Thanksgiving Meme

Why are these called "meme's?" Anyone? Bueller?

Borrowed this from Jen's blog.....

1. Which do you like better: Cooking at your house, or going elsewhere?
I love to cook, but I've never hosted/cooked a Thanksgiving dinner. So, I'm not sure if I'd like that endeavor. By default, I must say going elsewhere.

2. Do you buy a fresh or frozen bird?
My mother does frozen, Luke's grandma does fresh.

3. What kind of stuffing? I don't go for the sausage stuffing, but I like pretty much anything else.

4. Sweet potato or pumpkin pie? Pumpkin pie.

5. Do you believe that turkey leftovers are a curse, or the point of the whole thing? Love leftovers. I've been known to have a stuffing, turkey and gravy sandwich. Yes, that's right a sandwich with a bread component as the filling.

6. Which side dish would provoke a riot if you left it off the menu? I would riot if there were no stuffing or cranberries.

7. Do you save the carcass to make soup or stock? My mom does, and I would, too.

8. What do you wish you had that would make preparing Thanksgiving dinner easier? I don't think it could get any easier than having it made for me. Maybe if it was brought to my house and was prepared here.

9. Do you get up at the crack of dawn to have dinner ready in the early afternoon, or do you eat at your normal dinner hour? "Dinner" for my good rural Minnesotan family is the mid-day meal (the evening meal is supper), so Thanksgiving dinner is at 1 p.m.

10. If you go to somebody else's house, what's your favorite dish to bring? Mom and Grandma discourage visitors from bringing food - I think it goes against the rural farm thing. Who knows? But, I typically bring a snack/gnosh food (this year sausage, cheese and crackers) or a dessert. Something to nibble on.

11. What do you wish one of your guests wouldn't bring to your house? I wish all dinner guests would leave their issues and drama at the door. Better, yet - back home.

12. Does your usual mix of guests result in drama, or is it a group you're happy to see? There are certain dramatic elements - but most of us keep it cool.

13. What's your absolute favorite thing on the menu? Didn't I already answer this above? See, this is why I can't do these "meme" things. I have too many opinions. Oh, the answer is STUFFING.

14. What are you thankful for this year? Luke and my good jobs/job security, good health, happy home.

How to date yourself and reveal your musical tastes in one fell swoop

Fun little game below from my friend Chris. What did I learn from this exercise? There was A LOT of R&B in '96 along with the beginnings of emo-rock and some sap thrown in for good measure. I can't say I really HATE any of the below...I don't if it's indifference or I dislike too many of them to start to decide if it's hate or not. I mean, these were the TOP songs in '96?! Perhaps I belong to an emotionally stunted generation. Or maybe I was born at the wrong time.

The Rules:
A.) Go to Music Outfitters.
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year (the top link).
C.) Bold the songs you like, italic through the ones you REALLY hate.

1. Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix), Los Del Rio
2. One Sweet Day, Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men
3. Because You Loved Me, Celine Dion
4. Nobody Knows, Tony Rich Project
5. Always Be My Baby, Mariah Carey
6. Give Me One Reason, Tracy Chapman
7. Tha Crossroads, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
8. I Love You Always Forever, Donna Lewis
9. You're Makin' Me High/Let It Flow, Toni Braxton
10. Twisted, Keith Sweat
11. C'mon N' Ride It (The Train), Quad City Dj's
12. Missing, Everything But The Girl
13. Ironic, Alanis Morissette
14. Exhale (Shoop Shoop), Whitney Houston
15. Follow You Down/Til I Hear It From You, Gin Blossoms
16. Sittin' Up In My Room, Brandy
17. How Do U Want It/California Love, 2Pac
18. It's All Coming Back To Me Now, Celine Dion
19. Change The World, Eric Clapton
20. Hey Lover, LL Cool J
21. Loungin, LL Cool J
22. Insensitive, Jann Arden
23. Be My Lover, La Bouche
24. Name, Goo Goo Dolls
25. Who Will Save Your Soul, Jewel
26. Where Do You Go, No Mercy
27. I Can't Sleep Baby (If I), R. Kelly
28. Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla
29. You Learn/You Oughta Know, Alanis Morissette
30. One Of Us, Joan Osborne
31. Wonder, Natalie Merchant
32. Not Gon' Cry, Mary J. Blige
33. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
34. Only You, 112 Featuring The Notorious B.I.G.
35. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know), R. Kelly
36. You're The One, SWV
37. Sweet Dreams, La Bouche
38. Before You Walk Out Of My Life/Like This And Like That, Monica
39. Breakfast At Tiffany's, Deep Blue Something
40. 1, 2, 3, 4 (Sumpin' New), Coolio
41. The World I Know, Collective Soul
42. No Diggity, BLACKstreet (Featuring Dr. Dre)
43. Anything, 3t
44. 1979, The Smashing Pumpkins
45. Diggin' On You, TLC
46. Why I Love You So Much/Ain't Nobody, Monica
47. Kissin' You, Total
48. Count On Me, Whitney Houston and Cece Winans
49. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
50. Time, Hootie and The Blowfish
51. You'll See, Madonna
52. Last Night, Az Yet
53. Mouth, Merril Bainbridge
54. The Earth, The Sun, The Rain, Color Me Badd
55. All The Things (Your Man Won't Do), Joe
56. Wonderwall, Oasis
57. Woo-hah!! Got You All In Check/Everything Remains Raw, Busta Rhymes
58. Tell Me, Groove Theory
59. Elevators (Me and You), Outkast
60. Hook, Blues Traveler
61. Doin It, LL Cool J
62. Fastlove, George Michael
63. Touch Me Tease Me, Case Featuring Foxxy Brown
64. Tonite's Tha Night, Kris Kross
65. Children, Robert Miles
66. Theme From Mission: Impossible, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen
67. Closer To Free, Bodeans
68. Just A Girl, No Doubt
69. If Your Girl Only Knew, Aaliyah
70. Lady, D'angelo
71. Key West Intermezzo (I Saw You First), John Mellencamp
72. Pony, Ginuwine
73. Nobody, Keith Sweat
74. Old Man and Me (When I Get To Heaven), Hootie and The Blowfish
75. If It Makes You Happy, Sheryl Crow
76. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
77. Keep On, Keepin' On, Mc Lyte
78. Jealousy, Natalie Merchant
79. I Want To Come Over, Melissa Etheridge
80. Who Do U Love, Deborah Cox
81. Un-Break My Heart, Toni Braxton
82. This Is Your Night, Amber
83. You Remind Me Of Something, R. Kelly
84. Runaway, Janet Jackson
85. Set U Free, Planet Soul
86. Hit Me Off, New Edition
87. No One Else, Total
88. My Boo, Ghost Town Dj's
89. Get Money, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
90. That Girl, Maxi Priest Featuring Shaggy
91. Po Pimp, Do Or Die
92. Until It Sleeps, Metallica
93. Hay, Crucial Conflict
94. Beautiful Life, Ace Of Base
95. Back For Good, Take That
96. I Got Id/Long Road, Pearl Jam
97. Soon As I Get Home, Faith Evans
98. Macarena, Los Del Rio
99. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
100. Don't Cry, Seal

Wow, I'm bad at blogging consistently.

Well, here we are nearly a month and a half since my last post. There are reasons why past blogs have gone defunct and you, my likely-non-existent-blog-readers, have just caught a glimpse of one. My complete inability to keep up with writing and posting on a regular basis.

Here are some interesting things that have occurred since my last post, a measely copy-and-paste number, back on September 12th:

Luke and I had our first anniversary. Someone told me that once you've reached one year you are no longer a "newlywed." Yet, I still do not feel wise in the ways of marriage, especially when compared to mine and Luke's parents, married 51 and 32 (? I think 32) years respectively. We celebrated with a lovely dinner at W.A. Frost. The night ended strangely, however, when a man wearing a t-shirt and jeans and carrying a sleeping kid in PJ's, his (presumably) wife and other child (also wearing pajamas and crying lustily) asked us first if we knew how to get to Stillwater without taking the freeway (we did not) as he and his family needed to walk there, then if we could give them a ride to Stillwater for $20. We declined. I felt really bad later, because there were children and it was a chilly night (September 29th), but I have a thing against letting strangers in my car or even near me when I'm getting in my car, especially at 10 o'clock at night. Later, after thinking about it some more, I really wished I had thought of the obvious: calling the non-emergency St. Paul police line (which I have in my cell phone). I think they would have reponded since there were children involved and hopefully the wee ones would have gotten out of that scary situation.

The most prominent thought that struck me with our anniversary is that I cannot believe a year has past already, and that I cannot wait for more to come. Last summer, while in the process of buying our house and settling in and planning our wedding, we kept saying to ourselves how things would slow down once we had the wedding. It didn't. But I suppose it never does. :)

So we've had a busy autumn, which is my favorite season of the year, by the way. Aside from both of us being extremely busy at work, Luke took up the new hobby of bike-riding. No, not BICYCLE riding. I'm planning on getting my motorcycle endorsement next February so we can ride off into many sunsets together. In the meantime, I've reached back to my roots and been a canning queen this fall. I put to use the extra tomatoes in my garden (bolstered by some more from the farmer's market) and put up 17 quarts of tomato juice and a dozen quarts of stewed tomatoes. Not only THAT, but my friend Lynn was generous enough to give me some of her abundant raspberry crop, which I froze immediately as I was up to my eyeballs in tomatoes at the time.

Finally, I would like to point out how awesome autumn is. No complaining here about the crisp, cool air and the beautiful colors. I think my favorite thing about fall is stomping through the dry, crunchy leaves on the sidewalks while walking Howie. So satisfying; it makes me instantly break out into smiles. So if you see a short woman with an adorable white & rust beagle stomping through leaves with a goofy grin on her face, that's me. :-)

Cream of the Crop?

From my friend Jen's blog. How many have you read? Mine are in bold.


On July 21, 1998, the Radcliffe Publishing Course compiled and released its own list of the century's top 100 novels, at the request of the Modern Library editorial board.
1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
13. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
22. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
32. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild by Jack London
34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
38. All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
39. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
40. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
41. Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally
42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
47. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
52. Howards End by E.M. Forster
53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
57. Sophie's Choice by William Styron
58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
59. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
64. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
66. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
68. Light in August by William Faulkner
69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
71. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
72. A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Tokias by Gertrude Stein
79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
85. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
87. The Bostonians by Henry James
88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
93. The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
95. Kim by Rudyard Kipling
96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster
99. Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
100. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

Part 1 of Charles Gibson Interview with Palin

Un-bleeping-believable. This will either make it glaringly apparent that she is inept, or make certain demographics swarm around her in loving support. I shudder and worry.

Part 1
Part 2

It's Only Been A Week, and Yet My Dislike For Palin Had Already Grown

Ugh. Aside from the immediate audacity of comparing herself to Clinton by declaring that she would "break the glass ceiling that Hillary Clinton cracked" - Palin (along with the entire McCain campaign) continues to talk out of her ass in efforts to cover end misrepresent her complete inadequacy as a potential leader on the national scene. From the AP:

Attacks, praise stretch truth at GOP convention

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
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Some examples:

PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."

THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."

PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."

THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.

PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."

THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.

Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families.

He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.

MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.

THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.

MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.

THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.

FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States."

THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries.

FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."

THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.

___

Associated Press Writer Jim Drinkard in Washington contributed to this report.

Poor Puppy, Part II

My oldest brother, Pete, is in town this weekend and staying with Luke and I. Per custom in my family when anyone is "in town," we invited the rest of my siblings over for some food, beer, and visiting. My sister is trying to socialize her dog, Trixie, a bit more, and since we had dogsat her a few weekends ago and Trixie and Howie got a long great, Lisa asked to bring Trixie along. Unfortunately, while Trixie and Howie were playing, which we were all excited about because Trixie doesn't "play" even on her own, it turned into a tussle. When we pulled Trixie off of Howie, he wouldn't open his right eye. I ended up taking him in to the emergency vet, where he was completely nervous (I think it was all the anxious owners and injured pets and running, screaming children everywhere). He doesn't have a scratched cornea, but the vet there said that she could tell he was in pain (well...yeah...he won't open his eye), because his pupil was constricted and his eye pressure was low, both auto-physical responses to pain. So our poor puppy has to take eye-drops and pain meds all weekend (on top of the antibiotics he's already on for his UTI) and go to our regular vet on Monday to have his eye checked again. *sigh*

My sister and brother-in-law feel awful, and it was just a really long, anxious night. I'm starting to feel awful about what the poor hound has gone through this week. But, as "The Dog Whisperer" Cesar Milan always says, dogs don't hold on to past bad experiences and emotions, they move forward. Good thing, 'cuz Howie's had one helluva week!

Poor Puppy

It's been a rough few weeks with Howie the Hound in our household. About 2 weeks ago Howie started have accidents in the house, which he rarely does. He went from rarely having accidents only when we both had perhaps left him an extra long time after a long day at work, to having accidents every other day or so, to having them nearly EVERY day. Very strange, and very frustrating. Initially, we thought it was a behavioral issue; perhaps we weren't spending enough time with him, maybe he wanted more walks. Luke thought perhaps that because he likes to be outside so much, even when he doesn't have to go potty, that he was losing the association of outside as his potty place. That seemed strange to me, and admittedly to Luke, especially since even in the dead of winter in 20-below weather he would ask to go outside for potty and not have accidents.

Something just didn't feel right. Howie is such a good boy, he wasn't flippant about his accidents (he seemed sheepish about them) and just in general sort of sad lately. So after clues of different behavior added up over the past 2 weeks, I brought him to the vet today, suspicious that something was just not right and it wasn't Howie being a bad boy. And now I feel awful, because our little guy has a UTI and I wait TWO WEEKS to bring him in!

After describing all the "it just doesn't seem right" behavior to the vet tech, and them of course taking a sample and finding a ton of two different kinds of bacteria and getting our prescription, the vet tech told me not to feel bad. She said that a lot owners don't bring their pets in unless they see blood in their urine and don't even notice all the little quirks we picked up on, so they wait way longer. She said that there was no way that we could have known, really, and she was impressed that we brought him in. A bit of lip service that made me feel a bit better, but I might have gotten a bit teary when I got home anyway. The poor little guy has been feeling under the weather for TWO WEEKS!! :-(

So Howie is getting even more snuggle and TLC from us lately, poor little guy!!!

I am an Austen heroine. Are you?

Take the Quiz here!

Things I Love: Installment 1

Have you ever realized in the middle of doing something or enjoying something that you really LOVED that thing - whatever it was - that you were partaking or participating in right then and there? Of course you do. Or at least I HOPE you do. I'm going to post some of mine here and there as they come to me. This is Things I Love: Installment 1:

1. Dogs. Especially my dog, Howie, who just woke up from a nap, stretched, nearly fell off of the couch, caught himself, yawned, gave me some kisses, and curled back up to nap some more . But in general? Dogs rule.
2. Beer. Cold, icy, tasty beer. I love beer of all sorts: stouts, lagers, ales, pilsners...just BEER. But not the crap American beer, and by crap American beer I primarily mean the ones you see advertised during a Sunday football game. Except Sam Adams. Sam can stay. He's cool
3. Books. There is nothing quite so comforting, entertaining and just wonderful as reading a good book.
   
4. Cheese. Lordy lordy, I do love cheese. Tonight I had some dill havartie - creamy creamy dilly havarti. But I don't discriminate amongst cheese, either. I'll eat it all.
   

That's enough for tonight. Thankfully all four of these lovely things are readily available to me pretty much at all times. Lucky me. :-)

Just Can't Win: The Story of the Ultimate Curmudgeon

I enjoy read Slate.com, so much so that it holds a prized position in my Google Reader, and one of my favorite columns to read is Thursday's "Dear Prudence." In one of Prudie's (as her regular readers fondly call her) responses, she references Joseph Epstein's article "The Kindergarchy" in The Weekly Standard.

Curious to the applicability of Epstein's article to Prudie's response I navigated my wee little self on over to the article itself. Yes, yes...this means I actually READ part of TWS. I know. The gist of this guy's article is that recent years have demonstrated a shift in family attitudes to have familial life completely centered around kids, and a bit of nostalgia about how Epstein himself was raised. Whereas I think Epstein has some good points regarding the excess parents can shower upon kids, he criticizes current parents to comical proportions that even the curmudgeoniest curmudgeon you know would be proud of. This is, of course, after writing over half his article about how wondrous his own childhood was...the irony of which instead of being guilty about raving and obsessing over his children's upbringing, he raves and obsesses about his own.

From his article: "The names Mackenzie and Gideon are a reminder of how important the naming of children has become under the Kindergarchy. No more Edward, Robert, David, when you can have Luc, Guthrie, and Colby; no more Jane, Barbara, Lois, when Lindsay, Courtney, and Kelsey are available. Sometimes, in the naming of children, there is a dip back to the deliberately out-of-date--Jake and Max, Emily and Becky--but such names are tainted by an historical falsity..."

So....apparently you are supposed to refer to your child as "hey you, kid!" lest you become too trendy or too falsely modest in naming your child.

In all honestly, I can't say I read the article to the end....the boring self-righteous nature out-weighed the irony.

Home Again, Home Again

Luke gets home tonight! He was in Ireland all week, and is currently waiting for his flight home at JFK! Hurrah! Howie and I have missed him this week.

Because Luke has been gone, I've been trying to leave work early every day and work from home for a chunk every afternoon to spend more time with Howie. My sister checks on the pooch at mid-day, but I leave earlier and get home later than Luke does - especially this week when it's taken me an HOUR to get home every day! Howie has been a little moody without his "papa" around anyway, but it gets to comical proportions when I'm home working. He loves having me HOME, but he *really* wants me to be playing, snuggling and otherwise paying him undivided attention. Currently is lying on the floor next to me, staring up at me with his soulful hound-dog eyes, sighing, moaning, and a bit of crying. Last night he did the same - quickly remedied when I quit for the day and spent a good 1/2 hour snuggling him on the couch.

Of course this behavior only makes me love the dog more - I mean, C'MON, think about how NEEDED he makes me feel! It's wonderful. If you don't have a dog, I highly recommend you get one. :-)

WEEDS!

I spent some time weeding tonight, and though I am not a moron clueless of the art of pollination, I must ask myself where all the WEEDS in my garden come from?! How do they prosper in such numbers? Why don't my plants flourish in such a manner? What I've planted is doing well, but if the intended plants were prospering in the same ratio as the inevitable plants are, my tomatoes would be as tall as my garage.

For those of you who love the 90's....

Not Meant For Children

After yet another weekend day spent listening to two of the neighbor boys yell and scream incessantly, I am thoroughly convinced that I am not meant to be around some children. We think this is a great neighborhood, in part because parents feel comfortable letting their kids (and there A LOT of them on my block) roam, however the irony of this is that regardless of what we want to do: relax, entertain, read a book, take a nap, watch a movie, work in our yard, we MUST hear screaming and yelling next door. ALL. DAY. LONG. As I write this it is nearly 4:30 p.m. I will be generous and say the two ~10-yr-old boys started at 10 a.m. this morning. Non-stop. I kid you not. Right now they are yelling "PORTAL HOLE" and L., the boy from the other side of the alley and down a few houses, is doing his patented girlish screech with every "portal hole" found.

Let me explain about this screech, lest you think I am being sexist in describing it as "girlish." This is the highest pitched, hair-raising, nail-on-chalk-board-make-my-dog's-hackles-raise, squeal you have ever heard. When we first moved in last summer, we thought a neighborhood girl had been seriously hurt and were more than a little befuddled when we rushed out of our house to find a tow-headed, buck-toothed boy to be the source of the un-godly noise. He's quite proud of his ability to make such a noise. On the occasions that a few of the neighbor kids are in our yard petting the Howster, I've had to tell him that he CANNOT make the noise in our yard, if he does, he has to leave. I say it's because it agitates Howie, which it does, but honestly it's just the most obnoxious sound I've heard in a long time.

Where are the parents of these children, you may ask? In their houses. Getting sauced. No joke. Occasionally we see them wander out to their garages, toasting us with a beer and shuffling over to chat over the fence. How do we tell them that their kids are THIS close to driving us insane? I say "us," but actually Luke is surprisingly more tolerant, perhaps having been a 10-yr-old boy once himself. He also has a younger sibling. Me at 10? I was either reading or biking...possibly running through the sprinkler with a couple of the neighbor girls. And I'm the youngest in my family. Truthfully, I probably made similar hellion noises. And this is my punishment.

When we first got Howie, the boys delighted in taunting him, poking him with grass, etc. We had zero tolerance for that and told them so immediately. If Howie was barking or howling for 6 1/2 hours straight, my neighbors could call the the city and complain and we could get a noise violation. But is it ever appropriate to gently ask them to SHUT-UP for even ONE blessed hour? No?

See, this is why I fear I am not meant to ever have children.

New Stuff

I purchased the above items online yesterday, and just think they are the darn-purtiest things (and handy to boot....I'm hoping at least). Oh, and I might have purchased the sassy grocery tote, as well. Might have...just maybe...it's a possibility....

LOVE IT!!

Naughty, naughty Howie

Sooooo...Howie ate my bookclub book today. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, I mean, only the back and front (hard)covers are missing and chewed, as well as two pages from the back of the book. But, he did leave all the pages with actual writing untouched, and the dust jacket is PRISTINE - almost as if he carefully removed it before the carnage began. Perhaps he was planning on putting the dust cover back on when he was done, carefully placing the book back on my nightstand, and hope that I wouldn't notice that anything was amiss. As it was, I interrupted him as he was still using the book as his pillow. *Sigh* Naughty, naughty dog.

Limoncello

One more today: I found a recipe for homemade limoncello, which states that homemade is THE best. Before I give this a whirl, has anyone tried to make their own before? AND, does anyone like limoncello? I have a feeling I'm going to have about five bottles at the end of my little experiment.

Screen-Free

We made a new rule in our house: no TV watching or Internet surfing on Tuesday or Friday nights. Essentially, we're "screen-free" those nights (though we are allowed to watch movies together). It stemmed from us finding ourselves mindlessly watching BAD t.v., bored out of our minds. Back before we were married and not living together, Husband canceled his cable. We spent our time at his place reading together, listening to MPR together, watching movies together, playing cards/games together, walking together...notice a theme? So in the midst of our busy lives and the added responsibilities owning a home (and a dog) brings, we wanted to minimize our mindless boob-tube time, and up the time we spent enjoying leisure time together. This also means that I can't post tonight. Which really is why I'm covertly posting today. ;-)

I AM slightly concerned, however, that I am missing the season finale of Hell's Kitchen. I keep telling myself that this break is good for me, that I'll be a stronger, better person because of this. But really, I want Petrozza to win. That lil' chica is too cocky. To be honest, we chose Tuesday and Friday nights primarily because those nights are the nights with the crappiest t.v. Is that cheating? Which nights would you choose to go "screen-free?"

Monday Night Guacamole

*Sigh* - ah, Monday, why must you be so long? I have a longer drive to work, which I just ADORE (20+ miles...one way), which means that on any given evening I get home around 6 p.m. Since we all need a little time to unwind, read: greet and snuggle most adorable husband and most adorable dog, and factor in time it takes to prep and cook even the simplest meal, by the time we actually get around to eating supper any particular night it's around 8 p.m.. Guess who's starving as soon as she walks in the door? ME! Here's something that I like to whip up for a (I tell myself) fairly healthy gnosh before supper. It's quick, easy and not too bad for you!

Janna's Monday Night Guacamole (Serves 4)
2 ripe avocados
juice of 1 small lime
hot sauce
1/3 cup small-dice red onion (or other sweet onion)
1 small-medium tomato (I use one vine-on), seeded, small-dice
kosher salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Cut your avocados. Oh wait, you don't know how? Here's how I do it: take your nice, sharp chef's knife and slice the ripe avocados around length-wise. Twist the halves to separate. Remove the pit by tapping your blade into the pit and twisting. Use a spoon to scoop out the smooth, buttery flesh and plop it into a bowl. Immediately add lime juice and loosely "cut" up avocado with spoon. Add hot sauce (start with 6 dashes), onions, salt and pepper. Stir. Add tomato. Taste and adjust lime juice, hot sauce and salt and pepper until peak of deliciousness is attained. Fresh jalepeno, seeded and deveined (or leave veins in if you want it spicier) and small-diced can be used in lieu of the hot sauce.

I love this as a snack. I don't know that I'll be posting many recipes (I don't want to take my friend Lynn's bag), but after a long Monday and a paltry lunch from my work's crapeteria, this really hit the spot tonight. For the few readers I may have, what is your favorite way to make guacamole? Or your favorite quick-after-work-eat-something-now-so-my-stomach-doesn't-implode snack?

Happy Monday!

P.S. - Who else is excited for Antique Road Show? Just how much of a nerd does that make me?!

My First Blogpost Ever...Sort Of

Welcome to my first blog post EVER....sort of. I mean, it's my first blog aside from my ever-so-brief flirtation with livejournal (whatever happened to that site? Note to self: must search and destroy.) and my longer affair with Xanga. Whoo-boy do those Xanga posts get self-righteous, and heated...but then, by-and-large, so are blogs.

Livejournal was my first brief foray into blogging during my college years...I think I made A post. Xanga was my "just-out-of-college-and-I'm-so-hip-know-it-all" phase. Here you would find a lot of "quizes" that were insightful to my deep, dark personality, summarized nicely in a "What Disney Princess Are You?" format, a bunch of liberal ranting (don't worry, I'm still liberal...as if you cared), some really sarcastic and probably insensitive posts and comments (because I was a fiery-know-it-all recent college grad...not that all recent college grads are...but I was) and I believe some nostalgic posts here and there. Both times, as with this blog, I was persuaded into the blogging world by friends - different sets of friends each time.

So what is different about THIS blog? WELL, this is my "I'm an adult now with real responsibilities (husband, house, dog, career) and I know just enough now to know I don't know anything" blog. AND I was persuaded by my bookclub friends, so maybe it's more literary? Nah, more likely this will just reflect what I actually like after about 10 years (or 30) figuring it out and deciding to embrace it: reading and cooking/baking, primarily and perhaps some social commentary and personal updates on the side.