the news of the day

Brax,

Part of my job is reading the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal every morning. The news usually ruffles my feathers, but I think this week I’m feeling pretty crotchety, and two things, one vastly more important than the other, made me mad. Here’s some comments on both of them.

1) Meghan McCain: I know that a lot of blogs are being mean about her, and I don’t want to jump on some sort of train of people who wish she would please put on a classy suit like Chelsea and just stand there behind her dad like a good girl. On the other hand.

I am just TIRED of seeing her pretty little face everywhere. For one thing, it is gross that that old grandpa, who was probably 105 when my dad was born, has a daughter younger than me. For another, it is quite irrelevant to me, to you, and I suspect, to the soldiers in Iraq, the people about to lose their homes, the polar bears, people without health insurance, and people waiting for their unemployment checks what a rich, privileged 23 year old thinks about anybody’s shoes. I don’t mind that she has a blog and her own life and stuff, but I really, really wish the nation’s major news outlets would stop telling me about it.

2) Nukes to Taiwan : You guys. DOD accidentally sent a bunch of nuclear missile parts to another country and then they didn’t notice for two years.

In fact, they never actually noticed. Eventually Taiwan was like, “um, this box you sent us says “secret” on it. We thought it might be important.” (I'm paraphrasing.)

How, how in Holy Hell, do you accidentally send nuclear missile components—some of the most dangerous and, theoretically, strictly controlled objects on the planet—overseas?

The department of defense gets the single biggest chunk of our tax money, you guys. They are supposed to be protecting us.

This has really restored all my faith in the government. I totally believe that all nuclear weapons are secure and there’s no way a terrorist could possibly obtain one, and I think we all owe DOD our gratitude. Thanks a lot, DOD. It’s a good thing that YOU GUYS get all the money instead of schools or parks or roads or food stamps or health care. You’re obviously putting it to good use and I don’t know why us liberals don’t just shut up and trust you.

Grumbles,
Bruce

Apron time 2008

Bruce,

Sometimes when I get home from work, I just feel like putting on some great tunes and hanging out in the kitchen. Sometimes, I'll tie one on....an apron that is!!
Aprons are the best. Don't you just feel so productive while you're wearing one? So put together? Maybe there's something psychological going on there. Anyway, I just thought I'd dance around my kitchen listening to Chuck Berry and bake something. I decided to be really ambitious and make a pot pie!!
I decided to make it in a 9" pie plate, using a top and bottom crust. I've never made a pie crust, and the results were...okay. I think I added a little too much water to the bottom crust, but the top crust turned out great!!
For the filling, I used lentils, tofu, and some vegetables i had lying around the fridge. Mushrooms and asparagus and stuff. And, of course, onion and garlic and seasonings. Then, I baked it according to the directions for a pie with a top and bottom crust. I got the pie crust recipe from my mom's old Better Homes cookbook from the 60's.

Of course, when I went to upload pictures of the baking process, this is all I took.
Apparently, I needed a little "assistance" of the yellow tail variety.

Here's the finished product:
I tried to cut the vent-holes in the shape of a tree. But it tasted pretty great. Good enough for some crazy apron wearing wino dancing around to chuck berry all night.

LYLAS,
Brax

Springtime springity spring spring spraaaang

Brax,

Spring is totally on it's way! So happy.

Today Matt and I went to IKEA and bought rugs. IKEA is the place for rugs. We got lot of 'em, for a very good price. They are for our new house! New house! That's right, the house in Columbus. I got a nice deep blue rug and also a nice bright green rug. These will go in my office. Because in addition to having many, many closets, my new house has a little corner room full of windows which is waiting to be turned into my very own office/craft room. I hope none of my DC friends read this and get offended--I love you guys! But I'm ready to go home.

We're making lots of plans for the new house, and the move, and the future, the jobs and the changes, and blah blah blah. It's all very exciting. What else is going on here? The usual. Love weekends, hate weekdays, very, very, very busy. Maybe this busy.

My cousin and his wife just had their first baby, a little boy, and I have knitted him a Tomato Hat.

Now, hypothetically speaking, if you were to make the Tomato Hat, you'd want to print out this lovely free pattern in COLOR. Because maybe if you didn't, you would maybe waste a bunch of time wondering why the pattern said *K1, K9* around. You would be saying "that just means knitting! Knitting! What? What?................What?" Cause, you see, the leaves part of the hat is in stranded color work. And if you'd printed it in color it would have said *K1, K9* which, of course, would have suggested using two colors. I know, it should not have taken me a long time to figure that out. But it did! Anyway, I figured it out eventually, and here is the hat.

It will be too big for the baby, because he is brand-new fresh. But it's a 6-12 monther, so he can wear it in fall.


I'm trying to think of other things to tell you. It seems like there should be other things. I am on a serious immune system fortifying mission. I've been sick all winter. This is bullshit, and unusual, I am usually not sick. So I asked my friend Lily, who knows all about nutrition and natural remedies, to give me some tips. On my own, I've been drinking lots of green machine and C booster and eating lots of oranges and spinach and stuff. Among other things, Lily said:

"Make this: mix the juice of several lemons with a couple cups of water in a sauce pan. Set the heat to med/low. Add an inch or two of ginger either minced or grated, honey to taste and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Let simmer, but not really boil, until the flavors come together and it reaches full potency...depending one how much time you have, say 20 minutes. Sip until you sweat. This is amazingly therapuetic!"

I haven't tried it yet but I'll let you all know how it works out.

Later, buddy!
Bruce

Daylight Savings Time

Brax,

Well, the last thing you needed was another blizzard, and it looks like you got one anyway. I am sorry, I know you are all bummed about the winterness, but I am incredibly jealous. My parents called me last night to tell me how they were out walking in the snow and the dogs were all romping and stuff and I wished so hard that I could apparate over there.

It's daylight savings time tomorrow! Shiiiiiiit, I hate daylight savings time. It's sort of nice for people who work in offices, but I don't intend to work in an office for much longer because I was not meant for such an life. But I guess people who work in offices should have that nice sunshine at the end of the day all summer, to make their lives better.

Benjamin Franklin invented daylight savings time (thanks, Mom). At least, he came up with the idea as a joke, and then some other dude thought it would be great for real. I've read Ben's essay where he came up with it. But it's a little different, you know, in its original form. Ben says that in the 1700s in France, all those powder-wigged fops kicked it so hard at night that they always slept through the morning. Benjamin Franklin thought about all the candles they burned while they had late night petit fours or whatever, and he thought, if these hedonistic French people would just wake up early like regular people (if I remember correctly, Franklin himself got up every day at like 4 AM or something....no, wait...that was Thomas Jefferson. Shut up, I know history.)...if they would wake up early like regular people, then they wouldn't have to burn all those candles all night! They could eat petit fours while the sun is out instead, and sleep when the sun goes down, and everyone would save so much money on candles! FRANCE. WAKE IT UP!

So anyway. The idea is still to save candles, except now we have lights and stuff, and the logic is not as cut and dry as it was for France in the 1700's. A lot of people say it wastes energy rather than saves it, because people use their air conditioners more on those hot afternoons. Also, I don't really understand why it is only in summer...I probably would, though, if I were to take the time to read the Wikipedia page on it.

So there you go....now you know all about daylight savings time, and aren't you glad I bought the Benjamin Franklin Reader on sale last year?

In other news, I spent the whole week with the stomach flu, which blew. It blew! I'm still sick, but at least I'm not...expelling things anymore. It is a stupid, cloudy, rainy day. So what I'm sayin' is, If you need me today, I'll be knittin' on the couch!

First, though, I have to take a shower, because I feel like a crazy ugly grime monster. My hair is--literally, I am being very serious here--standing straight up, like an emu's.

Try not to freeze to death!
Bruce


ETA: P.S. Over at Aunt Purl's place they're having this serious Patrick Swayze love fest! I love it! I am really enjoying the comments. One of the commenters said something about how they played the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing so much the tape broke, and I just loved that. I feel like it's the kind of sentence that only people (mostly girls) of a certain age group really, really get.

Apparently we were not the only young ladies who were watching Dirty Dancing over and over on VHS at slumber parties while flipping our tall bangs around. OK, I whipped my tall bangs around. Brax never had tall bangs, her hair is too thick and beautiful to allow itself to be subjected to any such horrible fad. Unfortunately, my hair is the kind of hair that says "I am here to be sculpted into whatever style will look ridiculous in the yearbook. Or on the internet. Just spray me, man." Anyway, the point is, get well soon, Patrick. Maybe we should knit Patrick Swayze a patchwork blanket, so he'll feel better.

Whatever, March.

Bruce,

In like a lion, out like a lamb? Bullshit, I say. We just got our first March snowstorm on Tuesday. A warm-ish, rainy day slowly turned into a colder day. By the time we had to leave work, the rain had all turned into an icestorm of terror! Slushy ice rained from the sky! I had to chip off a layer of ice an inch thick on my car before I could even leave work. I saw plows out on the roads, but they couldn't salt fast enough for this terrible onslaught of wintery mix. (Thank you, Natalie Dee, for drawing what's in my soul)

What else happened on Tuesday? I feel like there was maybe something else....Oh yeah! The latest in a long line of Super Tuesdays! I totally voted, and I got one of those stickers that I smugly wore on my lapel until it fell off. I don't think the weather deterred too many voters...one major bonus from all those Democrats turning out to vote is that every single tax levy passed! Hooray, firemen and schools!

(Yes. In Ohio, schools have to whore themselves out to the voters and get real estate tax levys passed every few months in order to do stuff like "pay teachers" and "keep music and art programs." Schools in districts where poor people live get way less money and are falling apart, while public schools in wealthy districts have fancy, state of the art buildings and computers and offer A.P. classes. It's been ruled unconstitutional by the state supreme court, but schools are still funded the same way.)

Anyway, we awoke Wednesday morning to a bright, sunny day....complete with 4 inches of snow blanketing a layer of ice on the ground. Here's my street:

It was a red light guys! Don't worry.

Anyway, I know that this week has probably been in the 80's in D.C. and you have probably all been working in your bikinis or something. I just thought I'd bring you back down to earth and remind you of just how long winter lasts in Ohio.

Later Gator!
Brax