Some friends have been kind enough to loan me their kittens for a few days (two three-month-old kittens). Yay, fur fix!

We got off to a great start last night when the kittens helped me put clean sheets on the bed. Hilarity ensued, and they were properly worn out when it was time for sleep. The kittens, not the sheets.

The boy immediately curled up next to me, and was out like a light. The girl snuggled down in the small gap between my pillow and the one I'd put on the bed for any felines who might be interested, gently pulled my hand over to her, tucked her paw into mine, and fell asleep purring.

I think they've adjusted.

If my friends are reading this, you may be interested to know that Vaseline petroleum jelly is considered a great treat. One of the kittens was showing signs of possibly having a hairball. I'm out of hairball goop, so decided to see if she'd take to the Vaseline. I opened the jar and left it sitting innocently on the table next to me. Naturally, both kittens had to investigate. Their enthusiasm was somewhat daunting. If I hadn't intervened, I think they'd still be chowing down on it.

Note to self: Do not leave Vaseline where the kittens can get at it unsupervised.

Go with God.

The giant squid. Remember the video of a fight between a current epoch squid and shark? Over in seconds. Squid-1, shark-0.

And now the real work begins. May we find the grace and hope, dignity and courage to fulfill the promise of this night.

I wish I had the words to express all I'm feeling now, all I felt when I cast my vote this morning. I supported Senator (now President-elect!) Obama for President because I was impressed with his proposals, his intelligence, and the way he conducted himself. I rejoice in his election because I truly believe he represents an opportunity for us to grow together as a people, to become more of the nation we have the potential to be. Yes, he is human, and therefore will fail in some ways. He will turn out to have weaknesses and faults we do not now know. And circumstances will keep him from doing all he'd like to do. But if the people of the nation stay as involved and active as they have been during this campaign, together we can do so much better than we have been doing. And I believe he is just the leader we need to inspire us to make the effort.

There is another reason I'm so affected by this election, one I don't talk about a lot. The fight to overcome racial prejudice has deep personal meaning for me. Growing up where I did and when I did, I saw so much injustice and encountered attitudes that were so incomprehensible to me, that a deep sense of outrage settled into my young soul, and is with me still. When I placed my ballot in the ballot box this morning, and realized I'd just voted for the man I hoped would become the first President of the United States who is Black, it was all I could do not to let out a whoop! I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I've been doing a little of both ever since. I'm so grateful to have lived to see this day. We still have a long way to go in the struggle to overcome all forms of prejudice and injustice, but to have come this far in the space of one lifetime is a joy.

That was a complete waste of 129 very long minutes of my life. One commenter on the Austin Film Festival website said he left about 3/4 through to go grocery shopping. That would have been the smart thing to do, but I'm tenacious if nothing else.

I'd understood that the movie was a comedy. It appeared to be trying to be a comedy, but it failed miserably. Seldom have I heard such profound silence in a movie theater. There was one woman who seemed to find the movie funny. At least she laughed at most of the obvious pauses for laughter placed at points in the movie we were apparently supposed to find hilarious. The rest of the audience maintained a steady silence.

Not only "W" but all the characters were quite broadly caricatured. There was no subtlety at all. There were no characters about whom the audience could care. And there was no depth, either to any character or to the story. Picture a failed SNL skit carried on for over two hours. It felt more like 3.

I have a word for any of my friends who may be thinking of seeing this movie. Don't.

I'll elaborate tomorrow, after I've had a chance to recover.

This may be a dumb question, and it may even evince a complete lack of understanding of the issues. If so, then please answer it seriously anyway because I need to learn something.

Okay, so "the banks" or "mortgage companies" made a lot of bad loans to people who may or may not have understood the fine print well enough to know that they were going to lose their shirts and their houses. And other financial giants bought investments propped up by those bad loans because they didn't bother to do their homework. Now lots of people are losing their houses and the big financial firms are going broke, oh my. Is that a workable description of the situation?

Let's say it is. Now comes the plan to give big bucks to the big financial institutions who did such a lousy job with their own money, and oh, yeah, g-d forbid the top executives have to take a pay cut. "The People" are understandably miffed by this proposal, but if something isn't done, dominoes will begin to cascade.

So... What if, rather than giving big bucks to the big financial institutions, the federal government gave low-interest loans to the homeowners who've been caught up in this mess, said loans restricted to being used to pay off any mortgage payments in arrears, and in addition, the federal government then provided the homeowners assistance in obtaining new mortgages structured so they could actually make the payments? Would this not shore up the value of the mortgage-based investments just as well as handing big checks to the big financial institutions?

The theoretical advantage of giving the money to individuals, as opposed to corporations, is that something has to be done, and the public may be more willing to give the little guy a break than to pay tribute to the big companies that took advantage of the little guy in the first place.

So, am I all wet, completely uninformed, and in need of a basic course in economics, or could such a plan actually work?

is beginning to be a habit of mine, at least where food is concerned. Today was supposed to be spent computing with a friend. Instead, well, the recipe speaks for itself.

Odds and Ends Hot and Sweet Soup

Wake up to find you have a sore throat and mild earache.
Decide you need soup.

Open refrigerator.
Find 1 baby cabbage, most of a bunch of celery, ¾ sweet onion, some garlic and some ginger preserved in sherry. Remember you have some dried chipotles in the pantry

Cut celery and ¼ onion into thin slices.
Dice remaining onion.

Heat a tablespoon or so hazelnut oil in a large pot.
Add the onion and celery, toss, cover and allow to steam in their own juices

Grate 2 large cloves garlic on fine cheese grater. Stir into vegetables.
Grate ¼ inch slice of fresh garlic stored in sherry. Add to vegetables.
Grind 2 small dried chipotle peppers in spice grinder. Add to vegetables. Let cook while shredding cabbage.

Add shredded cabbage to soup (1 – 2 cups cabbage)
Add 1 can vegetable broth. Stir. Let cook a bit more.

Realize you need more broth. And that you’re out.

Root around in the pantry. Find onion soup mix.

Add mix and 3 cups water to soup.
Let cook a minute or two to mingle flavors.

Taste. Decide that the soup is needs to be richer.

Check freezer.
Find two packages of mixed vegetables, one in szechuan sauce, one in sesame sauce.

Add them to soup. Now you have celery, onion, garlic, ginger, cabbage, broccoli, carrots, pea pods, water chestnuts, red bell pepper, and mushrooms.

Turn up heat to bring vegetables to a boil.
When just starting to boil, reduce heat to keep just at a simmer.
When vegetables are cooked, taste.

Decide it still needs something.

Look in refrigerator again.
Find two leftover sweet chili dipping sauce containers from Thai takeout.
Add to soup. Stir. Taste. Perfect!

Eat while hot, accompanied by a handy box of tissues.

who thinks it was a particularly unfortunate decision to follow Bill Clinton's rousing speech with a musical interlude featuring Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love? What were they thinking?!

When a candidate for the presidency or vice-presidency of the United States is speaking, would you please STFU!

Despite your fascination with the sound of your own voices, many of your viewers actually want to hear what the candidate says, ALL of what the candidate says, from the first word to the last.

Looks like I'll be getting my future coverage of the national election via CNN streaming video. They actually broadcast entire speeches and save the commentary until the speaker is done. Letting your viewers hear the actual event: what a concept.

So I'm going out to dinner tonight, got a late start on the active part of my day, and didn't start thinking about food until after noon. Not wanting to spoil my dinner, I wanted something light but satisfying. This led to my usual mid-day cooking approach of standing in the open refrigerator door, wondering what to do with the assorted odds and ends therein. The results of such deliberations are not normally noteworthy, but today I came up with a warm slaw that was crunchy, sweet, a little tangy, low fat, and had protein. Just right for a light late lunch. Without further ado, I present...

Sunny Hot-Slaw

Ingredients:
chopped walnuts – maybe 1/3 to 1/2 cup
whole black mustard seed
whole cumin – twice the amount of mustard seed
whole poppy seed - no more than the mustard seed
1 small dried chipotle pepper, whole
canola oil
about a tablespoon Thai sweet chili dipping sauce
1 golden beet cut into matchsticks
equal amount red cabbage sliced thinly

In a wok or deep skillet, toast the chopped walnuts over high heat in a hot dry pan until just starting to smell brown. Set aside.

Toss the seeds together to mix.

Add some canola oil to the pan. Use enough to coat the vegetables lightly when the time comes.

When the oil is hot, add the dried pepper and as much of the seed mix as you want in the end dish. Save the rest for another day. I used maybe half of the mix. Toast, stirring until the mustard seeds turn grey and pop. This happens very quickly. Be careful not to burn the seeds. Scorched cumin is pretty awful.

As soon as the mustard pops, remove the dried chipotle pepper, add the beets and cabbage and toss to coat with the oil. Reduce the heat to medium, cover and cook for maybe 5 minutes. You want the vegetables to retain their crunch, so don't over-cook.

Add the Thai chili dipping sauce, toss, add the toasted walnuts, and toss again. Serve hot.

Serves one as lunch, two as a side dish

Woot! Mike's on Huffington Post!

xiphias, rebmommy, and drebbles, you'll remember my friend Mike Ragogna from when he was in Arlington for a while, just before moving to California. He's continued his music career, and has released several albums. He just posted a video on YouTube, and it got picked up by Huffington Post.

The song is "Home". It's from his most recent album, Summerland. I'd try to comment on it, but Mike says it best, so please go to the Huffington Post, read what he says about it, and watch the video. It's in both Politics and Entertainment. Mike and I would both love to hear what you think.

If you want to catch up with Mike, check out his website.

Question: How would you feel about being tortured?



Right. Then don't do to anyone else.

Hope it's been the happiest yet, and that many more to come are happier still!

In case anyone was wondering what I'd like for my next landmark birthday, SpaceShip Two ought to be ready in a couple of years. One trip is "only" $200K. At those rates, if everyone puts their pennies together, you might be able to buy me a picture of the ship. Ah, well, maybe when the price comes down a bit...

Wishing you all a very happy new year!

Better Late Than Never

Zeitgeist of my youth:
Search for mantic visions,
Contraband our praxis.
A lick and a promise
Sufficed for our labor.

Ah, had we known how
Sapid halva endows
Instant ataraxia.
Sweet serendipity,
This semilunar treat.


Want to know more about the challenge? Click here.

...the snow, that is. Just as I was about to go shovel my walk and drive, two young men looking for work showed up at my door. Thank you, whatever deity or force of nature brought them to me!

I probably did a big disservice to my neighbors and my future self, because I paid them forty bucks for a little more than half an hour's work, but I didn't have change for the second twenty, and they worked really hard. The weather is absolutely foul. Tossing heavy wet snow over your shoulder at the bottom of a steeply sloping driveway is no picnic when it's sunny. When there's wind-driven sleet, with wind-chill temp of 17, it's misery.

So, what do you think? Based on past experience, it would have taken me anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half to do what they did in about 40 minutes. And I'd have been stiff and sore as a result. What would you pay to avoid that?

Some of you may remember Micro Kitty, a tiny kitten who won the hearts of many. Micro Kitty was fostered by simplykimberly. Kimberly and her family do amazing work with kittens in need of help. They've fostered and found loving homes for close to thirty kittens in the past 18 months. You can see a collage of them in her journal, here.

Now comes Roo, not as tiny as Micro Kitty, but still a very small kitten. In the collage, Roo's the black-and-white kitten on the hot pink background, about 5 rows down from the top. He's as sweet a kitten as you can imagine, and he's fighting a big battle for survival. He's got something wrong with his lungs. Despite outstanding vet care, we still don't know what's causing the problem. But Roo's a real fighter, still sweet, cheerful, and alert. I'm posting this today because the most recent pics and videos show him looking much better.

If you want to follow his fight and send him lovins, visit simplykimberly's journal. If you want to contribute to his care, you can do so there as well. Kimberly resisted letting anyone donate, but the costs have added up to over $2,000 so far, and so many people were begging for the chance to help, that she finally agreed to put up a PayPal button. Kimberly appreciates good wishes at least as much as donations, so please send her some encouragement.

Hang in there, Roo, you've got lots of friends rooting for you!

Found on Cute Overload