Season Liberally

I wanna go home: a snivel for the 21st century

2007-10-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

I grew up in the suburbs, in Marin County, CA, a suburb of San Francisco. In Mill Valley in the 60s and 70s, we had a downtown, with markets, taverns, restaurants, a 5-and-dime store, a hardware store, a great old deco movie theater. You could walk pretty much everywhere because we had these things called sidewalks. We had parks, a library, and there pretty much wasn't a street in town where I didn't know at least one or two people. A lot of the downtown businesses had people living above them, either renters or the owners of the ground-floor businesses. As a teenager, I hung out downtown with an almost religious dedication. It was a place to meet your friends, talk about other friends (and enemies), share poetry or lists of favorite songs, and watch boys. Oh, yeah. It was our central HQ, and from there we could spread out all over town, playing or getting in trouble. It was our After School Program, before such things were moved indoors and away from the "bad influences" like us.

I moved away to San Francisco in the early 80s, but by 1987 I had gone further north, to Sonoma County, and lived in several places before finally settling in Rohnert Park, which was close to the college I was attending (Sonoma State). Rohnert Park was my first experience with a suburb that was built as a place for people to sleep between commutes. It's not a place where you'd want to hang out. Everything is spread pretty far apart, and for the first time in my life, at the ripe old age of 28, I found myself forced to learn to drive and own a car. You simply could not exist without one. Rohnert Park had parks, walking paths, and a library. But there was no downtown, no mom-and-pop stores, no central gathering place. The megagoogleplex theater was across the freeway, the hardware store was Home Depot, and strict zoning laws firmly segregated business owners from their businesses. The town's center, if you could call it that, was a mall, ironically called the Raley's Town Center, named after the supermarket that anchored it. "Town Center" my ass. Nobody hung out there except surly little sparrows, pecking at french fries in the parking lot. Rohnert Park was truly the cliche of the "soulless suburb," and as far as I can tell, it still is.

I felt bad that, because of my circumstances, my daughter was missing what I had as a child. But after I finished college (as a single parent it took me ten long and bloody years), we moved north yet again, but not far, to Santa Rosa, a small city that is the hub of Sonoma County. My daughter was just about to transition from middle school to high school, so I figure I got her out of soullessville just in the nick of time. We both loved Santa Rosa, and she still lives there (she is now 25). It's a tiny city by most standards, but much larger than Mill Valley. It has a downtown, with shops and bars and restaurants and theaters. There are places for kids to congregate and get into trouble, which is good. They should at least have the choice. You can get around without a car if you have to, but these days it seems that not many people do. It has sidewalks and parks and a sense of history, something I was definitely missing in Rohnert Park.

In the fall of 2001 I found myself moving across the country to Bowie, Maryland, a suburb stuck about halfway between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. Bowie was affordable (we bought our 4-bedroom Cape Cod style house on a quarter-acre lot for 165k, which is the price of a crappy parking garage in the Bay Area), but once again I found myself in a suburb that lacked a heart. Once again the center of the community is a shopping mall (the Bowie Town Centre, ha) surrounded by big box stores and little neighborhoods of houses that are all one of three basic designs: Cape Cod, Colonial, or Rambler. Each little "neighborhood" has streets that all start with the same letter (I am in the M section...Rohnert Park has this same peculiarity, but there I lived in the C-section and the D-section, both good for a few laughs from my punnier friends), but there are few sidewalks here. Rohnert Park was modeled on the suburb of Levittown, but Bowie tops that, having been actually designed and built by Mr. Levitt himself, who apparently thought sidewalks were too old-fashioned or reminded him of the awful time before there were cars. Walking is not encouraged, and even if one wanted to walk around, where would you go? The strip mall down the road? Yuck. A lot of people I know and love disparage the suburbs, but it's not Mill Valley they are talking about, it's Rohnert Park and Bowie.

Rohnert Park was pretty vigilant about discouraging "bad influences" and the fine art of Hanging Out, but Bowie has made it a freaking crusade. There isn't a single bar, pub, or tavern here. It's a dry town. You can't even buy liquor on Sundays, nor is alcohol of any kind available at the grocery store. Plenty of churches and golf courses, but I'm not religious and I don't play golf. There are no restaurants here that are not part of a chain. I am no longer within walking or even easy driving distance of Indian, Thai, or Mexican food (Chevys does not count!). If I want organic produce or a larger selection of groceries, we have to drive to Annapolis, MD, to get them. We have taken to driving around with a cooler in the car, so that on the long drive home, our groceries don't melt. I rarely leave the house now, because without a car, I simply have no place to go.

If I don't go batshit crazy before my husband retires (requiring him to just stick me in the nearest looney bin and be done with me), we will get the hell out of here eventually, and where we go there will be a vibrant downtown, with pubs and restaurants and access to ethnic foods and maybe some actual scenery to look at and enjoy. There will be parks and trails and beaches and people out in the street, enjoying themselves or maybe just hanging out. There will be gangs of bored teenagers draped over public benches and I will not resent them being there or fear for my safety. I will smile, and then I will head over to the used bookstore or maybe go get some Thai takeout. And I will be home again.

Run, Al, run!

2007-10-12T07:44:00.001-04:00

Congratulations to Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize today!

Please go to http://www.draftgore.com and sign the petition! It's not that I dislike the candidates we already have, it's just that I love Al Gore and want him to be our president. Again.

In the meantime, hip hip hooray!

PINK

2007-09-22T17:21:00.000-04:00

Plastic or...else

2007-05-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

We mainly shop at the local Safeway, because although there are Trader Joe's and Whole Foods stores in the area, it's quite a long drive to get over there, and with the price of gas going higher every day, sometimes it just seems, well, easier and cheaper to stay here and go to Safeway.

After I returned from a long trip to California this winter, I realized that something was missing from the local Safeway: paper bags. They didn't have any, and hadn't for quite some time. I use paper bags to recycle the newspapers--that's the sanitary workers' preferred way to dispose of paper--in other paper that can also be recycled. It makes sense to me. We have a separate truck that just picks up paper for recycling, and they won't take any other material.

We were out of paper bags and the newspapers had been piling up, so when we went shopping, I checked to see if they had gotten any paper bags. They had not. I asked at the Customer Service desk, and was told that the "order was on its way" but hadn't arrived yet. I was asked to fill out a Customer Complaint card, so I did.

Next week, still no paper bags. And the next, and the next. I can't be the only person who prefers paper to plastic, or uses paper to recycle...paper. In California there's a movement afoot to ban plastic bags and have ALL paper. But apparently not here in Maryland.

I gave up checking every week, but last week I asked at the Customer Service desk again, to see if the order had finally arrived. It had now been over four months since they had any paper bags and our newspapers were getting out of hand. I asked the woman at the desk "Do you have any paper bags yet?" and she looked at me like I was from Mars. "We've always had paper bags," she said, "we keep them locked in the back. You just have to ask for them." WTF? I asked her why, which was when a short woman standing there piped up. "I'll tell you why we lock them up," she practically screamed at me. "We lock them up because people come in here, grab a paper bag, and walk around the store stealing stuff. Then they just walk out!" Turns out this woman is the manager, and she was a bit het up. Her voice rose higher and higher as she explained that last year, they had lost $193,456.79 worth of product to shoplifters. I'm not kidding, she had the exact figure in her head. Then, in one last blast of righteous indignation, she yelled "People STEAL!!!" I actually jumped back, feeling like I was being accused of thievery. "I don't want to steal anything," I said, "I just want to recycle my newspapers."

I was told, more calmly, that I could simply ask the checkers and they would get them for me. So when we were in line checking out, I asked the cashier if we could have some paper bags. She rolled her eyes, sighed, and then said she'd go get them. She had to go get special keys, go upstairs, fetch them and bring them back. While this was going on, I could feel the hot breath of the customers lined up behind us, and could practically hear them seething at the delay. I felt like a guilty obstructionist, holding up the entire line just so I could recycle my stupid newspapers. It also occurred to me while I was standing there that the guy who told me that the "order just hadn't come in yet" was lying. Rat bastards.

Every other grocery store, including the small operations, offer their customers paper bags. Yet here is the huge national giant corporation, Safeway, denying customers this option. Why? Because they are too cheap to hire a couple of extra workers to roam the aisles, helping customers locate items and keeping their eyes open for furtive shoplifters loading stuff into paper bags. Wouldn't the smart thing, the logical thing, be to put on extra staff? I'm sure it would cost them less than what they were losing from thieves, and the customers who can never find anything would appreciate the help.

Or maybe they were lying about the whole thing, and are just too cheap to buy paper bags?

Limbo!

2007-05-05T16:52:00.000-04:00

How low can he go?

According to the new Newsweek poll, it's 28%, an all-time low in a major national poll. Bush is now the most unpopular president since...his dad. Whatever happened to the American dream that our children will do better than we did?

Rowan and Martin's Creep-Out

2007-05-05T07:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday the Queen of England got to tour Virginia with Deadeye Dick. Our apologies to the royal family.

Losers

2007-04-21T09:57:00.000-04:00

The Bush administration are a bunch of losers, and I mean that literally--they lose everything. E-mails, documents, records, evidence, and a war. Last night on "Real Time," Bill Maher joked (and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have a transcript) "Today Senator Harry Reid said that the war was lost, and Bush replied 'Maybe it's with Karl Rove's e-mails?'" Which is funny, but also frightening.

The sheer amount of documents that have gone missing in the past 6 years proves one of two things: either the administration is horribly incompetent and staffed by people who couldn't get a job at McDonalds, or the administration is lying, and the documents aren't missing, they've been purposely "disappeared." Probably the answer is a combination of both--incompetence and chicanery, which scares me even more.

At this point, the only documents left to fill the Bush Presidential Library will be a copy of My Pet Goat and a video of the president choking on a pretzel. How in the WORLD am I ever going to explain this to my grandchildren?

Oversight overload? I think not.

2007-03-28T19:27:00.000-04:00

I've been gone for quite a while, visiting my family in California, and returned to Maryland just in time for the Storm of the Century. No, it's not snow or ice that's keeping me locked indoors, but the shitstorm of oversight going on over in D.C. And brother, am I enjoying it.

I've lost track at this point of just how many committee hearings I've seen since I got back...let's see, there was the Valerie Plame one, two FBI hearings about the abuse of National Security Letters, Al Gore's global climate crisis hearing, various and sundry hearings into shady dealings at DOJ, and today the investigation of wrongdoings at the GSA. Tomorrow? More DOJ shenanigans, as Kyle Sampson testifies in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I'm exhausted, I'm out of popcorn, and I'm getting pale. My eyes are flickering from too much C-Span (is there such a thing as C-Spanitis?). I've forgotten what exercise is. But as worn-out as I am, just think how tired Henry Waxman and Patrick Leahy are. I wonder what they eat that keeps them in fighting shape, so keen and energetic and incredibly focused? I'm pretty sure it's not Sobe Life Water and toast, which is pretty much what I've been going with.

I said I was enjoying this, and I am, but not really in a schadenfreudy way. I feel like I'm learning a ton about how our government works (or doesn't work), and that I'm watching history, live, just minutes down the road from me. I feel oddly connected, if that makes sense. I also feel angry, quite a bit, at what's been going on for the past six years, and the attitude of entitlement and the sheer smarminess of the Bushies who've been caught out.

But they're being caught out, finally, after years of a do-nothing congress, and for that I am extremely grateful. So I'd better go oil the recliner and order more popcorn, because, to paraphrase Bette Davis, it's going to be a bumpy ride. And deservedly so!

The Sadness Bowl

2006-12-28T12:31:00.000-05:00

I'm sure there were a lot of horrible new fast food innovations this past year, but two stand out: Taco Bell's "Fourth Meal" campaign and Kentucky Fried Chicken's "Famous Bowls."

Apparently not enough customers were showing up at Taco Bell at three in the morning with the munchies, because this year they began encouraging Americans to eat an extra meal (something more than a snack, between dinner and breakfast), seemingly to justify Taco Bell remaining open 24 hours a day. Honey, nothing justifies Taco Bell being open, period. It's bad enough that Americans are now leading the world in obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, but now millions of us actually think that the crap served up at Taco Bell is "Mexican food." And Taco Bell wants us to change the habits of a lifetime to adjust to their ill-timed concept of a Fourth Meal, because obviously the problem here is that we're not eating enough meals in a day to satisfy them. Thankfully, I don't think Americans, some of whom value an uninterrupted eight hours of sleep more than they want to help Taco Bell stay in the black, fell for this. Maybe Taco Bell missed the marketing boat on this one: they should have offered free cuckoo clocks that chimed every hour on the hour, with a little Chihuahua that pops out and yips at you in Spanglish. "Vamanos a Taco Bell, zombie dudes!"

KFC's problem wasn't that Americans didn't eat enough meals, just that they couldn't eat them fast enough. Enter the "Famous Bowl," a blob of foods smished together --mashed potatoes, corn, chicken, gravy, and cheese--that would make Obsessive-Compulsives weep and shudder. Hell, it makes me weep and shudder, and I don't care if my foods touch. I don't know what they were thinking (to answer your inevitable question), but I think it had something to do with lunchbreaks being too short to sit down and eat fast food quickly enough--would it help if they were mixed together and eaten with a spoon? Why not? Well, that's just a slippery slope to the Thanksgiving Dinner Smoothie, my friends. The best part of this whole concept has been the backlash--LA Times writer Dan Neil described eating this heinous concoction as "throwing up in reverse," and comedian Patton Oswalt called it a "failure pile in a sadness bowl." My question has always been, since I first saw the sick-making ads on TV, why cheese? If you went to KFC and ordered a regular plate of chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and corn, where would the cheese go? Did they decide to put cheese on it because they couldn't figure out how to get a biscuit in there? Because they thought the Insidious Bowl O' Goo didn't have enough calories? What? Why? Ow, my head's going to explode.

Pretty Pootie Palettes Passe?

2006-12-15T10:41:00.000-05:00

While I was watching "Top Chef" the other night, Bravo ran an ad for their new January show, "Top Design" (based on the winning formulas seen on "Project Runway" & "Top Chef"):

http://www.bravotv.com/Top_Design

The show will be hosted by Todd Oldham and one of the regular judges is boy wunderkind designer Jonathan Adler (whose stuff I kinda like, but could never afford). The other two judges I am not familiar with (one I never heard of and another from ELLE Decor). Personally, I might have chosen Angela Adams and Thom Filicia (from "Queer Eye")--Adams for her sense of style, which is tres moderne, and Filicia for his sense of humor, which is tres silly.

I'm not sure how they're going to work this, exactly, but if "Project Runway's" challenges are any sort of clue, the designers will have to decorate a room entirely with food or garbage or something (and they must do it in ten minutes!). Of course there will be the requisite Sneaky Editing Tricks and an unhealthy focus on designers who make scenes, scheme, or throw tantrums, but I'll still watch it.

I have to, because the gauntlet has been thrown down: in the ads for "Top Design" now running on Bravo, you can hear one of the judges chastising one of the contestants with "You cannot design a room around a cat!" Oh dear. There goes my plan for the guest bedroom, with a color palette based on my Siamese cat, Tallulah: a vision in black, brown, and beige, punctuated with bright spots of blue to match her luminous eyes. And now they're telling me I can't do this? Pish tosh. I can understand not designing a room around, say, a leopard or a tiger or a calico, but a Siamese? It's all the rage, dahling. In fact, the combination of brown and blue has gotten so popular (look in any West Elm catalog if you don't believe me) that I may change my mind and go with something less trendy, like an orangutan or a cockatoo.

It Could Be a Wonderful Life

2006-11-04T10:59:00.000-05:00

Remember the scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) is wooed by the evil and greedy Mr. Potter and offered a job on the Potter team? Potter hands Bailey a cigar, plops him down in a cushy but very low chair, and tries to convince George to come to work for him—he even offers George a huge bump in pay, more than George ever imagined making in his lifetime. You can see Stewart’s mind imagining all the wonderful things he could do with that money—a better house, an easier life, an end to scrabbling from paycheck to paycheck. All he has to do to get this better life is to abandon his principles, close down the Building & Loan, and let Potter gain complete control of Bedford Falls.

The lure of the promises is almost too much for George Bailey, who, it’s been shown, has an active imagination and dreams of travel and exotic locales. Potter promises trips abroad and adventures and financial independence and…suddenly the shoe drops as Bailey realizes all he’d have to give up in order to get a nice house and a few trips.

He’d have to give up fighting for the little guy, the small businesses, and the families of Bedford Falls. He’d have to give up his own family business. He’d have to put his Uncle Billy out of a job. He’d have to stand idly by while Potter wreaked havoc on Bedford Falls and transformed the bucolic town into a slum of neon and disaffected, downtrodden citizens who have lost their way. Finally George tells Potter:

“…the answer's no. No! Doggone it! You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money! Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter! In the, in the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider!”

George Bush is America’s “scurvy little spider,” and his legs consist of the Republican-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate. If the Potter Republicans retain control of the entire government, Mr. Bush will continue to be free to spin his little webs and go on transforming America into his version of Potterville, where the rich get richer and workers lose more and more. He’ll promise you anything your heart desires—tax cuts, jobs, security—whatever you want, as long as you let him keep control. But you’ll have to give up so very, very much in exchange.

If someone tells us that we should look at the man, not the party, we’ll lose the country. If we vote for a Republican because of promises—whether those promises are tempting or not—we’ll lose the country. If we give Mr. Potter/Bush an inch, he’ll take a mile or even a marathon. Republicans care as much about us as Mr. Potter cared about George Bailey. A vote for Steele in Maryland or Lieberman in Connecticut is a vote for the Potters of this world, and against everything that George Bailey’s life stood for: integrity, tolerance, honor, justice, family, and personal responsibility. No matter what they promise us, it simply cannot be enough to justify losing the country.

We need to stand up next Tuesday, like George Bailey, and say “no!” to the Potter Republicans. We want our Wonderful Life back and we can get it if we vote for Democrats.

GOP crooks aren't the only nasty beasts in D.C.

2006-11-02T10:46:00.000-05:00

According to a story yesterday on NBC4.com, the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. is stocking up on a fresh shipment of lions.

If this makes Republicans or hypocritical Christian leaders sweat, it's only their guilty consciences at work.

Rrrrowr!

November 7th: VOTE!

2006-10-26T13:22:00.000-04:00

Time runs short and we need to do all we can to effect change in Washington. Use the link on the left to donate to Democratic candidates and use the links below to find info about their challengers. If you can volunteer time to distribute literature, make phone calls, or go door-to-door to Get Out The Vote, please do! Support your local Democratic candidates today!

--AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

--AZ-01: Rick Renzi

--AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth

--CA-04: John Doolittle

--CA-11: Richard Pombo

--CA-50: Brian Bilbray

--CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave

--CO-05: Doug Lamborn

--CO-07: Rick O'Donnell

--CT-04: Christopher Shays

--FL-13: Vernon Buchanan

--FL-16: Joe Negron

--FL-22: Clay Shaw

--ID-01: Bill Sali

--IL-06: Peter Roskam

--IL-10: Mark Kirk

--IL-14: Dennis Hastert

--IN-02: Chris Chocola

--IN-08: John Hostettler

--IA-01: Mike Whalen

--KS-02: Jim Ryun

--KY-03: Anne Northup

--KY-04: Geoff Davis

--MD-Sen: Michael Steele

--MN-01: Gil Gutknecht

--MN-06: Michele Bachmann

--MO-Sen: Jim Talent

--MT-Sen: Conrad Burns

--NV-03: Jon Porter

--NH-02: Charlie Bass

--NJ-07: Mike Ferguson

--NM-01: Heather Wilson

--NY-03: Peter King

--NY-20: John Sweeney

--NY-26: Tom Reynolds

--NY-29: Randy Kuhl

--NC-08: Robin Hayes

--NC-11: Charles Taylor

--OH-01: Steve Chabot

--OH-02: Jean Schmidt

--OH-15: Deborah Pryce

--OH-18: Joy Padgett

--PA-04: Melissa Hart

--PA-07: Curt Weldon

--PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick

--PA-10: Don Sherwood

--RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee

--TN-Sen: Bob Corker

--VA-Sen: George Allen

--VA-10: Frank Wolf

--WA-Sen: Mike McGavick

--WA-08: Dave Reichert

Hullabaloonitics!

2006-08-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

This last spring saw the passing of Freddie Garrity, of Freddie and the Dreamers fame. I used to try to catch them whenever they were on t.v., just to see them do their famous silly dance, The "Freddie." This involved Freddie jumping around, legs akimbo, while the band behind him tried to keep up. It's hilarious and I double-dog dare you not to laugh while watching it. A recent search through the You Tube archives produced this fabulous video from Hullabaloo, wherein Freddie tries to teach Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello how to dance The Freddie. It's a must-see!

Another interesting video from Hullabaloo is this one, of The Strangeloves singing "I Want Candy" in 1965. Bow Wow Wow's later cover is more famous, but this is a lot of fun, and you get the famous Hullabaloo dancers, too. They seem to be wearing dresses based on a Piet Mondrian painting. Keen!

And last but not least (and not from Hullabaloo, sorry) is this wacky clip of The Turtles singing "Happy Together" on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour from 1967. Lip-synching is definitely not their strong suit. It's debatable whether they began by trying to lip-synch or not, but by the end of the song, all attempts to look like they are actually singing devolve into a free-for-all romp, complete with ridiculous costumes. Ah, the Sixties. Sometimes it's good that we can't go back again, but I'm glad I can keep visiting Freddie and friends on the Internets.

From Watergate to Coingate to Colgate?

2006-08-17T16:50:00.000-04:00

I don't really mind all the stuff you have to go through at Airport Security--hell, I'll hop up and down on one foot and sing "My Sharona" (a song everyone knows I detest) if it will guarantee that my flight from Dulles to Oakland arrives in one piece. I've made a lot of changes in my routine, as have all Americans, to fly safely--I don't bring sharp objects in my carry-on, I throw away my Bic lighters before getting in the TSA line, and I take my shoes off ahead of time so I won't hold up my fellow passengers. Now, since the British kerfluffle, we are being asked to do even more: no liquids or gels, including toothpaste, bottled water, sodas, WINE!, bras with gel inserts (No Fakes! Fakes On A Plane!), cold medication, &c. Okay, I guess I can roll with this, too, as long as everyone has to do it. That's fair.

Wouldn't it be great, though, if the TSA folks had some sort of chemical scanner that could detect suspect liquids? Then we could take our harmless liquids onboard--including necessary medications--and not worry. But they don't--or do they?

Apparently they do. There are scanners in place at the White House than can "identify any of 2,500 different chemical compounds in about 15 seconds" according to AmericaBlog. So you're telling me that President Bush is safe, but the rest of us aren't? Why does that not surprise me?

Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to Bush's "Me First" administration. The Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress bend over backwards every day to insure that they stay safer and wealthier and more privileged than average citizens. Their families are protected, but ours aren't. Their investments are protected while ours crumble into dust and memory. Their children skip off to Ivy League schools while ours go to Iraq. And now we discover that while we are all making sacrifices to insure our own safety and that of our fellow passengers, the Dept. of Homeland Security could make us as safe as the president, but won't because the administration needs the money to keep the occupation of Iraq going, to provide tax cuts for the wealthy, and to make sure that Cheney's Halliburton stock doesn't take a nosedive.

It's infuriating, but not surprising to anyone who's been sentient for the past five and a half years. Do whatever you can toward getting the greedy Republicans out of Congress and out of the White House--we'll all be safer for it.

July's Site of the Month

2006-07-30T08:30:00.000-04:00

A man, a plan, Photoshop: This month's website, Dudehisattva, is brought to you by frequent DailyKos poster-boy Dood Abides, who certainly has a way with Photoshop. He parodies the many misadventures of the Bush administration and skewers them weekly with satire that has you laughing like a lunatic on the way to the asylum (be a lot more fun if it wasn't so frightening). Among my favorites are the film parodies, like Pirates of the Potomac, Emblazoned Saddles, Borracho Hombre, The Rovey Horror Picture Show, and Springtime for Bush. Even when Dood's Photoshop efforts are a tad amateur, the gist still comes through: we are living in scary times, folks, and the best way to survive is to laugh. Otherwise they will be carting us all off to the asylum.

Birthday Girl

2006-07-19T08:24:00.000-04:00

Today is my daughter Kate's 24th birthday--Happy Birthday, sugah! I'm very proud of Kate, she's smart, funny, determined, passionate, responsible, and obviously beautiful, inside and out. And she votes!

I hope you have a great day, my love. Mwah!

Time's A-Wastin'

2006-07-11T07:50:00.000-04:00

And I'm a-wastin' it by cruising the Internets for sign generators. It all started with The Church Sign Generator, and then as I looked around, I discovered a whole world of online generators. These can be a lot of silly fun, but I'm warning you, they're horribly addictive. The ones I am most fascinated with are the ones that allow you to put your own text onto a picture of a sign or a blackboard or whatever. There's a Fast Food Sign generator, a Bar-B-Que Sign generator, a Warning Sign generator, and my new favorite, the Stephen Colbert Threat Down generator, which allows you to input both text and an image. For a huge list of online generators, visit the Generator Blog. This might be the Big Daddy of all internet time wasters. And it's a helluva lotta fun.

And for those of you who create sign generators, my friend Paula would like a Birthday Cake generator, where you can write your own message on a picture of a birthday cake. Get busy on that, willya please?

New iMovie: "Yankee Doodle Boy"

2006-07-08T10:35:00.000-04:00

Recently I was lucky enough to run across an MP3 version of George M. Cohan singing his hit song, "Yankee Doodle Boy" (probably more familiar to most people from the 1942 James Cagney film, Yankee Doodle Dandy). I thought it might be fun to use this patriotic song to accompany a series of photographs of outspoken entertainers I consider true patriots. This might annoy a couple of groups of people--Wingnuts (who I'm always happy to piss off) and people who believe that actors, singers, and comedians should just look pretty and keep their mouths shut. It begins with Woody Guthrie and ends with Stephen Colbert, both of whom had no problem speaking truth to power.

Here is the movie, and I hope it makes you smile.

--Bonnie

Recipe: Sweet Curry Sauce

2006-07-08T09:35:00.000-04:00

Sweet Curry Sauce

This is the lower-fat version of a sauce I used to make with a reduction of apple juice, butter, and cream. It was wonderful, but this version lowers the fat considerably while remaining silky smooth and spicy/sweet. It's great on seared scallops or grilled shrimp or chicken, and terrific with steamed spinach, potatoes, carrots, or cauliflower.

Makes one cup of sauce:

(T=Tablespoon)

1 T canola oil
1 medium shallot, minced
1 T sweet curry powder (I use Penzeys)
2 T minced fresh ginger
1 T minced garlic
1 T flour
1 3/4 C chicken broth (1 can)
1 T tomato paste
1 T spiced apple butter

In a medium saucepan, heat 1 T. vegetable or canola oil on medium heat. Add shallots and sweat them for 1 minute. Add curry powder and mix well, simmer for 1 minute. Add garlic and ginger, stir. Add flour and cook (but do not scorch) for at least 2 minutes. Slowly add chicken broth, stirring as you add. Add tomato paste.

Reduce slowly (on simmer) for about 20-25 minutes, stirring frequently, until sauce is thick and reduced to about 1 cup. Add apple butter, stir, continue cooking for about 5 minutes.

Turn heat off. Strain sauce through fine-mesh strainer into bowl or measuring cup. Discard bits of aromatics. Adjust seasoning with salt/pepper.

Use immediately or chill covered in fridge until you need it, microwave gently to warm.

Friday Silliness

2006-07-07T17:45:00.000-04:00

Animals That Make Me Smile:

The Wise Old Dog:

The Bunny with a Pancake on its Head:

Here's a nice quote for Friday night that my friend terri found:

"The whole world is three drinks behind. If everybody in the world would take three drinks, we would have no trouble."
-- Humphrey Bogart

Have a terrific weekend!

--Bonnie

Summer Idyll: By a Waterfall

2006-07-07T11:03:00.000-04:00

Summers in Maryland conspire to keep you housebound. If it isn't the heat, the humidity, or the frequent storms, it's the damn mosquitoes that prevent you from opening the door to the outside world. These hot, humid, housebound days can lead to some serious wanderlust, and this past week I've been yearning to be by a waterfall.

I've always had a weird thing for waterfalls. It could be hereditary, as my mother grew up near and often played (sometimes dangerously) at Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge in our home state, Oregon. I spent my growing-up years in northern California, and we had our own waterfall in Mill Valley, Cascade Falls (so small and insignificant that it didn't even make the list of Top Seven Waterfalls in Marin County). It only seems natural to me now that my favorite example of American architecture is Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. What else could it be?

What is it about Mother Nature's water feature that intrigues us so? It could be the soothing sound of running water, which seems to be the main reason why so many homeowners try to recreate waterfalls and fountains in their backyards (although the tinkling sounds of most backyard water features make me run for the nearest bathroom). It might be the cooling effect of the water, or its representation of the power of nature, or that water in motion attracts birds, butterflies, and other creatures looking for a respite from unrelenting dryness. Or it could just be that waterfalls are beautiful, and that's enough.

Whatever it is, the mysterious attraction of waterfalls has pulled humankind to them for thousands of years, and many people have adopted the hobby of Waterfall Hunting--seeking out the most obscure and hard-to-find falls, and then capturing them on film, or ideally, on video (and I suspect some just guard the locations and keep them secret, fearing that too many visitors might spoil them). Waterfall enthusiasts worldwide have posted their finds, both common and out-of-the-way, on websites like the Waterfalls Webring, which includes links to the World Waterfall Database and Waterfalls of the Pacific Northwest. It gives those of us who are trapped indoors by heat or cold or lack of funds a place to go and appreciate the beauty of waterfalls, but it also provides the information we need to actually get out and see the falls when we can.

I made the mistake of assuming that when I moved from the west coast to Maryland, I had given up the chance to see waterfalls anywhere but on the internet. I'm glad I was wrong, because as I discovered recently, Maryland has beautiful waterfalls (there's even a handy book). And so does Pennsylvania and Virginia and West Virginia and on and on...you just have to look. You don't have to wait for that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Yosemite or Yellowstone to find a waterfall to ogle--there might be one right in your own neighborhood. When the heat and humidity of my East Coast summer subside and the mosquitoes have been sated by some other unlucky soul's blood, I plan to pack a picnic and find me a waterfall to enjoy. I hope you can, too.

Scary Picture of the Week:

2006-07-06T10:33:00.000-04:00

The "Christian Statue of Liberty." And people think that flag-burning is an abomination.

Have a Borowitz 4th!

2006-07-05T06:37:00.000-04:00

Humorist Andy Borowitz is on it today:

In a nationally televised Fourth of July address, President George W. Bush stunned the nation by announcing that he was declaring himself independent from the United States Constitution.

“Just as our forefathers threw off the horrible yoke of British rule on July 4, 1976, today I am throwing off the yoke of this truly annoying document,” Mr. Bush said.

You can read the rest at Andy's site, but here's my favorite line:

The president said that while he was no longer required to obey the U.S. Constitution, he still respected the Declaration of Independence, “because it has a really cool treasure map on the back.”

My Parents' Bookshelf Revisited

2006-07-03T19:18:00.000-04:00

One of my favorite summer evening activities as a child was curling up on the cool hardwood floor in front of the "Art shelf" in the living room (two shelves up from the bottom on the right-hand side of the fireplace), and poring over volumes by artists such as Dali and Goya (kinda scary, that was) and Modigliani, as well as a beautiful handcolored, handprinted edition of Chaucer. But for sheer fun, I always reached for Philippe Halsman's Jump Book.

Halsman, a photographer more famous for his work for Life magazine, asked all sorts of celebrities to pose for him in mid-air, jumping. The resulting portraits might tell us more about the subjects than any more formal sittings would. Halsman studied what each celebrity's jump revealed about their personalities, whether introvert or extrovert or something in-between, and then dubbed this study "Jumpology." Originally published in 1959, the Jump Book features some of the most intriguing and fascinating names of the time: Richard Nixon (arms down, toes pointed, with a closed-mouth grin); Adlai E. Stevenson (arms up, feet flat, huge toothy smile); Grace Kelly (shoes off, skirt hoiked up, gorgeous smile); John Steinbeck (head back and stiff, toes pointed, right finger pointing at shoes); Walter Gropius (feet apart, arms flailing, and a facial expression that seems to say "I hope you're happy you've trashed my dignity to shreds"). Actors, singers, artists, politicians, writers, captains of industry, comedians, scientists, and royalty all jumped for Halsman, and most seem to have enjoyed the experience.

There are some fairly famous studies in here, too: three photographs of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor that are quite touching, my favorite portrait of Audrey Hepburn, who, when jumping, looks like a pixie in flight, and possibly the most famous of all, "Dali Atomicus" (see photo upper right). Dali made Halsman take shot after shot of flying cats and splashing water until he was satisfied with the result (and I remember as a kid thinking "those poor cats!!!").

Over time our original copy of the Jump Book got lost, but thankfully Harry Abrams published a reissue in paperback in 1986 that is still in print and can be found at your local bookstore or ordered online. The book is a treasure, and you won't regret giving it a look.

Crunchy Frog Flashbacks

2006-07-03T17:39:00.000-04:00

Everyone who knows me knows I can't resist the combination of coffee and chocolate, so when I saw Ben & Jerry's new summer flavor, I had to get some. It's called Vermonty Python, and according to the description on the package, it's "Coffee Liqueur Ice Cream with a Chocolate Cookie Crumb Swirl & Fudge Cows" (Fudge Cows...the next best thing to Anthrax Ripple). The name "Vermonty Python" took me right back to that day in 1973-ish when I first heard this: "We use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest-quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose." Mmmmmm. But despite the associations with Crunchy Frog, Anthrax Ripple, and Cockroach Clusters, it still tastes mighty fine (albeit a tad sweeter than I would like it), and it almost makes up for not being able to get One Sweet Whirled anymore. Almost.

You can't catch fish with the internet, either

2006-07-03T11:16:00.000-04:00

(And "Tivo" is NOT your Italian waiter...)

The other day Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) tried to explain how the internet gets "clogged." In the process of this mind-bending explanation he asked "...an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?" He went on to define what the internet really was ("It's a series of tubes") and in the process revealed that he fits firmly in with others of our leaders who Haven't Got a Friggin' Clue: President Bush, who famously stated "I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft," and Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), who once referred to an e-mail as a "computer letter."

This would all just be a silly interlude if not for the fact that these are the people who are in charge of crafting laws and policies dealing with the Internet and Net Neutrality. Now, you might say "Lighten up--their staff people will explain it to them," but any staff person who would allow their boss to go out in public and spew the gobbledygook that came out of Stevens' mouth is not to be trusted. Besides, how do we know they didn't already explain it, and that's just how Stevens' brain translated it? Truly frightening.

Sometime in the mid-nineties, when I was in the process of finishing up my M.A., a professor told us (in a seminar on research methods) that if we really needed more information, the best place to get it was "in the card catalog in the library." None of us wanted to tell him that the card catalog had gone the way of the Dodo by then, and that everything had been moved to databases on computers. But we did. He was shocked and dismayed (and retired soon afterwards).

One can only hope that some of our more Luddite congresscritters follow suit.

I think the thing that really shocked us about our professor's comment on card catalogs was that it was obvious that he hadn't set foot in the library in many moons. Maybe he felt that he'd learned all there was to know, and that he needn't keep up with new technologies or methods. Perhaps he was scared, as many of our older teachers and returning students were, of learning how to use a computer (I knew a couple of people who were convinced that if they even touched a key, they'd "break the Internet"). But those who were brave enough to try, to make mistakes, to learn new things, had doors opened to new worlds of research and information. It was a revelation for them, and once initiated to the mysteries of the Internets, they stayed with it, and many of them are now experts that others turn to for help. You're never too old to learn new things...but if you refuse to even TRY, then yes, please retire. I'm talking to you, Senator Stevens.

For a complete transcript of Senator Stevens' remarks and a link to the audio clip, click here.

Recipe: Warm Pasta Salad with Feta Cheese

2006-07-03T08:12:00.000-04:00

You can adjust the amounts on this...less for one person, more for a crowd. This seems to be a good amount for two, plus leftovers (usually) for the next day. The leftovers are great cold or at room temperature.

Warm Pasta Salad with Feta Cheese

Two or three medium-to-large tomatoes, the fresher the better, chopped
two tablespoons minced red onion
generous handful of pitted black olives (any kind), drained and sliced lengthwise
bunch of fresh sweet basil, torn in pieces
1 tbl balsamic vinegar
2 tbl extra virgin olive oil
Crumbled feta cheese
1/2 to 2/3rd's pound of pasta
Salt, pepper

Put the tomatoes, onion, olives, and torn basil into a bowl and set aside. All ingredients should be at room temperature. Put the vinegar and oil into a small bowl, set aside. Crumble the cheese, set aside. Boil salted water, cook pasta until done to your preference. The best pasta, I think, is either angel hair (cappelini) or linguini, but anything will work. When the pasta is done, drain it and return it to the pan. Add the oil/vinegar and some salt and pepper, stir to incorporate. Add in the vegetables, stir again, and serve with crumbled feta on top. Yum!

What I love about this is that all you have to cook is the pasta. So easy, and you can add or delete ingredients depending on what you like, what's fresh, etc. I have also made it with parmesan instead of feta, and that's good, too. Enjoy!