3 Ring Binder

1.    Will teach you how to Dougie , and the difference between it and some other thing you have no hope of remembering. (I didn’t say she was a good teacher, or that I am a good student.) 2.    Will introduce you to musical acts you never knew existed . (And some you may wish didn’t exist, at least not on her iPod.) 3.    Will drive you to the store with the confidence of veteran driver having over 25 years of experience. (Of course without the benefit of having even 25 months of actual driving experience to support said confidence.) Yes, I know this is not the intended use of a Good Things list, but I really needed to explore these issues in a more positive form than periodically shouting expletives from the passenger’s seat. Speaking of teenage daughters, this is the time of year that some high schools support the girls playing typically male-dominated sports under the Powderpuff   banner.   My daughter played on her senior...

On my way back from picking up two year’s worth of dry cleaning (I hate dry cleaning , but that’s the price I have to pay to be surrounded by clean cashmere and suede – clearly, I’m not often concerned about its cleanliness) I heard this song.   I knew the singer’s voice and wasn’t entirely sure I liked the band or the song, but I hadn’t remembered hearing it before. As I listened a while, I realized that what I loved was the sound of the ukulele. Growing up we owned, or had possession of, a ukulele , along with a mandolin , a round back guitar, and any other stringed instrument my father sold as a travelling musical instrument salesman (I believe this was before the Boone’s Farm salesman gig). But it wasn’t until I heard this original ukulele mash-up a few years back that I fell in love with its sound. Before that, this is all I knew from ukuleles. For the record, my twelve year-old finds the Train song horribly boring.  She knows much more about music tha...

As we finalize our Thanksgiving menu, I realized that we are doing a lot of borrowing from the traditions, taste tests, and tried-and-true recipes of others.   Here are just a few of the recipes of the food flavors we’ve fancied for our fall feast this year: 1.        Alton Brown’s brine 2.        Marilyn Monroe’s dressing 3.        Mark Bittman’s beets 4.        Trey Givens’ ice cream I have to give a special nod to Mark Bittman’s brussel sprouts with bacon and figs .   Stephen made them the other day and they were fantastic ! I’m just not sure they’ll fit in with all the other wonderful dishes we’ll already have on the table. Brief videos for all of Bittman’s suggested Thanksgiving fare can be found here . Hope your recipe for celebrating Thanksgiving is as warm, wonderful, or wild as you wish.

It's that time of year when my blog gets a lot of hits for "turkey diagram."  Don't bother looking for it, I removed the picture from the blog, but I left the link to the original diagram .  It did get me thinking, though, why someone would want a diagram of turkey parts instead of instructions on how to carve a turkey .  I know that I wanted to identify the parts of the live turkeys running through my yard, but that has little to do with Thanksgiving. For those who want to recreate the 18th century gentleman's approach to turkey carving, here are some words of wisdom from The Honours of the Table , by Reverend John Trusler, 1791. "We are always in pain for a man who instead of cutting up a fowl genteely is hacking for half an hour across the bone, greasing himself and bespattering the company with the sauce. "But where the master or mistress of a table dissects a bird with ease and grace or serves guests with such parts that are most esteemed, ...

Reading books concurrently is a terrific way to discover and possibly strengthen important ideas common to the books.   Taken individually from very different sources, the following passages made enough of an impression on me to make mental or marginal notes: "By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it." Frankenstein’s monster in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , 1818, on wanting to communicate with the cottagers. "They gave tongue to interesting thoughts of my own soul which had frequently flashed through my mind, and died away for want of utterance.   The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power o...

If variety is the spice of life, we gathered some spicy eggs here yesterday.   The first is a standard chicken egg, the second, some sort of squib we found among the other eggs in the nesting boxes, and the third, a surprise find when shooing the female zebra finch out of the seed feeder last night! Despite the fact that each morning when I uncover the zebra finches I find Elizabeth as far away from Mr. Darcy as possible within the confines of the bird cage, apparently, they’ve been getting busy. Actually, like all birds in captivity, female zebra finches are as likely to lay unfertilized eggs as fertilized ones. Stephen was told at the pet store—and I have confirmed to the best of my internet search abilities—that caged zebra finches make terrible parents and the eggs should be removed immediately. So I removed them, but was extremely curious about what could possibly be inside the tiny eggs.   Since it takes only two weeks for a finch egg to hatch, I was a little nervo...

I'm not quite sure what, really. Certainly not walking, but, boy-oh-boy, do they deserve some attention! n.b. I did not stretch this photo.   This is how they are supposed to look. Since I’ve been searching for the perfect pair of fall boots on shoe sites like Zappos and Shoes.com , I’ve been getting hit with some interesting sidebar advertisements on other websites.   Yes, I’ll admit it.   I indulged my shoe-salaciousness and looked closely at these boots on one of those sites.   Now they keep showing up everywhere! Check ‘em out.   The heels are interlocked vertebrae, which is rather convenient since when you walk in these bad boys for more than a minute or two you’ll probably need some back surgery!    It’s like having the foresight to design in replacement components on your circuit board (so I hear), or a flaming red flag! If thigh-highs just aren’t your thing, don’t worry.   They come in booties , too.

This morning I received an email from a friend with pictures from a lavender ranch in Texas. This last photo instantly became my new happy place . Is it the incredible wave of purple?  The intense blue of the sky? The contrast? The aroma I imagine when I breathe deeply and close my eyes remembering the scene? The warmth I feel as I lift my face to the envisioned sun? The quietly persistent bee buzzing I hear in the field in my mind? Being alone in the middle of it all? More importantly, what is the function of a happy place and why do I need one? To answer those questions, I have to go back to my first happy place: a red farm house in the woods where the kids were chasing ducks around. It was a starving artists' painting hanging at my neighbor's house. I recalled it when I was in the hospital having my fractured left elbow set. Instead of focusing on the drilling of a metal rod through my skin and into my bones to hold them together, I thought about runn...

This is along the lines of what my daughter envisioned when she laughed out loud after reading the side of a water bottle.

This has nothing to do with last night’s Patriots game which, after half-time, we smartly slept through.   (We needed the sleep far more than we needed the fourth quarter excitement. Right?   Right??)   This has to do with the wisdom of hindsight and offering advice regarding a situation in which you have no experience.   And by you , I mean me.   I really don’t care what kind of quarterback you are – unless you’re Tom Brady, then call me. We need to talk about the hair. During my ten, non-blogging days, I realized that while I like blogging, I didn’t miss it. Sure I started two separate quick posts and one more substantial one, but I declined to post anything, opting instead for blog silence. I kept reading the papers, blogs, and books (more of these) that I normally do, but I didn’t want to post anything unless it could change my world.   Needless to say, that’s a mighty tall order for a blogger who produces a lot of this: Friday Fun Facts Three thi...

To those of you who have worked and who presently work in our armed forces, I offer my most sincere appreciation. Take a look at the last 32 years of official Veterans Day  posters  and see if you can find any trends, not only in graphic design, but more importantly, in attitiude.  

This week's Objectivist Round Up can be found at my friend Lady Baker's blog, The Playful Spirit . Go there and get yourself some interesting blog posts. In other news, dear readers, I am going off-line for a wee bit. It's nothing personal, or rather, it's totally personal, and as such, has nothing to do with any of you. I will occasionally miss our mostly one-sided conversations, but I will mostly miss our occasionally two-sided ones. While I'm away, I will be doing some blog maintenance.  If you have anything interesting I might want to add to my sidebar lists, please let me know. A tout à l'heure!

Saxon Invasion, A.D. 400 - 600 by Rudyard Kipling WHEN Rome was rotten-ripe to her fall,   And the sceptre passed from her hand, The pestilent Picts leaped over the wall   To harry the English land. The little dark men of the mountain and waste,   So quick to laughter and tears, They came panting with hate and haste   For the loot of five hundred years. They killed the trader, they sacked the shops,   They ruined temple and town– They swept like wolves through the standing crops   Crying that Rome was down. They wiped out all that they could find   Of beauty and strength and worth, But they could not wipe out the Viking's Wind   That brings the ships from the North. They could not wipe out the North-East gales   Nor what those gales set free– The pirate ships with their close-reefed sails,   Leaping from sea to sea. They had forgotten the shield-hung hull   Seen nearer and more plain, Dipping into the ...

If you’re lucky, you’ll get a chance to vote for something today.   In certain cases there is wisdom in voting against something.   Unfortunately in deciding between the lesser of the two weevils, you still end up with a blighter.

(via Wealth is Not the Problem ) This is not a perfect illustration, but it does show the relative standard of care with which money is expended according to whose it is and on whom it is being spent.  Think about it and decide when money is used most efficiently.  Then think about under what circumstances it could be different, keeping in mind that we are each equal under the law.