books and pictures

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

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.

important life lessons

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.

some cat correspondence

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

Dewey defeats Truman

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:

President's Day

Lately I've been wishing I could be Doris Kearns Goodwin, noted presidential scholar. But I would like to be Doris Kearns Goodwin without all the years of study. I just want to be an expert on something without all the work, okay?

Naturally, I've been thinking about Doris Kearns Goodwin today, today being President's Day. And of course, I have been thinking about presidents. Perhaps you have seen in the news where there was a new ranking of the best and worst presidents. The survey was done by CSPAN, and here were the results:

The Top 10 Presidents are: Lincoln, Washington, FDR, T. Roosevelt, Truman, JFK, Jefferson, Eisenhower, Wilson, Reagan.

The Bottom 10 Presidents are: Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Pierce, William Henry Harrison, Harding, Millard Fillmore, George W. Bush, Tyler, Hoover and Hayes.

These presidents were judged by noted historians and scholars on leadership characteristics that included public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision/setting an agenda, pursued equal justice for all, performance within context of times.

Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say BORING. Sure, moral authority and administrative skills are important. But are they the MOST important things? I think not. That's why I set about today to establish the best and worst presidents by more interesting criteria.

Since CSPAN used 10 characteristics, I picked 10 also. I went with:
1. Attractiveness: Because, let's admit it, we judge people on their looks.

2. Coolness of Name: Maybe this category was selected to help my man Abraham Lincoln, maybe it wasn't.

3. First Lady: Was she awesome? Or was she lame? I judged this based on looks and by skimming her bio.

4. Quantity of Fun Facts Discerned by Skimming Wikipedia Biography: Like I said, I want to be Doris Kearns Goodwin, but I don't have all day. I need to get in quick and leave with sparking cocktail conversation without doing a lot of heavy lifting.

5. Interesting Experiences Before the White House: Were you a door-to-door salesman? Cause I find that infinitely more interesting than 10 terms as a senator.

6. Scandals: Was this president interesting in a juicy, tabloidy sort of way?

7. End of life/Legacy/Things Named After Him: This was probably the most arbitrary category. If the Wikipedia bio said specifically that a president was well-regarded or poorly regarded, I took that into account. But I also took into account if a president had interesting last words, a fascinating death of story, or an abundance of things named after him.

8. Interesting Pictures on Wikipedia Page: What can I learn just by looking at pictures? Quantity and quality were important here.

9. Would we elect this guy today?: This category took into account how this president might be perceived in today's world. For example, would we elect a guy in a wheelchair? Why do we still crave military men? If the president stumbled into office without an election by means of succession, and then never won an election, he fared poorly in this category.

10. Wikipedia citations: This, to me, was meant to be a measure of how much interest there was in a particular person. It would both measure a level of obsession (i.e., a Wikipedia stalker spending time citing every single sentence on an obscure president) as well as a level of scholarship, as the number of sources would indicate that there were many things worth studying about this person.

Each category was worth 0-10 points, except for Wikipedia citations, in which I took the number of Wikipedia citations and added it to the rest of the score. This quickly proved to be troublesome. First, the obvious reason--modern figures are much more likely to be cited obsessively, cited every day when they do something. Also, I was surprised by how this category damaged Lincoln (only 83 citations) yet aided someone like Benjamin Harrison (112 citations!). George W. Bush is the president with the most Wikipedia citations, with 311, and Barack Obama, who's barely even done anything as president yet, has 215.

So clearly, counting Wikipedia citations is an extremely flawed ways of going about things. It results in a list like this:

Top 10 Best Presidents
1. George W. Bush
2. Ronald Reagan
3. Barack Obama
4. Grover Cleveland
5. Richard Nixon
6. Harry S. Truman
7. Bill Clinton
8. Teddy Roosevelt
9. Calvin Coolidge
10. FDR

Top 10 Worst Presidents
1. Warren G. Harding
2. Martin Van Buren
3. Zachary Taylor
4. James Buchanan
5. Rutherford B. Hayes
6. James Monroe
7. John Quincy Adams
8. Millard Fillmore
9. William McKinley
10. Andrew Johson

Look, I don't have to be Doris Kearns Goodwin to know that these results are serious flawed. So then I re-did the lists, taking out the Wikipedia citations, and these are my official results:

Top 10 Best Presidents:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. Teddy Roosevelt
3. Ulysses S. Grant
4. JFK
5. Woodrow Wilson
6. Harry S. Truman
7. (3-way tie) George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, FDR
8. Ronald Reagan
9. (tie) James Garfield, Barack Obama
10. (tie) Grover Cleveland, Eisenhower

Top 10 Worst Presidents
1. Warren G. Harding
2. Benjamin Harrison
3. Martin Van Buren
4. Andrew Johnson
5. (tie) John Adams, Calvin Coolidge
6. Zachary Taylor
7. John Quincy Adams
8. James Madison
9. James K. Polk
10. Millard Fillmore

And here are some notes I took during the process that might help explain some of my thought processes:
--Jefferson was a president hindered by not having a cool first lady, but he was immensely helped by the scandal of Sally Hemmings!

--John Quincy Adams did nothing for me, looks-wise. But he had an interesting death story! According to Wikipedia, when the House was debating whether to honor Army officers who served in the Mexican-American War, Adams shouted "NO!!" at the same time that everyone else yelled "AYE" and then he collapsed. His last words are reported to have been, "This is the last of Earth. I am content."

--John Tyler totally got off easy with the way he slipped that second wife into the White House!

--Zachary Taylor may have been poisoned!

--Millard Fillmore's last words were "the nourishment is palatable," after being fed some soup. The adorableness of that was not enough to help him out of the other holes presented by his Wikipedia bio.

--James Buchanan may have been gay! He was def. hurt by not having a first lady, and also, you know, by not stopping the Civil War.

--Tommy Lee Jones should totally play Andrew Johnson in a movie!

--Ulysses S. Grant: attractive, blessed with a cool name, and a good first lady. he wouldn't even let her get surgery to correct her crossed eyes, because he found it too sexy the way it was.

--About the only interesting thing people could say about Benjamin Harrison's wife was that she "was the first First Lady to be born in October."

--McKinley has shockingly few Wikipedia citations, leading me to believe that this could be my niche, should I really try to pursue this Doris Kearns Goodwin thing.

--New favorite First Lady: Florence Harding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Kling_Harding. There's a new bio coming out next month! But her interesting backstory cannot make up for his other faults, so he kept ending up on the worst lists.

--There are surprisingly few photographs of JFK on his Wikipedia page. For such a handsome president, that really should be addressed.

--I know Barack Obama really hasn't done anything yet. But what can I say? He is good looking, has an interesting name, an awesome First Lady, an intensely enjoyable Wikipedia page, and we'd obviously elect him in this modern age. Those were the categories, after all. Let's hope I am prescient.

i could have danced all night

Man oh man. What an Inauguration Day. We got to take a little pause from work and watch the swearing-in and the speeches. People in the office broke into applause after Obama took the oath of office and then you could have heard a pin drop while Obama gave his speech. What a moment.

But now I am home and on the couch and watching all the commentators re-live the day. And the Obamas are going to TEN balls! I would be happy just to go to one ball in a big poofy dress but they are going to TEN! So I decided to make a list ten balls that I would like to go to:

1. Pope Ball
This would be a ball held in Vatican City. The Pope sits in a chair and watches everyone dance. All the males have to come dressed as their favorite pope. Or they get assigned a pope, because we don't want everyone coming as just John Paul II or something. Maybe it would be creepy to dance with a man dressed as a pope; after all, they are supposed to be celibate. But I think I would get over it. Requested attire: Big poofy dress of the type wore in the Renaissance.

2. Southern Belle Ball
By this I mean a ball that takes place in the south. I know I live in Atlanta, so it's not inconceivable that I could go to such a ball one day. But I'd like the ball to take place in pre-Civil War times, ideally. I am pretty much modeling this idea on a few scenes in Gone with the Wind. Requested attire: Big poofy dress of the type worn in the pre-war south.

3. Underwater Ball
I keep hearing about these snazzy restaurants where you eat in enclosed glass while fish swim all around you. This would be a ball like that. Where you dance in glass surrounded by fish. But only pretty fish. No scary fish. Nothing like eels or anything. Requested attire: Whatever dress you want.

4. Art Museum Ball
I was thinking of some awesome art museums in Europe that would be fun to have a party in. So just a ball where people get to run around in an art museum. Particularly one with sculpture all around. And you can say things like, "Darling, go get me a class of wine and I will wait for you by the Monet." Requested attire: an outfit that has actually been in a painting.

5. Castle Ball
I guess this is sort of obvious. But what would really make this ideal is if we still lived in the kind of world where there was really a chance of meeting a prince and becoming princess and have it mean something. If there was still really that stress of producing male heirs to continue the monarchy. I can't decide what time period I'd want, or even what monarchy I want to marry into. But basically a big ol' royalty ball.

6. North Pole Ball
This would be an outside ball. It would be all snowy, but not uncomfortably cold. There are a ton of elves, both male and female, so that you always have someone to dance with. Santa dances with all the ladies. You get presents at this ball. You arrive at this ball in a sleigh. I know these aren't Christmas per se, but if some adorable creatures could scamper around during the dancing, that would be ideal.

7. Cheese Ball
Picture a huge cheese wheel. Like the hugest cheese wheel you've ever seen. Now picture it 29384093840293840 percent bigger…so big that we could carve out the middle of it and have a circular cheese wall big enough for people to dance in. At the ball they would serve the cheese that was carved out of the middle, but it would also be encouraged to just take pieces of cheese from the wall. Cause the ball is not over until all of the cheese walls are eaten. Requested attire: a big poofy dress that is loose enough to accommodate you eating a lot of cheese.

8. Roller skating ball
You know how fun it is to wear a huge poofy dress? And you know how fun it is to roller skate? Well, COMBINE THE TWO and you have a roller skating ball.

9. Amusement Park Ball
You can dance all over the amusement park. OR YOU CAN RIDE ALL THE RIDES. Also all the concession stands are free during the ball so you can eat lots of hot dogs and funnel cakes.

10. White House Ball
But this isn't an inaugural ball. Oh no. This is a ball where all the dead presidents appear and dance with the living. You can chat them up about what they think about the country now and they try to offer you snacks that were typical of their time. Lincoln would be a total playa at this ball and would always be trying to show the ladies the Lincoln Bedroom.

a doodled daydream....from the future!

Here's a scary thought.

This is how my mind works. Because I'm sick.

I was just making a promise to myself that I would never ever write so many blogs in one month again simply to meet an arbitrary goal. Rather, I was making the solemn vow that I would be diligent in posting to my blog throughout the year, so that I would never be in this position again. Instead, I would quite naturally just end at about 200 entries at the end of the year.

But then I had the thought that maybe I would be so diligent about posting that I would reach the 200 mark at say, October, and that I would be in this position again next year, except I would be blogging my ass off to reach 300 posts!

Like I said, I have the illness, in my head. That's just crazy talk.

OR IS IT????????

And then, just when my thoughts couldn't get any sicker, I thought, "But, hmmm. I'm out of seasonal centerpieces to photograph."

I must not allow myself to think such thoughts in my delirium.

But perhaps this is what 2009 could be like:
Molly: Pope, Barack Obama...this year I'm trying to get to 300 entries!
Pope: Why does this girl keep daydreaming of us, Barack?
Barack: Why is Molly wearing the same clothes as last year?

a doodled daydream

Here is a daydream I just had:


In case it is too small to read, here is the text:
Molly: Pope and Barack Obama, will I finish my blog entries?
Pope: Well, this drawing will put you closer to your goal.
Barack: Yes you can!

Now that I read it over again, I don't think the pope likes that I am just using a drawing for one of my entries. I wish he had been more positive.

a tip: do the border first

Well, Christmas break is almost over. Right now I’m sitting at my brother’s apartment, playing Yahtzee, blogging and waiting to eat some barbeque ALL AT THE SAME TIME. That is what I call multitasking, though my fellow Yahtzee players probably wish I was a little more focused on the game.

After lunch I will drive back to Atlanta. When I go, I will leave one major Christmas activity unfinished, and that is the holiday puzzle. Many Christmases, my family works a puzzle after we’re finished opening up presents. Then my dad shellacs all of the puzzles and frames them, and they form the majority of his law office decoration. Some of the puzzles that I can think of off the top of my head include a Presidents puzzle, a First Ladies puzzle, a Civil War puzzle, a Kennedy puzzle, a Lincoln puzzle and a United States puzzle.

Though Dad got a North Carolina puzzle and a Founding Fathers puzzle last Christmas, we took a bye year and didn’t do a puzzle. Which means I was only itching all the more to get a puzzle going this year. My dad got this puzzle from my mom on Christmas morning:

It’s a puzzle called “Grand Ol’ Gang” and it shows Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, T. Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bush I and II playing poker with Abraham Lincoln. When Dad viewed the puzzle, he made humorous observations, such as Nixon was likely cheating and the reason George W. Bush didn’t have cards in his hand was that he didn’t understand how the game was played. Yet despite these witty remarks, Dad remains a Republican through-and-through. So this was a pretty good puzzle for him.

We have said this about many puzzles, but this puzzle is especially difficult. The pieces are very oddly shaped, but more specifically, many of the pieces are very dark. The clothes are dark, and most of the background is dark. The more I worked this puzzle, the creepier I found this darkness. The background looks fairly apocalyptic, moreso than the picture above may let on…and 8 of the men who might know how to fix it are in a bunker playing poker? It seems extremely inappropriate. To be fair, there is a companion puzzle to this one, featuring Democrats, and I will have to go back to check to see if the Democrats are similarly playing the fiddle as Rome burns. Methaphorically of course.

I probably only need another 90 minutes with that puzzle to finish it, but I’m leaving right after the barbeque. So today’s Picture of the Day is the puzzle in progress, with my main helper man William and little Tiki Monster looking on.

Between the time that I wrote the entry and the time I posted it, I played some Yahtzee. William was slightly offended at the description of "main helper man" and I'd like to amend my comments to point out that he spent several hours working on the puzzle by himself, during which time he put together at least two presidents. Sorry William. But even though Tiki is not here to defend herself, I don't think she'd find any fault with her description.

unto us a president is given

Alright, so the Christmas Picture of the Day is a bit late. But certain circumstances, such as alcohol consumption, a lack of internet at my house and general holiday merriment prevented me from posting a blog yesterday. It is just too hard to blog on Christmas, even if you are trying to reach 200 entries by the end of the calendar year.

Anyways, I had a very nice Christmas. I got a lot more than a painted wagon and an apple, I can tell you that! If I were to put a theme on my Christmas gifts, that theme would be Barack Obama. Apparently I have mentioned quite a few times that I am extremely fond of Barack Obama, and so many people in my family chose to use that as a guiding principle in gift-giving. I got an Obama sticker in my stocking. I got a framed Obama poster. My brother and my sister-in-law gave me the children’s books telling of the life story of our president-elect, each of which have the most darling and beautiful illustrations. And if real pictures are more your thing, I got the Time Magazine and the Life Magazine commemorative Barack Obama editions. I even got an Obama t-shirt from the cat.

Even though I got many wonderful things in addition to my Barack Obama gifts, those things are what I am choosing to highlight as today’s Picture of the Day:

"Who is Barack Obama? Contrary to the rumors you may have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-El, to save the planet Earth."--Barack Obama

Happy Election Day!

In the days leading up to the momentous election occurring today, I transported myself back in time to the good ol' days of the founding fathers. By which I mean I finally got around to watching all 501 minutes (about 8 ½ hours) of "John Adams", the acclaimed miniseries starring Paul Giamatti as John Adams and Laura Linney as Abigail Adams.

I have always had a soft spot for Adams since visiting Adams National Historic Park with my family a few years ago. It's a really great site, on par with some of the best presidential libraries, though it's not an official presidential library since it's not run by the National Archives and Record Administration. But you do get to see a really cool library that belonged to John Quincy Adams. It's entirely fireproof and has so many books. It was probably my favorite part of the tour.

By the way, from a non-partisan perspective, we can't really go wrong in this election in terms of the presidential library situation. If we had a Barack Obama library, than Illinois would have a great two-fer in terms of Lincoln and Obama. And we badly need more presidential sites in the western states. California does its part but something in Arizona would really liven up vacations for those of us who like going to these types of things. So that's a win-win! But as most people know, I am not non-partisan.

Anyways, back to John Adams. I thought watching the miniseries at this point of the year would provide a good reprieve from the election news, which has been driving me crazy. And frankly, John Adams was lucky to be around in a YouTube-less age. For example, he seemed like kind of a big crybaby. He was frequently grumpy. He was kind of an ass to everyone that he thought was wrong. His speeches would have been criticized as elitist and emotionless. He was not very attractive. He had a very spunky wife who likely would have said something that would have been taken out of context and criticized. On the plus side, he did have adorable children that would give the Obama girls and Piper Palin runs for their money, but unfortunately he treated them kinda badly and would have likely gotten into the kind of snafu that Giuliani got into when his kids wouldn't campaign with him. John Adams was not a very good dad.

What does everybody think about wigs? Sometimes while watching this miniseries I was pro-wig, especially the look that was a few tight horizontal curls right above the ear, while other times I was vehemently anti-wig. I'm a flip-flopper like that. But one thing I can get behind is carrying around a walking stick all the time and banging it on the floor to demonstrate approval or disgust. People were real into that in the olden days, apparently. Also, bonnets. We should bring back bonnets.

So bonnets + walking stick = win. But here were the things from John Adams' day that I didn't like. First up, tarring and feathering. That seems bad. But I will say that I might hold undue prejudice against this one because I got all excited about the HBO advisory that warned me that there would be "brief nudity" in this episode. I figured this translated into John and Abigail getting it on. But as it was, a naked guy got tarred and feathered. I didn't enjoy that. I also didn't enjoy watching the Adams family get smallpox vaccines or the guy who had smallpox. Similarly hard to watch: amputation and a primitive mastectomy.

The most interesting character of all to me was Thomas Jefferson. When we meet Thomas Jefferson, he's a moody writer who has to sit by while Ben Franklin and John Adams mess up his carefully chosen words. It's a hard ordeal for any writer, which is why I think Jefferson might have liked blogging. No editor can touch you there. Unless your editor leaves comments on your blog. HELLO KATIE.

Well, after hearing his historic but mangled words read aloud, Jefferson disappears until one of the best segments of the series, which is when Adams is in Paris. Then he reappears for some crazy sexual tension with Abigail Adams. Also, Ben Franklin, deep into his crazy coonskin hat days, is also running around. At first, it seemed to me that Ben Franklin would have been awesome to be friends with, because he ran around saying funny and wise things all the time. But I guess I would eventually find that annoying, as John Adams seemed to do; Adams was also generally annoyed that history would remember Franklin more fondly than it remembered him. That's a concern he had about most people. I guess it was hard to be a Founding Father. Because in addition to Franklin and Jefferson, you also had the dashing heartthrob and flashy dresser George Washington running around.

John Adams spends a lot of time getting down on himself. Despite thinking he is always right, he pretty much always thinks he failed as well. He always felt screwed over, which is not a particularly attractive quality in a politician and leader or anybody I guess. And frankly he made some bad decisions, particularly in terms of his children. Would we elect him president today? Probably not.

Anyways, if you want to watch a miniseries that has weird parallels and references to things that happen in politics today, you should watch this miniseries. You should also just watch the miniseries if you want to be entertained for 501 minutes, because I know I certainly was. Though don't watch this miniseries for a happy ending because pretty much everybody dies….hope I'm not giving anything away there. Though if you do watch to the end, you get this little nugget of a quote from elderly John Adams: "I can no longer bear this ennui, Abigail!" I'm going to try to throw it into conversation more often. Even if no one nearby is named Abigail.