Captain Tony Terry you know him?” and I would always think, no, Jimmy, how am I supposed to know this guy?) He has a little place called Captain Tony’s saloon.” (Molly’s second note: Even years later, I can remember that intro by heart. I am SICK)

And here I am at Captain Tony’s!

There are bras on the ceiling! (not pictured)

Now, Captain Tony’s brings us to Ernest Hemingway, for Captain Tony’s Saloon was the original spot for Sloppy Joe’s, a bar that is now famed as Ernest Hemingway’s hangout. First off, I am not a very big Hemingway fan; I haven’t read much of his work and I will not be able to rattle off random passages or lines as I just did for Jimmy Buffett.

But being a writer myself, I did want to have a drink where Papa did, to see if I could catch any of that Hemingway magic. Maybe come back with an idea for a book about bulls or war or safari. I had a margarita, voted the best in Florida. Well, that was one strong margarita, about as strong as my mom’s daiquiri, and as my dad put it, we’re lucky Hemingway wrote anything at all that made any sense. And I certainly hope he didn’t drive himself home afterward.

Unfortunately, I don’t think Ernie would like Sloppy Joe’s much now, as it’s mostly a tourist attraction. I guess if he liked seeing himself on t-shirts he might like it. But given how he ended his life I am not sure he would.

Here is Sloppy Joe’s.

We didn’t have time to tour the Hemingway house, but I think I caught a little of his spirit, and I did have many a photo opp with him:

I'd like to think that in this last picture I qualify as his "Catch of the Day." (He is holding a fishing rod. It might be kind of hard to see at the smaller size.)

Dewey defeats Truman

2009-02-26T23:14:00.004-05:00

One of the first things my parents and I did on this cruise ended up being one of our favorite things of the whole trip. After sailing from Miami in the late afternoon, we docked in Key West in the early morning the next day. As you may know about my family, we're all equipped with historical sensors that allow us to tell when we're near some place of presidential importance. As it happens, the only presidential museum in all of Florida (I guess until Jeb rules us) is in Key West , at the Harry S. Truman Little White House.

Harry Truman wasn't exactly planning on becoming president. He's a senator, and he heads the Truman committee, which looked into military wastefulness, and then boom, FDR dies and he's the president. This is all thoroughly depicted in the HBO original movie "Truman" starring Gary Sinise. This movie, according to Wikipedia, was made in 1995 and I very distinctly remember watching it. I'm will readily admit that sometimes when I think of Harry Truman I think of Gary Sinise first. I'm not ashamed by that. But I digress.

Anyways, Truman had only been vice-president for less than a hundred days and then he's president. All sorts of crazy crap is going on, like the war and the Manhattan Project and who knows what else. He has to deal with that and then the guy is really tired. His doctor orders him to get some R&R. So he heads to Key West . Now I think we are beginning to see why he is one of our most esteemed presidents.

Truman just had the best time in Key West , hitting on girls on their spring break and drinking really strong margaritas with the ghost of Ernest Hemingway. No, I joke. Hemingway was still alive at this point, and Truman actually didn't leave the military compound, it sounds like. But he returned to the same house 11 times over the course of his presidency, taking working vacations there that totaled 175 days. Now it is known as the Truman Little White House. So off my family went to see it.

Here is what it looks like:

When you take the tour, first you watch a video about Truman and his relationship with Key West . He liked to wear crazy tropical shirts and have a parrot sit on his shoulder (only one of those things is true). Each morning he would go for a brisk walk, have a good breakfast, and then settle in to do work with a military stenographer. He worked on the Marshall Plan and civil rights executive orders there. He had supreme court justices and other bigwigs down to play poker with him. At night he might watch some newsreels or listen to some records. Maybe he'd go fishing. It sounds like kind of idyllic life, as far as being the president goes.

And it was kind of idyllic house to do it in. On the tour, you see Bess Truman's bedroom (she might need her own in case the president was called away in the middle of the night to do something presidential) as well as her awesome deck for reading and card-playing. That deck was so awesome in fact that it was kind of hard to remember that the house wasn't air-conditioned back in the day and might not always have been a pleasant place to sit.

Then you see the president's room; Truman insisted on a daybed so that he could take a nap without disturbing his ready-made bed. Good thinker, that Truman. Also good thinking: the way he set up his bar. He had a bar that was kind of set back into another room. The wood that made up the bar also made up his custom poker table, which had a lid so that you could cover the poker table and have tea. In case you were a delicate, easily shocked lady or something, as apparently Bess Truman was. Additionally, there was a very nice dining room and a living room that had the man's desk, complete with a sign that told you exactly where the buck stopped.

Truman's the focal point of the tour (our very excellent tour guide called Truman his hero) but Truman's not the only president to go to the Little White House. The first president to go was actually Taft, and after Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton all visited. Kennedy even discussed the Bay of Pigs there with the British Prime Minister. Colin Powell held peace talks at the house and there's an open invitation to any president or dignitary who might like to stay there. But no matter who visits, it seems that house will always belong to Truman. Perhaps because he loved it so, and because he wore so many tropical shirts. Perhaps because they already invested in restoring all that furniture from the Truman era.

Anyways, as I mentioned at the beginning, this stop ended up being one of everyone's favorite stops during the entire cruise. In part, it's because our tour guide was such a good, entertaining storyteller, and in part, it's because a president could vomit on a street corner in 1874 and that would become something my family would like to see. (How I wish Truman had vomited on a street corner in Key West) If you find yourself in the middle of that spectrum, then I think you would like this place. Even if you're not obsessive about your presidential landmarks, it's impressive to see that desk where he worked, complete with his sign that let you know about the buck and its stopping.

Here I am, giving Harry hell: