links for 2007-02-01

• A sad day
  Molly Ivins died today at 62.
  (tags: 2007 molly+ivins)

Anyone out there eat deviled ham?

Tonight the 7yo and I were enjoying an appetizer while dinner [leftovers] was microwaving. The appetizer was a delightful spread from The Moosewood Cookbook called "Walnut Feta Paté." [OK to be honest, she was enjoying a cracker, while I enjoyed a cracker with the spread. More for me.] I'm seriously addicted to the stuff....have been for about 10 years now. Good night, do you realize 10 years ago it was the late '90s???

At any rate, tonight, for some reason, I had this thunderbolt about the walnut-feta spread. It tastes almost exactly like deviled ham. Salty, rich....mmm.

I asked the 7yo if she knew what deviled ham was. No idea. Looked at me like I was from Mars.

I told her that I remembered deviled ham as the mainstay of my school lunches....I took my lunch a lot during certain periods of my childhood and I would take a can of deviled ham and eat it on crackers, or have a plain deviled-ham-and-white-bread sandwich. Just thinking about it now makes my mouth water.

I tried to tell her it was for me like peanut butter is for her, but I really don't think she could appreciate it. [You know, something terribly bad for you that you just can't help but eat.] I may have to get some and let her try it.

Molly Ivins Can Say That Here Anytime

I was one of those dorky kids. I remember very clearly being teased in 1st grade--for being short, for wearing glasses. Whatever the cause, I was one odd chick. The most often-flung epithet: Bookworm. My whole life, I've had my nose in a book or magazine. When I was 13 I spent my allowance money on a subscription to Reader's Digest. People, that is weird. I still walk around the house or the office reading. I have been known to take a magazine on a walk with the dog.

All this to say the long way around, I grew up reading the newspaper. And columnists were highly appreciated in the Creekmore home. I read Rheta Grimsley Johnson in the Commercial Appeal, Lewis Grizzard's syndicated columns and many others. Those two stand out in my mind; they were so on in capturing a particular Southern personality. Whether it made you proud or ashamed to be from 'round here, they nailed it.

Since I was not born and raised in Texas, I only became aware of Molly Ivins later in my life. Meaning, high school. And until the Internet [that was far after high school :) ], you could only find her columns when they were picked up individually or later when they were syndicated. Had it not been so clear she was writing about Texas, I could have sworn she was writing about Tennessee. The colorful politicians, the absurdities -- it all felt very familiar to me. And what a gift she had for putting the truth on paper.

Her national profile increased significantly with the rise of the Bush family. No matter whether she was skewering "Shrub" or railing against an injustice at home in Texas, her writing had the ring of truth and the righteous tone of a prophet, as told by a chatty neighborhood gossip leaning over the fence. Frequently laugh-out-loud funny, whichever side of the aisle you sit on.

Her passing today is a sadness for me.

Ultimate navel-gazing

I have a friend who recently said that almost all blogs are navel-gazing, "but not yours. It has a point."

Heh.

I challenge anyone to find the point around here but I am glad you are reading. [Anyone? Mom??]

In the spirit of navel-gazing, I wanted to share this article about the listservs in East Nashville. I'm pictured and quoted, talking about the East Nashville listserv that I started Jan. 1, 2000. It's alive and well today. Holy cow, the paper is right. As of this morning, we have 852 members. Thank you all.

This really looks precarious

I was at Dulles today on one of the people-movers. I noticed out the window, as we were unloading, this construction scene. There's a lot going on at Dulles right now with various updates, and when you're on the people-movers at a certain place, it looks like you're riding on air instead of the ground b/c you can't see any of the pavement out your window. Seriously creepy.

Well anyway, this is another view. What I missed in the frame with my camera phone was the walkway these columns are holding up, between some of the gates.

Side note: Who can tell me what the "MUFIDS" renovation is at BNA? I keep seeing it promoted on signs there. It's not very effective promotion if they don't even tell me what they're updating.

I have four books too many

So I am about to reveal my OCD tendencies, despite my outward appearance of mostly maintained chaos.

Background: I have a lot of books. A significant, large number of books. My whole life, I have loved to read and try as I might to use the library -- and much as I love the library itself -- I find that it matters to own the book. It's not that I re-read many books. But they make me happy to have them. I have many books from my childhood. Or I guess you would say, preteen on. About two full shelves' worth. Tonight, I invited the 7yo to start book shopping there.

For a while, it's really bothered me that fairly frequently, say, once a month or so, I will look for a book that I just know I own, and I'm unable to find it. Now, maybe 5 years ago? 3? I took a whole bunch of books to a store that buys used books. At this point, I feel like my collection is at a great size, but when you're trying to find a single book, it's way too big. I have six bookshelves in four rooms, and I could spend all night trying to find a book. And when I can't find one, I either figure I sold it a long time ago, or I let someone borrow it -- how on earth would I know??

So my thought has been, if I alphabetize the books, it will help when I'm trying to find one. If that doesn't work, then at least each book will have a permanent place.

Then the other day, I wandered across this site. Library Thing is an online book catalog; you enter all your titles and have your own personal list.

I cannot begin to explain to you how cool this is to someone so obsessed by books. I bet music or movie people would feel the same way about a new way to catalog their CDs or DVDs. It's why iTunes is so incredible to many folks.

So, Library Thing inspired me to go ahead and alphabetize my books. I figured that would definitely make it easier to enter them into the computer.

Last night I predicted to NYC sister it would take me a couple hours to sort the whole collection. She was more than skeptical. I should have placed a bet. It took me two hours start-to-finish to alpha 18 shelves over 6 bookcases. I took the multi-author books, reference works and collections and put them in one case. My cookbooks were already organized exactly where and how I wanted them, but the shelf above them was available. It's now mostly parenting and gardening books.

The other 9 shelves/4 cases are all other books....fiction and nonfiction....starting with Mitch Albom/Tuesdays With Morrie in the bedroom and ending with Encyclopedia of the World's Religions by R.C. Zaehner in the den.

I was feeling very self-satisfied when I discovered 4 Harry Potter books sitting in the hallway floor. Those aren't little books, and I am totally and completely out of room. Clearly I need another bookshelf.

Side note: I discovered tonight that I have two shelves, not just one, of unread books. I better go now....lots of reading to do.

Appropo of nothing

Last night after the SOTU, I watched Pearl Harbor. [Yes, I'm always this far behind in my movie-watching.]

A. What a great movie! Try as I might to like many indy and foreign films, I'm a sucker for a good action flick.
B. It led me to wonder, was this based on a real incident in World War II? [Obviously Pearl Harbor was bombed, but much of the movie concerns the Doolittle Raid on Japan.]
C. I learned today from Wikipedia that in fact, there was a Doolittle Raid on April 18, 1942. In many ways, it sounds even more heroic, harrowing and fascinating than the movie.

SOTU, As Analyzed by the 7yo

The 7yo and I are here watching the SOTU on my new TV! Very exciting.

She has already commented on the fact that Bush tends to lick his lips a lot. More scintillating commentary to follow, no doubt.

8:20 p.m.: 7yo agrees it would be a good idea for families to be able to choose the schools their kids attend.

8:40 or so: 7yo says, A lot of people there look suspicious. She is not clear in her comments on whether she means they look like suspicious people, or whether they are suspicious OF something.

8:58 p.m., in re: Baby Einstein: 7yo says, this has nothing to do with the state of the union.

9 p.m.: She agrees that Wesley Autrey IS in fact a hero.

9:03 p.m.: 7yo's overall assessment: The good parts of the speech were the hero stories. The rest was pretty boring.

This can't be real

  It's the color of...umm....

This is the hot sauce at our table last weekend at Gabriella's, a great Mexican restaurant on the Upper West Side, with horrible service on Sunday nights.

We were all intrigued by the color. Do you know of any peppers that come in such a hue in nature? We didn't either.

The mystery was solved by looking at the ingredients:
F&DC Yellow, F&DC Blue were both in evidence.

I'm still here

I have a lot to talk about but I've been busy lately.

Speaking of busy, I'm not trying to crowd Busy Mom's territory -- she who is queen of "strange things at work" -- but here's what happened to me today:

I was waitng for the elevator, on my way home to meet the cable guy [who by the way, in a first for ULCC, showed up not only on time, but on the early side of my 4-hour window]. When the doors opened, I was met by a plant.

It was a large plant, of the corn plant genre, in a lovely silver-tone pot. The plant was almost as tall as I am.

There was no accompanying plant owner, no explanation.

Here's all I could figure: Someone was moving things from their car? from one floor to another? and they had two large things. They offloaded the first one, sticking their foot in the door to hold the 'vator. And they accidentally moved their foot, leaving the corn plant to surf alone.

Other ideas?