Saturday started a little earlier than it should, but once again set the mood for my weekend. In the six or so months that I’ve lived with Jeremiah, we’ve settled into a very comforting routine on weekend mornings. He gets up and usually starts the coffee before heading off to the World of Warcraft until I wake up. Anywhere between 1 and 4 hours later, I emerge, hair pointing to each of the cardinal directions, to claim my coffee. Then one area of the house gets tackled before breakfast. Last week it the laundry monster on the recliner in the bedroom (we’re usually pretty good about not turning that into a pile bureau, but it happens in busy weeks) and reorganizing the closet. The week before that, we got the whole house ready for Prater Thanksgiving and decorating for Christmas. This morning, I made my kitchen gleam. (Excuse me—I have to go turn the Christmas lights back on. The timer doesn’t know the difference between weekdays and other days.) Granted, I have to Swiff the floor, but it’s still pretty good. And always the laundry. The most relaxing part of the ritual is putting the first load of laundry in the wash, because it is the start of clean underwear for everyone and usually the end of the morning task. Over the course of the day, coffee tables may be tidied, dishes done, fireplaces swept, but the cleaning impulse has been satisfied and my house is not a wreck. It’s at that point that, no matter how busy or packed full of to-dos the weekend may be, it feels like a weekend and I begin to recharge. Or as they say in French, recharge. With the phlegm.
This week, dear Reader, I remembered that I, too, like to read things other than papers about the potential conflict between oceangoing barges and rambunctious bowhead whales. I like to read books. You know, the kind with characters, and plots, and the occasion for graceful sentences. And pages! Did you know that books happen on paper? Eff you, Kindlezon eReaders, you can keep your convenience and portability. I stare at words on a screen all damn day, and I am not about to fall asleep drooling on my iPad (because first I’d have to deign to buy an iPad, and I still can’t get past the impression that it’s a feminine hygiene product for Aughters. Also because iAnything + water = iHatemylife). But this week, not only did I finish Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen, but I also raced through two Percy Jackson and the Olympians books (Rick Riordan). I have come to the conclusion, after fits and starts with BOOKS FOR ADULTS, that I am drawn to youth lit for the same reason I like light verse. It’s not because it’s lit for idiots, it’s because I am more interested in the story than I am in the person who wrote it, and youth writers tend to be far less self interested than literary writers.
In many cases when reading a literary novella, you can practically see the MFA at his desk, overworking the words and systematically killing the lightness in his story. It’s like watching someone knead the hell out of biscuits—you want to grab their hands and say “Stop at just enough! Too much gluten! I want a biscuit, not a gummy hockey puck!” Don’t get me wrong—I understand. I understand wanting just the perfect sentence, and I understand having this story that you’ve been working on for years like a scarf that gets unraveled and reknit every Christmas. It’s sisyphustian—always pushing and never finishing. But sometimes you get to the top and have to recognize that you’re not a tragedy-stricken Greek; you’re a scarab, and that ball you’ve been rolling uphill is a dense pile of shit. That’s all it is. Yes. It is your dense pile of shit, and you should be proud of having gotten up the hill. You might even be able to pick a few things out of it to use again is some sort of literary upcycling program. And it got published because the other scarabs and their independent presses know all about that ball, and have some of their own, and the more balls that are out there the more we might start thinking they’re diamonds based on density alone.
Youth books, though? They’re biscuits. And I have to tell you that the MFAs I’ve know whose work I’ve really enjoyed? They read Mrs. Dalloway and Harry Potter. They could have a reasoned discussion about either Shakespeare or Silverstein. They put the story first, and the story last, and always the language at the service of the story. That’s what I like about youth writers—I don’t have to look as hard at their work to find that kind of craftsmanship. It’s not as hit or miss as adult lit, where I feel cheated when I read half a book and it still isn’t anything but character development and thesaurus jockeying. Youth lit doesn’t try to make me feel stupid for not understanding something, or rewarded when I do, and conquering the book doesn’t make me feel more worthy to attend cocktail parties with English majors—it’s just a good story. It’s a biscuit, and as we all know: anyone can make a hockey puck. Only the good cook can make a great biscuit.
On to the next. I’m thinking the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then back to The Piano Teacher and The Pilot’s Wife over Christmas. Any suggestions for nexts?
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Catchy Titles are Getting More Difficult
I should be working right now—so many of my returns to blogging start that way. I had to take the afternoon for dental work, so I owe about another 90 minutes today, and more if I can bring myself to put it out. But I’m at the kitchen table watching the half moon rise above the other condo. It’s peeking between the spires of a spruce tree, and out the southwestern side of the dining room I can see snowcapped mountains. With the leaves gone, our birch tree is a sheerer veil to the view, and I can hear the smile in Jeremiah’s voice as he talks to friends in the bike room. The TV’s on the mantle rather than the floor, the bedroom wall is painted, there’s leftover cupboard curry for lunch. Life is good.
And yet—my tea is cold on the counter, there are unanswered messages on the phone, dead flowers on the table, and green wood half-burned on the grate. I haven’t worked out in a couple of days, vacuumed in two weeks, or done more than a casual clean of the bathroom in…a while. Life may be good, but it’s messy sometimes , too, and while no one loves a mess, I’m learning not to dwell in it. There are some things I can tidy up, some things I can put away, and a host of other verb/adverb combinations I could paste on this life, but there will always be something, and I’m getting better at accepting that.
But Kate, you say, this feels like some sort of metaphor.
Why, yes, it could be, I say. If you see yourself in it, it must be. But part of this serenity-prayer-style cleaning up is letting you apply the metaphor yourself. You analyze your life, I’ll analyze mine, and in doing so we can remain friends. Sound good? Me, too. On to Stockholm!
October, Week 1Sparkly pencil skirt. Shiny purple blouse. What’s not to like. Good hair, bad picture. I’m thinking a pretty good style day overall.
October, Week
Again with the pencilish skirt. Aside from my unfortunate rejection of shapewear on that particular day (Tie/dress up Tuesday), I LOVE this dress. It’s going to look amazing in 15 pounds, which I’m hoping is sometime around Thanksgiving. We’ll see—if the exercise continues to wane and the treats continue to wax, that could be unreachable, but I’m hopeful. And I walked in those shoes all day. Boo freakin’ yah! Ignore, if you will, the shrug featured in both shots. It’s a staple of my wardrobe, and I will not be shamed by you or anyone into regretting my choice of coverup. Goodnight everyone. Sleep well, and hope in tomorrow.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Live to Eat
Wait--that's wrong? Whatever, don't judge me. I like to eat. I understand the consequences of that. But this week really has been a week of good food.
On Monday, there was a chocolate stout cake, which was moist like a brownie. I used Valrhona cocoa, thinking that I should try out a finer cocoa once, even if it is expensive. I have to be honest--I'm not even sure that it's related to the Hershey stuff. They could be cousins. By marriage. Second marriage. It's like cocoa's stepgrandkid. Hershey has been welcomed into the family, but everyone knows there's no resemblance.
In any case, I made this cake, and then I made a ganache with bittersweet chocolate and instant espresso, and covered the whole with your mom's best "butter cream" that's really just royal icing with some butter. This cake defined the word "decadence" and the office loved it. It also happened to be the kind of dessert that makes you wish you had eaten rice cakes or puffed air for dinner.
Then, on Wednesday, after a Zumba session that could have been another three hours long, I made macaroni and cheese. And not the kind that comes from a box, even though it is a fact universally acknowledged that Kraft is the only true macaroni and cheese, with its clumpy powdered sauce and gummy noodles that needs a minute to cool and congeal before it reaches its peak. True macaroni and cheese is a heaping helping of nostalgia in a box. This other thing I made, though--that's a heaping helping of delicious in a gratin dish and six single-serving ramekins. It was cheesy with cheddar. It was nutty and sharp with Swiss and the whole-grain goodness of toasted Ezekiel's sprouted grain bread (which I thought was much tastier than the suggested white bread, and an almost imperceptible not to health). Accompaniment? Some salad greens haphazardly tossed on a plate and dashed with ranch.
Thursday was Jeremiah's birthday, and dinner at Pepe's Turnagain House. Toasted brie and almond with apples and grapes. Delicious Caesar salad. Seafood paella. Bread pudding.
Friday was the day of the macaroni sandwich. I thought, "we should have something simple, like sandwiches." Leftover 'roni was supposed to be the side to the roast beef sandwich. At least, until Jeremiah took his and put it between the roast beef and sliced cheese on his sandwich. Jealousy is now spelled K-A-T-I-E.
And yesterday--yesterday. Yesterday the house smelled of hickory smoke and smoked paprika; pork fat and melting brown sugar; allspice and the stench of loss to Michigan. You'd think the last would turn me off the food, but you'd only think that if you'd never met me. Anyway, the whole house smelled like a barbecue potato chip. I iced the apple cake that I made on Friday, a gooey mess of pink lady apples, butter, ginger, and brown sugar, in a true Swiss butter cream made with brown instead of white sugar so that it makes you think of the best syrup you ever had. I turned farmer's marked carrots and beets into a sweet dill slaw with corn, and riffed on the traditional baked beans by toasting some cumin and garlic powder with farmer's market scallions and some of the pork bits, and tossing garbanzo and black beans in to finish. The pork was shredded and served on Hawai'ian rolls with farmer's market white cheddar, horseradish cheddar, or smoked Oregon blue cheese, accompanied by bread and butter pickles. Delish.
Unfortunately, even small amounts of the foods prepared this week are enough to kill the daily points. I don't do small amounts, so I was screwed. In the past four months I have been putting on and taking off the same 7 lbs, and I'm on the upswing. Looking at the meals I've made this week makes it kind of a "duh" moment. I have never been the kind of person who could have a small amount of a good food. It's the difference between being a recreational eater and a food addict.
I will never be able to just enjoy any food, because I will always have to be on guard that a bit remains a bite. That the slick slide of a bite of ice cream doesn't become a pint before I'm conscious of what I'm doing. One trip to Wendy's doesn't become a fast food lunch every day this week, and one coffee doesn't become three mochas. I enjoy good food. I crave large amounts of food, and it doesn't even matter whether I like it. I have found myself eating a meal while my brain is telling me it's flavorless, or poorly made, or not woth the points, and I still can't put the fork down. It's not laziness. It's not stupidity. It's knowing that you have to eat--you can't just not eat, like you can cold turkey stop smoking--but that every bite has the potential to drag you into another thousand calorie meal , or thinking about the next meal while this one is still cooking. It's knowing that everyone around you is watching what you eat (or thinking that they do) and that whatever judgement they're passing, it's not as harsh as how your judging yourself, and still not being able to stop. It's having to be so tightly controlled about what goes into your mouth that, if you were of normal weight, you'd be considered anorexic, but still feeling like a complete failure every. Time. Something extra makes its way into your face, or every time you oversleep the workout or every time you order dessert in public.
Hmmm. That wasn't supposed to be the focus of the entry today, and it certainly brought down the mood. But I think it makes a little more understandable that there will be more sorbets made with stevia, and more mostly-veg and butter spray meals in the coming weeks. Because I just can't do it. I can't have full fat, full flavor in the house. I just don't have the willpower to eat it responsibly.
On Monday, there was a chocolate stout cake, which was moist like a brownie. I used Valrhona cocoa, thinking that I should try out a finer cocoa once, even if it is expensive. I have to be honest--I'm not even sure that it's related to the Hershey stuff. They could be cousins. By marriage. Second marriage. It's like cocoa's stepgrandkid. Hershey has been welcomed into the family, but everyone knows there's no resemblance.
In any case, I made this cake, and then I made a ganache with bittersweet chocolate and instant espresso, and covered the whole with your mom's best "butter cream" that's really just royal icing with some butter. This cake defined the word "decadence" and the office loved it. It also happened to be the kind of dessert that makes you wish you had eaten rice cakes or puffed air for dinner.
Then, on Wednesday, after a Zumba session that could have been another three hours long, I made macaroni and cheese. And not the kind that comes from a box, even though it is a fact universally acknowledged that Kraft is the only true macaroni and cheese, with its clumpy powdered sauce and gummy noodles that needs a minute to cool and congeal before it reaches its peak. True macaroni and cheese is a heaping helping of nostalgia in a box. This other thing I made, though--that's a heaping helping of delicious in a gratin dish and six single-serving ramekins. It was cheesy with cheddar. It was nutty and sharp with Swiss and the whole-grain goodness of toasted Ezekiel's sprouted grain bread (which I thought was much tastier than the suggested white bread, and an almost imperceptible not to health). Accompaniment? Some salad greens haphazardly tossed on a plate and dashed with ranch.
Thursday was Jeremiah's birthday, and dinner at Pepe's Turnagain House. Toasted brie and almond with apples and grapes. Delicious Caesar salad. Seafood paella. Bread pudding.
Friday was the day of the macaroni sandwich. I thought, "we should have something simple, like sandwiches." Leftover 'roni was supposed to be the side to the roast beef sandwich. At least, until Jeremiah took his and put it between the roast beef and sliced cheese on his sandwich. Jealousy is now spelled K-A-T-I-E.
And yesterday--yesterday. Yesterday the house smelled of hickory smoke and smoked paprika; pork fat and melting brown sugar; allspice and the stench of loss to Michigan. You'd think the last would turn me off the food, but you'd only think that if you'd never met me. Anyway, the whole house smelled like a barbecue potato chip. I iced the apple cake that I made on Friday, a gooey mess of pink lady apples, butter, ginger, and brown sugar, in a true Swiss butter cream made with brown instead of white sugar so that it makes you think of the best syrup you ever had. I turned farmer's marked carrots and beets into a sweet dill slaw with corn, and riffed on the traditional baked beans by toasting some cumin and garlic powder with farmer's market scallions and some of the pork bits, and tossing garbanzo and black beans in to finish. The pork was shredded and served on Hawai'ian rolls with farmer's market white cheddar, horseradish cheddar, or smoked Oregon blue cheese, accompanied by bread and butter pickles. Delish.
Unfortunately, even small amounts of the foods prepared this week are enough to kill the daily points. I don't do small amounts, so I was screwed. In the past four months I have been putting on and taking off the same 7 lbs, and I'm on the upswing. Looking at the meals I've made this week makes it kind of a "duh" moment. I have never been the kind of person who could have a small amount of a good food. It's the difference between being a recreational eater and a food addict.
I will never be able to just enjoy any food, because I will always have to be on guard that a bit remains a bite. That the slick slide of a bite of ice cream doesn't become a pint before I'm conscious of what I'm doing. One trip to Wendy's doesn't become a fast food lunch every day this week, and one coffee doesn't become three mochas. I enjoy good food. I crave large amounts of food, and it doesn't even matter whether I like it. I have found myself eating a meal while my brain is telling me it's flavorless, or poorly made, or not woth the points, and I still can't put the fork down. It's not laziness. It's not stupidity. It's knowing that you have to eat--you can't just not eat, like you can cold turkey stop smoking--but that every bite has the potential to drag you into another thousand calorie meal , or thinking about the next meal while this one is still cooking. It's knowing that everyone around you is watching what you eat (or thinking that they do) and that whatever judgement they're passing, it's not as harsh as how your judging yourself, and still not being able to stop. It's having to be so tightly controlled about what goes into your mouth that, if you were of normal weight, you'd be considered anorexic, but still feeling like a complete failure every. Time. Something extra makes its way into your face, or every time you oversleep the workout or every time you order dessert in public.
Hmmm. That wasn't supposed to be the focus of the entry today, and it certainly brought down the mood. But I think it makes a little more understandable that there will be more sorbets made with stevia, and more mostly-veg and butter spray meals in the coming weeks. Because I just can't do it. I can't have full fat, full flavor in the house. I just don't have the willpower to eat it responsibly.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
It's Raining, It's Pouring
You know, I remember that once, there was a period of time between snow and snow when the Earth warmed up, the clouds departed for a bit, and the ground dried up a bit. It began with an S...
I saw summer briefly in July, when we went to Walla Walla for my brother's wedding. It was too hot, but otherwise glorious, and then we returned to discover that Anchorage had gone 32 days with precipitation every day. You read right: a solid month of rain at least once a day. Since then we've had some spotty sun, but it's mostly been dismal, and it's just pouring buckets outside at the moment. Buck. Ets. Big drops, too. It's raining so hard the DishNetwork has lost its signal.
I kind of wish I had something to bake, actually--it always takes my mind off the weather. Right now, though, I'm hanging out at the folks' house, revelling in the 23-13 victory that ND just had over Purdue. It's definitely a good start.
So, let's see--where to begin? We last spoke in June, and there is sadly little to share since then. Life as usual, really. Work. Sleep. Hang out. Work. Sleep. Hang out. Toss cat in the dryer. Steam. Work. Sleep. Hang out.
Oh. You caught that, huh? Well, I was hoping you wouldn't but since you have, it was totally Jeremiah's fault in a way that makes it more my fault than his but easier to blame on him. You see, it all started with the dryer door.
The door on the dryer does not generally stay open, specifically because cats have a genetic attraction to all spaces warm and dark. They're like bats or bad politicians. The last thing we want to happen is for the cat to discover the lovely cave in the laundry room, so we're pretty good about closing the door. We also tend to close the door to the laundry room, because no one wants to look at the water heater or the old Rubbermaid pitcher catching the slow leak from the outlet pipe.
All that changed on Monday. On Monday, Jeremiah was in a hurry and pulled his shirt out of the dryer, forgetting to close the dryer. I was also in a hurry, though rather later in the morning, and didn't have time to iron, so I thought I'd steam my sweater. I left the cat on the bed, and went to wet a washcloth, tossing the cloth and my sweater into the dryer. I didn't even notice that the door was open.
Thump. Whir whir whir. Thump. I thought it must be shoes, though I couldn't remember either of us having a pair of shoes that wasn't leather or some imitation thereof. After about the fifth thump, though, something just wasn't right, so I stopped the cycle and opened up the door. One of the towels started moving, and I heard the most pitiful little yowl coming out of the cave. My heart stopped--my poor kitten! She stumbled out of the dryer onto the offending door, wobbly and whimpering. I just stood there for a second, tearing up and feeling awful and petting her to see if she was OK. I was late to work because we snuggled for a bit, just so I could watch and see if she was okay.
Thankfully, she was fine, and the rest of the week went much better than it started out. But suffice it to say that this blog entry is a) really just a chance to out myself before certain other people do it for me, and b) certainly enough to restart the blogging. I'll hit you up again on Monday, hopefully with more news and less trauma.
I saw summer briefly in July, when we went to Walla Walla for my brother's wedding. It was too hot, but otherwise glorious, and then we returned to discover that Anchorage had gone 32 days with precipitation every day. You read right: a solid month of rain at least once a day. Since then we've had some spotty sun, but it's mostly been dismal, and it's just pouring buckets outside at the moment. Buck. Ets. Big drops, too. It's raining so hard the DishNetwork has lost its signal.
I kind of wish I had something to bake, actually--it always takes my mind off the weather. Right now, though, I'm hanging out at the folks' house, revelling in the 23-13 victory that ND just had over Purdue. It's definitely a good start.
So, let's see--where to begin? We last spoke in June, and there is sadly little to share since then. Life as usual, really. Work. Sleep. Hang out. Work. Sleep. Hang out. Toss cat in the dryer. Steam. Work. Sleep. Hang out.
Oh. You caught that, huh? Well, I was hoping you wouldn't but since you have, it was totally Jeremiah's fault in a way that makes it more my fault than his but easier to blame on him. You see, it all started with the dryer door.
The door on the dryer does not generally stay open, specifically because cats have a genetic attraction to all spaces warm and dark. They're like bats or bad politicians. The last thing we want to happen is for the cat to discover the lovely cave in the laundry room, so we're pretty good about closing the door. We also tend to close the door to the laundry room, because no one wants to look at the water heater or the old Rubbermaid pitcher catching the slow leak from the outlet pipe.
All that changed on Monday. On Monday, Jeremiah was in a hurry and pulled his shirt out of the dryer, forgetting to close the dryer. I was also in a hurry, though rather later in the morning, and didn't have time to iron, so I thought I'd steam my sweater. I left the cat on the bed, and went to wet a washcloth, tossing the cloth and my sweater into the dryer. I didn't even notice that the door was open.
Thump. Whir whir whir. Thump. I thought it must be shoes, though I couldn't remember either of us having a pair of shoes that wasn't leather or some imitation thereof. After about the fifth thump, though, something just wasn't right, so I stopped the cycle and opened up the door. One of the towels started moving, and I heard the most pitiful little yowl coming out of the cave. My heart stopped--my poor kitten! She stumbled out of the dryer onto the offending door, wobbly and whimpering. I just stood there for a second, tearing up and feeling awful and petting her to see if she was OK. I was late to work because we snuggled for a bit, just so I could watch and see if she was okay.
Thankfully, she was fine, and the rest of the week went much better than it started out. But suffice it to say that this blog entry is a) really just a chance to out myself before certain other people do it for me, and b) certainly enough to restart the blogging. I'll hit you up again on Monday, hopefully with more news and less trauma.
Monday, July 19, 2010
A Martha Heart
Duck leg quarters roasting with sage in the oven. Shitake and walnut dressing toasting, yam rounds cooking, waiting to be finish-fried in the rendered duck fat. The only thing remaining is to roast the cauliflower with sage and smoked paprika, pour the wine, and eat the whole. What else to do but catch up with the blogosphere?
Today's gospel reading was Mary and Martha. Jesus shows up to hang out with Lazarus. Mary, L's older sister, bustles around making dinner and making sure the house is in order. Mary sits to listen to Jesus. Martha asks Jesus to make Mary help out, and Jesus chastises her, saying that Mary is right and Martha is wrong.
Except...that's not exactly how the story goes. Fr. Scott gave a great homily about how we all need to be a little bit Martha and a little bit Mary; to get the work done, but to know when it's time to stop and listen to God in your presence, talking to you. He was trying to remind us that we get so busy, we forget who we're supposed to busy ourselves for. That we need time for chores and for contemplation, working and waiting on the Lord to reveal himself. He poked us a bit, being a former Protestant minister, that Catholics don't generally seek the Word of God for themselves, but wait for it to be proclaimed to them once a week, and and poked everyone else a bit more to see how many things intrude on the Sabbath. How many times we let sports, and chores, and fishing trips, and working weekends, and mindless surfing steal little by little the only day God truly asks us to give to him. It was a great homily.
I got prodded to Mass this morning. It would have been so easy to sleep, but someone wouldn't let me. And because of that, because I was sleepy and thinking of all the things I had to do, but I was there, I heard the story a little bit differently this morning than I might have at the end of the day.
I always pictured Martha as the spinster sister, old and haggard, looking not dissimilar to Kathy Bates, while Mary was both voluptuous and virtuous, usually looking like Audrey Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor, and always with a British accent. Max-von-Sydow-Jesus is a bit of a pill, and I always side with Martha--I mean, really. Your brother's friend brings 12 or more guests, you're supposed to feed them all on top of everything else you're supposed to do, and the only person who can help is in hanging out, and Jesus says you're the one with the problem? That's messed up.
Today, though, I realized that Martha and Mary were both still living with their brother, meaning they hadn't been married off yet. Which means they hadn't bled yet. Which means that Martha was 13, 14 max, and her sister a year or two younger than that. Martha is a teenager, willing to do her share, but not if her sister's in chatting, where she desperately wants to be, too. She probably thought that if Mary just came in, they could get dinner fixed in a flash, and then they could both listen. Or maybe she wanted to be the one in listening, but had the responsibilities of making sure her brother wasn't shamed by her hospitality. She was a kid, possibly more mature than a modern teenager but still a kid, and she was doing the best she could. And so was Mary--when you're 12 and someone says something worth hearing, you stay to listen to it.
The other thing that caught me was that Jesus didn't chastise Martha. Not at all. The gospels are pretty clear when Jesus is rebuking someone for being a pill. Not here:
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."
You can practically see his understanding smile at the efficient perfectionist coming out from the kitchen--"Lord, don't you care that I have do this all by myself? Do you really not care about me as much as Mary? Do you not care if I get to hear you, or did you even notice that I was gone?" I can see him shaking his head, perhaps bending to eye level, and teaching--you're spending so much time trying to feed the guests that you're forgetting to enjoy their company. And there's something unspoken there: I didn't trap you in the kitchen, and I won't send Mary back to help you. But if you come sit with me, that time will not be taken from you, either.
It was like all the parties (usually the ones I'm hosting) where the hostess is so busy making sure no one's having a bad time that she doesn't have a good time. All the times throughout the week where I'd like to sit with Jeremiah but there's simply to much to do--dishes, or laundry, or planning for the wedding. And he accepts that's how it is--he goes about his business, and tries to make life a little less stressful wherever he can. Those things, the laundry, the wedding planning, the budgeting, the chores...they're all important. They are not foolish concerns, or frivolous activities, and Jesus didn't think so, either. Jesus knew that Martha couldn't just drop everything. But he also knew that she had missed the one most important thing: that he was there, and not in the kitchen waiting for supper, but in the living room waiting for an attentive ear and some good company.
Today, I ran around after Mass. I went to two Fred Meyer and New Sagaya, looking for duck. Jeremiah loves it, and I wanted to make it for him; to recreate our Thanksgiving dinner as a small weekend gift. I spent two or three hours running around, tyring to find the duck and finally had to go for duck leg quarters. He had to go help my brother move his refrigerator, so I stayed home and, exhausted, napped with the cat for several hours before getting up to make dinner. We moved in our own spheres, bumping hamster balls occasionally for a quick kiss but otherwise divergent in orbit. And it didn't quite turn out as I wanted. The duck was beautiful but slightly overcooked, the dressing underseasoned, and the yams burned. The cauliflower was nixed for want of oven space, and the salad smelled a little too vinegary while undressed to merit actual eating, though it did look nice on the plate before we saw that it was inedible. Once we were finished, every dish in the house was once again piled on the counter, and there are still a million things to do around the house. But there was a movie on and a broad chest to cuddle against. My one thing was on the couch, waiting for me, and the dishes seemed far less important in comparison.
Today's gospel reading was Mary and Martha. Jesus shows up to hang out with Lazarus. Mary, L's older sister, bustles around making dinner and making sure the house is in order. Mary sits to listen to Jesus. Martha asks Jesus to make Mary help out, and Jesus chastises her, saying that Mary is right and Martha is wrong.
Except...that's not exactly how the story goes. Fr. Scott gave a great homily about how we all need to be a little bit Martha and a little bit Mary; to get the work done, but to know when it's time to stop and listen to God in your presence, talking to you. He was trying to remind us that we get so busy, we forget who we're supposed to busy ourselves for. That we need time for chores and for contemplation, working and waiting on the Lord to reveal himself. He poked us a bit, being a former Protestant minister, that Catholics don't generally seek the Word of God for themselves, but wait for it to be proclaimed to them once a week, and and poked everyone else a bit more to see how many things intrude on the Sabbath. How many times we let sports, and chores, and fishing trips, and working weekends, and mindless surfing steal little by little the only day God truly asks us to give to him. It was a great homily.
I got prodded to Mass this morning. It would have been so easy to sleep, but someone wouldn't let me. And because of that, because I was sleepy and thinking of all the things I had to do, but I was there, I heard the story a little bit differently this morning than I might have at the end of the day.
I always pictured Martha as the spinster sister, old and haggard, looking not dissimilar to Kathy Bates, while Mary was both voluptuous and virtuous, usually looking like Audrey Hepburn or Elizabeth Taylor, and always with a British accent. Max-von-Sydow-Jesus is a bit of a pill, and I always side with Martha--I mean, really. Your brother's friend brings 12 or more guests, you're supposed to feed them all on top of everything else you're supposed to do, and the only person who can help is in hanging out, and Jesus says you're the one with the problem? That's messed up.
Today, though, I realized that Martha and Mary were both still living with their brother, meaning they hadn't been married off yet. Which means they hadn't bled yet. Which means that Martha was 13, 14 max, and her sister a year or two younger than that. Martha is a teenager, willing to do her share, but not if her sister's in chatting, where she desperately wants to be, too. She probably thought that if Mary just came in, they could get dinner fixed in a flash, and then they could both listen. Or maybe she wanted to be the one in listening, but had the responsibilities of making sure her brother wasn't shamed by her hospitality. She was a kid, possibly more mature than a modern teenager but still a kid, and she was doing the best she could. And so was Mary--when you're 12 and someone says something worth hearing, you stay to listen to it.
The other thing that caught me was that Jesus didn't chastise Martha. Not at all. The gospels are pretty clear when Jesus is rebuking someone for being a pill. Not here:
The Lord said to her in reply,
"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.
There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part
and it will not be taken from her."
You can practically see his understanding smile at the efficient perfectionist coming out from the kitchen--"Lord, don't you care that I have do this all by myself? Do you really not care about me as much as Mary? Do you not care if I get to hear you, or did you even notice that I was gone?" I can see him shaking his head, perhaps bending to eye level, and teaching--you're spending so much time trying to feed the guests that you're forgetting to enjoy their company. And there's something unspoken there: I didn't trap you in the kitchen, and I won't send Mary back to help you. But if you come sit with me, that time will not be taken from you, either.
It was like all the parties (usually the ones I'm hosting) where the hostess is so busy making sure no one's having a bad time that she doesn't have a good time. All the times throughout the week where I'd like to sit with Jeremiah but there's simply to much to do--dishes, or laundry, or planning for the wedding. And he accepts that's how it is--he goes about his business, and tries to make life a little less stressful wherever he can. Those things, the laundry, the wedding planning, the budgeting, the chores...they're all important. They are not foolish concerns, or frivolous activities, and Jesus didn't think so, either. Jesus knew that Martha couldn't just drop everything. But he also knew that she had missed the one most important thing: that he was there, and not in the kitchen waiting for supper, but in the living room waiting for an attentive ear and some good company.
Today, I ran around after Mass. I went to two Fred Meyer and New Sagaya, looking for duck. Jeremiah loves it, and I wanted to make it for him; to recreate our Thanksgiving dinner as a small weekend gift. I spent two or three hours running around, tyring to find the duck and finally had to go for duck leg quarters. He had to go help my brother move his refrigerator, so I stayed home and, exhausted, napped with the cat for several hours before getting up to make dinner. We moved in our own spheres, bumping hamster balls occasionally for a quick kiss but otherwise divergent in orbit. And it didn't quite turn out as I wanted. The duck was beautiful but slightly overcooked, the dressing underseasoned, and the yams burned. The cauliflower was nixed for want of oven space, and the salad smelled a little too vinegary while undressed to merit actual eating, though it did look nice on the plate before we saw that it was inedible. Once we were finished, every dish in the house was once again piled on the counter, and there are still a million things to do around the house. But there was a movie on and a broad chest to cuddle against. My one thing was on the couch, waiting for me, and the dishes seemed far less important in comparison.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Baker's Bruises
Oh, KitchenAid, why can you not think for me, too? All else you touch is magic. But you are only as good as the crap or not-crap that I feed you.
Most of the time, I can take a meal from awesome to awful in a heartbeat--a little too much salt, a few too many pounds of buckwheat...you know how it goes. But I tend to do pretty good desserts. Under my belt this year (year 1 AK: After KitchenAid):
But today? Today, what should have been spectacular became so-so. Rather than trusting myself to adjust a recipe I know like the back of my hand, I started with an unfamiliar recipe, and what should have been easy, the Elvis biscotti--banana, peanut butter, and chocolate chip biscotti--scared me. It was a cookie without the creaming process, that seemed more like a soft quick bread than a cookie. It used oil, not butter. It had the sugar in with the dry ingredients. It used white sugar for banana bread, instead of brown sugar. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. So I fixed it.
The result: biscuits instead of biscotti. Clunky instead of crunchy. Chewy mini loaf instead of crispy dipper. *Sigh* It had so much potential. I mean, it's not gross by any stretch of the imagination. But it's definitely more savory than sweet, for which I blame my self-righteous trading of half the white for brown sugar. Oh. And I doubled the recipe, succumbing to the fallacy that I can double the output by doubling the ingredients. For you pastry virgins? That no work. I don't know why. Alton does, though. Either way, it's a chemistry thing, and I was its pool boy today.
So today we have breakfast biscuits. Thursday, though, I am making honey marshmallows, and Chemistry should watch its back. I have a candy thermometer and some Silpat, and I am not afraid to use them.
Most of the time, I can take a meal from awesome to awful in a heartbeat--a little too much salt, a few too many pounds of buckwheat...you know how it goes. But I tend to do pretty good desserts. Under my belt this year (year 1 AK: After KitchenAid):
- White chocolate cake with raspberry filling and white chocolate French cream
- Senior Mints: deep chocolate cake with mint butter cream and dark ganache
- Umpteen batches of biscotti (banana and butterscotch, chocolate mint, macadamia, and my favorite--pistachio, cranberry, and lime with white chocolate drizzle)
- Mocha cake with coffee butter cream
- Chocolate mint ice cream cake
- Chocolate pound cake with peanut butter frosting
- Coffee marshmallows (that's right--homemade marshmallows a million times better than the store bought kind...so much so that I may use them to make homemade Peeps this year)
- Apple cake with maple butter cream
- Carrot cake with homemade cream cheese
But today? Today, what should have been spectacular became so-so. Rather than trusting myself to adjust a recipe I know like the back of my hand, I started with an unfamiliar recipe, and what should have been easy, the Elvis biscotti--banana, peanut butter, and chocolate chip biscotti--scared me. It was a cookie without the creaming process, that seemed more like a soft quick bread than a cookie. It used oil, not butter. It had the sugar in with the dry ingredients. It used white sugar for banana bread, instead of brown sugar. It was wrong, wrong, wrong. So I fixed it.
The result: biscuits instead of biscotti. Clunky instead of crunchy. Chewy mini loaf instead of crispy dipper. *Sigh* It had so much potential. I mean, it's not gross by any stretch of the imagination. But it's definitely more savory than sweet, for which I blame my self-righteous trading of half the white for brown sugar. Oh. And I doubled the recipe, succumbing to the fallacy that I can double the output by doubling the ingredients. For you pastry virgins? That no work. I don't know why. Alton does, though. Either way, it's a chemistry thing, and I was its pool boy today.
So today we have breakfast biscuits. Thursday, though, I am making honey marshmallows, and Chemistry should watch its back. I have a candy thermometer and some Silpat, and I am not afraid to use them.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Fauxmenism, the Archetype Slayer
I have just about ten minutes before 8, which means I have just about ten minutes for some fauxmenist protest of the strong woman archetype on television.
Jeremiah and I were watching television, as we tend to do, when on came a commercial for Covert Affairs (at a volume factor of 120 times the level of the show it interrupted…you know that’s why the adjective commercial became a noun, right? It’s an interruption for commerce; a commercial interruption, if you will. There you are—your new fact for the day. I may have made it up, but it certainly sounds plausible, so I’m going to purvey it as truth). Now, this happened right in the middle of an episode of In Plain Sight, the witness protection series, and I was a little excited. Until I saw the CIA field operative, played by Piper Perabo of Coyote Ugly near-fame, in a grey pencil skirt and stilettos. In three or four scenes. Most of which involve rolling or squatting or running of some kind.
So the premise of the show: baby CIA trainee Perabo is turned into field operative/bait for exboyfriend now wanted by CIA. She is apprenticed to a former operative blinded in the field (Tiresias of Thebes, anyone?), flirted with by her boss, and supervised by the King and Queen of two arms of the CIA who also happen to be married. The series was written by either Sophocles or Euripedes, though the debate’s still out on that one. Unfortunately, the person it was not written by is the one who should have written it: Joss Whedon.
Why is this a fauxmenist rant, you ask? Actually, it might be an actual feminist one, but the meat of the matter is that one running incident in a skirt I can understand. Two is possible, but after the second one? You’re wearing slacks and some lug-soled pumps, not 4 inch stilettos. It’s just dumb. If you’re not smart enough to dress for work, you are not smart enough to work for the CIA. I wholeheartedly support the strong woman who can still be feminine (Mary Hart of In Plain Sight, for example; a little distant, but still reasonable, able to do a “man’s” job without sacrificing her uterus but also without wearing it on her sleeve, which is gross) but I absolutely abhor a “dude’s eye view” of what a strong woman should be, as though making concessions to practicality were somehow unattractive.
Wear a skirt or not—you can still be feminine, but there are certain things that are just dumb: if a woman works in a field where she’s going to be in hand to hand combat? She doesn’t wear her long, flowing locks down. Weakness, duh! (Am I right, oh bunned Belves?) She wears a jacket to hidea sidearm, and the jacket's loose enough to hide said gun. She wears shoes she can run in or she shucks the suckers the second there’s a chase. Turning an ankle chasing terrorist makes you a liability, not a field operative.
The reason I vote for Joss on this one is simple: Buffy. Strong woman in a ridiculously fictionalized world. Because she doesn’t operate in a realistic world, she’s allowed to monologue while she fights. She’s allowed to have witty repartee with the undead right before she stakes them. She’s allowed to fight in miniskirts (miniskirt, btw, is better than pencil skirt because it actually frees the leg for both ogling and roundhouse kicks to the face, throat, and undead groin) and wear long hair and never smudge her makeup because the writer has placed her in a world in which said fights happen like choreographed scenes in a musical and look like choreographed scenes in a musical and sometimes are choreographed and musical (don’t believe me? Watch the episode Once More, With Feeling). The world in which she functions is itself impractical, and so is her premise: cheerleading vampire slayer. She doesn't have to be practical.
This CIA agent, though—she’s taking herself seriously, and so is the show as a whole. She purports to function in our world of slowly-shattering glass ceilings, and she’s having risqué flirty conversations with the womanizing boss. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’m already crafting my post about the casual acceptance on TV of workplace harassment. She works in intelligence as a field operative and not only has really long hair, curling several inches past her shoulders, but she wears it down at work. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I think of the kind of person who could do that kind of job as a military-esque mindset kind of person: hair either cut or styled above the collar. Practical and feminine. And the shoes. The SHOES.
Strong women are attractive. Stupid women are not. Stop showing foolish women on television and portraying them as what strong women should be—it pisses me off. Make them foolish in their personal lives, but stop making it look like the view of their legs as they chase a criminal is more important than whether or not they catch the guy/girl, and stop making it look like that’s what they themselves believe. Sacrificing the skirt is not sacrificing her femininity—she’s a woman, whether in skirt or slacks. Make her strong, and make her smart, and you’ll make a fan out of me.
Stockholming, Week 10…11?
We are back to the pencil skirt, and new hair. I’m a fan of the new hair, and of course the skirt. I really should get 7 more, but I’m 16lbs down (thank you, thank you…/bows) and losing faster than before (1—1.5lbs/wk, rather than, oh, 0.2lbs/wk), so clothing purchases must be minimal.
I love the shoes, for the same reason I’m also unsure that they look good on me: soooo much unfettered toe room. It’s exquisite, but my toes tend to sprawl. But they’re comfy heels (and appropriate for work because I rarely, if ever, chase criminals or flee from firefights during the work day) so they remain part of the work wardrobe. Overall, I dig this look. The only thing I hate is that as I slim, my problem areas become even more obvious. When everything is chubs, the individual chubsy areas are less blatant than they are when other areas tighten up. Cruel, cruel catch 22! Will check in again in a week. Ish. Maybe.
Jeremiah and I were watching television, as we tend to do, when on came a commercial for Covert Affairs (at a volume factor of 120 times the level of the show it interrupted…you know that’s why the adjective commercial became a noun, right? It’s an interruption for commerce; a commercial interruption, if you will. There you are—your new fact for the day. I may have made it up, but it certainly sounds plausible, so I’m going to purvey it as truth). Now, this happened right in the middle of an episode of In Plain Sight, the witness protection series, and I was a little excited. Until I saw the CIA field operative, played by Piper Perabo of Coyote Ugly near-fame, in a grey pencil skirt and stilettos. In three or four scenes. Most of which involve rolling or squatting or running of some kind.
So the premise of the show: baby CIA trainee Perabo is turned into field operative/bait for exboyfriend now wanted by CIA. She is apprenticed to a former operative blinded in the field (Tiresias of Thebes, anyone?), flirted with by her boss, and supervised by the King and Queen of two arms of the CIA who also happen to be married. The series was written by either Sophocles or Euripedes, though the debate’s still out on that one. Unfortunately, the person it was not written by is the one who should have written it: Joss Whedon.
Why is this a fauxmenist rant, you ask? Actually, it might be an actual feminist one, but the meat of the matter is that one running incident in a skirt I can understand. Two is possible, but after the second one? You’re wearing slacks and some lug-soled pumps, not 4 inch stilettos. It’s just dumb. If you’re not smart enough to dress for work, you are not smart enough to work for the CIA. I wholeheartedly support the strong woman who can still be feminine (Mary Hart of In Plain Sight, for example; a little distant, but still reasonable, able to do a “man’s” job without sacrificing her uterus but also without wearing it on her sleeve, which is gross) but I absolutely abhor a “dude’s eye view” of what a strong woman should be, as though making concessions to practicality were somehow unattractive.
Wear a skirt or not—you can still be feminine, but there are certain things that are just dumb: if a woman works in a field where she’s going to be in hand to hand combat? She doesn’t wear her long, flowing locks down. Weakness, duh! (Am I right, oh bunned Belves?) She wears a jacket to hidea sidearm, and the jacket's loose enough to hide said gun. She wears shoes she can run in or she shucks the suckers the second there’s a chase. Turning an ankle chasing terrorist makes you a liability, not a field operative.
The reason I vote for Joss on this one is simple: Buffy. Strong woman in a ridiculously fictionalized world. Because she doesn’t operate in a realistic world, she’s allowed to monologue while she fights. She’s allowed to have witty repartee with the undead right before she stakes them. She’s allowed to fight in miniskirts (miniskirt, btw, is better than pencil skirt because it actually frees the leg for both ogling and roundhouse kicks to the face, throat, and undead groin) and wear long hair and never smudge her makeup because the writer has placed her in a world in which said fights happen like choreographed scenes in a musical and look like choreographed scenes in a musical and sometimes are choreographed and musical (don’t believe me? Watch the episode Once More, With Feeling). The world in which she functions is itself impractical, and so is her premise: cheerleading vampire slayer. She doesn't have to be practical.
This CIA agent, though—she’s taking herself seriously, and so is the show as a whole. She purports to function in our world of slowly-shattering glass ceilings, and she’s having risqué flirty conversations with the womanizing boss. I haven’t seen the show yet, but I’m already crafting my post about the casual acceptance on TV of workplace harassment. She works in intelligence as a field operative and not only has really long hair, curling several inches past her shoulders, but she wears it down at work. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but I think of the kind of person who could do that kind of job as a military-esque mindset kind of person: hair either cut or styled above the collar. Practical and feminine. And the shoes. The SHOES.
Strong women are attractive. Stupid women are not. Stop showing foolish women on television and portraying them as what strong women should be—it pisses me off. Make them foolish in their personal lives, but stop making it look like the view of their legs as they chase a criminal is more important than whether or not they catch the guy/girl, and stop making it look like that’s what they themselves believe. Sacrificing the skirt is not sacrificing her femininity—she’s a woman, whether in skirt or slacks. Make her strong, and make her smart, and you’ll make a fan out of me.
Stockholming, Week 10…11?
I love the shoes, for the same reason I’m also unsure that they look good on me: soooo much unfettered toe room. It’s exquisite, but my toes tend to sprawl. But they’re comfy heels (and appropriate for work because I rarely, if ever, chase criminals or flee from firefights during the work day) so they remain part of the work wardrobe. Overall, I dig this look. The only thing I hate is that as I slim, my problem areas become even more obvious. When everything is chubs, the individual chubsy areas are less blatant than they are when other areas tighten up. Cruel, cruel catch 22! Will check in again in a week. Ish. Maybe.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
The Log in Our Eye
The other day I had a roar (Ante Up or Shut Up) about all the righteous anger regarding the Deepwater Horizon spill. This is not a retraction—I have little patience for the morally superior attitude of everyone who “knew this would happen.”
I also, however, feel a great deal of compassion for the people who are being affected by the spill. Just because I think we’re all participating in the industry doesn’t mean that I think fishermen who will lose this year’s livelihood or environmentalists who still drive combustion-engine cars deserve this distress. I don’t. I don’t think the oil company is wholly innocent, though I think that there’s a reason the other oil companies aren’t being forthcoming about their rig designs; my guess is that BP isn’t the only one doing things this way. It’s just the one who caught the bad well/mud/BOP.
My frustration is with the blame and scapegoating that are polarizing our country. Everything is adversarial, and this is just the latest example. A couple of years ago, the right claimed victory because increased offshore production means more energy independence, more jobs, and more security. It was right there behind big oil, and the governments of Florida, Alabama, and Louisiana were right onboard (Governor Backs Florida Drilling; Offshore Drilling Alabama’s Coastline; Louisiana touts is its offshore oil drilling). These individuals were the champions of the industry, and the second they were hurt by the industry they jumped ship and shifted blame.
In fact, in 2009, 68% of Americans supported increased offshore drilling as part of a suite of energy projects including natural gas and wind turbines (Poll Shows State Residents Support Offshore Drilling; you will note that the New Jersey supported offshore drilling, and that its legislators introduced the legislation to raise the liability cap on oil spill damage). Some (including Crist) argue that they support “environmentally friendly” drilling, but there is no such thing. You can attempt to minimize the impact, but the friendliest thing you can do is not drill. Any kind of drilling is “environmentally acquainted” at best. This spill was not a matter of if—it was a matter of when, and anyone who thought otherwise was an ostrich with his head in the tar sands. The proponents just choose ignorance because later they can behave as though they were deceived, when really they simply deluded themselves and wish to eschew responsibility for the consequences of the actions that they support.
The same adversarial relationship exists in education. Rather than working together—politicians, students, parents, teachers—to figure out that maybe there is no single approach that works for every child, and that maybe you need to hire good teachers and then let them teach, the parties attack each other to avoid accepting their own share of responsibility. Politicians are obliged to fund education, but they need a reason to hold that funding hostage during election years, so they talk performance. Students are responsible for working as hard as they can, every day, to get the most of their education because they are responsible for their futures, but if they prefer to slack, or if baseball is more important than Biology, they blame the teachers. Parents are responsible for making sure their children are well-behaved, fed, and supported in their education, but some can’t or won’t, and instead of asking for help they foist the responsibility on teachers and are stunned when teachers resist. Teachers, faced with a desire and responsibility to educate, receive minimal funding, unfunded mandates, inconsistent objectives, unprepared students, parental responsibilities, and rampant animosity, and shoot their frustration right back at all three of the aforementioned groups.
Most people in these groups try to work together: a good politician tries to support education, not rule it; a good student does his best and asks for help; a good parent has high expectations of both student and teacher (not just the latter); and a truly good teacher can most of the time take it all in stride and succeed. But the ones that we read about? The obnoxious ones? They’re more invested in assigning blame than in solving problems.
Other examples:
The same people funding support of the Arizona immigration bill are the ones who buy cheap strawberries picked by migrant laborers and don’t worry about the cleaning lady’s status when they pay her in cash at the end of the week. Some teachers are just bad, and they’re the first ones to spout off about parents (seriously—the good teachers lose their patience with parents every once in a while, but they are also often the first to defend parents who are doing their best to raise kids in a tough economy and meaner society than it used to be. They’re the first to try to coach parents about dealing with behavior issues because, let’s face it: the average parent trains 3 kids in a lifetime. The average teacher? 300+. There’s some expertise there. And they’re the first ones to give up evenings, weekends, and good nights’ sleep for the students who need them).
I am not without compassion. I do not, however, feel that sympathizing with those in distress means that we have to ignore all fault, or eschew it. We keep trying to make sweeping reforms of health care, of environmental policy, of education, of immigration—but those things only work from the top if the people on the bottom start participating as well. You want lower health care costs? Stop using insurance to pay for recreational massage—that’s not what it’s for, and you know it. You want a cleaner environment? Turn off the lights/computer/air conditioner in your house, stop buying bottled water, buy local produce, walk wherever you can and live closer to work/stores/entertainment. Accept that less oil production means higher gas prices.
You want a better education system? Stop finding someone to blame and start volunteering—be a mentor, a tutor, an advocate of public libraries. Talk to teachers, rather than at or about them. If you want to reduce illegal immigration, punish companies that hire illegal immigrants, as well as the immigrants themselves—both are equally criminal. Accept that it may mean Americans have to do their own manual labor—and in a tough job market, that may mean that you or I have to scrub someone else’s floor, pick their fruit, mow their lawn, or clear their dishes, and do it for the wages that illegal immigrants will accept. Or, alternately, accept that those businesses will no longer be able to charge what they do now, or even stay afloat.
I am frustrated because we have the power to change the world, and we have abandoned that power. We have given it away to governments and lawyers instead of claiming it. All I have to do to change the world is to change my own life, a little at a time, slowly creeping toward my ideal. But that requires real work, and that requires me to accept my fault when I fail: to live with the consequences both of my failures and my successes. That is the most American ideal that we have: we, through our own actions in our own lives, have the power to determine our own destinies. We are choosing not to do so because it’s hard—better to let government or the economy or anyone other than us mandate it, then blame them when it fails. It’s just sad, and I’m just as guilty as anyone else. The difference? I know there’s a log in my eye, and I’m trying, little by little, to pull it free so I can see a little clearer. There are others out there (many, actually, who read this blog) doing the same, and maybe, little by little, we can change the timbre of national discourse to one of respect, that acknowledges equal responsibility for our nation’s failures and its successes.
- Immigration in Arizona--We have illegal immigrants working in the U.S., businesses who are hiring them, but instead of going after the businesses who underpin both the black market labor and the political system, we go after the immigrants.
- The war in Iraq--Received overwhelming support in Congress that waned almost immediately when we discovered that you can’t invade a country without then occupying that country, unless you simply intend to destroy the country. Regardless of the rationale behind the war (and I admit that the support was the result of bad intelligence and subterfuge), invading a nation is not quick, however justified it may seem, and it was the potential longevity of the situation, rather than the faulty motives, that had many (not all) hawks turning accusatory doves.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Stockholming, Week 7 and Moving
Last week was horrible (food/exercise-wise...life was good otherwise). I ate one of everything, and sometimes two. Ugh. And let me tell you--Brie mac and cheese? Yes. Oh, Lord, yes. Calories inherent in that dish? NOOOOOO. Get thee behind me, Brie-tan. I do believe I have had my first, second, third, fourth, and LAST helpings of that particular delicacy. No more Brie in the house for...quite some time. Sorry, honey.
On the upside of last week, though: 1) it' over and this week is new. 2) This weekend was moving, and it definitely counts as exercise. I know, because all of my magic muscles (the ones that disappear until you use them) have reappeared, and are grousing about being abused. 3) I did not make or eat cake for the first time in months. 4) Yesterday, at the beginning of the new week? I had ONE piece of pizza and a couple of wings with beer. One piece. And we did not get fast food for lunch. We had a sandwich and some apples with peanut butter. So I enter this week, for the first time in a month, having NOT eaten all my bonus points on Sunday and then having to starve, overeat, or overexercise to remain even close to my weakly points.
Oh, yeah--did I mention that 5) we rode to work on Friday, aka National Bike to Work Day? Rode bicycles to work. And I only got a little really pissy when I was informed that the reason I almost passed out and wanted to puke after a really short though steepish hill was because I was in the hardest gear possible. Apparently, the same motion that downshifts when I use my right hand upshifts when I do it on the left...something to do with the way the gears line up or other such biking alchemy. So now, not only are the stationary bikes lying to me, but the real bike has also decided to make my life harder. On the other side, I am learning to appreciate the payoff.
Okay, not as short as it should have been, but I'll be back when the packing is done.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Ante Up or Shut Up
I am tired of smug environmentalists. I am tired of self-pitying business owners. And I am tired of self-righteous, Teflon politicians. Yes, the spill in the Gulf is horrific. Yes, it was caused by one of the three companies. And yes, there should have been worst-case scenario spill plan that was slightly more comprehensive than running around crying,“oh crap, oh crap” with arms flailing.
Maybe MMS was too tight with the oil industry. Maybe the EPA should be the one permitting offshore drilling. Maybe this is the result of gross negligence, or a corporate culture of safety second (which, in all honesty, is not what I have experienced working for that company in Alaska in the last three years…the millions that the company spends to make things like walking from the bus to the building safer, and the fact that everyone has to put out a kiddie pool under their vehicle to prevent spills, have convinced me that at least BPXA is all about the safety, even if it’s only for reputational reasons ).
There is one truth here, however, that all the finger pointers in the tourism industry, and in the fishing industry, and in the environmental lobby, and at the coffee shops, water coolers, and Congress keep trying to deny: we are all complicit.
If you drive a car in this country, you are complicit in this spill. If you run a fishing boat on gasoline, you are complicit in this spill. If tourists fly to your state on airliners and you ferry them around in buses, you are complicit. If your legislator—your elected official—approves of or advocates for or even doesn’t actively fight against offshore drilling, you are complicit. If you thought domestic production would solve our terrorism worries, you are complicit. If you live in a community that receives funding from oil or gas royalties, or that is still afloat because of jobs in the oil and gas industry or its supporting industries, you are complicit. If you have rubber on your bike tires, use Vaseline for chapped lips, like plastic to-go containers, or don’t live a life completely free of petroleum and its byproducts, which are almost as ubiquitous as corn syrup, you support the oil industry and YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THIS SPILL.
There is no piece of equipment on this earth that can guarantee this kind of spill won’t happen, because all equipment, however genius, is designed and operated by fallible human beings. There is no prevention or cleanup plan that will have a designated response to every catastrophe because there isn’t enough paper or digital space to store a plan so comprehensive that it addresses each potential change in line pressure, current, wind speed, or combination thereof. There is no way to engineer or plan for every single possible risk, because we can’t think of them all. Just when we think we have, something else will happen that we never saw coming, because we are neither—despite our best attempts to prove otherwise—omniscient nor omnipotent. The only way to avoid a similar catastrophe is to ban offshore drilling. Stop the rigs drilling now, keep all fields closed to development in the future, and compensate the oil companies for reneging on the profits we deny them by shutting down the leases that they purchased.
Are we willing to do that?
If we Americans, through our greed and reliance on petroleum, its jobs, and its tax revenues, allow offshore drilling, then we are all complicit in these environmental tragedies when they occur. If it weren’t profitable, Big Oil wouldn’t exist. So we have two choices: give up the oil, or give up the façade of innocence. For once, America, cowboy up and admit that part of this is our fault, too. Then we can decide whether we like that feeling, or whether it’s time to try something different.
Maybe MMS was too tight with the oil industry. Maybe the EPA should be the one permitting offshore drilling. Maybe this is the result of gross negligence, or a corporate culture of safety second (which, in all honesty, is not what I have experienced working for that company in Alaska in the last three years…the millions that the company spends to make things like walking from the bus to the building safer, and the fact that everyone has to put out a kiddie pool under their vehicle to prevent spills, have convinced me that at least BPXA is all about the safety, even if it’s only for reputational reasons ).
There is one truth here, however, that all the finger pointers in the tourism industry, and in the fishing industry, and in the environmental lobby, and at the coffee shops, water coolers, and Congress keep trying to deny: we are all complicit.
If you drive a car in this country, you are complicit in this spill. If you run a fishing boat on gasoline, you are complicit in this spill. If tourists fly to your state on airliners and you ferry them around in buses, you are complicit. If your legislator—your elected official—approves of or advocates for or even doesn’t actively fight against offshore drilling, you are complicit. If you thought domestic production would solve our terrorism worries, you are complicit. If you live in a community that receives funding from oil or gas royalties, or that is still afloat because of jobs in the oil and gas industry or its supporting industries, you are complicit. If you have rubber on your bike tires, use Vaseline for chapped lips, like plastic to-go containers, or don’t live a life completely free of petroleum and its byproducts, which are almost as ubiquitous as corn syrup, you support the oil industry and YOU ARE COMPLICIT IN THIS SPILL.
There is no piece of equipment on this earth that can guarantee this kind of spill won’t happen, because all equipment, however genius, is designed and operated by fallible human beings. There is no prevention or cleanup plan that will have a designated response to every catastrophe because there isn’t enough paper or digital space to store a plan so comprehensive that it addresses each potential change in line pressure, current, wind speed, or combination thereof. There is no way to engineer or plan for every single possible risk, because we can’t think of them all. Just when we think we have, something else will happen that we never saw coming, because we are neither—despite our best attempts to prove otherwise—omniscient nor omnipotent. The only way to avoid a similar catastrophe is to ban offshore drilling. Stop the rigs drilling now, keep all fields closed to development in the future, and compensate the oil companies for reneging on the profits we deny them by shutting down the leases that they purchased.
Are we willing to do that?
If we Americans, through our greed and reliance on petroleum, its jobs, and its tax revenues, allow offshore drilling, then we are all complicit in these environmental tragedies when they occur. If it weren’t profitable, Big Oil wouldn’t exist. So we have two choices: give up the oil, or give up the façade of innocence. For once, America, cowboy up and admit that part of this is our fault, too. Then we can decide whether we like that feeling, or whether it’s time to try something different.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Mother's Day Overdone
First, before I forget: Stockholming, Week 5. See what I mean about the pencil skirt? I knew you would. The blouse is a size too large (and wouldn't have been at Christmas, so yay there), but you can tell I was feeling pretty sassy. And to my brother: while I may have larger-than-average calves, there is absolutely a clear transition/narrowing from calves to ankles. I reject the notion that I possess cankles. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but there you go.
Okay--to Mother's Day. I was listening to NPR, as I am wont to do, on Monday, the day after Mother's Day, and I heard Michel Martin deliver a monologue thanking all the mothers without children (Can I Just Tell You?). Normally I love Martin's monologues, and I often agree with the points that she makes, but this one got me on the negative. I don't mean to be a pill, or a horribly insensitive woman, but Mother's Day is for mothers. Period. Michele writes:
"I'm thinking about your girl pal who shows up with a latte and takes your kids to the park just when you can't take one more sibling squabble or when that big report is due. I am thinking about the women who take nieces and nephews on college tours and on camping trips and, sometimes, go all in and take kids home, for a month or a year or forever, when the men and women who created those children just cannot do what they are supposed to do."
In the last half of the last sentence--those women who mother a child because a parent is gone, the foster mothers and guardians and grandmothers and surrogate mothers, who take on the life of a child for the entirety of both of their lives--I will agree that those women deserve recognition as mothers, because they do what mothers do. They go all in--money, time, heart, all of it. They become, despite biology to the contrary, parents and mothers.
But take note: if you give the child back, you're not its mother. The girl pal helping you out for an hour or two? She's not being a coparent, and she's not doing it for your kids. She's being a friend, because she loves you, and she will return your children when they drive her crazy. The female relatives who do the college visits, or host your kids for the summer, or take them camping because you hate camping, are being aunts and grandmothers and cousins--they're being family, but at the end of the day, they're not paying the emotional, physical, and financial check of parenthood. They're good people, and they deserve recognition, but I'm sorry: they're not mothers. In fact, "the aunt who buys you graduation shoes when your parents can't afford them" or the women who help you when your parents can't or won't--that aunt's undermining the parents if she's not getting the parents in on those gifts. There may be a lesson she's negating in the not-having and the not-paying or the not-helping. If she were a parent, she would hate that behavior.
I may never be a mother, though I pray all the time that's not the case. But it's a potential reality that I accept. I feel for all the women on the discussion board at NPR who feel that they're being left behind on Mother's Day, that they're hurt by the fact that they desired to be mothers and couldn't. But why is it a condemnation of those who can't mother to celebrate those who have? Has Mother's Day really become so important socially that it makes more people feel badly about not being mothers than feel good because they are mothers? Or are we just being too damned sensitive? FYI, I don't get upset on Admin's Day that I don't get flowers--I'm not an admin, despite all the things I do that are administrative. I don't flip out on Teacher Appreciation Day because I don't get flowers for teaching Confirmation. While I played it up for comic effect, because it was expected, I never actually had any desire on Valentine's Day to eat my weight in B&J's or to wear black because I wasn't in a relationship.
When I think about these kinds of things, the idea of participation trophies and everyone-is-special days, I am saddened by just how envious we're becoming, and how unsatisfied we are with all we've been given. Not being a mother doesn't diminish your womanhood, and a society that thinks it does can go eff itself. Not being a mother gives a woman a unique opportunities to do the things that mothers don't have time, money, or energy to do. It gives her time to volunteer. It gives her money to travel. It gives her the opportunity to ignore all kids if she simply doesn't like them. It gives her an opportunity to be either selfish or selfless in a way that mothers just can't be. Celebrating mothers, or architects, or priests, or engineers, or nurses, or teachers, or fathers does not invalidate the contributions of all the people who are not those things. Accept who you are, and and others for who the are, rather than envying them for being what you are not. Their success does not reflect on you, and recognizing them doesn't demean you: if that's what you're feeling, you're doing it to yourself.
Am I completely wrong, O Reader?
Monday, May 10, 2010
All Hail the Pencil Skirt!
I know that it's a Stockholming Monday, and I will do that as soon as I can get to a not-hideous mirror. But I'm so in love with this outfit that I can't wait to share it with you. It's what my coworker called "pure spring": pastel plaid peasant top, dark denim pencil skirt, and teal peep-toes with cork wedges. And--and--no hose. I am baring my legs from the knee down with no hose, thereby embracing my gleaming alabaster legs. The contrast with the skirt is slightly stunning in the nonstandard way, but mostly I just feel good today.
In all honesty, I have no idea how I survived without pencil skirts. They hit at exactly the right place, hug all the right spots, and are so comfortable as to be ridiculous. They're both fun and professional, and I need about a dozen more. The other good part about today is that, despite the massive feasting that happened to celebrate the meeting of Redsox/Yankees baseball and Mother's day, and despite the evil weighing maching cackling at my gain last night (I think, though, that the number's a false one due to the sheer quantity of salty food yesterday, and will be reweighing tonight), today is the first time that I have been able to zip this skirt without the aid of those wonderful shapers we discussed last time. Not only that, but it's comfortably zipped--I don't feel like I'm being garrotted by my own attire! Rejoice with me, Internet! Rejoice! For now we will ignore that I take such good care of this skirt that it doesn't need to be washed very often, and is comfortably stretched out--simply rejoice in the lack of pinching!
Oh, yes, Internet--today victory is mine. Mine and the Pencil Skirt's. All hail the Pencil Skirt! Hail it!
In all honesty, I have no idea how I survived without pencil skirts. They hit at exactly the right place, hug all the right spots, and are so comfortable as to be ridiculous. They're both fun and professional, and I need about a dozen more. The other good part about today is that, despite the massive feasting that happened to celebrate the meeting of Redsox/Yankees baseball and Mother's day, and despite the evil weighing maching cackling at my gain last night (I think, though, that the number's a false one due to the sheer quantity of salty food yesterday, and will be reweighing tonight), today is the first time that I have been able to zip this skirt without the aid of those wonderful shapers we discussed last time. Not only that, but it's comfortably zipped--I don't feel like I'm being garrotted by my own attire! Rejoice with me, Internet! Rejoice! For now we will ignore that I take such good care of this skirt that it doesn't need to be washed very often, and is comfortably stretched out--simply rejoice in the lack of pinching!
Oh, yes, Internet--today victory is mine. Mine and the Pencil Skirt's. All hail the Pencil Skirt! Hail it!
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Oh, Mah Achin' Mmmhmm.
Here it is: my 100th entry, and it's neither political nor inherently snarky. AND it only took, what, four years of intermittent blogging to make it happen? That averages out to a post every other month, and I think that's something that we can all be happy about. You haven't gotten bored with overposting, I haven't become annoyed by the need to write. It works. We'll just ignore the whole binge-and-purge bulimic blogger reality that it's five posts in a week and then three years off. That bit's irrelevant.
So my only resolution for 2010 was this: choose health. I reiterated that during Lent: make healthy choices. It's not so much about losing weight, though that's a great side effect. It's not about getting in shape for the wedding, though that's a good one, too. It's about the way I feel when I'm eating better or working out. My whole spirit is lifted. It's about not spending my life trapped in stationary hobbies because, much as I'd like to hike or run or play with my kids, I can't because I'm too big or out of shape. It's about someday being able to bear healthy children. It's about not losing a single moment with Jeremiah--about saving even one more day of my life to spend with him. I want them all--I'm greedy for them.
This has been an amazing year, too--Jeremiah gave me a gift of health in the form of a membership to a gym. and I've been really good about making it to the gym or doing something at least three times a week. It's actually getting to the point that I notice the days that I don't go more than the days that I do--case in point, I was thinking that I only went twice this week, checking, and noticing that I went to the gym twice and biking once. And therein lies the ache.
Jeremiah took me bike riding last week, and it was the first time I've been on a bike that actually moves (vs. the stationary ones at the gym) in probably five years. No lie. It may even have been longer. And I am here to tell you that they bike at the gym is a liar. "Let's do a hills workout," it says. "Sure," you say, convincing yourself that it's actually getting harder the more bars show up on the screen. "I must be pedalling up K2," you think, sweat rolling down your forehead. You huff and puff to the summit, and 45 minutes later leave satisfied that you could totally ride a trail for 45 minutes with no problems.
HAH! Lying stationary bikes with your lying stationary bars.
We borrowed my dad's old bike for me and drove up this killer hill (huge, huge hill--literally climbing out of a river valley in 50 or so yards) to park at the dump and ride a wonderful bike trail along the "highway" (big for us, but it's really only 3 lanes each way). Riding wet was great--going with traffic and the wind, pedal pedal pedal, get used to having to balance and look and what is this hard thing on my head? It was a lot of fun, and we rode 6ish miles to the Ft. Richardson exit. Then Jeremiah gave me some BS about how we have to ride back. Excuse me? I mean, I knew that when we started, but you want to talk inconvenient truth? That was it. Because now we're riding back to Eagle River against the wind and against traffic, which is creating bonus wind. That's right--bonus wind. Wind in addition to the stuff that's down the mountains and along this lovely man made wind tunnel.
On the way back, I had to learn about this thing called "gearing down." It's where you click some stuff and pedal like you're fleeing the Devil himself, while in actuality you're moving slightly faster than a geriatric sloth and barely fast enough to stay upright. The faster you pedal, the more the quads burn, and yet you're still moving practically backwards. (I'm not just being a wuss; we were going 2mph slower on the way back than on the way out, and I was pedaling faster. I know. I told Jeremiah and he didn't argue. That's almost like agreeing.) In the end, I had to send Jeremiah the last 500 feet alone, because my legs just weren't going to make it.
I didn't realize that my legs weren't the only sore bits until Tuesday, when I went to the gym to lecture the stationary bike about the evils of lying. I got on the seat and almost hopped off--bum bruising! What is up with that? And the same thing happened yesterday--Jeremiah showed me the best route to to work last night so that I can bike to work on (what else?) Bike to Work Day and I had so much fun (no wind resistance!) but dang! My rear is still sore, and that's not good when you sit at a desk all day.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my butt hurts but it's worth it--so worth it. I had a ton of fun. I conquered a couple of hills and my fears of moving quickly down a hill (I'll get to "fast" next week). I even started speeding up to go over some culvert humps, and coming off the seat. All those bike-riding things started coming back. More than that, though, I did it anyway, even though it wasn't entirely comfortable, because I need to do it. And I wanted to do it. Because the other choice was to sit on the couch and watch TV or blog, and for the first time in a long time that was less attractive than doing something active. This weekend: another bike ride. Next weekend, maybe a hike in Hatcher Pass. I've always had those ideas, but I've never actually done it. And now we're doing it.
Yeah. We. There's the difference, and it's the whole world.
Ok. I'm good. You can go puke now. I won't look. I know it's jealous puke, and that's ok, too. ;)
So my only resolution for 2010 was this: choose health. I reiterated that during Lent: make healthy choices. It's not so much about losing weight, though that's a great side effect. It's not about getting in shape for the wedding, though that's a good one, too. It's about the way I feel when I'm eating better or working out. My whole spirit is lifted. It's about not spending my life trapped in stationary hobbies because, much as I'd like to hike or run or play with my kids, I can't because I'm too big or out of shape. It's about someday being able to bear healthy children. It's about not losing a single moment with Jeremiah--about saving even one more day of my life to spend with him. I want them all--I'm greedy for them.
This has been an amazing year, too--Jeremiah gave me a gift of health in the form of a membership to a gym. and I've been really good about making it to the gym or doing something at least three times a week. It's actually getting to the point that I notice the days that I don't go more than the days that I do--case in point, I was thinking that I only went twice this week, checking, and noticing that I went to the gym twice and biking once. And therein lies the ache.
Jeremiah took me bike riding last week, and it was the first time I've been on a bike that actually moves (vs. the stationary ones at the gym) in probably five years. No lie. It may even have been longer. And I am here to tell you that they bike at the gym is a liar. "Let's do a hills workout," it says. "Sure," you say, convincing yourself that it's actually getting harder the more bars show up on the screen. "I must be pedalling up K2," you think, sweat rolling down your forehead. You huff and puff to the summit, and 45 minutes later leave satisfied that you could totally ride a trail for 45 minutes with no problems.
HAH! Lying stationary bikes with your lying stationary bars.
We borrowed my dad's old bike for me and drove up this killer hill (huge, huge hill--literally climbing out of a river valley in 50 or so yards) to park at the dump and ride a wonderful bike trail along the "highway" (big for us, but it's really only 3 lanes each way). Riding wet was great--going with traffic and the wind, pedal pedal pedal, get used to having to balance and look and what is this hard thing on my head? It was a lot of fun, and we rode 6ish miles to the Ft. Richardson exit. Then Jeremiah gave me some BS about how we have to ride back. Excuse me? I mean, I knew that when we started, but you want to talk inconvenient truth? That was it. Because now we're riding back to Eagle River against the wind and against traffic, which is creating bonus wind. That's right--bonus wind. Wind in addition to the stuff that's down the mountains and along this lovely man made wind tunnel.
On the way back, I had to learn about this thing called "gearing down." It's where you click some stuff and pedal like you're fleeing the Devil himself, while in actuality you're moving slightly faster than a geriatric sloth and barely fast enough to stay upright. The faster you pedal, the more the quads burn, and yet you're still moving practically backwards. (I'm not just being a wuss; we were going 2mph slower on the way back than on the way out, and I was pedaling faster. I know. I told Jeremiah and he didn't argue. That's almost like agreeing.) In the end, I had to send Jeremiah the last 500 feet alone, because my legs just weren't going to make it.
I didn't realize that my legs weren't the only sore bits until Tuesday, when I went to the gym to lecture the stationary bike about the evils of lying. I got on the seat and almost hopped off--bum bruising! What is up with that? And the same thing happened yesterday--Jeremiah showed me the best route to to work last night so that I can bike to work on (what else?) Bike to Work Day and I had so much fun (no wind resistance!) but dang! My rear is still sore, and that's not good when you sit at a desk all day.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that my butt hurts but it's worth it--so worth it. I had a ton of fun. I conquered a couple of hills and my fears of moving quickly down a hill (I'll get to "fast" next week). I even started speeding up to go over some culvert humps, and coming off the seat. All those bike-riding things started coming back. More than that, though, I did it anyway, even though it wasn't entirely comfortable, because I need to do it. And I wanted to do it. Because the other choice was to sit on the couch and watch TV or blog, and for the first time in a long time that was less attractive than doing something active. This weekend: another bike ride. Next weekend, maybe a hike in Hatcher Pass. I've always had those ideas, but I've never actually done it. And now we're doing it.
Yeah. We. There's the difference, and it's the whole world.
Ok. I'm good. You can go puke now. I won't look. I know it's jealous puke, and that's ok, too. ;)
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Changing the Rules When You Lose the Game
In the interests of full disclosure, you should know that I work for a company that has contracts with BP, and that I've been an embedded contractor at a BP office for the last 2-1/2 years.
That said, I'm not any happier about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico than anyone else is. I'm not a "drill at will" person, any more than I think that we should shut down oil production altogether. We're not ready for either one of those things. I'm praying for the families of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and for those who make their living on the shores and in the waters of the Gulf.
What gets my goat is what's happening in Congress right now. Currrent law (Oil Pollution Act of 1990) caps an oil company's spill liability at $75 million dollars. That's not even close to the potential cost of cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. However, that law, enacted after the Valdez spill of 1989, is the law that was in place when the Deepwater project received its permits. That was the law that was in place at the time of the well blowout two weeks ago. It is the law under which all parties involved were operating, quite content that it was sufficiently stringent.
Now this: House To Take Up Bill Increasing Oil-Spill Liability Cap To $10 Billion. That's right: Congress is upping the ante to $10 billion dollars, and honestly--that's its prerogative. We know that the more "efficient" these operations get (more oil, less infrastructure) the more catastrophic these spills have the potential to be. My issue is with this key point (emphasis mine): "Pelosi's announcement marks the beginning of an effort by Democrats to ensure that BP Plc (BP) pays for environmental damages caused by last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico."
Wait a second--since when is a law allowed to be retroactive? Regulations, sure--happens all the time. But the law? I'm fairly certain there's a clause against that in the Constitution (and, as it turns out, I'm not the only one who noticed that: CBS Political Hotsheet.).
The 1990 law was fine for 20 years, even after the biggest spill in recorded history to that point. That tells me that in 20 years we haven't had any issue of this size. In the past 20 years, the United States has been sufficiently comfortable with the ability of the oil companies to handle spills that it has allowed offshore drilling. In the past 20 years, the United States, by permitting the drilling and accepting the mountains of tax dollars and benefits of domestic production, accepted the risk associated with offshore drilling.
No oil company ever claimed that a spill of this size would be impossible, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool. There's always the possibility of catastrophe--it was just improbable. Both the oil company and permitting agencies knew that the consequence of an incident like this would be catastrophic, but that the likelihood of its occurence was miniscule, and was therefore, by all parties, an acceptable risk for the potential return. Both sides assumed that risk, proof of the rarity of these incidents is that a blowout of this kind has never happened before. In the last 20 years, there has been no incident like this in U.S. waters.
Now, however, the rarity of this kind of incident is no longer relevant. Americans are not prepared to pay for it with lost production and environmental damage, so BP will, and has actually said that it will pay all legitimate claims anyway, irrespective of the $75MM cap. I thought that was pretty good. Apparently, though, it wasn't good enough for the Obama administration, who is pushing the legislation even while seeming to claim that in this case it isn't needed because "'the cap is not in place if somebody is found to be either grossly negligent... involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations,' [according to presidential spokesman Robert] Gibbs at his daily press briefing yesterday" (CBS).
Gotten goat number 2: That kind of statement from the White House implies that an investigation will find BP grossly negligent, involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations, when we haven't had time to investigate anything because everyone is focussing on stopping the oil spread. The Administration has assigned guilt, when the only people with time to investigate are the media. From what I've been able to read, even in more liberal media sources, none of that's true. BP used industry-proven technology properly and made every effort to assure the quality of both its contractors and equipment--even if a faulty BOV slipped through, that's human error, not gross negligence. I haven't heard anything about misconduct, and the only violation of regulation that anyone's proposed is the lack of a site-specific spill plan, and in that case MMS permitted the project anyway because according to its interpretation of the regulation, Deepwater was covered by the GoM spill plan.
And just in case BP is found not to be negligent, has conducted itself properly, and didn't violate any federal regulation, and has already publicly committed to paying for the cleanup, the Administration and Congress will force them to pay anyway by retroactively lifting the ceiling on liability. Criminal or not, BP's going to pay, and that's pretty much the sentiment forwarded by the bill's author, Sen. Robert Mendez (Rep., NJ): "This is about making Big Oil responsible for its excesses."
Which excesses are those? Excess risk? Not so much, because the goverment is okay with risk as long as it turns out tax dollars and domestic energy, jobs and political capital. Excess arrogance? Not really, because every time a car drips on a gravel pad Congress drags an oil exec in front of a special committee for a pillory and a lecture on C-Span, and the execs keep taking it. No, Big Oil has to be responsible for its excess profits. For making money when the economy's weak. Big Oil has to be responsible for being one of the few viable industries in a country that hates itself for being so oil dependent that we can't say no to a $110 barrel, that preaches renewable energy while rejecting all attempts to actually make it happen (we'll spend $5 on a gallon of gas, but don't dare spend tax dollars upgrading the grid for wind power or the rail system to replace planes with highspeed rail).
Honestly? I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we no longer want offshore drilling because, however rare, we cannot afford or recover from these kinds of disasters. I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we're going to ditch fossil fuels altogether, because that might be a challenge with some merit to it. But a Congress that has spent the last year being pissed beyond reason at a financial system that hedged its bets on the mortgage market cannot then turn around and try, after a crash, to offload the risk that the country took in saying yes to offshore drilling. I'm tired of hearing a bunch of wealthy politicians berating wealthy people and companies for seeking wealth--politicians do the same thing, only they call it reelection.
We wanted oil, and we risked an ecosystem to do get it. We wanted tax dollars, and so we enabled one of the largest taxpaying industries in the country to do what it does best, and all was fine until we got caught by what is, in all likelyhood, an accident. A one-in-a-million happening. (Or, for the conspiracy theorists, an act of war by North Korea or an act of domestic terrorism by environmentalists reacting to the President's claim, a week before the spill, that the risk from production is not the rigs, but the refineries.)
Well, friends, this is the price of doing business. Congress made the rules. Now the country has to play by them. Suck it up.
That said, I'm not any happier about the situation in the Gulf of Mexico than anyone else is. I'm not a "drill at will" person, any more than I think that we should shut down oil production altogether. We're not ready for either one of those things. I'm praying for the families of those who died on the Deepwater Horizon, and for those who make their living on the shores and in the waters of the Gulf.
What gets my goat is what's happening in Congress right now. Currrent law (Oil Pollution Act of 1990) caps an oil company's spill liability at $75 million dollars. That's not even close to the potential cost of cleaning up the spill in the Gulf. However, that law, enacted after the Valdez spill of 1989, is the law that was in place when the Deepwater project received its permits. That was the law that was in place at the time of the well blowout two weeks ago. It is the law under which all parties involved were operating, quite content that it was sufficiently stringent.
Now this: House To Take Up Bill Increasing Oil-Spill Liability Cap To $10 Billion. That's right: Congress is upping the ante to $10 billion dollars, and honestly--that's its prerogative. We know that the more "efficient" these operations get (more oil, less infrastructure) the more catastrophic these spills have the potential to be. My issue is with this key point (emphasis mine): "Pelosi's announcement marks the beginning of an effort by Democrats to ensure that BP Plc (BP) pays for environmental damages caused by last month's oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico."
Wait a second--since when is a law allowed to be retroactive? Regulations, sure--happens all the time. But the law? I'm fairly certain there's a clause against that in the Constitution (and, as it turns out, I'm not the only one who noticed that: CBS Political Hotsheet.).
The 1990 law was fine for 20 years, even after the biggest spill in recorded history to that point. That tells me that in 20 years we haven't had any issue of this size. In the past 20 years, the United States has been sufficiently comfortable with the ability of the oil companies to handle spills that it has allowed offshore drilling. In the past 20 years, the United States, by permitting the drilling and accepting the mountains of tax dollars and benefits of domestic production, accepted the risk associated with offshore drilling.
No oil company ever claimed that a spill of this size would be impossible, and anyone who claims otherwise is a fool. There's always the possibility of catastrophe--it was just improbable. Both the oil company and permitting agencies knew that the consequence of an incident like this would be catastrophic, but that the likelihood of its occurence was miniscule, and was therefore, by all parties, an acceptable risk for the potential return. Both sides assumed that risk, proof of the rarity of these incidents is that a blowout of this kind has never happened before. In the last 20 years, there has been no incident like this in U.S. waters.
Now, however, the rarity of this kind of incident is no longer relevant. Americans are not prepared to pay for it with lost production and environmental damage, so BP will, and has actually said that it will pay all legitimate claims anyway, irrespective of the $75MM cap. I thought that was pretty good. Apparently, though, it wasn't good enough for the Obama administration, who is pushing the legislation even while seeming to claim that in this case it isn't needed because "'the cap is not in place if somebody is found to be either grossly negligent... involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations,' [according to presidential spokesman Robert] Gibbs at his daily press briefing yesterday" (CBS).
Gotten goat number 2: That kind of statement from the White House implies that an investigation will find BP grossly negligent, involved in willful misconduct, or in violation of federal regulations, when we haven't had time to investigate anything because everyone is focussing on stopping the oil spread. The Administration has assigned guilt, when the only people with time to investigate are the media. From what I've been able to read, even in more liberal media sources, none of that's true. BP used industry-proven technology properly and made every effort to assure the quality of both its contractors and equipment--even if a faulty BOV slipped through, that's human error, not gross negligence. I haven't heard anything about misconduct, and the only violation of regulation that anyone's proposed is the lack of a site-specific spill plan, and in that case MMS permitted the project anyway because according to its interpretation of the regulation, Deepwater was covered by the GoM spill plan.
And just in case BP is found not to be negligent, has conducted itself properly, and didn't violate any federal regulation, and has already publicly committed to paying for the cleanup, the Administration and Congress will force them to pay anyway by retroactively lifting the ceiling on liability. Criminal or not, BP's going to pay, and that's pretty much the sentiment forwarded by the bill's author, Sen. Robert Mendez (Rep., NJ): "This is about making Big Oil responsible for its excesses."
Which excesses are those? Excess risk? Not so much, because the goverment is okay with risk as long as it turns out tax dollars and domestic energy, jobs and political capital. Excess arrogance? Not really, because every time a car drips on a gravel pad Congress drags an oil exec in front of a special committee for a pillory and a lecture on C-Span, and the execs keep taking it. No, Big Oil has to be responsible for its excess profits. For making money when the economy's weak. Big Oil has to be responsible for being one of the few viable industries in a country that hates itself for being so oil dependent that we can't say no to a $110 barrel, that preaches renewable energy while rejecting all attempts to actually make it happen (we'll spend $5 on a gallon of gas, but don't dare spend tax dollars upgrading the grid for wind power or the rail system to replace planes with highspeed rail).
Honestly? I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we no longer want offshore drilling because, however rare, we cannot afford or recover from these kinds of disasters. I'm fine with the U.S. deciding that we're going to ditch fossil fuels altogether, because that might be a challenge with some merit to it. But a Congress that has spent the last year being pissed beyond reason at a financial system that hedged its bets on the mortgage market cannot then turn around and try, after a crash, to offload the risk that the country took in saying yes to offshore drilling. I'm tired of hearing a bunch of wealthy politicians berating wealthy people and companies for seeking wealth--politicians do the same thing, only they call it reelection.
We wanted oil, and we risked an ecosystem to do get it. We wanted tax dollars, and so we enabled one of the largest taxpaying industries in the country to do what it does best, and all was fine until we got caught by what is, in all likelyhood, an accident. A one-in-a-million happening. (Or, for the conspiracy theorists, an act of war by North Korea or an act of domestic terrorism by environmentalists reacting to the President's claim, a week before the spill, that the risk from production is not the rigs, but the refineries.)
Well, friends, this is the price of doing business. Congress made the rules. Now the country has to play by them. Suck it up.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Stockholming, Week 4, and Some Talk of Underthings
Last week, though? Last week was bad. Look at this. Just look!
Yeah, it's not pretty. Flat hair, pale makeup, bad collar, red bathroom. Overall ugh. I promise that most of the week was better. But seriously--puffed cap sleeves that cut off above the widest part of my arm and are too big for the arm when the rest of the shirt is too small for me. Ugh. Damned Old Navy sales, seducing me into bad fashion choices with the lure of $10 shirts. I just have to learn to pass up cheap for quality (at least once I reach goal weight; until then, it's like short-selling on stocks).Today's outfit's ok...the cardigan is missing a button, which means that it closes just above the widest part of my waist, and the hairs a little wonky, but overall I'm in a pretty good state of mind about my clothing choices.
Looking at the pictures, though, brings to mind one thing (guys, stop reading here): appropriate undergarments. It actually came to me yesterday at the gym, listening to a cute new HS grad talking about her dress. Apparently she couldn't wear her sundress with anything but nude underwear because the underwear shows through the thin, white, cotton dress. I was aghast. I wanted to ask if she had ever heard of a slip, because really? The thought of wearing a white skirt without a slip brings back viciously fun memories of a horrid bridesmaid in just such a dress, posing for photos in front of a picture window--her flowered thong was quite lovely in the pics, I'm sure. But I wouldn't wish that on this little girl. Standing in the locker room, I couldn't see the underwear but I could see where the red tank she was wearing under the sundress ended, and it was so uncute. I felt bad for her, and all it would take is a slip.
I guess it's always about the right undergear. My issue is that, as I lose weight, I feel better and fitter, and think I look better (concurrence received from friends and intended), some outfits--like the ones above--show that without the right undergarment, losing the weight in some areas just highlights how much there is to lose other places. More-defined muscles seem to highlight the chubbed areas more than when the whole was chub. So, I guess, until I hit goal, it's time to learn from Steel Magnolias.
Clairee: "Looks like two pigs, fightin' under a blanket!"
Truvy: "I haven't left the house without Lycra on these thighs since I was fourteen."
Clairee: "You were brought up right."
Sigh. One more motivation to reach goal.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Fauxmenism: Lady Pants
You should probably know that I consider myself a feminist. I do. I tend to be a rather conservative feminist, though. My brand of feminism is one that thinks that legally, men and women are equal. In general terms (because let's face it, there are exceptions to every rule) men and women are socially, physically, psychologically, and emotionally complementary. I don't have to do--or even be able to do--everything that men can do to be a man's equal, any more than he has to want/be able to do everything I can to be equal. My brand of feminism is one that is pro-woman, not anti-man; I think women can be womanly and strong instead of wannabemanly. I distrust a feminism that:
Fauxmenism is what I call anything that is lady-specific but not really worth arguing about at all. It's the kind of thing that you can blow up to be gender-bias, but really is just stupid, and that's what I'll be hitting on for Fauxmenism entries.
The first one: Lady Pants. As those of you who have worn or removed lady pants know, lady pants (and shirts, for that matter) open left. As in, you use your left hand. But not jeans. No, jeans zip up on the right. Because they started out as menswear, and men have traditionally dressed themselves while women dressed each other, due to the cumbersome nature of women's clothing throughout history. (Really, though, wealthy men were just as likely to have someone else dress them, so it should be a class thing, not a gender thing.) I've heard the arguement about shirts, that it's so guy, who traditionally escort girls on the right, can't peek through the gaposis, but I think that's more a side effect than a goal.
I guess my point here, though, is that most women dress themselves these days, even if some should really let someone else pull the outfits together. So why is it that there's still a difference between the closures? Why, at the very least, don't we have some consistency on the closure front? Because I have to be honest...I have, in the past, forgotten to zip the Lady Pants altogether (only one pair, and I'm pretty sure it's because they have a wide waistband that has 4 buttons itself, and I thinking I'm done once the buttons are done. All I'm asking is for some consistency.
The real reason, though, that this is an issue that every fauxmenist should take up is this, which I found while doing exhaustive research on the Internets. When asked why women's and men's clothing closures were different, this was the response:
Men's clothes button from the right because most men are right-handed.
And most women's clothes button from the left is because most men are right-handed.
Uhuh. I knew you'd feel me. Let the rage ensue.
- thinks I have to be proabortion to be a proper feminist
- disdains stay-at-home-mothers
- disdains career women who also have families
- thinks all men are out to get all women
- thinks that everything is hunky dory and that all gender-based inequality has been resolved
- tells me what to believe rather than demanding that I figure out what I believe and giving me the tools to do so
- tells me that I can have it all without making any sacrifices: there are opportunity costs for everything
- thinks that simply being a female qualifies any woman to do something well (e.g., a woman president will automatically be better thank a male)
- thinks that being female doesn't change what said woman brings to the table (life experience is always influenced by gender, race, age, and ability--your experience is what you bring to the table, and people who dismiss that are are either delusional or just stupid)
Fauxmenism is what I call anything that is lady-specific but not really worth arguing about at all. It's the kind of thing that you can blow up to be gender-bias, but really is just stupid, and that's what I'll be hitting on for Fauxmenism entries.
The first one: Lady Pants. As those of you who have worn or removed lady pants know, lady pants (and shirts, for that matter) open left. As in, you use your left hand. But not jeans. No, jeans zip up on the right. Because they started out as menswear, and men have traditionally dressed themselves while women dressed each other, due to the cumbersome nature of women's clothing throughout history. (Really, though, wealthy men were just as likely to have someone else dress them, so it should be a class thing, not a gender thing.) I've heard the arguement about shirts, that it's so guy, who traditionally escort girls on the right, can't peek through the gaposis, but I think that's more a side effect than a goal.
I guess my point here, though, is that most women dress themselves these days, even if some should really let someone else pull the outfits together. So why is it that there's still a difference between the closures? Why, at the very least, don't we have some consistency on the closure front? Because I have to be honest...I have, in the past, forgotten to zip the Lady Pants altogether (only one pair, and I'm pretty sure it's because they have a wide waistband that has 4 buttons itself, and I thinking I'm done once the buttons are done. All I'm asking is for some consistency.
The real reason, though, that this is an issue that every fauxmenist should take up is this, which I found while doing exhaustive research on the Internets. When asked why women's and men's clothing closures were different, this was the response:
Men's clothes button from the right because most men are right-handed.
And most women's clothes button from the left is because most men are right-handed.
Uhuh. I knew you'd feel me. Let the rage ensue.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Long Story Short
Why do people say that? They never really mean it, and they only ever say it after they've told the long story.
Hey! You just wasted another three words of my life to preface a summary of a story you just told me in whole! Stop now!
Hey! You just wasted another three words of my life to preface a summary of a story you just told me in whole! Stop now!
Defining Destiny
Oh, NPR.
Today's Morning Edition had a segment about a double agent, but the author of the book--yeah, yeah, yeah, a real blogger would find out who that person is and what the book was, but that's not the point, so I'm not doing the research--said we have this concept of America's destiny for greatness, when really we could have gone either way. To which I say, isn't that what destiny is? That we could have gone any of a dozen different ways, that things could have and perhaps according to history should have happened differently but didn't? Reaching our current state of being despite a multitude of other options seems to define destiny to me: we're still here and it doesn't make sense that we should be.
And just in case anyone's wondering, this jury's still out on destiny because of the conflicts it has with my thought on free will. But since the guy brought it up....Personally, I choose to believe that we would not be given a destiny in which some people have ten homes while others have none. I like to believe that's the result of human machination, and not the work of a divine power.
Today's Morning Edition had a segment about a double agent, but the author of the book--yeah, yeah, yeah, a real blogger would find out who that person is and what the book was, but that's not the point, so I'm not doing the research--said we have this concept of America's destiny for greatness, when really we could have gone either way. To which I say, isn't that what destiny is? That we could have gone any of a dozen different ways, that things could have and perhaps according to history should have happened differently but didn't? Reaching our current state of being despite a multitude of other options seems to define destiny to me: we're still here and it doesn't make sense that we should be.
And just in case anyone's wondering, this jury's still out on destiny because of the conflicts it has with my thought on free will. But since the guy brought it up....Personally, I choose to believe that we would not be given a destiny in which some people have ten homes while others have none. I like to believe that's the result of human machination, and not the work of a divine power.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Role-model Writers
I mean, let's give Roethlisberger credit. At least he wasn't packing a firearm like so many of his athletic brethren do when they are out taking the air these evenings.
That’s Frank Deford’s response to Roethlisberger’s suspension as a result of his alleged sexual assault. Now, I agree with most of the rest of the article—athletes shouldn’t be held to a higher standard than anyone else simply because they’re famous and talented, any more than we should excuse their foul behavior for the same reason. They’re people, and they run the gamut of human frailty and strength in each league, from curling to cricket and football to football. If the public doesn’t like the behavior of its premier athletes, it needs to vote with its wallet (which, I suspect, is exactly what Goodell was hoping to avoid by suspending the quarterback; reputation is everything in sales, and Roethlisberger—or any QB, really—is the face of the team and therefore of the league. A face with “Schmuck” practically tattooed on the forehead).
No, my argument with Deford has nothing to do with his logic, and everything to do with his thoughtlessness. At least he wasn’t packing a firearm. So, comparatively, sexual assault, in which you hurt someone else, is less harmful than, say, carrying a weapon and shooting yourself? We can give him credit because the only protection he had were two bodyguards, and his only potential weapon was his own 240-lb frame? Just how much more do you need to be a threat to the average 5’ 4”, 125lb—145lb 20-yr old college girl? A hundred pounds of muscle and a Glock would have made it less fair in the assailant/victim ratio?
I’m not saying he did it, though she did have to be treated at the hospital, and he did apologize, which implies guilt if not crime. I’m not saying she wasn’t drunk out of her mind, though that’s no excuse for poor behavior on either side. I am questioning that we’re supposed to give him credit because the stupidest thing he did was look at a female who was obviously intoxicated beyond the ability to consent, something college freshmen are briefed to avoid like plague (even if they don’t), and still took advantage of her, because he’s BR the Badass.
If nothing else, that’s on the same level of stupid as those who are packing, unless he was smarter than the guntoters because he picked an activity and a victim that he knew wouldn’t hold up in a criminal investigation. Unless we’re supposed to credit him for being smart enough to pick a crime with grey areas, rather than a clearcut illegally-concealed firearms charge. Give him credit because he’s a smart thug. I don’t think either of those is what Deford wants to say, but that’s certainly how it reads, and I’m not the only one who got that impression.
I know Deford’s a better writer than to miss that, but he seems to have become so caught up in his own wordplay that he gave readers ammunition to call him a rape apologist. If he wants people to pay attention to the point, he needs to pay attention to the words he’s using, or he risks becoming the wrong kind of role model for writers, commenters, and journalists. Unfortunately, we already have enough of that sort.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Warning: Poem Post
Delta
A careful plan, a flawless thought,
all executed to the letter,
or was it merely a stroke of luck
that made it something better?
we cling like bats to our forms and unforms
and leap from them at will to sound the night
looking for new love, for ways to write it
without the words
heart
love
I
you
our stomachs churn at the overdone simply
for its chew, a rare steak ruined, a corked
wine run sour and poured for the masses
we search for love in viscera, to write it
with the ink of bodies or to pull from it
some essential universality, an alchemy of
mundane experience become shard divinity
the purest love
the purest love in poetry is not found in
words or couplets, not rhyme or meter
attempting a heartbeat
we fail because we do not write for love
and we do not write in love; we lose
because our poetry is the object of
the wrong proposition—we write
of love
I delighted in a question: why did the road
bend there? And my love, who posed
the question, who wondered at the curving
highrise nesting on a delta between boulevards
caught my answer in a butterfly net of end-
rhymed quatrains and pinned it to a page,
giving me a love poem that spoke nothing of love,
but in it, sang it in the delta between lines
my love found the universal in a poem of
question marks and urban planning,
a butterfly garden for the bat poet hungry
no more for words of love
A careful plan, a flawless thought,
all executed to the letter,
or was it merely a stroke of luck
that made it something better?
we cling like bats to our forms and unforms
and leap from them at will to sound the night
looking for new love, for ways to write it
without the words
heart
love
I
you
our stomachs churn at the overdone simply
for its chew, a rare steak ruined, a corked
wine run sour and poured for the masses
we search for love in viscera, to write it
with the ink of bodies or to pull from it
some essential universality, an alchemy of
mundane experience become shard divinity
the purest love
the purest love in poetry is not found in
words or couplets, not rhyme or meter
attempting a heartbeat
we fail because we do not write for love
and we do not write in love; we lose
because our poetry is the object of
the wrong proposition—we write
of love
I delighted in a question: why did the road
bend there? And my love, who posed
the question, who wondered at the curving
highrise nesting on a delta between boulevards
caught my answer in a butterfly net of end-
rhymed quatrains and pinned it to a page,
giving me a love poem that spoke nothing of love,
but in it, sang it in the delta between lines
my love found the universal in a poem of
question marks and urban planning,
a butterfly garden for the bat poet hungry
no more for words of love
Monday, April 26, 2010
After a Long Short Weekend
Ok, first? See The Blind Side. I was not keen on yet another feel-good sports movie, I was cheesed that Sandra Bullock beat Meryl Streep for Best Actress, and the only real reason I was up for it is because Jeremiah has been jonesing to see it since the Oscars. He downloaded it, and it was amazing. A. Maze. Ing. I kid you not, I cried like a snotmonster, and laughed really loudly. It was a good movie. That's it. Just a good movie with great acting and a great plot. No huge effects. 1 big-name actor. No preaching. It was just well written, well acted, well shot--it was the whole package. It was great. I want to share it with everyone, and it's just ten times better that it's not preachy--it's someone doing something good (in real life) without trying to make you the viewer feel horrible because you've never done something like that (unlike, say, Avatar, which seemed to want to make me feel horrible for living on once-native lands, using energy, drinking lattes, and not using a vehicle with a soul. People, Squishy barely has air bags--a soul would be pushing it. Avatar also made me somewhat queasy, and we didn't even see it in the ultrasuperamazing 3-D, just the straightup, savetheextrafourdollars 3-D.)
Second, great weekend. Two DQ Blizzards (my first) in one weekend, a ridiculous chili cheesedog, two great movies (The Blind Side and Finding Forrester, also a first and every MFA's fantasy), a marriage aptitude test, and a partridge in a pear tree.
Oh, wait--you noticed that bit? About the aptitude test? Hmm. Well, alright. See, I'm Catholic. J's about as notCatholic as you can get without being antiCatholic (read: he is at once completely skeptical of the Church and wholly supportive of my participation in it). Because I am religious and he is not, we are getting married in a Catholic church, because otherwise no living together. Awkward for a married couple.
One of the first things to do when getting married in the Catholic Church is to talk to your priest like, ten seconds after the proposal and acceptance. We, of course, spoke to the priest after reserving the church, reception hall, catering, and cleanup crew. In our defense, though, we tried to talk to the priest first. That's not the point, though. The point is you talk to the priest so he knows where you are in your relationship and a learns a little bit about you. If one of you isn't Catholic, he'll ask about your religion, how you want to work your traditions into the ceremony, and all that good stuff. Then he signs you up for the test.
Now first, let me tell you that the whole point is, as I've said in previous posts, to make sure that both parties understand that they're in this for a marriage, not just shooting for a wedding. The Church, because it doesn't really believe in divorce at all, wants to make sure that you're in it for the long haul (read: no prenups, no backup wives in other states, no 'trying it out to see how it works,' no just getting married so the baby has Dad's last name and then a quick divorce after). So each diocese has guidelines for marriage preparation. In some dioceses, it's a weekend of talking. In ours, it's about 6 months of conversation with a couple that's been married for a long time (1 convo a month), a couple of talks with the priest, and some recommendations for a retreat and a family planning class. Easy. Oh, and the test.
The test did not go over well. Goal of the test: to ask some general questions, scope out where each partner is on some big topics, and give the mentor couple a place to start the conversations. Example: If I want a dozen kids, and write that "we" want a dozen kids while Jeremiah marks "strongly disagree" on the "We plan to have children" question, that's problematic for starting a life together. If I, being way Catholic and planning to raise my kids Catholic, have not mentioned to Jeremiah that I'll be taking the kids to church, and we haven't even talked about religion--we just ignore it because talking about it would start a fight--we're probably not ready to get married just yet. That kind of thing. It's not a pass/fail, just a "where are you on the spectrum" thing.
That was all fine. No, the problem with the test was not that it was pass/fail, or it cost money (because if you can't afford it the Church will pay), or that it was none of their business. The problem was that the questions were yes/no questions and the answer options were spectral. E.g., "I wish my partner would participate in more faith activities with me." The answer is either yes, or it is no--I don't strongly wish, or strongly unwish--I either do, or I don't. Neutral is don't. So we're taking the test, not talking to each other because we're trying not to skew the results, and every now and then I see this little eruption at the computer desk--Jeremiah's logic rage. "THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! THE PHRASING IS STUPID!"
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the two of us fit. I am perfectly fine with the test because it doesn't have to be perfect if it has good intent and potential good outcome. Jeremiah can't stand it because its lack of attention to reason obscures its finer points. (Together, we should have children who appreciate both logic and intuition.) Completely opposite reactions, which spurred a conversation, which led to ice creams, which led to a movie and snuggle time. I think the test probably did exactly what it was supposed to do...it got us talking.
Stockholming: Week 3
So I think I'm going to pull a TJ and Stockholm once a week, for a couple of reasons. 1) Internet access. I don't want to be staying after work to borrow the internet three days a week. 2) Clothes. I'm running out of them. 3) Picture quality. It's kind of poo. and 4) I want to be able to spend time checking out other people's Stockholming progress, but can't commit that kind of time every day. SO here's Day 14, Week 3. The hair's a bit poufy, but you can see the reason I'm wearing an ivory wedding gown and not a white one, right? No. You can't see it, because the white tank under the jacket blends into my skin. I thought about tucking the shirt, but then I'd look naked, and we've already talked about naked Stockholming, haven't we? /Shudder.
Now: off to the gym. 13lbs down, and 15 more to go before I start trying on wedding gowns.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Cloud Nine
Yeah, it's where I live today. Why? Because I have three documents and a deadline, and am looking at a late night. That may not sound like much, but I thrive on a deadline. The quality of the work is the same whether I spread it out or cram it up (give or take...and depending on who assigns the deadline...) but the main thing is that I have three documents and carte blanche to improve the docs as I see fit. This--this is what I live for, professionally. I'll manage meetings. I'll take notes. I'll incorporate other people's comments. I'll rearrange files. But when someone tells me to take this doc and make it better, without telling me how to do it (because really, if they knew how, why would they be talking to me?)...Let us just say that I don't mind working through lunch for that. My concept of job satisfaction is one word: control.
Stockholming: Days 11 (left) and 12 (right)
I was planning to post yesterday, but I kind of felt that my head was about to explode, and then J and I had a misunderstanding (trying to be too polite to each other...it was pretty ridiculous) so it was 10 before we finished dinner, and yesterday just didn't happen. Let me say, though, that I'm feeling pretty good about the changes I'm affecting. Notice the smiles in the pictures?
Hmmm. No. You can only see one picture, because I still can't get the lighting right in the full-length mirror. Monkeys. Well, there's a smile in each one, and it's a real smile, not a "I'm takin' a picture" smile, because I'm happy with both the bod and the outfit. I could pick each one apart--I'm actually starting to do it in my head--but mostly I'm just thinking how much I like the pencil skirt in Day 11 (Old Navy, best thing ever...I may need about 5 more in varying shades of dark-wash denim) and how much narrower I'm starting to look in the waistal region in Day 12 (either by real work, dehydration, posing, or clever clothing selection. I'm not picky; I'll take whichever one I can get). Next steps: believing that J doesn't actually want to run screaming when I'm all tired and sweat-panted, which he cleverly masks with smiles and marriage proposals. Shifty man.
Stockholming: Days 11 (left) and 12 (right)
I was planning to post yesterday, but I kind of felt that my head was about to explode, and then J and I had a misunderstanding (trying to be too polite to each other...it was pretty ridiculous) so it was 10 before we finished dinner, and yesterday just didn't happen. Let me say, though, that I'm feeling pretty good about the changes I'm affecting. Notice the smiles in the pictures?
Hmmm. No. You can only see one picture, because I still can't get the lighting right in the full-length mirror. Monkeys. Well, there's a smile in each one, and it's a real smile, not a "I'm takin' a picture" smile, because I'm happy with both the bod and the outfit. I could pick each one apart--I'm actually starting to do it in my head--but mostly I'm just thinking how much I like the pencil skirt in Day 11 (Old Navy, best thing ever...I may need about 5 more in varying shades of dark-wash denim) and how much narrower I'm starting to look in the waistal region in Day 12 (either by real work, dehydration, posing, or clever clothing selection. I'm not picky; I'll take whichever one I can get). Next steps: believing that J doesn't actually want to run screaming when I'm all tired and sweat-panted, which he cleverly masks with smiles and marriage proposals. Shifty man.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sick
I'm not feeling too hot, and despite my best attempts to call it allergies, the pollen count and air quality in Anchorage are both fine, so it's a cold. What you see here is the result of me taking more drugs than I should have to stop the coughing and oversleeping, even though Jeremiah called multiple times to wake me up. I just needed the sleep, I guess. I promise that the hair looks better in person, but the sweater...It's one of my faves, and the color is great, but I'm afraid that the ribbing along the lower hem is tightening it around the hips. Tied under breasts + tight around hips = highlighting spare tire. Yep. Methinks it's time for this to go. I just wish you could see the fun copper ballet flats that all the men in my life think are really slippers but that you and I know are fun and easy shoes, good substitutes for Danskos, even (not as foot healthy, but much cheaper).
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