Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Anne Lamott was right


I must say that I don't look to evangelicals for spiritual wisdom, but I'm changing my mind after I just finished reading one of Philip Yancey's books, Reaching for the Invisible God. I think the biggest sin most evangelicals commit is having supreme confidence that they know everything about how God works in this world. At last I've found one that asks the same questions I do about how to live in a world where your faith in God is very hard to keep. This is a man who has been deeply hurt by "religion," but has kept his faith in God, which is an entirely different thing.

I was going to keep the book and read it again, but I'm going to look for more of what he has to say, hoping against hope that I won't be disappointed.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Dear me!

I love Jane Austen, so I don't know what to think of this. According to a Wall Street Journal article, someone has posted a "trailer" for a supposed movie of the Jane Austen Fight Club. I heard of the bloody Fight Club movie from the Crown Prince, so I can only hope this one is a funny takeoff. I'll try to sneak a look at it at work since this old computer can't handle Flash upgrades (sigh).

What do you think? Satire or sacrilege?

Friday, November 26, 2010

I discover Skype


Last week, after searching high and low, we found our computer's microphone hidden away in the back of a drawer somewhere in the basement - last used by the Crown Prince playing World of Warcraft, I'm guessing. It was the last piece of equipment I needed to start using my new Skype account, so I was thrilled to try it out with my niece in Hawaii. Since I'm 4 hours ahead, we had to set up an appointment via e-mail. It worked beautifully!

After I'm more comfortable with this, I'll get a webcam and go for video calls - woohoo! Am I the last person to find out how great this is?

Monday, November 15, 2010

NPR's Food Photo Fridays blog

Can't remember how I happened upon this particular blog, but it's fun! Check out the posts for Nov. 12 called An Exhibition Called 'Yum,'



and for Nov. 5 called Carl Warner's Edible Landscapes.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Shameless Plug for Votes


The library where I work has made it to the final round in a contest from Playaway, the company that makes those clever little all-in-one audiobooks. If we get the most votes for the best promotional project for Playaway, we win $10k, so check out a neat YouTube we put together and vote for the Morton Grove Public Library. (Click the little arrow at the end of our library name to open up the place to vote, if necessary.) You can vote once for each e-mail address you have (I have 6 assorted addresses!).

Personal endorsement: when Dan was stuck having to keep his head down after eye surgery recently, Playaways were just the thing. No tapes or disks to change.

TIA!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Tubeless Toilet Paper!

I don't know how they're going to do this, but what a great green idea! It hasn't come to the Midwest yet, so I'll have to wait to try it. Read more on this press release from Kimberly-Clark.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Serial readers vs Poly-readers

At last I've found a person who reads like me - many books at the same time. I really enjoy a reading "menu" of many courses. I do like chocolate cake, for instance, but I would quickly tire of only chocolate cake for every meal. See what Julia Keller, Chicago Trib critic, says on NPR.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

I feel sick....

After speed-reading Tony Blair's new biography, A Journey: My Political Life, I was all set to chalk him off as well-meaning. I remember noting his mention of war protesters camping out near sites where he was supposed to appear in his last months of office, his seemingly sincere expressions of pain and regret when thinking of the British soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his view that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed at all costs to prevent current and future threats to the "West" (even though no MWD were found).

Then I finally got around to watching Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 911, this afternoon. All about money and oil. Somehow, I had never gotten that message so clearly before. I've seen several of Moore's films, and I'm never sure about his over the top-ness. Telling the truth? Getting laughs while showing his own brand of power? Corruption and greed in government seem so pervasive. Good guys seem so powerless and ineffective. Tony Blair was duped by Bush? Tony Blair duped us? Tony Blair just wanted to be next to American?

Monday, October 4, 2010

Metal Music


In our latest venture for the Saints, the volunteer theatre usher organization in this city, we signed up for a nightclub-like venue in Rogers Park for a Sunday morning live broadcast on the classical music radio station. The artist in recital was Rachel Barton Pine, a wonderful classical violinist. You might have heard of her due to a terrible accident at the beginning of her professional career.

Her program that Sunday was a varied mix of 9 pieces all written over the years just for her, including one by Albeniz that she arranged for herself. Surprising to me was that the ones I liked best were heavy metal compositions, Thrash by Philip Pan and Theme and Variations by Edgar Gabriel. This last used all kinds of metal music for the variations: glam metal, death metal, etc. All new to me, but I'm learning!

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Petrified Homemade Treats

Yesterday an old cereal box liner bag filled with what looked to be Frosted Mini-Wheats was discovered in the antique bread box up in my recently deceased mother-in-law's kitchen. It turned out that it was a secret stash of Gold Rush Brownies baked and brought by one of my Minnesota sisters - last Thanksgiving! One of us hid them up there (maybe me) to save them for future scarf sessions, then forgot about them, which is pretty incredible, knowing the family addiction to these goodies.

So my husband tried one and pronounced them "crunchy" but still good. I ate three.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Mary McGowan, 1900-2010

My mother-in-law, Mary McGowan, died on Sept. 2 at age 110. I only knew her for her last 40 years and missed some important parts of her life. When we sat down to look through her albums to show photos at her wake, we found some marvelous ones. The picture below shows Mary on her North Dakota homestead farm with her next younger sister, Anna - sometime around 1918?

This is Mary in 1921 before she bobbed her very long hair.


Mary as a flapper.

Our young North Dakota cousin, Greta, tells us that people have been taking pictures at the Bismarck State Capitol building like the one below for decades - she says she did it, too.


It was wonderful to see these pictures of a fun-loving young woman, full of life. Mary, rest in love and peace.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Cheapskates vs. Conservationists


The Cheapskate books I'm reading by Jeff Yeager (see sidebar) bring up the question, are cheapskates people who are simply misers who take no joy in life? Yeager says no, cheapskates are really people who are thoughtful users of only what they need to live a life freed of rampant consumerism. I'm trying to decide where I fit on the spectrum. Does using a teabag twice count?

His chapter on the costs of healthy living was really interesting. He says that most people who hire other people to clean their homes, mow their lawns, make repairs around the house, etc., then have to pay additional money to health clubs, personal trainers, and the like to help them keep in shape because they don't use their bodies to do any physical work. A vicious circle. I admit I've been tempted to hire a cleaning service when I think I can't handle a full-time job and keeping up with an old two-story house. So far, I'm subscribing to cheaphood, but I feel myself weakening.

Sunday, August 15, 2010

TED and Spirituality

I like TED a lot. And last week someone sent me a notice that a well-known writer (and former British nun) won one of their major prizes (like $100K) in 2008.

Karen Armstrong took part of her prize money and started the Charter for Compassion, "a cooperative effort to restore not only compassionate thinking but, more importantly, compassionate action to the center of religious, moral and political life." I love her idea - and I like how she describes herself as a "freelance monotheist." If I weren't committed to healing my own religion, I would be one, too.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Not So Fast!

So, here are those lovely ripe San Marzano tomatoes I raved about last post. Almost every one has a rotten spot at the blossom end! I think I've heard of this type of blight, but have no idea what to do about it so far. I don't want to contaminate my compost heap with diseased plants and I'm not sure if it's ok to leave them in the garden. I'll see if Google has any ideas.

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Well, lookee here!


It's only July 17 and the first San Marzano plum tomatoes are getting ripe! This is the first year I've tried growing these and they're doing great. Should be good for canning, so hope I'm up for it - it will be soon!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Travel Treasures

Last weekend we drove through Wisconsin to Minnesota to visit relatives. Even though we had stopped near Janesville only last year to buy a year's supply of honey, we were already down to one gallon. Orlovsky Apiaries, a mom-and-pop business of sorts, said they could let us have (buy!) three gallons. Here they are all nicely packed in a cardboard carton in the trunk.



Next, we went to Osseo near Eau Claire to the famed Norske Nook for two grandiose pies to add to the roster of desserts at a family barbecue.



Everyone (but me) loves their banana cream pie, but since this was summer, it had to be regular fruit pies: blueberry and peach praline. Their pies are THE BEST, next to homemade (mine). We've almost got the requisite 7 pie tins to get us a free pie on another trip!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Fibber McGee's Suitcase


It's pretty amazing how much stuff can be packed in a regular carry-on bag. I almost don't believe this demo of super-packed luggage, but I will have a chance to try it myself in the fall. It would be great if we could get through a 15-day trip with just one suitcase each. See the slide show here.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Great YouTube on...... Plagiarism! (PG-13)

I'm past the time when I have to worry about school papers, but this really takes me back. Sort of like dreaming you are late for the final, can't remember where the exam is being given, haven't read most of the textbook, etc. Those Scandihoovians can be funny!

Monday, June 7, 2010

Victory after Almost 4 Years!

Middle Daughter came over for dinner last night. She wanted to play Scrabble afterward with me and her dad, but I was set to watch Charlie Chaplin in Modern Times, so I was going to skip the game. When I realized the DVD was only 87 minutes long, I announced that I would play until 8:30 when the highest scorer would be the winner. I always lose anyway, so I figured that a 45-minute game would keep things moving along.

As it turned out, I blocked 2 triple word scores and got 3 more for myself and won the game before the deadline! The picture at the right is the inside of our deluxe Scrabble game box where we inscribe for posterity the dates of each game, the winner, and any Bingoes. The sad fact is that I haven't won a game since September 4, 2006! In our family, I still claim the largest vocabulary and I'm the best speller, but I'm not good at anagrams and I'm losing ground at strategy. Thus the mighty fall.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Italian Food


I am deep into preparatory research on the countries, cities, and towns that we will visit this year. Planning a trip is at least half the fun! I've been reading memoirs by Americans who love and live in Paris, but now I'm learning about Lucca, the ancient city in Tuscany where we will spend a few days.

The other day I came across Why Italians Love to Talk about Food by Elena Kostiukovich in the library's new book section. This is a very readable treatise on Italian history and culture through the medium of its food by a Russian translator who has lived in Italy for 2o years.

Each section of the country gets its own chapter, and I'm lapping up the ones on Veneto and Tuscany where we will visit. I especially like the nice list of famous foods and food products for each section at the end of its chapter. Here's hoping I can avoid looking totally clueless in Venetian and Luccan trattorias.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Dirt Cheap (or Free) Phone Calls

Somehow this article from PC Magazine got passed along to me, so I'm sending it to you! See slides on 10 ways to make phone calls - from Bing to Skype to Google to..........

Friday, May 7, 2010

The 2010 Census Won't Tell Much About Us

Did anyone else wonder why there were so few questions to answer on the 2010 census form? Having unearthed lots of really interesting information from past census records about the early days of my family in this country, I'm thinking that my great-great-grandchildren (if any) won't be able to find out much about me in 2010.

Past records had great stuff like where your father was born, your occupation, etc. This time, it looks like all the government wants to know is whether you own your own house, what race you think you belong to, and who else lives with you.

Apparently, most people get the 10 question short form, but some people get the big 69-question form. Here's something from the Better Business Bureau explaining how people getting the 69-er are thinking it's a scam! Genealogists in their families will be lucky. The rest of us fall into oblivion.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Lots of Tomatoes!

This year one of my daughters suggested we can tomatoes since she heard that the white coating on the inside of commercially canned tomatoes leaches bad stuff into the food. So, instead of putting in 4 tomato plants, I set out 10. I grew these from seed starting in March. There are 5 little San Marzanos and 5 Big Boys. This may be a big, and I do mean big, mistake. Stay tuned.


Meanwhile, I discovered that my cute little strawberry plants are really covered in blossoms. Last year there were only a few. This is now their second spring, so maybe they have decided to stay. The rhubarb plant is doing nicely as well. It will get to grow undisturbed for probably another 2 years. I have excellent will power so far, but I do love a rhubarb pie.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

p. 629, Oranges Glacees




At last I have finished Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking! After considering a simple recipe to try myself, I caved and went for this one. At least it doesn't have the ton of cream and/or butter like all of Julia's other recipes.

Here are the photos to show how I slaved over it this afternoon:

Six large, colorful oranges ready to go!


Making candied orange peel.

This was the killer part - took so long!


Macerating the cooked orange peel in orange liqueur.


Making the sugar syrup.


Glazing the oranges with the hot syrup.


Ta-da!

It did look great, but it wasn't so delicious that I would go through all that again. The book goes back to the library, and I can sleep well tonight.

Monday, April 19, 2010

How Do You Pronounce, "Nicolas Sarkozy?"

Here's a good link from the Resource Shelf, one of my favorite Web sources. The Voice of America (VOA) Pronunciation Guide is a nifty way to hear the real way to say the names of international persons and places in the news.

I tried Nicolas Sarkozy, just to check my high school French. Boy was I off! OK, I'm using the American tv news announcer pronunciation, but still.... I left the "s" on Nicolas - WRONG - and put the accent on the ''koz" in Sarkozy - DOUBLE WRONG.

Try it yourself. Check the Short List link at the bottom of the screen for recent names in the news. Make yourself sound brilliant!

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Card Catalog Project

Some time ago, I became aware that library card catalogs were disappearing. When you did find one, you had to pay a pretty price, since people had begun to find interesting uses for them. Take a look at a blog post from PH: Poetic Home for some of the ideas.

So, in my library work, I came across a small one with no legs. I bought it and promptly relegated it to my basement laundry room where it languishes under forgotten sewing projects and stuff to wash/iron someday.


I could use a new coffee table, but what to do for legs? All of a sudden it occurred to me that I could use.......books. I'll just need to find some that look good and can be stacked to the same height, then cemented in place. Anyone have any ideas?

Friday, April 9, 2010

Fooling Around with Wolfram Alpha

Today I ran across Wolfram Alpha, the computational knowledge website. I listened to Mr. Wolfram himself describe the site and what you can do with it. One of the simplest is to type in a first name. You get graphs of how many people in the U.S. were given that name over the last 100 years or so, and another graph of the present age of most of the people with that name. Here's the graph of when people were given my name - a big bump after WWII, then downhill all the way.



I'm going to go back to this again and again for all kinds of other stuff. Try it and see what you think!

Monday, April 5, 2010

Vegetarian Recipe Database

OK, how many vegetarians/vegans do we have in the extended family? There are two here, plus a little vegetarian in first grade. Other than the Man of the House in Scotland, I haven't heard of any others.

Anyway, for everyone who wants to find particular vegetarian recipes, Vegetarian Times has put out a free database of 10.000+ recipes that can be tweaked to find those that have a particular ingredient you want to use.
Use the categories below to limit your keyword search, or just leave out the keywords altogether and just search by checking a category.

Advanced Search Options
+ Category (Egg-Free, Dairy-Free, etc.)
+ Type (Appetizers, Entree, Soups, etc.) Member Rating Appliances
+ Required (Microwave, Slow Cooker, Grill, etc.) Season Holiday/Special
+ Occasion Cuisine (Indian, French, Moroccan, Greek, etc.) Departments
+ (30 Minutes, Veg Lite, Vegan Gourmet, 5 Ingredients, etc.) Course/Meal
+ (Breakfast/Brunch, Side Dish, Stir-Fry, etc.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Political Efforts in Illinois

Illinois is in such pathetic financial condition, we're almost as bad as California. So I've been working on a small effort to change one thing here, the Illinois Fair Map amendment, which will ask voters to change the way we set redistricting after each census reveals population shifts.

Iowa, to name one eminently fair state, uses a computer to redraw district lines after each census. How sensible!

Illinois allows the ruling party leaders to propose new district lines. If the other side doesn't like the proposal, they can come up with their own version. Each side tries to draw lines that reward incumbents and punish the other party. Some districts look like weird jigsaw puzzle pieces with long peninsulas and strange shapes. If no one can agree - they actually flip a coin. And this has been done. How ridiculous!

So, I'm out trying to find people who are registered voters in Illinois and convince them to sign a petition to put the Fair Map amendment on the ballot in November, but it ain't easy. Getting people to listen to your appeal on the Metra platform is discouraging.

I hate rejection. I can't imagine how people can decide to run for office - getting rejected right and left most of the time. Office-seekers must have to have an elephant's hide. Either these people are heroes or their egos are so huge that they can weather anything. Onward.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

The Lost Boys in Fargo


There's a new play at the Victory Gardens/Biograph Theatre (where John Dillinger was killed in the alley after seeing Manhattan Melodrama) called The Lost Boys of Sudan. As soon as I read that the play follows the war refugees to their new home in Fargo, N.D., where I was born, I knew we had to see it. We immediately signed up to be volunteer ushers for last night's performance.

There was plenty to think about as actors showed the horrific effects of the wars in Sudan on the civilians and on the child soldiers. But we also were looking to see what happened to them in Fargo - and were sadly disappointed. The refugees could have been in Anytown, USA. The actors were really good at African accents, but where was the Fargo accent, or any reference to Fargo "culture?"

Since I grew up in Moorhead - just across the river from Fargo - I can assume that I, too, have an authentic Fargo accent. Or, at least I did. I've been gone from Moorhead since 1964, and from Minnesota since 1969, but when I get on the phone with one of my sisters in the Twin Cities area, my family still says I start to "sound funny." I'm not sure I could even imitate someone from Fargo if I tried. What's an example of a word that Fargoans (Fargo-ites?) say that is unique to them? Readers, over to you...

Friday, March 19, 2010

Victoria and Albert

Last night we saw probably the last showing in town of The Young Victoria, a splendid costume drama about Queen Victoria and how she came to fall in love with her German cousin while declaring her independence from her mother.

We loved the dresses worn by the actresses, but I know they would be horribly uncomfortable to wear. Corsets and wig pieces, horsehair and tight laces - oh my!

I always thought of Victoria as a sour old woman wearing a lace headdress, but it was fun to see a movie with her portrayed as lively and "winsome" in the beginning. Albert seemed sincere, but lackluster. It's hard to understand what she found so compelling about him.

Now I know how much I count on a full house in a theater for the full movie experience. When there are only a handful of people in the seats, the collective gasps, sighs, and laughter are just too weak to count. I'm paying for audience reaction in sound surround - and I missed it!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Dickens, Saint and Sinner

After reading Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold about Charles Dickens' wife, I decided to read a Dickens biography to learn whether he truly was as merciless as he was portrayed in the novel. He was, but..

Dickens was a driven man - he literally worked himself to death by insisting on grueling trips around England at the end of his life to give personal readings of excerpts of his books - even to America - despite very serious health problems. He could be very generous to people who reminded him of himself at a young age - trapped by circumstances into a life of destitution and/or drudgery. A few lucky breaks and a tremendous will to advance himself got him out of the blacking factory, back in school, and on the road to acting and writing. The thought of his father's careless behavior that put the family in misery, and the fear that he, too, might end up a financial failure, dogged him all his life.

Once he was established as a successful author, he found that the pretty, sweet wife he had married when they were young was now the dull mother of 10 who suffered from lengthy post-partum depression and spoiled his dinner parties. His only solution was to insist that Catherine move out of the family home, leaving her children, including a four-year-old son, in the process. She was given a small house and a modest personal allowance, and was excluded from family weddings, holiday and birthday celebrations. This I cannot understand - why didn't he move out?

Aren't we all a strange mix of good and evil, talents and foibles? I still love Dickens the writer, but have no more illusions that he could write a wonderful book like David Copperfield because he was such a compassionate person who understood human nature. What a mystery!

Friday, February 26, 2010

Grandma is a Supercentenarian!

Now that my mother-in-law, Mary McGowan, has reached her 110th birthday on February 17, 2010, she is qualified to join the list of living supercentenarians. The Gerontology Research Group keeps track of these people around the world who have documented proof of their birth more than 110 years ago. Their list is updated every day. You can also see a similar list on Wikipedia.

Mary has no birth certificate since she was born at home, but she does have a baptismal certificate. In those days, babies usually were baptized within a week of their birth due to high infant mortality rates. I expect to see her added to the supercentenarian lists very soon!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Golosa

The crown prince works with a guy whose wife is the director of a Russian folk choir somehow connected to the University of Chicago down on the south side of the city (we live on the northern border). So now he is singing with the choir, Golosa, in Russian!

Whenever I heard him singing around the house, he always made his voice as low as possible, so I had to laugh when I heard that he was assigned to the tenor section.

NPR's Worldview program last Wednesday had a section on Golosa and we got to hear them sing. What a shock! They don't sound at all the way I'm used to hearing Russian choral music on the radio. Golusa's cultural background is from a group that was exiled to Siberia and there is a wailing, shouting element to their music. The director said that they have opened for rock bands at venues in Chicago and rock fans really like them! Download the program and see what you think. We'll be able to see and hear them in person in April when Golosa is part of an ethnomusical conference at DePaul. Can't wait to see their costumes!

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Ushering at Symphony Center


Last night we had our first chance to usher at Symphony Center. The concert was not part of the CSO's regular series, but it was for some jazz performers I had never heard of (the better to practice on). The first group was Eliane Elias, a bossa nova jazz singer/pianist and her backup guys - all from Brazil. She did a version of "Tangerine," a song my mother taught me to sing way back when, that I really liked. There was a nice crowd of all types and ages of people that came to hear them.

At intermission, we resumed our posts as statues at the bottom of one set of stairs to the balconies. When we realized we would never make the 10:35 train back home, we decided to leave right after intermission to make the 9:45, but we had to really walk FAST. We made it with one minute to spare and were home by 10:30. A good first assignment. Now we can feel ok about doing a real CSO concert!

Friday, February 12, 2010

Sic Transit Gloria



The poor economy has lately claimed two businesses that I will really miss. Piatto was a restaurant within walking distance of our house - and it was really nice! Our family had many little celebrations there in the last few years. The delicious olive spread and bread basket are gone forever - sigh.


And I used to stock up every winter on a 10-lb. box of steel-cut oats at The Home Economist in a nearby suburb. They sold lots of baking ingredients in bins, long before stores like Whole Foods took over the idea. You could buy as little or as much as you wanted, including grinding your own peanut butter. It was a great way to buy a little bit of a spice that you knew you wouldn't use very often.

So, to all of you out there: patronize your local businesses! They might not make it otherwise.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Google Maps Store View?

I hope this is a bona fide news item, but I just read about Google photographing the inside of stores so we can go in and browse online. Nice! Read all about it.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Cleaning Closets and Nostalgia

I vow to clean my bedroom closets once a year. So I started this weekend and was surprised once again to find the leftovers of my life left moldering on back shelves. Old letters (real hand-written letters!), forgotten receipts, neglected to-do lists. Then, to cap off the day, I watched American Graffiti. "Where were you in 1962?" What a trip back in time that is for me! The clothes, hairstyles, music, dancing, etc., were right out of my memories of high school.

The movie ends with a postscript - graduation photos of the 4 guys who were the main characters in the story of that one long night in a California town - with little where-are-they-now notes. The gallant drag racer was killed by a drunk driver; the guy that gave up his "east coast" college scholarship at the last minute was a small-town insurance agent; the loony-but-sweet nerd was MIA in Vietnam; the last-minute college-bound guy was a writer living in Canada. That's what I remember from college - guys debating whether to wait around to get drafted for Vietnam or head for Canada. One guy I knew joined the Peace Corps - hope he did some good there while staying alive.

Saturday, January 9, 2010

BBC Period Drama Fans, Rejoice!

I'm looking at our local PBS station program schedule for January and see that there will be a 2-part update to "Cranford" starting tomorrow night! Judi Dench will be back as one of the Cranford ladies. I really enjoyed watching Cranford a year and a half ago (see my post about that), and will be glad to see Judi Dench back as one of the Cranford ladies.

And to make Sunday evenings in January even better, a new BBC production of Jane Austen's Emma will take up the last 2 Sunday nights on Masterpiece Classic. I don't recognize any of the actors' names in this new version, but that's good since I won't have any expectations for them. I was surprised to see that the actor who will play Mr. Knightley is named Jonny Lee Miller. Sounds like a good ol' boy, instead of a Brit with an uppercrust accent. Don't disappoint me, Jonny Lee!