Chez Brandi

Family, summer - and cake!

2009-07-22T10:15:00.004-05:00

We celebrated Jake's 16th birthday yesterday. It seems not that long ago that Gabi and I were in Togo, getting ready to head back to the states, and Gabi got word from her brother that he and Jen were new, proud parents of a wonderful baby boy.

Now this baby boy is much taller than I am and plotting the means to buy a car with $635 and no plans of how to pay the insurance. So very sixteen.

So the whole family came together yesterday, and it was a wonderful thing. At one point I was in the house and looked out at the scene: Gabi playing lawn games with the kids, Jen, Nick, and both grandmothers sitting at the garden table laden with chips and cherries, talking like old friends. I've been thinking too much about my family of birth lately, and that moment crystalized for me just how good and precious the heart-family can be.

As dusk and mosquito-time neared, we headed indoors for cake. Ah, cake. I made, per Jake's request, German Chocolate Cake. It was named, in case you don't know, not because it has any Germanic heritage but due to the name of it's creator: an Englishman named Samuel German. In 1852, Mr. German created the cake as a showpiece for Baker's Chocolate (for more on the story, go here).

But Jake has recently returned from a five-week trip to Germany and Switzerland, and so it seemed only fitting to make this particular cake.

Yesterday was the first time I'd made German Chocolate, and it turned out lovely. I've seen (and tasted) homemade versions where the frosting was made with evaporate or sweetened condensed milk (I think that's the version on the Baker's Sweet Chocolate package). I was never too impressed. Leave it to Bon Appetit to come up with a version that lifts the bar. The frosting has a true caramel flavor that melds beautifully with the coconut and nuts (the original BA recipe called for macadamia nuts, but I used the more traditional pecans).

So, here's to heart-family, summer days and, of course, good cake. Nothing better than a real good cake to celebrate the blessings of a real good day.

*****

German Chocolate Cake

CAKE

½ cup water

1 4-ounce package sweet baking chocolate, chopped

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

2 cups sugar

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

4 large eggs, separated

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

pinch cream of tartar

FROSTING

1 ½ cups (packed) golden brown sugar

1 cup whipping cream

¼ cup whole milk

4 large egg yolks, beaten to blend

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups sweetened flaked coconut, lightly toasted

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans or macadamia nuts, lightly toasted

FOR CAKE:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 3 9-inch-diameter cake pans with 1 ½-inch sides. Line bottoms with parchment paper. Butter parchment. Bring ½ cup water to simmer in heavy small saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chocolate and stir until melted and smooth.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat sugar and butter un large bowl until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add chocolate mixture and vanilla; mix until blended. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture and beating well after each addition. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites and cream of tartar in large bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into batter in two additions.

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Cool cakes in pans on racks 15 minutes. Turn cakes out onto racks. Remove parchment; cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and store at room temperature.)

FOR FROSTING

Combine first 5 ingredients in heavy medium saucepan and whisk until blended. Stir constantly over medium heat until mixture thickens to consistency of caramel sauce and coats spoon, about 10 minutes (do not boil). Remove from heat. Stir in coconut and pecans/macadamia nuts. Let frosting stand at room temperature until cool and spreadable, about 1 ½ hours. (Can be prepared 4 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.)

Sarah Haskins: Laundry

2009-06-16T14:39:00.001-05:00

Yak Rack & a Pomatini

2009-06-06T20:44:00.006-05:00

We spent part of the day today making a (ka)yak rack for the truck, the idea being that when we go on longer trips, we can take the kayaks, bikes, coolers, and luggage all in the truck. For short kayaking excursions, we can still just throw the kayaks in the back of the truck and strap down. But this will be great for Madeline Island next month, Duluth in September, etc. Gabi's brother, Nick, helped us build the yak rack. It ended up costing under a hundred dollars for hardware and new tie-downs ~ we had enough 2x6's and 2x4's in the garage from previous projects that we didn't have to buy any lumber.

Also, when not in the truck the yak rack stays in the back of the garage as kayak storage. We've been hanging the boats from rafter hooks, and while that's fine for short term it can warp them if done too long. They'll stay much happier this way.

After finishing the rack and doing a dry run with the tie-downs we made dinner for the family: grilled fajitas. Basically, I grilled the onions, peppers, chicken and flank steak on my fabulous new grill and then we brought it all indoors (it's been raining most of the day! yeah!) and gobbled it up.

After Nick and the kids left, we hung out a little while with Nancy and Gabi's mom, and I made pomatinis (recipe follows). Seriously yummy. My new cocktail of choice. Try one! They're especially good on a warm summer day ~ which today was not. Did I mention that today, June 6, we had to bundle up in jeans and sweatshirts, and we even turned the heat back on!! Unbelievable! But at least it's raining.

***

Brandi's Pomatini (Pomegranate Martini)

3 ounces pomegranite juice
1 1/2 ounces Grey Goose or other "top shelf" vodka*
3/4 ounces simple syrup**
juice from 1/2 lime
6 ice cubes

Mix all ingredients in cocktail shaker. Shake well and pour into desired glass.

*We've had these with both cheaper vodka and Grey Goose, and there is a very definite difference. Cheaper vodka has a slightly bitter aftertaste that clashes with the fruitiness of the juice.
** Simple syrup: mix equal parts water and sugar (I like organic or turbinado best). Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Boil gently for two minutes and cool.

Ah, the smell of iris in the morning

2009-06-02T07:48:00.003-05:00

It was, according to MPR, the third-driest May in recorded history for our area. That means that some areas of the garden are looking a little stunted: the hydrangea are small, astilbe are struggling, and even some of the weeds look a little anemic. The south lawn is already browning.

However, the iris seem to love the dry, mostly cool weather. We've got varieties blooming this year that we haven't seen in years. Vanity has buds! So does Black Tie Affair. This is even more surprising when you consider that the spring got away from me this year and I never fed/fertilized the yard.

So, first pics of this year's lovely iris display:

Empty Nest Syndrome

2009-06-01T17:58:00.008-05:00

We're smiling like happy mommas... the robins have fledged!

About a month ago a robin started nesting on the gutter just next to our porch. Since then, we've watched with baited breath as she weathered windstorms, Rosie's insistent curiosity (and our own) and finally hatched three little robins. Then the parents spent hours bringing them earthworms (we are so proud of our lush, organic yard with so much food for robins!!), until finally we knew the nest could not take too much more.

Today I came home from work to find the nest empty. I went outside and found one intrepid baby surveying the yard from the top of a garden light. I took a quick pic with my phone then ran in for the camera. When I came back out he'd moved to the keyhole garden, and then onto an iris. Love that picture!

Looking back at our Robin-journey:

May 8th: It seemed like such a crazy place to park a nest.

May 29: Momma does not like us sneaking peeks.

May 31st: They've officially outgrown the nest.

Summing it up ~ MToaS Evaluation

2009-05-20T19:23:00.007-05:00

I'm doing the happy dance now. I know that the deadline for finishing More Things on a Stick was extended into June, but I really wanted to finish by today. And so I did. Yeah me. Now I can go back and play more with some of the things I learned, not to mention returning to a more personal tone with the blog. I'm happy about that, too.

(Just in time for my birthday on Saturday! Forty!! I've been making ice cream. I decided, it's my birthday and if I want homemade ice cream and brownies, then that's what I'll have.)

So, as for More Things on a Stick:

Again, I find myself wanting to stand on a mountaintop and shout out to fellow library staff: DO IT. I think there is just so much in current web technologies that could be useful to us and our patrons. Again, I am frustrated by the inertia that seems to happen when trying to keep up with something that, by its very nature, changes so much and so often that it cannot really be kept up with. It takes a lot of effort and time to not just learn about these technologies and programs, but also to use them enough to reach enough of a comfort level to use them in the public eye where any typos, mis-uses, and misunderstandings will be out there for everyone from our neighbors to our supervisors to our mothers to see. Eek.

So, I keep hoping that we will reach the tipping point with some of these ideas. At GRRL a few things have really caught on. Ironically, one of the Web 2.0 tools that has crossed the barrier from geek- to general-use is not one that I've seen covered in either 23 Things or More Things. It's SurveyMonkey. In a word, fabulously useful.

Again, I really like the way that the Things program is set up. I like that its designers don't (seem to) have any strict assumptions about what kinds of web tools will be useful for people working in a library setting. So we get to manipulate photos, try our hand at Twitter, learn about on-line money management tools. All of these things will be useful to some participants and useless to others. I like that Things staff throw it all out there and trust participants to decide.

That said, I do think that there was too much emphasis put on Twitter, and I would like to have seen something exploring strengths and weaknesses of alternative search engines, especially Wolfram Alpha. [Okay, that was a joke. Look here or here.]

So, good job. I hope we can do this again next year!

Web Junction (MToaS 46)

2009-05-20T12:59:00.002-05:00

I admit, I tend to forget about Web Junction. I signed up for it even before the first 23 Things on a Stick, so I've been a member for a while. But I've actually used it very little. However, when prompted to go back I do find interesting things ~ mostly in the area of courses. I've taken a couple of Web Junction courses online and found them to be pretty good. The webinar on Social Software and the Rural Library looks like an interesting one.

I think, for me, part of the problem with these kinds of discussion boards is simply finding the time to use them. Perhaps it's a matter of making it be part of my day or week ~ create time to do it until it becomes a habit. But so far this has been a hurdle that I haven't quite managed to jump over. Intellectually, I love the idea of having a resource for Minnesota librarians to use to communicate about topics relevant to our work, help us keep abreast of changes in technology, legalities, etc., bring up new ideas about ways to reach and reach out to our communities. I want there to be something exactly like WebJunction. And there is. So why is it so difficult to fit it into my working life?

In a moment of overload I found this ShelfCheck toon by the inimitable Poesygalore. It sort of sums it up.

by poesygalore | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

Head in the Clouds (MToaS 45)

2009-05-20T12:32:00.004-05:00

After reading some of the recommended readings on cloud computing I did some more research into this brave new world of data collection. It's a fascinating thing.

Yes, I do many things "in the cloud." Google docs, wikis, online banking, etc. etc. It's useful and, generally speaking, for anything you could want to do (ie. write a letter or report) there is someone out there who has figured out an easy way to let you do it, often for free. The hardest part sometimes is simply sifting through all the different kinds of applications, widgets, etc. to figure out which one you want to use.

Oh, and remembering your passwords and usernames.

I also think it's interesting to see how online storage is becoming the new way to think about protecting your valuable information. Create an online library of all your books, DVDs and CDs, upload all your photos, scan and make PDF's of all your important documents and store them in the cloud, and if your house burns down or gets busted up by a tornado then at least you can recover these things. Strange how making something virtual somehow makes it more secure against loss.

Of course, security concerns still linger. What if someone hacks into your data? What if the company you're using suddenly vanishes from the Internet-o-sphere? What if a glitch "out there" affects my ability to create something right here?

In the spirit of the thing, I found a listing by GoGrid CEO John Keagy about the future of cloud computing. GoGrid is one of many companies that are set up not so much for individuals but for companies, with the idea being that the organization uses GoGrid for information storage instead of worrying about servers and on-site storage (what happens, I wonder, to IT departments then? Do they get smaller or larger with cloud storage?). Regardless, without further ado, ten predictions for cloud computing in 2009:

1. Asking “is the Enterprise ready for the Cloud” will be analogized to “the Internet is a fad”
2. There will be some Cloud security breaches that will become super high profile
3. Questioning the security of the Cloud will become less vogue
4. The demand on companies to develop Cloud strategies will be likened to Y2K certification
5. Cloud strategies will be proven to be more important than Y2K certification
6. SAN storage will not emerge as being relevant to Cloud Computing
7. NoHardware.com will illuminate the spirit of the Cloud movement
8. RackSpace stock will claw back to $10.00
9. Al Gore will announce he invented Cloud Computing
10. Cloud Computing will (fill in the blank, for example, ...be the silver bullet to slow or stop the recession? ...enable companies to maintain profitability? ...bring government into the 21st century?)

I think it's interesting, cool, and could be a real boon to libraries, both in terms of productivity with wikis, GoogleDocs, etc., and in the archival sense of scanning and saving books, art, oral histories, etc.

Brave new world and a little CYA for the old one. Could be an all-around good thing.

***

Pic credits: Image: 'Sunny Side Up' www.flickr.com/photos/74122471@N00/233472093

Cloud Computing

2009-05-19T15:00:00.003-05:00

by chezbrandi | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

Money Tools (MToaS 44)

2009-05-15T09:22:00.005-05:00

This Thing could not have come at a better time. As of yesterday, I am no longer the treasurer for St. Cloud OUT, a small community group that, among other things, puts on a GLBTA Film Festival every year. As I was thinking about how best to hand over the checkbook after four years as treasurer, I was stumped. I had the checkbook information on Quicken, but what if the next treasurer doesn't have access to the program? How best to handle the transfer of checkbook and responsibilities?

When I came on board as treasurer four years ago, the books were a mess. Yes, all the records had been kept, but messily so. It took me a couple of months to figure out what was what, and even then there were a couple of things that I looked at, pondered, and finally gave up on. What I want, as someone who's put years into a small, sometimes fragile, very worthwhile community organization, is a way to make leadership transitions smooth and provide the checks and balances to make sure that the funds are being handled properly.

Mint.com and ClearCheckbook both look like reasonable ways to answer this question. My concern with Mint.com is that our bank is not included in their on-line service (ReadWriteWeb complains that only large banks are included, and why is that when this could be such a boon to smaller banks?). I couldn't find a way to manually upload information, but perhaps I'll look again. What I like about Mint.com, if the bank is included, is that (from the sounds of it) transaction information is automatically uploaded and e-mailed out to one or two accounts. No one needs to find the time to manually do the job - and we all know how hard it is go get to those "little" jobs, especially when it's a volunteer duty and not our real work.

This sounds like such a good idea for community groups and non-profits. In my experience, few of us have treasurers with professional accounting experience. Greater transparency and checks and balances (ie. the account transaction e-mails go to both Treasurer and Chair) would only help the fiscal health of the organization.

Makes me want to stand on a mountaintop and shout it out to all FOL groups. Makes me want to change banks so that we can use Mint.com.

ClearCheckbook also looks like a useful option. You don't have to rely on the bank being part of their system, you can manually upload information (although, when I tried uploading my Quicken file it turned all the dates since Feb. 2002 to Jan. 1, 1970. That was aggravating!). Again, lots of options. I have a meeting scheduled Monday to sit down with the new Treasurer and Chair, and I plan to show them both Mint and ClearCheckbook and recommend that we go with one or the other.

As to the other links on this Thing: some more useful than others, of course. It was nice to find out that I was correct about which gas stations had the lowest prices in our area. I loved MadCity Chickens (love those Madison folks!). Made me wistful. I grew up on a small hobby farm with lots of chickens, goats, horses, etc. I love the big brown hens, and have often thought it would be fun to have a few (even if I can't eat the eggs). They're just such pleasant and silly creatures (the hens, roosters are awful!). I must admit tho, the Eglu pic above made me laugh out loud! Smart, inventive, but all I could think when I saw it was, "Yeah, that'd be the home of yuppy chickens!!"

***

Speaking of the economy and chickens... I couldn't stop myself from looking at the price of the Eglu that's pictured at the top. $995. Holds "up to" 10 chickens. Oh my, oh my. That is not the hobby farm I grew up on!!

Online TV and Video

2009-05-14T15:22:00.004-05:00

I adore Hulu, and have been using it since I discovered it during 23 Things on a Stick. I admit that I most appreciate it when I'm sick ~ I curl up in bed with my itty-bitty laptop snuggled under the covers with me and watch sci-fi channel re-runs. It's great. I also know some people who have cut costs by dropping their cable and now catch all their TV online. It makes sense.

In fact, I watch a lot of TV online. If I miss an episode of one of my favorite programs ~ because of a TiVo glitch or because I didn't discover it in time to add to TiVo ~ I go online to find the episode.

It's been interesting to see how TV networks are adjusting to this trend. They make money by selling the full season DVD's, so I'm seeing more and more shows where the episodes are only available on Hulu for a limited time. After that, you need to catch it on re-runs ... or hope that your local library forks over the money for the DVD.

I haven't taken part in the video sharing opportunities, although that might be more interesting to me if I had a Facebook or similar account. I don't. I can't bring myself to want to, even if I can see how it would be interesting to hook into groups with similar interests to make new discoveries. In spite of this, I don't feel left out. I have friends who don't watch TV at all, yet they're bright, articulate, interesting and informed. Imagine it.

Another thing of note: a recent Time magazine article about The Mentalist described it as so old fashioned (it has definite nods to Columbo) that you couldn't even watch episodes online. The only way to see Jane catch the bad guys is to watch it on television. However, CBS execs aren't completely ignoring the Internet-TV phenomenon ~ you can watch teasers/trailers online!

Music and More (MToaS 42)

2009-05-13T15:05:00.000-05:00

I love the opportunities for discovering music online. I've been a huge fan of Pandora for a while, and am getting to know Last.fm thanks to the MToaS prompting. There are some things I really like about both programs.

Pandora is great about bringing forward artists who have not found wide release, and I find the program easier and more intuitive than last.fm. However, Pandora playlists have a tendency to "bleed" into each other. I have very eclectic music tastes, but that doesn't mean I like to listen to everything all together. I like Counting Crows and Katie Melua equally, but I don't want them playing one after the other.

A couple of days' sampling suggests that last.fm does a better job of keeping distinct voices separate.

By the same token, Pandora seems to recommend based on the sound of a piece much more than the genre that the artist is identified with. Last.fm seems to group more by genre. I guess it depends on which way of grouping a listener prefers.

What I love about both is the ability to discover new artists, voices, sounds. I've discovered lots of great songs through Pandora. I expect I will with last.fm.

I do really like that last.fm gives me information like artist bio, tour dates, etc., and that I can play an artist's song on demand.

As for Internet radio, I love it, and have enjoyed it for a while. I really like WFUV out of New York and Live Ireland out of Dublin. Both have great songlists. My favorite source for finding new Internet radio stations is actually the easiest: iTunes. It's all built right into the iMac system and couldn't be easier (same is true for subscribing to podcasts, another thing I love about iTunes).

Mashup your life (MToaS 41)

2009-05-12T14:48:00.003-05:00

I've been trying out lifestream.fm for a few days now. I can see where it would be useful to folks who are linked in to social networks like Twitter, Facebook, etc, as well as using Delicious on a regular basis. For me, I ended up with a listing of the music I listened to on Last.fm and my Blogger posts.

What was interesting was scrolling over the over 60 program icons linked up to Lifestream. Even worse, I recognized less than a quarter of them. Now, just when I'm starting to feel exhausted and ready to be done with MToaS, I'm introduced to a new system that leads me to ask, "What the heck is Mister Wong?"

I do, however, see more usability for Lifestream for those who are plugged into the social aspects of the web ~ and me, I keep looking for the productivity. I doubt that I'll continue with Lifestream after I finish with MToaS.

What I will do is go figure out what Mister Wong is. And Plazes. And Qik. And...

Knock out Gnocchi

2009-05-10T10:33:00.005-05:00

Jane and Nancy came over for dinner last night and I made this fabulous gnocchi dish that I found in EatingWell Magazine. I couldn't find my actual magazine, but fortunately I did find the recipe on-line. I made a couple of adjustments (added sun-dried tomatoes, used unseasoned tomatoes and added my own basil and oregano seasoning). It's great. I was told that it should be in next year's cookbook ~ in the meantime, I'll put it here.

This is such a great recipe: it is very easy to cook (even after a couple of glasses of wine), goes down like true comfort food, and after the prep work is done it comes together very quickly. I prepped everything ahead of time and then, after appetizers were finished, cooked the dish while Jane, Nancy and Gabi hung out with me in the kitchen, laughing, drinking wine and telling stories. It was a lovely evening.

A few small points to make about the recipe (especially after reading the comments left on the site): First, be sure to use shelf-stable gnocchi, not dried or frozen. Shelf-stable means that it comes in a plastic vacuum pack and isn't dried. This is important.

Secondly, the original recipe suggests that you could use spinach in place of the chard. I haven't tried it, but my instinct would recommend against it. Spinach is too mild and breaks down too much when cooked, and you need something with enough flavor and substance to stand up to the rest of the ingredients, in both flavor and texture.

Which brings me to the cheese: if you can, I'd highly recommend using good Parmesan that you grate yourself. I've made it with pre-grated cheese ~ and "better quality" cheese in the refrigerated section at that ~ but the flavor loss shows. A few of the reviews on the web site criticized the recipe for having a bland flavor. Boxed and/or pre-shredded Parmesan cheese, spinach, or frozen/dried gnocchi that has to be parboiled before skillet frying will all contribute blandness instead of flavor.

Skillet Gnocchi with Chard & White Beans

From EatingWell Magazine, Jan/Feb 2009

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon oil from oil-packed sun dried tomatoes

1 16-ounce package shelf-stable gnocchi

1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

4-5 sliced oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, diced

1/2 cup water

6 cups cleaned, chopped chard leaves (about 1 small bunch)

1 15-ounce can petite-diced tomatoes, juice included

1 15-ounce can white beans, rinsed

2 teaspoons dried basil

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

pinch red pepper flakes (optional)

1/2 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add gnocchi and cook, stirring often, until plumped and starting to brown, 5-7 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Add the remaining 1 teaspoon oil and the onion to the pan and cook, stirring, over medium heat, for 2 minutes. Stir in the garlic, sun dried tomatoes, and water. Cover and cook until the onion is soft, 4 to 6 minutes. Add chard and cook, stirring, until starting to wilt, 1-2 minutes. Stir in tomatoes, beans, basil, oregano and pepper, and bring to a simmer. Stir in the gnocchi and sprinkle with cheeses. Cover and cook until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbling, about 3 minutes.

***

Pic credits: I did not take the above pic (although my dish did turn out just this pretty. The pic is from the EatingWell web site.

Mashup the Web (MToaS 40)

2009-05-09T07:02:00.001-05:00

Okay, not sure I'll ever use this again, but Polyvore was interesting. Sort of like putting together a wishlist, except more immediately gratifying.

I looked at Pandora.FM, signed up and all, but it didn't have some of my favorite artists (Over the Rhine and Wailin' Jennys were no-shows, but it did have Hem). Also investigated Lunchbox and Wheel of Food, the latter especially is just silly fun. It seems that Lunchbox only adds restaurants with reviews, so their selection (at least for St. Cloud) was limited. Still interesting. Definitely makes me think that if I owned a restaurant (or other small business) I'd be looking for these kinds of mashups as alternative advertising opportunities. Is there a mashup for "cheap family entertainment" to which libraries could be added? I tried to find one, but didn't (admittedly, I'm running on caffeine right now... and sputtering a little, too.)

I tried Visual Headlines, but it took forever to load and I got bored...

Another odd one: Let Me Google That For You. Not sure what the purpose of that is, but, again, interesting. Crime Reports was frustrating because there are so few cities included.

So, in the end, I spent a little time playing with Polyvore. It was super easy and fun. I can so easily imagine my niece and at least a couple of my nephews (the fifteen and thirteen year olds, especially) having way too much fun making visual wishlists with this one. I was happy to see how easy it was to customize Polyvore and add my own objects of interest... their overly fashionista selection wasn't grabbing my interest.

I've just thought of another idea for Polyvore: lately I've been periodically yearning for a dog. Perhaps to dissuade me from that I should make a collage of all the plunder I'd need to buy if we did get Mia (my lovely Gabi said, so innocently, "Let's just go to the Humane Society and take a look," and like a fool I said, "Okay."). It would be a reality check!

Really Good Cookies

2009-05-08T15:21:00.005-05:00

Tomorrow is the annual Bake & Book Sale for the Royalton Friends of the Library. Our friends are the best ~ few but feisty! ~ and provide funds every year for the prize books, craft supplies, and other things we need for the Summer Reading Program. Don't know what we'd do without them.

For the bake sale, I'm making the Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies from Martha Stewart's Cookies, (c) 2008. A mere test-drive with the library copy was not enough to satisfy me, so I purchased the book a couple of weeks ago. There are many recipes that look frankly amazing, but this is the only one I've tried so far. I made these cookies last week for a get-together at Jane's house. Had a few technical difficulties (the result of distraction on my part, not glitches in the recipe), but the cookies that cooked properly were really, really good. I'm thinking they'll be a great addition for the bake sale.

Giant Chocolate Sugar Cookies

From the cookbook description: "These oversize sweets don't need any mix-ins or frostings ~ their bold chocolate flavor says it all. In addition to butter, this recipe calls for melted vegetable shortening, which produces an unbeatable texture." I would add this: the cookies have a much more intense flavor after cooking than before. The dough is a little bland; the cookies brilliant.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup vegetable shortening (or 1/2 cup unsalted butter) melted and cooled

1 large egg

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375 degree F. Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in a bowl.

2. Put butter and sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Mix in melted shortening (or butter). Add egg and vanilla; mix until creamy. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add flour mixture, and mix until just combined.

3. Using a 2 1/2-inch ice cream scoop, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment paper, spacing about 4 inches apart. Bake until edges are firm, 18 to 20 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 2 days.

Digital Storytelling (MToaS 39)

2009-05-08T13:30:00.003-05:00

Another fun one. I can definitely see how this would be applicable to library work. I loved the history pages about Laura Wilson on escrapbooking. What a great way to make history come alive and feel accessible to kids! Hooray!

Just yesterday I was talking with my supervisor about how exciting the non-fiction publishing world is right now. More and more, non-fiction writers are jumping clear of the restraints of academia and bringing the layperson fun, intriguing, exasperating, amazing and generally fantastic stories about what has brought us ~ as people, communities, societies ~ to this crazy place we are today. I think these tools (MToaS 38, 39, etc) can be part of that trend. Very, very cool.

For many of us, I suspect that the biggest obstacle to embracing these tools in the workplace will be getting our respective organizations ~ schools, public and private libraries, etc. ~ on board. It's not as simple as getting a great idea about how we, as individuals with a techy-geeky bent (okay, maybe I'm just speaking for myself) could utilize Web 2.0 tools to advertise/celebrate programs and the work we're doing, it's also a matter of having our respective administrations jump on board and say "Yes! Go for it!" Even if they want to encourage us, there may be a whole gamut of obstacles that need to be overcome first, as well as issues of politics/funding/staffing/etc. that may take priority for their attention.

I ended up using Scrapblog [note: the link on MToaS page doesn't work]. It was ridiculously easy to figure out. I used a video that I made a while ago on my sweet iMac. It was already uploaded on YouTube, so a very simple matter to go grab it, add some funness and then easy-peasy posting onto Blogger. The way these tools are integrating makes it very easy to manipulate data of whatever format and spend the precious brain cells on creativity rather than figuring out the logistics of specific programs. Nice.

***

Oh, and lastly: I'm really enjoying Skitch. (My apologies to the Windows users out there.) I took a pic of a robin who's built a nest on the gutters just outside our porch window. She's gotten used to us gazing at her. Doesn't even do more than glare when Rosie starts chattering at her. (We do pull a curtain across the window to give her more privacy.) We can't wait to see the little robin-lings that will hopefully be coming.

Scrapblog sample

2009-05-08T13:25:00.001-05:00

Screencasting (MToaS 38)

2009-05-06T08:15:00.004-05:00

Okay, I think I've found the MToaS equivalent to GoogleDocs. I love screencasting. Bit of a learning curve here: the screencast below doesn't look as good on YouTube as it did on ScreenCast, so I need to rethink the screen size. Other than that (and my messy narration) I'm pleased with it.

I've done three or four training Power Points for work as part of different GRRL teams. Screencasts could be a great addition to those.

Also, I really like Skitch. Too bad it's Mac only. It is so much easier to use than the Windows-based print-screen command. I spent hours doing screen shots for the power point I made for our Internet for Seniors training... Skitch would have cut that time considerably.

The obvious problem, however, is the Mac vs. PC thing.

Regardless, thanks MToaS folks. These are great tools!

New DVDs @ GRRL

2009-05-06T08:13:00.001-05:00

Playing with Pics (MToaS 37)

2009-05-05T14:33:00.009-05:00

First, true confession: I'm the one who brings a camera along to a birthday party, leaves it in the car, and then, when the party is over, as I'm heaving my tired self into the driver's seat (purse, keys, water bottle, over shirt and ball cap spilling out of my hands) spontaneously shouts out "dammit!" when I see the camera case on the floor by the back seat.

In other words, I don't have many pics that I would want to upload onto Flickr, on the off chance that someone might actually look.

My sister Sherri is a brilliant photographer. She's sent us pics of her sons (I have the cutest nephews known to aunti-kind), panoramas of the high plains where she lives, close-ups of flowers and bees... all gorgeous shots. She's really an artist. Me, not so much. I'm more pragmatic than gifted when it comes to photos.

That said, it was fun to mosey around these picture sites. My Animoto experiment is below (the nicest thing about it might have been the ease with which it uploaded into Blogger). I did make a photo collage using Collagr (and some garden pics I uploaded last year for 23 Things). But, you know, it just really wasn't that interesting.

I did use Tiltshift to make the top pic of my cat Rosie a tad more interesting. I also used roflbot to create the captions. (I tried to use CaptionBubble but it wouldn't work for me. I'm wondering if there is a Mac vs. PC issue?)

So, all cool stuff. But I can't help wondering about the limitations.

We had a staff meeting today and learned that there are very stringent copyright rules for the Summer Reading Program graphics, wording, etc. So can we use these tools with any of them? I'd guess no.

We also have new branch pages for the GRRL web site (great new site) but I'm not sure whether we'll be able to add pictures or java script to our pages.

My lovely Gabi is a teacher, and I share many of these tools with her. But she's discovered that she can't use many of them for teaching because she can't access them from school. The school district has set such stringent limits on types of websites that can be accessed from school computers ~ including teacher's computers ~ that many of these great tools are little more than fun/cool/pretty things to think about.

That said, I do see lots of opportunities here. Just got to muddle a little more about how to actually put them to use.

Animoto Experiment

2009-05-05T14:09:00.001-05:00

Generating Some Fun (MToaS 36)

2009-05-01T12:00:00.003-05:00

I love the poem by ee cummings, In Just Spring, and so I used the Wordle image generator to make a wordle of the poem. Very fun. These are silly things, but they are rewarding and entertaining too. For one thing, each of us who writes these blogs is hoping that someone else will read them. Adding wee bits of entertainment can help.

If we write blogs for our libraries, or have branch home pages (as GRRL will very soon!) these might be fun things to add as well. So while they are silly on the one hand, I think they can be useful as well.

I've also thought these would be great fun for publicizing and promoting programs. I love the idea of making READ posters with library staff, community members, etc. Also, the newspaper article generator was great fun, as was the dictionary entry generator. I can think of many ways that we could use these tools to make our programs, blogs, web pages, etc. much more entertaining, and therefore to generate more interest in what we're doing.

I tried making the comics. Made one on MakebeliefsComix that I liked well enough, but couldn't export it. Then I remade it on ToonDoo. First I used the regular embedding and couldn't figure out how to resize it to make it fit the screen. The second time, I embedded as Flash code and that worked better. So, fun, but more cumbersome than I would have expected. All the same, it is very gratifying for me to see my story made visual!

***

Update (an hour later): Made another comic; it went faster/better. Also, stumbled upon the comics by poesygalore do check her out! Her stuff is too funny!

2009-05-01T11:48:00.004-05:00

by chezbrandi | Create your own Cartoon at www.toondoo.com

Can I Catalog My Book Sites? (MToaS 35)

2009-04-29T11:22:00.000-05:00

Okay, first off, I love Library Thing. It's so cool, and I've discovered some great reads there by following the keyword links into other collections. It's one of my favorite Things from the first 23 Things session.

And now, I discover all these new ones! Just as cool. And, as always, it's just nice to realize that there are oodles of us who get so excited about books. About stories. Such things inspire me.

I love the idea of Reading Trails, but was disappointed to find none of my last four favorite books read. Not one. Not sure if this says more about Reading Trails (its number of users of just the type) or me! In contrast, Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan has 118 other readers on Library Thing. So, while I like the idea of Reading Trails, I think I'll stick with Library Thing for now. (BTW: Phenomenal book!)

It is great fun to discover new books by finding out what folks who loved the book you read have also read. That's what makes Library Thing so useful (aside from the cataloging function) and Reading Trails seems to do that same thing in a slightly different way. I finally did find a trail to follow, through Gaiman's Graveyard Book (loved that one, too). That led me to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which only had 6 intersections. That makes me wonder just how much the site is used.

I am most pleased with the Readers Advisory sites. RA is a challenge for me. I have had some great RA days, making parents and kids very happy with my knowledge of juvenile and YA fantasy ("What? You haven't tried The Last Apprentice series yet? What are you waiting for? Oh, you must, it is SO GOOD!!") I'm good at international fiction as well ("Finding Nouf, by Zoe Ferraris, is a stunning work with great insights into Saudi Arabian gender, class, and tribal distinctions. Brilliant!")

But when a patron tells me she's read all the books by Nora Roberts and wants to know where to look next, I have to rely on what I see my other patrons reading. I've checked out, checked in, shelved and relocated numerous books by Nora Roberts (as NR or as JD Robb), but I've yet to read a single word she's written. I appreciate any site that helps me find new authors for patrons to try.

I've been using What's Next for a few years. In fact, when an update to our staff website resulted in a broken link to What's Next, I must admit to sending a semi-hysterical e-mail to our IT staff. They fixed it quickly, as always. But this site is so good and useful for figuring out what book is next in a series. It's especially useful with authors like WEB Griffin who are simultaneously writing two or three series, so you can't rely on publication dates to figure out which books go with which series.

I will be bookmarking What Should I Read Next and BookStumpers. These look like really great and useful sites. BookStumpers was very fun to browse, if only for the queries by readers: they show such passion, nostalgia and general fondness for the written word. Really fun to get to share that.

Thanks MToaS team!

***

Pic Credits: "Graffiti Bridge" at www.flickr.com/photos/49503087439@N01/105087819

Can I Google a reference librarian? (MToaS34)

2009-04-28T12:43:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about this issue lately, and not just because of MToaS prompting. Is the function of reference librarians, or at least staff who sit at the reference desk, still relevant? My immediate answer is, "Of course!" But then I have to add, "Just maybe not in the same way we/they used to be."

I've been trying to keep track of the questions that I get asked that could be called "reference." Of course there is the annual inundation of third-graders looking for books on Beethoven. I don't know why the teacher doesn't say, "pick a famous person," or "pick a famous composer." Nope. The whole class does the same subject and my two juvenile biographies and the one circulating "B" encyclopedia get checked out right away, and every

one else needs to put something on hold. This happens every year.

And there are have been patrons who've asked for books about grieving, building bird houses, making good bread, buying a used car.

But none of these questions take more than a moment to answer. They don't cause me to flex my "reference muscles." (One question, at the SCPL reference desk did, and that was about US troop levels abroad) The questions that make me feel like I'm really stretching are all on technology. Specifically, Web 2.0 technology.

What is Twitter?

Is Twitter the same as instant messaging?

Is is safe to be "friends" (on a social networking site) with someone you don't know?

How do I get this picture of me from my cell phone onto Yahoo personals?

How do I know which web sites are secure?

I know I'm not the only one who gets questions like these. Yes, lots of our patrons can ~ and do! ~ bypass us and turn to the Internet for answers to their questions. But there are many left on the sidelines, watching this social and technological sea-change occur and feeling more and more stranded. Before we start bemoaning our presumed obsolescence we should take a moment to contemplate how these neighbors and patrons are feeling. And then get busy learning and teaching.

I was talking the other day with some other staff people about the difficulty of getting more people involved with 23 Things, or More Things. I know it takes time. I know life gets in the way of this online studying. I understand that for some people, the blogging aspect is hugely intimidating. In spite of all this, I think we need to keep urging our fellow library staff ~ at all levels ~ to learn about and grow more comfortable with web technologies.

In an age when many of our patrons can google their questions, and will turn to wikipedia for answers, we need to stay cognizant of the disparity in our communities between the web-proficient and the patrons who picture only a rodent when you say the word "mouse." Our jobs are no less relevant today than they were before Google. They've just changed a bit here and there, and we need to keep up.

***

Pic credits: "Twitter Logo Map 09", www.flickr.com/photos/82298325@N00/3346248321. and "Questions Answered" at www.flickr.com/photos/45082883@N00/223839049

Fishers and films

2009-04-28T09:47:00.009-05:00

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I've blogged. Life jumped up and smacked me, what can I say? There's been good, bad and the ugly, and the sublimely beautiful too. And, as always, I've drafted the blog entries in my head, then the days and weekends end and I'm too exhausted from the busy, distracting work of living to actually take the time to sit and write. It's too bad. There have been some really good drafts in my head.

The weekend of April 10 when we decided to go south in search of open water -- the lakes up here were still frozen over and the rivers running too wild to float. So we took the weekend off of work, we threw the kayaks in the back of the truck, and we headed to Red Wing. It was fabulous. We floated on the Vermillion Slough, the water so high that we parked a half a mile before the parking lot and then floated the rest of the way. The picture of Gabi above is in the parking lot -- and about three feet of water. While there we saw several Bald Eagles, one in a nest, as well as a fisher (aka North American marten) which was quite fun. We feel very fortunate for that, since they are supposed to be very shy animals.

I first saw the fisher in the water, trolling around some fallen logs that were swamped with high water. Then, he saw me and skedaddled, running for the nearest standing tree. He climbed up it very quickly, looking both awkward and elegant (and noisier than I would have expected) and then stopped about twenty-five feet up, in the vee of some branches. From there he peeked out watching us, and seemed to be as curious about us as we were about him.

Then, two weekends ago was the 8th Annual St. Cloud GLBTA Film Festival, and like every year before it was nail-biting mayhem at times and nerve wracking, sit and wait to see who shows up at others. The films were awesome. We had a great film-screening committee and they did a great job. Unfortunately, the turnout was much lower than we'd hoped.

This is the second year that our turnout has been down. This year was the lowest we've had. I can't help wondering if, in an era of Logo network, Brokeback Mountain, and Ellen with not only a highly rated talk show but also her full-page Covergirl spreads, that maybe GLBT film fests just aren't needed as much anymore. We're not starved for lack of mainstream images of ourselves. The popular culture and media landscape is so phenomenally different than it was even ten years ago. It's good, but I'm starting to wonder how and if our little film festival will survive.

***

Pic info: Gabi in the kayak taken by me. The fisher is from the wikipedia entry on fishers, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_(animal).

Catching the Travel Bug (MToaS 33)

2009-03-31T12:42:00.004-05:00

I love the options for Travel 2.0! The blogs are fun, and interesting. I love My Kugelhopf! I was thrilled to see that the writer, Kerrin Rousett, is writing from Zurich. And showcasing chocolate. Very yummy.

We're planning to go to Europe next summer. We'd love to go this year, but we're not sure that will happen, what with paying off our fantastic new energy efficient windows. We are saving a lot on heat this horrid winter, but not two plane-tickets-worth.

I've been a big fan of the travel site reviews for a while. We used a few different sites when planning our trip to Lake Tahoe last year, and it was so helpful. I can't now remember which site we used, but because of the online reviews posted by real guests we were able to find a great little cabin, clean but cheap, right on the lake and near where we wanted to be. I went back and wrote my own review after we got back from our trip, figuring I should give kudos where they were due.

My one problem with these sites is that I suspect that for every 500 to a thousand happy guests, perhaps one will write a review. That means that small towns typically don't have any reviews. Even small cities like St. Cloud will only have a few reviews. However, if a person is traveling to a new big city or tourist destination, these sites are brilliant!

Pic Info: Hey, I took this one! Lake Tahoe, from the Nevada side looking toward Sugar Pine Point State Park.

Vermeer Tour (Google Maps)

2009-03-19T15:14:00.001-05:00

View Larger Map

(I couldn't figure out how to keep the map at a wider view, so minimize greatly to see what I was actually doing with this.)

I blew way too much time playing with Google maps. This is serious fun, and I can imagine lots of possibilities... from making maps of library service areas and points of interest to planning vacations, to commemorating a favorite meandering weekend with your Sweetie. This was very fun.

I loved the ability to add pics, URLs and other things to the maps, although I didn't do as much of that as I could have. I'll go back and fine-tune this map later, because some day I really do want to take this trip. I find Vermeer's work to be so profound, sensual and compelling... I would love to meet these works in person.

More Twitter (MToaS31)

2009-03-18T12:59:00.002-05:00

Forgive me, MoreThings Folks. I know you are trying hard to get us up to speed with the latest and best web technologies, but, I just cannot get excited about Twitter. I'm not sending Tweets. I'm not following anyone. I just can't bring myself to do it, not even to be a good sport for your sakes.

I am, however, thoroughly bemused by Twitter as a social phenomenon. I found this article on Mashable.com that says that Twitter is not only growing at 1,382%, but Facebook is changing its format in order to stay competitive against Twitter's growing popularity.

So, it seems I will be drug, kicking and screaming, into the Twittersphere. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.

Gabi and I were talking about Twitter on Monday while we were not kayaking. She said that she could see Twitter being really useful if you lived in a city or on campus, and you wanted to go out for dinner, and so instead of e-mailing or calling all your friends you just send out a Tweet saying, "I'll be at Joe's Cafe at 6. Join me."

From a library perspective, I can see the potential in sending out Tweets about programs, author visits, interesting items in the collection, etc.

However, my library patrons are the one group who I have not heard talking about Twitter. I've heard co-workers, friends, news personalities... Jon Stewart does a fabulous mock-up, see below... but not the good folks who come to visit my particular library.

Right now, throughout GRRL, we are offering beginning Internet training for seniors. And when I say beginning, I mean "Here's your spacebar. This is a mouse." And even though the majority of my patrons are not at that level, they are surely not interested in Twitter, either.

Perhaps this is simply the issue for small, rural libraries. I'm trying to be a good sport with the MToaS program, but I simply can't see how Twitter is relevant for the people who come to my library.

Pic Attribution:Image: 'Rubber duckies.... one last image' www.flickr.com/photos/43078695@N00/307506216

My Stalker just Grunted on my Twitter

2009-03-18T12:49:00.002-05:00

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Twitter Frenzy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Rampant and Unrepentant Silliness

2009-03-17T12:07:00.005-05:00

It was warm last weekend, here in Minnesota. Twenty-or-so above normal. Which means upper fifties. Warm, sunny, breezy: spring was in high gear and we responded in kind.

Rambling through town, we saw many folks out in shorts or capris, and a few uber-exuberant souls in t-shirts too. A few wore sandals but, really, the plethora of muddy puddles meant that sandals were kept to a minimum.

Admittedly, most of the people wearing shorts and capris were under 20. And we older and wiser ones could look at them and say, "Well that's just silly. It's not that warm."

No, Gabi and I did not wear shorts. We wore jeans, turtlenecks and flannel shirts, sturdy tennies.

Yes, this is what we wore when we took our kayaks out for a drive.

There is open water, here and there, on the Sauk, Platte and Mississippi rivers. The trick is finding an open stretch between landings. The water's way too high and quick to paddle back upstream if you don't have to. But, oh, we wanted to be on the water.

Fortunately, when we went out to Cold Spring on Sunday to scope out the Sauk, we met the wife of a man who was bravely setting off from Frogtown Park for the six-mile float to the next public landing in Rockville. We jumped for muddy joy to see someone setting off, and Monday (we both took the day off) we were back with kayaks in the truck. We stopped in Rockville to leave the car so that we could shuttle ourselves.

We were smart enough to check the landing.

An ice bar swooped out from the landing, still covering half the river. We walked a little upstream and down, where the ice had receded. We could see where a person could land, muddily, but no signs that anyone actually had landed his canoe.

In other words, somewhere along the line, the ice still covered the river thick and wide enough that our brave canoe enthusiast hadn't gotten through. We went back to the truck, looked at the map. Was the dam at the heron colony, or where the river bends back on itself at mile three, or at the gorgeous boulder garden after the ninety-degree turn at mile four?

Regardless, we wouldn't be floating down the river, not yet.

We got back on the road, me in the car and Gabi in the truck, and headed back to town. I saw her swear out loud in the cab and called on the cell phone to tell her. We laughed about being twenty feet apart and talking on the phone to each other. So we had to wave some more.

Neither of us could stand to let the day go by without a little exploring, so we stopped at Grande Depot, a fantastic shop where I94 and Highway 23 intersect. The Depot is full of gourmet treats, lovely cookware and dishes, artisan candles, handmade jewelry... you get the idea. Very fun. If you're in the neighborhood and need to find a special gift for someone, The Depot would be at the top of my list of recommendations.

We bought a bottle of very yummy dipping oil and, a few miles later, bought some good bread to go along with. Then we went home, put our plastic chairs on the sunny patio on the south of the house, and had a snack. It wasn't what we really, really, wanted to be doing, but it was good all the same.

Pic attribution: Image: "Colors" http://www.flickr.com/photos/13238706@NOO/2730411175

Thing 30 -- RSS & Delicious

2009-03-17T11:49:00.003-05:00

This is a great Thing, perfect for my occasional bouts of information overload. I love the ability to filter RSS feeds by tags and keywords. I've been exploring FeedRinse and the others to figure out which works the best for me.

I loved FeedRinse's Crud Cloud which shows the what users most commonly filter out of their RSS feeds. What is beautiful about the Crud Cloud is that it looks, I suspect, oddly similar to what you would see if you had a tag cloud for most common RSS feeds. "Facebook" is huge on the Crud Cloud, as is "immigration," "Obama," "poverty," and "sex." What I want not to see is exactly what my neighbor is searching for. There is something lovely about that.

At this point, FeedRinse is the front-runner for me.

The other thing that floors me is just how expansive the RSS-iverse has become. You can e-mail them to yourself, use them to set up reminders for yourself, set meeting and event dates and even add a component to your social networking.

Whod-a-thunk it?

Don't forget the Almanac

2009-03-01T15:54:00.005-06:00

Last Friday I was subbing on the reference desk at HQ ~ and loving it! ~ and received a call from a gentleman who wanted to know about current US troop levels around the world.

A short parenthetical comment: this is why I love working the reference desk. I love getting questions that need thought and detective work! It is so fun to not just follow your own creative, curious lead, but follow one for a complete stranger. The world becomes so big when you discover how many questions people have, how many things they wonder, worry and want to know more about.

So, I took his name and number and spent several minutes looking online for information. I tried the Department of Defence web site, Ask sites, and, of course, the information landfill that is Google. I asked the two other reference librarians for suggestions, and they also typed in ever narrower and more specific queries. We found articles and information about this country or that country, this defense issue or that pundit's ideological calling card, but no simple, straightforward answer to the patron's question.

Then one of my co-workers said: "Try the almanac."

Within 45 seconds of touching the book, I had the patron's answer. A simple table of information: troop levels by country and region. Perfect.

We librarians stood there and shared a moment of joy. All the Internet's information power at our fingertips, and we found the exact answer we needed in a book.

Passion is a beautiful thing

2009-02-23T10:00:00.007-06:00

Last night we got together with friends Nancy, Jane, and Nancy's daughter Sarah, her partner Jay, and their friend Zach. Nancy hosted. It was so much fun. Simple appetizers of chips, humus and salsa. Dinner was minestrone and bread. Dessert was my famous brownies. Lots of laughter and friendship.

What's sticking in my head this morning, however, is Zach's passion. I just met Zach yesterday, but he made such a huge impression on me ~ it's always so powerful to see someone living his passion, and Zach surely is. Six months out of cosmetology school, he brought his blow-dryer, special round brush and pomade with him from the Cities. He's working in a fabulous salon, and he was eager for the chance to show his stuff. Jane got a blow-dry while the rest of us sat around the table drinking wine and chatting. When Zach was done with Jane's hair, she looked blissful from the scalp massage and ready to anchor the evening news.

And Zach was aglow. That's what's got me still smiling this morning. Passion like that is priceless and contagious. I can't wait to see what this young man will do with his life... stand back 'cuz it will be great.

Pic info: "Amazonas" from Flickr Creative Commons

Facebook and Privacy: what to make of it?

2009-02-18T12:35:00.004-06:00

Post-Note: 3/2/09. I've heard that the new TOS's have been changed/removed.

I have some friends who keep talking up Facebook with me. The biggest reason for some is the increased ability (vs. Myspace) to enact privacy filters to control who can or cannot access one's account information.

Facebook is making a splash about this, using sparklines to help users set the exact privacy level they require. A brief article on Mashable gives more detail.

However, this 2/16/09 Mashable article brings some scary news. Facebook has changed its Terms of Service (TOS) so that now everything you ever write, upload, comment on, etc. belongs to Facebook in perpetuity, regardless of whether you leave Facebook at a later date.

That means words, pictures... whatever.

It's a little unnerving to think that while millions of people are using Facebook to connect with old friends, Facebook is taking ownership of their every word, photo or suggestion for improvement. The TOS are new, and retroactive.

It's not that I think that Facebook is part of some nefarious plot to undermine copyright and artistic control. No, it's not like that at all. It's simply that I think the Internet and social networks are pushing copyright and ownership issues so far past our laws that we are entering a land of remarkable unknowns. There are nothing but questions here... and, of course, lawyers.

Pic Info: "Facebook Knows What You Did Last Summer," From Flickr CC

MToaS 29: Google Tools

2009-02-18T10:39:00.003-06:00

I've been using some of the Google tools for a while, and am hooked. I love Google Docs and Reader, and use Docs all the time. It is incredibly convenient both for documents that I am sharing with someone and for documents for personal use that I want to be able to access from multiple locations. It's also very easy to use.

I am very happy to learn about google 411 ~ what a great feature! I don't know how many times I've wished I had a phone book handy when I was out and about. You can be sure that Goog411 is loaded into my cell phone already. Perfect.

The web history stuff was very interesting... I liked the videos about what kinds of information Google collects and what it is used for.

I do have a sense that Google is trying very hard to keep its information secure, but I worry about the "little guys" who are starting up and don't have as many resources to put toward keeping their sites secure. I remember reading about Twitter being hacked into sometime in the last year or so. I wonder about cross-site security when so many of these sites link to each other through RSS feeds or sharing of information. Does anybody know anything about that... anything scary or reassuring?

Pic Info: "Which Way Now?" from Flickr CC

Don't Divorce Us: 7/19/08

2009-02-13T08:19:00.000-06:00

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

Pears and Cheese and Pasta, Oh My!

2009-02-10T11:17:00.004-06:00

Last Friday night we got together with friends Nancy, Steph and Jane at Jane's house... we shared a lovely bottle of wine that Jane had given us over the holidays. A 2006 dry Chenin Blanc by Dry Creek vineyards. Excellent and lovely, just the perfect, light fruitiness that I love.

We also had the most excellent dish from my new Bon Appetit cookbook. I bought Fast Easy Fresh a few weeks ago, but then I got a cold and my desire to cook anything more than Tom Yum went right out the window. So, when we spoke with Jane about having a get together, she graciously let me choose what I wanted to cook from the new cookbook and then delegated complementary sides and appetizers for everyone else. This is what good friends do.

It was so great to get together and hang out with these great women. But, I have to say that what is sticking in my head is how much fun it was to talk books with Jane's younger son. He named off his favorites: the Pendragon and Redwall series made the top of the list, and it was so cool for Gabi and me to be able to say that we had read those books too. And we suggested he try the Skullduggery Pleasant books, because they are just exceptionally fun.

I made Linguine with Pears and Gorgonzola Cheese. Wow. I didn't adjust the recipe at all, and it was so good. The flavors are lovely and perfectly balanced, and the light sweetness of the pears plays off perfectly with the cheese ~ which is much more subtle than you might expect, given the strength and general smelliness of gorgonzola. Also, the meal comes together very quickly but has an elegant "feel." Perfect dinner party fare. My friends loved it. We all had seconds. One of them had fourths!

******

Linguine with Pears and Gorgonzola Cheese

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter

4 firm pears (about 2 pounds), peeled, cored, cut into 1/3-inch strips

1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary

1 cup low-sodium chicken broth

4 ounces Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (about 1 cup)

3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese, divided

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

12 ounces linguine

1/3 cup chopped pecans

Melt butter in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add pears; saute until tender and beginning to brown but not soft, about 8 minutes. Using slotted spoon, carefully transfer pears to bowl. Add rosemary to skillet and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add broth, Gorgonzola cheese, 1/2 cup Parmesan, and cream. Simmer until sauce thickens enough to coat spoon, whisking occasionally, about 6 minutes. Return pears and any accumulated juices to sauce.

Do Ahead: Sauce can be made 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature. Bring to simmer before continuing.

Cook linguine in large pot of boiling salted water until just tender but still firm to bite, stirring occasionally. Drain; return pasta to pot. Add sauce and pecans to pasta; toss over medium-low heat until sauce coats pasta, about 3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large bowl. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

MToaS 28: Netvibes and more

2009-02-10T08:49:00.008-06:00

I checked out customized home pages during the first run of 23 Things, and I ended up sticking with my MyYahoo page. It was already created, and gave me all the information I wanted, and I didn't see any other customized page that would make my Internetting more efficient or interesting. But I went through the customized web page ideas presented for Thing 28: read the articles, watched the clip, checked out PageFlakes and Netvibes.

This is what I think: I've often said that my life would make boring television. Well, I think it makes for boring customized home pages, too.

Ironically, it's my curiosity that causes a certain amount of the boring problem.

When I discovered RSS feeds and Google Reader I was so excited, why, I could sign up for everything that was interesting: NY Times, The Splendid Table, The Daily Beast, The Shifted Librarian... you get the idea.

Then, the inevitable happened. I got my RSS feeds from all of these sources (and more), and, you know what? I didn't have the time, inclination or attention span to read them. So instead I listened to podcasts of This American Life and Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.

So the same thing happens when I look too long at customizable home pages. There are just too many options. I don't want that much information looking at me the moment I open up my browser. I like segues. I want to mosey from here to there as the time allows ~ or not.

Which is not to say that I couldn't create a new opening page that gave me the limited options I need first thing. It's just that... well... MyYahoo is doing just fine for the moment, thank you.

That said, I am attempting to create a home page for the Royalton Library with NetVibes. Something for staff use, not patrons. I'm wondering if I can use a customized home page to provide us with easier access to our most-used non-GRRL reference sources. Sort of like bookmarks ~ just easier to see and move through, so more like hyper-bookmarks. I'm still playing with it. I'll let you know how it turns out.

MToaS 27: Twitter me story time

2009-02-04T11:20:00.003-06:00

, methinks, is for people who really love texting.

Generally speaking, I am profoundly uninterested in texting. It serves its uses... a friend's father was terminally ill, and we didn't want to disturb the family with phone calls. So text updates were perfect. It was my Nevada nephew's first birthday and my sister sent a "wish you were here" note. Perfect. But generally speaking, I have yet to be convinced that I will be closer to the beloveds in my life by knowing the details of their days in minute detail.

You just can't share a good bottle of Chenin Blanc via texting or twitter. I'd rather be face to face, even if it means we catch up much more rarely.

That said, I did go into Twitter and I "followed" a few libraries, and from a professional perspective I can say that Twitter looks like it could be a great marketing tool. The Kansas City PL used Twitter to announce a rescheduling of an author event, and the Casa Grande Library in Arizona uses Twitter to promote new items in their collection. These both strike me as great uses for Twitter, and I'd love to see GRRL ~ in whole or by branch ~ jump on this bandwagon.

I like that there are so many avenues for people to connect with Twitter ~ IM, text message, or Internet.

However, I'm just not sure how well Twitter would work for tiny branches like mine. I serve a community of 1,000 or so people. We do get folks in from other communities, but the bulk of our patrons are from Royalton. Many of them don't have Internet at home (that's why they come to the library). Of those that do have Internet access from home, a significant number of them have dial-up because that is all they can get at their rural addresses.

I'm not sure how many have cell phones, either, or if they have the phones, whether they are in the "high texting" demographic that Twitter seems created for.

It makes me think of the whole big stimulus package/infrastructure debate going on right now. We really need broadband access everywhere. Not just in cities and large towns. And it's not just so that I could send out story hour notices via Twitter. As more and more social services and employers move to put all their paperwork online, huge swaths of our population are being excluded from the ability to go online to apply for jobs, update their medicare plans, apply for unemployment, etc. I'm not sure that libraries will be able to keep up with the demand when our funding is on the line during the economic downturn.

Great Young Adult Fiction

2009-02-01T21:12:00.003-06:00

Spoiler alert: You might want to skip this entry if you haven't yet read (but are planning to read) Twilight. I won't give away too much about Hero.

I finally read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. You know the one: getting rave comparisons to the Harry Potter series, new movie released, has sold a bajillion copies. On Barnes & Noble it has a rating average of 5 stars from 6, 290 readers.

So, there must be something to the story, but I just can't bring myself to recommend it.

This much is true: it's a quick read. There's plenty of suspense. The story line pulls the reader along and you almost can't help but want to know what will happen next.

But...

I think my problem was one of expectations. This book has received such high reviews that I expected something extraordinary when I slipped between these covers. What I found instead is a story that is more cliched than original and a love story that becomes more unsettling and neurotic the more objectively you look at it. Sure Edward is gorgeous ~ we read about his godlike beauty ad-nauseum ~ but the central element of the attraction is both derivative and misogynist: he's the gorgeous bad boy who will either kill the girl or protect her forever.

Another reason I couldn't quite like Twilight: I expected it to be a vampire story. After all, Edward is a vampire. But really, Twilight is Wuthering Heights in the drippy Pacific Northwest. Instead of class prejudices keeping the young lovers apart it is the problem of Edward getting all sparkly in the sunshine. Instead of social mores keeping them chaste and sexually frustrated, it's the inconvenient fact that if Edward gets too excited his super-human strength might cause him to pop Belle's head like a tomato.

Sorry for the snark. I really tried to like this story. In fact, for the first half I was hooked: there were all these enticing little leads that I thought might go somewhere, and I couldn't wait to see what Meyer might do with them. But she kept returning to teenage-girl-swoons-for-sexy-bad-boy-and-keeps-secrets-from-her-parents.

Ohh-kay.

I wanted to reach through the pages and shake Meyer, "Why is Belle so clumsy?" "Why does she have such chemistry with Edward when no one else has?" "What about this ethical question of a doctor who is a vampire?"

Obviously, none of these questions get answered. In fact, at this point I almost doubt that Meyer knew she had (potentially) raised them.

Still, I can understand why a lot of parents are happy to have their daughters reading Twilight and others in the series (I'm sure most boys gag by page 2). On the surface it seems almost uniquely chaste and sober. There's no sex to speak of, although there are about 50 swoons per chapter. There's no profanity or gore at all. In fact, the climactic fight scene happens "off-stage" so that instead of the climax being about the fight to protect Belle from the bad vampire (as opposed to Edward's lovely family) the climactic scene is Edward's internal struggle to resist the desire to consume Belle after the bad vampire spilled some of her blood.

However, look deeper and the story becomes so unsettling. Edward has all the power: he's stronger, smarter, calls the shots and makes all the splendid rescues. Belle is more his adored pet than anything approaching an equal.

This leads me to my biggest disappointment with the book: Belle never develops her strength. She starts the story insecure, timid and weak and she ends the story by walking to her own demise. She might run but she never fights, never tries to outthink the vampire who is set on killing her. No, she just shudders, feels terrified... and faints.

Of course, at that point Edward and the Cullens arrive to rescue her. Right on cue.

Contrast that with Thom Creed, the main character in the phenomenal YA fantasy Hero by Perry Moore. Hero is set in a funky alternate reality where Martina Navratilova is a tennis superstar, parents separate and teenage girls get pregnant, and Captain Justice and the League fight villains and keep normal folks safe from harm.

Thom is a basketball star but that doesn't make him popular with the other high school kids. Thom's quiet, introverted and gay, and his dad, once one of the most famous of superheroes, is a social pariah after a rescue gone tragically awry. Thom's mom has left, so it's just Thom and his dad in a lonely social isolation. Then, strange things begin happening, and Thom comes to realize that he might be a "super" too.

He discovers this right around the same time that he's outed at a basketball game. In front of his father. And the cute guy he's been practicing with.

In contrast to Twilight, there are lots of big questions in Hero. It's all about issues of identity and loyalty and what truly defines bravery in a world populated by superheroes like Uberman and Warrior Woman.

Also, there is sex and violence in Hero, as well as some smartly placed F-bombs. None is gratuitous, and frankly the more blatant sexuality in Hero seem both saner and ~ strangely ~ cleaner than the overly-romanticized, swooning, throbbing, never-ending sexual tension of Twilight.

I could go on, but I don't want to spoil it for you. It won't be coming soon to a theater near you, so you'll just have to read it yourself. Trust me, Hero is powerful fiction, the sort of book that inspires readers as well as writers. It left me thinking about its themes for days afterward, recommending it to others, and generally wanting to proselytize the transformative power of stories. It's this kind of book: I finished the last page, closed the book, held it to my chest and said, "Wow."

New Favorite Thing: WhenIsGood

2009-01-30T12:35:00.004-06:00

If you haven't discovered this handy-dandy tool yet, you must try it out. I discovered whenisgood thanks to Jay, our IT person at Great River.

Here's the scoop:

Instead of sending out an e-mail to all your committee members saying: we-need-to-meet-when- are-you-available-in-the-next-month you go to WhenIsGood ~ no password or signup needed! ~ and highlight on a calendar when you are available to meet. Then you use WIG's handy send feature to add in however many e-mail addresses you need to send out.

Ta-da... each committee member receives a little calendar that they can highlight with their availability. You then can go in and check the calendar to see the best possible time to meet.

Slick!

In the event that you're working with a big enough group that no time will be good for everyone, WIG's calendar shows you how many people voted down specific time slots, and who voted them down. So then you can prioritize and pick the least bad time for your meeting.

And you can get all this accomplished in just a couple of e-mails instead of a blizzard of them.

SO COOL.

MToaS 26: Ning-ing-a-ling

2009-01-30T12:35:00.000-06:00

Okay, here it is: I will try the Ning thing again. I can see the appeal of a social network created around a specific subject area. In fact, that's far more appealing to me than the broad-brush strokes of Myspace or Facebook.

One thing that is frustrating to me is trying to figure out who else on the 23 Things Ning is a GRRL member... not that I can't chat with other folks, but I'd like to know who else from Great River is active in the 23 Things loop. So many of us, however, are afraid to put real details on our profiles. We use nicknames or share no more than that we're from "Minnesota." I am as guilty of this as anyone else. For my picture, I used one of my cat. This will only help someone figure out who I am if they've had the privilege of meeting our "official greeter" Rosie. And, if they've gotten that close, they've probably already heard me chatter excitedly and incessantly about cool Web 2.0 things like GoogleDocs, PBWiki and WhenIsGood.

So... I dutifully added a couple of messages and sent one and updated a picture and other things on my profile.

I think it is good to have the Ning be at the top of the list rather than at the end (not that we can't shuffle). I'm hoping that as the MoreThings group continues it will be used more, and therefore more worth the time to use...

Diggin' those free pics! (MToaS 25)

2009-01-28T08:10:00.003-06:00

When my lovely Gabi and I first returned from our Peace Corps service in Togo, West Africa... and this was 1993, mind you... we couldn't wait to go to the grocery store. Especially Gabi. She'd been having dreams of Doritos, don't you know. Three years we'd been in Togo, often eating in little roadside buvets drinking warm beer and eating fried bread or cassava that was sometimes scrumptious and sometimes just foul with rancid oil. Or rice with various sauces ~ again, some amazingly good and some just god-awful.

So we got back and my goodness, we really wanted that good-ol-bad-for-you American junk food.

It's one of my most vivid memories of our return. We drove to Coborns and Gabi went to get some Doritos while I dashed off to find something else. She took a long time, so I started looking for her. I rounded the corner and found her standing in the center of the looong snack aisle, shoulders slouched and jaw slack, a look of being completely overwhelmed on her face. She was nearly crying. All she wanted was one little bag of Doritos and here was an entire aisle of brands, flavors, big bags, small bags, full-fat, low-fat... and good-god there were pretzels too.

I get a similar sort of feeling when I look at widget options.

Creativity is wonderful. I am glad there is so much of it. But, wow, if we could harness the enthusiasm for quizzes and comments and discussion communities found on the web and turn that instead toward diplomacy... why, we might even get peace in the Middle East.

Still, I enjoy the wealth of ideas and the possibilities for customizing your space. It's cool. It made me want to add one more item to the article 20 Usability Tips for Your Blog. The author suggested limiting the focus of your blog. I'd include limiting the number of gizmos and widgets. Have a rotating collection, sure, but too much at one time just overwhelms the senses.

That said, some of these widgets are incredibly useful. I've been using site meter, clustrmap, as well as Blogger's subscriber widget and search bar for some time. I like all these tools immensely. There's nothing like looking on clustrmap and wondering who in New Zealand has been reading me.

I added a recent comments widget, but I put it at the bottom of the page. That probably breaks every rule of blog promotion, but it felt better to me all the same. I also added click comments. I have some shy readers, I know, who have said in phone calls or e-mail that they like what they read on my blog but they just don't feel comfortable leaving comments. Perhaps they're not sure what to say. I like the "thumbs up" feel of click comments, and am hoping that will make these readers (you know who you are) more comfortable giving feedback.

Lastly, thanks Things staff, for the listing of copyright free and Creative Commons licensed photos. It can be hard sometimes to find pics to add to my pages ~ and I do like to include them because I know they improve the look and readability of the blog.

The one tool I want to find (hoping that Blogger supports it) is the "read more" link. I do sometimes write long entries and it would be better to have the blog not look so text-heavy. Any suggestions?

MToaS 24: Refreshing the Blog

2009-01-27T09:43:00.004-06:00

Hi MoreThings'er Staff! I'm so happy to have you back!

I enjoyed the SlideShare Presentation on 25 Basic Styles of Blogging. My blog, over the past year, could be categorized as a whole big jumble: insight, ambition, life, review, etc. My entries have covered all of it, and I like it that way. I've never been one to fit into any particular box.

I took the "refresh" challenge and simplified. Instead of adding widgets I deleted them. I know from experience with the original 23 Things on a Stick that I will find lots and lots of things to be curious about (not to mention passionately intrigued with, at least over the short term). I'm sure I will want to add them, so for now I reduced my blog to more of a clean slate. Think of it as... ready.

Also, I must confess, I am uber-enthused over my lovely, lovely new Mac, and I am sure that I can come up with ways to pretty up my blog. So the "white sheet of paper" aspect is all about my expectation that it will look very different by mid-May.

Lastly, dear More-Things'ers, please be forewarned that if you RSS this blog or otherwise sign up to know whenever I update, you will have to plow through garden musings, recipes, news about friends-and-family gatherings and kayaking excursions, book reviews, and the whole big ungangly mess that this blog is. I know your time is limited, so I have tried to make it a little easier for you by attaching a widget at the top left that will let you know which Things I've worked on.

Actually, the way I write/live this blog makes me think of why I so love working in a library: it is the perfect place for the irredeemably curious. There are so many amazing books, movies, magazines, CD's out there... and we get to see them! We get to learn that there is a whole book devoted just to the socio-economic history of the Toothpick, and it's fascinating. We get to see that there are young-adult fantasy books that are brilliant beyond belief (and no, I'm not talking about the Twilight series). There's just so much to read, think about, write about...

Ah. The joy of blank, white paper.

And time passes

2009-01-27T08:57:00.005-06:00

Crazy how time flies when you're doing too much... again I find myself in that place where for days ~ weeks even ~ I've been thinking about blogging, even rehearsing the words in my head. I've been moved to tears and flights of (mentally at least) rhetorical fancy over the words, "President Obama." Just can't hear that enough. Wow. After eight long years of snarling every time I saw or heard the president, after six plus years of feeling downright ashamed of the man, and of what he was doing in my name, finally I feel like I can breathe again and be proud. Perhaps we have turned that corner and are heading back to being our better selves.

I also was sick for a week or so ~ nothing serious, just a cold that wouldn't get bad enough that I felt I could just crawl into bed and ignore the world, and neither would it go away so that I had energy or enthusiasm for the days. Instead, it was just a sore-throated gray in-between that sapped all my creativity and spark. Didn't even cook beyond making some tom yum soup ~ and that, at least in our house, is a staple during colds.

Also, when I have had the energy, I've been working on our cookbook ~ for those who don't know, instead of writing the "holiday letter" like many folks, we put together a small collection of the year's favorite recipes along with anecdotes and stories to go with them. It's always fun, but admittedly takes much longer than a letter would take. That is why we rarely ever get them mailed before mid-January. I'm shooting for this weekend. Last year, I think we just barely got them out before Valentines day.

And... over the last couple of weeks we did lots of research about new computers. Ours was showing its age more and more, and we didn't want to wait for it to crash completely. So, Sunday we took the plunge and bought... a lovely new IMac. Joy, joy, joy. I am loving it. Even though I've been a life-long PC'er, I am so thrilled with the Mac. I'm even enjoying the learning curve of figuring out how to do things with Mac vs. Windows. When I do get stuck, I've found that if I just pause and remind myself that some very smart person worked very hard to come up with a way for me to do this particular thing easily, somehow the fog lifts and I figure it out. The Help Menus for Mac are awesome as well.

Lastly, I am very, very happy to say that More Things on a Stick* has started, which means that I'll be making more technical entries for a while. For my faithful readers in Texas, Switzerland, Nevada and elsewhere, I hope that you enjoy the info. I'm looking forward to writing about Web 2.0 gizmos, widgets and whatnots in a way that will (hopefully at least) be interesting for you as well as other geeky-gadget library folk.

So, onward!

*More Things on a Stick is continuation of the Web 2.0 Library Learning Program that began last January with 23 Things on a Stick. It's a web-based, individually-paced training program that helps participants explore the many amazing things available through web-based technologies. Some is productive, some silly, some more trouble than it's worth. But it's all interesting.

How can you not feel joy?

2009-01-17T09:06:00.002-06:00

When we got up this morning, it was 19 degrees outside.

FIFTY DEGREES WARMER THAN 24 HOURS AGO.

Perhaps we will survive this winter after all. However, I can't help but think that spring will be interesting. There will be holes in the garden for sure. Even some zone 3 plants might not make it through this cold. But thank goodness they're under a thick blanket of snow. That will give them at least a little protection.

More snow is expected today, and I'm actually looking forward to getting outside and shoveling.

A good day

2009-01-16T21:52:00.002-06:00

Today, Friday afternoon, we were driving through town and saw the temperature reading on one of the bank signs: 3 degrees. It was the first time since Monday that the temperature rose above zero. This morning, in fact, it was minus 33 in St. Cloud.

The low tonight is supposed to be between one and three above.

So, good news. It's "warm."

And, even better. Tonight is the first night of the new season of Battlestar Gallactica.

Two things to be excited about.

And he's a (good!) food critic, too.

2009-01-09T11:06:00.000-06:00

New Year starting

2009-01-02T20:50:00.004-06:00

It's a new year. Tomorrow, I go back to work after a two-week vacation. It's been a good break, but I have to admit that I could easily stay home another week or two...

So, the holidays were good to us. Christmas (before Christmas) with Nick and the kids, Hanukkah with the whole Minnesota family, Christmas Eve with Gabi's mom, Christmas day with Jenny and the kids, Second Hanukkah with friends... and then my anti-social tendencies set in. Don't ask me to cook. Don't ask me to clean. Don' t ask me to think of anything interesting to chat about. I'm done-done-done.

So New Year's Eve was quiet. Gabi wasn't feeling well on the first, so it was quiet too. And I did something so unusual, hedonistic and lovely that I just have to brag about it. I read. For hours. I didn't make anything for anybody. Not crafts, food or conversation. I just curled up and read. New Year's eve day I read Nation by Terry Pratchett. On New Year's I read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks. Just read. Read till my eyes were dry and my butt hurt from sitting.

It was bliss.

So... Nation and People of the Book. Seems like a crazy combination, I'm the first to admit. The oh-so-British parodist with absurdist social commentary on one day and Pulitzer Prize winning historical novelist on the next. But what surprised me is how well the books went together, and the thematic similarities between them.

Nation is not a discworld novel, yet it's still classic Pratchett. The story is about an island boy, Mau, whose entire family and village is swept away by a tsunami, and a very privileged and proper victorian-age English girl, Daphne, who is the lone survivor of a shipwreck on Mau's island. The Blue Lagoon this is not. There's no sex, but there is childbirth and a profane parrot. Pratchett, as is typical for him, combines astute observations about society with humor that is both silly and pointed. Take, for example, Mau's attempt to understand the British obsession with legs (the only thing white people are afraid of ~ sight of an islander without trousers will cause English women to scream in terror and a glimpse of a woman's ankle will cause English men to faint). This befuddlement happens alongside Mau's attempt to make sense of everything he's learned about gods, ancestors, sex roles and gender identity. And Pratchett has something to say ~ or rather, question ~ about all these things.

People of the Book, on the other hand, is a fictionalized account of the Sarajevo haggadah, the Jewish prayerbook used for the Passover service. There is such a book, and it is remarkable in that it's a Jewish prayerbook from the mid 1400's, created with illuminations like those only otherwise found on Christian holy texts, and kept safe from Nazis and the Bosnian war by Muslim clerics and librarians. The real Sarajevo haggadah survived the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews from Spain, and Brooks' novel provides a brilliant imagining of the precious book's creation and travels.

Brooks is never as blatant with her questioning as Pratchett, but they share a surprising number of similar questions: How do we really know what gods/G-d wants from and for us? How can we know whether the knowledge passed down through family and culture is correct? How do we react to barbaric and/or senseless death? What are our obligations to those who are like us and those who are different? What, exactly, are Likeness and Difference?

Both books are well written, intricately plotted, thought-provoking and suspenseful. Both are very much worth ignoring phone calls, chores and any number of other things that could pull you away from the sheer bliss of diving in and voyaging out. Books like these are why we love to read.

Watch and Be Happy

2008-12-10T12:09:00.000-06:00

Tears, laughter and the whole big mess of it

2008-12-08T08:04:00.003-06:00

Yesterday was a day full of both sadness and joy, one of those weird kinds of days that leaves you feeling both stuffed full and drained empty at the end.

We had our family Thanksgiving yesterday because Nick has come home for his 3 weeks of R&R from Alaska. So I spent the morning cooking desserts and a rice stuffing. Gabi helped with a few things, but mostly she prepped for her physics classes (she's spending hours and hours every weekend getting ready for her AP class. I just keep telling her, "next year will be easier.")

I made both pumpkin and pecan pies as well as a gluten-free chocolate cake (from a mix, and it turned out really well!). Then a brown and white rice stuffing that was yummy enough that even gluten-eaters would enjoy it.

So there was all that joy to look forward to... but at the same time much grief and sorrow. Our friend Jan passed away yesterday morning. Jan was diagnosed with cancer over the summer ~ in both her colon and lungs. Thankfully, she was well enough to go home for a few hours on Thanksgiving to spend with her family. Then on Monday or Tuesday she came down with an infection and the end came very quickly.

Jan was such an amazing woman. She had that grace of spirit ~ born of generosity, kindness, strength and being absolutely grounded ~ that is both profoundly compelling and deeply comfortable to be around. Everyone loved Jan. I think we all aspired to be like her on some level.

Jan worked for the Elk River School District until she retired a year or two ago. She was the librarian, working first at the elementary school and later at the high school. Gabi came home a few days ago and told me that, when she told her classes that Jan was very sick, her seniors told her how they could still remember Jan reading to them when they were little kids. She used different voices and made the stories come alive.

So, after crying and baking and lighting a candle for Jan, we took our plunder to Nick and Amanda's house and spent a great afternoon hanging out with family, feasting and chatting. It's the sort of thing Jan would approve of. Jake and Max are getting to be so grown up, and both know all the plays that the Vikings should have run. Sofia is bright and articulate and can talk about anything, and Eli continues to be the bundle of fun, playing with everyone. It was great fun.

And it was snowing lightly, that first real snow of the season, and everything looks so clean and fresh and lovely.

After we came home we checked our e-mail to see if there was a new CaringBridge posting about Jan. There wasn't, but instead we received an e-mail from Gabi's cousin Kathryn in England to let us know that Kathryn's stepfather Andrew passed away last week. We were both a little dumbfounded at the timing, but that's the way it works, isn't it? Andrew had been a member of Parliament for many years, so Kathryn included an article about him written by the Guardian. It made me proud to have met him.

We closed the day with more physics for Gabi; she's teaching a unit on thermodynamics this week. I cleaned up the last of the pie-making mess and then made some earrings and worked on a little felt credit card case. It was a quiet close to an all-over-the-map kind of day.

Eleven Tips on Getting More Efficiency Out of Women Employees

2008-12-05T12:44:00.006-06:00

My lovely Gabi forwarded an article to me yesterday that is far too entertaining not to share. It's from the Sept/Oct '07 issue of Savvy and Sage, and is a reprint of a 1943 article in Transportation Magazine. And, yes, my heading is the title of the article.

So, without further ado... the article, almost in full.

"1. Pick young, married women. They usually have more of a sense of responsibility than their unmarried sisters, they're less likely to be flirtatious [and] they need the work or they wouldn't be doing it...

2. When you have to use older women, try to get ones who have worked outside the home at some time in their lives. Older women who have never contacted the public have a harder time adapting themselves and are inclined to be cantankerous and fussy...

3. General experience indicates that "husky" girls - those who are just a little on the heavy side - are more even tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.

4. Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination - one covering female conditions... [to reveal] whether the employee-to-be has any female weaknesses which would make her mentally or physically unfit for the job.

5. Stress at the outset the importance of time... until this point is gotten across service is likely to be slowed up.

6. Give the female employee a definite day-long schedule of duties so that they'll keep busy without bothering the management for instructions every few minutes. Numerous properties say that women make excellent workers when they have their jobs cut out for them, but that they lack initiative in finding work themselves.

7. Whenever possible, let the inside employee change from one job to another at some time during the day. Women are inclined to be less nervous and happier with change.

8. Give every girl an adequate number of rest allowances during the day. You have to make some allowances for feminine psychology. A girl has more confidence and is more efficient if she can keep her hair tidy, apply fresh lipstick, and wash her hands several times a day.

9. Be tactful when issuing instructions or in making criticisms. Women are often sensitive; they can't shrug off harsh words the way men do. Never ridicule a woman - it breaks her spirit and cuts off her efficiency.

10. Be reasonably considerate about using strong language around women. Even though a girl's husband or father may swear vociferously, she'll grow to dislike a place of business where she hears too much of this.

11. Get enough size variety in uniforms so that each girl can have a proper fit. This point can't be stressed too much in keeping women happy."

*****
By the way, photo credits: The great pic above is from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum, online on Wikipedia Commons. The caption for the photo is, "Two sisters who left the farm to keep our airmen flying. NYA trainees at the Corpus Christi, Texas, Naval Air Base, Evelyn and Lillian Buxkeurple are shown working on a practice bomb shell." I just have to say, the pic is great, but the last name is AWESOME. Buxkeurple. I couldn't make that up!

One more thing

2008-12-04T08:45:00.000-06:00

I finished this scarf Tuesday night. The wool/soy blend was great to work with: knitted up beautifully and felt wonderful in the hands. And the soy-based dyes are so lovely. The picture doesn't do the depth of color justice.

I also had fun making a tag of my own. Seems a little boring however (and blurry. Sorry!). I think I need to come up with a more interesting name than just "Handmade by Brandi." Any suggestions?

The beady stuff so far

2008-12-04T08:30:00.000-06:00

I've been busy, with the holidays and birthdays approaching, with the annual gift-making extravaganza. Jewelry, hair pom-poms, scarves. I always make more than I actually give away. What happens is that as the deadline for wrapping and/or sending approaches, I take inventory and pick my favorites and give those. The others are either kept (Gabi never minds this, particularly in regards to bracelets and scarves) or torn apart and their parts recycled. So, a few more things so far...

First, two bracelets. The purple/blue one is all glass beads, the copper/white one mixes metal, bone and glass.

I've been having a blast using, finally, some of the gorgeous beads that I brought back from West Africa. These trader beads were purchased in Ghana and Togo. The "serenity" bracelet was given to Jenny as a birthday present, and Gabi laid claim to the "peace" bracelet before it could be given to anyone else. (That is her prerogative!)

This necklace also uses both glass beads from the local craft store and mixed-glass beads from Togo. Check out the close-up to see the lovely colors of the African bead. There are many varieties of these mixed-glass, matte-finish beads, and they are much less well-known than the trader beads. However, I really like their subtlety.

This three-strand is made of glass and metal beads. I found the finding at one of my favorite bead stores in Duluth. The other beads are locally purchased.

Lastly, I went an uncharacteristically sparkly direction on this one (glass and metal). I was thinking of my niece when I was picking beads... that's why it's so shiny.

Hair Bobby Thingys

2008-12-03T08:48:00.008-06:00

I've been playing with string again.

Last weekend I spent movie-watching time playing with felt, buttons and embroidery floss and made some fun hair doo-dads. I got the idea from Heartfelt: 25 projects for stitched and felted accessories by Teresa Searle. There are some great projects in this book. Searle provides detailed and simple instructions, and the book is a joy just to look at. The projects would be great for beginner/intermediate as most of the embroidery stitches are very basic (chain, blanket and straight stitches, mostly) and felt is so easy to work with.What really makes the projects pop is the color combinations and the light-hearted, joyful feel of them. It can be hard to find beginner-level crafts that really make a statement, but Searle's do.

And for those of us who are beyond beginner stages, the ideas here are a great jumping-off point for more felty-flossy entertainment. Searle's ideas got my brain buzzing so much that I bought some lovely greenish blue felt to use for a cell phone case and/or little purse.

In the meantime, here are a few of the silly, pretty hair pom-poms I came up with. They stitch up so quickly I made four or five in a single evening, and the simple stitches meant that I really could watch a movie and stitch at the same time (free tip: never try to both watch a movie and make a neat, tidy pallestrina stitch ~ you're just asking for bloody fingers).

First, how the hair-bobs look when worn.

Next, the group I made over the weekend.

And a couple of my favorites.

Of course, Rosie thinks they'd make great toys!

(I did make her a couple, and she promptly lost them.)

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T22:16:00.003-06:00

Time is flying by... and I'm exhausted just from trying to keep up.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving at our friend Jane's house. It was a small gathering: Jane, her two sons Elliot and Sam, Elliot's friend John, us, and our friend Nancy (and Nancy's daughter and two friends for dessert, later). Good friends, good food, good wine. Lovely day.

Yesterday we did our traditional day-after-Thanksgiving: we slept in and then walked downtown to take in the sales at Herbergers. We have a fairly strict rule for "Black Friday:" we don't shop anywhere we can't walk to. Traffic is just insane in this town, especially on big shopping days. It's like every family from a hundred miles around comes to town and rushes between Fleet Farm, Wal-mart and the mall. Mayhem.

After we returned home with our purchases I started soup. I had loaned Jane our turkey-sized Romertopf for cooking the bird, and I brought it home with the carcass so that I could make soup. I came up with a great recipe to share. Hope you enjoy it too.

***

Day-after-feasting Soup

Face it, you’re still psychologically full from Thanksgiving, yet your stomach tells you it’s hungry. This soup is perfect. It’s very light and won’t leave you feeling overstuffed, yet the broth is so exquisitely flavorful that you feel spoiled. This is my creation, with a tip ‘o the ladle to Lynne Rosetto-Kasper.

2 Tbsp each butter and olive oil
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
2 stalks celery, including leaves, chunked
2 carrots, chunked
2 medium tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1 cup dry sherry (Use real sherry, not the “cooking sherry” you find in the grocery store aisle next to the vinegar. It would be better to omit the sherry completely than use that stuff.)
1 turkey carcass
Filtered water

1 Tbsp butter
2 carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced
A couple handfuls of good quality egg noodles, preferably something thin like spaghetti or vermicelli

Heat butter and oil in large soup pot. Add onions and garlic and sauté until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add carrots and celery and cook another 5 minutes or so, until beginning to be tender. Then add tomatoes and sherry. Bring to a boil and reduce for several minutes, until liquid begins to thicken.

Add turkey carcass and 2 to 2 ½ quarts water to soup pot, enough to fill pot but not overflow. Bring to a boil. Turn heat down slightly to keep stock at a low boil and reduce until half the liquid is gone. Add water to fill pot and reduce to half again. Add water and reduce to half again. This will take 3 to 4 hours, and by the end of that time your broth will be richly fragrant and flavorful.

Strain soup to remove all solids. Skim fat from broth. Bring liquid back to boil and add noodles (not too many as the broth is the star attraction). Melt 1 Tbsp butter in saucepan and sauté sliced carrots and celery until just tender. When noodles are cooked through, add carrots and celery. Add salt to taste and serve at once.

Better Housekeeping Through Cats

2008-11-24T10:59:00.004-06:00

Cleo is on a diet.

She is eleven and getting stiff, arthritic shoulders. She walks like an elephant lumbers, and you can hear her on the wooden floors from across the house. Occasionally she limps on both shoulders so that she waddles like a drunken sailor, her tail doing a most inelegant jerky twist that mocks every myth of cat-like grace. She weighs 15 pounds, despite all our best intentions to get her weight down. So. It's time for a serious diet.

And, so the plundering of counters and cabinets has begun.

As soon as we leave the kitchen, she is in there sniffing, searching out bread crumbs, bits of cheese, or just the yummy leavings on a butter knife. She's not picky. She jumps up on the counters and the butcher block table, hoovering her way along.

What she's really looking for is butter. The cat loves butter. She has broken a couple of butter dishes by knocking them off the counter. We finally found a Cleo-proof dish that is plastic, unbreakable, and fully enclosed so she can't knock it open either. We keep the butter, and the bread, in the cabinet with the dishes and glasses.

So she figured out how to open the cabinet.

We've come home from work and ~ ooh look! who could have done that? ~ the butter dish is in the middle of the kitchen floor, the bag of bread is ripped open. (We're pretty sure Rosie helps with the bread but the butter is all Cleo.)

So we now make sure we push the cabinet doors all the way closed. We now make sure we remove all the prep dishes from the counters before sitting down to a meal. We wash or put away every dish every night. We are becoming neat-freaks for our cat's sake.

*** *** ***

Yeah, I'm back. Thanks to many of you for your well wishes and thoughtful hugs. The passage of Prop 8 in California sent me into quite the tail-spin of sadness and brought up a lot of stuff that I thought had been dealt with and done. Here's to lessons in humility and forgiveness. But I'm feeling more like me again, finally.

Way to Go Wanda

2008-11-17T11:28:00.001-06:00

Finished enough

2008-10-27T07:39:00.004-05:00

Ah, happy day. The study is finished enough for us to relax... well, no. It's finished enough for us to turn our attention instead to the yard, and the myriad chores left to do there. One of which is to find a lawn mower to borrow. Ours has decided that it has better things to do than start. You will not believe how grumpy we are about this.

However, let's talk pretty, happy things.

Our adinkra looks wonderful behind the desk. It makes me so happy to have the cloth up, even though I can't find the "cheat sheet" we brought back from Ghana to tell us the significance of the different stamps. This cloth, with its incredible detail and geometric patterns, was our first purchase together after we had decided to make a home together upon returning stateside. For fifteen years it has been in storage. Now it makes me giddy every time I look at it.

And here is one of the most colorful blankets that we brought back, looking right at home behind the sideboard that is decorated with toys made from tin cans. The motorcycle, train and vespa are all from Togo, as is the clay pot in the center. The two wooden figurines are from Benin, I believe. The wire airplane on the shelf is from Zimbabwe.

And last, but definitely not least: the craft hutch. Bracelet and necklace ideas are tacked up on the doors, and the former keyboard shelf is now home to my bead board and the felt pieces I use to lay stuff out while I'm playing with ideas. I have three fabric-collage bookmarks that I've been playing with tacked up in front. And storage beneath. There are places for most of my stuff ~ although I still need a separate rolling storage bin for ribbons, trim, purse handles and other various things.

There are still things to do in the room: re-upholster the two side-chairs (I'm thinking claret red velvet would be so cool), put up a few more things on the walls (pictures, a clock, etc.), and find some place for at least one kente strip. But it definitely feels homey and comfortable as it is.

Last night Gabi and I were both in here, she planning her week (AP Physics is as hard, if not harder, for the teacher as it is for the students. Send my sweet girl happy thoughts, please!), me playing with beads (although I was too tired to anything more than lay them out and look at them. The ideas came at 5:00 this morning). It was nice, listening to music and being in our new space, and the house still smelled like baked chicken and squash from dinner. A lovely end to what Gabi called, "the fastest weekend in history."

Paint and other short-term delights

2008-10-24T15:32:00.011-05:00

So, here I am, looking out the freshly-painted window of our study at the grey and chilly garden outside. It's nearing Halloween and we haven't mowed up leaves, cut down lily stalks, cleaned up perennials, emptied and winterized the rain barrels or taken in the fountain. No, we haven't done any of that very, very necessary garden work, because we've been painting.

This is what we started with: old bedroom furniture, green walls, and a paint-effect-sky ceiling that came with the house (the best part was the glow-in-the-dark stars).

Honestly, I don't know how the HGTV shows do it, when they come in with three artsy designer folk and repaint, remodel and rejuvenate a room in a day. Seriously. Do they have a small army of house-pros in the background? Ten nimble-wristed painters just aching to cut in trim? And the part that adds insult to injury: they have time to design and make these fun fantastic decorator elements. Not enough cash to purchase a work of art for that wall? No sweat! The nice guy with the dark hair will throw something together... just some MDF, willow branches, a jig saw, paint and some funky copper nails and *voila* you have an original masterpiece you can tell all your politely dubious friends about.

Say good-bye to green and hello cafe au lait.

For us, unfortunately, there is no army and I'm no longer particularly nimble-wristed (I am, however, aching in some interesting places). But, the painting is done. We have successfully transformed our lovely green spare bedroom with the little computer hutch into a study and craft space: cafe au lait walls with white trim, a new desk and sideboard from Ikea, and that old computer hutch is in the process of becoming my craft hutch. I haven't had a chance to do much to it except claim the space by putting my sewing machine where the computer used to be. I have big plans, but so far have been too tired to actually do much with it.

Did I mention just how much trim there is in this relatively small room? Crown molding, a picture rail, two windows, two doors and baseboards all around. Lots o' trim.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am the biggest instigator of all this exhaustion and achiness. I do love to paint: we paint at least one room a year. I'm so hopelessly caught up in this cycle that, in spite of my better judgment, I'm already starting to plan how to redo the bathroom next year. And, we haven't even finished the study yet.

The painting is done, with the exception of a small amount of retouching on the closet door. This is so big. The trim is done. We are known for not finishing the trim. I can't overstate this. We have rooms we painted two years ago that have paint splotches on the trim because we never went back to that. We almost never finish the second coat on the trim. We just get used to the splotches and uneven paint job and figure that we'll be repainting the whole room in a few years and, well, we'll get to the trim then.

But not this time!

My sense of accomplishment is enormous.

Two old chairs that Gabi found at Savers in Minneapolis a couple of years ago look right at home next to the new sideboard from Ikea. I will re-upholster the chairs ~ eventually.

Next step: bring out the textiles that we've had in storage ever since we got back from Togo. We brought back these lovely things and then discovered that their fabulous yellow, orange and green colors just really didn't go with anything. So last year we decided that we wanted them out, dammit, and we designed the study around them. The neutral walls and white, sort-of-contemporary furniture, should be a great foil for the colorful blankets and wall hangings.

We'll pick up some curtain rods to put on the two open walls so that we can hang our beautiful adinkra from Ghana as well as a bridal blanket from Mali. We also have some kente strips ~ some vintage ones that we picked up at the blow-your-mind-it's-so-big market in Kumassi, Ghana. Also, in the process of digging out all our textiles I found a beautiful little piece from Pakistan. It was given to me by a friend of mine who worked in the embassy in Lome, but had been stationed in Islamabad before that.

All work was supervised, of course, by Rosie.

So, now comes the cleaning up and the putting away of painting supplies until next year. I'll share pics of the completed room as soon as the pretty stuff is up.

Tip 'o the billfold to Bachmann

2008-10-18T22:06:00.003-05:00

Ah, dontcha just love campaign season...

We are giggling tonight in spite of our fatigue (busy weekend redecorating our spare room, but more on that when we're finished). It seems our embarrassment of a representative, Michelle Bachmann, went on Hardball on Friday to blast Obama. She suggested that he might be "anti-American" and that voters should get to know him better.

Her ridiculous statements have resulted in $450,000 in donations coming in for her DFL opponent, Elwyn Tinklinberg.

What strikes me about this is that in the news Bachmann's campaign just reiterates the same line about voters needing to get more information about Obama ~ that they should know how he would lead the country. However, Bachmann and her campaign spokespeople don't seem to realize that the problem is that Bachmann is suggesting not simply that Obama would have very different priorities than McCain. No, she's suggesting that he's anti-American because he has different priorities. It's the same thing that I wrote about last week ~ making your campaign tactic the tarring of your opponent as an enemy. This is wrong. Theoretically, we have a democracy. So doesn't that mean that there are people who will disagree and that we should all be able to voice our opinions without fear that we will be scapegoated and hung out as traitors?

Seriously, of course Obama has different priorities and would lead the country in a different direction. And we should be having a vigorous debate on whose policies and priorities would best serve the country in these troubled times. That's sort of the point of the whole campaign thing. But it's just beyond ludicrous to suggest that either candidate is unpatriotic, anti-American, or a similarly dangerous threat to the welfare of the country.

I think that the surge of donations to Tinklinberg would suggest that many Americans, like myself, are just disgusted by these divide and smear tactics. That is what is making me truly hopeful right now.

And, I have to say, I apologize for the political shift lately. I have no desire to have a political blog. But it's hard not to be thinking of these things right now when we are getting hammered by campaign ads ~ I'm so fed up with Coleman, Franklin, Paulson and other ads that I can barely stand to watch TV. Just over two weeks to go, and then they can start fundraising for 2012.

A little media analysis

2008-10-17T21:53:00.001-05:00

Thanks to TiVo we just watched the October 10th episode of Now with Bill Moyers. In this episode, Moyers talked with one of my favorite media analysts, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, about the untruths and deliberate misrepresentations in attack ads by both Obama and McCain. It's a very informative and revealing discussion, andI would highly recommend it to one and all. It's not about partisan politics, but about holding candidates and their campaigns to basic standards of ethical behavior. Very, very good.

You can find the discussion here. (Sorry, I couldn't find a way to embed the video into the blog.)

Please donate: matching grant through Sunday!

2008-10-17T09:18:00.002-05:00

To donate, go to this link to contribute to the No on Prop 8 Campaign.

Little sweet things

2008-10-16T19:30:00.004-05:00

So, going with a little less gravitas today...

I have two discoveries to share with you my friends and readers. The first is a musician who I just discovered thanks to Pandora, Playlist, and our always-sensational Great River music collection. Vienna Teng is a brilliantly talented musician with a gorgeous voice and phenonmenal talent on the piano.

Go check out Teng's "Lullaby for a Stormy Night". I'm sure you'll like it.

My second great discovery was a little cookbook I found on clearance at Barnes and Noble. The Daily Soup Cookbook is divided by primary soup ingredient (tomato, rice, corn, nut, bean, etc.) and peppered with fun bits of trivia and whimsy. These include music to play while cooking soup, periodic table of the soups and letters sent to staff at The Daily Soup. The recipes look healthy, yummy and full of fresh vegetables, herbs and spices.

The Daily Soup Cookbook is where I found a recipe for the latest version of seriously tasty Mulligatawny soup to be added to my favorites file. Mulligatawny soup is an anglicized version of the Indian tamil, or pepper broth. It is described by FoodReference.com as

"a rich curried soup originally made with peppers, hence the name. It has changed to suit differing tastes in Western culture, and has gone through many variations at various times and places. It is usually based on a chicken stock (also mutton or vegetable stock) and curry, with cream , pieces of chicken, onion, celery, apples and almonds and garnished with rice. The cream was very likely, originally coconut milk."
I've seen mulligatawnies with apples and/or cream ~ or neither. Different kinds of curry powders are used for various versions. Some are vegetarian and some emphatically not. This one has garam masala, almonds and saffron, a combination that is always sure to get my attention. I adore saffron. Just a few threads into a big pot of broth and potatoes and the flavor is sweet, deeply nuanced and absolutely lovely.

The Daily Soup Mulligatawny

The original recipe is vegetarian but I used chicken broth and added about 3 cups of chunked, roasted chicken. Also, because I used boxed chicken broth I did not add any extra salt.

1 tablespoon minced fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons peanut oil
1 large Spanish onion, chopped
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons garam masala
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes, drained and diced
6 cups vegetable stock
6 medium Idaho potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1-inch cubes
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup sliced almonds, lightly toasted
15 saffron threads
1/2 cup chopped scallions

1. Puree the ginger and garlic together in a blender or food processor.
2. Heat the oil in a large stockpot over medium heat. Add the onion and ginger puree and saute for 4 minutes, until tender and golden brown.
3. Add the sugar, garam masala, coriander, salt, turmeric, and cayenne and stir to coat the vegetables. Saute for 2 minutes to cook the spices.
4. Add the tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Add the stock and potatoes and bring the mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, partially cover, and simmer for 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
6. Meanwhile, combine the heavy cream, half of the almonds, and the saffron in a small saucepan over medium heat. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.
7. Puree the almond and cream mixture in a blender until smooth.
8. Stir the almond cream into the soup and simmer for 2 minutes.
9. Stir in 1/4 cup of the remaining almonds.
10. To serve, ladle the soup into bowls and top with the remaining 1/4 cup of almonds and chopped scallions.

Too much thinking... or not enough?

2008-10-15T11:00:00.008-05:00

Oh good grief. I've been wanting to blog for days, thinking about little things like the amazing mulligatawny stew I made the other day, or the yummy birdseed bread...

and thinking about big things, like mitzvot (commandments) and all the obligations we are called upon to think about during the High Holidays. One of the greatest mitzvot, sort of the heading underneath which many of the better-known ten commandments fall, is simply: give a damn about how your actions impact those around you. Every day, in every way, big choices and small, we are creating the world we live in. This is so fundamental to Judaism. We are not stewards of G-d's creation, no, we are co-creators. We are here to add our bits, our colors, our weavings, our songs, to the grand spectacle of this world, this life. G-d has given us the materials to work with and the rules for how to use them, and through our actions and our mistakes we are culpable, responsible ~ every little thing we do is linked in ways we can or cannot see to everything else around us. Even when we are wronged we play a role and are responsible for it.

I did so much thinking... and so far too little writing. But the thoughts are there... banging away inside my head. Bees and flies and ladybugs caught in the bottle of my mind.

And I've been thinking about other big things, like dirty, mud-slinging campaigns and why anyone would think it would be a good idea to treat your opponent like an enemy and link him to traitors and terrorists... and what have we become, this country, when the puppet masters pull the strings and we froth at the mouth so much it seems we could never come together to solve anything. At the library I work with good people from across the political spectrum. We all get along well. We all find good things in each other. We all smile and stand a little taller when it's a warm sunny day in the fall. We all cringe at the thought of winter heating bills.

Even when we all know we vote for different candidates.

But you'd never know this from watching television. No, there you find the news-makers and news-shriekers, stomping about like so many adrenaline junkies, willing to do just about anything to raise the ratings and key up the horse-race with their daily doses of outrage.

I shake my head. I have to wonder why we can't seem to do any better than this. This isn't news. That isn't a campaign. This is the WWF. That is theater, over-acting, big hair and winking for the camera and the guys who would laugh at VPILF jokes. Whip up the mob and send 'em running off to the voting booths.

And while this may make for great ratings and fundraising now, where, seriously, will it leave us on November 5th when the votes have been counted, the dust has settled, and we as a country have to turn our attention from the mesmerizing horse-race to digging ourselves out of this hole?

It's beyond sad. It's a disgrace.

Sad day

2008-10-02T05:56:00.002-05:00

Oh, woe is me.

Yesterday I wore long pants, closed-toed shoes, and we had to turn the heat on.

I am fundamentally not ready to let go of summer.

Shana Tova

2008-09-30T14:40:00.011-05:00

Today is Rosh Hashanah, which marks the beginning of the Days of Awe, the High Holidays, the Jewish New Year. So, I wish you all shana tova or good new year.

I spent the morning in synagogue, at Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis, with a new friend and coworker of Gabi's. The service was very good, although before I move into reflections on the theology and meaning of the service, let me make the most secular of admissions: I love going to High Holiday services because it means I am sitting in the midst of not just hundreds of fellow Jews, but also dozens and dozens of women who have the same curly, willful, frizzy, uncontrollable hair. I love it. In a world where I'm usually around the straight-haired (even if not always immaculately coifed) I love being around a bunch of women who, like me, spent their childhoods hating their curly locks because no amount of blow-drying, curlers, or chemical straighteners would ever enable them to pull off a Farah Faucett 'do. It's brilliant.

But, I would remiss if I let you think that I spent three hours this morning contemplating hair. No, I spent that time (and several hours over the last few days, reading and studying so that I would be "ready" for my precious time in synagogue) thinking about the three things that, during the High Holidays, we are reminded that we must always do: tefilah, tzedekah, teshuva.

I always wince before translating these words, because they are mistranslated so often. Still, bear with me as I fumble through...

Tefilah, the easiest to translate, basically means "prayer." In this context, it means to study Torah, pray, and lead a spiritual, prayerful life.

Tzedikah is most commonly translated in English as "charity," partly because of the "Tzedekah boxes" that are kept in many Jewish homes so that families can gather money that will be given to the needy or otherwise used to do good. However, tzedekah is more accurately translated as "righteousness," or the using of money or other tangible effects to help those who are oppressed, assist those in need, and fight social injustice. In the Talmudic tradition, the money that goes into that little box is not so much "pennies for the poor" as it is "pennies to end poverty." The difference is significant because it means that we are called not just to give, but to give a damn.

Finally, teshuvah is commonly translated as "repentance." In this sense, the Days of Awe are all about trembling before G-d, fearing G-d's judgement, and confessing our sins. This insistence on sin and judgement was always a barrier for me in my desire to reach any kind of deeper spiritual understanding of either myself or my heritage. Then, last year as I was studying during the High Holidays, I learned that the more literal translation of teshuvah is "return," as in returning to your intention to lead a moral, hopeful, positive life; returning to Torah if you haven't read your parashahs every week as you had intended; returning to the goal of being the person you want yourself to be. Returning to the person G-d intended you to be.

I was so moved and joyful to learn of this more literal translation, because it is much more positive and affirming, and makes so much more sense in terms of other things I've learned over the last several years about Torah and Jewish ethics and spirituality. Repentance doesn't work so well for me, and I suppose, a lot of other people too. Repentance feels too often like spiritual self-flaggelation. To be completely mundane: I've been trying really hard to lose weight. Counting calories and all that. Some days I'm just out of control, however, and I binge. These days, it's not even so much that I eat things that I don't want to be eating. I might have wanted the first bite, but not the tenth. It gets to a point where I'm eating on auto-pilot or, even worse, in some form of punishment: I'm such a pig that I might as well eat these cookies (crackers, whatever) and be fat and ugly and unhealthy.

When I'm in a state like that, repentance is the worst thing for getting me back in balance. If guilt worked, if bashing myself with all the should-haves worked, I never would have gotten fat in the first place. When I'm in that state, repentance just adds to my sense of failure and that overwhelming feeling that I'm not even worthy of being healthy and happy.

Return, on the other hand, can lift me out of my hole. It's positive and affirming. Look, I can say to myself, I've already been able to follow my goals well enough to lose almost 50 pounds since my highest weight. That's right. Fifty pounds. I can do this. I have been doing this. Return is possible, because it's taking me back to a place where I've already been before. I've been balanced and positive and I've done really well. Return is accomplishing, again and a little better, what I've already done in the past.

Repentance, at least for me, is more about looking at some "place" or state that I've thought I ought to be able to attain, because of course I think I should be able to meet the overwrought, underweight, uber-successful standards I see on t.v. and magazine, and then castigating myself for not attaining that model of perfection.

I don't mean to suggest that all moral and ethical decisions are on the same level as the decision of whether to eat a small piece of chocolate or the whole bar plus several crackers with peanut butter plus whatever else is even moderately edible.

Rather, my point is that we all falter and fumble, and whether it's about eating or how we treat our beloveds, whether we help strangers or pocket the twenty dollar bill we find in the public restroom, ethical questions big and small have the same kinds of aspects. We have an image in our head of who we want to be and a sane, soft-spoken voice that tells us when we are about to stray. We make decisions, big and small, that impact our ability to uphold our image of ourselves. And the more stress and chaos that fills our minds, the more difficult it is to hear that soft voice that knows what we're really about. And finally, no matter what we choose to do ~ and how many excuses we could muster about our bad decisions ~ we are the only ones ultimately responsible and accountable for our actions.

And what is so profoundly beautiful to me in the Jewish tradition is that our spiritual year is set up not just to remind us of the importance of tefilah, tzedekah and teshuvah, but also to allow us a fair amount of time so that we can contemplate deeply and begin the process of being accountable. We aren't expected to acknowledge our failings, apologize, make amends, and make a plan to move forward in just one day or two. The entire month of Elul, leading up to Rosh Hashanah, is spent preparing (for example to do as I did and evaluate my relationships and choices during the previous year as well as study Torah commentaries before going to synagogue so that I could be more fully present when I got there). Rosh Hashanah brings in the Days of Awe, ten days to reflect, make amends, and prepare ourselves to do that which we are called to do: have a moral, spiritually positive life, to work to end oppression, injustice and poverty, and to return, regardless of our faults and failings, to that vision of ourselves and our communities that are worth working for.

Rabbi Steifel said today, "The greatest heresy in Judaism is to believe that the world must be as the world is." We are called to be change agents, for ourselves, our communities, our world. The ethic of co-creation is key: our role on this earth is to work in partnership with G-d, to unleash the godsparks in each other and all living things and bring about the constant renewal and re-creation of the world.

I'll close with one of the meditations from the Rosh Hashanah service (from Gates of Repentance: the New Union Prayerbook for the Days of Awe, 1978):

Be among those who cherish truth above ease and whose prayers are shafts of light in the darkness that, otherwise, would envelop us. Be the same within and without. Aspire to be loving, compassionate, humane and hopeful. Become the prayer for goodness your lips have uttered.

*****

Photo credits: the pic up top is from the website MyJewishLearning.com, one of my favorite sites. They have just about everything you could hope to find on a site devoted to learning about Torah and Judaism, and they bring in commentary from many perspectives, traditional, conservative, reform and progressive.

Orphan goats, scorpions in bed and the best tomato soup ever

2008-09-28T09:43:00.008-05:00

I've been thoroughly enjoying Cowgirl Cuisine: Rustic Recipes and Cowgirl Adventures from a Texas Ranch, by Paula Disbrowe (William Morrow, 2007), a lovely cookbook/memoir about her transition from New York food writer to Texas ranch chef. On the food side, she's taken Texas ranch staples like creamy pinto beans laden with lard and reworked them into healthier concoctions full of herbs, spices and vegetables. She also provides the recipe for the best tomato soup I've ever made or tasted (see below).

Just as entertaining, however, are the essays where Disbrowe recalls the animals, places, and insects she encountered after moving to Whistle Berry Ranch in the Nueces Canyon ~ and the learning curve inherent in the transition from New Yorker to Texan. Her essay about adopting orphan goats left me not only laughing but also wistful with the memories of kid goats and gentle nannies that we had when I grew up on a hobby farm in California. I used to love those silly creatures. Their antics, their affectionate natures (sometimes), and their energy. I still sometimes walk outside on a spring morning and think, "I wish we had a couple of goats."

There are several recipes in the collection that look wonderful, including many for game birds, venison, and antelope along with the expected beef and fish. The photography is both lush and personal: along with the requisite pics of sliced limes and plates of cheese-drenched chilis there are lots of portraits of Disbrowe, her husband, friends and their animal menagerie. But, aside from that astonishingly good tomato soup, it's the essays that are most memorable.

What I like about Disbrowe's writing is that she manages to be both self-deprecating and smart. Her tone is funny, warm and sincere, and reading her essays you can easily understand why she looks back with warmth and humor on the first calving at their little ranch ~ when she and her husband struggled to weigh 90-pound calves by holding them and standing on a bathroom scale (they didn't want to ask the local ranchers how to do everything). Of course they got wiser and learned to get a livestock scale, but she writes,

"part of me missed the earnest chaos of our earlier attempts. There was something pure and poignant in how little we knew and the logic we thought we could apply. And we got the job done after all."

My only complaint about the book is that Disbrowe should have found a better copy editor. It's always a shame to find typos in such a lovely book. That said, I still recommend Cowgirl Cuisine.

*****

Paula Disbrowe's Roasted Tomato Soup

For Roasted Tomatoes
3 pounds (about 20) plum tomatoes, halved
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Herbs de Provence, dried thyme, or basil

Soup
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 large leek, thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
1 large onion, chopped
1 large or 2 medium carrots, chopped
2 celery stalks, chopped
Kosher salt
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 bay leaves, preferably fresh
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried thyme, basil or herbes de Provence)
Pinch of crushed red pepper (optional)
1/4 cup white wine (optional)
6 cups chicken stock or water
One 28-ounce can plum tomatoes in juice (preferably San Marzano)
1 dried chili (such as ancho, pasilla or New Mexico)
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200 Degrees F.

2. The morning (or night) before serving, place the halved tomatoes, seed pockets facing up, on a baking sheet. You do not need to skin or seed the tomatoes. Squeeze the tomatoes lengthwise to open up the seed pockets. Drizzle the tomatoes with a small amount of olive oil (a few drops per tomato), then sprinkle with salt and the dried herb of your choice. Use your fingers to rub the seasonings evenly over the tomatoes.

3. Roast the tomatoes for 8 hours (or about 6 hours at 250 Degrees). The tomatoes will shrivel and concentrate but they should remain meaty and moist ~ not completely dry. They can be roasted up to 2 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator until you're ready to make the soup.

4. Heat the oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the leek, onion, carrots, celery and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic, bay leaves, thyme and red pepper and cook for 2 to 3 more minutes, until fragrant. Add the wine and scrape up any vegetables sticking to the bottom of the pot (they should not brown). Add the broth. Add the canned tomatoes with their juice, breaking them apart with your fingers or a wooden spoon. Add the dried chili and bring the soup to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

5. Add the roasted tomatoes (be sure to include any rich red tomato oil that has accumulated on the baking sheet) and simmer, partially covered, for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove the chili and bay leaves and cool the soup briefly. Transfer the soup to a blender, in batches if necessary, and puree until smooth.

6. Return te soup to the pot and season to taste with additional salt and freshly ground pepper. If the soup seems too thick, thin it with a little water or stock. Garnish as desired and serve.

*Note: As I wrote above, this is a wonderful soup. The flavor is rich and robust, while at the same time the freshness of tomatoes and vegetables shine through. However, as a general rule I am not a fan of pureed soup. I adjusted the recipe by chopping all the vegetables finely (including the canned tomatoes) and then using an immersion blender instead of pureeing. I left the soup just a little left of smooth, the result being a lively combination where each ingredient gets a bit of a chance to shine on its own. I garnished with a little freshly grated parmesan cheese and plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Fresh croutons would be lovely as well. B

A week late but still funny

2008-09-26T13:37:00.000-05:00

Sending out a little hope

2008-09-25T10:00:00.001-05:00

I wrote a while ago about receiving a letter from Kodjo, the son of my best Togolese friend while I was in the Peace Corps. We've been e-mailing Kodjo regularly, and it's been great to re-form that connection after years of quiet. It has been heartbreaking as well, so much so that I hope you will forgive me as I step onto my soapbox.

Some of you may know, but most probably do not, that Togo has had a rough year. The economy is poor here, but it is devastatingly weak there. Prices for staples like rice and flour have soared as the US has redirected corn toward ethanol instead of food for people or animals. As if that weren't enough, Togo was hit with devastating floods in July, washing out bridges on the main highway, destroying homes and villages, and killing many people. This natural disaster has compounded the economic one because it has made travel and trade between the cities and outlying areas much more difficult.

The floods have brought a lot of misery to the region, but we've played our part as well. Just in case you are not clear on why we, US citizens, share at least some of the responsibility for the dire circumstances in places like Togo, here is a brief and basic synopsis.

The US has enormous power to force "Free Trade Agreements" on developing nations like Togo (the US / World Bank forgives and/or reconfigures national debt in return for signing on the dotted line). These trade agreements push developing nations away from growing enough of their staple food crops to be self-sustaining. Instead, Free Trade has meant that farmers in developing countries are encouraged to grow cash crops like coffee, cocoa and cotton, and to do so in such a way that many of the villagers are able to move to cities where they can make shoes, clothing and many of the things that allow Walmart to maintain its famously low prices. In return, developing countries import food crops such as corn and wheat that we grow in surplus. In the lovely land of theory, the benefit to this is that the local farmers will make money from the cash crops, more than enough to purchase the food they need, our corporate agri-business will have foreign markets for the food crops they grow across the midwest. Oh, and we'll be able to drive to the local mega-mart and buy "cheap plastic crap."

And we ~ you, me, our families and neighbors ~ are culpable because we elect people and then pay little attention to what they agree to in international trade agreements or the farm bill. And too many of us never wonder whether there are consequences beyond our own bank accounts and immediate self-interest.

Now, throw corn-based ethanol into the mix, and the fields that were full of food-grade corn or wheat or barley are being used for ethanol-grade corn. Corn that was going to feed cattle is also redirected, the prices pushed up prohibitively high, and so the feed lots and ranchers purchase barley and other grains. The domino effect ensues, and the prices for these other grains skyrockets right along with corn.

However, the income for the farmers growing cotton in Togo has not risen, and they are using all their means to cultivate cotton so that they don't have enough food crops to feed their families. Look further east, and it's the same, as the rice paddies in Vietnam have been turned into coffee plantations to bring us our cheap cup of Folgers, and so the developing nations find themselves in the horrific place of having too few people on too few acres of arable land growing food crops. Food prices soar and people go hungry.

I saw this happening first-hand when I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I was sent to Togo to educate and encourage farmers ~ who had been hand-tilling small family plots of yams, corn, tomatoes, other food crops ~ to begin using oxen to till larger parcels of land. And to grow cotton. What I discovered was a situation that often resulted in the farmers becoming something like indentured servants. The Togolese government provided the loans for the cattle and accompanying training, as well as the loans for the cotton seed. Then, the government also set the price for cotton. The end result was that the absolute only way that a farmer could dig himself out of the debt incurred from purchasing oxen was to grow virtually no food, use all available land for cotton, and to dump loads of chemicals into the soil to produce the largest yields possible.

Oh, and I must point out that, while DDT and similar pesticides are banned in the US, there is still a thriving market for them in places like Togo. And, contrary to their manufacturer's evident hypothesis, the side-effects aren't lessened just because it's a developing nation.

So, back to our friends, Kodjo and Adjo, and their mother Afoua...

Kodjo is a student at Lome University, Adjo is in high school (and high school in Togo costs almost as much as the university). The rising prices have left them without funds for school, and Afoua is without enough for food. She is also chronically ill. So we are helping them.

I don't know if it makes it better or only more sad that for a little over $400 we can send Kodjo and Adjo to school for a year and provide Afoua with enough money for food and medicine. The money is not insignificant to us, but it's brutally significant to them. We will have to make adjustments, but they get education and some health care.

I am glad that our current presidential candidates are talking a lot about the economy. However, while they argue about tax cuts and job cuts and the banking and mortgage crisis for us, it is my very dear wish that they'd also think and talk a little about our influence in far-off, tiny countries like Togo.

Homage to Brash Kate

2008-09-23T11:50:00.019-05:00

I've been putting my book reviews on the side panel, and was happy with that until the other day when I couldn't remember the name of a book I'd read, and I knew that I'd written about it on my blog but ... oh... the shame... there are no tags and no record. What to do?

Umm. Put the reviews here and just links to the side, perhaps? Yes, that should do nicely.

How to Hepburn: Lessons on Living from Kate the Great by Karen Karbo. (c) 2007, Bloomsbury USA, Biography

This little book came across my desk a couple of months ago and I was immediately smitten. Yes, Bringing Up Baby is one of my top five favorite movies of all time, and I spent a lot of time in college watching and ruminating on films by those iconic divas Hepburn, Garbo and Dietrich.

This book is not written with a particularly deferential air, and I'd like to think that Kate would have liked that. It's also not a filmography, nor a tell-all about the great actress' private life. Instead, it is a lively recitation of those characteristics of Hepburn that made her a remarkable character, both off-screen and on.

Chapters include: The importance of being brash, How to stick to your knitting, and Making the most of a dysfunctional relationship. I think even those who don't know much about Kate or haven't seen many of her movies would still enjoy this light read.

The anecdotes are brilliant. My favorite so far: One day Kate wore jeans onto the movie set, a move so outrageous that the powers-that-be sent a production assistant to take Hepburn's jeans while she was in the dressing room so that she would be "shamed" into wearing a skirt. Instead, Kate "traipsed around in her underwear until the jeans were returned."

Her brashness was not always appreciated. No, not even often. She was at times hated because her strong, androgynous, opinionated attitude went completely against what was expected of women, and women's film roles, of the time. Critics attacked her because she never looked convincing when the script called for her character to swoon into love. Karbo writes,

Long before Gloria Steinem observed that on some level all women are female impersonators, Hepburn was unwittingly showing it to be true. Hepburn did have a limited range, and the limit was acting insipid and submissive opposite a leading man who couldn't hold a candle to her. To make matters worse, Hepburn also managed to convey that she had other fish to fry, and there's nothing more dangerous than a woman who can't be brought to her knees by love.

The allusion to Steinem notwithstanding, Hepburn was no feminist. Karbo refers to her as intransigently "nonanalytical," refusing to think deeply, or perhaps at all, about her impact on women's roles. She was prudish about sexuality on film and fiercely hostile to the notion of mothers working outside the home.

Karbo also points out an irony that I had learned years ago but forgotten: while women's roles in society have expanded, the roles on film have withered. Karbo lists the female roles for the top ten grossing films from the fall of 2006, a list that includes Bond girl, mothers, girlfriends, wives and ex-wives, assistants and a nanny. Not one is a leading role. However, in 1938 some of the greatest actresses of the time were starring in films, leading the plot as night-club dancer (Joan Crawford), office worker (Ginger Rogers) and more. The point is that, while expectations of gender-roles were limited (marriage is the ultimate role for a woman, love is the primary destination), the women were the headliners, not the pretty/pathetic/passive secondaries.

In spite of her brilliance, Katharine Hepburn nearly fell into obscurity. Karbo points out that the only reason Hepburn became famous was that she simply refused to give up. She kept breaking the mold until society caught up with her.

That's why I like Kate.

Love, Tacos and Universal Serendipity

2008-09-22T16:32:00.007-05:00

Ah, what a blissful weekend we had. Saturday was our big Whoo-hoo We Did It fete, and we spent the day hanging out with lots of friends and family. Our first guests (not counting Donna and Mary, who came early to help out) arrived around 3:30 in the afternoon. The last guest left after midnight. (And Donna & Mary stayed for breakfast on Sunday.) What a blast. I can't say enough how much it means to me to be surrounded by these friends and family who bring their love, joy and blessings. When I feel bruised and alone, these people make my world right.

As I said, our wonderful friends Donna and Mary came early, bearing cake. A few weeks ago we were talking with them and Mary said she wanted to make our wedding cake. We said, "Whoo-hoo!" Mary makes great and gorgeous cakes. She asked us what kinds of cake we liked and so we answered that she couldn't go wrong with chocolate, carrot or spice cakes. And we said, "Surprise us." My goodness, but did she ever take us up on the challenge! We were gifted with the most gorgeous three-tiered cake, the bottom layer was carrot, the middle layer chocolate, and, of course, the topper was spice. Cream-cheese frosting on the top and bottom, sour cream/chocolate in the middle, and roses all around. It gave a whole new meaning to "yummy."

With so much love and congratulations flowing, the day passed in bliss. People came in shifts, with no planning on our part, so we were able to spend good time with everyone and really enjoy the company. Some people brought appetizers, so the table was spread with great food. We also had a big gallon-sized donation jar out for the No On Proposition 8 Campaign, and our friends filled it up with bills. We didn't quite meet Brad Pitt's $100,000 contribution, but we did alright.

We served a taco bar, and I picked tacos because it seemed like something that would be easy to prepare ahead, could be set out and reheated in shifts, and would appeal to lots of people. It was only when I started cooking the almost 7 pounds of roast on Friday that I realized that I'd also stumbled upon the most beautiful serendipity. The recipe, Spicy Oven-Stewed Beef, came from a cookbook of my mother's (perhaps the Chevy's restaurant cookbook ~ I'm not sure because I added it to my binder collection before I became disciplined about noting the source on my copies). I'd prepared it before and really enjoyed it. However, on Friday as I was re-reading the recipe before starting, I also read the anecdote on the sidebar. It describes how the authors developed the recipe for their beef tacos after a great day skiing with the family at Sugar Pine Point State Park in Lake Tahoe: the exact place where Gabi and I got married on July 19th.

Now, if that isn't the universe saying "Hurrah!," then I don't know what is!

Spicy Oven-Stewed Beef

2 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck roast
2 tablespoons olive or peanut oil
1/4 teaspoon ground coriander seed
3 whole allspice berries
1/4 teaspoon whole peppercorns
1 pound tomatoes, preferably plum, coarsely chopped
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano or 1/2 teaspoon dried
1 tablespoon achiote paste or 2 teaspoons pure chili powder plus 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup dry red wine
2 cups water
18 corn or 12 flour tortillas, warmed or crisped just before serving

TOPPINGS
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh oregano leaves or 1 tablespoon dried
2 limes cut into 6 to 9 wedges each

1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Cut the chuck roast into pieces, about 3/4 inch thick by 1/2 inch long, trimming away any excess fat as you go.

3. Heat the oil in a large nonreactive stew pot over medium-high heat. Add as much meat as will fit in one uncrowded layer and cook until browned, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl. Continue with another round until all the meat is browned.

4. While the meat browns, place the coriander, allspice, and peppercorns on a paper towel. Fold the towel over the spices and crush them with a mallet or hammer.

5. Return all the meat to the pot and add the crushed spices, tomatoes, chopped onions, garlic, oregano, achiote paste, salt, wine and water. Bring to a boil. Cover and place in oven. Cook until meat is tender, 1 1/4 hours. (This stew can also be cooked on top of the stove, covered, over medium heat. The timing is the same.)

6. To assemble, place about 1/3 cup of the stew filling in the center of a tortilla. Top with some finely chopped onion and a sprinkle of oregano. Squeeze a lime wedge over all. Fold and serve.

* When I made this for our fete I left the beef in somewhat larger chunks, cooked it a little longer than the recipe called for, and then shredded the beef after. The flavor is marvelous, and the filling makes great enchiladas as well. B.

Silly, pretty things

2008-09-14T16:33:00.007-05:00

According to the weather forecasters, the Seattle-like drizzle that's settled in with a chilly fwump is actually the weakened remnant of Hurricane Ike. Go figure. I'll take the drizzle.

I welcomed the change in weather with a bit of beading creativity, playing with colors and thread last night until I was nearly too tired to brush my teeth before bed. But oh, what fun. Now, the even more entertaining part: wear these new pretty things a few times to test the design and make sure it will wear well for whomever I decide to gift it to.

Anyway, it was entertaining enough for me that I thought I'd share.

This pretty one is made with five strands of stone chips strung on cotton thread. It's easy but fairly putzy when you add up all the knots between stones.

My first foray into memory wire: a cute little choker with glass beads and silver charms.

I had some memory wire left over so made a simple bracelet with glass and stone beads and a magnetic clasp. This one is a true experiment since it's made with leftover necklace-sized wire instead of bracelet-sized wire.

Update: this little experiment ran badly awry. I'll have to break it apart and reuse the beads, and just throw out the left-over wire. Unless someone knows of a way to reuse this little slip of memory wire?

This last one uses a single circle stone that I found at one of my favorite bead stores in Duluth, plus two stones, on leather cord. I've made a few with a similar bead design, but I'm experimenting on this one with an adjustable cord length. Two slip knots should allow the wearer to adjust the length to suit different styles of clothing.

More Fact Checking

2008-09-12T16:55:00.002-05:00

I love those folks at FactCheck.org. They've recently offered some analysis of the e-mails and such regarding Sarah Palin. I'm happy to hear that, according to FactCheck, Palin did not attempt to ban books at the Wasilla Library:

One accusation claims then-Mayor Palin threatened to fire Wasilla’s librarian for refusing to ban books from the town library. Some versions of the rumor come complete with a list of the books that Palin allegedly attempted to ban. Actually, Palin never asked that books be banned; no books were actually banned; and many of the books on the list that Palin supposedly wanted to censor weren't even in print at the time, proving that the list is a fabrication. The librarian was fired, but was told only that Palin felt she didn’t support her. She was re-hired the next day. The librarian never claimed that Palin threatened outright to fire her for refusing to ban books.

See the full article, with info on Special Needs funding, Creationism, and the Alaska secessionist movement here.

Royalton Library Centennial

2008-09-10T20:59:00.006-05:00

The Royalton Library held its centennial celebration today. The ladies from the Royalton Woman's Study Club, the group that founded the library, held an open house with a historical display and refreshments. It was great fun to hang out and chat with everyone. I spent some time looking through the old ledgers and such. There were a couple of ledgers that listed all the books owned by the library and who had donated them.

I also discovered the notebook kept by the secretary of the Royalton Library Association, begun in April 1912. I found the Rules and Regulations passed for the library, and had to share.

Rules and Regulations of the Royalton Library Association

I. Adults living in the city or village of Royalton... are entitled to draw books by filling out application blanks. Children under the age of sixteen (16) must obtain the signature of parent or guardian.

II. Each person entitled to draw books from the library will be given a card, which must be presented whenever a book is taken, returned or renewed. If the card is lost, a new one will be given, after seven (7) days notice or upon payment of five cents.

III. One book at a time may be drawn on a card. Two volumes of the same work are considered as one book.

IV. Books may be kept for two weeks, and once renewed for the same time. Books marked "Seven Day Book" may be kept for that time only, but may be renewed once only for the same time.

V. A fine of one cent a day will be imposed for the books kept over time.

VI. A temporary resident may obtain a borrower's card by filling out an application blank and obtaining the signature of a resident-free holder, or by a temporary deposit, equal to the value of the book.

I found an inflation adjuster online and figured out that the five cents it cost in 1912 to replace a card would be $1.06. And we charge $1. Similarly, that 1 cent fine for overdues would be 21 cents today... and we charge 20 cents for adult items (10 cents for juvenile, and $1 for all videos). I think it is pretty amazing that these charges have remained relatively the same for a hundred years!

One more bit from the same document of 1912:

A motion was made and seconded that... all books, manuscripts and papers detrimental to the good morals and public order shall be barried from the library. Carried.

Personally, I much prefer the sentiment of Jo Godwin: A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.

Summer and Sauce

2008-09-07T18:14:00.006-05:00

My favorite things about this recipe:

The satisfied feeling that summer is drawing to a close and we’re heading into another glorious Minnesota fall. It means we’ve moved past the lovely, hot-weather standards of fresh tomato, mozzarella and basil salads, and that it’s cool enough outside that I look forward to using the stove and the oven and filling the house with both warmth and the deep, rich smells of slow-cooked sauce.

The fragrance of garden-ripe tomatoes blanched in boiling water.

Standing across the butcher block from Gabi, both of us skinning and seeding tomatoes, and instead of talking we each focus on the ripe, fragrant fruits in our hands and softly sing along to love songs playing on the stereo.

The buzz of a dozen bees plundering the garlic chives while I harvest basil, oregano and Italian parsley from the herb bed.

The way it evolves, over the better part of a day, from a light, fresh-smelling mixture into a sauce that is dense, rich and glistening, the flavor intensifying until it feels like a soul-warming indulgence. Then, with the final addition of the basil puree, the feeling of summer comes back full force: light, bright and fresh.

My most favorite thing: the look of satisfied bliss on the faces of my guests and my lovely Gabi when they tuck into a plate of pasta graced with this fabulous sauce.

My recipe is based on “Nach Waxman’s Simple Fresh Tomato Sauce,” from the New York Cookbook by Molly O’Neill, © 1992. My mom gave me the cookbook in 1994, and it’s still one of my favorites.

The Last Summer Fling Tomato Sauce

Red Sauce

5 pounds Brandywine or other beefsteak-type tomatoes, as ripe as possible
1 ½ pounds fresh, ripe plum tomatoes
¾ cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup grated carrot
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 teaspoons dry red wine
½ teaspoon brown sugar
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Salt, to taste

Herb Bundle

1 sprig fresh oregano
2-3 stems fresh basil
2 sprigs fresh Italian parsley
2-3 celery leaf sprigs
1 dried red chili

Basil Puree

2 cups loosely packed fresh basil leaves
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup water
⅓ cup pine nuts
¼ tsp. kosher salt

1. Make the Red sauce. Bring a large pot of water to boil and dip the tomatoes for a few seconds. Remove the tomatoes and place in a colander to cool slightly. Peel and discard their skins and remove the seeds, saving as much juice as possible. Coarsely chop the tomatoes and add to the juice.

2. In a large Dutch oven, warm ¼ cup of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the carrots, onion and garlic and sauté until the onions are translucent, 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes with their juice and the tomato paste and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low, partially cover the pot, and simmer for 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes. At each stirring, drizzle in 1 tablespoon olive oil.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 Degrees F.

4. Make the herb bundle: Place the ingredients for the herb bundle toward the center of a large piece of cheesecloth (approx 18”x24”). Roll short-ways, securely but not too tightly. Twist the ends of the tube and bring them together to tie in the center, securing the herbs and pepper inside the cloth.

5. After the sauce has cooked for 2 hours, stir in the brown sugar, red wine and pepper. Add the herb bundle in the center of the pot, making sure it is covered with sauce. Transfer the pot to the oven. Cover and cook until the sauce is dense and thick, 1 to 1 ½ hours.

6. Make the basil puree: Bring some water to a boil (you can use the left-over tomato water, if you’d like). Place basil in a colander and rinse with boiling water. Drain well. In a blender, combine all basil puree ingredients. Purée at medium speed until smooth. Set aside.

7. Once the sauce has finished cooking in the oven, remove the herb bundle to a small bowl and let cool. Check the sauce for salt and add as needed. When the herb bundle is cool enough to handle, squeeze out any excess liquid back into the sauce. Throw herb bundle away.

8. Serve sauce with whole grain pasta or polenta. Top each serving with some of the basil purée and freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Fact check please

2008-09-04T14:10:00.007-05:00

Last night I tuned into the Republican National Convention in order to listen to Sarah Palin's speech. I have to say that I was underwhelmed. I tuned in because I wanted to learn more about this relatively unknown woman, and after almost an hour of brilliantly staged speechifying I came away thinking that I still knew precious little about her.

However, before Palin took the stage Rudy Giuliani spent a good amount of rhetorical energy whipping up the crowd, and he left me stunned when he railed against liberals who would dare to challenge whether Palin would be able to uphold her VP duties while being a good mother to her children. I thought, "Wow, he's right, that's a stupid thing for someone to say."

So today, I put on my reference-librarian hat and decided to find out which bloody idiot said this. Problem is, I can't find where it happened. At least, I can't find where any liberal said it.

I did, however, find the following quote, thanks to Commondreams.org and an article from Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald.

I’m stunned - couldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain? ... But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?

I am haunted by the family pictures of the Palins during political photo-ops, showing the eldest daughter, now pregnant with her own child, cuddling the family’s newborn. When Mom and Dad both work full-time (no matter how many folks get involved with the children), it becomes a somewhat chaotic situation. Certainly, if a child becomes ill and is rushed to the hospital, and you’re on the hotline with both Israel and Iran as nuclear tempers are flaring, where’s your attention going to be? Where should your attention be? Well, once you put your hand on the Bible and make that oath, your attention has to be with the government of the United States of America.

And, guess who wrote this? Some liberal pundit? Some university-funded uber-feminist? Nope, this comes directly from the blog of Dr. Laura, that icon of right-wing radio and the "family values" set.

Mr Giuliani: Shame on you.

*****

And, for more fun, read the full article by Greenwald for a report on Palin's attempted firing of the Wasilla library director after the librarian refused to remove books that Palin found objectionable. Palin did fire the Wasilla police chief and possibly others as part of a "loyalty test" for her newly elected mayoral administration.

I lost count of how many times Palin, in her speech last night, referred to a McCain administration as one that would bring about positive change in Washington (so much so that she sounded like an opposition candidate -- isn't that wierd?). But when I read this article, my initial thought was that we've had enough Justice Department firings for this decade. I'm sick of having politicians abuse their power once in office by firing people over questions of "loyalty" instead of competency.

Back to the school year routine

2008-08-25T10:08:00.004-05:00

Well, it was 54 degrees at 6:15 this morning when my sweet, grumpy Gabi left for work. At least she had a great breakfast to look forward to, thanks to the Elk River Bank. The school district can't afford to treat the teachers to goodies, so they call on various businesses to pitch in. It's so great that they rally.

I got up about an hour later, ate a small breakfast and then took my walk around Lake George, passing by the new St. Cloud library. Workers were busy, busy, moving in boxes and crates of something. After looping the lake I came back and looped the library and saw three or four children's program staff standing among the browser racks at the front of the library, looking intently at some piece of paper.

I am so happy not to have anything to do with the big move.

We moved the Royalton library a couple of years ago, just a block, and it was a hectic, chaotic, nerve-wracking few months of buildup and then an utterly exhausting weekend of moving and reshelving and setting up in the new location. And the Royalton library is about 1/100th the size of HQ/St. Cloud Public Library. I just can't imagine.

But back to my original thread... yes, the school-year is back on, and the old routine is calling. Tomorrow it's back to my writing and the endless joy/struggle/excitement/exhaustion/etc. of following characters and plot lines as they weave into something (I hope) meaningful. Also, I weighed myself this morning and I have successfully lost all the weight I gained on the marital bliss road trip, plus 1/2 pounds more. So, yes, we're back on the calorie counting wagon as well.

And, truth be told, I'm feeling quite content.

I doubt, however, that Gabi would say the same.

The Perfect Glass of Iced Sun Tea

2008-08-22T11:15:00.006-05:00

A recipe in honor of the last day of summer vacation.

1) Sleep late, taking extra time to snuggle with your sweetie.

2) Once you get up, do it slowly. Listen to the birds singing outside, pet the cats (don’t forget to feed them too). When you get dressed, make sure comfort is more important than style. But wear cute shoes.

3) Start the sun tea: fill a one-gallon glass jar with filtered water. Add 8 bags of Nestea, regular or decaf, and 4 bags of Constant Comment, also regular or decaf.

4) Place the tea jar in the sunniest place in the garden, next to the basil and garlic chives. Talk to the chickadees while you take down the feeders to refill them, and enjoy when they talk back when you return with full feeders. Be sure to put out some peanuts and sunflowers for the chipmunks and squirrels, and pass through the garden looking at the new blooms, encouraging the recent transplants, and enjoying the very last daylilies of the summer.

5) Pull a few weeds with your sweetie. Water any dry garden beds and all transplants. Putz around the yard before having a light lunch.

6) Load up the kayaks in the back of the truck and go to a favorite lake or gentle river. Enjoy time in the sunshine, counting eagles and kingfishers and turtles. Stop and rest if you get tired. Eat a snack if you get hungry. Talk about anything that pops into your minds, or just enjoy the silence.

7) Head back home. Take in the tea. Remove the tea bags and refrigerate.

8) Do one productive thing from the to-do list that’s still too long.

9) Get a book and sit on the porch or the patio, reading out loud to each other. Or talk about what a great summer it’s been. Call each other Mrs. Laugh. Smile a lot.

10) Pour a glass of tea over ice. Add a slice of lemon or a little sugar if desired. Watch goldfinches eating sunflowers that the sparrows planted in the spring. Watch chipmunks run through the yard with perfectly peanut-shaped cheeks. Talk about school plans, weeding the library, and projects that need to be completed before fall. Feel completely happy and right with the world.

Photo credits: this is a picture of Crimson Shadows, the last great bloomer of the season. I purchased the plant from Oakes Daylilies a few years ago. Highly recommended.

Lynne Rossetto Kasper is a goddess

2008-08-21T20:30:00.003-05:00

Okay, maybe a demi-goddess, of food and hospitality, naturally.

We just finished another brilliantly yummy dinner at our house. Our friend Steph joined us, and she said she just had to have a copy of this recipe. Since I was going to be putting together a copy for Steph, I figured I'd share it with everyone.

BTW: I raved about this cookbook a couple of months ago in the "Cookbooks I'm drooling over" column to the right. I couldn't stand to give it back to the library so bought my own copy. It will be one that I turn to often.

We served this with fried rice and a very light (not oak-y) chardonnay. I don't know if this is the pairing that our local wine-guy would recommend, but it worked great for us.

Almond Chutney Chicken in Lettuce Roll-ups

Chicken Salad

One 3-pound roasted chicken
1 medium red onion, cut into 1/4-inch dice
Grated zest of 1 large lemon
Juice of 3 large lemons, or more to taste
2 jalapeños, seeded and minced, or hot sauce to taste
One 9-ounce jar Major Grey Chutney, cut into bite-sized pieces if necessary
1/2 cup mayonaise
Salt and fresh-ground black pepper
3 large celery stalks, cut into 1/4-inch dice
1 cup whole salted almonds, coarse chopped

Lettuce cups and herbs

1 large head Bibb lettuce, leaves separated, washed and dried
1 large bunch fresh basil, washed and dried
1 large bunch fresh coriander, washed and dried
8 radishes, thin sliced
1 large cucumber, peeled and sliced into thin rounds or 2-inch sticks

1. Pull the meat from the chicken carcass, discarding the skin and bones. Cut it into bite-sized pieces.

2. In a large bowl combine the onions, lemon zest and juice, jalapeños, chutney, mayonnaise, and salt and pepper. Fold in the chicken. Taste the mix for lemon, mayonnaise, and herbs, adding more as needed. Let it stand for 20 minutes to blend flavors, or cover and refrigerate overnight.

3. To serve, blend the celery and nuts into the chicken mixture. Mound the salad at one side of a big platter. Pile up the lettuce leaves at the other side, and cluster the sprigs of herbs in the center. Tuck the radishes and cucumbers next to the herbs.

4. Put a few herb leaves in the bottom of a lettuce "cup," top them with a spoonful of the salad, add a slice each of radish and cucumber, and roll up.

READ - seriously!

2008-08-18T21:16:00.007-05:00

I feel like jumping for joy ~ the summer reading program is done! It finished Saturday, and today I compiled all my stats, did all my prize drawings, put away the left over prize books until next year and directed my aide to tear down all the posters and bulletin boards. It's officially done.

Please don't get me wrong, I love the Summer Reading Programs. Nothing is more fun that working with the kids who are so excited about reading, geared up for programs, and just looking to have a good time at the library. But it is a lot of work. Sort of like the holiday season... lots of joy and good memories but it's a relief all the same when it's over.

We broke some records again this year. Over 200 kids participating, which is awesome for our little town of not-quite 1000 folks. Of course we pull kids from nearby towns as well, but I'm still impressed. And all these kids read a lot of books. So phenomenol.

Just to make it an even better day, while playing around online tonight (during commercials while watching The Closer) I discovered the new ALA READ poster generator. It is so fun. I'll have to get some pics of Royalton kids to make some local posters. What a hoot.

Check out the Flickr READ posters here. Lots of great ideas out there, from library folks and book-lovers alike.

Blooms in my garden, rum in my salad

2008-08-13T20:58:00.008-05:00

It's been a blissfully lovely last couple of weeks here. Highs have been in the mid 70's to 80's, and the humidity has been low (at least for Minnesota). It's hard to be indoors, knowing that this gorgeous weather is going to be all too short-lived.

This morning I took advantage of the weather to do lots of transplanting. Last year I started coreopsis, rudbeckia and other perennials in a nursery bed. Today I transplanted several of them into the beds at the back of our lot where the plantings were pretty thin and anemic looking. It made a huge difference.

The big garden story of late, however, is the back corner.

The mess we started with... an old, icky sandbox, piles of old branches and yard waste, and views into the neighbors back yards.

This neglected spot of our yard has been the "this is the year" project for the last several years, but somehow we never got around to it and it just kept getting messier and more neglected looking. Finally, we spent some time on it (less than I imagined it would take, frankly) and now it looks like it belongs with the rest of the yard.

We cleaned up upwards as well, culling out crossed and low-hanging branches and dead wood from the trees along the property line. It's amazing how much more open the space feels.

It's a little premature to call it finished, but it looks so much better now that we've taken out the old sandbox (it was a great thing to have when the nephews and niece were little, but for the last four or five years no one has used it but local cats). We also made a firewood holder using cinder blocks and the recycled 2x6's from the sand box. In addition, we pruned trees and put up reed fencing.

The beginning of (work) day two: still a long way to go.

We're planning to put in pavers, a fire pit and seating area, and adjust the plantings to bridge the area better, but most of that will likely have to wait until next year. For now, I'm just thrilled to have it cleaned up. We had Jane and Nancy over last weekend and enjoyed a fire after a great dinner. It was so nice!

With a light reed fence, the corner still feels airy but more private. Still more to do to make it "lovely," but at least it is tidy now instead of being the corner I'm embarrassed about.

We fixed the sun-dried tomato burgers that were in last year's cookbook as well as a Mojito Salad from the New York Times Country Weekend Cookbook (2007). It was fantastic! The recipe says that the rum is optional, but but I would really recommend you use it. Also, the recipe makes a very big bowlful and does not keep well ~ the fruit gets mushy after it sits in the fridge overnight. It should be served within an hour or two of mixing together.

MOJITO SALAD

For the salad:

1/2 cup red onion, halved and thinly sliced crosswise
Juice of 1 lime
1 medium jicama, peeled and cut into matchsticks
1 seedless hothouse cucumber, sliced 1/4-inch-thick crosswise
1/2 seedless watermelon, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 pound strawberries, hulled and halved lengthwise
1/3 cup packed fresh mint leaves, thinly sliced

For the dressing:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (about 2 1/2 limes)
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
3 tsp light rum

1. To make the salad: marinate the onion in the juice of 1 lime for at least 2 hours or overnight. Combine all salad ingredients in a large bowl.

2. To make the dressing: whisk together the dressing ingredients and pour over the salad*. Toss. Serve or transport to a picnic.

Yield: 12 servings.

* I used about half the dressing on the salad and saved the rest to be served on the side. It was delicious on the left-over watermelon a couple of days later.

Good-bye July

2008-08-04T22:05:00.007-05:00

I'm stunned and a little embarrassed that I never made it back during July to write more in the blog. It's not that I wasn't doing anything worth writing about: we drove to Winnemucca to meet The New Nephew, Jon, visit with the rest of the family, and then on to Lake Tahoe, California side, to get married. Then we enjoyed the Marital Bliss Road Trip back with a stop in Missoula.

Perhaps I'll detail it more later, but for now I just have to say how incredibly grateful and humbled I am at the amount of congratulations and cheers we've received since we decided to drive to California and make our marriage legal. We've been toasted and cheered and received so many congratulations that it's left me at times overwhelmed and humbled to the point of silence. It's incredibly moving that so many people around us understand why it's so important for us to have this legal right. Why it shouldn't be taken for granted by anyone and should be available to all of us.

I never would have expected that the words "by the power vested in me by the state of California" would have such an impact. But they did, and when Christa spoke them we sobbed. Me, my lovely Gabi, our friends Paul and Jennie, and Christa too. We all sobbed. It was so powerful. Such a simple thing that so many straight couples get to take for granted...

So, we're back. The honeymoon is over and I'm back to work and Gabi is back to lesson planning ~ school starts in three weeks.

Oh, and one other thing: by pure dumb luck we arrived in Missoula at the same time that Ani DiFranco was there on tour. So we were able to see her in concert at the historic Wilma Theater in downtown Missoula (when I went to school there, I used to go see old black and white classics at the Wilma's little theater... one of my favorite places in town). Seats were general admission, so we got there early enough to find places in the center of the seventh row. We could see her sweat. She was, simply put, awesome, and it was great to sing out, with all the rest of the audience, every word for her canon classics like "Gravel," "Swan Dive," and "32 Flavors." My only disappointment was that she didn't sing "Pixie," one of my favorites and one of her most underrated songs. Still. Bliss. And no better place for two dykely newlyweds to hold hands and dance.

Before I can leave for vacation

2008-07-10T07:17:00.006-05:00

I have to take pictures of the garden. I will be missing it.

These stately sunflowers marking the entrance into the yard... planted by birds. I bought and planted 5 packets of fancy sunflowers. One plant is coming up. The birds, however, grab some seeds to eat from the feeders, sit on the fenceposts and spill seeds. And theirs grow into small trees.

The keyhole bed, finally looking mature and lush. I love the delphiniums.

The lily bed, just getting ready to bloom. We'll miss the height of the display this year.

The front border, lush with lilies and salvia.

I love the combination here: coreopsis moonbeam, purple sedum, iris, yellow lilies, and salvia.

The essential problem with basements

2008-07-08T11:58:00.006-05:00

Things we found while looking for the binoculars:

The box with Gabi’s shorts and our garden t-shirts (it’s only July).

The box and carrying case for the binoculars, both empty.

A ceiling fan, in a box, which we'd both forgotten about, but after finding it again we remember bringing it with us when we moved from our apartment. Almost eleven years ago. Guess it's a good thing we didn't buy that one at Home Depot.

Several dishtowels that got left under other laundry on the pool table.

The screws and such for the awnings, carefully labeled, which we’ve been looking for since spring ’07, which we both clearly remembered putting in a special place when we put it away in the fall of ’06. That special place turned out to be the top shelf of the food pantry. Why, we don’t know.

One of the lens protectors for the binoculars, in a separate place from the case.

Four large, empty boxes for computers, some of which we don’t own anymore.

My graduation gown from the U of Montana, Missoula, with the cap, tassel, and gold cord. We added it to our other grad gowns, which means we now have at least five of them somehow. We're not sure how that has happened, particularly since we can only find two caps.

Our shoes, worn just once, from our stint as bridesmaids.

So far, we have not found the binoculars. We might just buy new ones.

So much to do

2008-07-07T19:20:00.004-05:00

In three days we leave for vacation.

In twelve days we're getting married in California.

After that is, in Karyn's words, the "marital bliss road trip."

So much to do. I've been wanting to blog, drafting essays in my head, pondering quotes and topics to chat about. But no time.

This is how I feel.

(BTW, re photo credits: This image came to me in an e-mail from our friend Donna who finds the craziest stuff ever in her Internet forays. No idea where it came from originally.)

Of Goodness and Guilt

2008-06-23T10:59:00.002-05:00

A couple of months ago we received an amazing surprise in the mail: a letter from Kodjo, the son of Afoua, my best Togolese friend while I was in the Peace Corps. Gabi and I were both misty-eyed as we read Kodjo's letter, and we were full of pride when he told us that he was attending university in Lome while his younger sister, Adjo, was in high school. The Togolese education system is enormously expensive as well as mercilessly meritocratic ~ exams cull all but the brightest students from entering high school. So for both Adjo and Kodjo to be doing so well says a great deal of good about their intelligence, perseverence and good fortune.

I found a letter that I wrote home on May 26, 1991:

Still it is raining – nearly a “white out” of fog and sheets of water. The acacia trees are thrashing back and forth; the palm about a hundred yards away is all but invisible. A couple of women from the marché are hiding out with Afoua under the eaves, and a goat somewhere is bleating plaintively. It is raining too much for any work to be done. But this also means it’s raining too much for anyone to fight a civil war or revolution. It’s been very quiet politically these last couple of days. It’s raining too much for anything but showers.

Kodjo and Adjo are dancing naked under the sheets of water falling off the roof. They kick and jump and sing at the top of their voices to drown out the roar of the storm. Kodjo shadow-boxes like the Ninja warriors someone saw in an American “B” movie and then told him about. He plants his feet and strikes out his hands while the water all but envelops him. Adjo stomps in the water, head down, blowing water out of her mouth – PWOO! PWOO! – and reaches up to rub her fuzzy head while the water pelts it. Then suddenly the rain stops and the two dash off, streaking through mud puddles and grass to go gather fallen mangoes that the storm knocked off the tree.

I admit that Kodjo's letter sat beside the computer for a few weeks before we wrote back. It's not that I wasn't thinking about my reply, it's not that I didn't want to write him. No. It was the French.

During the three years that I lived in Togo, I learned to speak French with a decent amount of fluency. Actually, perhaps I should have put that in quotes, as in "speak French." As in, the language I cobbled together would have sounded horrifyingly plebeian to anyone born in France. In the former French colony of Togo, I had teachers who tried hard to teach me proper French grammar, pronunciation and speech patterns. But I lived in a small village and worked with people who had little formal education. With them, I either spoke “pidgin” French or I wasn’t understood.

Formal, written French has always been beyond my grasp. I tried to read a few French novels while in country and gave up. It was just too different and difficult, and it made it more difficult to speak with the Togolese around me. I was able to read Kodjo's letter well enough ~ I understood a large enough majority of the words to guess my way through those that I didn't recognize, and so arrive at the general gist of the letter.

However, my written French, even when I was speaking French every day, was awful. Now, for me to write in French is all but impossible.

By the way, Yahoo's Babel Fish is a great tool. Yes, we used it. But like most translating tools, web-based or otherwise, it's also fundamentally ignorant of language. Synonyms, homonyms, colloquialisms, all these tend to get mixed up so that your translated text has the occasional bits of word-salad nonsense. It is particularly entertaining when the proper nouns can be translated as well. Par example: my name translates to "held up" in French. I never knew that until I started writing to Kodjo and translated the letter first from English to French and then back to English. It's odd to me that I lived for three years in a French-speaking country and only learned about the unsavory character of my name last week.

In spite of the difficulty, we wrote back to Kodjo. We translated, checked and rechecked the language and the spelling until we felt pretty sure that we would not completely embarrass ourselves or confuse him with baffling syntax. Then we e-mailed our letter. That's right. Kodjo has an e-mail address. He's not just attending the university, he's computer literate.

From our friend and fellow RPCV Jennie, we know that there are now Internet Cafes in Lome as well as in other major cities in Togo. This is so inconceivable for me, in part because she has also told us that the standard of living in Togo has fallen dramatically since we were there. Roads that had a few pot-holes while we served in Togo are all but impassable now. Even the national highway is down to a single lane in places. The value of the currency (CFA) has fallen dramatically, while AIDS and other maladies have grown more widespread (guinea worm being one of the few exceptions to this). Poverty is acute and government corruption is endemic.

But technological progress has made its inroads, and now there are cell phones and Internet cafes in Togo as in other developing nations. It boggles my mind. I've written about this before, I know, but technological advances can look so schizophrenic when juxtaposed with such profound poverty and a miserable standard of living.

So, back to my original thread: we e-mailed Kodjo, telling him how happy we were to hear from him, how proud we were of him and his sister for still being in school, etc. He wrote us back, enthused about hearing from us. That was good, but his letter was also oozing with the guilt-inducing tendencies of Togolese conversations.

I don't want to get stereotypical here, but different cultures do have certain unique tendencies in the way people express themselves. I think often in the US we tend toward sarcasm and cynicism and shy from heartfelt emotion. Gabi tells me that when wishing a Swiss person happy birthday, a simple card with "have a great day" will not do. One must add in some flowery verbage as well.

And in Togo, I think one of the ways to let someone know "I care about and miss you" is to say how dreadful your life has been without him/her and how you've been bereft over the long silence/absence and no one else cares for or helps him/her the way you did and...

This style of language might not be so troubling except that I do feel guilty about the people and work I left behind in Togo. When I left to come back to the US I made promises that I could not keep, everything from "Yes, I will write you" to "You'll be okay, I know it." I did not keep writing. I lost the language so quickly when I came back to the US, especially since I had very rarely written French when I was living there. I got distracted by grad school, difficulties with my family, and making a life with Gabi in Minnesota. I felt angry and helpless because every letter from Togo came with a guilt-inducing message followed by a plea for money, please send some CFA, no one will help us since you left, we despair every day without you.

The simple truth is that things did get worse for Kodjo and his family after I left. Afoua lost her home after she lost the income I gave her for helping me. She had to leave Agou village and move in with her sister in Lome. She now works for her sister as a domestic servant instead of working for herself. Her health declined, and when Jennie saw her a couple of years ago (in Togo again to do fieldwork for her dissertation), Afoua had an endless litany of woes and maladies.

After I returned to the US, I laid awake nights worrying about Afoua. More specifically, I worried that somehow, in spite of my very real efforts to help, I had done her wrong. I employed her for the three years I lived in Togo, and she provided immeasurable help to me. Not just things like carrying water and washing clothes, but also helping me to navigate the social and cultural norms and customs, to remember names and learn family connections. I truly would not have made it in Peace Corps without her. But I worried that even as she helped me, and I did pay her well, there wouldn't be anything in place for her and her family after I left. She made palm oil, a horrifically demanding job, and during the three years she worked for me she used her money very wisely, I thought, and gradually bought larger and larger pots so that she could make more oil to sell. She was thinking about "after Blandina" (as she called me), and that was good. But she couldn't make enough with the oil to make up for the salary she lost when I left. I suspected this would happen, and I worried about it so much, wondering if I had helped her better her life at all or only helped raise her standard of living temporarily so she'd have farther to fall.

However, she was able to keep Kodjo and Adjo in school, so things were not as bad as they could have been. We are so proud of all of them for this. For these two young people to make it this far in the Togolese education system is just huge. And I do intend to write back to Kodjo, and we'll send some money from time to time. It seems like the least I can do.

The Fruit Season

2008-06-20T12:39:00.009-05:00

We’re coming into the time of year that I love: fruit season.

I just came home from grocery shopping, and it was almost an overwhelming experience. The smell of ripe peaches stretched across aisles, pulling me right past the cookies without even a pause for temptation. A beautiful display of melons greeted me as well, half a dozen varieties laid out in neat rows like organic, geometric art.

I came home with a Crenshaw and sliced it up immediately. It’s so sweet and juicy. Lovely beyond reason.

I also brought home gorgeous organic strawberries and avocados. I wanted to bring home peaches and plumicots and nectarines as well, but there’s the small problem of eating all this bounty. I’ll go back for more in a couple days, when I’ve finished the melon and berries.

In the meantime, this feast of fruit made me think of when I was a kid in California. We had apricot and mulberry trees, and I spent many a summer morning and afternoon high in the branches, gobbling up sun warmed, perfectly ripened fruit.

To give the full picture, I must digress. We lived on the desert, so trees were precious. To grow the trees strong and healthy, my parents came up with a solution that sounds “green” now but was merely cost effective and sensible thirty years ago. They redirected water from the washing machine and used it to water the trees. We had a huge, black pvc-type hose that we moved from tree to tree, filling the wide, deep reservoir around every elm, cottonwood and mulberry.

Along with the trees, the wash-water made the grass grow as well, and we had a lovely little glade behind the house that was like an oasis in the desert: speckled with shade from the trees, lush with grass from all that carefully directed water.

And, we had horses. Specifically, I had a pony, at one time two. Peanuts and Goldie are the ones I remember the best.

When the mulberries ripened I would take my pony to the tree, drop the lead so that she could graze on deep grass, and stand on her back so that I could reach the higher branches where the larger, plumper berries waited. By then I’d stripped the bottom branches, and the birds had plundered the outer reaches, so the best berries were those that were sheltered between. Sometimes my best friend Leslie joined me, with her pony, and we feasted until our faces and hands turned purple.

When we moved to Northern Nevada, when I was 15, one of the first things my mom did was plant more mulberry trees. When we spoke last weekend she told me that she expects a bumper crop this year and is looking forward to lots of cobblers and jam.

Now, far away from California and Nevada, Gabi and I have a white mulberry tree in our yard and there’s a sweeter, more familiar purple variety on the empty lot next door. In years past we’ve never gotten much from the purple tree because our nephews and niece, who lived just behind the empty lot, would strip all the berries as soon as they hinted at pink. Perhaps because there were four of them competing for the berries on one small tree, they never waited until the berries were really ripe before picking them. And I, spoiled from growing up on plump, sweet berries so ripe they fell with the light touch of a single finger, never could bring myself to eat many of that tart, pink fruit.

But last year there was a separation and dislocation, and now our kids don’t live next door anymore. This morning I went to check on the tree to see what kind of gifts it would be giving us this year.

And I found that the tree has died. There’s not so much as a single leaf on those grey branches. And definitely no fruit.

Photo credits: I found both these images on Flickr. The lovely shot of a rainbow over Bell Mountain is by Y. Sky atwww.flickr.com/photos/ysky/389806234. And the equally lovely pic of mulberries is at www.flickr.com/photos/25454549@N03/2586274355

TheLibrarianIsHere TheLibrarianIsHere

2008-06-17T08:30:00.011-05:00

A couple of summers ago, as I drove into Royalton on my way to work, I had the window down and was enjoying the lovely day. I saw two boys riding their bikes along the road, and as I drove past them I heard one of them yell to the other, "The librarian is here the librarian is here!" It came out in one long multisyllabic breath as the boy stood up on the bike, peddling as fast as he could while wearing a huge smile on his face. Half an hour later, when I opened the library for business, the boys were there, eager to sign up for the Summer Reading Program. I can't remember whether they brought their library cards with them. Probably not.

After all this time, it still makes me smile.

Yesterday was the Summer Reading Program kick-off. Our theme this year is "Look What's Cookin' at Your Library," so we're having lots of fun with food oriented programming. Gabi came up (after teaching summer school all morning) to lead a demonstration on using a pizza box to make a solar oven that would melt English-muffin pizzas. My aide staffed the craft table where kids made suncatchers out of paper plates and clear contact paper. And my branch assistant thrilled the kids with her facepainting and story telling skills. I cooked pizza (in a most-definitely-not solar oven) and did the paperwork of signing up 50+ kids. Not a bad turnout for a town of under a thousand.

So, yes, summer is officially here. The reading has begun!

For a great look at (someone else's) pictures of the pizza-box solar oven, click here.

For any parents/teachers/library staff out there, both the pizza-box solar oven and the paper-plate suncatcher are great kids' crafts. The idea for the suncatcher came from our SRP resource guide. Basically, take a dessert-sized paper plate and cut a 3 1/2 to 4 inch circle from the center of the plate. Cut two circles from clear contact paper, making them the same size, about a half-inch larger than the circle in the plate. Put one contact paper circle over the bottom of the plate, so that the sticky side is facing up. Decorate the sticky circle; we gave the kids glitter, confetti, pieces of brightly colored tissue paper and colored feathers. When they've finished decorating, place the second piece of contact paper over the "bowl" of the plate, sealing in all the decorations between the two pieces of contact paper. Punch a hole in the top of the plate, add a ribbon, and you have a suncatcher.

I found the picture above here. It gives you the basic idea, but I have to say that our kids' suncatchers were way more creative and pretty than this one! I wish I had thought to take my camera.

The economics of beauty

2008-06-15T10:07:00.009-05:00

We've finished dividing the front bed and potted up lots of Stella d'Oro daylilies to sell, as well as some of the gorgeous red Asiatic lilies. We also potted up three gallon pots with shoots from the Anabelle hydrangea that was encroaching too far toward one of the rose bushes. A few plants are to be given to friends, and the others we'll try to sell. By trying to sell, I mean simply that we put out a sign that says "Plants for Sale" whenever we're putzing in the yard... it's fairly haphazard and only intermittently effective.

That said, we have managed to sell a few Stellas and Asiatics, so since we had "free money" we went to Fairview Nursery to buy two fancy perennials that I've wanted for quite a while, Brunnera "Looking Glass" and a Siberian iris called "Butter and Sugar".

This is a weird quirk of mine: I'll happily lay out around $30 for each truck load of compost from Mississippi Topsoils, and every year we fork over funds for the tomatoes and peppers, as well as pretty annuals for pots. While I'll happily buy several of these little plants at $2.50 to $3.00 each, the thought of buying one gallon-sized hybrid perennial for $17 makes me shudder, sigh resignedly, and turn away empty-handed.

I've never seen the salvia so big and healthy before...
they are loving all the rain and the cooler days we're having this June.

Instead, over the years I have I purchased biennial campanula, false dragonhead, and other nuisance perennials in pint-containers at end-of-season sales for $2.50 each. Now I rip them from the beds and throw them away as weeds, unwilling to even pot them up to try to sell them for a buck or 50 cents, grumbling as I go that these fairly pretty but generally horrible plants should come with warning labels.

Ten (!!?!) years ago when we began planting the garden beds, we had lots of vision, a seemingly endless supply of lawn waiting to be converted into garden beds, and very little money. Accordingly, we started many of our perennials from seed. Coreopsis, salvia, rudbeckia, blue flax, gallardia... all of these came from seed, and so for the first few years our garden beds looked like neatly tilled soil with pin-pricks of tiny plants.

Around the same time, a neighbor hired a professional landscaper and had beautifully symmetrical beds laid out with lovely, flowering plants from gallon-pots. The beds looked mature from the moment the mulch was put down. We were so envious! However, we knew that we had invested in the soil, and so our tender little seedlings would grow well. They did. It only took a couple of years for the beds to fill in and the flowers to come in profusion. Our beds looked established as well.

And then the deadheading began in earnest both to keep the beds looking neat and pretty and to control the rampant explosion of "volunteers."

I can't remember consciously planting chives in the garden,
yet we have oodles. I deadhead scrupulously to keep
the numbers within reason ~ chives are so hard to weed out.
That said, they're pretty this time of year. That's
blue flax right above the date ~ almost ready to bloom.

We also started our garden with many, many pass-along plants. My mom sent us dozens of fancy bearded iris, of which unfortunately a good portion just weren't cut out for our specific growing conditions. We don't have enough room to devote a whole bed just to iris, so to survive in our garden the plants have to be strong enough to compete for space and sunshine with other perennials. Not all can. Oddly enough, it's the yellow and pink varieties that died out. We have lots of blues and purples left.

"Winner's Circle" is one of the iris from my mom that bloomed for us this year after
an absence of several seasons. It's a very pretty flower and looks great
with the lighter blues and purples of the other perennials blooming right now.

We lost several iris one year when we were plagued with a winter that oscillated between freezing and thawing. Those that did survive the winter were then killed by an unusually wet and cold spring. The rhizomes turned to mush. In frustration, I decided that I needed to augment the beds with something that could stand up better to a wet spring. Daylilies to the rescue. They are bloody hard to kill. And, they are stunning. So for a few years we invested in one then another lovely specimen, showering each with compost and the unlovely, wafting odor of milorganite fertilizer. (It smells like poo... because it is.)

So now, we have huge clumps of daylilies, with a few iris varieties valiantly demanding their place in the sunshine.

But back to the passalongs... We rescued dozens of peonies, roses and other perennials from some friends' garden when they had to move. All of the hybrid tea roses succumbed eventually to the Minnesota winter, but most of the hosta, astilbe and other perennials are still growing happily, as are the peonies. It was these same friends who gave us our first Asiatic lilies... huge, stunning white lilies, others with a gorgeous deep red color, and sprightly little yellow and white stargazers.

Oh, and the orange, species tiger lilies.

I now pull out tiger lilies like weeds. I do try to strip them of their seeds every summer. However, I believe that like the hydra, for every fifty seeds I strip somehow a hundred reach the ground. And every one of them sprouts. They are relentless in their plundering of unlilied garden bed, popping up in the middle of mature plants with astounding tenacity. They're like the tufts of grass you find growing on rocky cliffs in California and Nevada. All each seed needs is a tablespoon full of soil to call its own and it throws down roots, logic be damned.

None of the tiger lilies in this corner were planted here... they just
showed up (as did the milkweed). I actually weeded out several last year,
from this same corner. Yet the few that I left have come back, and after all the
rain we've had this year they are growing like gangbusters..

It's a good thing that the tiger lilies are lovely. Actually, they're more than lovely. They are tall and stately, impressive backdrops to the lush profusion of echinacea, liatris, scabiosa and coreopsis at their feet. And their bloom time is complementary to the daylilies and Asiatics, keeping the color going all summer long...

What am I saying... unlike the biennial campanula, I couldn't eradicate the tiger lilies from my garden if I tried. I am forced to love them. Call it a special form of denial.

Favorite place, favorite team

2008-06-12T20:57:00.005-05:00

On Tuesday, we kicked off Gabi's summer vacation with a spontaneous day trip to the Cities. We started with lunch with a friend in Maple Grove, then headed to Chanhassen to spend a couple of hours at the arboretum ~ one of my very favorite places to visit.

We were a little early for the height of the peony bloom, but had perfect timing for the iris.

One of the very fun things about the iris garden at the arboretum is that there are lots of older varieties ~ Dusky Challenger, Beverly Sills, Stepping Out ~ that my mom grows in her garden. These are varieties that I haven't seen in years, and seeing them at the arboretum is like visiting with old friends. I get downright wistful.

It was also fun to see the lady slippers in bloom. The arboretum has a few different varieties (the fancy ladyslippers weren't blooming yet). These are such unique and fascinating flowers. They were blooming both in the wildflower garden and along the bog walk ~ which we enjoyed on Tuesday but I wouldn't recommend it once the mosquitoes are out in full force.

After spending a few hours wandering around the gardens, we drove to Minneapolis to catch a Minnesota Lynx game. Now, I am admittedly one of the least jock-ish people I know. Please don't ask me to name any professional football, hockey, basketball or baseball teams or players. Or anything like standings, rivalries, scores, scandals, etc. It's not just that I don't know these "vital statistics." What is truly dazzling is my utter indifference.

However, I love going to Lynx games. I love the crowd, I like supporting the athletes, and there's something vibrant and thrilling about the WNBA. Also, the women don't play it like a power sport for the star poser. There aren't many slam dunks in the WNBA. Instead, there's finesse and teamwork, and that is so much more interesting. So, my birthday present from Gabi was Lynx tickets. What fun. I am slowly learning a few of the rules as well ~ although my complete bafflement at what does or does not constitute a foul would likely drive a true basketball fan to tears. Unfortunately, the ladies lost. However, it was a great game.

Oh ~ and in the off chance that it matters to any of you ~ they played Connecticut.

Thanks, Jon

2008-06-11T12:33:00.004-05:00

First, a caveat:

I do not regularly get my news from The Daily Show.

I do, however, sometimes get a jolt of information about the news from Jon Stewart & co. This happened a couple of days ago when the lead story on TDS was about the nearly complete lack of coverage by the major news networks ~ cable and otherwise ~ regarding the recent report put out by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Evidently, instead of reporting on the administration's exaggerations, omissions and shameless propagandizing in building a case for the Iraq war, the networks and cable news shows chose to run with the sexy kerfuffle over two dykes kissing in a ballpark.

Even my dear Gabi, who listens to NPR all the time, had not heard the news. I had, because I read my news online and somehow had the right combination of news sources plugged into my Google Reader.

So, for those of you who missed this story, here's a couple of choice links:

Senate Finds Pre-War Bush Claims Exaggerated, False
By Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Jun 5 (IPS) - Claims by U.S. President George W. Bush and other top administration officials before the 2003 invasion of Iraq regarding Baghdad's ties to al Qaeda and its weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes were generally not supported by the evidence that the U.S. intelligence community had at the time, according to a major new report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Thursday.

The Truth About the War (editorial, NY Times, June 6)

A new report shows clearly that President Bush should have known that important claims he made about Iraq did not conform with intelligence reports.

And, just in case the news networks failed in their reporting role vis-a-vis the shenanigans the administration is pulling in Iraq, here's another story that is more than a little noteworthy.

From the British paper, The Independent, US Issues Threat to Iraq's $50bn Foreign Reserves in Military Deal, by Patrick Cockburn, Friday, June 6, 2008

The US is holding hostage some $50bn (£25bn) of Iraq's money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pressure the Iraqi government into signing an agreement seen by many Iraqis as prolonging the US occupation indefinitely, according to information leaked to The Independent.

The pretty ladies are back again

2008-06-09T10:27:00.006-05:00

Finally, the first of the fancy bearded iris are open.

"Charisma"

They're almost two weeks late this year. However, as though to make up for their tardy arrival they are preparing the best display we've had in a few years. We have buds on plants that haven't bloomed for years ~ long enough that I've lost track of their names. I'll be sending the pics to my mom so that she can identify them for me.

This one has the most intense, gorgeous perfume! And while it's hard to see from the pictures, the beard hooks up instead of laying flat against the fall. The coloration goes from deep blue to tan on the underside of the petals. And the stalk is sturdy and nearly three feet tall. Wow! I have no clue who she is, but she's stunning.

Update: Mom says she's called "Fragrant Lilac." Gorgeous!

Now, if the severe thunderstorms will just bypass St. Cloud for a few weeks, we should have a really lovely show.

What am I doing here?

2008-06-07T11:28:00.005-05:00

It's a question that crops up from time to time:

Why do I spend the time and energy to blog?

Some days, the voice has a tinge of self-pitying doubt. These are days when I look and see that even though my site meter tells me that I've had several visitors in the last week, no one has left me a comment since forever (can you hear the 14 year old?). Do they not care? Is my writing that bad? Should I go hide by head under a blanket and never touch a keyboard again?

Fortunately, those times don't last long.

Other times, such as today, I am inspired to ask this question more intellectually, and then both the accompanying questions and the answers are much more pleasant.

I stumbled across an essay by Meredith Farkas, of Information Wants to Be Free, where she asks a similar question. She's looking at the issue of self-disclosure and social media, and wonders about her motivations when she does disclose personal information about herself. Farkas writes,

I notice that my blog started to get more personal as I started to connect more with real people online. I had a few regular readers and commenters whom I got to know and like, and I wanted to share things with them, both good and bad. Personal and professional, online and real world all seemed to blur together.

She finds herself in the position of knowing a lot about people she's never met in person, and of being completely involved in the dramas going on in their lives, because of reading their blogs. And lots of people know a lot about her, because of reading her blog. Boundaries get blurry. She thinks of them as friends, but does that make sense?

Another question Farkas poses is how much her self-disclosure has to do with ego. Is she telling personal information, for example job search woes, so that someone will leave an encouraging comment?

It's a fair question, and one I pose to myself. Of course it feels good to have someone comment. How great do you feel when a stranger notices and comments on your gorgeous new shoes? Great, you feel great. I think we all want to be noticed, and this only increases when something means a lot to you. If writing ~ blogging ~ is a passion, of course you will want people to appreciate the effort you put into it. The same goes for whatever you blog about. On some level you will want someone to comment on that recipe or picture or bit of unsolicited advice.

But I also think there is more to it than this, and I suspect it's a commonality with many of us who put a lot of care into what we write on our blogs, regardless of the size of our readership or the subjects we write about. The epiphany came to me as I was putting away dishes and thinking about writing this essay. I realized that lately when I'm working in the yard, at the library, puttering away my time on the water, or reading a good book, in part of my mind I am also thinking, "Is there something here that would be worth writing about? Is there something here that is interesting? What am I feeling at this very moment?"

For me, the great thing about blogging is the care I put into what I write, as much as how I write it. In short, I pay more attention to the good things going on around me. It becomes a sort of gratitude exercise or prayer, and consequently I get more out of what I'm doing and experiencing.

I've made a very conscious effort to focus on positives in this blog. Yes, there have been a couple of rants, but even the quest for joy must be done in moderation. And when I do feel a rant coming on, I try to think about it for a while and figure out a way to write about what is bothering me in a way that is thoughtful and constructive.

The key here is that the process of committing my thoughts to the blogosphere makes me pause, take stock, and look at the world around me ~ good and bad, profound and mundane ~ in a way that is more productive than I might otherwise have done. I want to make my blog a place that friends, family and strangers can visit and find something interesting, hopeful, peaceful or thought-provoking. I hope I succeed for those of you who read these words.

What sustains me through the comment droughts and self doubts is that even if no one else read this blog, the process of blogging is good. Somehow, making the blog worth visiting makes me feel the grace and goodness in my life as well. It's more powerful in this way than journaling, because journaling is private and blogging is emphatically not. When I've written a journal, I didn't ask myself, "what would my mother/lover/boss think of this?" because that person would not be reading my words. When I blog, I do think of these people, and a whole lot more, and evaluate how my words might impact them, for better or worse. But I don't think it's the same as self-censorship, because I've discovered that by caring about the impact of my words on others I actually like what I'm writing and thinking better as well.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't love to hear from you, whether we know each other outside of the blogosphere or not. Go ahead, leave a comment. It will make my day.

BTW: the lovely pic up top is from
www.publicdomainpictures.net