Five For Silver

While in Central Park

2011-03-20T16:04:00.004-06:00

During our trip to NY the other week, Nora and I did all sorts of touristy things like riding the Staten Island Ferry, taking our photos in front of the real and numerous replica Statues of Liberty, walking through China Town, eating hot dogs in Times Square and visiting lots of museums. We also went to Central Park and took in the zoo. While watching the ice skaters in the park, we were asked to participate in this little commercial thingy for Yorkshire Tea. Here's the clip:

I'll eventually get around to posting some pics of the trip, but I thought I'd share this since some of you are wondering what we look like these days.

Reflections On My First Week

2011-03-18T16:56:00.005-06:00

This week was challenge in the new job. Zero introductions, zero training, zero orientation. Just "don't bring your lunch on Wednesday" and "here's your classroom". I was learning all my students' names, stumbling all over all sorts of procedures, trying to figure out a morass of paperwork, and trying to ignore a really, really, really horrible teacher person next door to me, who probably hates everyone, but unfortunately, that includes me.

But about the kids, since that's what you want to hear about. I've got English language learners and low literacy level native speakers. They are technically "young adults" but they come from places where they probably had adult responsibilities way too early without stable adult role models. Many of them have trouble with behavior, or trouble with their academics, or trouble with their social skills. Many of them have trouble with all three. But despite all of that, we had some moments this week.

One of the few things that I've been made aware of is that I'm supposed to confiscate all electronics that I see, but honestly if I do that I'd never get around to teaching (same thing with repeatedly waking up students). They try to keep them hidden and I try to ignore them unless it's really disruptive. Yesterday, I heard a little bit of music playing softly and then next thing I knew, first one, then two, then a whole group of my students were singing Wyclef and Mary J Blige's 911. I love that song, and their voices sounded so great. It really made me smile. They were writing, they were just also singing. There was no way I would've stopped them, we all needed a break. Making my day yesterday, one of my English language learners told me "I was a good teacher". I really don't think that I was this week, but I appreciate him telling me and even more I appreciate that he always comes to class on time and ready to work and participates even though he struggles with the language a great deal and he has to go against the flow of most of his peers to do this. He is a native Amharic speaker, from Ethiopia, so for him it's not just a new language, but also a whole new alphabet. He's been here for just a short while and in the program for a year. It will be a struggle for him, but he more than anyone makes me want to stay and stick this out. In my other class, one of my low level literacy students (actually, I think he should be in a higher level but he blew off the test and now he's stuck with me for 90 days before he can test again) has gotten me (and the class) into conversations on the following subjects this week: belief in Christ but not the Bible, ligers, street racing, redemption due to good works vs redemption due to confession, democracy, and the existence of 30 ft dolphins. He alternately cracks me up and infuriates me.

They all act so tough. They are tough. And they are really, really, young. But, then they also can be unexpectedly nurturing. There are four plants in my room (left from the previous teacher, because you all know I would kill them). The students love these plants though. They mist them, they water them, they talk to them. One of the guys even pulled over a desk and moved them all into the sun. Something about that just got to me. Maybe we'll make it though.

Adding to my happiness

2011-03-04T17:58:00.004-06:00

On top of me getting a job the following thing are making me extremely happy lately:
1. Nora has outgrown her allergy to almonds and probably cashews - we're testing those next. This will enable several vegan dishes that I want to try.
2. And we can now drink Almond Breeze milk. My new addiction.
3. Which is especially good with TJ's new Maple Leaf Cookies
4. Oh, yeah, it's Maple Syrup season!
5. And the Sugar Shack is also serving breakfast
6. Speaking of local farms: I just signed up for my CSA - Red Fire Farms
7. It's March. And while, I don't really think this New England winter is over, I have hopes that the worst of it is.
8. I bought some plants, that I have so far, not managed to kill.
9. Chicopee Public Library continues to be a fabulous and helpful place.
10. We had a really terrific visit to NYC last week. Eventually I will get around to posting pictures.

Altogether I'm in a better place than I have been for the past several months. Now lets hope it holds.

I Heart My Immersion Blender

2010-11-13T16:00:00.002-06:00

Stay at home moms bake. A lot. And stay at home moms of children with milk and egg allergies probably bake even more. So, as previous posts have mentioned I've been baking and experimenting. Today I took on two things I never thought I'd consider doing, due to the time involved. But it went much more smoothly than I ever thought it would. Way back before Halloween, I stocked up on pie pumpkins. They were cute, they were 5 for a $1.00. How could I say no? But then Halloween came and went and these things are still sitting around the house. Yeah, they are Thanksgiving-y too, but really, I needed to deal with them before they rotted. Soooo, I did something my mother recommended I not. When I told her what I had in mind, she said "toss 'em", and those of you who know my mother, you know she's a great cook and not one to shy at doing things from scratch. But her advice was: it's not worth the effort. She had tried it back when she was a stay at home mom and was Not Pleased with the results. But I hate waste. Plus, I hate paying over a $1 a can for pumpkin. And this time of year, we are all about the pumpkin waffles and and the pumpkin bread and the pumpkin muffins and the pumpkin casserole. And I'm surrounded by pumpkins. I had to do it. Today was the test run, I decided that I was going to be home and take on not one but two time intensive kitchen projects. I'll detail the other, making rice milk, here too.

I decided that I'd only start with two of the pumpkins because if I messed it up, I would want to try again or maybe they would go with us to Tree and PD's for Thanksgiving as decorations. I had been researching this on the internet for a while and I was disappointed to learn that I could not can these, since the acid level is not high enough (really, taking on my first canning project would have been a little ambitious for me anyway), so I needed to clear out freezer space, so I had this in the back of my mind for about two weeks, working on the freezer situation. I processed the pumpkin using these instructions. I think the key to this is an immersion blender, and the reason why this didn't work for my mother years ago. That and maybe she was using a different variety of pumpkins. Anyway, as many of you know, my mom is not a fan of immersion blenders. Basically, she feels she has a bunch of pureed food ahead of her at the nursing home and she's not going to start eating it now (no, she's nowhere near going into the nursing home, but she's a long term planner). If I had had to use a regular blender or a hand mill, this would not have been as fast, as fun, or as easy to clean up. With the immersion blender, it was all of these. While the pumpkin did take about 90 minutes to bake (I may steam it next time), the prep was really only about 10 minutes and the pureeing only took a few minutes too, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I got about 3-4 cups of pumpkin out of the two pumpkins and so that's about two cans worth. Not a great pay off, but if I had done all of them at once, it would have been well worth it. I also roasted the seeds while the pumpkin was baking. Yum!

While I was doing this project, I had another project on the stove as well. I have been considering a soy milk maker for some time. But it's about $100 - $200. Worth it for us, since we use a lot of soy milk and it would pay for itself in about 8-9 months, but we really don't have the cash for this kind of thing right now. Making soy milk by hand, sounds like a very intensive process, and honestly, I really prefer rice milk for drinking (although I love soy milk for baking some things and I'd also like to try my hand at making tofu since Nora is a complete fanatic about it). I've found several recipes on line for rice milk, which didn't look that hard to take on. Plus, I had a lot of rice bought up in bulk, so I thought, why not. I used this recipe, and while it doesn't have the supplemental vitamins like the ones we buy at the store, that's okay for us right now. Nora takes a mult-vitamin and I don't usually have a problem getting her to eat her veggies (she's a big spinach and kale eater!). I did use 4 Tbs of sugar instead of maple syrup mentioned in the article, but not the oil. I also used filtered water for the blending. This project also required the immersion blender, and again, I think it made it go very smoothly. It's chilling in the fridge right now, but my first sample tasted pretty good. Its a little thicker and rice-er tasting than Rice Dream or other commercial rice milks, but I think it will work better in baking than commercial milks do. I do like cow milk and will often drink a glass of it - I'm not sure that I will give up cow milk completely, but with enough tinkering with this recipe, I might. My efforts yielded about 3/4 of a gallon, which should last us for about a week and 1/2. For those of you who use non-dairy milks and feel like you are paying too much for commercial ones, it is well worth the time it took, it was easy, and I bet you have one cup of brown rice, water salt and sugar in your cupboard. I imagine you can use white rice too, but it wouldn't be as nutritious - but that may not be a concern. While I did have be at home for the 3 hours the rice cooked, it really only required minimal supervision of the stove and the processing took about 15-20 min, including clean up, so really this is not a bad project for a weekend afternoon. If it makes more than you feel like you can use in a week, I've found that rice milk usually freezes fairly well - of course that means that you have to have room in your freezer! I also like storing this in my fridge in glass bottles (I used a glass pitcher and a glass milk container that I never took back for the deposit). Like cow's milk, it just tastes better out of glass.

Food Craft

2010-11-10T12:49:00.004-06:00

One of the things I've been spending a lot of time doing while home is baking. I've been working a lot on yeast breads, something that I never felt like doing when I had many things to accomplish in a weekend. Unfortunately, my experiments with sourdough starter were just not that satisfying. I started the starter from a Better Homes and Gardens cookbook recipe, and while I did make about 4 loaves out of it, it just wasn't that sourdough-y tasting and then as it sat on my my counter longer, it sort of became a burden and then, eventually, a smelly mess. So I tossed it yesterday and plan to return to Sarah E-Y's wheat bread recipe and some of the white country bread loaves that I've been baking as well. I also bought some spelt flour, so I'll need to do something with that pronto.

I haven't been doing any sewing, which I thought I would be. Yesterday, I finally decided to make some french fries for Nora's play kitchen, so I did do some felt handsewing, and I've got a bunch of felted sweaters that need to be re-made, so perhaps I'll get something done with those. Anyone have any bread recipes they love and want to share? Send them too me! Especially those using wheat flour or spelt.

Here's the french fries complete with ketchup (I didn't make the ketchup bottle, it's from Melissa and Doug).

Out and About

2010-11-01T12:46:00.004-06:00

This fall is flying by. Jason's parents were here for just over a week and we did a couple of excursions with them, including Plymouth and Boston. That's a picture of us in front of the Mayflower II:

We also went to visit Jason's cousin Christy at Wellesley to watch the Widows perform their fall teaser. It was really a lovely campus and we all enjoyed both the concert and the visit.

Finally, Nora and I have been wandering about the area, exploring while Jason is working. We try to make it to the library storytimes, and get out and about even if it's just in the back yard. I've also been cooking up a storm: cupcakes, trying new bread recipes, and returning to old favorites. Tonight is pizza night, but Nora has been begging for Mexican night. I attempted to satisfy this need with potato kale enchiladas, which she found lacking (Jason and I loved them), so we are going to have to find a Mexican restaurant. We haven't had much luck in that department so far, but we did spy a possibility that we need to check out soon. Let's hope for the best.

This final picture is from Skinner State Park and it was one of the most glorious days this fall - in the upper 70's and exceptionally sunny. The light was really amazing that day. Nora was immersed in finding more leaves to drag home. I was just enjoying the day:

New England Explorations

2010-10-01T11:08:00.007-06:00

While my parents were here last week, we did some exploring of the area - finally driving north of Amherst (we still haven't made it to Vermont) and down into Rhode Island and Connecticut. In Massachusetts, we went to Shelborne Falls and Deerfield. Deerfield is an early settlement and a battleground in the King Phillip war which I knew nothing about until we visited. Many of the houses in Deerfield are restored to their colonial appearance; you can tour them or just walk around town and take in the early America vibe. We chose the latter since we had been touring both the Eric Carle museum and the Emily Dickenson house the days before and Nora was about in revolt (as was Dad, who enjoys historical sites, but isn't too fond of being part of a guided tour). Deerfield was lovely, especially the little meadow walk/nature path that finishes out right next to a very old cemetery. However, Shelborne Falls was a real jewel. It's in the Berkshires and while a very small town, has a thriving artist community and a really lovely floral bridge (this is much less touristy than the write up made it sound).

Over the weekend, we headed south. RI was the final state for my dad to visit so he can say he's been in all 48 of the contiguous USA, so it was fun to cross it off the list for him. And of course, Rhode Island has lots of beaches - a big draw for Jason, Nora, my mom, and I. Dad is not so much on the beach, but he does like state parks, so when both combined, we were all happy. We finished off this two day jaunt with a stop in Mystic, CT, which was very touristy and yet still felt relaxing and fun.

Old tombstone in Deerfield (1731?)

This is in front of some fancy smancy prep school where all the boys were blazers and Bermuda shorts. I liked the tree.

Our first day at the beach was really warm and lovely, but there were advisories up warning us out of the water, so we just built sand castles. Nora found an abandoned hole dug by another 4 year old to sit in.

This was later that day at a state park just south of Newport, RI. The kites were so magnificent, we had to pull over. The beach was much rockier and the waves rougher here, since we were facing the Atlantic instead of the bay.
We spent a long time checking out this big octopus kite, Nora ran right for it when we got to the park, and then she and some other kids ran in and out of its tentacles; it really was amazing.

Whales

2010-09-28T08:00:00.008-06:00

Our house has been obsessed with maritime mammals for the past couple of weeks. This could have something to do with the amazing whale watching trip we took though the New England Aquarium. The trip was organized though Jason's school and had the benefit of a chartered bus, so we didn't even have to drive to Boston.

We spent about 4.5 hours on the boat. Fortunately, Nora and I loved it, unfortunately, Jason got a little seasick. Both Jason and Nora were wearing sea bands, so I'm not really sure if they work or not, but given that Nora usually vomits at the drop of a hat, I suspect that they worked for her.

We saw a lot of whales. In the middle of Jason's worse moments, Nora decided we needed to climb up to the top deck. I was more than happy to desert Jason since he looked pretty green, but I wasn't thrilled about climbing up three decks with Nora since the sea was pretty rough. She must have some sort of whale sonar though, since just after we got up there the first whale was spotted. It breached and we got a very clear look since the top deck was a little less populated. I was pretty much amazed and Nora was super excited. I thought that would be as good as it got, but a little while later we slowed down and stopped in the middle of a pod of about 8-10 humpback whales. It included a calf that gave us a big show with lots of diving and tail flipping.

I don't have great pictures - holding on to Nora in the middle of some largish whales while operating a camera was sort of challenging. But I do have a short video. Despite Jason's illness, he did rally around the time we reached the pod and got to join in all the sightings. We had a wonderful trip and we would love to do it again sometime, should any of you want to join us. Be sure to bring Dramamine!

This was taken out in front of the aquarium, they were had an educational fair on whales and it included this inflatable of a right whale.

This was on our way back to Boston, we were in the harbor so Jason was feeling much better.

From whale watch

Click on the Thumbnail to watch the video of the humpback whale calf!

Today's Project

2010-09-11T17:45:00.003-06:00

There's something about assembling furniture that makes my back hurt. I'm pretty happy with the outcome though. Tomorrow's project is filling these bad boys up with the contents of the 30 boxes on the sunporch. Do you think they will all fit?

Here's the final on that pear cake from earlier this week. I will be making this again, it just kept getting better as it aged. Very spicy. Not sure it was a Nora favorite, but I really liked it, I think it would make good muffins too.

Pears

2010-09-08T13:28:00.004-06:00

I've had these pears sitting on my counter for a couple of days and while we've been enjoying them fresh, I thought I might do something else with them. I'm tempted to try a pear butter or pear honey, since Natascha made some last weekend with her mother-in-law, and having tried last years batch, I'd like to make an attempt. But, I'm not really up to the whole canning thing right now. So, I thought I'd make a pear cake, especially since today is Jason's first day of school and well, I'm all out of inspiration on tackling those boxes of stuff that I don't know where to put right now. I've adapted this fresh pear cake from allrecipes, with some Nora -friendly additions: ground flax seed and water for the eggs and omitting the pecans. I also added a tsp of vanilla and about a Tbs of peach brandy that we had around here. I thought it was pear, but then it wasn't but I still thought it would work. The pears are sitting in the sugar/brandy/vanilla mixture now, so I'll let you know how this goes. I left the skins on, I hope that isn't a mistake....

Tune in later to see how this goes!

Foray Into Boston

2010-09-07T09:59:00.004-06:00

This weekend, we went to see Kendra in Boston and check out the New England Aquarium. It was great to see K again and meet her dog Ripley and cats, Eli and Lottie. As you might imagine the cats stayed mostly hidden and Ripley stole the show. After riding the train into downtown, Nora decided that living with Kendra and Ripley might be preferable to staying with her boring parents who just open boxes all day and won't get her a dog.

We had a wonderful time exploring Jamaica Plain (Kendra's neighborhood), riding the train, learning about the Big Dig, tramping around Faneiul Hall, and most of all the aquarium. Nora's favorite part was the sharks and my favorite part was the hands-on tidal pool area where we could touch the starfish and sea urchins.

Thanks Kendra!

Settling In

2010-09-02T09:02:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we made a massive trip to Ikea which resulted in two full cars. I wish I had taken pictures. We assembled our Karlstad sofa last night without incident, so we are now making full use of the tv. The four bookcases will have to wait a day or two because next up is Nora's little wardrobe/dresser combo, which I bowed to pressure and agreed to 1 PINK drawer. It is a big one though. I'll post pictures if we get it together.

Jason is on campus again today. He went in on Tuesday and got his ID card and unpacked boxes there. Today he's dealing with insurance crap and attending the grand opening of the new cafeteria. I know he's anxious since classes still haven't started and won't until the 8th, which is I guess, a week away. We've lost track of time.

Nora is missing little people to play with. It has been ungodly hot so we've been avoiding the playground, and we've been sluggish with no A/C. I hope that this will be the last day this year in the 90's. With Earl heading our direction, we are expecting lots of rain and I think it should cool down a bit too. Today though, we are going to the Chicopee Public Library to get library cards! Then, probably more furniture assembly.

I'll post pictures once we get the house cleaned up a bit. Still plenty of boxes to unload!

Return to the Blog

2010-08-30T21:07:00.005-06:00

Two months and one cross country move later, I return to my blog. If you are on facebook, you've probably already seen these, but I thought I'd share Pancake Day here, too, since it was such a wonderful morning. Nora had literally been dreaming of Jason making pancakes so she decided that he would become the pancake chef, and he did. His first batch was pretty great and I'm looking forward to future pancake days. Part of Nora's decree included wearing these Daughter and Daddy matching Steak and Shake hats. It's Nora's favorite restaurant, but really, there's not much for Jason there.

This is the pantry, or what Nora calls the Little Kitchen, and right now it' s my favorite part of the house. That could have something to do with there being no boxes there.

Jason's reptilian like pattern on his arm is from Nora playing tattoo parlor. We've tried to discourage this since it is difficult to wash off (Crayola lies about the washable nature of their washable crayons).

We are settling in okay. Nora is having the hardest time, since we just want to unpack boxes and run to Ikea and do other boring things. She's seen a lot of TV the past couple of weeks. We have tried to get across the street to the park everyday (we didn't make it today) or out someplace at least. Unfortunately, the Dinosaur Footprints park was not as exciting as we hyped it to be. Fossilized dino footprints aren't that obvious to the untrained eye and there was no dinosaur recreation which would have made her happy. I think we've got to spend a day this week, doing everything she wants to do to balance it out. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh have I mentioned that it's been hot here this week? 90+ degrees. And we have no AC.

Travels

2010-06-03T21:58:00.004-06:00

I've been traveling so much this spring (and it doesn't seem to let up this summer) that the blog has really suffered. Maybe when we get settled in MA, it will become a priority again. Well, I'm pretty sure it will, since some of you actually seem to care what we do with ourselves. Anyway, we have been on the road this past week, visiting family and friends in AR. Unfortunately, while we took many photos of family, we somehow managed to forget to pull out the camera while catching up with old friends, something I regret. I am also regretting the number of times we've past through this state over the past few years and did not make an attempt to visit so many of you who are here year round. One of the many things I love about Facebook is that it's given me the opportunity to reconnect with old friends and better keep up with those that we've remained in touch with over the years. And it made it possible to actually see IRL several of you during this trip. Despite poor planning we managed to catch up with Bob & Sarah, Cindy and Eric, Jennifer & Ilya, and Trent & Sarah Beth and their respective families as well as Elise and Neil. Jason, Nora and I had a wonderful time seeing you all again! Here's a few pics from the first half of our journey:

On the way home, we're hoping to squeeze in a quick visit to the Ozark Folk Center - another crying shame that we haven't made it there in all these years of going back and forth.

Moving

2010-05-11T11:36:00.003-06:00

Many of you already know thanks to Facebook all about our news. But for us, it's still very much new. Although it's been a possibility since early April, and the offer was made several days ago, I'm still reeling from the reality that in a few short months everything is changing for us.

Jason accepted a job with Our Lady Of The Elms College, also known as Elms College, or Elms today. We need to be in Massachusetts by late August and classes start September 1st. There's a lot to do. While we are still half packed from our move to my parents over a year and a half ago, we'll need to go through those boxes (and all the stuff upstairs) and whittle down our possessions. We've got to find someplace to live, and someone to move all of our stuff - I don't think either Jason or I are up to driving a fully loaded truck half-way across our big country. Hardest of all, we've got to say goodbye to dear friends and family who are right here and who've been hoping that we would remain here, or at least somewhere in the mid-west.

I'm pretty sure Elms will be a good fit for Jason. I'm hoping that it will be a good fit for Nora and I too. Time will tell. In the next couple of months, we'll be busy - but not too busy for all of you. Wish us luck!

Craft Books

2010-04-01T10:13:00.006-06:00

Unfortunately, I tend to spend more time thinking about crafting than actually crafting. Part of it is that I need to feel really confident before I cut into the fabric horde and part of it is that I'm really lazy. Oh and I need to clean my room to get to the sewing machine. Anyway, I found two books lately that are great providing inspiration.

Zakka Sewing

Zakka is Japanese for household goods and this book has a lot of ideas for making cute everyday things around the home. Of course that squirrel tea cozy on the cover is exactly why I checked it out from the library, plus there is a ton of zakka type items on Etsy that I continuously drool over.

Cool Spaces For Kids

Is this really fun book that looks at how to develop kid space in areas both large and small, indoors and out. I love the projects in this book because they look so fresh. Some of them are diy constructions of items I've seen in kids catalogues that cater to the Waldorf set and some are just beautiful alternatives to the commercialized kids decor that seems to be invading our planet.

In the midst of this crafty creativity, my mom dug out an old Better Homes and Gardens Treasury of Needlecraft book that was stuck in her bookcase from 1982.

It was really interesting to see the resurgence of some of the projects in this book. They could easily come out of an Etsy shop now (appliqued owls and rainbows, stylized creche figures for Christmas, patchwork place mats, modern stuffed animals). While the photography was really cluttery-country and dated, I was still amazed that there were many projects that if taken out of their backdrop context would be very au courant. Still I don't see me making that doily appliqued quilt or the old school afghan made from day-glo poly-blend yarn.

Too Much Going On

2010-03-25T12:53:00.001-06:00

Can I tell you how much I want to go to this? I'm already double booked for Saturday during these times, I know I can't make it. Can someone else go and drool for me? Tell me what I missed? Hint: my birthday is next month and I Heart Card Catalogues. AAAARRGGGHHHHH!

ST. LOUIS PUBLIC LIBRARY SURPLUS PROPERTY SALE

Surplus Property Sale
Library and Office Furnishings
(Including Tables, Chairs, File Cabinets, Children’s Seating, Library Furnishings)

“ITEMS SOLD AS IS”

DATE: Saturday, March 27, 2010
TIME: 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
PLACE: St. Louis Public Library – Central West
1415 Olive Street (14th Street Loading Dock Entrance)
St. Louis, MO 63103

No Preview of items for sale
No phone calls please

ALL SALES FINAL
Cash and carry—no checks or credit cards accepted

Walk In the Woods

2010-03-24T11:08:00.004-06:00

Our first Walk In The Woods event was this past Sunday, a very wet and cold day for the 2nd day of spring. Amazingly, we had friends who were willing to join us - Steven and Mary and their girls and Caroline and her two children joined us. We traveled to Mastodon State Historic Site where we spent about 2 hours hiking a short gravel trail. Hiking isn't really the descriptive word: puddle jumping, pebble collecting, rock splashing, mound climbing, stick finding and nature gazing are all probably more apt. It was a wonderful time despite the drizzle and the chill. After the "hike" we spent some time enjoying blondies and exploring the little museum on site. My camera's battery power was giving up by the time we reached the mastodon bones, but be assured that they were wonderful to behold. So was the Giant Ground Sloth re-creation. This was well worth the journey. Tune in next month to see where we might travel next!

What's Going On This Week?

2010-03-22T09:04:00.002-06:00

ACTION! Join the People's Settlement - I'll be down there on Saturday afternoon for the bakesale, and probably wander down for the kick-off too. Events keep getting scheduled:

Frustrated with Corporate Control of Politics? Angry over unjust Housing Foreclosures? Big Bank Bailouts? Continuous War? No Change?

That is why a group of us has decided to take the power back and come together on a broad based front, united against a common threat. Join us at the People's Settlement, a week of action dedicated to focusing on various corporations in the downtown area; from Bank of America's bailouts to Peabody Coal's unethical energy to the prison industrial complex to Anthem's blocking of real healthcare reform.

This is the first step in building a genuine broad-based anti-corporate movement in St. Louis. All of us want an end to injustice--from issues of from local control, to clean energy to peace to jobs to healthcare to equality and everything in between. And we have been working separately for too long. It's time that we stand up and stand together on a united front! Many of us have worked hard on political campaigns and activist campaigns attempting to bend the ears of our legislators and it has been to no avail. Why? Because corporate power divides us on every issue and blocks us from effecting real change and legislative action.

We hope our work can harness anger endemic in corporate control of politics, the economy and corporate personhood and serve as a rallying cry for similar actions across the nation. It is also noteworthy that for the first time, all of the major federal campaigns--Healthcare, Financial Reform and Immigration--are emphasizing the need for there to be significant, mass movement in order to achieve anything meaningful in DC. So join us to "break up with your bank", participate in guerrilla street theater, campout on downtown, demand clean energy and a real economy, or simply raise your voice.

We will kick-off the event at 3pm on March 24th with a “real economy” demonstration in Kiener Plaza.

Tentative Schedule:

Wednesday, March 24
3:00- Kick Off Rally
3:30-Foreclosure action at Bank of America
6:00-Settle! Set up the Settlement

Thursday, March 25th
7 a.m. LGBQT Action against Laclede Gas Discrimination
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=376221911371
2-3:00 p.m. Break Up with Your Bank!
5-6:00 p.m CWA-Revenue Action

Friday, March 26th
3:30-5:00 Anti-War Action

Saturday, March 27th
11-1:00 Literacy for Social Justice Teach In
1-3:00 Privatization of Education Bake Sale

Sunday, March 28th
1-3:00 p.m. Faith Based Action-Catholic Action Network
3:30-5:30 p.m. Labor History Tour
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=401545241423&ref=mf

Plus great stuff every evening! Come check us out!

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Remarkable Creatures

2010-03-20T08:59:00.004-06:00

On the way to and from Chicago, I took up Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures, a book that I've been meaning to read, but kept putting off. I've been a long time fan of Chevalier's, since Carol told me I need to read the Virgin Blue (she was right) and I have no idea why I let the book languish for so long. Fortunately, the library wouldn't let me renew it, so I had to read it.

Remarkable Creatures is the story of two women, separated by age, class and education, who build an unlikely and often strained friendship through their obsession with finding fossils in the early 1800's. Young Mary Anning sells the fossils she finds to tourists to support her family while spinster Elizabeth Philpot keeps her finds in carefully curated cases. Both are viewed with suspicion and ridicule by their seaside neighbors. When Mary finds the fossilized skeleton of what can only be imagined as a monster, their world changes as the religious and scientific community begin to debate the ramifications of the find.

Chevalier returns to themes she has explored in previous novels: self -determination, gender roles, the life of a person who does not conform to society's expectations, and the everyday lives of people living in watershed moments of history. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is that the characters were actual people. Mary and Elizabeth's conversations with each other and other historical (and more famous) figures are fiction, but the main actions and their role in the early work leading up to Darwin's theory of evolution are our history. And while the history is 200 years old, it is incredibly relevant to today, as witnessed by the actions of the Texas Board of Education last week.

Arkansas Songbirds

2010-03-16T23:09:00.002-06:00

I saw this on the Arkansas State Parks Facebook fanpage, this commercial is in the semi-finalist round and honestly I've fallen for it (yeah, I know it's a Folger's ad), anyway, I love it. Give them a listen and vote if you can. The first singer is the receptionist at the Ozark Folk Center and a recent transplant from KC. While she didn't plan on singing for an audience, the folk center got her into it (she's got a few video's on You Tube - Ruby Pine and the Old Saps). I don't know how the commercial came about, but I love it. Maybe it's the chickens, def. her voice, but also that nostalgic 70's feel. And of course the AR connection makes me want them to win even more.

Spur of the Moment

2010-03-14T19:39:00.003-06:00

Last weekend, while packing for the Memphis trip, I realized that we'd lost our little factory made ipod cozy. It was sort of crappy anyway, but I didn't like hauling it around with minimal protection. So this weekend, in and effort to put off cleaning out the bathroom, packing, or freaking out about this upcoming week, I decided to whip up a little ipod cozy. I'd been thinking about how to do it for awhile (sometimes it takes awhile for me to get my head around things). I had done some research earlier, and I ended up sort of following this tutorial, with regards to the lining. I've been doing these button cover hair thingies, so they got incorporated too. All in all, I'm quite pleased with it, and it gave me an excuse to use one of my favorite fabrics and to reuse an old pair of pants that had worn out (for the lining - faux velvet is nice for cushioning) as well as an old receiving blanket of Nora's for the batting layer. It took me less than an hour since I had everything on hand and the sewing machine seems to be permanently out, and I'm really happy with the final result. Here's how it turned out:

The claspy thing at the top, is basically two upholstery buttons that I covered with a hair elastic slipped through the shank of one of them. It can be "buttoned" around the other so the ipod doesn't slip out.

I recovered some more buttons and added the hair elastics for Nora's pigtails. I'm so pleased I've figured out how to do this. I've seen these at craft shows for about $5 a pair and up, and this is a great way to use up fabric scraps and it's not really that expensive to make, especially since mom picked up a bunch of button covers at a store clearance. If I were super crafty and super matchy I could make an outfit to match the ponytail holders. But I'm not, so she'll just have to go with these.

Memphis Trip

2010-03-13T15:09:00.004-06:00

Jason had a conference in Memphis last weekend and so Nora and I went along and met Jason's parents for a visit. It was a beautiful weekend. We hit the Memphis Zoo, Beale Street, the Bass Pro shop, the Riverfront and Central Bar-B-Que. Here's some photos of the trip:

Being Crafty

2010-03-04T11:03:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Carol, I now know that this is National Craft Month, and thanks to Laura I have crafts to share! Last Saturday (yes, I know that was still Feb, but don't get too particular) she hosted a Bitch and Stitch and Cheila, Natascha and I attended. There was wonderful food, conversation, and thanks to the sublime Jenny Hart at Sublime Stitchin g, we had some modern embroidery to do.

I don't really have a good history with finishing embroidery projects. I started a small table cloth while in Germany and it's still not finished. I bought some of the Sublime Stitching patterns way back when we lived on S. Grand, and I never used them. Fortunately, this occasion offered the opportunity and the time need to complete a project (I would have worked on the tablecloth, but it's packed away someplace). I used the woodland friends pattern and stitched up this hedgehog on a vintage handkerchief.

Although, I'm inspired by N's adding some toadstools to the hem of a skirt and next I think I might take on something like that because it was so adorable. I also finally got around to covering some buttons with scrap fabric to make some hair bobs for Nora (and Laura and myself as it turned out). I don't have pics of those, but I might post them later.

When I got home, I was so inspired that on Sunday (I know, still not March), I finally, after 30 years of using this sewing machine, I worked up the nerve to change out the stitching feet and play around with other stitches (zig zag, smocking, etc.). Then I jazzed up an old tote bag that was laying around the house with an obnoxious logo from some company. Here's the result. I think my Great Aunt Minnie had a dress made out of this material (getting into Mom's fabric stash as been a great deal of fun).

Yes, I know that pocket is a bit lopsided, but it's really hard to run a pre-made bag through the sewing machine without sewing the bag shut.
On the back, I appliqued some circles using some new stitches. Again, it's sloppy, but I'm fine with that.

This month is so crazy, I don't know that I'll get any more crafting done, but I'm hoping Laura will organize another night in April. I've got all sorts of things I want to try next.

La Morena

2010-02-23T12:45:00.002-06:00

I've been craving a lot of Mexican food lately. Probably the lack of heat & sun it being February and all. But I thought I share one of my favorite things to make lately. It involves this fabulous little can. Actually, I use La Morena's Chipotle Sauce, but I've used the peppers in adobe sauce too. In either case, to use the whole can, you've got to make a bunch, but I've found that if you only use 1/2 a can, the left overs freeze fairly well for your next batch.

I use a can of black beans, a can of white hominy (both regular 15 oz cans, rinsed), throw them both on top of some sauted onions and garlic, add some cumin, a 1/2 bottle of beer, 1/2 a can of the chipotle sauce (or if using the whole peppers, cut up 1/3 of them into smaller bite sized pieces - or you can puree the can & use 1/3 of it). Let is simmer along for awhile, or better yet, pop the whole thing in the over at around 350 degrees for an hour.

It's all gone or I would post some pictures.

what's been cooking

2010-02-01T13:43:00.002-06:00

This weekend I got to try some long awaited recipes and returned to some old favorites. Friday night I made the incredibly addictive Hot Glazed Tempeh from Veginomicon. I can not tell you how much I love this recipe. I crave this stuff, but since really only Jason and I like it, I don't make it that often. Alongside the tempeh we had baked sweet potatoes, cornbread (I got to try out the little corn cob cast iron pan that I got for Christmas), and a black eyed pea/greens soup that I had frozen from New Years. It was super delish. Plus maybe those black eyed peas gave us extra luck for 2010.

Sunday, Todd and Natascha came to brunch, so I had an audience for my experiment, the Italian Feast "sausage" from Vegan Brunch. I also test kitchened the Chocolate Stout waffles and made a batch of the raised waffles (we had tried those Christmas Day), both of these are also in Vegan Brunch. I really love that book. Every recipe I've tried from it has been a keeper. I will definitely be making both of the waffles and the fauxage (as Todd calls it) again. Though next time I think I'll try the choritzo variation.

I wish I could say I got more done this weekend. I needed to change the sheets on the bed, do laundry, and about a gazillion other things, but it just didn't happen. Nora and I did make valentines for the grandparents though, so at least I'm ahead of schedule on that.

For Natascha

2010-01-31T19:20:00.004-06:00

I know it's too late for your first day of school (and your first day of work), but I saw this and thought of you. Congratulations on the new job, the new school, and being back in STL instead of jetting all over the world.

Literary Cat of the Day

2010-01-12T11:53:00.004-06:00

Princess Arjumand from To Say Nothing of the Dog. Yes, I know that this is the literary cat of the day post and I'm referencing a book that has a dog in it's title. The dog is important but it's the cat that causes big trouble. I read this months ago, but I'm still thinking about this book. Part mystery, part comedy, part science fiction, part romance, this book pokes fun at multiple genres and references so many of my favorite books its hard for me to stop gushing about it. Just read it, you will be happy you did.

Two Words

2010-01-08T15:12:00.003-06:00

Steampunk Romance

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Finally a subgenre just for me.

Book Trailers

2010-01-06T15:36:00.003-06:00

Thanks to Smart Bitches Trashy Books, I'm all about the book trailers now. Does any other genre do this or is it just a Romance thing? Anyway, here's what I'm going to be reading soon:

Sherry Thomas is in my TBR pile already, but I keep adding more of hers the more I read about her. Now if only I could stop reading the Feehan. She's ridiculous but addictive.

Holiday Roundup

2009-12-28T21:35:00.004-06:00

We survived the rush of Christmas week. Between Nora's Birthday and assorted family get-togethers it was a bit of a whirl. Here's a few photos to give you the gist:

A Few Days In the Frozen North

2009-12-26T16:57:00.004-06:00

I had some extra vacation days saved up and so after Jason's final final and before Nora's birthday, we took a quick run up to Chicago to check out the Christmas Market, Santa at Macy's and a few sights. We had a great time, although Nora greatly preferred the luxurious Best Western with it's indoor pool to doing anything else in town. I found it amazing that we could find a hotel room in Chicago the week before Christmas cheaper than a cabin in the Carbondale vicinity but I'm glad we did because we had a great time. It was nice to get away for a few days before the craziness of a combined birthday/holiday set in.

Writing a letter to Santa at Macys.

In line to see Santa at Macys (she asked for gingerbread and candy).

Freezing at the Christmas market
Filling up the suitcase so we can't pack to go home.

Small World

2009-11-29T21:22:00.002-06:00

I just had a strange incident. I was looking for an artist that was at a craft festival earlier this year so I looked at the festival's website. Bizarrely, I'm in the photo at the top of the page. I was there for just a short while, but somehow I got captured.

Update

2009-11-24T12:39:00.004-06:00

Saturday I had one of the most productive days of this fall. I managed to:
1. hem my jeans that have been waiting for over 2 months and I used this cool method I'd never heard of, but worked quite well.
2. make two pans of spanikopita for Thanksgiving.
3. Nora and I decorated hand turkeys and construction paper leaves to decorate the table on Thursday (I even traced real leaves - pin oak, tulip and maple - I feel so Martha)
4. sorted and resold a stack of Nora's clothes back to Kangaroo Kids where I got $30 in store credit, which I promptly spent. The rest of her old clothes went to Alana, my cousin's little girl.
5. We went to see Todd and Natascha and had a wonderful time catching up and planning for a crafty girls day.

I cannot believe I got that all done. Of course I've done nothing since then, although we did see my Aunt & Uncle and Nora went horseback riding again with Ellen. Maybe next time I'll get up on a horse too.

In other news, we took Nora to the allergist this morning. We got good news and bad news. On the good front, Nora was able to get a flu shot and it looks like she is non-reactive to peanuts, so we get to do an oral test with those. On the bad front, she is still very reactive and shows no progress towards outgrowing her egg and milk allergies. She is also allergic to almonds which sort of rules out all other tree nuts since they are usually processed together. We plan to do an oral test with her this weekend with peanut butter and I'm really hoping all goes well. It is very daunting to give your child something to eat that has the potential to make her very sick. Wish us luck.

Which Witch is Which?

2009-11-04T14:05:00.003-06:00

A few photos from Halloween:

Pumpkin Hunt

2009-10-22T11:37:00.003-06:00

This weekend we visited the pumpkin patch at Eckards in Grafton to find the perfect pumpkin for the jack-o-lantern this Halloween. Nora wandered all over the hillside and it was a cold morning. Just when the wagon was about to return for us, Nora finally settled on the perfect one. 23 lbs!

Afterwards, the day turned really pretty and we took a hike a Pere Marquette State Park, had some excellent beer at the Rotten Apple, and then took the river road further north to get apple and gourds at Ringhausen Orchard at Hardin. It was a terrific day.

Things I Could Be Doing

2009-10-11T16:08:00.003-06:00

when instead I'm playing Bejeweled Blitz and reading trashy romance novels:

Finish recovering the baskets for Nora's dresser ex-changing table
Laundry
Reading The City & The City - which was featured on Unshelved last week and is also sitting on my nightstand
Making arrangements to be elsewhere next weekend
Planning my future
Visiting pumpkin patches
Swimming
Viewing the fall colors/Hiking in the woods
Making popcorn balls
sleeping
Making cute little stuffed birds
Buying/making birthday and Christmas gifts for loved ones
making Nora's appointment with the allergist
turning in 3 mail in rebates totaling over $125 due before the end of the month
figuring out how to use my phone
catching up on the news
updating my blog, twitter and facebook statuses
changing the sheets (okay it's not that bad, I did change them last weekend).
catching up on all that tv I haven't been watching
cleaning the bathroom
getting my flu shot
sending Nora's artwork to her non-local grandparents along with recent photos

My World Is Changing

2009-09-21T09:29:00.004-06:00

I've been hearing about Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods for a while now, and I finally got around to buying it this summer when we were in Arkansas. But it wasn't until I committed to go to a book discussion about it for work that i finally got around to reading it. I cracked the book yesterday and I'm almost finished - unheard of for me and non-fiction, which usually takes me weeks to finish - and now I can't stop talking about it. This book broke something open in me, and now I'm so emotional about it, I'm a mess, which is sort of a problem since I have to speak about it rationally tomorrow. Anyway to organize my thoughts, this is why I like it:

1. Louv could have gone a completely different way with the tone of this book, when I first started reading, I immediately bristled wondering if I was going to feel like a miserable parent for not taking Nora backwoods camping at the age of two. But he didn't. Yes, he clearly does stuff like this with his kids, but really what he's advocating is for parents to ensure that kids get out of the house and into a natural setting everyday. This could mean trips to the park, but it can also mean growing a seed in a dixie cup or watching the birds land on the railing. In one of the best passages of the book, Louv reassures us that making the reconnection is possible, that it doesn't have to be a giant task, and he gives us permission to have fun and to learn things too:

" But before I take you on this hike, let me say something about the pressures that parents endure. Simply put, many of us must overcome the belief that something isn't worth doing with our kids unless we do it right. If getting our kids out into nature is a search for perfection, or is one more chore, then the belief in perfection and the chore defeats the joy. It's a good thing to learn more about nature in order to share this knowledge with children; it's even better if the adult and child learn about nature together. And it's a lot more fun."

2. He makes a really strong case for our need for Nature for a. mental health b. cognitive learning c. physical health d. the creative process. Our disconnect from nature is really messing us up on all four of these fronts and ruining the earth for everything else on top of it. Really that's it in a nutshell, but this book is so much more.

3. This book should be required reading for parents, educators and policy makers for Chapter 8 - the section on ADHD and the benefits of being in nature to combat it- alone. If you don't read any other part of this book, read that chapter, it is incredibly powerful.

4. He puts the responsibility for making our re-connection to nature on a multiple shoulders (well actually everyone) but he doesn't hang parents or teachers out to dry by saying its all their fault or that they are the ones who can fix this. He takes on universities, environmental groups, government, corporations,educators, parents and everyday folks and gives extremely sound advice about how to make this work. i.e.: this book doesn't just tell you there's this huge society wide problem that is destroying us, but it also gives ideas on how to fix it and points to places where folks are doing it right. Louv also cites lots of research to back up his claims but he also tells us where no one is doing any research, or not enough research, or the research is faulty to support his arguments to encourage more work to be done.

5. This book is readable. It doesn't overwhelm you with statistics (although there are plenty), it doesn't feel like you are being lectured, it's well set up and most of all it is extremely interesting, not just for parents and not just for educators and not just for green folks (although I am all three of those).

So, please check the book out. You can borrow it from me or buy your own copy or go to the library. Whatever it takes. If you want the readers condensed version check out the link to the Orion magazine article he wrote (it's where you will go if you click on his name above). Maybe you won't have the epiphany-revealing, earth-shattering, emotional reaction to it that I have, but maybe you'll like it anyway and maybe it will convince you to go take a walk in the woods. I hope so.

It's that Season

2009-09-10T08:26:00.004-06:00

It's that time of year again, the leaves are turning and football is back in season. Not that football, the other one - what we call soccer here. Okay, soccer is always in season someplace, somewhere, but our house is now in full frenzy over the EPL, which is somewhat more frenzied than MLS season or the US women's season, and oh yeah, it is even more frenzied since there's this thing called the World Cup next year and everyone is trying to qualify for it. This means that for the next months I've been asked to avoid driving on streets named Arsenal and Manchester and we are supposed to wear lots of navy blue and white (with just a pinstripe of yellow), unless we're supporting Ireland, and then it's that flag, and all of our weekends have giant two hour holes in them. However, when we are not gazing across the pond at our teams over there, I thought I'd give you a heads up on a team right here in STL and a great player that is actually related to me. My cousin's son, Sito has been named a finalist in ESPN's National Soccer player of the Week! He's one of three boys (young men) chosen from across the country and here's his write up, in case you don't want to follow the link:

Sito Sasieta, Chaminade (St. Louis, Mo.): Sasieta, considered the top midfield prospect in the St. Louis area, assisted on both goals as Chaminade edged FAB 50-ranked Peoria Notre Dame (Peoria, Ill.) 2-1. Sasieta, a senior who has committed to St. Louis University, has one goal and five assists through three matches.

Yay Sito! Congratulations!

More On the Subject

2009-09-07T23:59:00.005-06:00

Lately, I've been obsessed with this amazing website that reviews and snarks on romances. Unlike other snark-y romance sites, these girls are actual fans and they also are academics - making it for me, the perfect website. It's also helping me come to terms with my love for romances as well as helping sort through the dreck for some really great authors (Tree, you've got to read Loretta Chase). Among their many services they have a feature to help people identify romances they've read and lost. This appeals to my secret librarian side - yet another reason to love this site. However, this amazing summary floored even me, who seeks out the absurd in the world of romance:

"I was hoping you and your army of smart and bitchy readers could help me identify a romance novel I read when I was ten or so (in 98 or 99) and kept digging through my friends’ mothers’ romance novel collections during sleepovers.

The novel’s set in Regency England, I think. The heroine lives in Bath and spends her days lamenting the fact that all the men are foppish dandies and she can’t find one who won’t hide his mantitty with frills and lace. And then one day she puts on a dress in a shop and it magically transports her to Ancient Rome. There, she meets a fearsome guy named Magnus somethingorother who promptly makes her his slave. He does stuff like making her put on boobie-revealing tunics during his dinner parties and so on. Obviously she falls in love with him. But then one day she is magically transported back to Bath. She’s very confused about whether her months in Rome were real or just an opium-den-induced hallucination… But then she digs up some plaque or other that she and Magnus had buried together and she knows it was all real.

Thanks in advance!"

First of all, her summary skills are to be applauded. Having read several response papers that Jason was grading, not to mention various grant proposals, and other requests of this nature, I give the writer big props on 1. telling us what we need to know to make the i.d., but not giving us a long, involved play by play of the book 2. painting a sufficiently enticing plot for those of us who haven't read it to be curious about it, and 3. giving us enough snark to make me want to help her/meet her. 4. her use of "mantitties" and "boobies" in so short a paragraph to underscore the absurdity that is sure to be found in this romance.

Secondly, I am now incredibly interested in getting my hands on the book itself. The description sets up three rarities: 1. although the heroine is Regency English (possibly the most common period of historical romance), the setting is Ancient Rome, this is unusual - Italy is sometimes used as a setting (one of the genre's more exotic ones) but it is always from Renaissance forward and the plot then must have opera singers and/or courtesans. 2. This time-travel takes the heroine from a setting in the past, to even further into the past. Most time-travel romances, start in the present and send the heroine back into the past, or if they really want to shake things up they send the hero from the past into the present (or in the case of Janet Chapman's Highlander series - a whole passel of heroes), further, time-travel romances, when not set in the Scottish highlands, are set in England. Not unusual, is the change in location, time-travel in romances always seems to also include a geographical jump as well -see my note below. 3. If the memory of the person enquiring is correct, the heroine appears to return to her own time, without her man - ok, this is completely unheard of.

Fortunately, about a dozen readers knew exactly which book this was, since I didn't. For those of you interested it's Enlsaved by Virginia Henley.

Best of the Bookfair

2009-08-27T11:54:00.007-06:00

The YMCA's annual bookfair was this week, and I went on half price day. Although I was primarily volunteering, I also did a little shopping. While browsing, er, I mean working in the romance section, I came across a couple of wonders. I'm sorry I passed on the one with the plotline that included a 21st Century Scandal Magazine editor going back in time to marry a Plantagenet Prince (that tricky time space continuum always sends people back in time to England no matter where they were on the globe). She has to "invent" celebrity journalism centuries earlier to save his life (as if scandal on the nobility wasn't a huge source of news/entertainment in late medieval/early Renaissance Europe). Yes, that was the description on the back of the cover and somehow I passed it up. When I tried to find it later, I couldn't remember the title. However, I did find this amazing gem:

Sorry it's not turned around, but I'm in a hurry, and I think you can appreciate it just as well from this position.
The cover alone was so terrifically bad I had to have it. It wasn't until I got it home that I realized how incredibly bad this really is. Our cover boy is an actual person. From the inside flap:
"The Powerful Zebra Hero on the cover of this book is David Alan Johnson, winner in the "Under 40" division at the first annual Romance Cover Model Pageant, held at the Romantic Times Magazine in 1993 Booklovers Convention in San Diego...When asked why he wanted to appear on the cover of a book, David's reply was "to represent a man of honor and character." His debut appearance was painted by acclaimed romance illustrator Sharon Spiak, one of the judges of the contest."

This description goes on, but I gave you the highlights. A couple of questions spring to mind: 1. Is there and "Over 40" division? (Well, given the constant sub genres of the Romance Market, I'm sure there is.) 2. 1993? REALLY? Not 1983? Or 1979? 3. Who wakes up and says to himself "I should be on the cover of a romance book. I'm entering that contest!"?

I have no idea of the character was indeed a man of honor and character, because this is probably one of the few romance novels I was not able to finish. Usually, the bad ones are so very bad that they are very funny and most romances are really light reads so it's only a couple of hours of time at most. This one was so very bad, it was unreadable. But there was one additional tidbit, the author must have a St. Louis connection since it was dedicated to: "Charles Brennan, Kevin Horrigan, and Paul Grundhauser of the Mighty Mox KMOX Radio, St. Louis. They are the true heroes who would look great on the cover of any romance!". Of course nothing says sexy to me like KMOX Radio - and no I've never heard it called the Mighty Mox before, but anyway. Additionally the book does partly take place in St. Louis (as well as Egypt, England, and Boston) but that was too far in for me to stomach, so I have no idea if our fair city was well represented. Oh, and yeah, he's supposed to be a priest. Well, not actually a priest, because that would hamper the romance department, but he's posing as a priest. All the priests I know dress just like that.

In all, it was so worth the $0.25 I paid, but if anyone else is interested in reading "Heaven", I'd be happy to pass it on to you.

City Walks: City Garden

2009-08-26T12:44:00.005-06:00

City Garden opened up this summer to a great deal of praise. Despite it being a few short blocks from my office, today was the first day I actually wandered down there. It measured up to the hype. Some of the things I loved about it:

White Bunnies

The prairie running through the middle of the two block park - this grass is about waist high.

These river fountains (and the squirty fountains in the other half) are for playing in

The plantings give walkers the feeling like they might start taking over concrete (from down the block it sort of looks like the beds are in the middle of the street).

And best of all it's smack in the middle of downtown. Great location for tourists, locals, and office workers. The new parking garage Schnucks is just down the street, so it's easy to pick up your lunch and picnic here.

These photos don't show the massive number of statues that are in the park, many of which seem very climber friendly, and the many places to sit that aren't art. One of the other things that make it great is that while there is a security presence, they don't seem to be there to make sure you don't touch the art or stay out of the water. All ages are lounging, playing and soaking up the sun. It's nice to know our city gets it right sometimes.

Projects in progress

2009-08-24T09:55:00.004-06:00

Well, actually I completed one of them. Here's the ottoman before & after:

The baskets actually have been more challenging. I've only gotten one done, although I did cut out another one, so hopefully, I'll have it finished before I head to Carol's this weekend. I decided to re-purpose the hook and loop on the inside tabs of the baskets, which is taking longer than I wanted to remove it from the old ones. But they really were getting manky (see the green ones below) and now that N is finally out of diapers, I'm looking forward to re-doing this changing table. Maybe we'll even get a place for all her hair bands and things too, so they aren't scattered all over the house.

The before on the changing table (with one new basket)

And that basket close up. Clearly, this one is not perfect, I'm hoping I'll improve as I go through this. The corners are a lot more tricky than on the ottoman, due to the sloped sides. But I really love this fabric, it's Country Fair from Denyse Schmidt and it's on clearance over here through today, as is the above fabric which is Coreopsis from Amy Butler's August Fields line.

Bad Cats

2009-08-21T11:00:00.006-06:00

I'm a judge in a children's book contest and I just finished my entries and I want you to shoot me now. Why do people think children's books have to be opportunities to hit the child over the head with a moral or lesson? I'm sick of books that feature sickeningly sweet protagonists. In light of this, I give you a double header cat book of the day: Mr Pusskins: A Love Story and Rotten Ralph. Mr Pusskins was first brought to my attention by Daniel Pinkwater on NPR, and his reading with Scott Simon is too much fun. Rotten Ralph existed for me first on some valentines we had donated to the office, and when I found him later in book form, I realized he was the literary version of our Archie. While Mr. Pusskins does get his comeuppance and learns a lesson, I love that Rotten Ralph never does.

Book Cat of the Day

2009-08-17T10:17:00.000-06:00

Ginger by Charlotte Voake. - Ginger loves his food, his basket, and the little girl that loves him. But then he has to learn to share.

Osage

2009-08-14T08:56:00.003-06:00

My co-worker coerced me into abandoning my packed lunch yesterday and going to Osage, a local restaurant that is in a nursery, Bowood Farms, in the CWE. I was really, really happy with my Mediterranean plate, but then she gave me a bite of her Brie BLT and he heavens opened up, angels sang and I was bathed in a soft blue light. Yes it was that good. While the bacon was awesome, what really made this sandwich was the tomato marmalade. Bacon aside, this place is great for vegetarians, with multiple veggie options. It is very small though, and I'd recommend getting there early or late - we got there at 11:30am and couldn't get a table, we ate at the bar. But I'm going back for that sandwich.

Recipe testings

2009-08-13T13:31:00.004-06:00

I don't have any pictures, unfortunately, but this past weekend, Todd and Natascha served as willing guinea pigs for some more recipe tests from the Veginomican. Saturday I made the Green Pumpkin Seed Mole, Chili-Lime crusted tofu, and the corn pudding. This was one of Isa's suggested menus in the back of the book. We had tomatoes & avocados as a side (it is August!) and Isa's Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake for dessert. I like all of these recipes quite a bit, but was most impressed with the mole. Possibly because it came together in a snap despite having a ton of ingredients, and I can see it working with a variety of dishes. I liked the corn pudding, but it was a pain cutting the corn off the cob, I might make it again using frozen corn, but I'm not sure it would taste as good. The chili-lime tofu was yummy, but again, it's a lot of work and a lot of frying and really I think I like the hot glazed tempeh marinade on tofu better and it's much less time consuming. It would also have worked well in this menu. I've made the Coconut-Lemon bundt cake previously, and this time was no different - this is a keeper of a recipe. I love this cake. Interestingly, Dad also loves this cake, and he's not really a big coconut fan, so I think it might go into heavier rotation. Mom got leftovers of the corn pudding and has now decided that it needs to be made more often too, which is surprising because I didn't think she'd go for it (it has coconut milk in it). Nora loved the mole, but she ate it with pretzels. I don't think tofu is her thing, even when fried. I kept trying to convince her that it was a sort of french fry, but it was a no-go. Anyone have any requests about what to make next?

Book Cat of the Day

2009-08-12T10:28:00.003-06:00

Sampson from the Church Mice series. My favorite of this group is The Church Mice Adrift by Graham Oakley. Why this series has gone out of print, I'll never know because the story is terrific and the illustrations are delightful. In The Church Mice Adrift, progress has come to Waterthorpe and the rats have been evicted from the waterfront. Searching new digs, they evict the church mice and Sampson from the Vestry. It's up to Sampson to get them home again. Sampson is the best of book cats, smart, courageous, and charitable to the sometimes undeserving mice in his care.

These stories were favorites of mine as a child, and now Nora thinks they are they cat's meow too.

Running Rings Around The Empire

2009-08-07T10:30:00.002-06:00

So, thanks to Twitter, I've been following that world citizen, Eddie Izzard's run around England, Wales, Scotland and No. Ireland. He's marathons 6 days a week fundraising for sportsrelief, and I'm pretty amazed that he's still standing. But he's a pretty amazing guy. Check it out.

Double the Grandparents, Double the Fun

2009-08-05T10:16:00.005-06:00

From the Arkansas Trip:

Nora's first fish

Under the waterfall at Garvin Gardens

On the boat
Driving the boat

Where Am I?

2009-07-29T21:37:00.003-06:00

This month has been so absolutely crazy, as evidenced by my lack of posts all month. I was in East Prairie just after the 4th for a couple of days, then I had a Saturday training, then I went to DC for a conference/mandatory meeting and now we're all in Arkansas. DC was wonderful, when I wasn't in the hotel (which was terrifically located at 13 and Penn. Ave). In spare moments I checked out the Library of Congress, the National History Museum, the American History Museum and the Smithsonian Castle as well as Union Station, Capitol Hill, an evening cruise to Alexandria, VA, and oh yeah, a bunch of really boring meetings. I got back Friday night and then Saturday we were on the road again, my parents in tandem, visiting Jason's parents and his grandmother (mom and dad missed out on our side trip to Magnolia), and now we are at Queen Willhemina State Park literally in the clouds. This is Arkansas' second highest peak and it's been raining for days so we have zero visibility, but it's sort of cool to be all out in what seems like fog, but is actually the cloud cover. Mom and Dad are finding it rather trying up here, but right now, I'm sort of just relived to be here, since we had a pretty wet and long drive from Magnolia this afternoon (we drove down there this morning and then turned around and drove up here this afternoon) and this on top of three days with the in-laws. I might find it a bit boring by tomorrow though if it never clears off. While there is no cell phone coverage up here and the lightening earlier today cut out the land phones, it's sort of amazing that we have wireless up here, but we do. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the camera cable when we packed though, so I won't have any pictures until we get back in a couple of days. Hope we don't fall off the mountain!

In other news, Nora out-fished both of her grandfathers by hauling in 4 bream and they came up with zilch. They should use the Barbie fishing rod (yes, Nora has a Barbie fishing rod), I've learned just how reliant and simultaneously incapable of using cell phones my parents are (If you called either of them today, they can't call you back, but they sure are spending a lot of time talking about how they want to), and Jason is watching the MLS all-star team play Everton. This is the happiest he's been all trip. Nora's done a good job managing all of her relatives and putting up with a lot of car seat time. I broke down and added to her my pretty pony collection and while I think keeping up with the miniature hairbrush will be tiresome, it was sort of worth the time she spent extolling it's greatness instead of screaming her head off while driving through some heavy rainstorms.

It's been a rough week

2009-06-29T10:29:00.006-06:00

We lost Karl, Jason was disappointed in a promising job prospect and Nora said her goodbyes to the Sunshine Room and has graduated to the Red Room. But we also had some goodtimes too. We celebrated Nora's 3 1/2 mark and the coming of summer at the Zoo, we sweated and rode pink elephants at the Marine Homecoming with Aunt Linda, Leah and Mete, Friday night, and Nora had her first horseback ride thanks to Aunt Lynn and Ellen yesterday. Oh and I burned my scalp in the sun at the pool Saturday, but luckily that was all. I don't have pics of Nora up on Shadow, (I'm hoping Ellen will e-mail them to me from her camera), but I do have some shots of Jason and Nora on the Pink Elephants. Webster Community Days begin this week, so maybe they will be riding more amusements together, but honestly, I wouldn't count on it. Jason is a big chicken when it comes to rides.

Okay, these are left from the Merry Wives of Windsor, but I love this picture of Natascha.
Jason is always telling Nora "Get Down, Get Funky". See, she sometimes listens.
One of the hottest days of the year at the zoo.

Last day at the sunshine room - Nora gets a cake that everyone (even she) can eat. Unfortunately it isn't as tasty as the ones we make at home. Damn that no baked goods from home rule.

Nora eagerly awaits the Triad Marching Band. Well, not really, they don't have candy. But everyone else does and Nora gets lots of it. We all have blue tongues by the end of the night.

Amazingly, my timid daughter has insisted on riding the pink elephants. She stood for a full 15 minutes transfixed by their big blue eyes and gaping mouths, while we waited for Jason and Aunt Linda to join us after taking the chairs back to the car. Fortunately, Jason is ready to be a Daddy-O and is willing to board the monster with her.

Oh, I forgot to tell him, the Elephants go airborn too. Did I mention that Jason hates rides?

Goodbye Karl

2009-06-25T10:16:00.003-06:00

1995/1996 - 2009

I will miss you so very much.

Chimps

2009-06-11T14:33:00.002-06:00

I heard this song on THE WOOD this morning and thought of Jason and my Aunt Linda, both fond of Chimps. Enjoy.

New Album Post

2009-05-21T12:31:00.002-06:00

More Nora pictures are in the album at the right. Most of these are from Easter and they include two short videos. Enjoy!

Rainy Days

2009-05-21T09:06:00.003-06:00

It has been so wet this spring, but finally we have some bright sunny days to make up for it. Just in case you forgot what it was like though, I've got some Nora pictures:

The Graduate

2009-05-20T08:37:00.006-06:00

Jason walked this past week, I think mainly so he could get the regalia. His parents came up. It was a nice time - we had the most beautiful weather. There are absolutely no pictures of him walking across the stage and getting hooded by his advisor while they read the title of his dissertation, because my camera would not cooperate and I got a picture of my shoe instead and it was way too far way anyway since we were in the basketball arena. SLU did take some that we can order, and we might since several of them have Jason humorously superimposed over SLU landmarks. And they did get the photo of Jason and his advisor and another of him walking across the stage to get his hand shook by the chancellor (Jason was eyeing his big gold medallion and chain). Here's the photos I did get.

This one was taken just moments before the Billikin Mascot walked out of the elevator. Nora didn't scream when she saw him, but she didn't want to shake his hand either. Unfortunately I have no pictures of Jason and the Billikin together.

Wish I Were There

2009-05-07T12:10:00.003-06:00

This past weekend, we missed what looks to have been a great party down on Cherokee for Cinco De Mayo. I don't want to steal these fabulous photos, but please go take a look. You can read more about this wonderfully wacky neighborhood and see more photos here. Cherokee Street is a bit an odd place for St. Louis, but also a miniature of some of the forces that move about St. Louis. It's the epicenter of the city's growing Hispanic population (although there are Hispanic areas in the county and the city has several other immigrant populations that are larger), there's a thriving arts community that lives here too with some folks who are a bit outside the political mainstream (anarchist collective bakery anyone?), there's a bunch of just everyday folks on the lower end of the socio-economic scale who may or may not be pushed out as this neighborhood gentrifies, and there's also a bastion of more politically connected shopkeepers hunkered down on the eastern end of the street called antiques row who aren't quite so sure about the folks just west of them. Some of the blog posts talk about the tensions, and it really shows just how segmented and neighborhood idenfitied our city can be.

What The Kids Today Are Listening Too

2009-05-06T11:40:00.004-06:00

So lately I've been leaving NPR where my car radio is usually stuck for a little further left on the dial to "THE WOOD", the student radio station of Lindenwood College. I am so very amused by listening to this. Unlike Hendrix's radio station which could barely be heard off campus, this station has some range. Lindenwood is in St. Charles and I'm assuming their radio station is there too, but I've picked it up in Illinois, my parking garage downtown (just not on the second level), and down I-44 a little ways as well. Of course, like everything else (cell phones, radio and tv transmissions, and the cordless phone) it is difficult to get in Webster, but still, I get enough coverage to not be annoyed by static. Some of the things I love about THE WOOD (besides their ridiculous name)is their incredibly in-depth coverage of the Lindenwood Men's Bowling team, their strange hyper-newsy announcer feed from the AP with his old time emphasis on random words in each sentence (think Howard Cosell), the student djs/announcers who try to do this too, despite it not being particularly useful for comprehension and it's made even worse by their not pre-reading the text so they stumble through it, the occasional announcer who cannot read at all, yet painstakingly tries to get through it, and most of all the tendency of THE WOOD to play college favorites from my college period - um 20 years ago. And then they play stuff I've never heard before, but I like which is probably stuff you've all heard of, but I haven't unless it's been featured on NPR, where I get all my other music recommendations, because um, well, I'm old.

So here's a band I would have never heard about if not for THE WOOD, and I'm sharing it with you too, because I think they're nifty (aren't all Scottish bands?)and I keep hearing this song in my head. Oh and they have a girl drummer.

More Delta

2009-05-05T09:26:00.004-06:00

All my musings in the last post reminded me of one of my favorite songs by a Delta artist - it's stuck with me since the first time I heard it. Although most people probably associate Al Green with Memphis, he's actually from Forrest City, AR.

Backroads and Byways

2009-05-04T13:03:00.004-06:00

Looking back over the past few months, I see I've been a horrible blogger. I don't really have an excuse, except being out of town a lot and general laziness. This weekend I had a training in southern Missouri in what's commonly known as the Boot Heel. We were south of Cape in an area where the Ozark foothills subside and the Delta begins. Being down there stirred all sorts of memories from my time at a Delta Service Corps volunteer and the year I ran all over Arkansas visiting little non-profits who were part of a big community development program with the Rockefeller foundation and the Cooperative Extension Service. I am always amazed at what some of these really isolated communities manage to achieve by leveraging grants and meager community resources. Sometimes these organizations seem to survive on sheer force of will of the staff that give so much of their time for free. Nevertheless, I can tell that the recession/depression is hitting these folks hard and they have the double whammy of increased population needing services and a decrease in funds. I hope they can keep on holding on, because I think (hope) that they will be benefiting from some of this stimulus money that's supposed to be coming, but in the meantime it's looking harsh for them and everyone else at the bottom.

My colleague and I stayed in Cape, and had a fabuous dinner at Molly's downtown. Amusingly, it was prom weekend, so we had to sign pieces of paper at the hotel that we wouldn't sneak anyone into our rooms overnight, there were electronic highway signs everywhere cautioning us that it was prom weekend and to drive carefully, and Molly's was serving a number of young couples dressed up in tuxes and ballgowns. While we were waiting for Molly's to open, I gave Sarah a little tour of Southern Illinois, since she, like many St. Louisians, never goes to east, despite living less than 3 miles from the stateline. Crossing the river at Cape is really not the what Illinois has when in mind when they make up their tourism brochures. I'm sure my father would disagree, but most people don't have Thebes in mind when they think of the great small towns of Illinois. Nevertheless, I was feeling nostogic for locations of my youth and I gave Sarah the grand tour of the courthouse, bridge, trailer park and cemetary. Due to the rain and hunger, we decided to forgoe a walking tour and side trip to see if Horseshoe Lake was spilling over the dam (Dad had requested that we take a look). She was suitably impressed by the river, which was way, way, way up (in fact the flood gates were closed in Cape) and we were momentarily worried that we would be flooded out of our training location the next morning, but Sarah assured me that someone would take us to dry land by boat if the rains came down too hard.

On the way down, Jason called me to let me know that the e-mail he got the night before that we thought was just a request for more information resulted in a surprise interview for a job further down south in the Delta. Despite it being completely unexpected (usually there's a call to set up a time for an interview) and happening while standing in line at the DMV (yes, we were late in getting our tags renewed as usual) he feels like it went really well. We're holding our breath and wishing good thoughts for this one to come through. It would be at a small university in northern Mississippi, just about an hour and 1/2 from Memphis. My trip to the top of the Delta made me remember all the things I love about area and while I know Mississippi would be a huge adjustment, it could also be really terrific. It fits a lot of our criteria for an ideal job for him (workable teaching load, days drive from St. Louis, in the south, sort of near a larger city) although he would not be working with majors, since Philosophy is only offered as a minor there. On the upside, he'd be in a humanities department with some opportunity for crossover type courses. So wish him (us) luck and send him lots of job getting vibes.

Nora is doing well, in the past couple of days she's breaking through another developmental milestone - drawing bodies and appendages on to heads. I know you are all saying, that's fine, but show us a damn photo! Nevertheless, we're all so impressed that she's doing this already, now if only she could manage to use the potty consistantly, we'd be over the moon.

Postings

2009-04-27T13:04:00.004-06:00

I've been lurking on LibraryThing's forums for several years now (yeah, this blog is not the only place I have problems posting), and today I scrolled through one of my favorite topics - the worst books of this quarter (or whatever time period) where folks share what they couldn't bear to read another page of. Sometimes these posts are places for people to get all snobby about their reading or to take a couple of shots at book club recommendations, but when I read this post I cracked up:

Worst books so far:

The Thin Place by Kathryn Davis. I had been looking forward to reading this book. It was a really boring book. Even a character who can bring people back from the dead couldn't make this book interesting to me.

The Clue of the Missing Bagpipies. Nancy Drew Mystery Stories #41 Typical Nancy Drew. I'm just tired of her being such a know-it-all in every book.

Is Sex Necessary? Or Why You Feel The Way You Do by James Thurber and EB White. I gave this a rating of 2/5 -- my lowest so far. A humour book that was not funny and really outdated.

I feel like I should add The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis. I gave it a 3/5 and thought it was well written, but, it was VERY dark and not what I was expecting.

I love Nancy Drew, but I do agree she can be a know it all. Now I'm off to check out the poster's library. I have a feeling I'll enjoy her reviews.

Most Influential Southern Novel

2009-04-27T12:36:00.005-06:00

LibraryThing alerted me to this poll for the most influential of 20 southern novels of the 20th century. Since I know a couple of you have opinions on this sort of thing, I'm curious to know what you all would pick. I haven't really read enough of these to make a strong choice, but I would like to see the debate that's happening on South Caroline Educational Television around this poll. Interestingly, I think there are two movie adaptions of the novels that have had a huge influence on how the South is perceived by people outside of the south - Deliverance and Gone With The Wind, although not necessarily positive perceptions. The poll where you can vote is here but do come back and tell me what you think.

Indoors and Outdoors

2009-04-13T13:35:00.004-06:00

Environmental Educator David Soule is coming to Webster in a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, I won't be able to hear him speak, due to other plans, but I have been motivated to take a look at some of his writings. I recommend reading his essay Beyond Ecophobia, which takes a look at what most schools are doing around environmental education and whether it's actually effective. I think his arguments make a lot of sense and he and Richard Louv (Last Child In the Woods) have been making me think about our lack of connection to our natural world and how I can make sure Nora has more time in it. Interestingly, their writings are bringing me closer to Waldorf education, despite some of my concerns about it. And I am ever more wishful that we could afford to send Nora to an Reggio Emilio school, but that is sort of out the question right now. Actually, I wish every child could to to an Reggio school, but unfortunately, no one is asking me about education policy (at least no one who has power to change education policy). In some ways, Nora, thanks to my parents and extended family, gets much more time in nature than many children do, but I also think that her parents are not always the best models for appreciating the out of doors. Mainly because Jason and I are much more likely to go read a book than we are to go on a hike. While I think reading books are a great idea, I sort of wish we were a little, teensy, bit more outdoorsy than we are. I'm not suggesting we suddenly decide to take up kayaking any time soon, but maybe we'll take Nora on her first camping trip this spring.

On The Road Again

2009-04-01T10:17:00.007-06:00

Hmm, it feels like I'm never here anymore. Last week I went to the TESOL conference in Denver. It was really a very good conference. As well as being quite big. I think what I enjoyed most about it was that it was an unusual cross-section of academic and practitioner. Usually conferences are one or the other, this one had both with the added benefit of actually thinking about policy at the same time. It was sort of nice for folks like me who actually enjoyed taking classes at college and who sort of miss talking about theory and the big picture, as opposed to just getting some strategies to use in the classroom on Monday. I also loved that it had social justice issues right at the forefront, which is sort of an unusual thing at a literacy-related conferences, where social justice issues might be present, but usually shunted off to the side. It being more front and center here is probably because of it's international focus, which was another thing I liked about it. Oh yeah, and there was a blizzard too.

This week I'm off to another conference, presenting and exhibiting (that sounds so wrong), but this time I'm going to Southern Missouri, specifically the Lake of the Ozarks. I'm not really a fan, although, most of Missouri seems to think that it's the cats pajamas. We are, of course at the Tan Tar A, which is where just about every Missouri conference having to do with Education ever is held, unless one of the two cities convinces the rest of the state to come their direction. It is an odd place. Like a southern shotgun house that someone just kept adding on to, the Tan Tar A has labyrinth of buildings that only sort of connect, elevators that don't stop at every floor, and passageways that dead end making you exit and run around the building to resume your course. I dread going there, but then again, I sort of like the place's oddness juxtaposed with it's unrelenting marketing that they are all about FUN and FAMILY. I won't being doing the water park, or the golf, or the spa and to the outlet mall (well, maybe),although that's what children, men and women are supposed to do at resorts, or maybe just this resort - in that order - check out the billboards. The irony of it being a FUN, FAMILY VACATION, where none of you actually spend time with each other or even see each other, is sort of lost on Tan Tar A. In any case, I will be sans family, stuck in a big exhibit hall talking about parental involvement and why it's more than asking the parents of the "good kids" to come in and decorate the bulletin board, to a potentially hostile audience. Good times. Let's hope spring is back to stay, because I really want to get home on Saturday evening.

Trip Pictures

2009-03-30T19:08:00.004-06:00

A few sights from Texas:

Texas was really dry - no bluebonnets but this cactus was nice.

Jason's grandmother at the old tree

Nora and I with Bonnie

A little bit unhappy about waking up, but bluebonnets make it better.

Fire! In Goliad.

Nora and I on the beach

Home Again, Home Again

2009-03-20T14:20:00.003-06:00

We're home, exhausted and ready to stay put for awhile, but home. I finished out our final days of the trip fighting a stomach bug (either food poisoning or a stronger version of Nora's ick) and we did a marathon drive from Port Aransas to Hot Springs - 13 hours in the car straight, including a very, very, very long haul through Houston at rush hour. Nora did very well, and Jason and I survived, although we're still recovering. We spent the two nights with Jason's parents, so they got a good look at Nora and then we headed home on Sunday.

One of the things that really made itself clear in my mind after this trip is how little bragging rights Texas really has. Basically, anything good that state has managed to hold on to is due to the work of a bunch of little old ladies, the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (both Kathy and Grant are members). While I might not agree with them on everything, I am happy that they are working on preserving whatever they can get their hands on. Everything else, I think the state would be happy to sell off to developers. And they are worse than the city of STL when it comes to signage. I mean, really, I know your a big state, but would it kill you to tell us how far away it is to the next BIG city? There are only signs showing what's 20 miles down the road. When you are traveling for 10 hours in Texas you sort of want to know how far away you are from Houston, Dallas, Austen, San Antonio and Corpus, not necessarily all of them, just the major city that is on the highway you are traveling on - really, would it kill you to tell us? Oh and side of the road picnic areas suck too. At least you have some plaques.

So listen up Arkansas, I don't want to hear anymore of your sad sack stories about your inferiority complex with your big neighbor Texas. Arkansas can run rings around Texas and every other neighboring state (as well as many others) in the state park arena. While Illinois is shutting down state parks, you are opening them! Building new ones! Arkansas has it goin' on. Texas, not so much - the state park we visited on Mustang Island (8$ entry fee) was sad, sad, sad. Facilities from the 60's, falling down and closed up, no brochures, basically, this state's facilities look like they haven't had an update since the Johnson administration (same goes for those visitors centers), and given that they've had two presidents since then to funnel some money back to them, this is pathetic.

Okay, I'm done with that rant. Bye now.

Notes From The Trip

2009-03-12T07:48:00.004-06:00

We're on day 6 of our trip to South Texas and we've learned a few things along the way.

1. Portable DVD players are a wonderful invention.

2. One of the most unpleasant things in the world is waking up because a toddler is vomiting on you in a hotel room. And we were so excited about that king size bed....

3. The only thing worse about waking up with a toddler vomiting on you at 4 am, is when she continues to vomit throughout the morning, We felt so bad for her, and it really sucks when you can't make it go away so she'll feel better.

4. While considerably less worse than the above, dealing with an explosive diaper blow out in a hot, dirty truck stop parking lot is pretty bad too. Ganado, you are not my favorite Texas town. Also bad is calling your friend from the night before and letting him know that you've exposed him to a nasty stomach bug. Sorry, Bob.

5. Despite the unpleasantness above, the look on Grant's face when we finally arrived made it all worth it. We all had a great time on the ranch, and Nora got to ride in the truck without a carseat, call the cows, and chase the dog, Bonnie, all over.

6. Rattlesnakes are really freaking big and really freaking scary. I'm still freaking out that Nora was within yards of one.

6 a. We really need to teach Nora some sense of proportion - rattlesnakes are really freaking big and really freaking scary and butterflies are not.

7. Texas history can be very interesting and it's worth driving down here to check out the historic sites even if you don't have family here. Be sure to make a stop in Goliad for the presidio and mission.

8. South Texas really needs some rain. It hasn't rained since August, and then it wasn't much. When we were taking off it started to rain, but I'm not sure that it kept doing it.

9. One of the best things in the whole world is standing on the shore, letting the waves crash into you while a 3 year old giggles and giggles and giggles. We might have been hungry and sleepy, but really, isn't this what what we came to the beach for? It's pretty awesome.

I'm really glad we got that in yesterday, because today is much cooler (okay it's the 70's instead of 84 degrees), overcast and rainy. While we'll probably go back to the beach today (Nora will be really sad if we don't) I don't think we'll be getting into the water. Also on the agenda today are the aquariums at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute. We leave tomorrow morning to start the three day journey back home, although I'm wondering how feasible it is to do it in two days. Wish us luck on the journey home!

You Have Two More Nights - Go!

2009-02-13T22:45:00.004-06:00

"Rama, Hanuman, Sita, Rain" by Nina Paley

Jason and I saw Sita Sings The Blues tonight and now I can't get it out of my head. This whole project sprang from the broken heart of one woman, Nina Paley and it is enchanting. You probably won't be seeing this at a metroplex near you due to some copywrite struggles (check out the website for the full scoop), although other outlets are available (it will be on some PBS stations in March) but this is a chance to see it on the big screen. Sadly, we were only two of less than ten people attending tonight, which it too bad because it's one of the most imaginative things I've seen in a long time. It's simply beautiful.

You can catch it as part of the Webster University Film Series: Feb 13, 14 at 9pm and Feb 15 at 7pm at Webster University's Winifred Moore Auditorium.

Yearning To Go Anywhere

2009-02-12T10:39:00.002-06:00

I've been making all sorts of travel arrangements lately, unfortunately, none of them are for me. Jason is off to Chicago next weekend for the Central APA and then to New York the following weekend, for the BIG sub-conference which is held in the middle of the Economists doing their thing. He's taking the train to Chicago and staying in nicer hotels cheaply thanks to last minute trips. While I know he won't be doing all sorts of touristy wonderful things (instead he'll be sitting inside hotel meeting rooms talking to others of his ilk), and it's north and therefore probably miserable weather anyway, I'm still consumed with jealousy because he is going and I am staying. The only thing on my agenda is a conference at the lake in April (I hate going to Tan Tar A) and possibly the TESOL convention in Devner(which is both up in the air and work). Jason's spring break is the second week of March and while we keep toying with going somewhere, it doesn't seem to be happening. And frankly, multiple days in the car with a three year old who is still potty learning doesn't seem really relaxing. I really need a healthy dose of sunshine right now. Can someone invent one of those easy transporter things and send the three of us to the beach?

CPSIA Goes Into Effect Today, RIP Handmade Toys

2009-02-10T15:33:00.003-06:00

It is ironic that the same day the Senate is poised to sign the Economic Stimulus Bill is the same day that the day the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act takes effect. While I'm very much in favor of the intent behind this legislation, this act is unfortunately shutting down independent US (and Canadian) made children's toys and clothing manufactures as we speak. We’ll still have Mattel and all that crap from China but we won’t have handcrafted toys, like my daughter’s wooden play kitchen, which was made in New Hampshire by a honest-to-God cabinet-maker and sealed with a hand-rubbed all-natural beeswax finish, because apparently we can’t write a bill that offers exemptions to these types of toy manufacturers. You know, the toys that have stood the test of time, the toys that we all claim we wish kids still played with, well there has been an explosion of these types of toy producers on the internet through websites like Etsy and Hyena Cart and other handmade sites over the last 5 years. Unfortunately, these sellers tend to be small (like one employee small) and in business both because they love to make things with their hands and also because they need to make ends meet. Sometimes they work other jobs, sometimes they are lucky enough to make a product that has captured the attention of enough people to support themselves and their families from their efforts. These are the same folks who can’t afford to pay the thousands of dollars worth of lead testing that the act requires. However they are also the same manufactures who do the research to make sure the products they use are safe and since they are making them in their homes primarily from natural, non-toxic raw materials, they are safe. While there was a last minute dispensation for libraries and used clothing stores to give Congress a year to figure out if the act should apply to them (and I don’t think it should), Congress did not make that same dispensation cover the thousands of small business people who use non-toxic, natural materials to make quality children's toys and clothes. The big toy importers who pay sweatshop rates to impoverished adults and children over seas will be able to pay for the testing of all the plastic junk they import, but already, shops are closing on the handmade sites and the rest of us are struggling to find the black market where we can continue to buy the toys and clothes we love or we’ll have to make it ourselves. When are we going to get something right in this country?

Sleigh Ride

2009-02-08T17:39:00.003-06:00

We took some video during the snow days and here's one of Grammy and Nora going down the front yard. Unfortunately no footage exists of Dad pulling Nora and Mom around while Mom yells "slow down!".

Mad for Matryoshka

2009-02-04T10:37:00.005-06:00

The past year there's been an increasing number of Matryoshka items appearing in the craft world, especially Etsy. I predict that this will soon overtake the owl/bird popularity, especially in kids market. I actually quite like the little dolls. Someone told me that they symbolize fertility, which makes sense in a way, but in any case I think they are cute without all the representational baggage. Nora is into little creatures lately (the fox family has been a great hit) and likes to carry little animals and people around and tell them stories. So I've had my eye on several Matryoshka stuffies for Valentines Day. But really I can't afford the ones I liked so much, and I really wanted a pair (either mama/baby or big sister/little sister). So I figured I could make one myself - it's not like there's a lack of fabric in this combined house - both Mom and I are fabric hoarders. So I found a couple of rough patterns on line yesterday and proceeded. Here's the pattern I used for the larger doll (I made a few changes - mainly felt for the face) and the smaller doll I just free handed the pattern. I'm not totally happy with the final - I wish I had used pink for her cheeks and lips and I wish the pocket weren't so tight, but all it all, I'm satisfied. Maybe I'll make some more if Nora loves these two.

That pink floral fabric has been in my mother's stash since I was a baby. In fact, there is a little dress cut out of the fabric that she never sewed up for me. I think Nora is too big for it now, but I might still might make it up, since it's already cut and everything, maybe she can wear it as a top. I'm glad that some of the fabric has actually gotten used after all this time, even if it is less than 3 inches square. I also found a whole bunch of patterns from my childhood - some of them mom had used for making my clothes, and some were never cut. I'm debating trying a few of them out on Nora (we certainly have enough fabric) but I'm also a little concerned about how they might turn out - several involve set in sleeves and pin-tucks, and I'm not really known for my patience and precision in sewing. Given how much she adores dresses, I really should give it a try.

What's Up Holmes?

2009-01-31T22:49:00.002-06:00

So the New York Times has informed me about this new Sherlock Holmes movie that Guy Ritchie is doing with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. Annoyingly the author of the article is all "this isn't your Basil Rathbone Holmes, he's moody, he has addictions, he has problems", and I'm thinking that clearly this person has never seen Jeremy Brett and that's a shame since he is for me the definitive Holmes and really maybe you shouldn't be writing this article if you haven't. I'm sure I'll go see the movie anyway, even though I never go see movies, because it is Sherlock Holmes and I'm sure it will be enjoyable. Although I thought it was interesting that his addiction in this is gambling and not heroin, but maybe that was a little too close to home for Robert Downey Jr.

However, it is the movie in the sidebar of this article that has me really interested: a comedy is coming out with Sacha Baron Cohen as Holmes and Will Farell as Watson. This one has me completely hooked although I'm sure they both will go way over the top with it. Well, that's my two movies for this year. Nothing else better come out that grabs me or else Jason will have a heart attack if I actually go to three movies this year.

Sewing Continued

2009-01-29T21:53:00.008-06:00

This week I finally got around to dealing with the window in Nora's room. Here's the curtains I "made". Actually it's a shower curtain that I cut down the middle and hemmed up. I really like the way it turned out and it works in the room.
Here's the pattern close up - yeah it's toile-y but Nora really likes birds.
This morning Nora astounded us by telling my dad there was a woodpecker outside, he looked and sure enough, it was. My girl knows her birds! One of my favorite things in Nora's room is this quilt that my mom's aunt made in the 60s or 70s. I really love it so much.
On of the things that makes is so great (in addition to all the retro fabrics and crazy quilt strips) is the fabulous fabric backing it-

SHEEP! All the better for counting when you want to go to sleep. Someday I hope to make a quilt as fabulous. The rest of Nora's room is still a work in progress.
She's got way too many toys, but some of them are really mine - like that FP boat and farm and the doll house was my mom's, then mine, and now Nora's.
She's also got too many books, just like her parents. She's talking to the fox family here in these photos, but I have no idea what she's whispering in their ears.

Snow Day

2009-01-27T14:11:00.007-06:00

Today I'm home since it's been sleeting and snowing since last night. But I've been really busy. It seems like snow days are the only days I really get things done. This morning, Nora and I went out and helped Grand Marshall clear the sidewalk and driveway. Nora is such a snow baby, it seems like the cold never bothers her and we were ready to go in long before she was.

We came in for a snack of pretzels and cocoa. The pretzels were some we made this weekend from Vegan Lunch Box, but really they taste best when they are hot.
This afternoon, Grammy put Nora down for a nap and I got to work on a project I've been wanting to do for years. Jason's office chair was banished to the garage at the last house, and the deal we struck for bringing it in here was that I got to recover it. Here's the before (actually middle, I had disassembled it to figure out how to best make the cover)

and you can see that it was uglier than Jason's soccer shirts, but at least it was pretty easy to recover. On the bottom I just stapled onto over the old fabric with that Amy Butler pattern (I think it's called "coriander") that I bought last year. The top I had to slipcover since the metal brace was not removable from the back. Now we have another problem:
I like it so much I want to keep it for myself. Don't you think it matches my new file cabinet well?

Oh No!

2009-01-22T18:59:00.004-06:00

Something terrible happened today. These came in the mail. Readers you decide, which of these is the worst? Vote in the poll over on the right.

At least one of us is happy.

Inauguration Day

2009-01-20T15:05:00.002-06:00

This morning I had a meeting at one of the adult education centers. At 11:00, we all took a break and joined one of the classes to watch the Inauguration. If I couldn't be on the mall, this was certainly the second best place. Teachers, students, tutors, staff and we gatecrashers from our meeting watched together; sometimes silently, sometimes in tears, sometimes with cheers. Yeah, there was one guy on his cell phone, and someone was doing her homework (hey we always tell them that they need to put their studying first and turn off that TV), but 95% of the class was listening and there was this feeling going around, like we were part of something. And we were: many of these students voted for their first time this year, either due to age or because no one ever gave them reason to think that their vote mattered before. I couldn't stay for the class discussion afterwords, but I've got that warm fuzzy feeling that these students, most of them labeled only as high school dropouts, gang members, single moms, or slackers, felt like they had helped elect someone who possibly saw them in those terms, but also sees them as parents, churchgoers, community members and people who don't always have a voice, but definitely have something to say, and that maybe that something is worth listening to. I've got a whole lot a hope in them, in him and in us.

It Might Be 15 Degrees Outside, but the KC Hall was on FIRE!

2009-01-17T08:49:00.005-06:00

We had a blast last night at the Farewell Tour for the Starlighters, my Uncle Bill's dance/wedding band who's last gig was 20 years ago. We got there around 6:30, and the place was absolutely packed. Thankfully, Ted and Linda had saved us a seat and Ted, who'd been standing in the beer line for 10 minuets already ($4.50 for a PITCHER of Bud Light), took our beer orders, we went with the pitcher. After a close call with the fish plates (they had already run out of slaw, and we got fish right under the wire - not really a big problem since there is now a pretty good Mexican kiosk inside the KC hall too) we settled in for what turned out to be a really fun night. Lynn and Ellen had clued us in that the band had practiced only 3 times prior to this evening, and they were pretty nervous. You sure couldn't tell once they got started. Amazingly, it appeared that 80% of the hall, did I mention it was packed?, was here to see the band, including Bill's Psychology class from SWIC - they even had shirts! The Starlighter's repertoire includes a mix of oldies, country and polkas and this crowd, which ranged in age from under 3 to 93, was really into it.

Nora had a great time on the dance floor, but often had to make sure she kept out of the way of the the serious dancers who were on their feet through just about every song. It made me really wish I actually knew how to dance, even a polka. One of the neatest things about the evening was the multi-generational makeup of the dance floor. The older folks put us all to shame (except for one fabulously nimble-footed teen-aged pair) and it makes me think that the Starlighters really need to consider this as the beginning of a reunion tour instead of their final performance.

Here's some shots of the night:

I give you THE STARLIGHTERS

My Uncle Bill, obscured by mike. I understand that there was a plan for multiple changes of headgear, but that the person in charge of wardrobe "forgot" to bring them.
Fans Uncle Ted and Aunt Linda joined us for fish

And on the dance floor:

Aunt Lynn and Ellen partnered Nora throughout the evening on the dance floor, they agree that Nora needs to take lessons from someone other than Jason, who could use some lessons himself. The table behind us was in agreement.
Nora and Aunt Lynn take a break and admire the drums

Jason and Nora get down
Nora leads Aunt Lynn back to the dance floor after getting some coaching in moves from her both of her Aunts.

The evening finale (for us) Smoke on the Water, notice the addition of shades, which were thankfully not entrusted to Wardrobe. While we were busy dancing it was reported that Bill took the power stance and performed the windmill twice (he also removed the shades for the sax solo - but maybe it was because he needed his glasses to read the music), BTW, those two in the foreground - the aforementioned teen dancing duo:
Nora and Aunt Lynn are feeling the Purple Haze

New Years Resolutions

2009-01-13T22:55:00.003-06:00

I don't have any. Nor do I have a five year plan or even a one year plan. This may have something to do with playing too much Civilization at the warlord level. Or maybe it just is what it is. If I made New Year's resolutions, I should probably include one about blogging more, especially since due to Facebook, I now have more readers stopping by, at least for the moment.

I still don't know what I think about Facebook. Sometimes it makes me super-happy. Just seeing the interconnectedness of the Hendrix diaspora. And I enjoy the silliness of it as well. And the strange disconnect but also connect between ourselves as highschoolers, as college students and whatever we are now, I guess that would be adults. But I also sort of resent the minute to minuteness of it all too, that our lives are measured by the continually updated news board of what we are doing right now. And then there is this weird sense that we are somehow staying in touch through cheerful notices about our fandom or tossing philosophers about.

Anyway, in an effort to keep you all apraised of our activities, here's what we've really been up to (when we're not making virtual buttons with My Pretty Pony Newborns on them):

This week, Jason went back to teaching classes, thus ending his long winter break. We broke down and subscribed to super duper soccer dish tv, so now there is even more soccer in our lives than before. And lots of Monk. And Dr Who - not that we watch these things, we just record them. There is only 5 hours left, we've got to get cracking. And he bought a new winter coat with a velvet collar (so very unexpected).

Nora went back to pre-school after taking a day off to finally purge the stomach virus that has been plaguing her. Now she is staying there later too and is (happily for her parents) seeming to really enjoy being there. Or is at least no longer really upset when we go. She is still touch and go on this potty learning thing. Some days are all about the big girl pants and other days we could care less. Since Christmas, we've been receiving phonecalls from Mary, Joseph, and the Baby Jesus on Nora's red phone. They are all on at once, not sure if it's a conference call, three-way, or if everyone is just bunched up around the phone. This is my mother's doing, but I think I'm okay with it for right now.

I've been back at work for the past week, and while nothing new is happening, I did get to meet up with the group of women I've been working closely with for the past 4 years (some of them for longer). We all belong to different programs in the area and externally we couldn't be more different (we span at least 40 years in age, are various races and marital statuses, some of us wear suits and heels others (me) sloutch on by in cords and tees, some of us are moms, some are grandmoms and moms and some are moms to pets, etc) and we've been meeting monthly as a committee over this time and we've done some really amazing stuff around literacy and advocacy and student leadership and all sorts of things. I've realized that I've really come to appeciate our value on the process as well as the product and the complete lack of ego, turf, and grandstanding that too often happens in meetings that are supposed to be about getting something done. Over the years we've learned so much about our lives outside of work and the stresses that drain us at work and figured out how to keep ourselves and our little group going and moving and building. It's nice, and I just thought I'd share.

I started swimming again, and hopefully I'll keep with it since it's relaxing and exercise (amazing that it can be both) and those are both good things.

Karl remains the ever loyal dog he's always been, but is starting to show his age - which would be somewhere between 13 and 14 years. His eyes are starting to cloud over with cateracts and he's not hearing as well as he used to, but he still tries to give the squirrels a run for their money.

My parents are in Florida so the kitchen wars have stalled right now, but look for a return to the battle of the toaster oven when they get back. We are also strangly aware of the lottery right now.

This weekend is the farewell tour of the Starlighters at the Maryville KC Hall. I have to say I'm excited about going.

Hmmm, that sort of covers the updates.

Bevo the Beverage, Bevo the Mill.

2009-01-08T16:08:00.005-06:00

I was surprised to learn that AB still owned it and even more surprised that they've turned it over to the city for free. Here's the story. And here's a brief history of Bevo the Beverage: "The All-Year-Round Soft Drink. Appetizing - Healthful - Nutritious - Refreshing. Milk or water may contain bacteria. BEVO never does."

Cakes, Cookies and Presents

2009-01-05T14:49:00.016-06:00

For Nora's birthday we had some friends and family over and I made cakes. Two to be exact. I had planned on making cupcakes, but then I saw this star form pan on super-duper clearance and then there was the problem of locating the large cupcake tins (with the combined household, we have enough tins to make over 7 dozen mini-muffins without re-using a tin, but my regular sized muffin tins are packed and Mom can't find hers), so it turned out to be two, two layer star cakes. One was chocolate with pink icing and the other coconut with white coconut icing. I adapted Isa's chocolate cupcakes and "buttercream" icing from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and her Coconut Heaven cupcakes and icing from Vegan with a Vengeance. I even broke out the pastry bags and icing tips for my first ever attemp at cake decorating. It wasn't Martha Stewart, but Nora was really happy as was I. Here's a really bad picture of a partial coconut cake and the pink cake after a star point was cut off. (I have no idea why I don't have a picture of just the cakes).
She had a really great time and everyone brought her too many wonderful presents. One of the many downsides of having a birthday right before Christmas is that all of your loot comes in one fell swoop, and it's hard to not get overwhelmed. On the upside, Jason and I will probably always be off for her birthday and we'll do our best to make sure her day isn't lost in the big holiday hubbub.

The Saturday before, Nora, Laura, Grammy and I made cookies - here Nora and I are working on the gingerbread cutouts (we used a doctored up recipe from Vegan Lunchbox) she really loved decorating them BEFORE they went into the oven (so, yes, they are safe to eat despite a three year old's hands being on them). She also loved tasting the dough, sprinkles, red hots, and sanding sugars as well as the finished product. We also made the Lemony Cutout cookies from Vegan With A Vengeance, but we just dropped them, flattened them and added sprinkles.

Christmas meant even more presents to open, including the whole Santa mythology which continues in our house thanks to Dad and I (Mom and Jason are really not into it).
Santa, with the help of Elves, Todd and Natascha who made a trip to Ikea, brought this fabulous easel. It's been one of the most popular gifts this year:
Along with Steve, Barbie's dog who's been born with a plastic heart on his abdomen and came with a complete pink and purple vet kit (thanks Mom). I don't know why Nora named him Steve. Lastly, I have my Aunt to thank again for this:
This is Penny. And actually I belive my cousin Ellen might be the responsible party, because believe it or not, this is a My Pretty Pony Newborn. Yes, I know it's blue, its eyes are too big (this is a big selling point with Nora) and it's hair is rainbow colored and it has a pacifier, but nevertheless its a horse and now its also beloved and must sleep with us. Her ears are not very nice to roll over on, but I think Penny is here to stay.

Molasses

2009-01-02T20:42:00.003-06:00

The Solstice, Nora's birthday, Christmas and New Years has come and gone. I've been on vacation and while I've been having a good time, I don't feel like I've really gotten anything accomplished. Family was visited, cookies made, presents wrapped, there was good cheer. I read and enjoyed both of the Sarah Vowell books I gave my father (Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates). But I'm due back at work on Monday and I still haven't unpacked anything since we moved in, other than the basics we took out that first week. There's people I should have called, thank you notes I should have written, projects I wanted to at least begin, and now its the new year, and while that should hold promise, all it really seems to hold is the prospect of time moving ever more swiftly.

Belated photos

2008-12-18T10:45:00.008-06:00

I'm finally dealing with some of the photos that have been accumulating on the camera. Since I'm sure you all read this for the Nora pictures, I've finally got some to share:

Nora at Pierre Marquette State Park playing with the Giant Chess set.

This is the princess costume I got on Halloween clearance, that fits Nora scarily well and she becomes even more imperious while wearing it. She loves it so much that Jason and I have come to terms with it.

Here she is with Todd celebrating the Obama victory election night, despite their monarchist leanings (Todd far too much of an Anglophile to not love the Queen and Nora thinks she is the Queen).
Lastly, here is Nora wearing pigtails (for the moment) in front of the tree.

Welcome to the second half of the 20th century

2008-12-11T14:59:00.006-06:00

The transition from broadcast to digital television and our invasion of their home has forced some hard decisions on the parental units. While most of you have been enjoying having more than 5 television channels for the past 30 years, there are some who find it a new and confusing world and don't even bring up this new fangled internet thing. Mostly, Jason and I have been trying to serve as the buffer with those technology pushers, otherwise known as our phone service providers (and I agree that dealing with them has not been a relaxing or fun process and I will be happy if I do not have to call them tomorrow for the 5th day in a row) but still the changes are apparent. The toaster oven and lunch boxes were bad enough, but this satellite television may be the end. We are shocked, shocked and dismayed at the size of this receiver box, but it is the price one has to pay if one wants to watch the news while cooking. I can only hope that the kitchen will not be irrevocably harmed. Please think of us in this difficult time and hope that we can all get through this period of decreased counter space.

Get Your Craft On

2008-12-03T11:48:00.001-06:00

I missed the Rock and Roll Craft Show last weekend, due to the move and illness, but I'll be heading out to the Big Ass Indie Art and Craft Show this weekend and the Rock & Roll's former digs, Mad Art Gallery.

Here's the details.

Bluukdate

2008-12-02T11:54:00.001-06:00

We're still sick (day 11).

We're moved (day 8)

Nora's hair is long enough for pigtails but she won't keep them in.

Someday I'll post pictures again.

Voting

2008-11-04T10:13:00.005-06:00

For those of you who remember the 2000 elections, you will remember that this city does not do a particularly good job preparing for the presidential vote. I have a flexible work environment, so I waited until a little bit later, around 9 am to go vote. We recently changed polling places and my new place is at Fanning School, someplace that already leaves a bad taste in my mouth after attending a meeting there a couple of years ago and witnessing a bunch of teachers behaving very badly and spewing some of the worst hate I've ever seen toward our immigrant and refugee population. If we decide to put Nora into this disastrous public school system, Fanning would be her middle school, and there is no way in hell I would send her there, and honestly I'm hoping we will move prior to having to make that decision, because I'm not exactly a fan of the Catholic School system either. Going there to vote doesn't make me happy. Today's experience didn't really make me change that opinion either.

When I got to the school, there wasn't a lot of parking, which really I took as a good sign. I'm enthused about this election, much more so than 2004, and I'm happy people are turning out to vote. Then I got inside - just inside the doors to the gym (where we vote) there was a long line snaking halfway back up the side of the gym and then all they way back down the length of the gym. It was a lot of people. My first thought was, wow. I have never seen this many people standing in line to vote. My second thought was, I wonder if it would be better to come back in about an hour. I stood there for a few minutes, and while there were lots of poll workers standing around no one approached me. Finally I asked one where the end of the line was - I couldn't really get in the doors and see. She asks to see my election card (not everyone brings these to the polls - I just usually do). She then says " Oh hon, you don't have to wait in this line" I don't? "This is for the special election" Special election? "You go to that table over there - the one with the 15 A on it". I can barely see the table, I cut through the lines of people in front of me and amazingly there is no one in line at the THREE tables beyond lines. She takes my card, she doesn't ask to see any ID or the utility bill I've brought with me to verify my address, I sign in, initial my address and the election reps from the two parties initial my signature. She asks if I want paper or plastic. I say I'll take whichever is faster. Amazingly, there are both available right now. I look at her, very surprised I ask: "Why are all those people in line?" She also tells me it's a "special election". I vote and on my way out, one of the voter advocacy representatives asks me how it went - I said it was fine for me, but that I was concerned that having the big long line for the special election right at the door when you come in might make some voters think that they have to stand in it and decide not to vote. She sort of shrugs and mumbles something. I get on the phone to call Jason to warn him about it and since I'm on my way to work and he's off, I'll let him make a more strenuous complaint. At the very least they should have some poll workers who are standing in front of the doors letting folks know that they may not have to stand in line and start asking for precinct numbers right away. But part of me wonders what this special election is and how it can be that different from the other elections - I'm guessing that it is probably and alderman recall (there were several petition drives last spring about this) that affects one of the 3-4 precincts that votes here only. They have to have separate ballots for the different precincts anyway (there are several house districts) so it can't just be a different ballot. I doubt that there are that many more people turning out in that particular precinct - it's the presidential that's turning folks out, not some aldermanic recall. Why is that precinct something special, what is really going on?

But if I thought this was crazy, I was flabbergasted when I came into work and talked to our office manager. She told me that her husband had been standing in line since 5:30 this morning and he called her at 10 to let her know that he had just voted. She has had hip surgery and uses a cane so she walked up to the front of the line and asked if she could vote, and they let her (thankfully!), but as she pointed out - there were other people with disabilities who were still waiting in line, and no one went around and told them that they could vote immediately. This is in the county, and obviously it was a district where they were not prepared for the voter turn out. But in both of these situations, I'm wondering what's going to happen at 4:30 today, when folks are trying to get off work to go pick up kids and go vote - it's going to be impossible. Democratic party is saying that if you get in line by 7pm your vote will be counted, but given that there was a lawsuit about this very thing 8 years ago and this turnout is supposed to be even bigger, I wonder if this will be true? How many people are not going to be able to vote today because they can't stand in line for hours (some folks have to go pick up kids from school/daycare, some folks have to be at work - the three hour dispensation that most folks don't even know that we are allowed, won't help someone who has to stand 4 1/2 hours in line to vote! How many people are going to see the lines and say, I'm not going to bother, my vote doesn't matter anyway? How many people believe, like almost everyone at my co-workers' polling place that using an electronic machine means that their vote won't count, that it will be counted for the opposite party?

As I drove in to work, Diane Rheim had callers call in about their experiences voting today. Once caller summed it up for me completely - the gist of what he said was that in a country that holds itself up as a model of democracy, if we truly believe that we are the "great nation" that we hype ourselves up to be, why is there so much trouble registering to vote? Why do so many people believe that our vote can be stolen from us and why isn't our voting system the cleanest, most efficient, best example ever. We should be that - we have the technology, we have the money, we just don't have the will.

Paging Dr Fry

2008-10-30T09:49:00.004-06:00

Raise your hand if you want Stephen Fry to be the next Doctor Who. Okay, it probably won't happen, but I was thrilled to see him on this list over at the Guardian, along with Joanna Lumley, who I wouldn't say no to either. So, dear readers, who's your pick for Who?

ACORN

2008-10-21T12:38:00.003-06:00

As most of you know, Jason and I worked for ACORN for several years back in the 90's. It was a chaotic experience that had its ups and downs. Some of you have been wondering what we think about all the allegations about ACORN from the McCain campaign. In short, we are appalled. We both worked voter registration at various times during our employment and can assure you we never saw ACORN promoting Voter Registration Fraud (something quite different from Voter Fraud, which has more to do with getting false people to vote or to vote twice). In Arkansas, as in many states, you are required to turn in every single voter registration card, even if you think it might be a fake registration. Sometimes people who you hire for campaigns like this are more interested in getting paid than in registering people to vote, so they fill out forms falsely. Those folks were fired, when they were discovered. Sometimes, people think it's funny to give blatantly false names on the card, and some people wanted to disrupt the process, so they did this on purpose. In any case, where we could identify forms that looked suspicious, we would set them aside and turn them in with a note to the county that we thought that they were false. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone knows the starting line-up of the Dallas Cowboys, so I'm sure there were some that got past us. It was not in our interest to register non-existent people - the purpose was to register real people, to encourage them to become involved in our civic process and to turn them out on election day - which is what the McCain campaign is really worried about it. The rich and elite in this country have benefited from low voter turn-out and suppressed civic engagement. If we really wanted these things and if they were really concerned about false registrations, they would make registration mandatory and automatic for citizens like many other countries do. Here's a nice video done by ACORN to set the record straight, it's only a few minutes long so check it out:

BTW, I'm proud to say that because of ACORN training, myself and several other women have been working over the past year to promote civic engagement in adult ed classrooms in the metro area - and we registered some folks to vote too. We've passed the deadline for registration in this state, but if you are registered, please make sure to go and vote. It's important.

Unproductive

2008-10-13T11:27:00.004-06:00

I've been a very unproductive blogger in the last couple of weeks, which is sad since I was really on a roll in September. I'm still making Nora's lunch (although Jason did it last Friday) and I do usually photograph it, but of course I never have the camera when I feel like blogging, so there's not pictures for this post.

I've been cooking quite a bit lately. Last week I tested several of the Veganomican recipes, with success. The caramel apple cupcakes with penuche icing were a big hit at a potluck that I brought them to (and Nora and Jason liked them as well). I discovered penuche is indeed like fudge and it hardens up very quickly so I needed to re-melt it midway through icing the cakes. That same evening I made the Inside-out Samosas (samosa filled twice baked potatoes). I'll be making them again for Jason and I, but Nora opted out - she has a thing about potatoes. Ditto on the vegan "scalloped" potatoes. Jason and I liked them quite a bit, although I think I was too heavy handed with the nutritional yeast. Nora wouldn't touch them, but she did eat about a 1/2 a cup of sauerkraut. She is probably the only 2 year old in the world who won't touch mashed potatoes but will eat sauerkraut. She also like the roasted carrots and Polish sausage that rounded out that meal. All that was missing was a green salad, and we would have had a Sunday dinner, but I hate making salad. And I finally got around to trying Sarah E-Y's wheat bread recipe the week before last. I will definitely be making it again, it was terrific! I passed it on to Mom and she made it into some wonderful buns with raisins in them with Nora. So Sarah, if you are reading, thanks! and you might try adding raisins to a batch if you haven't already.

The weekend before last, we drove the Great River Road on the search for apples. It was a beautiful day, and we made a stop in Grafton at the Rotten Apple so that Jason could check out their fabled beer selection. The beer was good, the cider was good and the food was good. I'm sure we'll be back. Then we stopped at Pere Marquette and Nora played with the giant chess board while Jason attempted to coach her toward Chess Greatness. We should have hiked about some and looked for wildlife, but the heat and our heavy lunch kept us inside. Nora enjoyed the chainsaw sculpture of Illinois wildlife (eagles, raccoons, squirrel, and rabbits) and re-arranged the fuzzy rabbits in the deer diorama inside the lodge, so we sort of saw some animals. Then we headed up toward Hardin and I detoured off toward Jerseyville to stop at Ringhausen Orchards. Unfortunately Nora fell asleep, so there are no glorious pictures of her among pumpkins, atop hay bales, or holding shiny red apples, and actually the Ringhausen Orchard we went to (there are several) wasn't really that type of place. But the apples were great, I got Crispins, Jonathan's, and Honey Crisps. I ate the last one today for lunch, so I'm hoping Mom and Dad pick up some on their trip this weekend. On the way back to the main road, I saw a snake slither into the cornfield, so that sort of met our "see wildlife" goal of the trip.

This weekend we weren't much better about getting out into nature. Fortunately, the Grand Marshall takes Nora out to Powder Valley quite a bit, or else I'd worry that she is danger of developing a nature deficit disorder. Jason and I are lacking in our intake of fresh air, and I'm hoping we'll make it happen this weekend.

Anniversary

2008-10-08T14:45:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was our 13th anniversary. It seems like both a long and short time. This was the first year we didn't have any special plans. I did take off work, Jason wasn't teaching, and Nora went to daycare as scheduled, so we did spend the day together. We had a big breakfast at Chris' pancake house after we dropped of Nora and then we spent the rest of the day catching up on our Netflix and Toddflix (all the shows Todd tapes for us - thanks Todd!). We're still wayyyyyy behind, but it was fun to spend the rainy day on the couch, just the two of us. It was also nice to pick up and drop off Nora together. I think we finally manged to do all of our check in and check out parental duties (sign in, fill out daily form, make sure she has her lunch box, backpack & Meowy, pay, etc.). Then we ordered dinner from the King and I, tried to get Nora to run all of her excess energy off inside, and then we shuffled off to bed. We're such an old married couple. It's nice.

Bats

2008-09-30T08:41:00.003-06:00

There are bats in my parking garage. I saw one last Friday hanging from the metal grid that encloses the staircase. Initially, I was thrilled. I'm always excited to see urban wildlife (that is wildlife that is not rats) and the parking garage is new, so I was enthused that they were already warming up to it. And bats are especially great with their appetites for bugs and mosquitoes. But Monday morning as I walked down, I saw that the bat had died. It had fallen to the ground right below where it had been hanging. When I got into the office a co-worker suggested that I call the health department, so I did call the Animal Control division and they assured me that they would come out and check it out for rabies or west nile. Now I'm sort of freaked out. I had resisted moving to the parking garage since I hate them anyway, and I already was taking the stairs since I'm not so thrilled with the claustrophobic elevators. Now I've somewhat convinced myself that there is a coven of rabid bats haunting the garage waiting for me in the stairwell. This has seriously upset the only exercise I really was doing (walking down from the 9th or 10th floor and walking up a couple of floors before catching the elevator). Then again, maybe they aren't in the stairwell, but amassed in the elevator, waiting for me to close the doors before they swoop down. Probably it hasn't helped that I'm watching Trueblood, with it's creepy bat montage in the open sequence. So help me get over my irrational bat fear, folks so I can get back to the stairs.

Apple Butter Time

2008-09-29T11:32:00.013-06:00

This weekend we made apple butter out at Ted and Linda's. We haven't done this in about 9 years, but it was so much fun, hopefully it won't be another 9 years before we do it again. Here's the process:

You start out with apples, these are Johnathans, and yes the type of apple does matter. You want something that's tart and that makes a good pie, so forget those Golden or Red Delicious that you have in your crisper. We used about 2 bushels, which I found out is about 84 lbs for this small batch of apple butter.

Check out that peeler - it's about 100 years old but it can still outrun those newfangled ones as we found out 9 years ago when we pitted them head to head.

The night before is spent washing apples, peeling apples, quartering apples, coring apples and washing apples again. The peels are kept to make the butter that pretty brown color.

Bring your sharp paring knife - you're going to need it!

Washing the apples again in the big enamel basin.
Down to the final batch - Ted told us all to savor the moment.

After all of those apples are prepared you cover up them up in the big basins (I don't know if you can buy those things anymore) with dishtowels, clean up the mess and go watch the dabate.

Ken gives the apples a stir while the rest of us look on.

The next morning the apples, sugar and spices go into the big copper kettle. There aren't any pictures of that process because we were still home asleep, the lazybones that we are. We showed up in time to eat yummy pastries and watch the butter cook up.

Nora is part of the fire brigade

When it is deemed time (there is tasting and the stirrers can feel it thickening up) then the harried process of getting it canned up begins.
Luckily Grammy is there to set things up. The long table is pulled out and we get into our stations: dipping, filling, wiping, sealing (adding the lid and adding the ring) then the jars go into the basin and onto the other long table in the garage to wait for their lids to ping and set up overnight. No Touching the Jars!

In the heat of butter!

The last of the apple butter!

clean up outside and inside

Now it's time to relax, roast some hotdogs for lunch, and...
gather acorns for winter?????

Final Days Of Summer

2008-09-23T09:49:00.007-06:00

It's fall already, and it's felt like fall for awhile, given the lack of oppressive heat that summer usually brings us and all the back to school business. But these last few days of summer have brought out the inner squirrel in me. Last weekend, I decided I needed to do something to mark the end of the season so Mom and I put up a bunch of pints of Jason's mom's pepper sauce. This may or may not be the fabled sauce of Miss Dixie, Jason's childhood neighbor, I suspect it is, since it has more of her hallmarks than Kathy's, in any case, it is a delicious sauce. This isn't something I do every year, but I really love the taste of it on beans (black eyed peas, pintos, butter beans, and the like), and the recipe is easy (well, I have to use gloves for the hot peppers, but other than that it's easy) and putting up a dozen pints really doesn't take that much time, especially when Mom is is there to lead my through it.

I had plenty of tomatoes left over (since I lost my battle with the evil squirrels, I had to buy a peck at the farmer's market and we only used half for the pepper sauce). And I was desperately in need of another can of olive oil, so the logical thing was to pick some at Viviano's along with some buffalo mozzarella and make a big sloppy caprice salad. I love so many things about Viviano's. The price of olive oil is astronomical (I can remember when it was about $12-$15 for a 3L can not that long ago), I was
dithering between a new can that they had predominately displayed for about 5$ less than my normal Celio brand. In the checkout I point to the new brand and ask "Am I going to be happy with this?" The two people behind the counter (one has been working there for more years than I've been coming to the store) say without hesitation, in unison and with a tone that is definitive: "no", I scoot out and exchange it for the Celio and the long standing employee looks at me with approval and tells me that's what she always uses. I exit Viviano's looking forward to my salad and the hunk of Marconi's bakery bread. We are not a white bread family. I mean that literally. We don't eat white bread usually - lots of rye and whole wheat and I'm constantly guilt tripping myself over the fact that we eat too much of the processed sandwich bread that has all that corn syrup in it. But, occasionally, I like a crusty Italian style loaf and Marconi's is always perfect. We scarfed it down with the salad and then the next morning I ate it with the last of the gooseberry preserves from Sunflower Savannah a vendor at the Tower Grove Farmer's Market. I had bought this earlier this summer and I'm completely enthralled with it. We had gooseberry bushes when I was a kid and while I remember there being lots of gooseberry pie (I wasn't fond of it, but my grandparent's generation was), I have no memories of jam that tasted like this! And the color is really pretty too. Here's a picture:
I'm sorry I haven't done as much canning as I would have liked this year. It's hard to do with Nora in the house, unless there's a team looking after her, and really I always think it's going to be more labor intensive than it is.

This weekend I also got around to testing the alternative to rice crispy treats in Vegan Lunchbox. While Nora has no problems eating marshmallows and I can make them with Earth Balance instead of butter, there are a couple of people in our orbit who don't eat them due to the gelatin in marshmallows, including Jason. So I thought I'd give these a try since they use corn syrup & peanut butter (I subbed soynut butter) instead. I make the jumped up version with chocolate chips. Once I got over that these were not rice crispy treats, I actually liked them and Jason and Nora gave them two thumbs up too. Nora has taken to calling these "Snack". They are way sweet (they are after all listed in the dessert section) and they tasted quite a bit like store bought quaker granola bars as well as a treat Mom made for us when we were kids - Special K bars. The soynut butter/chocolate combo is a real winner and I like the crispiness of the rice crispies. I think I will make them again and add oats as well and try to find the brown puffed rice that the recipe originally suggested.

Finally here are the lunchboxes from this week so far:This is my lunch from Monday, Jason had a similar one, but I didn't get a photo: blackeyed peas with tomatoes and spinach (Sunday's leftovers), turkey sausage (Jason had the last of the cornbread muffins instead), a pluot, and we both had a side of Snack. I also sampled one of Nora's Vanilla Silk pouches and it was actually good (I'm not a huge fan of the regular Silk, but I find the Chocolate quite tolerable as well). Here's Nora's lunch from today:
Macaroni and meat sauce, carrot sticks and zuchini stars and hearts with hummus dip, a pack of raisins, and Vanilla Silk pouch. I'm suffering from some guilt because I forgot to include my usually notes in her lunch.

That's all for today, but I did want to remind folks about the Strange Folk Festival this weekend. Go check it out!

Friday Lunch Roundup

2008-09-19T10:27:00.004-06:00

I actually made most of our lunches the night before for the first time. This enabled us to get out the door on time! I love going to Nora's pre-school. Today I met one of her classmates, Luke. Nora wasn't thrilled about him, but he seemed like a nice boy. They are doing cooking experiments today, so I wonder if she'll be willing to do some at home this weekend. I've been meaning to test-drive Vegan Lunch Box's recipe for vegan rice crispy treats. Since this will make a very small dent in the 3 bottles of Karo syrup I've somehow amassed, it's high on the priority list. Let's hope its a favorite.

Here's the lunches for today:

Nora has leftovers from dinner the other night - 1/2 a bean and chicken burrito cut into pinwheels (this alligns with the other kids lunch menu - bean and cheese burritos), a pear cup, carrot sticks and a dip made from soy sour cream and salsa. I froze some o.j. in a reusable juice box to keep it all cold.

I've got a turkey and cheese sandwich, grapes, and a salad made from edaname, corn, & dried cranberries with a walnut oil/basalmic vinegar/apple cidar dressing.
Jason has cheese and rye crackers, tomato soup, grapes and some of the edaname salad. Here is his all tied up. I didn't get an elastic strap for his bento (it's on the way, along with a neutral looking lunch bag) so I tie his up using a rather girly napkin a'la the japanese furoshiki. The government of Japan has put out a handy guide on how to tie these wraps, but I haven't studied it in detail, so mine are a bit more free form:
I am quite happy on how I managed to get that spoon tied in there too.

Bento Box

2008-09-17T11:38:00.009-06:00

I got a bento box! So now you get to see one of my lunches. Jason got one too, but his is plain green (he didn't get a matching bag and chopsticks - poor Jason).

I didn't have time to take pictures of his, but what we're having for lunch is: veggie sushi leftovers (these are spinach, carrot and avocado), a rice ball molded into a shape (mine is a star, Jason got a mouse shape) with additional avocado pieces, some pickled ginger and wasabi, and I got grapes and Jason got a fruit bar.

Jason also got a little sauce container of soy sauce, but I had some at work so I didn't bother with mine. If I had been more together on this, I would have molded the avocado into the rice so that it wouldn't brown so much. I love my new bento set! Unfortunately, I can't get a good shot of the top, but on the top of the container and on the chop stick container is the following saying - "Happy fruits is very delicious. I will eat this and will become fortunate all together!" This is the "putifresh" line and the manufacturer is "Lube Sheep" which Jason thinks is hysterical. Okay, I do too. Anyway, they come in cherries, pears and oranges and I got them here. The cupcake cups are from Target's dollar spot this week - they have sets of 10 silicone cupcake liners for $1 - I got one in each color - red, blue and yellow. They are great for lunchboxes. And thanks to Suzy-Q who wrote me to let me know that juice boxes are freezable and that she likes my lunches.

Nora is eating at my parents today, but yesterday's lunch was leftover veggie dumplings, a rice mold (she got a heart) with avocado, some fruit gellies and some bunny grahms. I've got a picture somewhere of hers that I'll try to add later.

****UPDATE***

Here's Nora's lunch:

Old Home Weekend

2008-09-15T09:03:00.020-06:00

Our first trip without Nora was really quite fabulous. Although leaving was difficult. I tried really hard not to cry, and failed miserably. But I cheered up on the drive down. The weather was lovely, although it was much more humid in AR in in STL. We made it in good time even though we stopped at the Dixie Cafe for our obligatory sides of veggies and giant glasses of diet coke.

in front of the Dixie Cafe

When we arrived, Jason and I felt like visiting dignitaries at Hendrix. They put us up in the visiting professors apartment (Thanks Sarah!), he got an honorarium, free meals in the cafeteria (possibly the only place on Hendrix that is still recognizable from our era), and there was a lovely reception after the reading of the play and Q&A with Bob and Jason.

Posters!
The orange post-it is a parental advisory for adult content and language warning

The reading of the play was really fun. Thrillingly, I got to sit between the director and the playwright and while there was at least one point when we were the only ones laughing our heads off, for the most part, the rest of the audience seemed to think it was funny too. It was really something to hear the actors reading the words Jason wrote although sort of disconcerting too. Many of you are familiar with aspects of this play - Jason had been thinking about it since we were at Hendrix, and while it changed and improved over time, there are still elements that are recognizable from conversations we've had. But seeing it up there, with people who traveled miles and put a lot of time into making it happen, made it a really amazing experience. When I read it all the way through for the first time last week, I really liked it, but I wasn't sure if I liked it because I love Jason and I know Jason, and while I know people think he's funny, I hoped that the other parts of the play would come through too. I think that they did ultimately and while I know Jason wants to make some changes, I don't think that much really needs to be changed because it works. When the audience is laughing so hard that they are missing the next joke, that's a good thing right? Crowning it all was the Q& A with Jason and Bob fielding questions about the play from the audience. I could tell Jason was having the time of his life and that it was made even sweeter by Bob's and Sarah's participation in project.

Bob and Jason in Q & A

Cast, Director and Playwright

center. After sleeping in the next morning we checked out the campus. I think the thing that surprised me the most, was that despite that there is a new building every 20 feet, it still feels like home. I'll try to post pictures of how things have changed, but for those of you who haven't kept up, there is of course the new library, constructed just after we graduated, but also there are 2 new science buildings (Buhler and Reynolds still exist, the new ones are behind Reynolds and the other has taken the place of the former library), a new recreation center, including new sports fields and a pool with a retractable roof ( this is across the street from Couch in the East Hall/Mabee Center/Track area), several new dorms/residential housing (in the former soccer field behind Couch), the new Murphy Building (where Sarah works and where we were housed - it sits between Hulan/Campus Center and Reynolds - now called Axiom), and a new student and technology center is being built as in the former location of Grove. They were breaking ground on the Hendrix Village across the street, which will be retail and apartments serving both the community and the campus. Oh and they spruced up the Campus Center several years ago, but I think it and the cafeteria will soon be relocated into the new Student and Technology building. With the exception of East Hall/Mabee Center and the old Library, all of the other building are still standing and in use. Surprisingly some of them look much more attractive now - Buhler has been covered in vines and is actually quite fetching. There has also been a great deal of landscaping done with new gardens and a labyrinth out behind Trieschmann (I think there was a sculpture garden there before). Also missing is the WWI memorial, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been relocated.

Beautified Buhler

You would think all of this construction would render the campus unrecognizable and incredibly busy, but it really doesn't - you sort of are surprised when a building pops up where it wasn't before, but they fit in with the other buildings (despite being very large ones) and it doesn't really feel that crowded. We ate breakfast on campus, which gave us more surprises. While the cafeteria looks almost exactly the same (they have added some strange faux foliage and nice vinyl tablecloths), there have been some changes for the better.

same but different - odd addition of plastic foliage

There are now clearly marked, multiple, vegetarian and vegan(!) options. For breakfast there were eggs, bacon, sausage, veggie bacon, vegan sausage, 3 make your own omelet stations, a waffle station, gravy, vegan gravy, biscuits, vegan biscuits, grits, oatmeal, and lots of fruit, toast, bagels, and other breakfast breads.

blueberry waffle - note the new tablecloths

At lunch & dinner, I am told there is always an express meal bar with burgers (including veggie burgers)/other fast food sort of stuff, a build your own sandwich/panini bar as well as the regular lunch fare which includes meat, vegetarian, and vegan items. You can see weekly menus here. Oh and they have a frozen yogurt machine, which unfortunately couldn't be transported to Mills/Cabe for the reception, but was fabulous to see, nevertheless. I admit that I don't think I ever made it to breakfast while I was at Hendrix, so I can't really compare, but the vegan gravy rocked.

The rest of our visit included visiting with Jess and Sam and Eli at the Oyster Bar in Little Rock (I'm happy to say that the Oyster Bar is still as glorious as it always was - as was our company). We did a fast tour of the Clinton Museum, which I found interesting from a museum design perspective, the content probably would have been more interesting to me on another day, but I lived through all of that, and wasn't really in the mood to do it all over again. The museum is high on detail, which I liked, and found at times overwhelming and at other times, charming - I especially enjoyed the menus from several state dinners and the binders with all of Bill's daily schedules throughout his presidency. But unless you are a HUGE fan of Bill, I really cannot recommend paying the additional 3$ for the audio tour, which is just him talking on and on.

in front of the Clinton Library

On the way back to Conway we dodged the numerous mini-tornadoes spilling out from Ike to the southeast and northwest of us and fortunately made it back a Hendrix that still had power. After dinner with Bob, Sarah and Zelda and a nice visit and cookie making/eating, Jason and I returned to our apartment around 10:00, just in time for Hendrix to begin their evening festivities - Ike or no Ike. Despite our close proximity to the campus center dance and the high winds and rain, Jason and I slept through the night easily - I think it was the best sleep I've had since I was pregnant with Nora. While the campus looked a little wind blown the next morning (more fabulous vegan gravy for breakfast) and there were many downed limbs there didn't appear to be too much damage. Miraculously, the rain and winds went directly north and not north-east so we had a clear drive home on Sunday. It was a fun trip, but I was so ready to see Nora who was , of course, just fine without us all weekend and barely said hello when we came and got her.

Here we are in our matching Hendrix Media Center tees. Thanks Bob!

And We're Off!

2008-09-11T09:14:00.003-06:00

So the press blitz has begun. Jason had an interview yesterday with the Conway Log Cabin Democrat and this morning he made the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about the reading of his play, Yum, Yum, Yogurt, Ulysses! tomorrow night at Hendrix. Fortunately, the Demozette used the press release from Hendrix which was A. more coherent than his interview and B. included the mention of Jason and Todd's essay in Star Trek and Philosophy, which made the paper too! Both articles quote Bob as well, since he's directing. Hooray for the Hendrix publicity department! Jason is a little distressed with the Log Cabin interview, it sort of rambled all over and the reporter mentioned that Nietzsche was a great influence (he's not) and his offhand remark about absurd sexual fantasies of one of the characters got in, making the play sound a little more scandalous than it is. Nevertheless, don't bring your kids - Kevin Smith definitely was an influence.

We leave tomorrow for Conway and we're looking forward to seeing Bob, Sarah and Zelda as well as anyone else who might be at Hendrix these days. The reading will begin at 7:30 pm tomorrow night if anyone else wants to come see it. Jason's already gotten word that a couple of high school friends plan on attending. I admit I'm starting to get excited about the trip, but I'm a little worried to about leaving Nora so long. I know she'll have a great time with my parents, but this is the first time we are leaving her and I'm a little nervous about how she'll do.

Exercise

2008-09-09T12:08:00.002-06:00

Nora has been channeling the 80's lately with her head bands. Here she is working on her cardio with the jump rope.

She's also been hooking the jump rope over the chair to create her very own Nordic Track type machine (well the arm part at least). I'm glad that she isn't following the poor example her father and I set when it comes to exercise.