Jeff Smith, a.k.a the Frugal Gourmet, died almost 2 weeks ago and I didn't notice (Seattle Times obit) Shame on me. Do you all remember him? He had this great cooking show and put out a couple of cookbooks I still like to this day. Here are some of his recipes on the net. He came off the air after allegations surfaced concerning his inappropriate sexual contacts with some young boys. Never proven, mind you, just alleged. But that was enough to get him off the air.

I really liked his show. He may have been a little less nice and approachable in person, though:

He made his name and his money on television and in print selling an image as a man of god, warm and generous and the very model of moral superiority. In my one telephonic encounter, though, he all but told me to go Cheney myself, Madam. Thanks to a starstruck editor in the mid-Eighties, I had to approach him for a recipe for a magazine story and it was if I had dialed Tourette’s Central. Suffice it to say he did not end the conversation with “I bid you peace.”

Anyway, Rest in Peace, Minister Smith.

This kind of got me thinking about the other cooking show I used to really like. Anyone else remember Justin Wilson? He is also dead, unfortunately, but was a fascinating man (obit and here), and boy, could he cook.

UPDATE:

No, they are both still dead, as is Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The reason for the update is that the second page for the Justin Wilson obit has this great link to listen over the web to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage music broadcasts. I am thinking the day is looking up!

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If my wife is reading this, I think I found what I'd like as an early birthday present: my very own air craft carrier.

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Here are some random today in history facts. I can find no way to link them but I thought they were all interesting, so I list them here as trivia, along with a little research by yours truly to add some value:

*1599 Caravaggio receives his first public commission for paintings, click here for cool website gallery of all his works
*1885 Ulysses S Grant, brilliant general and much less brilliant 18th President of the United States, dies in Mount McGregor, NY, at age 63. Click here for a dissenting point of view by the US Grant Association.
*1904 Ice cream cone supposedly created by Charles E Menches during Lousiana Purchase Expo at the St. Louis World's Fair. Here is an extremely cool link from the Library of Congress on ice cream in America.

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I am not feeling very inspired yet, so I will favor you with a random observation I made while walking to the office this morning. Large patterned tight pants on a woman who may be carrying a few pounds extra may not be the most flattering choice she could make for herself. It also got me thinking, what are some of the fashion mistakes of yore which have happily died out, to be missed by no one but nostalgia fans? I will give you a couple and be curious to see what you add.

*leg warmers
*stretch pants
*lycra everywhere (as a young gay man once said to me as he passed me just after passing a very large woman in lycra shorts, "lycra is a privilege, not a right)
*head bands (picture O. Newton-John in the "Let's get physical" video)
*vests everywhere

What else?

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I almost never drink at lunch. It tends to make me sleepy in the afternoon and besides which I am not being paid to drink at lunch. However, I feel that the only mistake I may have made at lunch today was having only one glass of wine instead of two. The wine and a good lunch have cheered me up immensely. How much, you may wonder? Well, let me share with you the post I drafted this morning and I decided not to put up:

* * *

I am in a truly foul mood today. The kind of mood which gives NY'ers a bad reputation among our fellow citizens. The kind of mood which suggests that my last rabies shot just did not take. It is a little shy of being undirected rage looking for an object. I have little to no tolerance or patience today. That is the mood that propelled me up the train platform and into the office today.

When I got to work, I got a call from my wife. She is back safely from Germany. The job she had interviewed for several times went to someone else. She is disappointed but seems to be dealing with it better right now than I am. I think that is because I feel horrible for her, for us, and then I try to imagine how she's feeling and how I'd be feeling in her spot and it just starts all over again. And I feel like I lack any ability to give her comfort, to make it all right, to kiss this boo-boo and make it better. I hate feeling helpless.

Combine all that with the foulness of the temper I am already enjoying and it feels sort of volatile. I can feel the tightness physically in my hands and in the set of my jaw. It is a pugnacious feeling.

Now, I just got off the phone with a client who has broken yet another appointment with me. He's facing something like $18 million in liability over a busted commercial real estate project and I think he lacks a firm footing in reality. I have no idea how I am going to represent him if he keeps blowing me off.

I need more sleep or a vacation.

* * *

Or I needed to self-medicate with a nice lunch, good company, and a glass of wine. There may be a lesson in there with universal application.

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1 May I be the first to sign up for the class when you end up presenting the seminar? Next time I have a foul day such as yours, I will strive to turn it around. Could you tell me what wine you were drinking? ;-)

Posted by: Wicked H at July 22, 2004 06:09 PM (7TrL0)

2 Longer lunches and more wine...that's what this country really needs! Hey, let's get a bill passed...

Posted by: Mick at July 22, 2004 10:26 PM (0HJs1)

3 I had a very ordinary tipple of Sauvingon Blanc, which I like very much because of the floral notes and the grapefruit taste. Very refreshing. But what y'all cannot forget is the critical element of good company. Fellowship plus wine may equal happiness. I'd love to host a seminar.

Posted by: RP at July 23, 2004 10:31 AM (LlPKh)

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Thanks to One Ordinary York Student (who does not have any contact info on his/her site so I can't email him/her) for giving me:

The terrorism-is-not-okay award (for my post on "root causes").

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I happened across an extraordinary article this morning in the Spectator, an English weekly magazine, entitled: The triumph of the East (registration may be required). It is extraordinary to me because I don't often see articles like this in mainstream publications. The premise of the article is that we in the West are deluding ourselves about Islam's expansionist and imperialist aims. Reassuring ourselves with our bland pablum of multi-culturalism, our fevered insistence that we are all the same with the same interests and the same needs and motivations, we are blind to the fact that the conquest of the West is a central topic urged on the main Islamic media sources. It is a central topic of discussion in the most prominent mosques and it is ignored in the West.

The most popular tactic is immigration. I must admit that this sentence jumped off the page at me: "In Brussels, Mohammed has been the most popular name for boy babies for the last four years." I don't know if it's true, mind you, but it startled me.

Contrast this with the upbeat article that the NY Times ran today on how woman are agitating, albeit with no organization, for more rights to pray in the mosque. This is a "feel good about Islam" article that the Times likes to run from time to time. However, someone gave us an interesting juxtaposition by running this article right under the picture in this article of six kidnaped civilians in danger of having their heads chopped off by the three hooded terrorists, whoops, I mean "insurgents", in front of them (scroll down to see the picture). Like I said, interesting juxtaposition.

At some point we are going to have to confront the fact that not all people want the same thing in the West, that even those who immigrate here don't necessarily share our values or even respect them, and that we are in a conflict of cultures. I hope we do it soon. I for one do not want my daughter to wear a veil except on her wedding day.

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My daughter reminded me of the new holiday today that she had invented some time ago. I haven't heard about it in a while.

We were chatting this morning while I was getting dressed to go to work and I asked her what she was going to do today. She said that she was going to the park to play and then she wanted to make and decorate cupcakes. I replied that I thought she was going to camp today and maybe she could do the other things on Friday. She said, no, that she was not going to camp because today was "Play-All-Day-Veen". This is her holiday, based on Halloween I think.

I could use a little "Play-All-Day-Veen" myself today. Well, maybe I'm going to do the grownup equivalent and go take a long lunch with a friend.

I wish you all a very happy Play-All-Day-Veen!

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I am not a television news type. I am a throwback (which is not the same as a toss-back, thank you very much). I get my news by getting my hands smeared with news print or by clicking through the web. I may have to reconsider, especially if it means I am missing moments like this with "Shepard Smith, the clean-shorn host of the No. 1–rated Fox Report":

But it was on the set of The Fox Report in November 2002 that Mr. Smith became infamous among cable news watchers for his gaffe involving Jennifer Lopez. In a story about her hit song "Jenny From the Block" and the reaction it was getting from her childhood neighborhood in the Bronx, Mr. Smith was prompted to read that they were more likely to "give her a curb job than a block party."

But it turned out to be a real mouthful, and the hapless anchor instead read that J. LoÂ’s neighbors were more likely to "give her a curb job than a blowjob."

Now that's great television.

Source.

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I am sometimes intrigued by the people who populate the periphery of history. These are people who, while they may have been famous or notorious in their own era, have been relegated to the footnote of history in our time. These are people who may have been very accomplished in their own right, but who are known to us today primarily because of their association with someone who has greater historical gravitas or because they played what is now felt to be a minor role in an important event. Seriously, isn't this a fascinating concept? These "peripherals" led full lives and may have done astonishing things, some of them, yet they are eclipsed by their contemporaries by reason merely of their association. Who remembers the names of any of the men who went with Perry to Japan? Or climbed Everest with Hillary? Or was the second in command to William the Conqueror? Are they any less deserving of our attention?

Well, sometimes you find these peripherals as they put in an appearance in a history or a biography. Sometimes, if you look closely, you can see them in the corner of a book or peeking out from behind the drapes of history, as it were, where the author left them while he or she is writing about someone else.

I just observed one such elusive person. As I mentioned before, I am reading McCullough's biography of Theodore Roosevelt as a child and young man. Teddy was a world stage historical personage. His maternal uncle, James Bulloch, was a pretty compelling figure in his own right.

more...

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I beat the NY Times up all the time, but sometimes they get it right. There has been an interesting series on the sale and marketing of inappropriate financial products, including but not limited to life insurance and mutual funds, to soldiers. Apparently, for as little as $1500, you too can buy congressional intercession on behalf of your sleazy business practices. The first article is here and the second one, run today, is here. Go read the second one to understand my comment about how cheap it is to buy access.

This practice, by the way, stands in sharp contrast to the actions of the most prominent Americans during the Civil War. I have been reading, at night, the McCullough biography of Theodore Roosevelt, called, "Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt". The President's father, during the Civil War, was instrumental in creating the Allotment Commission. I find nothing of any consequence about it after a Google search, but let me explain.

The men went off to fight in the Civil War and left their familes and women behind, often made destitute by the lack of income after the men left their civilian jobs. Roosevelt, and others, conceived of the Allotment Commission. They presented it to Lincoln and secured his agreement. What was it? Simple. It was a mechanism by which Union soldiers could allot some portion of their pay to be subtracted from their pay check and transmitted directly back home. No one else had ever thought of this. Roosevelt traveled to practically every encampment and preached to the men the value of this service. Many signed up and many millions of dollars were sent home. This was a selfless act on Rooselvelt's part.

We dishonor the memory of the men who toiled on behalf of the common soldier, without recompense, by permitting these scum to prey upon our soldiers. It is just shameful.

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A little more on the "root causes" post of yesterday. I closed by asking whether we could unite this country and face, together, the threats and powers arrayed against us. Thanks to Frederik Norman, a Norwegian who founded the "Norwegian Friends of America" group in Norway, I have discovered the Committee on the Present Danger. This is a bi-partisan group who, well, let's let them tell it in their own words:

In times of great challenge to the security of the United States, Republicans, Democrats and Independents have traditionally joined to make an assertive defense of American interests.

Twice before in American history, The Committee on the Present Danger has risen to this challenge. It emerged in 1950 as a bipartisan education and advocacy organization dedicated to building a national consensus for a strong defense against Soviet expansionism. In 1976, the Committee on the Present Danger reemerged, with leadership from the labor movement, bipartisan representatives of the foreign policy community and academia, all of whom were concerned about strategic drift in U.S. security policy.

In both previous periods, the CommitteeÂ’s mission was clear: raise awareness to the threat to American safety; communicate the risk inherent in appeasing totalitarianism; and build support for an assertive policy to promote the security of the United States and its allies and friends.

With victory in the Cold War, the mission of the Committee on the Present Danger was considered complete and consequently was deactivated..

Today, radical Islamists threaten the safety of the American people and millions of others who prize liberty. The threat is global. They operate from cells in a number of countries. Rogue regimes seek power by making common cause with terrorist groups. The prospect that this deadly collusion may include weapons of mass murder is at hand.

Like the Cold War, securing our freedom against organized terrorism is a long-term struggle. The road to victory begins with clear identification of the shifting threat and vigorous pursuit of policies to contain and defeat it.

It is led by Senators Kyl and Lieberman and chaired by the Hon. James Woolsey. It is, to me, a reason to hope just a little bit more.

I still deeply regret Joe Lieberman's withdrawal from the Democratic primary. He was the only one in that Party who I could have voted for.

UPDATE: Go you and check out the many articles these guys have published. This is very cool.

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The wife is on a business trip to Germany all this week and when the wife's away (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), you know what happens, right? Daddy comes home early from work and gives all the baths by himself and reads all the stories by himself and kisses all the boo-boo's better by himself and just has such a great time alone with the kids that he doesn't want to go to work at all. It has been pretty close to sheer bliss.

I come home, take off the suit, and we play. I then partially undress the little guy and let him run around with his shirt off. He likes to stroll about the place, after the shirt comes off, slapping his naked chest with both hands. The girl looked at him last night and said, "hey, stud man". I don't think she knows what it means but it was funny. We then get milk for the little guy and I throw them both in the bath where there was much splashing of each other and of me. Here's a tip, by the way, for when you are dealing with overtired little pills -- throw 'em in the bath. They love it, it relaxes them and they are in a contained space. The boy then gets put in his crib, after milk, and the girl comes downstairs with me, in her pj's.

The girl keeps me company while I dine. She sits, we chat, and we clink glasses -- my glass of (last night) vino verde (Portugese Green Wine -- the perfect summer white) to her sippy cup of chamomile tea (she's been reading Madeline). She eats off my plate with her own fork. It's very companionable. After, I thanked her for sharing dinner and she told me that she had already had dinner and this was just a "snack". We go off and read stories and then we try to put her to bed. She won't go to sleep, mind you, but she will go to bed. Last night I was treated through the monitor to a moving rendition of "head, shoulders, knees and toes" as she sang to her animals.

This morning, as I was playing at the computer in my bedroom (we have a lap top at home), she came sneaking in with her blanket and climbed into my lap. She didn't say a word. She just arranged herself in my lap and put her head between my shoulder and neck and lay there for five to ten minutes while I gently stroked her shiny, golden hair. It was totally silent and so peaceful. I was content with everything at that moment and filled up with love and with happiness. It was beautiful. It ended when she looked up at me and said, "Pappa, is it ok if I toot?" I guess she thought our little moment was pretty special, too, since this was the first time she ever asked my permission to pass gas.

The wife returns on the late flight tonight. I will be happy to have her home but I will treasure the little moments when I had the single parent duties.

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This one may take me awhile, so if you plan on reading the whole thing, grab a pew, missy (as I tell my daughter when I want her to sit down and as she delights in repeating back to me). If you don't plan on reading this one, that's ok, I bet someone else is writing about this in a better way than I am.

The Root Causes. Everyone seems to think that we need to understand the root causes of terrorism, the root causes of ceaseless anti-American hatred, the root causes of anti-Semitism, the root causes of _______ (fill in the blank, how about obesity?). The world faults us for failing to understand the root causes. They want us to ask: why do they hate us? What did we do wrong? The media drumbeat on this point, in our own newspapers and from our allies, is as relentless as it is nonsensical and downright contemptuous.
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1 wow, that was helladope. I don't see all of the same root causes as you, but I do believe that there are quite a few things that america needs to put in a box somewhere and bury. I'm going to be in the backyard diggind a deep hole if anyone needs me.

Posted by: shank at July 20, 2004 12:16 PM (+4mO/)

2 That's fine. I don't expect people to agree with me. That's what makes a horse race. That said, I think I'm right.

Posted by: RP at July 20, 2004 12:23 PM (LlPKh)

3 Very nicely done. Eloquent. (This is not just sucking up, either. I have thought these very same thoughts; although I must say you said them sooo much better than I could have.) Finding the "root cause" is a gigantic waste of time. We won't understand the answer should we ever get one. My deepest sympathies for the loss of your cousin. Love, Em

Posted by: Emma at July 20, 2004 01:58 PM (NOZuy)

4 Hmmm... It's an interesting piece. I've always believed that such a passionate emotion as hatred was akin to love, though complete opposites. When you love people you try to make their lives better; when you hate them, you try to destroy their lives. Both require the same devotion. But indifference only comes into the equation when you're of little to no consequence. People need to blame somebody for their misfortune, or their once majestic country's fall from grace. It is America's lot in life to suffer the burden of being the hated, at least in this day and age. I'm not naive enough to believe that US supremacy will last forever. More dominant empires in human history have faded away. Pursuing the reason for their hatred is futile. To stop them from hating us we would have to cease being who we are: free, happy and successful. Only in our total failure would the world's malcontents stop wasting their arrows on us. They would have to find another target.

Posted by: Mick at July 20, 2004 03:49 PM (VhRca)

5 Em, thank you very much, both for your sympathy and your kind comment. Mick, you raise an interesting point. I think that you would really enjoy the Revel book I recommended. I just finished tonight on the train going home and I intend to quote from it a little bit tomorrow. As for your love/hate dichotomy, the problem I have is that I think that these guys are all burnt out of love and ain't got nothing left but hate. And that's an ugly place to be.

Posted by: Random Penseur at July 20, 2004 09:37 PM (X3Lfs)

6 Mick, Yes, excellent observation. Though I think there might be a little bit of shame entwined with the jealousy. Remember the I Love Lucy episodes where they were travelling through "old" Europe? Lucy trying to learn how to smash grapes for the wine? Yep, Europe was smashing grapes with their bare feet even post-Marshall Plan. Maybe that was just DesiLu Hollywood romanticism. But maybe it was an allagory of what Europeans see as the failure of their own cultures. They were the most technologically advanced continent until America upstaged them, and maybe they just, neuroticly, want to pretend that that isn't true anymore by shouting out about how old they are. Bah! It's so simple. They see themselves as the creators of "military prowess" and just hate hate hate not being that anymore. Nowadays they pretend to hate power, but, please, like any good modern socialist, they crave it. Blind anti-Americanism may well bring about a resergence of BolviShit inclinations, but, hopefully history can finally teach these backward retards that -- in a free country anyways -- the word "responsibility" has a meaning beyond the word entitlement. Idealistic fucktards... (sorry, I've been feelin' a bit ranty lately.....

Posted by: Tuning Spork at July 20, 2004 10:10 PM (dI0HC)

7 Yes, on both counts. I don't refute your points. However, and be it perhaps noblesse oblige, as the dominating force on this earth we are subject to microscopic observation of our efforts, and the judgemental eye of mankind upon us. On nobody else will it be so harsh. We cannot combat their hatred, we must learn to live with it. That's what I'm saying. There is no solution to be found by kissing their arses, and trying to figure out why they dislike us. We have to protect ourselves from their bad intent, because no matter what we do they will continue to hate us. They hate us for being us, and that's not something we should be willing to change to apease them. Is it???

Posted by: Mick at July 20, 2004 11:57 PM (/q0Tq)

8 Just wow. I wish I had a better understanding of the world around me. I wish that I could powerful opinions on things such as you do. I love reading your blog, amber's, mick's, and tink's because you guys have great stories to tell, intelligence to share and lots of passion to do it.

Posted by: Holly at July 21, 2004 09:00 AM (Wkg+N)

9 I did particularly enjoy the scarequotes, RP. Rob wrote about this a while back from the British perspective on the USA.

Posted by: Jim at July 21, 2004 09:08 AM (IOwam)

10 Thanks, y'all, for your interesting and thoughtful comments. I lack the time today to treat them in the depth they deserve, but, in the words of the Governator, "I'll be back" to this topic.

Posted by: RP at July 21, 2004 11:59 AM (LlPKh)

11 I spent a whole summer a few years ago reading up on serial killers. A child not far from us had been abducted and murdered that summer and it turned out the guy had done it many times before. I was burning with the need to know *why* do some people do things like that? Why molest children? Why kill innocents? Why do some people lash out in that way while others with a similar history do not? What is the reasoning, or, the "root cause"? I never came to a nice, pat conclusion. I never came to an understanding either. Sure, I read horrific stories of those who had horrible childhoods and grew up to become abusers themselves. Read of twisted psyches and sick desires. But there was no definitive answer for me. Because many people suffer horrendous childhoods and terrible events and never choose to kill or harm others over it. They pull themselves up out of the muck and insanity and move on. Sometimes under the worst conditions imaginable. We all have root causes. We all have reasons for what we do. But it's not an excuse. It's not even an illumination. It means....nothing, really, except that, when you do something wrong to an innocent human being because something wrong was done to you, then you've failed at what it means to be human.

Posted by: Amber at July 21, 2004 01:56 PM (zQE5D)

12 How totally perfect, Amber. Thank you for putting the exclamation point on my post.

Posted by: rp at July 21, 2004 02:03 PM (LlPKh)

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I feel the need for a martini coming on.

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1 It's ALWAYS 'tini time!

Posted by: Lawren at July 20, 2004 12:22 PM (Gqz1r)

2 Word.

Posted by: Random Penseur at July 20, 2004 09:32 PM (X3Lfs)

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There is no question that today was a great day in history for the arts, starting, in 1304 with the birth of the great Italian poet, Francesco Petrarch (the father of Humanism), and followed, a quick 600+ years later with the following births in:

*1958 Michael McNeill from Simple Minds (as if anyone could, who needs to be told "Don't You Forget About Me")
*1943 John Lodge bassist for Moody Blues
*1946 Kim Carnes singer (Bette Davis Eyes)
*1947 Carlos Santana of Santana
*1954 Jay Jay French, guitarist for Twisted Sister
*1955 Michael Anthony bassist for Van Halen
*1956 Paul Cook drummer for the Sex Pistols

-and-

in 1968 Iron Butterfly's "In-a-gadda-da-vida" becomes the first heavy metal song to hit the charts at #117.

I ask you, from Petrach's canzoniere to "In-a-gadda-da-vida" (scroll down for lyrics) in 664 years, is this progress or what? That may have come off snottier than I intended, but so what. The point remains valid, even if the comparison is unfair.

Ed. Note: I will be singing most of the songs mentioned above, including some not mentioned ("We're not gonna take it" -- Twisted Sister) for the remainder of the day. I trust I will not be the only one.

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How unilateral, how interventionist, how one sided. A foreign group wants to interfere in the democratic process of another country! Call out the United Nations! Someone has to stop this madness, this threat to world peace, this act which has the potential to imbalance all of the delicate mechanisms by which international relations are maintained. Maybe we should get France involved.

What am I talking about? You mean you haven't heard? The Norwegians don't want us to re-elect President Bush and have started a website in order to raise money to purchase an advertisement in the Washington Post to tell us silly Americans that Norway was opposed to the war in Iraq and we should not reelect the President. You can read about it here.

The funny thing is how central Norway feels it is to this debate that their ad*, in the WaPo of all papers, is going to influence our election. Most of the US voters don't even read the Post! The best part, though, was this quote:

Geir Lundestad of the Nobel Institute in Norway . . . [says] "Everyone [of the power elite in Norway] is asking me, 'do you think we'll get rid of Bush in November?,' and that's a completely new situation," Lundestad said.

We'll get rid of Bush? Are they kidding?

If we did something like this, the Norwegian press would be all over our neocolonialist-imperialist-unilateralist-bomb dropping-cowboy hat wearing-ass. The Norwegians take themselves so seriously sometimes that it's just funny.

* corrected typo pointed out by eagle-eyed reader.

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Gratitude is, according to Webster:

\Grat"i*tude\, n. [F. gratitude, LL. gratitudo, from gratus agreeable, grateful. See Grate, a.] The state of being grateful; warm and friendly feeling toward a benefactor; kindness awakened by a favor received; thankfulness.

Gratitude is hard. It leaves you feeling obligated to another. That person has rendered you a service or done you a favor. You are obliged to that person. You owe him or her something. It makes you feel, I don't know exactly, but sometimes, maybe, a little uneasy. Especially if you didn't ask that person to do something for you or on your behalf. You owe, at minimum, a thank you to that person.

Grand Central Station, in NYC, since September 11, 2001, has been guarded full time by members of the NY State National Guard. These civilian soldiers stand there, armed, and guard the terminal. They have been taken away from their lives and their families and they stand and walk and watch the terminal. Sometimes they look for suspicious people and sometimes, like me, I have to think that they are wondering whether that tall brunette walking through the terminal is not wearing any underwear at all or just a really thin thong. Nonetheless, it is clear that they protect us. It is clear that they do so at personal risk to themselves and at a cost to their families and employers.

I have been thinking about these part-time soldiers for awhile now. I feel gratitude towards them. I am grateful for their sacrifice in making me safe and, in the process, giving up their own lives for my benefit. Today, and not for the first time, I thanked two of them and expressed my gratitude.

I said to each of them, something along the lines of the following:

Excuse me. I just wanted to thank you for your service. Thank you for being away from your families and keeping me safe during my commute. I'm sure a lot of people think that when they see you, but I wanted to tell you. Thank you.

Gratitude is hard to express. It can make you feel goofy, standing there in the middle of Grand Central Station, thanking a total stranger. But it seemed worth it. Each of the soldiers I thanked seemed surprised and then happy.

It was the least I could do, I figured.

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The weekend was good. I actually did an enormous amount of blogging this weekend, which is unusual for me. But, then, I had a lot to say.

We spent a lot of time being focused on the children to the exclusion of taking care of the house. That's ok, I think. The house isn't dirty, it's just messy. There's an important distinction and anyone with kids understands it. Before kids, I'm not sure that I did understand it so well.

Saturday was spent at the kiddy pool, either flinging the girl child around in the water to the accompaniment of her shrieks of laughter and demands for one more time, or trying to keep the boy child from killing himself as he somehow formed the conclusion that walking up to the edge of the pool backwards and stepping back into the pool was an acceptable method of entry. It was great fun and the Summer is shaping up to be idyllic.

Saturday was also, however, the scene of a tactical blunder on my part. I attempted a "nap-over", as we call them, with my daughter. That means that during her afternoon nap, I joined her in her bed with my pillow. She provided me with one of her blankets and a judiciously selected stuffed animal to cuddle with. I was given the flamingo this time. The blunder was that she was too excited to have me in bed to sleep. I slept and she didn't. So I was rested by the time we went over to my parents for dinner and she wasn't. By the time that bowl of ice cream my mother gave her hit her system, we had sugar + overtired = difficult. Still, at least I was rested!

Sunday was rainy and humid. No pool. Instead, we went to a local playground and then to feed the geese and ducks. The boy child had trouble with the concept of parting with the bread. My wife, who was holding him, would give him bread to throw and, instead, he'd eat it himself. MY daughter enjoyed feeding them but displayed great concern about the geese who circled behind us and went into the road. She ordered them back onto the grass with great authority.

Geese are kind of scary, aren't they? I remember reading as a child that Roman Armies used them as sentries. Plutarch writes about the geese and how they warned the Romans of a sneak attack on Rome by the Gauls:

Rome's Fortune, however, did not lack a voice capable of revealing and declaring such a great mischance. Sacred geese were kept near the temple of Juno for the service of the goddess. Now by nature this bird is easily disturbed and frightened by noise; and at this time, since they were neglected, because dire want oppressed the garrison, their sleep was light, and was made uncomfortable by hunger, with the result that they were at once aware of the enemy as they showed themselves above the edge of the cliff. The geese hissed at them and rushed at them impetuously, and at the sight of arms, became even more excited, and filled the place with piercing and discordant clamour. By this the Romans were aroused, and, when they comprehended what had happened, they forced back their enemies and hurled them over the precipice. And even to this day, in memory of these events, there are borne in solemn procession a dog impaled on a stake, but a goose perched in state upon a costly coverlet in a litter.

Poor Fido.

After the ducks and geese, the boy child made an important stride forward in his acquisition of the attributes of humanity: he communicated with words his hunger. "Num num" is Norwegian for yummy. It is an acceptable answer to the question, "is that good?" The boy, and the girl before him, is using it to signify food. When we got back in the car, he started complaining a little and saying, "num num", and when we got to the restaurant, he started saying "num num" again and was very excited. My wife observed that he made a great stride today and made our lives easier as well because he could now start to tell us what he wanted, in place of just crying and hoping we'd figure it out.

I hope you all had as nice a weekend as we did!

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:34 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 740 words, total size 4 kb.

Either you are going to intuitively understand this post deep down inside, like you could have written it yourself, or you just ain't never gonna get it.

We accumulate things, my wife and I. Well, maybe me more than my wife. In any event, we don't throw out a whole lot of stuff. This urge to preserve spans whole categories of items and I don't intend to address the range of pathologies. No, I'm going to limit myself to the kitchen.

By the way, in case you were wondering, I blame my parents for this. Ok, no, not really. But they have gently aided and abetted by only recently starting to inquire when I was going to drive the ten miles over to their house and clean out my childhood room. They are kind and understanding for the most part and also quite accomplished little clutter bugs themselves so the pressure has been gentle thus far. But notice has been given and since I really did move out when I left for college, it's about time I boxed up the old high school yearbooks and other momentos. Pardon the digression, back to the kitchen.

We keep stuff in our cabinets that we treat like national treasures. Old cans of coffee, bottles of hot sauce from vacations, weird spices, stuff picked up on sale, etc. You never know when you are going to see that jar of capers packed in salt again, so you buy it and you keep it. You might want to bake chocolate chip cookies at odd hours when the market is closed and you need to make sure you have every possible ingredient for said cookie. You also never know when you might need that odd tin of Norwegian "horn salt". I actually have no idea what horn salt is, why we have it, what you use it for, when we got it, and I have never seen my wife use it. But it has faithfully followed us for our last two moves. We have this spectacular "piri piri" sauce we bought in Portugal (ten years ago!) and a great collection of Guatemalen hot sauces. I think we still have a jar of prickly pear jam we bought on our honeymoon, lo these many moons ago.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that we like to go to supermarkets when we travel. Foreign supermarkets are huge fun and I think are just as culturally enriching an experience as visiting a museum. You see stuff you've never imagined before, you get a glimpse of how the other people really live (nothing tells you more about a society than its selection of toilet paper), and you can buy inexpensive and unusual gifts and souvenirs.

So, we cart this stuff home and we put it in the cupboards. And there it sits. Never to be used. Why? Because it cannot be replaced once we open it, I suppose. Or because we never intended to open it? Or because while we still have that bottle of Hungarian brandy we still have a tangible connection to that trip. Beats me. Maybe we just like to have lots of stuff.

So, that coffee can I titled this post with was a can of Cafe du Monde strong as heck coffee we brought from New Orleans. Here is an interesting link about coffee in New Orleans. We had run out of the good, freshly ground stuff and were in a desperate place. I opened the pantry cabinets and there sat the can of Cafe du Monde. And I realized, the memory that can represented needed to be sacrificed on the alter of our coffee emergency. You know what? It wasn't so bad and I don't think I'll even miss having the can as much as I will treasure the new memory of that can stepping up to the plate (er, coffee maker) in our hour of need.

Besides, I can now buy another yellow can to put in its place, if I am so inclined.

My wife is leaving today on a business trip to Germany and I am going to take the opportunity afforded by her absence to ruthlessly cull our cabinets. I'm not actually going to throw anything away (that would be mean), but I'm going to put all this stuff in boxes and let her decide if we should keep it. Who knows, maybe we'll even get some stuff off the counters! Or maybe we'll just create more room for more stuff.

Posted by: Random Penseur at 09:09 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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