Landlocked Piracy

Thoughts of a Serious Nature

2011-12-07T15:56:00.001-08:00

So I read this:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tracy-mcmillan/why-youre-not-married_b_822088.html

and this:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2011-02-09/news/dear-single-women-of-nyc-it-s-not-them-it-s-you/

And then a response to it here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brienne-walsh/an-open-letter-to-the-wom_b_829378.html

I wanted to pull this for you all:

"But I grew up in a generation of women that literally never stopped hearing that marriage isn't a fairy tale. We were fed statistics about divorce in the same way that the Baby Boomer generation was bombarded with ICBM figures. Daily, we were told that men were not Prince Charming, that they would not vanquish a dragon to save us, rescue us from a tower or even just fight their way through a double transfer on the subway to come kiss
us goodnight.

And so we learned how to expect literally nothing from a man. And do you know what happened because of that? We learned to let men treat us like crap. We came to believe that men were doing us a favor by settling down -- because otherwise they would be out spraying the world of willing women with their abundant seed. We were taught to be grateful if a man showed interest in us, and we became fearful at all times that he would leave us once he did. Women of my generation are still the second-class citizens of
fairy tales: only now, we don't even have the chivalry or the ever-blooming roses to comfort us in our eternal boredom."

" For the first time in my life, someone openly acknowledged the dirty dark secret of my generation of women. And that is that all of the qualities we cultivate in ourselves from our first overachieving moments in elementary school to our graduation from the best universities in the nation -- confidence in our physical appearance, the ability to support ourselves, our cultured and well-read minds, the sterling pedigree of our schooling, our taste for healthy debate with our peers (both men and women) -- actually won't help us to find an equal partner. What it will do is make an "equal" man feel insecure, and what he will do with that insecurity is label us as "crazy." And crazy people aren't to be taken seriously -- they're to be medicated, dosed, tamed like "Kate," the eponymous shrew -- and made into the perfect wife. In essence, in order to participate in the ritual custom of marriage, we have to become shadows of our best selves."

More thoughts on this later.

thank you, doctor curly

2011-11-16T02:34:00.001-08:00

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
— Charles Bukowski

Hello, the internet!

2011-11-16T01:35:00.000-08:00

I have recipes and adventures and stories to tell. I have a new pirate-car and a charming pirate-abode (that looks Harry Potter, I'm told). I look forward to seeing you all again!

Pensive Pirate is Pensive.

2010-08-27T12:21:00.001-07:00

I'm enjoying sound pirate labor in the fine Central West End neighborhood, pouring drinks and serving fishes, among other delicious foods. I'm deepening my love-hate relationship with the Vitamix and turning out delicious smoothies. They are better with rum, I assure you.

As always, I'm seeking more work, because a pirate loves nothing more than in the off-season, while wintering, to build up the pirate-stash of doubloons. Have to finance summer raiding somehow, yes?

I'm likely to take an excursion to Wentzville's Pirate Fest, coming up here in September, to drink cider and rum in the sunshine and tell too many jokes about ARRRRgyle socks.

Wonderful Things About Pennsic XXXIX:

1) Roasted whole goats, served with date sauce, in good company.
2) The 10th Anniversary party hosted by Iron Lance for Piers and Jules (spelling surely botched, entirely my own). There was a 25-lb snapping turtle delivered to the bar as a present, and shots of rum poured off the boar's head for Pennsic virgins.
3) There was epic dancing around many a camp fire, and the kindling and care of darling hookahs.
4) I filked Ani diFranco for the SCA. I'll post the lyrics once they've been tweaked, and will likely torment your ears with my rendition of it sometime in person soon. "Life in the SCA ain't easy, but the folk on the outside don't know..."
5) I learned a variant of "Nay, no never" to use in sharpening my SCAdian geography. My thanks to Baroness Lianette of the East for singing it to me.
6) The Canadians had brought a solar-powered 2-keg-large refrigeration unit. Amazing! Shared baked brie in their encampment, and heard some wonderful songs.
7) Work for the Pillaged Village was grueling but rewarding; I still have dreams/nightmares of checking in and pricing belly dance gear.
8) My tent is dead. Long live the tent!

Pennsic War XXXIX !

2010-08-16T09:30:00.000-07:00

Most of this fine war in the Debatable Lands was spent working for merchants, however there was a smidgen of time for classic war pursuits. Bardic circles, dancing around fires, attending classes, consumption of spuriously-colored-beverages, meeting new friends, creation of delicious foods, general antics and enabling vice or virtue, depending on the light levels...

I was easily identifiable due to epic hair cut of wrath, for better or for worse. I also ate only 2 slices of bacon the entire war, an accident, I assure you, but one I won't let happen again. I now have one saturated, broken tent drying out in the backyard, a kitty cat happy to see me home, and about 8 loads of laundry in process.

With a few days to process, install filters, and verify, I'll have generated a few lovely war-stories suitable for public consumption.

Events which I have become more blase about this spring:

2010-06-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

It's been a long summer. Content temporarily pulled for editing.

excellent. pilgrim's progress continues.

2010-06-28T03:18:00.000-07:00

I still have 670 new e-mails of the 1,000+ from the 20-days at/recovering from Lilies War. Please continue to be patient with me, I am responding as quickly as humanly possible.

I am still boxing, scrubbing, cleaning, moving, and striving not to unpack anything and failing. I now have zero dollars, some pocket change, and way too much need for an industrial-strength vacuum.

The hatred I have for this convent and its violations of the laws of thermodynamics knows no bounds. In four hours, the allotted time will have expired. I declared Friday that ere the fine city of Saint Louis failed to net me paying work by 9 a.m. Monday, I would begin the process of moving south to NOLA or north to OMAHA.

Now the craigslisting begins in earnest. I have no actual cash-money or W-2 jobs, in spite of a week of schmoozing, cruising, dropping apps and hoping/praying. Fuck this shit. Fuck this city (or not, rather). I am exhausted, I am impoverished, and I am applying for government assistance like a paper-work-monster.

Dear US Government: I paid all my taxes, even when I made little-to-no-money ever, at all. I dream of a day where in a calendar year I net more than $10,000 - $14,000. I made/had more money as a professional student. Now I'd like to benefit from the pseudo-Socialism that upsets the main-line Republican party so much. Thanks you!

In good news, all this industrial-strength cycling is adding definition to my thighs. Awesomesauce! My core muscles are improved, as are biceps and forearms. When I grow up, I will be an epic fencer for my kingdom. DRACO INVICTUS!

demarcation delurkification dissipation dilution

2010-06-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

It's been a long summer. Post pulled, to be restored at a later time.

This was going to be articulate...

2010-06-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

Instead, in short-form:

Lilies War outside of KC in the kingdom of Calontir was amazing. I had no internet from Tuesday June 10th until yesterday at 5 p.m. Thank you to #phoenix who made the netartubez run on the laptop of exploding doom yesterday evening.

I love Henri's, rainbows, mud puddles, and new friends.

I hate that every pair of shoes I own is now growing its own mold farm.

I am moving. RIGHT NOW. So if you have a basement/truck/strong arms/willingness to do an act of service for a pirate, she promises handsome rewards. In the form of brownies and awesome, mostly. Looking for pirate booty? Helping Pasqualina di Bisclavret move/get a ride to Crystal Chamfron over the river/re-auth in rapier/not kill people has rewards.

The latter's not a joke; I've been good for the first 26 years, 6 months, and 28-odd days of my life this far, what with the constant moving, boxes, bullshit, lonliness, library books, guilt, shame, neuroses. If you choose to cross me/slow me down/criticize me (like my father/family/teachers) then I will throw things at you. They could be water balloons. It could be napalm.

Please don't find out the hard way.

This PSA brought to you by #tiggerears #woootstlPRIDE !

Once upon a time, when I was young(er) and foolish(er)

2010-06-06T18:14:00.001-07:00

From salon.com's article, "How I Became a Pothead" by Cary Tennis:

"Sometimes in recovery we will say things, like, For all the trouble it caused me, this drug or that drug also saved my life. These things we say are sometimes true. We need something at a certain time in life to get us over something or get us to something or through something; we are lost and empty, and some of us would kill ourselves or kill somebody else if we couldn't find something to momentarily give us what we need. So we find these things. We find pot or alcohol or pills. We take it and we feel better. We figure, now we know the answer. Later, because this is only a substitute for an answer, or a temporary answer, our reliance on this thing brings us to grief. But we can understand how these things happen, especially when we are young and don't know anything."

[ http://www.salon.com/life/drugs/index.html?story=/mwt/col/tenn/2010/06/03/marijuana ]

I've been feeling pensive about drugs, addiction, the medicated mind, and the need for even legal, prescribed medications following an experience with a room mate both dysfunctional with and without his perfectly-legal medical-industry-approved need for Adderal to function. My own trip to the ER, sent by well-meaning co-workers, and the hell that was the 3 days it took me to process the Atvian out of my system has generated its share of rage, shame, and tears.

Frustration that I let myself get so burnt out and spent that
1) someone in power concurred that I needed to go the ER
2) other folks working there who had known me for all of 2 days declared that I was surely drugged out of my gourd
3) a new friend, seeing parallels in my experience and her own (all true) took me in and promised it would be okay

I had suspicions of what anti-anxiety drugs would do to me; I've avoided like the plague other pyschotropic drugs. I've also avoided the therapy that could lead to such prescriptions: I watched all my friends from 1997-2010 bouncing from experimental drug regimen to the next, hoping for balance, feeling, life. Thirteen-year-olds shouldn't have been put on Paxil, as far as I'm concerned, because I was the one holding the hair, pleading with my friend not to slit her wrists, not tonight, oh please, at the age of 14. That's a lot for anyone, at any age.

I had pitcher ears, a deep shyness and social anxiety, and because I was so much better at hiding my own brokenness, I was often called, "the most stable" of friend groups, always available to help sort the pieces, encourage the anorexics and bulemics to eat something besides celery and gummi worms and laxatives. This makes my friends today laugh, belly laughs filled with pain and disbelief. For years though, I was the best post-Victorian Methodist-Minnesota-raised Protestant-Christian girl -- I couldn't sin, I wasn't permitted. But Jesus said, "Make me a servant, humble and meek," and I have that song memorized as perfectly today as when I learned it for choir at the age of 12.

Serving meant listening, hugging, hoping, praying. It meant holding sobbing bodies and telling them that no matter what the teacher had said, the parent had said, the ex-boyfriend had said, that I believed s/he was beautiful, intelligent, and perfect. What else could I say? I believed these truths; I could see inner beauty glowing through spiderwebs of self-doubt.

At the time, and even today, I often have trouble seeing my own beauty, in mirrors, writing, and in life. I have those same spiderwebs wrapping me up tight, tangling my hopes and dreams in a slurry of disbelief, anxiety, and conviction that I shall never be good enough, not for anyone, any job, any man or woman, or for my society/religion/family.

I believed myself an ugly duckling, a boyish, bookish girl trapped by obligation to God, family, education. The first boyfriend was a shock to my system: how could he think I was cool, or pretty, or worth his time?

I doubt there is any surprise that this kind of emotional roller coaster has chased me up and down my teens and early twenties, even to today. How could I be loved, when I couldn't love myself most mornings, days, and nights?

I'll tell you the lie I tell myself when I wake up in the morning, and before I go to bed at night: I am better now. I love myself. I know that I have imperfections, that I am learning, that I often fuck up the church's money and that I will likely continue. I will try too hard, I will give too much, I will let my people-pleasing, child-protecting, heal-and-serve mechanism devour all of my self, my being, and my energy and I will crash and burn.

Once downed, I shall wallow, deep in shame and regret. I will wish I had done x, or y, or z differently. I will dream of how, one day, when I grow up, things shall be different.

When I crawl out of that gutter of despair, it will be with a rope-sheets-braids-ladder of love for myself.

And if some nights, it's nicotine or alcohol, loud industrial dance music, or Ani diFranco sing-a-longs with my cat that help me to believe that I love myself, I will use those tools. I will drink the last martini, polish off all of the rum, and smoke 10,000 cigarettes until I am hoarse and hacking.

With these crutches, I will remind myself: there is love enough for me. And when I have more, I'll share it again.

When I grow up ...

2010-06-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

... things will be different.

In the meantime, piracy as usual means paperwork. Who knew letters of marque took so much energy to maintain?

It was a true pleasure to make some charming new acquaintance this weekend. Best wishes to all on their travels homeward!

I write letters.

2010-05-02T10:55:00.001-07:00

Dear Saint Charles:

I do find you rather charming and quaint. However, you remind me of pretty much everywhere I lived until Saint Louis City. It's not always a pleasant set of memories. Would you do me a best-friend favor and let me go back across the bridge? Some time this week, preferably? I'd like to make it to the Complex for tomorrow night, actually. Could we arrange that? Pretty please?

Yours most nervously,

Landlock'd Piracy

File under: xkcd was right

2010-05-02T10:48:00.000-07:00

Presentation of bachelor breakfast a la Saint Charles, MO, in the compound:

1) Giant bowl of deep fried potato slices
2) Giant bowl of crispy bacon
3) Two buttery slices of toast (mine)
4) Eggs served w/ choice of cheese
5) Coffee + optional condiments, including coconut creamer
6) Dipping sauces of mayonnaise + ketchup. Offer of horseradish, cobra-bottle hot sauce.

Wait, wait a minute: NO, Colt 45 is not a breakfast food.

6) IceHouse delivered, cracked. Sips.

NO. This is not ... hmmm... Must I keep the rings on the can? I want to slice them up so the turtles don't get their heads stuck. And birds don't drown in rivers when they...

What's that you say? Shut the frak up and drink the beer? Well ... if you insist... I suppose I did eat all that breakfast ...

burnt yer netwebz to a ckrispy finish

2010-04-28T20:31:00.001-07:00

blame the patriarchy until i feel better...

2010-04-28T20:27:00.001-07:00

Well, hell. www.blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com will make me feel better:

-----"Anyway. Unable to go back to sleep, I flipped on the TV. The show was PBS workhorse “This Old House.” Some strawberry blonde dude was converting a purlin into a hex-jig, or installing a new blart box in an old neffit; I don’t really remember on accounta I was in a stupor at the time. All I know is, I watched through swollen, sleep-deprived eyes as the strawberry dude effortlessly pulled heat-sensitive galvanized conduit through a wooden alloy breezeway and had the new helicopter landing pad or low-voltage window-washer all up and running in about three minutes flat. Impressive!"

_____"The next thing I knew, there was a young assistant TV producer named Tristyn on my doorstep.* This was fairly unusual. I have erected fences and laid land mines and taken other antisocial measures specifically to keep assistant Tristyns off my doorstep."

bombing until oblivion! it's the only way out!

broke Kthulu haus into BABAYAGA MODE

2010-04-28T18:10:00.001-07:00

Also! Sorry, pirates, you're out of time: My contract has been snagged; catch me @theWayoutClub 2nite! That's right, there's a pirate cat, an epic caravan, feathery whispery feathers.

I'm not joking; no one has let me sleep for more than 15 minutes for over 48 hours. So for the love of ZUL tonight

PyschoTherapy is @thewayoutclub and I was PASQUALINA DI BISCLAVRET and I demand an end to little easter. I am newly christened by an archangel. Done with psychos, therapy, unless it involves pixie dust, glitter, feathers, jingling bells.

He's my archangel! Also, in charge of caravans, plans, and dreams. He names me...

PASADENA BAKLAVA

so.fruits.and.nuts.andflaky.fucking pastry.

MY HOUSE RULES WERE VIOLATED by an angry evolution that shoveled me back to Creationism. HI I AM MADE OF LESBIAN VENGEANCE BEST SERVED COLD.

if i continue to not be taken seriously, your walls will tumble. i am kassandra. fucking breasts, cut them off, i need to shoot moar arrows.

fixing the world, one rubber ducky at a time.

2010-04-23T04:17:00.001-07:00

My current solution to each & every post-modern existentialist feminist crisis is: 1) flail 2) flail 3) flaily art 4) flaily dance 5) RUBBER DUCKY BATH TUB TIME 6) collapse at Kthulu House 7) wake up confused on living room floor, under dog, debris 8) rinse repeat

VIA Oatmeal: Why not to name lakes while eating dinner:

2010-04-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Chaubunagungamaug

This pirate approves of this incidence of (drumroll please) landlocked piracy! EpicWin for Webster, Mass.

Forty Cannon Salute *bambambam* *pewpewpewpew* [oh noes party crashed by laser-powered kittens]

overboard!into the kayaks!

in my dreams I'm dying all the time

2010-04-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hey, good news! Scheduling a flight/Amtrack epic event (okay, so a small 2-4 day excursion) to SLC to pick up my car. I am putting ducks in rows here in STL so I can go and be a good auntie to impending baby creature/monster arriving in SLC.

EPIC DATES:

May 1: Leaving candy on doorsteps, knocking, and running away screaming. Still fun after 20 years.

[first Thursday in May] Somewhere in here is b3r site dinner. HEY, who's coordinating that for me? If I'm allowed, I'll cook you all vegan sausages and you'll cry. It's true. I've seen it. How to make a Calontiri fighter sob: soysausage. Bwahahahahahaha. With a side of tofu salad. And moar seaweed. *wicked cackles* I'll feed you nori, and you'll like it, gorramit.

May 8: First Tower Grove Farmer's Market. Play Where's Waldo. See if you can find me there.

May 14/15/mumble: Epic win! My lil sis is gradumataing and I am SO DAMN PROUD that I'm caravanning to btown to ensure that she has an awesomesauce partay. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! [You can tell I'm excited, I can't spell anymore. And I devolved in LOLgrammar]

Saturdays in May: Farmer's Markets in Tower Grove make my heart sing. Wow, I love them so.

Thursdays starting in maybe June: Downtown farmer's market: play Where's Waldo again.

In June, there's this thing? in Kansas? named Lillies? Apparently I'll be there too. Encampment still under negotiations -- who's offering better booze in exchange for my epic vegan camping kibble and awesome sauce barista/babysitter/camp counselor/firebuilder/northshield/canadian skillz? Although, admittedly, there is one encampment with a tiny monster that holds a number of compulsions for me. Oh, tiny monsters. I do <3 you so hard. She's my favorite frakking marmot in the barony.

[Trust me, Where's the Landlocked Pirate is almost as much fun as the game Schrodinger's Underpants.]

So, it's time for another epic Landlocked Piracy summer. If you want to book a nibble [and careful, the War Kittens are out for my soul] [and I apparently have a legal and binding contract regarding a shoulder-mount, backpack portable water balloon siege weapon that I have to have for the defense of Northshield's neighboring shire out in the boondocks on the Serengeti at Pennsic] don't hesitate to write/telegraph/postcard/postsekrit/message-in-a-bottle me.

First World Problems.

2010-04-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

Who the frak do I have to screw in this Saint Louis City of Three Damned Rivers to get a cab at 6:14 a.m. when I am stone cold sober?!

*headdesk*

This landlocked pirate is EXCEEDINGLY upset about her airship being in drydock in damnable Salt Lake City. She also can't get four consecutive days off of work with enough notice to go get it.

She's a pirate. She's never off the clock.

ARGH 6 A.M. and I'm changing voice. HALPZ, send a chariot! plz?

EPIC STEAM WIN

2010-04-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

Steampunky art/costume/decor supplies treasure hunt on Cherokee yesterday was a *smashing* success. Today and tomorrow are *artcation*! Wherein one requests off of work to have sufficient time to make ART! for the soul.

If you think you'd like to take part in the art-party/construction party/costuming party please let me know: it's going on allllllll day and allllll night!

[Breaks for sleeping tbd based on eta wherein a='keels over']

The Cabeirium!

2010-03-29T18:15:00.000-07:00

The Landlocked Piracy crew is thrilled to bring you news of an excellent event: The Cabeirium. Pasqualina di Bisclavret is hosting this gothic steampunk dance party Thursday, April 8th. You should check out The Cabeirium on facebook or blogger www.thecabeirium.blogspot.com

To snipe the phrase from Bloomington Indiana's Chapel Perilous: you.will.dance

This is what happens when you are hired by three places simultaneously

2010-03-02T08:46:00.000-08:00

1) You don't see your friends or family, only your co-workers, who become both
2) You lose all sense of time/space/place and timeslip
3) You think many words but have not time in which to write them
4) You don't get to make art, and it's all you want to do
5) You eat crackers standing up in your kitchen with tuna fish from a can at 4 a.m. and can't tell if it is breakfast or dinner
6) Produce rots in your fridge from neglect
7) Your cats snub you
8) Your laundry piles up to 12-load mountains
9) You fail to do any and all paperwork
10)You run out of stamps, toilet paper, and conditioner. Simultaneously.

Pirate Relocation Crew

2010-01-14T01:12:00.000-08:00

So, excellent pirate news:

There are two new jobs that pay both in perks and in green hard cash. They are in a field both draining but fulfilling, and they're both for good management. I hope to continue to work at both through all of 2010 if not longer. I hope to make a reasonably lucrative living from both to stick with them, as well.

There is a brand new pirate-ship-dry-dock in an excellently tall building with southern exposure. I am excited both for new piratical neighbors of high quality and mad skills, as well as for slipper commuting during times of insomnia. Also, the neighbors equal an outlet for compulsive cooking while living alone.

There is a shiny new foster-pup named Kahn Zeus. As in Kahn of the Great Mongrel Horde. Must credit Massa Aelered le Verrier du Saint Tobain for that one, since the Mongrel Horde being managed by Zeus is his. When I left the dogs were playing tug of war. adorable He is a Husky/German Shepherd mix, 6 months of age, and smart as a tack. He's already learned 20 words in 5 languages, hooray for linguistic experiments. We're going to take epic walks in Forest Park and it will be for the win!

Yes, of course, since you asked. He already knows that "Hold" means "freeze right there mister!". He also knows that "Grok" means "stop and think about it, fool."

I also have an official position working for the Barony of Three Rivers, the Baron Ravz and the Baroness Kajsa, in the Kingdom of Calontir in the Knowne World. I am coordinating Site-Dinner for the barony and I look forward to coordinating with gusto. Hooray!

By tonight my toothbrush will live in my own damn bathroom, comma honey. I love and honor the four or more toothbrushes that are strewn across the city in varying places, proximitous to sofas-of-no-obligation but I look forward to my own nest and my own things, all in their spaces and places.

A shout-out to the households who have hosted me during this time of stress and trial, you all know who you are and I appreciate you so hard and will cook you many wonderful foods.

"How America can Rise Again" from The Atlantic Online

2010-01-14T01:08:00.000-08:00

This:

“When I was growing up, these bridges and roads and dams were a source of real national pride and achievement,” Stephen Flynn, the president of the Center for National Policy in Washington, who was born in 1960, told me. “My daughter was 6 when the World Trade Center towers went down, 8 when lights went off on the East Coast, 10 when a major U.S. city drowned—I saw things built, and she’s seen them fall apart.” America is supposed to be the permanent country of the New, but a lot of it just looks old."

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/201001/american-decline

Some linguists have children.

2010-01-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Others have clever foster dogs. Zeus, the Husky/German Shepherd mix, has already learned 20 words in five languages. Language learning for the win! Nibble by nibble, he grows in wisdom and tongues.

Love letters to the intrawebternetz.

2009-12-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

I was pulling old SF/Bay Area/UChicago friends from a friend's twitter feed. I can tell I'm all squashy with familial guilt and over-emotion and holiday un-cheer and too many people, and this is how:

With Leslie Feist playing Leisure Suit I almost burst into tears upon reading an old friend's bio. The text said something along the lines of, "Actually kind of tolerates mustard these days."

My gut-reaction? "I knew you back when you hated mustard, when rocks were soft. We don't talk regularly anymore, but I (still) miss you and I'm filled with joy to see you so happy (with her)(with life)(in the city). Joy."

Dear Santa:

2009-12-23T06:28:00.000-08:00

Dear Santa,

How are you? How's your wife?

Please bring me some new Benefit of the Doubt, as President Obama has used up my entire stash for 2009.

Also, I seem to be running low on Faith in Humanity, so if you're feeling generous, I wouldn't say no.

Enjoy the cookies,

Pasqualina

Inspired by: http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/12/president-obama-is-trying-to-make-my.html

Letter-to-santa thefted from a commentator. It was too good to leave just lying in a corner of the webternetz.

Keith Olbermann Nails It.

2009-12-17T07:49:00.000-08:00

Transcript here:

Video link here: http://www.americablog.com/2009/12/keith-olbermann-eviscerates-obama-reid.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Americablog+%28AMERICAblog%29

Here's the text, lifted directly from the first site.

Finally, as promised, a Special Comment on the latest version of H-R 35-90, the Senate Health Care Reform bill. To again quote Churchill after Munich, as I did six nights ago on this program: "I will begin by saying the most unpopular and most unwelcome thing: that we have sustained a total and unmitigated defeat, without a war."

Last night on this program Howard Dean said that with the appeasement of Mr. Lieberman of Connecticut by the abandonment of the Medicare Buy-in, he could no longer support H-R 35-90. Dr. Dean's argument is informed, cogent, heart breaking, and unanswerable.

Seeking the least common denominator, Sen. Reid has found it, especially the "least" part. This is not health, this is not care, this is certainly not reform. I bless the Sherrod Browns and Ron Wydens and Jay Rockefellers and Sheldon Whitehouses and Anthony Weiners and all the others who have fought for real reform and I bleed for the pain inflicted upon them and their hopes. They have done their jobs and served their nation.

But through circumstances beyond their control, they are now seeking to reanimate a corpse killed by the Republicans, and by a political game played in the Senate and in the White House by men and women who have now proved themselves poorly equipped for the fight. The "men" of the current moment, have lost to the "mice" of history.

They must now not make the defeat worse by passing a hollow shell of a bill just for the sake of a big-stage signing ceremony. This bill, slowly bled to death by the political equivalent of the leeches that were once thought state-of-the-art-medicine, is now little more than a series of microscopically minor tweaks of a system which is the real-life, here-and-now version, of the malarkey of the Town Hallers. The American Insurance Cartel is the Death Panel, and this Senate bill does nothing to destroy it. Nor even to satiate it.

It merely decrees that our underprivileged, our sick, our elderly, our middle class, can be fed into it, as human sacrifices to the great maw of corporate voraciousness, at a profit per victim of 10 cents on the dollar instead of the current 20. Even before the support columns of reform were knocked down, one by one, with the kind of passive defense that would embarrass a touch-football player - single-payer, the public option, the Medicare Buy-In - before they vanished, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the part of this bill that would require you to buy insurance unless you could prove you could not afford it, would cost a family of four with a household income of 54-thousand dollars a year, 17 percent of that income. Nine thousand dollars a year. Just for the insurance!

That was with a public option. That was with some kind of check on the insurance companies. That was before — as Howard Dean pointed out — the revelation that the cartel will still be able to charge older people more than others; will — at the least — now be able to charge much more, maybe 50 percent more, for people with pre-existing conditions — pre-existing conditions; you know, like being alive.

You have just agreed to purchase a product. If you do not, you will be breaking the law and subject to a fine. You have no control over how much you will pay for the product. The government will have virtually no control over how much the company will charge for the product. The product is designed like the Monty Python sketch about the insurance company's "Never-Pay" policy ... "which, you know, if you never claim — is very worthwhile. But you had to claim, and, well, there it is."

And who do we have to blame for this? There are enough villains to go around, men and women who, in a just world, would be the next to get sick and have to sell their homes or their memories or their futures — just to keep themselves alive, just to keep their children alive, against the implacable enemy of American society, the insurance cartel. Mr. Grassley of Iowa has lied, and fomented panic and fear. Mr. DeMint of South Carolina has forgotten he represents people, and not just a political party. Mr. Baucus of Montana has operated as a virtual agent for the industry he is charged with regulating. Mr. Nelson of Nebraska has not only derailed reform, he has tried to exploit it to overturn a Supreme Court decision that, in this context, is frankly none of his goddamned business.

They say they have done what they have done for the most important, the most fiscally prudent, the most gloriously phrased, the most inescapable of reasons. But mostly they have done it for the money. Lots and lots of money from the insurance companies and the pharmacological companies and the other health care companies who have slowly taken this country over.

Which brings us to Mr. Lieberman of Connecticut, the one man at the center of this farcical perversion of what a government is supposed to be. Out of pique, out of revenge, out of betrayal of his earlier wiser saner self, he has sold untold hundreds of thousands of us into pain and fear and privation and slavery — for money. He has been bought and sold by the insurance lobby. He has become a Senatorial prostitute. And sadly, the President has not provided the leadership his office demands.

He has badly misjudged the country's mood at all ends of the spectrum. There is no middle to coalesce here, Sir. There are only the uninformed, the bought-off, and the vast suffering majority for whom the urgency of now is a call from a collection agency or a threat of rescission of policy or a warning of expiration of services.

Sir, your hands-off approach, while nobly intended and perhaps yet some day applicable to the reality of an improved version of our nation, enabled the national humiliation that was the Town Halls and the insufferable Neanderthalian stupidity of Congressman Wilson and the street-walking of Mr. Lieberman.

Instead of continuing this snipe-hunt for the endangered and possibly extinct creature "bipartisanship," you need to push the Republicans around or cut them out or both. You need to threaten Democrats like Baucus and the others with the ends of their careers in the party. Instead, those Democrats have threatened you, and the Republicans have pushed you and cut you out.

Mr. President, the line between "compromise" and "compromised" is an incredibly fine one. Any reform bill enrages the right, and provides it with the war cry around which it will rally its mindless legions in the midterms and in '12. But this Republican knee-jerk inflexibility provides an incredible opportunity to you, Sir, and an incredible license.

On April 6th 2003, I was approached by two drunken young men at a baseball game. One of them started to ask for an autograph. The other stopped him by shouting "Screw him, he's a liberal." This program had been on the air for three weeks. It had to that point consisted entirely of brief introductions to correspondents in Iraq or to military analysts. There had been no criticism, no political analysis, no commentary. I had not covered news full-time for more than four years. I could not fathom on what factual basis, I was being called a "liberal," let alone being sworn at for being such.

Only later did it dawn on me that it didn't matter why, and it didn't matter that they were doing it — it only mattered that if I was going to be mindlessly criticized for anything, the reaction would be identical whether I did nothing that engendered it, or stood for something that engendered it.

Mr. President, they are calling you a socialist, a communist, a Marxist. You could be further to the right than Reagan - and this health care bill, as Howard Dean put it here last night, this bailout for the insurance industry, sure invites the comparison. And they will still call you names.

Sir, if they are going to call you a socialist no matter what you do, you have been given full unfettered freedom to do what you know is just. The bill may be the ultimate political manifesto, or it may be the most delicate of compromises. The firestorm will be the same. So why not give the haters, as the cliché goes, something to cry about.

But concomitant with that is the reaction from Democrats and Independents. You have riven them, Sir. Any bill will engender criticism but this bill costs you the left — and anybody who now has to pony up 17 percent of his family's income to buy this equivalent of Medical Mobster Protection Money.

Some speaking for you, Sir, have called the public option a fetish. They may be right. But to stay with this uncomfortable language, this bill is less fetish, more bondage. Nothing short of your re-election and the re-election of dozens of Democrats in the house and senate, hinges in large part on this bill. Make it palatable or make it go away or make yourself ready — not merely for a horrifying campaign in 2012 — but for the distinct possibility also of a primary challenge.

Befitting the season, Sir, these are not the shadows of the things that will be, but the shadows of the things that may be. But at this point, Mr. President, only you can make certain of that. There is only one redemption possible. The mandate in this bill under which we are required to buy insurance must be stripped out.

The bill now is little more than a legally mandated delivery of the middle class (and those whose dreams of joining it slip ever further away) into a kind of Chicago stockyards of insurance. Make enough money to take care of yourself and your family and you must buy insurance — on the insurers terms — or face a fine.

This provision must go. It is, above all else, immoral and a betrayal of the people who elected you, Sir. You must now announce that you will veto any bill lacking an option or buy-in, but containing a mandate.

And Sen. Reid, put the public option back in, or the Medicare Buy-In, or both. Or single-payer. Let Lieberman and Ben Nelson and Baucus and the Republicans vote their lack-of-conscience and preclude 60 "ayes." Let them commit political suicide instead of you.

Let Mr. Lieberman kill the bill — then turn to his Republican friends only to find out they hate him more than the Democrats do. Let him stagger off the public stage, to go work for the insurance industry. As if he is not doing that now.

Then, Mr. Reid, take every worthwhile provision of health care reform you legally can, and pass it via reconciliation, when ever and how ever you can — and by the way, a Medicare Buy-In can be legally passed via reconciliation. The Senate bill with the mandate must be defeated, if not in the Senate, then in the House.

Health care reform that benefits the industry at the cost of the people is intolerable and there are no moral constructs in which it can be supported. And if still the bill and this heinous mandate become law there is yet further reaction required. I call on all those whose conscience urges them to fight, to use the only weapon that will be left to us if this bill becomes law. We must not buy federally mandated insurance if this cheesy counterfeit of reform is all we can buy.

No single payer? No sale. No public option? No sale. No Medicare buy-in? No sale. I am one of the self-insured, albeit by choice. And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health care reform. Pass this at your peril, Senators, and sign it at yours, Mr. President. I will not buy this insurance. Brand me a lawbreaker if you choose. Fine me if you will. Jail me if you must.

But if the Medicare Buy-In goes, but the Mandate stays, the people who fought so hard and so sincerely to bring sanity to this system must kill this mutated version of their dream, because those elected by us to act for us have forgotten what must be the golden rule of health care reform. It is the same one to which physicians are bound, by oath: First do no harm.

For sale/hire/purchase ...

2009-12-14T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hiding at home, ostensibly doing laundry, holiday baking, house cleaning and cordial production isn't sufficient excuse. I'm dressed, I'm professional-appearing (as much as I ever am) and I have a binder with the resumes, already printed.

Out of excuses, yes I am. It's time to go, greet the day, and believe in the power of the universe to provide.

"Alll-ley-loo is church for hooray!" --- courtesy of my favorite toddler.

Hey, it's that holiday thing again...

2009-12-11T05:30:00.000-08:00

I haven't made a yule log in, oh, ten years. This obviously means that I need to make it for a party where there will be many witnesses in case I commit massive, cake-wrecks-worthy failure. Right now I'm planning on trying the recipe in Catten Cakes and Lace: A Calendar of Feasts by Julia Jones and Barbara Deer. Home-made chocolate frosting will be requisite, as will be little meringue mushrooms. Possibly fondant or marzipan greenery too.

In the interim, I need dessert for a dinner-party tonight. Based on the preferences of the other guests and the tart cherries in my fridge, I think it'll be a clafoutis. The catch? My copy of Global Gourmet is far from me. As in, packed in a box in Cincinnati in a basement? Maybe? I know there are other perfectly acceptable clafoutis recipes, and I know it's not a rocket science dessert. However, I've made that recipe, so I *know* it works and is delicious and again: experimentation when attempting to impress = made of fail.

Over at la tartine gourmande ( http://www.latartinegourmande.com/2007/05/25/a-classic-cherry-clafoutis-un-classique-le-clafoutis-aux-cerises/) she's explained clafoutis so beautifully, I would prefer to direct you to her. The emphasis on ripe, delicious cherries leads me to think that I've already changed my mind.

I do have local, delicious, no-spray apples though, and surely enough, there's an apple and hazelnut clafoutis recipe which is 1) more seasonally appropriate and 2) likely to taste equally good with pecans, of which I have a surplus. I think I've accidentally found a new favorite food blogger! Oh boy!

"http://www.latartinegourmande.com/2009/10/03/apple-hazelnut-clafoutis-pommes-noisettes/"

I'll report back to you all later tonight or tomorrow morning -- this bodes well for the delicious!

Vintage Fruit Cake

2009-12-09T05:25:00.000-08:00

The best (funniest, most poignant) things cannot be told to the internet. That being said, with the implicit (complicit) note that I can't always tell all the amazing stories I hear, I offer you instead a vintage (belonging to a grandmother) fruit cake recipe. It is still in the oven, where it will be for another hour. After which some will soak in spiced rum, some in amaretto, and some will just soak in good ol' fashioned air. This is a slow-results project, but I hope that it will not fail.

1 lb candied/dried pineapple, chopped
1.5 lb dates, chopped
1 lb candied cherries, chopped
2 lbs pecans, chopped
2 c flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 c sugar

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Grease loaf pans of any size that suits your fancy. I used 1 mini, 1 standard, and 1 small. This is to further my experiments in soaking it in booze.
Mix the dates, pineapple, and cherries in a large bowl.
Whisk together the dry ingredients, then pour them on top of the fruit mixture. Combine until fruit is well coated in floury mix.
Whisk/beat the eggs until frothy.
Beat in 1 c sugar until well combined. Pour egg/sugar over fruit/flour mixture, mix to combine/coat.
Mix in 2 lbs chopped pecans. At this juncture, if you haven't already, abandon your spoon or spatula and just use your paws. It will be easier ... and you won't run the risk of snapping your room mate's Ikea spatula into two pieces. (Sorry.)
Press into pans, bake for 1hr, 30 min in the 275 degree oven.
Once done, remove from pans, cool on racks, then wrap in cheesecloth/muslin and soak in a booz-a-hol of your choice for three weeks. Spiced rum, amaretto, brandy, as you see fit.

NOM NOM NOM the anticipation!

Herd-joining and other minor misfortunes.

2009-12-07T04:36:00.000-08:00

Tweet. Tweet.

www.twitter.com/landlockdpiracy

*head-desk*

For Caroline.

2009-12-05T03:05:00.001-08:00

Quick and Dirty French Phrase Guide:

Could I please have a beer?
Une biere, s’il vous plait
ooon beee-air seal-voo-play

I’d like a cappucino, please?
Un café crème, s’il vous plait
un café krem, seal-voo-play

Where is the bathroom?
Ou est les toilettes?
Ooo-ay lay tway-lettes

Which way to the metro station?
Ou est le Metro?
OOO-ay le met – roe

Please help, I’m lost, which way is (hotel address)?
S’il vous plait, je suis perdu. Ou est_____?
(Seal-vooo-play, je sweeee per-dooo. Oooo-ay _________?)

No, I don’t want to give you my number.
Non, je ne te donnerai jamais mon numero
No, jay nuh tuh done – er – ray jah-may mon numero.

No, I don’t want to go home with you.
Non, j’ai aucune desir de rentre chez toi.
No, j’ay oh-coon day-seer duh ron-tray chez toi.

No, I don’t want to have sex with you.
Non, je n’ai aucune desir de te faire amour.
No, je-nay oh-coon day-seer duh tuh fair amour.

I don’t like men.
J’aime que les femmes.
Jem que lays femmz

Fuck off, you bastard.
Arrete de m’emmerder!
Ah-rett duh may-mer-day!

You’re breaking my balls.
Tu me casses les couilles!
Too muh kassz lays quweeez.

oh my my, oh hell yes, honey put on your party dress...

2009-12-04T02:38:00.000-08:00

A cogent analysis of the same-sex marriage debate, in handy flow chart form.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharangula/upload/2009/12/the_same-sex_marriage_debate_g/samesexmarriage.jpeg

Tip o' the hat to a certain Dominic in Mynnd Seren for the link.

HTML has lately been made for me of fail, even pre-made html generated by Blogger and Livejournal. Please accept my heartfelt internet apologies for making it essential for you to copy-paste a link.

Contagious much? Leaving the right in its own dust.

2009-12-03T05:30:00.000-08:00

Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic has also declared his departure from the conventional right as it is practiced in politics today.

"But there has to come a point at which a movement or party so abandons core principles or degenerates into such a rhetorical septic system that you have to take a stand. It seems to me that now is a critical time for more people whose principles lie broadly on the center-right to do so - against the conservative degeneracy in front of us."

He then presents a manifesto that floored me, that precisely articulated the heart of why I am so frustrated with what I read, see, and listen to from the mainstream media. I do not, and will not say that 'leftist', alternative, or liberal media does not have its failings. It most certainly does, and I am happy to discuss/analyze/critique them. At issue rather is the bankruptcy facing the religious right, the conservatives, the rotten core of the Republican party.

Among other gems is this: "I cannot support a movement which has no real respect for the institutions of government and is prepared to use any tactic and any means to fight political warfare rather than conduct a political conversation."

This is why. Articulated clearly, just for you, by someone else.

2009-12-02T17:09:00.000-08:00

Little Green Footballs articulated precisely some of the problems I have with political discourse today. Please, read, and enjoy. There's a satisfying crunch of the slamming door as Little Green Footballs leaves the company of the extremist political right. High five! Also, a thank you for such a concise bit of rationality. Our political discourse needs an injection -- five doses, one every 6 weeks, until recovery is ensured.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right

LoLCat Bible Wiki project

2009-12-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten how amazing this is. They have most of the Bible done, and it will be for sale in 2010 (how damned cool is that?).

Here's the wiki page for the first book of Esther, in the Old Testament:

http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Esther_1

"1 Wuz Ahasuerus (Ahasuerus rulz Injuns An Ethiopia an all teh kittehs btwn, lotz o plazes)2 King Ahasuerus haz chair and big houz in Shushan3 In teh third yeer, he maked cheezburgrs An cookies, giv to prinz An servntz; teh powerz Purrsia n Media wuz ther

4 He haz lots shiny thingz, took long time 2 show5 He haz partee for 7 dayz in teh leaves in teh houz6 Was hangin things to play wit and bedz to sleep7 Lotz to drinkz8 King sayd to every cat in houz, drink lotz

9 Queen Vashti also haz partee11 Getz Vashti so i can sho her like shiny things12 Vashti went AFK. king got agro

13 King askd smrt ppl:14 Wit 7 princes15 Wht shd hapn wit Vashti, she iz gai

16 Memucan sai Vishti hert every boy lolcat17 Vishti inspyr all girlz to be bad18 Teh ladyz now haz rath

19 Royl comand dat king find nother grl21 King was like happycat22 erwon got letterz."

Oh my.

2009-11-30T18:13:00.000-08:00

Can't pin down the chain-restaurant-food cravings you're enduring? Let this handy guide help you. A quick shout out to Brett http://www.lexjb.com/, from whom this was yanked.

http://eatingtheroad.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/where-to-eat-chain-restaurant3.jpg

First World Problems.

2009-11-29T11:58:00.000-08:00

1) Amtrack return ticket for the Sunday following the Thanksgiving weekend.
2) Unscrutinized ticket leads to *surprise* moment when realization of 5-hour layover is achieved.
3) Especially since Union Station is crawling with travelers. Lots of cranky travelers, quarantined like cattle, or refugees.
4) And the Amtrack lounges are off-limits unless you're five minutes prior to departure.
5) The station chairs are all full. So are the walls, and most of the floor.
6) Plus that forty pounds of baggage you're carrying around when you realize this.
7) Add on that you snacked and had coffee on the train, but by the time it arrives you're a) ravenous and b)under-caffeinated.
8) It's raining in Chicago.
9) You've arm warmers but no mittens, and your scarf evaporated the previous evening. Regrettably, no alcohol was involved.
10) You're nursing the tail end of a hangover, and just want somewhere warm, to eat, with the internet, for free. Happy to pay for the food/drink, it's just that the internet should be free.
11) You should be able to do e-mail on your handy new holiday present smart phone. But instead, after three hours spent in the Sprint Store yesterday, they still didn't fix your phone, which thinks it is corporate and has no interest in talking to GMail.
12) Every single nice-looking local-ish cafe is closed for the holiday weekend, or closed b/c it isn't M-F, 9-5.
13) The only food option looks like McDonald's or more McDonald's
14) The internet, or twitter, or facebook, of gmail could fix any of these first world problems.

BUT NO THE PHONE IT WILL NOT.

I am going to roast the balls of some Sprint employee's management team. RAAAAAR!

Un-Turkey Thanksgiving

2009-11-28T03:45:00.000-08:00

Soy Chorizo and Rice Stuffed Acorn Squash

Serves 2 as a main dish, or 4 as a side.

1 acorn squash, sliced in half, with seeds/innards scraped out.

Grease liberally with olive oil, place cut down on an aluminum-lined baking sheet. Bake at 375 for 30-40 minutes, or until fork-tender. Once cool, carefully scoop out 75% of the squash flesh and set aside. Make sure to leave the shell intact.

While the squash is baking, cook 1 c white or brown rice.

I used a rice cooker, and needed 2 c water. On the stove-top, ratios may differ. I actually make poor rice on the stove top, so I shall graciously confess my use of tools, and let other, wiser, folk on the internet direct the cooking-of-rice-in-pots-on-stoves.

Chop into a small dice two large (or four small) shallots.
Mince 4-6 cloves garlic (or to taste).

Saute the shallots in olive oil over medium-low heat until translucent. Add the garlic, saute 1-2 minutes more, until garlic softens but does not brown.

Add 1-2 teaspoons of cumin and a 1/2 teaspoon of dried pepper flakes.

Stir another thirty seconds or so. Add in the squash innards, mixing, then once combined, stir in half of the rice (About a cup, there will be rice to spare. I just find it ridiculous to make a 1/2 c of dry rice, since there are so many uses for leftover rice.)

Once the squash and rice are well combined, add about 4 inches of soy chorizo crumbles. Stir to combine. It comes in a casing, so it's easier to approximate four inches than it sounds. Add more or less to taste -- I didn't want the flavor of the chorizo to dominate the delicious squash, I just wanted to compliment it.

Pack this mixture back into the squash shells and level them off. Carefully wrap the squash shells in aluminum foil as if they were baked potatoes. Pop them in the oven, either on low (200 degrees) until it's time to serve the rest of dinner, or 350 for about 10-15 minutes to warm them completely and combine the flavors. The foil wrapper will keep them from drying out and trap delicious flavor inside.

Some bread crumbs or cheese crumbles would be a nice finishing topping -- I was trying to keep this dish vegan though, so I skipped the cheese. If a brown crusty topping is desired, remove the foil for the last five minutes of bake-time to let the cheese or bread crumbs brown.

This is a top-secretly hearty dish. Since it was one of many items for Un-Turkey Thanksgiving, we were both barely able to eat a third of a half of a squash. Bon Appetit!

Curried Squash for B3R

2009-11-07T03:13:00.000-08:00

Curried Squash

2 butternut or acorn squash
1/2 small tin curry paste
1 can coconut milk
1 can crushed tomatoes in tomatoe puree
2 inches fresh ginger, grated or finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 onions, coarse chop

1)Halve the squash, scoop out the seeds. Rub with olive oil, then place cut side down on a tin-foil covered baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes or until fork-tender. Depending on the size and thickness of the squash, the amount of roasting required may vary.

2)While the squash is roasting, do the following: peel and chop the three onions, finely chop the six cloves of garlic, and peel and grate the fresh ginger.

3)When the roasted squash is cool enough to handle, peel and chunk up the squash. It’s a-okay if the squash is super soft and falling apart – that only means it will be more delicious.

4)Saute the onions in olive oil over medium heat until translucent. Add the garlic and ginger and saute 1-2 minutes more. Add curry paste to taste, starting with at least 2 tablespoons. I used a combination of massaman curry paste and sour yellow curry paste, though for squash I prefer the massamn curry flavor. Cook the mixture, stirring, to release the curry flavors for another 2-3 minutes. Add the coconut milk and the tomatoes.

5)At this point there are several possible steps. If you have a large enough stove-top pan, you can combine the curry sauce and the squash and cook on low for at least 30 minutes, occasionally stirring. If you prefer, combine the squash and sauce and put it into a crockpot to slow cook. The third option (and the one I used, as I don’t currently have a giant stove-top kettle) is to bake it again. Press the squash into a 9x13 pan, 2 inches deep, as though it were a crust or a dough. Pour the curry sauce over the top, cover with foil, and bake at 275 for 45 minutes, stirring to combine the curry sauce/squash at the half-way point. This only tastes better the longer it cooks, so I dropped the temperature further, down to 225, and cooked my pans o’ squash for another 45 minutes before loading up to go to site dinner.

The ratios of curry/tomato/coconut milk can be adjusted to suit personal preference. This is a down-sized recipe. For comparison, I used closer to 10 squashes, and four cans of coconut milk. The large, forty-servings version filled a 2-inch steam pan upon completion.

Coconut Mango Vegan Scones

2009-10-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

This recipe is based on the scone framework from Vegan with a Vengeance, but it's been much adapted. It's also imperative that one uses frozen mango chunks. I spent the better part of a week calibrating the moisture content so these were 'rounds' and not puddles of scone dough. Ripe, juicy, fresh mangoes will likely crash and burn the recipe, unless one carefully adjusts the other liquid levels.

3 cups of bread flour (please, do not use pastry flour)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup shredded coconut
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup canola oil (probably would be delicious with coconut oil)
3/4 cup soy milk (or other non-dairy milk)
1 teaspoon coconut extract
1/3 cup coconut for sprinkling/decoration
10 ounces frozen mango chunks, defrosted a bit, then pulsed into smaller pieces in a food processor or coarsely chopped by hand.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, or grease with non-stick spray. Preheat oven to 350, convection, or 375, standard. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, 1/2 cup of coconut, baking powder, salt). Add the wet ingredients and mix with a spatula until the dough just holds together. Scoop with a 4 ounce scoop, or shape into balls or triangles, whatever scone shape preference is preferred, and dust with 1/3 cup coconut. Makes 7 scones. Bake 18 minutes at 350 (convection) or 375 (standard), or until scone is a light golden brown.

Flower Confidential

2009-09-26T16:40:00.000-07:00

"Lane remembers the day he tried to convince the bank's lawyers to release enough money to let him pay his employees. ... 'They had frozen all our accounts,' he told me. 'It was early February, just before Valentine's Day. I kept trying to tell them, you can't do this. We've got to treat our people well. If we don't pay the workers, we don't get the flowers cut in time, and then we're really in trouble. Finally I told them, 'You know, you guys are up there in your nice office on the twentieth floor in downtown Portland and you think you can just deny these people their paychecks. But they had nothing to do with this [the bankruptcy]. At four o'clock, you're going to have a hundred people wondering where their paychecks are. And at the end of the day, I can't guarantee what will happen to your assets if they don't get paid. What you own down here is four hundred thousand square feet of glass. Do you understand this? These are glass houses. I can't promise that at the end of the day these glass houses will still have glass in them.'' After a long silence, the lawyers agreed to release they money and that evening Lane handed out the paychecks."

--Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart, pg 79-80

Margaret Atwood on farm cats

2009-08-25T17:22:00.000-07:00

"They'd also sprouted a number of cats, offspring of the single cat that had been transported to the farm from the city, and was supposed to have been spayed. Obviously there had been a mistake, because this cat kittened underneath a corner of the house. The kittens were quite wild. They ran away and plunged into their burrow if Nell even tried to get near them. Then they would peer out, hissing and trying to look ferocious. When they were older they moved to the barn, where they hunted mice and had secrets. Once in a while, a gizzard--squirrel, Nell suspected--or else a tail, or some other chewed-up body-part offering, would appear on the back-door threshold, where Nell would be sure to step on it, especially if her feet happened to be bare, as they often were in the summer. The cats had a vestigial memory of civilization and its rituals, it seemed. They knew they were supposed to pay rent, but they were confused about the details."

--from the short story White Horse in the book Moral Disorder

Tastes like Aix-en-Provence

2009-01-04T14:41:00.001-08:00

In August during my travels, while lost, I was shocked to find exceedingly expensive tins of Hedley's tea (I believe it's a Canadian brand) at Big Lots for $2/tin. This would usually retail for $8-$10, so I stocked up on many flavors; so many that I haven't gotten around to trying them all. Some of you may be familiar with my cabinet/drawer/shelves of tea and the fact that there's always more, and it's often growing more quickly than I can drink it, even with dedicated assistance.

For a caffeine-soft start to my day I brewed a cup of blackcurrant (cassis) tea. Cassis is a common flavor in France, but I don't often find it here. So as I sit with the internet and sip, it tastes like France all over again.

The kitchen with its cluttered miniature fridge, doomed-to-failure gas stove, and the European map on which we planned our grand travels. The tiny wicker-top stools and the mountains of dishes in the sink. Sitting on my foam-mattress-bed/couch in the living room around the hookah with everyone, tea doctored with cream and sugar.

It tastes like a chilly and painful year in Aix-en-Provence in a way that is nostalgically delicious.

2009-01-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

The AP has an article about how Bush's personality shaped his presidency and will shape his legacy. This line, about presidential lunches, was my favorite:

Former White House executive chef Walter Scheib learned from Bush never to serve a grilled cheese sandwich unless it came with a side of French's yellow mustard.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jgsqOTaE1yThAATF7Cmli9rrBjkwD95FPQIO1

It's an interesting read.

Adorable Vegan Granola!

2008-12-05T13:46:00.001-08:00

Several years back, two of the kitchen staff were a fabulously adorable vegan couple in their early twenties. They even went so far as to make home-made seitan for marinated veggie-seitan kebabs. Dedication, hard work, and delicious food were hallmarks of their presence. These two made such a delicious granola (because most conventional granola isn't vegan) that I begged for the recipe, which I now bring to you.

Delicious Vegan Granola

1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup molasses
6 c oats
1 c coconut (unsweetened)
1/2 chopped almond
2/3 cup bran or wheat germ
1/2 cup sunflower seeds
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup craisins

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a pan, heat the molasses and oil and stir until blended.
Remove from heat, stir in all the ingredients except the craisins.
Spread on a baking sheet (or several, as needed). Bake 10 minutes.
Toss with a spatula, then bake 5-10 more minutes until golden brown.
When cool, add craisins.

Delicious with milk, soy milk, or plain yogurt!

I volunteered for this...

2008-12-04T08:25:00.001-08:00

I'm cooking a vegetable dish. For forty people. To be served tonight at 7 p.m. -- I don't know if there will be ways to reheat it, ways to keep it warm, or how it will survive the 45-minute-plus drive out to the meeting. EEEEK!

Right now I'm plotting to wash, peel, and oven-roast a boatload of butternut squash, then chunk it up and simmer it in a curry sauce. Most of the people eating will be die-hard carnivores, and the vegetable dish is just a gesture toward the fact that not everyone will want to eat meat and potatoes. I may also make mushroom curry for me to eat, because if I'm making squash for forty people, I'll be damned if that's all I'm eating for dinner. There's bound to be a stray vegetarian/vegan or two, right?

To Soulard Market!

A new standard for evaluating the nutritiousness of relationships..

2008-11-30T15:03:00.000-08:00

Tammy from www.foodonthefood.com , one of my favorite food bloggers mentioned today,

"So, I was reading along this morning, everything seemed to be going fine, my name was spelled correctly, both Tammys were fairly represented, all the facts appeared to be in good working order, when…wha? “Unnatural?” I had an “unnatural” fixation on someone? Hmmph. As if the USDA has a standard labeling system that categorizes the nutritiousness of our relationships. God. (Actually, that would come in pretty handy. Could someone get on that?)."
( http://www.foodonthefood.com/food_on_the_food/2008/11/two-years-of-fun-unnaturalness.html )

Perhaps a food-pyramid-style set-up?

The base could be sound relationships, based on shared interests, mutual respect, and support and love. These could include family, friends, and boy/girlfriends. This would go where the breads/grains section is located. These would be the basis for fulfillment and stability and over-all good emotional health. However, that is awfully stodgy, just like that bowl of plain brown rice. You know in your heart of hearts it's good for you, but it's just not exciting unless laced with more troubling parts of the relationship pyramid.

The next segment which treats vegetables and fruit would mandate a more careful split. Vegetables/Legumes would be reserved for that guy or girl who would treat you right and take good care of you, but that you're not sure you want. This is the one who always returns your calls, and remembers your birthday. These are stalwarts, not exciting, thrill-filled relationships, but a great basis for long term sustainability.

Fruits with their sweet goodness are a bit more decadent. Perhaps this is the guy or girl you didn't think you could catch or deserve, the one you hope to keep. You read extensively about existentialism on wikipedia to know enough to chat him or her up at a cocktail party or at the coffee shop. You show up in public reading impressive, heavy books, or cook stupidly complicated meals to impress this potential significant other. They're good for you, because they cause you to strive to be a better version of yourself. After a while though, this can become exhausting.

The next level is the split between the meat/poultry/fish and dairy products. Meat/poultry I'd like to reserve for those relationships that are painfully destructive. The ones where a person loves without sense, even when friends and family discourage it. This is for the ill-fated stars of love like Romeo and Juliet or for those involved in potentially or seriously abusive relationships. i.e. "S/He only hurts me because s/he loves me" and other unfortunate residue of the patriarchy. This is for the relationships that send one sobbing to friends routinely, more than once a week, wishing for change but loving in spite of a failure to enact such change on the part of the other.

Dairy products will be replaced with unrequited love. This is for your best-friend's boyfriend or girlfriend, or that one room mate-love interest you never recovers from. This category is for boy and girls that leave you pining, leave you hanging, never return calls or break dates. These are the people that accidentally or on-purpose leave you alone, sobbing over chocolate ice cream with your cat. This is for the New Year's Eve kiss you hoped for with every fibre of your soul. By focusing on these relationships or possibilities of relationships, you may keep yourself from consuming more bread/grains supportive wonderful relations that may actually do you some good. You may also avoid commitment in order to be available in case the subject of your unrequited love becomes available.

The top for fats and sugars would definitely be reserved for unhealthy obsessions, such as those indicated by Tammy with respect to her favorite farmer. Also included could be swooning over Craig Daniel in the Bond films, that dreamy barista at the coffee shop, or one's favorite barkeep or classmate or office-cube-farm dweller. The entirely fantastical and hopeful relationships that we all dream and plea to fulfill... These relationships are characterized by a healthy disrespect for reality and a belief in Prince or Princess Charming style romance. The type which mandate these pronouncements: "One day, he/she will realize that my love is the most pure and will return it to me!"

I think this division should do the trick. Eat your grains, vegetables, legumes, and fruits. They're good for you.

Pirates on the move...

2008-11-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

I'm headed to a wedding in south-central Indiana this weekend to celebrate the happy day for a dear friend from middle school and high school. I haven't seen her since she left the country to teach in Japan, about three years ago. I'm so thrilled to see someone I know so happy with someone so special.

Here's to you, Super-Suzo, and all those fun years. To costumes and dinner parties, to eating chocolate cake for breakfast. To endless chats online and long telephone calls. To believing in each other. Here's to a decade of friendship and celebrating finding that special someone. *chinchin*

Domesticity, 2.0

2008-11-18T15:47:00.000-08:00

I remember when I was first working after college. All of the sudden tasks like buying groceries, washing the dishes, doing laundry seemed impossible. What had previously been an escape, a convenient and practical way to procrastinate on that assignment or paper or research project was suddenly a leaden weight. When did people who worked 8, 9, 10 hours a day have time to do these things? After work I was deadened, only good to scrape together dinner and lounge. I didn't want to read or craft or do anything, especially no desire to leave the house. I'd been forced to interact all day long with people I didn't like and didn't want to see or talk to, but mandated by my work environment to do both.

It seemed a task of epic proportions to run laundry down the stairs or to the laundromat. Finding the energy to run to the neighborhood Kroger to buy soy milk, peanut butter, bread, it seemed seldom likely. I opted for a least-possible route, only washing dishes or doing laundry when there was nothing left to wear or use. I would scrape by on bread ends and cracker crumbs and scavenged food, just to have more time to spend alone, at home, freed from the constraints of other people's expectations.

Now that I'm underemployed, like a vast number of other Americans, I've become domestic-tastic. I cook, I clean, I bake, I scrub, I do laundry routinely. I arrange recycling. Admittedly some of the baking is trial-and-error testing for the bakery that's opening in the next few weeks. However, it is not unusual to spend a day buried under an avalanche of flour, dishwater, and cleaning products. I haven't yet alphabetized my bookcases, but I don't doubt that day is coming soon. Clothing is folded, or hung on hangers. The kitchen is approaching OCD orderly. I've been introduced to the power of the Swiffer and I chase dust bunnies of cat fur across the laminate floors.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. Is there another reaction to under-employ? I can't imagine just resting on the sofa with the television or the internet or a book. It's unfathomable.

Here's! To Domesticity! *clink clink* Now I'm going to eat home-made chili with home-baked whole wheat focaccia. *salut!*

Some will be pardoned, and some punished...

2008-11-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

After a solid 24 hours of meows, morose looks, and direct glares, the cat populace has won. After heartily nomming their way through the delicious Purina One cat chow, the kittehs proceeded to snub the cheap food, (an emergency bag purchased by the roomie a few weeks back). They've be growing hongrier and hongrier and hongrier.
Fussier and fussier and fussier.
Since I want to be able to sleep sweetly all day tomorrow (I work the night shift tonight) I caved. Now there is Meow Mix, the cat chow prefere of Bitey and George. Olivia will have to cope. The men of the house have spoken. Seafood flavor, not original. I haven't heard a single complaint since I walked in the door, bearing gifts.
Time to tinfoil my window. NO SUN NO!

Adventures in Rum Consumption...

2008-11-12T16:10:00.000-08:00

Trader Vic's ( http://www.tradervics.com/ ) Rum is currently up for analysis/taste testing.

As a proper rum wench, I took the first swig directly from the opened bottle, gasped, choked and noted, "Well, we got what we paid for." A sweet smell, a spicy initial flavor, with a bitter and biting ouch at the end. It does indeed taste like booze, and is not so syrupy as to disguise that fact.

So, I bring you, the Second Choice Cocktail:

2 oz dark rum
1 oz raspberry liquer
2 oz orange or other citrus juice

Throw some ice in there because.

Progress in America.

2008-11-09T10:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallstats/3009942346/sizes/o/

Victorious Baking!

2008-11-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

I'm doing trials for some baked items I'll be making in a professional capacity. Yesterday I made homemade half-whole-wheat focaccia with sage, two flat rounds, and also pistachio-chocolate chip biscotti. The focaccia was great yesterday -- fresh and soft and wonderful, but this morning it's a little lackluster. It's rather dry. I think I need to look into making it with more olive oil or possibly some ground flax seed to increase the moisture content I'm not adverse to baking it fresh every day, but I'd like to have it have a 2-day shelf life, since it's going to be pannini grilled anyway. I do want to keep it vegan, and to continue making it with at least half-whole-grain. I might make a white-flour batch next time too. Either way, fresh bread homemade is just damned satisfying. I was dragging mine through olive oil and balsamic.

The biscotti were perfect though; the recipe only made one log, and I sliced them a little too thick, but they have received rave reviews. The fact that there are almost none left speaks well enough; my room mate and Mainsheet Meric were devouring them. Biscotti are on my new list of stoooopidly easy baked goods -- I just need to start baking everything because so much is shockingly easy -- why did I ever let anyone else make this for me/why do I pay x amount for this. They're also made without butter, which is nice since dairy products are increasingly expensive. I'm not sure if that makes them healthy, but even these weren't too sugary, the flavor was all in the nuts and chocolate. I want to dip the next batch half in melted chocolate.

As soon as I get the camera operational, there will be pictures, and also, recipes!

Pirates voted for Obama today!

2008-11-04T20:36:00.000-08:00

Pirates are awfully happy right now. Congratulations to President-Elect Barack Obama.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who contributed time, money, energy, sweat and tears to his campaign.

OMG THIS IS SO AMAZING!

The sexual distraction of cheese crumbs...

2008-10-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2008/10/the_sexual_distracti.html

Another fantastic quote from Bonk, a book about sex research by science writer Mary Roach, this time about the effects of distraction on female sexual arousal (from p251):

A thousand images can play on a woman's mind: work, kids, problems with Ultrasuede. One nonpharmaceutical solution is to teach women to redirect their focus and pay more attention to physical sensations - a practice called mindfulness.

...

If it's any solace, even female rats have trouble focusing. I give you a sentence, my favourite sentence in the entire oeuvre of Alfred Kinsey, from Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female: "Cheese crumbs spread in front of a copulating pair of rats may distract the female, but not the male".

This pirate does not want to see McCain as her president.

2008-10-17T14:02:00.001-07:00

Here's an eloquently written reason why: http://flotsamblog.com/2008/10/16/more-wounded-that-eloquent-im-afraid/

"McCain states that he would deal with the issue of abortion with “courage and compassion.” I quote: “the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby.” As if terminating my pregnancy would be the easy way out, the way not requiring his precious “courage.” As if dictating my medical care based upon his religious beliefs is compassionate. And I find it interesting to note that his “compassion” for this newborn does not extend to guaranteeing it health insurance."

Read this. Read it now.

Utility I can haz it.

2008-10-09T10:38:00.000-07:00

This post about feminist co-habitation from a frequent haunt of mine (feministing) has a lot of excellent pointers about living with other people.

I recommend everyone check them out; the comments are ripe with great material about better communication and division of labor, something I've been suffering through this past month and change.

http://www.feministing.com/archives/011515.html

2008-10-09T10:23:00.000-07:00

"And the epitome of foolish is you and your shotgun vs. a platoon of marines with 21st century weapons and a scorching case of PTSD."

pulled from a comments thread on boingboing -- not my usual space on the net, but this comments thread is quite interesting.

QUICK! Buy your water filtration devices and shotguns. The apocalypse is now! (prz to see this iz a funnee, not a srsly.)

A scorching case of PTSDnice. Tres nice.

I declare this won at 8:34 by Senator Obama.

2008-10-07T18:34:00.000-07:00

He did just say, "High on the hog."

Unfair burden share -- a hatchet versus a scalpel. Nice! Your technique, Obama, is impeccable.

Obama 8:31

2008-10-07T18:31:00.001-07:00

A call to service. Tackling problems outside of government. He's showing his community organizer roots. Obama is pushing his energy policy harder than I've heard before.

Grassroots action! Incentives for saving energy. Nom nom nom.

There's no bias here, obviously. Really, he makes it too easy.

"The young people of America are interested in how they can serve." -- Obama, 8:32

8:29 McCain

2008-10-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

He is so shifty that even Spot the cattle dog is twitching his eyebrows and looking confused.

Obama, taking the question and my heart by the horns.

2008-10-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

8:25 Obama go!

Immediate action in energy. Our goal should be in 10 years time to be free of dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Sexy. Timelinez. Oh, how we like them.

Health care is priority number two.

Education is priority number three.

Addressing McCain's nasty slurs. McCain's trying to leverage his earmarks policy. It's not flying.

"Prioritizing our spending side and our tax policies."

Wow. I needed more coffee before starting this.

2008-10-07T18:24:00.000-07:00

I want to ask him how he plans to deal with nuclear waste. Eh? Eh? Scientists haven't figured that one out yet.

If you make more nuclear plants, where do you put the refuse? In your back yard, Mr. McCain?!

McCain 8:23

2008-10-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

"I know how to fix this." Well, if you know, you're not articulating it at all. Tell us what is stuck in your brain pan.

1) Health care
2) Energy
3) Social security reform

How does he order this? AVOIDING THE QUESTION is not acceptable.

McCain 8:21 "I'm a consistent reformer."

2008-10-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

No. No. No. Kitten interference on keyboard. She's giving kisses. She's nose bumping. She obviously finds McCain as uncompelling as I do.

He's going through vagaries. What reforms? How will you keep people in jobs? VAGARIES.

8:19 Obama's solution

2008-10-07T18:19:00.000-07:00

Health care to be reformed to help budget.

"We are mortaging our children's future."

College affordability, energy reform. He does speak my talking points.

"Priorities that are working for you." Nicely put.

8:18 New question. How do we trust you with our money?

2008-10-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

Obama, come now, work it!

"There's a lot of blame to go around." Now he's talking history. Bush's legacy of surplus to debt. Delicious.

"It depends on what we do" 8:17

2008-10-07T18:16:00.000-07:00

Bad answer! Wrong answer! Mr. McCain

Cronyism. Special interests in Washington. He's working his MAVERICK angle.

McCain digs himself into a hole

2008-10-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

8:13 : box farm fail and collapse. cat rescue. now to Obama!

8:14 : OBAMA TYME! Correcting Senator McCain's history, har har har. Dirty slurs, McCain is a de-regulator! Slinging, slinging.

"You're not interested in hearing politicians pointing fingers."

"This is the beginning of the process ... working with home owners..."

Next question! 8:12

2008-10-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

8:12 : The bailout. It's a rescue, McCain says. Oh, talking about campaign suspension. Oooh he said CRONIES. Obama's cronies are in charge of the problem!

Oh, Obama...

2008-10-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

8:11 : Reaching for the middle class. He's so fluid and so compelling. I'm almost drooling on my keyboard.

McCain 8:10

2008-10-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

8:10 : We need someone we can trust? I don't see how McCain is gaining my trust here.

8:09 McCain

2008-10-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

8:09 : McCain isn't offering me any concrete solutions. The treasury is buying all the mortgages? How will this even be administered or done? This sounds like a clusterfuck.

He also had a passing reference to abandoning energy dependence, but didn't say how he planned to do it.

He knows how to restore our economy? NO ONE KNOWS THIS.

McCain 8:08

2008-10-07T18:06:00.001-07:00

8:08 : "The heart of America's worries tonight" ... McCain has a plan! I ... am terrified. Low taxes. Not raising taxes. How the fuck is this a solution?

Live blogging 8:06

2008-10-07T18:05:00.001-07:00

8:06 : Oversight! Obama has such a sexy rhetoric. A rescue package for the middle class -- that's for me. Hooray.

Live blogging the Presidential Debates

2008-10-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

In part because Pirate Meric is stuck in class, I present my first (of likely many) live blogging experiment/experience.

8:03: Obama disses on Bush economic policy. I can kick back and start to enjoy this.

Cat O'Clock is earlier than Dog O'Clock

2008-09-30T03:22:00.001-07:00

When the world is still and silent and mice still dare to tiptoe, that is cat o'clock in our household. The first scoops of cat chow, tasty fresh water, a few little treats, and then --- oh but then --- dogs locked with the alpha male. The dogs are alert, they know there is herding and chasing and much to sniff and identify; but not until the alpha is awake.

There is tea, writing, the first sweet kiss of nicotine, an embarrassment of first-world hot water use for cleaning -- last night's dishes, the scurf of yesterday, the muddy paw prints from the kitchen floor.

The city still drowses. Cars do not rumble, bass does not boom. The occasional passerby has an imaginary loud long conversation on a cell phone. Crickets, cicadas, other gentle vermin scutter and scrape, to the delight of felines near and far. Silent pas de deux, as kitties stalk with death himself.

This is my favorite time of day. It is my mother's favorite time of day. Also, a favorite of my grandmother. Without the interruptions and demands of men and society, it is a peaceful time. Accomplishments can be completed with far greater efficiency, a zen like meditation of work. Absolution of sin exists in shining countertops, in freshly scrubbed floors, in glistening bathtubs, in dust removed from surfaces near and far.

This is how I pray.

Dog O'Clock

2008-09-29T14:58:00.001-07:00

This means the neighbor pups were invited over to play. So I'm sitting on 2 feet of the futon with a pit bull alpha battling the resident "alpha" two year old Aussie cattle dog mix. He tries to herd her, she tries to sit next to me on the sofa. Eventually (in an hour or so) they'll modify it so they're both napping together, with the pit bull in alpha position with her head in my lap. Next door sitting on the furniture is a privilege the dogs don't have, so when they come over to the rehab house, they revel in furniture sitting, dog treats, and my cooking. There is much battling for primo furniture/lap sitting.

Pit bulls have HUGE jaws, by the way, and I'm glad they play so nicely together. One time my shin bone ended up in the middle of this melee (I had to cross the box farm) and ouch! Fortunately the dogs understand yelping and whimpering and were rather apologetic that I'd been grabbed by accident and enthusiasm. I have a bolster pillow protecting my leg/arm and laptop.

Bomb girl is currently on her back, with Spot half-on, half-off the sofa. Oooh! It looks like Bomb girl has won. Spot abandoned ship for chasing Dede in the back yard. Dede is too small to wrestle, but she loves to play tag. Jack Russel Terriers are fast, amazingly so, talk about an agility course dog if I ever met one. These dogs are just too damn smart. These are the strays that were smart and savvy enough to find a home that loved them; they're some of the happiest dogs I know on this continent. They get to run and play and be dogs, with all the love and dog chow and medical care they need. They wander to M's house, and then they just stay. They have some bad habits.

They're scared that one day there will be no more food. One of them trembles and shivers if you raise your voice or stomp your feet. They all want endless love, and are quick to learn commands. They are dogs who know that some humans are love. These dogs are too smart; they could all jump the fence and leave, but refuse to. They know who their humans are. They take great care of their humans, in spite of sloth claws, dog nose bruises, and ouch. That was just a pitbull sloth claw to the breast. Eeeeyouch. Spot decided that trying to crawl over Bomb girl and onto my already-laptop occupied lap was a great idea. No, not so much.

He's too tired to mess with her though. Dede's trying to lure Bomb girl into the back yard and convince her to abandon me on the sofa so that she can take the primo sweet spot on my lap. None of them are laptop sized, but they sure as hell don't think so.

I've been in love with dooce.com's Chuckacabra/Chuck/Chuckles for years (since France, 2004) and having real dog love affairs is much more rewarding than the electronic version, I must confess.

I'm also writing about dogs today so that I don't write about Sarah Palin. EEEsh. Talk about sick to my stomach, and haven't even watched the interviews or the SNL sketch. I don't want to lose my lunch/dinner, especially not with the H20 off -- new bathroom sink installation. Rehabbers have more fun! (The Brita is full and the neighbors' water is on.

We're all violently fine here. Violently fine. Violently pretending to be fine. Closer to fine. Closer to fine. Closer to fine.

I Blame the Patriarchy always makes my day...

2008-09-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

"The big push to relocate Spinster HQ to points west has begun in earnest. I’m swamped already, but apparently there is a hurricane tearing through the Gulf of Mexico with Texas’ name on it, which really puts a hitch in my gitalong. Everyone in Austin is in a panic. The local news makes sure of that.

“Evacuate! Or stock up on beer and diesel generators!” they warn, genuflecting woodenly before swirling computer graphics with terrifying red centers. “It’s a Level 42 Megacane!”"

also?

"Meanwhile, Stingray’s out in Napa lurking in some wine cellar, and she’s got a wine cellar blog. It’s got great photos of incomprehensible winemaking equipage, as well as of the porta-potties that dot Napa’s picturesque vinyards like the plastic turquoise flowers of spring. Before she biffed out there and began reporting back about the full-blown sexism, classism, and racism attending viticultural culture, I used to think that wineries were pleasant, sun-drenched agrarian paradises. Now I realize that I will have to give up oenophilia on principle and start brewing my own feminist hooch in the bathtub."

http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/ Find this and more right here; bound to tickle your feminist rage/anger and/or your funny bone.

I totally have feminist hooch brewing in my cupboard in mason jars, but not the bathtub. And it's a cordial, so it's even legal. (Bathtub has too much utility for washing dishes.)

The banking institution has decided since I updated my ID with the correct address (first time since 2005) before leaving Indiana and it's not yet 60 days old, and the fact that I don't have bills from St. Louis utility companies arriving at my place of residence (last utility bills from my prior utility companies don't count) I AM A TERRORIST AND NOT DESERVING OF A BANK ACCOUNT. I'm going to go consult the greater credit unions of STL/Missouri and chat with them about the situation.

In other news, blogger Brett Mason mailed me a carte postale from his cross-country voyage with his dad. He's been vlogging the journey on facebook, and I'm past-due to catch up. It's so nice to receive snail mail though, many thanks sent his way, and with luck I'll get my next batch of art-carte-postales out soon too.

Why you/we/I drink...

2008-09-24T06:19:00.001-07:00

http://graphjam.com/2008/09/18/song-chart-memes-why-you-drink/

a pilgrim's progress

2008-09-24T05:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I found an Arab or Persian (I'm sorry, I didn't ask, and they were speaking mostly English and I couldn't tell from the packaging) bakery/grocery that has fresh flatbread, similar to pita -- apparently it is called bati bread? According to the neighbor. They are in rounds the size of large dinner plates and are pocked with fork marks, but gently yeast raised. Also, homemade locally made fresh yogurt spread/edible. This shop is all of four blocks from me. The bati bread was still warm.

I also filled out exhaustive numbers of applications, and applied for a number of freelance writing gigs. Today I deliver the apps, dressed in my classy best. There's an upscale Indian restaurant in CWE looking for bartenders, and they encouraged applicants to just drop in, so I may.

P.S.

http://graphjam.com/2008/09/16/song-chart-memes-swiss-make-holes/

Yesterday was too productive; I burned out at 9h30 and had to go to bed. It was pathetic.

ARRRRRRRRRRR!

2008-09-20T08:36:00.000-07:00

Somehow Pasqualina ended up in Martinique. She's not asking questions, and they (pirates) decided to keep her. Was there choice involved? It's negotiable.

itch duly scratched...

2008-09-18T04:32:00.000-07:00

Some solutions and presents come in dumpsters and they purr. Also, yodel. Also, insist. Sometimes they are what NPR calls the "St. Louis cat -- a brown tabby. I didn't see it till Missy said so, but this smidgen of cat-dom totally wears both tabby eyeglasses and also a mustache, with "I stepped in a puddle of milk paws". And yes, he or she can BEAT UP on the pups and when I turn my head for 10 fractions of a milisecond, either Dede or Spot try to NOM NOM NOM her, but she claws the shit out of them, like the spunky 14 oz wonder that she is.

Age is uncertain -- fleas and worms have stunted her growth. I dunked her in a sink of warm water, and it immediately turned shades of brown, then I dedicated many sun-filled minutes on the front porch to coaxing her to cease wiggling so I could detach endless fleas migrating to drier ground. She was not pleased to be so wet, no she wasn't. She is learning to like Shirley Manson, also, Belle and Sebastian. She is learning to beat up on Jack Russel Terriers and to put the stomp down on excited 2-year-old cattle dogs. No one else cares; the pit bull and the resident dame of the house know that their position is not compromised by something that fits in a tea cup.

Even Olivia can't be arsed. At least the kitten doesn't bite her tail when she leaves it artistically dangling.

So I spend my days scrubbing. Dust. Grime. In wonder and amazement -- how is there this much? Also, hoping and praying for a better future, wondering how to save myself. But you see, I was angry and frustrated, and I went and took shots of kitten love, and now? Everything feels more sound, it is clicking into place. I cannot save the world. I cannot save Africa. I cannot save Vietnam. But me? I can save dumpster kittens. I hear, rumors, that sometimes I do an o-kay job.

this is a present from cowperthwait.

2008-09-17T06:09:00.001-07:00

"abortion, gun control, and religion, each of prime importance for a town ... of fewer than 5,000"

Sarah Palin’s political views are totally cribbed from the "Focus on the Family" website. Pro-life, unless you’re talking about the life of a criminal; limited government involvement in people’s lives, unless those people have a uterus or are gay and want to get married; and guns for whoever wants them, as many as they like, unless they look Islamic, in which case they should be detained indefinitely, preferably naked and arranged in a human pyramid.

—"Sarah Palin", Dickipedia

dial up...

2008-09-17T05:49:00.000-07:00

crimp crimp crimp.

This is like a Buddhist exercise in patience. I think I need to go find Coffee. Hellllllllo Cherokee!

dial up. dial up. dial up. Dear Juno, you are MADE OF FAIL.

"Why are they all so beautiful?"

2008-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:00

she asked the volunteer, tears in her eyes; unable to stay; unable to go.

"Because they all come here to die."

photography is not allowed. and there is so much pain and suffering.

all that is left? is hope. and love. I have never seen more hope anywhere more dire. If you want to see unconcentrated, pure hope, and the deepest love and affection, GASCONADE has it in spades.

His name is Toby.
His name is Angel.
Her name is Dazzle.

He has been there for three weeks.
She has been there for three days.
He is going to be killed tomorrow.

She will die the next day.
He is rabid. She will bite.
He used to get hit. She used to get chased by dogs.
He's sleeping in his litter box.
He won't come out to play.

I did find Orsino; he was upset. I did find Sir Almadeus, he was a resigned Southern Gentleman. I did find Hershey; who I knew so well. Don Gato was there. So was Smokey. And Bandit was there. So was Bakaryugji. Skitten was there. Sir Oliver Skitten. Hey, and you know who wasn't there? Mirabelle. Because her name is Rose N. Crantz. You know who wasn't there? Casanova. Sailor. Shepherd Buch. The Simon and Garfunkle kittens. Gollum. Fabio. Fortune Cookie; she wasn't there. I did see Mason; I was not surprised. He had shit luck in his last life; and it looks like he's in it again.

There was one of Olivia's cousins, a gentle beautiful buff-coloured Turkish Angora. There were several of Skittens litter mates. There was a Chinese temple cat; tabby and beautiful. There were perfectly swirled Maine Coon Cats.

They didn't let me have my camera; but I will not forget. I will never forget. I cried for two hours and the men and women who worked there understood. They are out of tears; but DON'T WORRY the soft-hearted steam punk engineer still has plenty of tears to share.

www.xckd.com

2008-09-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

THIS THIS IS SO DAMN TRUE:

http://www.xkcd.com/466/

I only gave up because of the mold, the dogs, and the juno dial up. shut up. i was tired. thar were so many boxseseses.

we laugh so we don't cry. it's a choice.

http://www.xkcd.com/468/

omg rly? got attacked by lolz agin.

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i miss purr. olivia is a bit short on it and refuses to come down from the television, where she has been since I put her there at 11 p.m. last night.

it's 8 a.m. in St. Louis. I found the clock; also reality. in one hour i go to GASCONADE the 7th circle of hell. and everything will be okay.

actually, xkcd, channeling my spinal column? already said that.

2008-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

also?

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we are ready for the rain. we knew the rain was coming. so far, it's just raining cats. so it'll be okay.

and from my jean luc picard:

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oh god. i tried to buy bourbon. at 3 a.m. at schnucks. they, not selling. s'okay. bought orange juice.

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ceci est pour toi, ma belle.

2008-09-15T05:47:00.001-07:00

moar funny pictures

the garb, much like the check. iz in the mailz.

also, this? yeah. BOB DITTER I <3 YOU!

2008-09-15T05:43:00.000-07:00

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should say:

moar funny pictures

dear universe... chere realite

2008-09-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

j'aimerais trop bien si tu m'envoyeras une autre qui comprends SPOON THEORY, parce que celui que j'avais avant devoir habiter dans Bloomington a cause de ses etudes.

s'il te plait? j'ai plus des spoons. j'ai tout utilise. et moi? mise sur le sofa? ici? tout pres de l'infer?

mais attention! j'ai pas confiance en toi. en fait, je crois, j'suis sure, que tu envoyeras aussi encore les predators. JE CROIS CE QUE TU FASSES. et tu envoies LES MEILLEURS ET JE N'ACCEPTE PLUS D'ETRE MANGer.

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yes. yes I am.

finally a leetle bit sleepy.

2008-09-15T02:58:00.001-07:00

good morning. whatever the fucking hell time it iz in the universe.

5 a.m. 6 a.m.?

fuck it. good night.

edges and fear of falling.

2008-09-15T02:50:00.000-07:00

for someone who has completely lost it all, all summer long, and lost the one thing she loved more than herself?

her boss and mentor told her she was a failure.
her dean told her she was angry.
her idol told her she handled stress poorly.
her boss abandoned and neglected her and she worked 120 hour weeks to feed the camp.
her co-workers rampantly disrespected her and stole from her and were backstabbity.

This is the summer I learned to drink WHISKEY.
This is the summer I learned how to chain smoke.
This is the summer I learned that loneliness can be cured with hot sex that hurts.
This is the summer when pain and pleasure blurred.
When I learned just where my breaking point is.
When work made me genuinely suicidal.
As in, called you sobbing from a ramp onto 371 outside of Bemidji and begged you to let me met you in Chicago, because I couldn't go home, but I couldn't stay there. also?

The summer they stole my knife kit. I mourn you still, MUNDIALS OF BEAUTY. I MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU, SYSCO BLACK DIAMONDS.
the summer Abby lost my copy of dilate.
the summer you fell in love with the tattoo artist's apprentice, a divorcee at 21.
the summer you broke my heart.
the summer you cheated on me with at least, if not more than, the apprentice.
the summer you lied to me.
the summer WHEN I STILL BELIEVED IN US.

the fall when I wrote you endless e-mails.
sent you postcards.
the fall and winter and spring
when I talked about you so much, no on understood or knew me.
I loved you so well. I still love you.
"I will love you 'til the day I die."

nervous laughter. a show open now. on cherokee somewhere in the historic district.

2008-09-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

today i told a gallery owner that my partner, when he drinks, talks about ART which is awesome.

and i told him i knew his name because A. talked about him when he was DRUNK and doesn't remember telling me so.

he told me to tell A. to continue getting drunk and talking about him.

IT IS AN EXCELLENT GALLERY PHD - phillip ______ designs. it's on Cherokee too! There's a show now, being curated by a Leslie, and Leslie? she does Hello Guernica. Hello Dejeuner II. Hello ...Kitty everywhere, in classic art. Also? the show is called NERVOUS LAUGHTER.

sings modest mouse, "i am trying to drink away the part of the day that i cannot sleep away" and he sings it in polar opposites from the album lonesome crowded west and i have that whole album memorized. thank you, guy vallance, for all of my bad habits. you taught me as only a british son on an american artist could. also, would send you a postcard if you'd give me your address.

la plus ca change...

2008-09-15T02:41:00.001-07:00

he said mean things when he was drunk.

it made me cry.

in private though, not in public.

so i screamed at him.

he screamed back.

IT WOULD BE SATISFYING IF HE REMEMBERED ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED AFTER 9 P.M.

it's not a party when it happens every night.

halpz! i am surrounded by the sum of my partz.

2008-09-15T02:37:00.000-07:00

i can not haz mathses.

*sigh*

They used to feed me a bottle of 2 euro wine. Then they had me call the landlord. Because I had impeccable French and a great accent once I started drinking. Funnily enough, I still do. Also? I was the meanest. I drove a hard bargain.

And when sewage backs up into your shower? He thought we were joking. We didn't pay rent. Nope, no we didn't. je t'ai dit, monsieur, qu'on paiera apres que la douche est repare

We left. Our neighbors ratted us out, there was glue in key holes. There were public hysterics. There was the implication of character flaw, hot sex, scandal, and also? WE HAD A DIRTY ARAB FRIEND HE WAS BROWN. and that? that was a problem.

I love you, Yahya. But you knew that. also? you kept me from killing le monsieur. the one-armed bandit. I WAS A BETTER PIRATE THAN HIM. yes, yes I was.

i am not surprised he went crazy here.

2008-09-15T02:33:00.000-07:00

mold will kill you
so will cockroaches.
IF THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHICAGO COULDN'T BREAK ME though it tried.

then? ST LOUIS YOU WILL HAVE TO DO BETTER OR TRY HARDER TO SCARE ME AWAY.

I used to live in the genteel ghetto in the most EXPENSIVE CITY IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE.
Homeless men would drink beer in the dead-end alley behind my apartment.

One day, when they were loud and boisterous i started chucking things out the window.
we things. smelly things. I WAS TIRED OF THEIR NOISE, BAD TASTE IN MUSIC, AND FOUL LANGUAGE. and it was MY FUCKING HOUSE. I asked them, first, politley, to shut up. okay, so in france i screamed like a fishwife. RATHER SATISFYING.

they tried to throw things at me. but the angle was wrong. AND YOU KNOW WHAT? they left and they didn't make noise the next time they got drunk there. THEY GOT DRUNK VERY QUIETLY.