I’m really not a crafty person, but I remember enjoying doing stuff like latch-hook and leather-tooling when I was in school. I’ve never done cross-stitch, though, and have never–until now–felt the desire to give it a whirl. But…! This may be motivatory. The pattern is only $12 (including shipping). I even have an embroidery hoop, I think (thank you, Catherine, wherever you may be).
Category: Uncategorized
Moved
We’ve moved to http://cat-sidh.net/blog
Malaprop o’ the Day
While discussing weekend plans in e-mail, a friend–bless her heart–wrote that she was going to see Brokedown Mountain tonight. For, I think, obvious reasons, I find her endlessly entertaining.
Instant Review: Pomegranate Juice
I mentioned that this was food co-op delivery day, right? I forgot that I’d ordered pomegranate juice. Oh my! It’s just about the yummiest thing I’ve ever tasted. It’s not sweetened, so it’s tart, like really, really good lemonade. Mmmm.
I haven’t had pomegranates in years. Every once in awhile I see them at the grocery store and am tempted, but they’re so much work to eat, that I decide against it. I remember, though, when I was five years old, eating a pomegranate while playing outside. My memory is that it was cold out. We lived in a little bungalow a few blocks from Lake Michigan. There were concrete lions flanking the front steps and concrete statues in the yard, which was entirely enclosed by hedges. It was a wonderful, private place to play make believe games. That day I wandered around outside, by myself, eating my pomegranate and making up stories in my head about the secret lives of the statues.
Pomegranates remind me of that day.
Flambé is NOT the Answer!
Squick Alert!
I watched Cabin Fever last night. Which was probably not a good idea. Not that the movie isn’t good. It is! It’s Friday the 13th meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with David Lynch-style surreality and Troma-style absurdity. It’s funny, smart, and creepy as hell. It’s one of the very best horror movies I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of horror movies.
Anyway, I suspect that’s what lead to a night of strange dreams.
I had some weird-assed dreams last night. In one of them, I was hanging out with a group of friends near the loading dock of one of the buildings on campus. There was another group of students across the parking lot from us, with two Husky puppies, which were playing. One of my friends dropped a piece of sausage from his sandwich. I could tell that the puppy saw the food fall, but he was too interested in playing to come get it just yet. Eventually, he trotted across the parking lot to get the sausage, but a guy suddenly appeared from behind a delivery truck, reaching out and grabbing the dog. He swung the dog around in circles on the end of a leash. Where the leash (or the guy!) came from, I haven’t a clue. C’est la logic of dreams. When the dog hit maximum velocity, the guy let go of the leash, catapulting the dog out of scene. My friends and I were both seriously creeped out and royally pissed off. Realizing that the guy was a dangerous psychopath, we decided to leave. On the way, one of my friends doused the guy with lighter fluid (again, where on earth did it come from?) and set him on fire. My response was, “Dude, flambĂ© is NOT the answer!”
And then, of course, I woke up.
Space Food Sticks
I periodically wrack my brain, trying to remember a particular candy treat from my childhood. They were little chocolate-y sticks, wrapped in a foil tube. Aside from that, all I could remember is that they were vaguely connected with space or astronauts. I was starting to think I’d hallucinated them, because everyone I described them to gave me a look like I must be smoking crack. Maybe I was. But noooooo! I finally tracked them down: Space Food Sticks.
I believe my day’s work is done.
Cookie, Cookie, Cookie Starts with C
I stopped off at the grocery store on my way home yesterday to pick up lemons and brussels sprouts.
Brussels sprouts are one of the most perfect foods in the world. I like to halve or quarter them, depending on size, and sautee them in butter and olive oil. When they’re nearly done, I remove them from the pan, add a touch more oil, if needed, and toss in some black mustard seeds. After the seeds have popped, I return the sprouts to the pan and coat them in the seeds, then remove the pan from the heat. Splash a little lemon juice onto the sprouts and season with Kosher salt (and pepper, if that’s your kink), and enjoy. Mmmm.
So, anyway, the grocery store I went to, Marsh, keeps the brussels sprouts right across from the baked goods. All the while I was selecting my sprouts, there was a box of Lofthouse cookies–chocolate!–calling to me. I could barely hear the sweet song of the brussels sprouts above the din of the cookies, so I eventually succumbed. Resistance was futile.
The grown-up in me says that cookies and brussels sprouts do not a supper make, but the five-year old in me disagrees. Some days, the five-year old gets to make those sorts of decisions.
Lost and Found
I love kids’ books–especially old ones–and pick up lots of them at yard sales and thrift stores. Sometimes, there are interesting bits of ephemera tucked into the books. This was the case with a copy of Jane Abbott’s The Barberry Gate that I got from the public library’s book sale. The book itself wasn’t anything terribly special–a romantic young adult mystery from the 1920s, in a library binding–but inside it I found a 4H name tag from 1940. What was written on the back was interesting. I assume, this being 1940 and it being 4H camp, that La Vaughn is a girl, and the reference is simply to she and Anita being cabin- or bunk-mates.
Recto: “Hello! I am Anita Strasburger. Who are you?”
Verso: “1940 club camp at Battle Ground South Bend cottage La Vaughn & I sleep to gether”
Public Service Announcement
I recommend not visiting this website while you are eating and/or drinking. Not because it’s squicky, but because it presents a serious choking hazard. I don’t think I’ll ever get that piece of toasty bread crust out of my lungs.
Are We There Yet?
Is it really Friday? Finally? This has been a spectacularly long and worrisome week, and I’m glad it’s pretty much wrapped up.
Saturday, I woke up to find that Rory had another blockage. One of the vets from the 24-hour emergency clinic has a practice about 30 minutes south of me, so I took him there. The plan was that the vet would clear the blockage, then take Rory home with him that night and take him to work at the emergency clinic with him the next day. He cleared the blockage and catheterized him, but he became blocked again. That blockage was cleared, and I was supposed to pick him up Thursday, but he became blocked yet again. Apparently, the crystals in his bladder are so compacted that they’re like concrete. There is also quite a bit of scar tissue in his bladder and urethra. Poor cat. That has to be hellishly painful.
Luckily, one of the vets who works at the emergency clinic also has a cat clinic–in Spencer! She’s got ultrasound equipment at her clinic and will, hopefully, be able to break up the mass of crystals so that they can be passed. Assuming that goes well, he’ll come home on Saturday or Monday to recover. Later, he’ll need to have his urethra widened, so that if more crystals form, they will be able to be passed.
I have no idea what a week’s stay at an emergency clinic is going to cost. I don’t want to know how much it’s going to cost. The mere thought makes me want to throw up.
So, since I’m in denial, I thought I’d engage in some retail therapy. Not a lot of retail therapy, mind you, but a little bit.
When I was in 4th grade, our class read a dramatic adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary. It was a bizarre experience, because the story covered only her time in hiding. There was very little explanation for why she was in hiding, or for what happened to her after her family was found. I expect that the powers that be decided that such details were beyond the comprehension of young children (heck, they’re beyond the comprehension of most adults) or that they might give kids nightmares (again, who wouldn’t get nightmares?). The thing that sticks out in my mind is that we were told that concentration camp victims were treated like dogs, and that Anne died a month before her camp was liberated. I remember visualizing people being kept in dog kennels and being fed dog food, and, while that would’ve sucked mightily, I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why people had died from it. Let that be a lesson to those who deal with children to be careful what you tell them.
I read the Scholastic edition of Anne’s diary when I was in 6th grade. By that time, I better understood what had happened during the Holocaust and what it meant to be an inmate in one of the Nazi death camps. I also began to understand why I found Anne’s story so interesting. Obviously, it gave me a window on the Holocaust. The horrors that happened are like stars in the sky–too numerous to comprehend when taken all together. But, looking at those events through the lens of one person’s experience provides a framework to hang everything on. More importantly for me, though, I think my fascination with Anne’s story lay in the realization that one person’s voice can be important; that a single voice can resonate so clearly across time and space
The Nazis could kill millions of people, but they couldn’t stifle the voice of one small girl. That is power.
So, anyway, when I was in high school, my family moved across state. I lost almost all of my childhood books, including my well worn copy of Anne Frank’s diary. I haven’t read it since then, and I thought it was about time to visit my old friend.
red paper boat 