Perhaps the greatest speech in Shakespeare

Perhaps: perhaps merely one of the greatest. Wherever it stands in the pantheon of great speeches, it is surely one of the best, perhaps by anyone.
It begins with persuasion: don't ask for more to be with us, for then we'd have to let them share our glory: and follows with a promise of glories yet to come, to be celebrated, drunk to in years to come. And it rises to a crescendo with the lines we all know: "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers", promising that those not present will pale in comparison, even in their own minds. I can't listen to Olivier or Branagh's versions without a shiver.

Today is the feast of St Crispin and St Crispinian, a day that will live beyond any knowledge of the day, the saints or the reason to celebrate. Other than, of course, the following:

King Henry V:

What's he that wishes so?

My cousin Westmorland. No, my fair cousin:

If we are marked to die, we are enow

To do our country loss; and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

God's will, I pray thee, wish not one man more.

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;

It ernes me not if men my garments wear;

Such outward things dwell not in my desires:

But if it be a sin to covet honour,

I am the most offending soul alive.

No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:

God's peace, I would not lose so great an honour

As one man more, methinks, would share from me

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more.

Rather proclaim it presently through my host,

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart. His passport shall be made

And crowns for convoy put into his purse:

We would not die in that man's company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

This day is called the Feast of Crispian:

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a-tiptoe when the day is named,

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall see this day and live t'old age,

Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,

And say "To-morrow is Saint Crispian":

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars

And say "These wounds I had on Crispin's day."

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,

But he'll remember with advantages

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words

Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,

Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

This story shall the good man teach his son;

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be remember'd;

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition:

And gentlemen in England now abed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. (IV, iii)

This always gives me goosepimples!
Yours, ashiver,
N.

It's beginning to look a lot like

It's (unfortunately) beginning to look a lot like deja vu all over again. Back in late 2002 and early 2003, when Boo was just a few months old, it was clear to both LOML and to me that Bush was determined to attack Iraq. At the time, as now, we were not sycophants of Bush. As such, we could see that some of his claims were questionable: there were plenty of sources, credible sources, questioning whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass distraction, not least the IAEA, who wanted most of all for their inspectors to be allowed to do their jobs. Boo got to attend quite a few vigils in a stroller in her early years: unfortunately none of them had any effect.

Today we learn that the Revolutionary Guard (boy, I bet they are wishing they had called themselves the Republican Guard right now) in Iran are officially being designated a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction. By the US, that is, in case there were any confusion. Its elite forces are being designated supporters of terrorism. These designations are accompanied by sanctions: this all sounds like a precursor to a drumbeat for attack.

The difference is, five years on, even in this country people are sceptical of anything that Bush or his administration says. And this time round that might even apply to the majority of democrats, perhaps even to a majority of those in Congress. If so, there is some hope that this inexorable swell to agression can be stopped in its tracks.

My suspicion is that if the administration wants to beat this drum, even here in the conservative south, they're going to discover massive opposition to their plans.

Yours, alarmed by the drumbeat,
N.

Not new to dogs

Awareness welcomed us earlier to dogland --- and I thought that perhaps I should point out that we are not new to dogs: we've had a dog now for more than 10 years --- our Sheltie/Chow mix was probably 5 years old when we adopted her in 1997, so she is really old now: unfortunately, it is beginning to show. I should point out that these photos were taken about 5 years ago, when they were both merely middle-aged or so!
We had to say goodbye to our Golden Retriever this past summer: we adopted him in August 2000, and he was probably already 6 then: he was definitely very old when he died this year: his face had a ton of grey and white in it. Thirteen years old is very old for a retriever, I gather, and I hope that we made his life fun for the years we shared with him!

Yours, doggedly,
N.

They call it fall because that's when the leaves turn

Wait, that doesn't make sense.
Anyway: the leaves have only just started to turn colour this week or so, and since we had an incredibly late harsh frost, and incredibly hot drought conditions through most of the summer, the predictions are that the season for vivid colours will be short and not particularly good.

Such is life --- if I can't post a picture of the leaves turning on the trees, at least I can present a fallen beauty. This was lying on the ground in a parking lot last Friday, and I had to pick it up and save it!

Yours, turning,
N.

It's not still summer

It really isn't still summer. It really isn't. The fact that it was 80 degrees Fahrenheit today (yes, that really is about 27 Celsius!) and it is nearly November is ridiculous. As was the sunset last week. Ridiculously beautiful.

Yours, rapt,
N.

Integrity on the right

I suggested a week or two ago that there were a few running for the Republican nomination for Resident of the White House who I think have some integrity. Some small integrity. One such is Mike Huckabee.

The following is an example --- I really believe he believes what he says is true. It is also incorrect. He says of the signers of the Declaration of Independence,
"most of whom, by the way were clergymen". I'm sure he believes it. And the fact that he believes it is exactly why someone like him shouldn't become President. He is willing to subvert facts to his beliefs.

The truth: perhaps as many as several were or had been clergymen. Nowhere near a majority. Probably not as many as 10 percent.

Yes, I think that he has integrity, and to Republican voters, especially those who want to believe the founders were ministers, it will probably serve him well. But his beliefs on so many issues are so far from reality that he is a really scary prospect.


Yours, getting ready for Hallowe'en,
N.

Political comedy

Just watching The Amazing Mrs Pritchard -- a wonderful satire on politics. Humour, drama, it's got the lot. It's amazing to see some old names from British politics appearing as cameos, and the impersonations of other voices like Blair have been very good too. For a political junkie like me, a royal treat:-)

N.

First photo of the new arrival

First photo of Monty

Fostering first

Well, LOML arrived home this afternoon with a lovely little cocker spaniel.
As yet unnamed (Boo wanted to name him "Boo", but that would just be too confusing!) So far, Monty looks like a possibility. Suggestions greatly appreciated (if probably ignored!)

Photos to follow -- they're taken, downloaded, being uploaded to be downloaded then uploaded.

Yours, still dogged,
N.

Update on new dog situation

Well, LOML was planning to go to the shelter yesterday, and we had decided which of the dogs we were most interested in (although it is always the case that in this sort of situation you let your heart win out when you get to the shelter).
Except that the shelter was closed yesterday. And today. And tomorrow.
Fortunately, the school is on vacation next week, and so LOML is off and can go see the animals on Monday.
And be assured, when a new face arrives, it will be a matter of minutes before photographs are taken. And after that, a matter of mere weeks before I download, upload, upload and show the photos;-)

Yours, doggedly,
N.

Tortured logic

So apparently Mukasey, nominee for head of the Justice Department, Attorney General of This Great Land (TM), has said that "torture is unconstitutional". I say "apparently", since the quote that I actually heard this morning was

If water-boarding is torture, torture is unconstitutional.

Unfortunately, he was unwilling to specify that water-boarding actually is torture, and so we know nothing of the conclusion that he reaches.

Yours, tortured,
N.

I wouldn't have voted for him

I couldn't conceive of voting for Sam Brownback, and even though he was visiting the area next week, wouldn't even have gone to see him. But I am sorry that he has dropped out of the Republican race for Resident of the White House.
I disagree wholeheartedly with almost everything he believes in, I suspect, but I do believe that he has some integrity. I am not sure that I feel the same way about any of the frontrunners in that race.

It's funny --- my parents were completely bemused by the fact that the election isn't until November. Next year. And yet the races are in full swing --- whereas in the UK an election is announced, campaigns happen, the votes are counted, and winners sworn in, all in about a month.

Yours, enjoying the spectator aspects of the race,
N.

We have our own bed back

LOML and I are no longer sleeping in the kids' room on the futon. Oh my, are we happy to have our own bed back!

My parents have flown back to England after a good visit: three whole weeks is a long time, but we all behaved and everyone had a good time. Well... sometimes the kids played up, but they are only three and not-yet-five, so it is forgiveable!

So, I now have lots of free time (hah! as if) to blog --- except that work is getting hectic again, with hiring and other things going on, and the kids are generating parent-teacher conferences, school fetes, etc. Still, I'll try. And occasionally, perhaps, even a cogent post.

Yours, spreading out,
N.

WWIII?????

WW III????? WTF is w/ W?

Confused, bemused, and not at all amused,
N.

Stephen Colbert

So it seems that Stephen Colbert is announcing for president of the "favorite son" party in South Carolina. I wonder how seriously he might be taken. If at all....

Yours, amused and intrigued, though unlikely to consider him,
N.

On the environment: changing behaviour

If we decide that my arguments are convincing (more accurately, the better and more persuasive arguments of smarter scientists and politicians than I will ever be!) then we have to face the next question.
How can we effect the necessary changes? How can we make them as painless and cost-free as possible?

It seems to me that there is a definite distinction between the actions of corporations and the actions of individuals. Of course, this hubris could just reflect the fact that I am not a corporation, I am a stubborn individual, who sees the little that I put into the cesspool as insignificant compared to the looting and polluting of big business.

But that is the tragedy of the commons: we all foul our common space, in small amounts, and drown in trash. How can we encourage individuals to be more environmentally friendly?
What can we use as a carrot, and do we also need a stick?
The stick is easy: let's increase the price of energy: it seems high here in the US right now, since we've recently had significant increases in oil prices --- however, the only effect of this seems to be bigger profits for the oil companies. How much better to raise prices a bit and have the taxes used to fund the carrots? The carrots? Tax breaks for individuals who put solar panels on their roof or insulation in their attic. Legislation encouraging power companies to buy surplus solar power from individuals.


On the corporate end, unfortunately, in the US the prospects are bleak. Corporations own the government, paying for their election and re-election. Look at the farm subsidies, huge proportions of which go to the mega corporations. Legislation is written specifically to protect the biggest donors. Ethanol is encouraged, despite being largely a sop to corn country: inefficient to grow, environmentally unfriendly in its own right. I wish I could see a way forward, but I can't, not while the current system of electoral purchase prevails.

And so it is doubly incumbent on us as citizens to do more as individuals and to persuade our elected officials to put incentives for individuals in place, to make up for the fact that we are not going to get corporate restrictions passed.

Yours, depressed,
N.

On the environment: catastrophes cusps and cliffs

In the 1970's a new field, catastrophe theory, became rather popular in mathematics: or at least, in the scientifically literate population's view of mathematics.
One notion that became popularized was that of being at a cusp, and the possibility of a very rapid transition from one situation to another, in a not-easily reversible fashion.
Being a fan, as I was at that age, of cartoons, I think of these more visual terms: especially that of running or driving along a road, encountering a cliff: if one drives on, one experiences a sudden, hard to reverse, loss of altitude. Of course, in cartoons, the characters don't actually fall until they realise that it is too late.

There is a possibility that we are at a cusp regarding the environment right now. It is not impossible, and I fear likely, that we are already off the cliff, and our legs are still going: we just haven't seen it yet. Here's why.
We are all aware of the fact that carbon dioxide is a ''greenhouse gas'': it traps energy and leads to a warming effect. But there is a secondary effect too: there are large deposits of methane frozen in the tundra in the permafrost, and there are signs that the permafrost is thawing: now, methane is also a greenhouse gas, as bad as or worse in this regard than carbon dioxide. And as the temperature rises, more permafrost will thaw, and more methane will be released. And as more methane is released, the temperature rises, and more methane is released, until a new stable situation is arrived at.

The fact that the new situation is stable doesn't mean that it is good, or even tolerable: it merely means that it will be a lasting situation for a while. And if it is a few degrees hotter on average than now, that will be a disaster for life as we know it.

Yours, on a cusp,
N.

On the environment: Pascal's wager

In an attempt to convince non-believers, the great thinker Blaise Pascal argued roughly as follows:
if God exists, and one doesn't believe, the loss is infinite,
if God exists, and one does believe, the gain is infinite, the cost finite
if God doesn't exist and one doesn't believe, the gain is nothing
if God doesn't exist and one does believe, the gain is nothing, the cost finite
He then argues that because the infinite trumps the finite every time, if there is a small probability that God exists then the right choice is to believe.
He is absolutely correct in this simple game, although as many others have pointed out, there are other possibilities which complicate the game, and hence the analysis.
In particular, his assessment of the existence of God was based on faith, not on evidence, and as such, it gives no reason to suppose that there is a positive probability of God existing (there is also, of course, the more powerful objection that it supposes belief in the correct God: there are several religions dominant among humans alone: how do we choose which one?) Wikipedia has a rather nice discussion of the issues raised, and the arguments for and against Pascals ideas.

However, on environmental issues, I think that there is another version of Pascal's wager which is, while perhaps less compelling to those of a religious bent, rather important.

Consider the following: there are those who argue that we are experiencing global warming (G), and those who insist that we are not:
if G exists, and we do nothing, we face catastrophe
if G exists, and we act, we may avert catastrophe, and the cost is moderate
if G doesn't exist and we do nothing, we are fine
if G doesn't exist and we act, the cost is moderate, and we are fine.
Since catastrophe is awful, we ought to act.

The difference for me, as a non-theist, between Pascal's wager and the Global Warming wager, is that Pascal based his argument that the probability of the existence of the all-powerful outcome (in his case, the existence of God) on faith, and not on evidence. The faith was conclusive for him, and hence sufficient to give (for him) a positive probability of the outcome.

The situation with respect to Global Warming is different: there is evidence that Global Warming is happening, and that it may lead to a catastrophic breakdown in the environment. This is the all-powerful outcome: the question is whether there is a positive probability that the scientists who argue for its truth are correct.
As a scientist, I understand that there is no proof: that is a notion reserved to mathematics and logic, in which we can have absolute certainty. The theory of gravitation is a scientific theory: it holds that certain physical situations can be modeled accurately in certain ways: it produces testable predictions, and if a prediction fails, it needs explaining: this leads to modified, improved, or outright new theories: general relativity, for example. These new theories then get tested, modified, etc.

Global warming is somewhat different: it is a post-hoc explanation for an observed phenomenon, namely that average temperatures have increased by a significant amount over the past few years. It is difficult to compare average temperatures to periods before they were measured, and this makes it difficult to judge whether similar situations have existed in the past, or to what extent we are responsible (or should I say irresponsible?) for causing this warming.
Global warming nay-sayers tend to argue that the warming we have seen isn't happening, is natural, has happened before and isn't really all that significant.

I think that the evidence that things have warmed recently is significant: if you study the statistics of records, you can how likely it is that in 100 years of measurements, what is the likelihood that a new record will be set in a given year, and what is the likelihood that new records will be set in, say, three consecutive years. The likelihood that we would have set as many record highs over the past ten years, given a stable weather pattern, is miniscule. Take it over thirty years, and the evidence points not just to things being warmer, but to the trend being continued warming.

I'm not going to argue that the warming is not natural, or that it hasn't happened before: if global warming exists, whether or not it is natural, or has happened before, if it is likely to cause problems, we ought to try to do something about it.

On the fourth point, that global warming is not that significant, I invoke Pascal's wager. There are serious arguments, based on serious evidence, made by serious people, that global warming is likely to be catastrophic. There are scientists, a few, who discount this. But they are few, and they don't argue that to act would be catastrophic, just expensive, or ineffective.

So, the G(lobal) W(arming) version of Pascal's wager is laid.
GW: are you listening?

Yours, just getting warmed up,
N.

Blog Action Day

is coming up tomorrow. The theme is tackling the issue of the environment: the goal is to get as many blogs as possible talking about the theme.
I'm participating: indeed, with the last couple of posts I've accidentally contributed some of my thoughts already.

Are you participating?

Yours, not alone,
N.

I wish for the choice

The question was raised in the comments whether I have signed the Run, Al, Run
petition. I have not yet done so.
I'm dreadfully conflicted on this.
I think that Al Gore would be the best person currently running or being urged to run by more than a few hundred people: the best person to run as a democrat, the most likely to win, and the best person to be president.
I think that the Supreme Court made idiots of themselves seven years ago when they decided to install Bush, on dubious grounds, as president. He has been a disaster, and will live on in history, or rather in infamy, as such.
All that said, I am not sure that I want Al to run. I fear the power of the noisemakers, and I fear the issue of the environment. And I fear that if Al runs, the issue of the environment may become such a noisemaker issue that his running, win or not, could end up making it harder for a Democratic president to make the right sort of differences. Perhaps, just perhaps, standing on the sidelines is the right decision, not for his own future, for his own ambition, but perhaps it is the right decision for the country, and more importantly, for the world.

It is only perhaps, which is why I am still on the fence. And I may yet sign the petition. I just don't know. The environment is just that important. Terrorism is horrendous. 911 was horrific. But the environment could be the end.

Yours, running scared,
N.

A gentler environment

Here's towards a gentler environment, to temperate temperatures, and damper droughts.
And here's to the Nobel Peace Prize making this come to pass sooner rather than never. I like the choice.

Yours, wishing Al would run,
N.

Magic

I have for some time now been the magic person in Boo and Skibo's lives: well, at least equal part-time magic person, with LOML, the equal partner in all of this. But I've been the one doing the really silly magic disappearing sleight of hand: the sorts of things that they should have seen through ages ago. And it gives me a huge thrill, even still, when they look at me with wonder in their eyes, and go "that's magic!".
Today, the one thing that I took home was how to do a magic trick. And I showed it to them. And it worked. Time and time again. Except when it didn't! But when it did, it was great --- and the best part of it is that LOML and my parents watched too, and had no idea how it works:-)

As a friend of mine with IBM (the International Brotherhood of Magicians) puts it, "don't ask how it's done. I'd have to kill you. And I'd hate to have to do that".

Yours, ad abracadastra,
N.

Fresh audience

One of the nice things about having my parents visit is that it gives me a whole new, fresh audience for all of the things that I'm trying out on the culinary front.

After Sunday, when my mother was unimpressed (and justifiably so) with the yorkshire puddings (I turned down the temperature in the oven too soon) and the roast potatoes --- although she did like the roast beef we had: it was superb, if I say so myself --- I made lasagna on Monday. And she and my father were both impressed: it was really good, and they enjoyed it.

Today I did scotch eggs again: and once again, they were really good. Of course, my father won't touch them: he doesn't eat eggs, he doesn't eat sausage, and he won't touch anything which is deep fried. He has good health reasons for this, so I will forgive him.


One more week of their visit: I'll have to put on my thinking cap as to what else to cook for them!

Yours, thinking ahead,
N.

Lasagna again

From scratch, natch. Yesterday I made another batch of fresh pasta, and then LOML used the sauce from Saturday's spaghetti bolognese (well, meat, tomato, etc sauce: it's not really Bolognese, since I use ground beef rather than the veal, pork and beef mix which I've seen used, and I put more tomatoes in than is traditional). Anyway, the sauce was really good, and we managed to get three meals out of it: spag bol once and lasagna yesterday and today.
And so far, the kids have always eaten the homemade lasagna --- even Skibo, who usually insists that he doesn't like noodles of any form. And even my father ate the lasagna, in spite of it having cheese in it...

A suggestion. Pasta is easy to make if you have a food processor and a rolling pin (although this time I actually used the pasta maker LOML bought me a few Christmases back, and it did a lovely job): just combine the appropriate amounts of flour, egg, water, salt, oil in the bowl, process until it's a firm dough, refrigerate for an hour or two, and roll out into lasagna.
And the texture is so different from the store bought noodles in this dish!
And so the suggestion is: try this at home. I'm not a trained professional!

Yours, amateurishly,
N.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all in Canada, and to all not in Canada who want to help them celebrate! We had a feast with friends yesterday, and though they weren't Canadian, at least they were from Vermont, which is close.

Yours, gratefully,
N.

A link to the Weekend Update on SNL

A link to the piece by Chevy Chase last night on Weekend Update on
Saturday Night Live:
this is hosted by the good folks at crooksandliars.com, which is why I link to their post rather than to the videos.
If you like (or detest) american politics, check it out!

Yours, linking,
N.

Oh please, oh please

Saturday Night Live: please bring back Chevy Chase on a permanent basis!
Brilliant news spoof.

Yours, begging,
N.

Closed Captioning

BBC America has a very funny announcement running at the moment: something along the lines of John Oliver (the British guy from the Daily Show with Jon Stewart) saying something like: "This programme contains accents that you'd have heard a lot more of if you hadn't thrown our tea into Boston Harbour", followed by a woman explaining, also in a British accent, how to turn on the closed captioning on the television.

The best part about it? It is not closed captioned!

Yours, non-self-referentially,
N.

Origami

A personal record: I did some origami with Boo and Skibo earlier, at Boo's request: so I precreased a simple paper airplane, and then folded another one alongside her, while she folded the pre-creased one: she did a wonderful job, and I felt very proud of her:-)
And then Skibo asked me to make him, and to show him how to make, a boat. Let's see: Skibo is just 3. Origami with a three year old. Even pre-creased, there's only one word. Well, two: challenge, and crazy.
I'm always up for a challenge. So I pre-creased a couple of simple boats: it is one of the classic origami pieces which is great to start with for beginners, and I have to say, he did a wonderful job of folding it. I had to help him a very little bit, but basically, he's done his first origami. At three years and two months old.

Yours, creased with a smile,
N.

Friday. Fish and Chips

Beer batter (couple of cups of flour, couple of bottles of beer, a little salt, baking powder, cayenne pepper, whisked, chilled for about an hour). Deep fried. Good.

Of course, my father had onion soup left from the previous day, and then baked beans on brown rice. But the rest of us had fish and chips. I did a mix of fish: some cod, some tilapia and some (relatively local) large shrimp. All good, but the shrimp were amazing!

Yours, in a case of salt and battery,
N.

In praise of Burma

I discovered a few years ago that the country I had known in geography classes as Burma was now called Myanmar. This struck me as a pain (having to learn yet another new name) and yet probably justified: if the Chinese don't call Beijing by a name which sounds like Peking, we probably shouldn't either. And I assumed that Burma --- Myanmar was the same.
Today, however, I discovered that the name "Myanmar" was adopted by the military regime, and has been opposed by those opposed to the regime. And given the brutal nature of the current repression of dissent going on in Burma, I feel that the US, British and other governments are fully justified in the use of the name Burma for the time being.

Yours, because I care about getting names right,
N.

What a day in politics!
Bush shows that he really cares about kids, but only the really poor ones, and even then, not that much. Even Republicans are mad at him for this veto...
It looks as if the two Koreas, North and South, are ready to sign a peace agreement: unfortunately, since the US was a signatory to the ceasefire, they also need to sign off on the peace, and at the moment are unwilling to do so. Yay! Let's keep that 50 year old dead war going!
Larry Craig is denied the right to withdraw his guilty plea, and decides as a result that he will remain in the Senate until the end of his term, rather than resigning last week...
And finally, the Republicans have released their logo for their national convention next summer. In Minneapolis, just down the street from the airport. Yes, that airport, the Larry Craig airport. And the logo appears to be an elephant. With what to me appears to be a rather wide stance.

Yours, depressed, amazed and amused,
N.

Sputnik: 50 years ago today

This morning, as is my wont, I went to wend my weary way to the cafe --- to fill my veins with caffeine before I needed to use my brain.
And in the cafe, the baristas were wearing little orange pointy things on wires attached to headbands on their heads. My immediate thought was "but Sputnik wasn't orange was it??" only to realize that it is already October, and hence they were wearing early hallowe'en costumes.

Yours, in error, spookily
N.

Retro design

As promised, a picture of the retro breadbox....

Yours, reliving the fifties (for the first time, since I missed the original)
N.

Parents and food

I sometimes think that there is a hope that one day my children will eat more different foods than my parents will! Actually, my mother is willing to try most things, and has an open mind too -- but my father is extremely set in his ways.
The strangest thing about this, though, is that he actually likes an enormous variety of foods, appreciates very spicy foods, likes lots of different flavours, etc -- but at the same time, he's absolutely unwilling to try new things.

Very strange. At least he's easily satisfied with a can of beans. And he did try the paella, and enjoy it (though I had to make two batches, one with squid, one without....)

By comparison, so far, at under 5, Boo and Skibo eat a relatively diverse range of foods -- relative to their friends, whose cuisines consist of just noodles, noodles with cheese, or just cheese, that is. I'm actually quite hopeful that they are both about to blossom, food wise!

Yours, in anticipation... of decades ahead, probably,
N.

Bread box photos

will be coming. As soon as I find the camera, take some pictures, download the photos, upload the photos, download the photos, upload the photos (yes, you read the last four steps correctly) and pick which ones to show you.

Who'd have thought so many people would want to see a picture of a $7.50 breadbox!

Yours, cheap at half the price,
N.

Grrrr.....

Stuff'n'fuff'n'fruff'n Microsoft.
I've just spent an hour trying to get OpenOffice to work with MS's new, supposedly "open" format, .docx. Only to discover what everyone else has. It's a pain in the frigging proverbial parts. And there are idiots out there who insist on saving documents in the format that MS chooses as the default, so that it makes it difficult for others to open them..... One of whom pestered LOML this evening saying "I sent you the file in .docx format: I saved it but I can't open it any more". AAAARRRRGGGHHH I find clueless users so frustrating on occasion.
And I'm not referring to LOML here.

Yours, growling dangerously,
N.

A retro Bread Box

No, not me. What I found in the local dollar store today. A steal at $7.50.
No, I didn't steal it. I bought it, though!

Yours, eponymously,
N.

Saturday night, recorded

Time was when I would have been sitting here, in front of the tv, waiting for the first new show of the season. Saturday Night Live was a great show, hilarious, before I used to watch it. When I started watching it, so I am told, it became insipid by comparison. And after watching it and laughing at it for years, each year thinking that it is less funny than the last, I think that I have figured it out. It used to be funny, it is funny, and it will be funny in the future.

And now, sitting here in front of the new season, it is pretty funny. At least the first sketch.

Even if I'm not recording it!

Yours, not in Kansas any more,
N.

Paella

Unable to find paella rice (Bomba, from Spain, or a similar product from Mexico) we went with the next best thing -- arborio rice, which we always have on hand for making risotto.
I did a fairly traditional seafood/chicken/pork paella, that is to say, completely inauthentic. I put a heavy sear on a couple of thick pork chops, some strips of chicken breast, some andouille sausage (because in this enlightened time, in this enlightened place, chorizo is unobtainable... at least in the three stores we went to) and then sauteed an onion, some garlic, and some diced tomatoes.
Threw in some arborio rice, some stock, saffron, and at the end some shrimp and some squid.
LOML had always seemed uninterested in my making this --- and then on tasting it, had a change of opinion. A broad smile, accompanied by "Oh, my god, this is good.... I should have let you make this ten years ago..."


Perhaps I'll post a slightly more detailed recipe soon...
Yours, vindicated,
N.

Batten down the hatches, we're in for the long haul

It seems that we are in for the long haul. LOML, and all the others working there, have decided to try to stick it out to the end of the academic year. We're hoping that things will settle down again to a regular routine, and at least in the short term it's going to mean more hours (and, we are promised, more money to make up for it!) for LOML. So instead of anticipating a few class periods off for preparation, extra classes await....
But the uncertainty seems to have been replaced by a hesitant assurance that things are going to work out. At least for the year.

Yours, hoping for an on-track mind,
N.

How long?

Yesterday, before we went to pick my parents up from the airport, I was prepping the kids for the fact that we were going to pick them up:
"Will it be long" asked Skibo.
"Yes", I replied, "About two hours".
"That's not long", was his response, "if you count it like this!"
And he held up two fingers to count two hours.....

Yours, counting on him,
N.

Braised ribs

The traditional question asked of my parents: what do you want for dinner tonight? My father as always is of the opinion that baked beans on wholewheat toast makes a fine dinner. My mother thinks he is crazy.
We compromise: he can have baked beans tonight, we'll join him, but cook some things to go with it besides: so I marinated some country-style pork ribs in cider vinegar, grapefruit juice, lime, molasses, honey, mustard, soy, ginger and garlic. I'm not a 100% sure I can pick out every single flavour in the finished product, but it's good, so I keep using the recipe.
After marinating for a few hours (overnight would have been better, but I only had hours) I put them into a 350 oven, turned it down to 300 after half an hour, and cooked them covered for about two hours, then uncovered for a while.
Finally I took the ribs out of the marinade, and reduced it by about two thirds, then put the ribs back in.
Baked beans, broccoli, ribs. And wholewheat bread to go with it.
Plain. Simple. Plain and simply good.

Yours, been baked,
N.

Parents arrive

My parents arrive.

The children play with their grandma and grandpa.
Grandpa and Grandma play with grandson and granddaughter.
Kids are too excited to sleep easily.
Other than that last point, life is good.

Yours, en famille,
N.

Sporadic posting to come?

My parents fly in this afternoon, coming to visit for three weeks --- and so things are going to be even more hectic than they are usually. Consequently, posting may slow down even a little more than it has for the past week or so....

Yours, busily preparing,
N.

Update on things coming to a head

It seems that LOML's friend, colleague and erstwhile semi-boss at the school has decided to quit: the administration has not taken the highschool seriously, and it appears that last straws have been placed and camels' backs broken.
Whether LOML follows suit is yet to be determined: at the moment we are playing it day by day, and we'll be okay with whatever happens. Eventually.

Yours, in limbo,
N.

Passing nice along

This is tough. Not such a surprise, of course.
But it is difficult to pick just seven people.
And especially to suggest by omission that others
are not nice: I most certainly do not mean that at all.

So I have chosen some people:
Cornish Dreamer
The Magpie Files
Awareness
BurntOfferings
ImagineOmit...
Carmi
Michele
All of the above have had nice words for me or for others recently: and as far as I know, have not received the award already.... and if they have, then they get a chance to nominate some more people for this nice award.

Yours, trying to be nice in passing,
N.

Trouble at 't mill

It seems that there may possibly be big changes ahead in our life. There has been tension under the surface with LOML's job, and it now appears that things have come to enough of a head that it may be time to move on. This may be the time at which to choose to leave a broken enterprise, rather than staying and trying to stand between the ship and the iceberg.
This will be a shame for many reasons, almost all of them good ones.

As for now, we may be hours or even minutes from knowing more.
Yours, in turmoil,
N.

Award

The gentle Bob-Kat has kindly bestowed upon me an award: and it is a particularly nice one to be awarded too: the "Nice Matters" award: Bob-Kat, thank you! I'm very grateful to you!

I'm apparently now able to give this award to another seven people: this is going to take some thought, because there are a lot of bloggers around that I know, and the ones whose blogs I hang out on tend to be nice people in the first place.
Getting down to seven could be tough!
Anyway, keep an eye on this space --- I'll announce my choices in the next few days....

Now, I guess I have to be nice to everyone:-)

Yours, gratefully,
N.

Exhaustion

Well, it's been a long weekend -- thank goodness it's over, so I can get back to work and get some decent rest!
Yesterday and today we had birthday parties to go to: friends of Boo and Skibo turning 4 and 5 respectively. Attending birthday parties with small children is rather exhausting: they are small enough to still need attention at the party (Skibo in particular is always turning to me or LOML, throwing up his arms, and saying "Hold me! Hold me!" which we're doing less and less frequently now that he's hitting close to 40 pounds!)
While yesterday's party was at an indoor, but superheated, pool, this afternoon's bash was at the child's (parents') house. And the party was outside, from 1 to 3 pm. And the mercury hit 90 degrees F, which is something like "'kin' hot" in Celsius! Fortunately there were some trees, so there was some shade... Still, a very pleasant party, and the birthday boy ended up being the one to split open the pinata, which seemed appropriate!

And then we went out to B's (and his parents) for dinner: burgers and fries, home made, and delicious. And so now, stuffed and satisfied, children asleep, I'm sitting with laptop on lap, watching Corner Gas, and waiting to put the next few days bread in the oven.

So even though I'm still exhausted, I feel pretty good....

Yours, satisfied, but not smug,
N.

Heated swimming pool

We went to a birthday party for B today --- he turned 4, and they held his birthday party at the local recreation centre: a nice space, but it seemed like they were unready for the party. Firstly, there were several large exercise balls in a box in the room --- perfect for the kids to play with, run around after, etc. After five minutes, however, the staff came into the room and asked that we not play with them. I have no problem with the request, but they might have actually told us ahead of time, rather than disappointing the kids in the middle of their fun.
And then when it came time to swim, it took some arguing to get them to let us use the pool. Apparently someone had mis-set the thermostat for the kids pool, and instead of being 89 or 90 F, the temperature was 95: it is amazing what a difference 5 degrees can make to the way that the pool felt!

Still, if you are going to sweat, I guess that doing it in a swimming pool is the best place!

Yours, wet.
N.

I ought to be happy

I made marinated shrimp this evening for supper, together with a lettuce salad with a marinated mushroom, artichoke hearts, peppers and nuts salad to go with it. Absolutely delicious --- except to Boo and Skibo.

They usually like shrimp: LOML's assessment was that it was because I marinated them: probably, this is the case, but it still didn't make me happy.

On the other hand, they both chose to eat large quantities of my wholewheat bread, downing it with great gusto, and it is full of good things like oatmeal, so I don't mind so much that they won't yet eat grown up food.

Yours, just minding a little,
N.

The Jena six

I consider myself, usually, rather well informed. I try to keep up with the news, especially when it is of a political nature, or when it has a political dimension. But this issue of the "Jena six" blew in last week from, it appeared to me, nowhere.

It is clear that it didn't come from nowhere --- but it is equally clear that the mainstream media has been more interested in covering, say, the tribulations of Paris than the trials of Jena.

As near as I can follow, the events went roughly as follows: a young african american student at the school in Jena asked some caucasian students about sitting under a tree, a tree which the white students typically reserved for themselves. A little while later, days, not weeks, nooses appeared hanging from the tree. This sparked conflicts: for those not aware of the symbolism in the US, especially the deep South, of nooses hanging from trees, please, go read up on it.
A little while later there was a schoolyard brawl, which left a white boy unconscious, although he was up and about later in the day, and out partying that evening.

Six african american students were charged, five of them as adults: the five charged as adults were charged with attempted murder. One of them went to trial and was convicted. By an all white jury. Subsequently, an appeals court overturned the conviction, stating that he should not have been charged as an adult.

It feels like we are living back in the middle of the last century here. The biggest difference I see between this case and something in the 1950's is that in the 50's they would have had to rely on the Supreme Court to right the wrong: now this level of justice has filtered down to the appellate courts.

But where has the national media been on this issue? Covering Simpson, Hilton, Spears?

Update: see this article.

Yours, disgusted,
N.

Memory problems?

Our illustrious president yesterday: “You know, you need to talk to economists. I think I got a B in Econ 101. I got an A, however, in keeping taxes low and being fiscally responsible with the people’s money.”
Apparently his memory is mistaken. Yale records indicate that he got a C- in his introductory economics course.

Yours, on the margins,
N.

Autographic humour

Self-writing jokes: they abound in the following news story: apparently male patients may one day be able to use stem cells generated from their testicles to repair various other organs, including heart, kidneys, or possibly even the brain.

Yours, counting the jokes,
N.

Food to come

On the menu in the near future: things I really want to cook again, or try cooking for the first time:
- Paella: this is a dish I used to make often, but haven't for a while: the big problem with it is it is impossible to make (as far as I can tell) for just a couple of people. It's top of my list. It will happen, perhaps as soon as a week or so from now.
- Pork pies: I've mentioned this English specialty before: hot water crust, jellied filling, served cold, with cheese, a salad and a glass of beer, a lunch fit for a ploughman. Now, I don't exactly plough the fields, but I am pretty scattered, so perhaps that will suffice.
- Pate: a good honest French country pate, served with a crusty batard, a glass of wine: the French equivalent of the ploughman's lunch.
- Scotch eggs: I'm going to make these while my parents are here -- my father won't eat them, for health reasons, but my mother will.

Yours, hungry,
N.

My own little corner of the world

While in Canada this past winter and spring I came to enjoy two rather quirky, lovely shows: one of them, about muslim Canadians and their interactions with their neighbours was far too edgy (i.e. tolerant) to make it on US television. The other one, however, has been picked up by WGN out of Chicago. The show is called Corner Gas and is about life in a small town in the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan: it ought to appeal, I would think, to many midwestern prairie communities, and as such stands a chance of remaining available. I just noticed tonight that there are a bunch of episodes being played over the next few days: if you get WGN, do check out this show. It is an absolute quirk.

Yours, amused,
N.

Mr Chairman, tear down that wall!

Oh! They did! Apparently the NY Times has decided that their "NYT select" feature, that is, restricting access to their opinion columns to paying customers, has not worked. And they've tanked the program!

I must admit, it took them longer to realise that this was a bad idea than I thought it would. After all, if you want to be the paper of record, the paper of influence, you need people reading, of all things, the op-ed pages! To restrict access to those seemed ridiculous. Their whole business model is based on them being the big hitter in newspapers of influence, and they take away half of that influence????
It was clear that things were changing back a few months ago, when they opened free access up to students, professors, and anyone else lucky enough to have a .edu account. The fact that it took another six months to finish off the program suggests to me that there are a lot of internet-unsavvy "professionals" working for the gray lady still.


Yours, in freedom,
N.

A teacher's delight

As I have mentioned before, I teach an origami class --- or more precisely, I lead an origami club at the Montessori school: it is lots of fun: there are a dozen students who have turned up so far, and potentially a few more. They are nice kids, polite, excited, happy and eager to learn origami.
And then there are delightful moments like yesterday: I took Boo and Skibo to gymnastics class, and they had just run out onto the floor to practice when there was a little tug at my elbow: I looked down, and there were two big eyes, and a quiet voice saying "You're my origami teacher!". She was just thrilled to see me there! I made sure I watched some of her routine on the bar, and at one point, her trainer came over to me and said "She is *so* glad that you were watching: she really wanted to know if her origami teacher was watching her!

Yours, pleased,
N.

Weather

The autumn, or more correctly here, the fall, is the loveliest time of the year in the South Eastern part of the US (not Florida, that's a region unto itself). The temperatures begin to moderate: we've had lows in the high fifties the past few nights, which means that the house can get cool again without the use of air conditioners: the highs can still be pretty warm: next week they're forecasting highs of 87 --- but it doesn't get warm as early in the day, and the evenings cool off much faster.
We have a lovely deck on the back of our house, and at this time of year we love to eat outside: for a couple of months more, I hope, especially salads and food where the ambient temperature isn't going to ruin the food.
And although it isn't quite as stunning as the North East, the trees are about to start turning colour: the maples, especially, but also the dogwoods and some others give hues of burning red, deep purples, as well as browns, tans and yellows.
Around our house, in particular, there is something special: we have a number of fragrant tea olives: these have tiny little white flowers which appear at various times of the year: we seem to have some that flower in late September, and others that bloom in May too: anyway, in September we get a couple of weeks of beautifully, delicately scented environments. And as delicate as it is, it can carry for a good distance: fifty yards away, on the town square, there is still a hint of it carried on the breeze.

Yours, falling for the season to come,
N.

Tagged

Well, it had to happen. After all that relative anonymity of the internet, I got tagged. Fortunately, it is not like getting tagged by wildlife biologists --- no tranquilizer darts or anything like that!
No, I've been tagged by the gentle Gautami, of My Own Little Reading Room.

My reading: My reading has all but vanished in the past few years: since the children came on the scene (Boo in 02, Skibo in 04) I have found that reading for my own pleasure has become rarer and rarer. It may also have something to do with aging eyes: I now have to wear reading glasses for close work, and half of the time don't seem to have a pair handy!
That said, I still read stuff for work (and it may be terribly boring to many people, but I can find poetry in the way some people write about my subject!) Since there are lots of excellent books being written for a scientifically literate but non-professional audience these days, there are a number of good things to read in that realm too.
When I read other things, it is a mixture mainly of fiction (mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, and whatever category Harry Potter etc fall into), non-fiction political (mainly a leftwing perspective, so as not to elevate bloodpressure), and especially cookbooks. I love reading cookbooks: dipping into a recipe here and there, constructing it in my head. It will take me days, weeks or months to actually have the courage to try something new, sometimes, but I have lots of fun with it in my head first!

Total number of books owned: I have no good idea. At least a thousand. Probably less than five thousand. All our bookshelves are at least triple stacked: we had about a thousand books when we moved here ten years ago, and have bought a lot since then. If I had to guess, I'd say perhaps three thousand. I've read about three quarters of them.

Last book bought: I bought five at once:
- the Caleb Carr mystery The Italian Secretary, commissioned by the Conan Doyle estate.
- The Silver Palate Cookbook
- A bread book, a book on italian cooking and a book on how to make your own liqueurs. These were all bought at my local used bookstore, and hence were very reasonably priced.

Last book read: The Golden Compass (aka The Northern Lights, a title which makes much more sense to me!) by Philip Pullman. For some reason, I am finding it much harder to get into the sequel, The Subtle Knife than I did the first book.
I'm currently reading The Subtle Knife, as well as several techical texts.

Five meaningful books: as Gautami said, five is far too few for this category, so I will try to list five categories, and at least one (and not too many more) in each category. And by meaningful, I mean that these books were important in terms of how I became the person I became: your mileage may, of course, vary:-) My usage of importance here reflects the postmodernist view that a book can only be understood in the context of the reader, and it surprises me to find myself saying that!
1. For children and grownups, fiction: The Little Prince, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Illusions, the Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
2. For grownups, farce: Will Sharpe's books, John Irving's earlier books
3. For grownups, more serious fare: Godel, Escher, Bach, an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. These two books I read in the same month in 1981: and while I subsequently found lots to differ with, I still think that they are brilliant books. Often wrong, but still brilliant.
4. For the sheer beauty of the writing on a technical subject: Feynman's Lectures on Physics, Korner's Fourier Analysis and Conway's The Sensuous Quadratic Form.
5. Poetry, because I love to read it to the children: Eliot's much maligned but still lyrical Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (because the children ask for poems from it every night), Don Marquis' archy and mehitabel.

I'm tagging: to my friends whom I have tagged, if you choose not to spend the time doing this, be assured I won't be insulted. To the friends I didn't name, please feel free to consider yourself tagged, and let me know you are doing it!
Cornish Dreamer
Awareness
Mamacita
Written Inc.
The Magpie Files


All those tagged can tag 5 people each. Leave a comment on the tagees blog letting them know they have been tagged, and link from your blog to theirs so I can get nosy too!

Yours, as read.
N.

A simple supper

A flask of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou

and to cease quoting Khayaam/Fitzgerald (a dreadful translation, apparently, but a lovely transliteration into poetry!) some cheese and sausage too: we'll have all that for supper and it will just have to do.
Actually, we are rather looking forward to it. We went to the Whole Foods yesterday afternoon after our bed-buying expedition: they are a more organic-friendly store than most grocery chains (and have a consequent nickname "whole paycheck") and I had not made it there since they opened a year or two ago. Somehow, driving 45 minutes to a grocery store seems like rather more than a weekly chore.
Especially with two small sprogs in tow. We ended up cutting the trip shorter than we might otherwise have done: the children were being good, but there is only so much good in a three or a four year old child, and we wanted to miss the eruption.
But we did take time to take in the cheese selection: quite a variety of cheeses not to be found in the regular stores around here: hence our plans for supper this evening.
Unfortunately the very reasonably priced, very nice looking block of Parmigiano Reggiano Stravecchio got left out for about 10 minutes after we got home. This wouldn't be a problem, were it not for the fact that a cat managed to jump up to the counter, rip the plastic wrapping it, and gouge most of it away: a huge crater in the block, the size of a small saucer. That darned cat!

But LOML and I have decided, together with our friends, B's parents, that one day soon we are going to get a babysitter, and go. Just us grownups. For a nice day out to the grocery store.

Yours, simply put,
N.

Pick up your bed and drive

My parents are coming to visit in a couple of weeks, for the first time in almost a year that either LOML's or mine have come over: and in the interim the sprogs have grown bigger, and we have moved rooms around, and there is now nowhere for visitors to stay.
And so today we went on a trek: to find temporary sleeping quarters for LOML and me to use while parents use our nice big comfortable bed. Our thought is to put a bed/sofa in the children's room, so we can use it to sit and read most of the time, and as emergency sleeping when needed.
The problem is that our house is a mishmash of post revolutionary style: there are parts of the house that we can easily date back to 1870, and for various historical, stylistic and other reasons, we believe that about a third of the structure dates back to 1820 or so. And the rest of the house was added on in 1914 and 1970.
As a result, there is no rhyme nor reason to our layout; and the room we'd like to put the sofa-bed into has a door which is only 28 inches wide. Apparently this means that our option is precisely a futon: it is the only sort of sofa-bed which we can find around here which will fit through the door.
Complicated up-and-downsides apart, we found a futon set we like, and are going to phone and order it tomorrow, so that we have time to make space for where it will sit before it gets delivered.
So we didn't actually drive the bed, it will get driven to us.

Yours, unsprung,
N.

Remnants

We got remnants today. Of Hurricane Humberto (I have to say, I pity the fool: imagine being a hurricane on the playground, and all the other little storms running about and teasing you about how your forecasters named you Humberto!)
And it was thrilling --- mainly because we got a quarter inch or more of much needed rain (the first in months: we are really dry, so dry that even CNN has noticed whenever we are threatened by a good drenching storm). Well, the rain was part of it: the other thrilling part was the four of us huddling in the interior bathroom as the tornado warning system siren wailed its earsplitting noise (we live yards away from the siren, which means we will never sleep through a warning!). It doesn't go off too often (since the detached the fire station warning siren from it) and we've not had a tornado touch down in the little town since we moved her ten years ago. With luck this will continue:-)

Strange the effect rain has on the psyche: LOML is uplifted, thinking of the garden (and not having to water it). I was lowered: not depressed, exactly, but not made joyful. I think that it was the darkness it dropped over the area. Boo and Skibo? Ran outside to run around in it, until the lightning!

Yours, in a flash
N,

Sometimes I sit here

Sometimes I sit here, as I have at least a couple of times this week, and think:
"I have nothing at all to say", and even worse, "I have nothing at all to say that would be of interest to anyone reading this blog".

Well, on occasions like that I have to remind myself that I am writing this blog for myself, and not for those who read it: and if I write boring stuff that you don't want to read, that's okay: just don't read it!

Please don't get me wrong: I love the fact that there are people out there who visit me, and love even more the fact that some of you comment of your own accord! And so many of those who visit via other blogs ("Hi Michele!" [waves]) also contribute words of wisdom, not just words of hello!
But I am writing this for me, as an act of fun, an act of discipline, and an act of middle-aged rebellion:-) (It's cheaper than a sports car, and much less damaging to a marriage than having a lover!) Mainly the fun part, and a little bit of discipline: trying, for example to write something, no matter how trite, each day for a while.

Having just annoyed the hell out of everyone who visits, let me just say thanks, thanks, thanks for visiting anyway in spite of the trite, ignoring the boring, and for leaving words, often of wisdom!

Of course, I still have nothing to say today.

Yours, gratefully, if boringly,
N.

And what does today hold?

Any more bad surprises on the horizon?

Yours, apprehensively,
N.

Add more to the list

It seems that Blackbird and Badger need adding to the list of Bad things happen to good bloggers too.

Yours, in sympathy,
N.

Prescience

A hat-tip to Keith Olbermann this evening, who quoted H. L. Mencken: I couldn't resist posting it here too.

“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, or self-respect, it is cruelly hard…

“The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even a mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second or third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

“The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

—H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Yours, pre-impressed!
N.

On beliefs

Religion is a personal thing. And living in the south in the US, and having "different" beliefs than the majority, I've grown used to keeping silent about what I believe, and more importantly, what I don't believe.

I started this post this evening thinking about how I understand the comfort that a belief in an afterlife gives us. Even without such a belief, I could smile at the thought that Wally is about to walk in on Susan, and she'll have the teapot on the stove, tea stewing just the way she always made it. It was always Red Rose tea.
Only in Canada, eh? Pity. There goes that thought.

Still, the thought did make me smile, and led me to thinking about how much joy Wally had lost from his life in the past few years -- the chance to walk in the woods listening to nature (he never could understand why someone would want to listen to a walkman when you could listen to the birds, and the wind in the trees, and the rustling of the leaves and....) -- his beloved Susan -- etc.
And while I am not happy for him now, perhaps I am comfortable for him.

But then the thoughts turned: Boo and Skibo both decided they needed to say the blessing at dinner. This was a surprise, as we don't say a blessing. And we didn't know they knew one either. But apparently, in two different classrooms they are teaching the same blessing at lunchtime: this looks more like school policy than an individual teacher's initiative. And it is one that we are not too comfortable with: we wish to talk to our children about spiritual issues, issues of faith and religion, on our own schedule, to help them come to terms with what they believe, rather than to have society force it down their throats.

LOML and I have similar beliefs: we don't talk about them much, because they are not that important a part of our lives: we place more importance on who and how we are in the world, how we treat others and the world, than on theological issues. I can talk only for myself, as a result, about why I believe or do not believe.

I think that it would be an act of supreme hubris for me to believe in a personal deity interested in my every action and my well being. And while I can conceive of a goodness-monitor deity, I don't see any evidence of a personal guardian angel in most lives around me --- it's the "would god permit misery" question. I see no evidence to believe. As far as which belief system to believe in, I see so many, all proclaiming loudly that they alone know the one true belief, that were I to want to believe, I think that I'd be swamped by options!
In short, in some ways I see religion, not as the opiate of the masses, but more like fast food: it is convenient, filling if not nourishing, you can easily get used to relying on it, but I don't see any real evidence for the good that it does.

Please understand that I do not object in the slightest to your beliefs, especially if your beliefs do not hurt me, do not affect me; I am even happy to discuss them with you, provided that you treat me and my beliefs, or lack of the, with the same respect I grant to yours. I'd rather you don't think of trying to convert me, and I'll try not to ask too many difficult questions of your beliefs: I don't want to challenge you unless you want your ideas challenged. But please, I'd rather talk to my children about these things before anyone else does.

Yours, in disbelief,
N.

Goodbye Wally

I just got sad news about a friend of mine: back between my school years and going to college I spent a year in New Brunswick in Canada: while I was there I was pretty much adopted by friends of the family: Wally and Susan. They were almost like second parents, feeding me, taking me with them on trips to the lake, including me in their family.
Susan passed away about 18 months ago, and today I just heard that Wally died a couple of days ago. He wasn't old, still not quite 70, I think, but he'd been in bad health for a while.

When I met him, Wally was the head of the maintenance department at the local hospital: and a few weeks later, I ended up getting a job in his department: he was a good boss: he made people work hard, but he taught people well, and if you worked hard he praised you for it. I learned a lot from him, about all sorts of practical life issues.

When he became too senior for the hospital's liking, he was eased out to make way for cheaper, younger labour. He took a job in the forests, thinning silver birch, until a nasty accident a few years ago nearly felled him, and took away his livelihood: he was left almost blind, without a sense of balance, and unable to walk in his beloved outdoors.

Last year, his other great love was taken away too: Susan died, leaving him with just his children, particularly his daughter, to care for him. Which she did wonderfully.

I got a chance to talk to Wally and his daughter for a while in April: I am so glad that I got a chance to see him one last time: it was difficult to see him so changed from the hale and hearty outdoorsman he had been, but it was still good to see him.

Goodbye, old bear, I'll miss you.
Resquiat in pacem.

Yours, in memoriam,
N.

Ugh. What an unpleasant few days for my friends

I hope that fate is soon going to stop beating my friends and blogfriends up.
It has been a rough few days: a couple of weeks ago, Kenju had bad news: a few days later, a friend here went through something similar (he too is undergoing a good recovery: better than might be expected). Burntofferings have gone through some extremely trying times. Then Bob-Kat had her bad news, a friend here in town's father died last weekend, and last but not least, Carmi's son has a nasty accident.
Okay fate. Quit it. Now. Please?

Yours, distressed,
N.

Predicting the future: nightmares ahead

Friday night LOML and I went out to dinner -- an old friend, Sue, was in town, and her mother-in-law wanted to take us all out to dinner at a restaurant on the lake. As it turned out, this was a wonderfully nice thing for her to do, but I wish that she would have taken us to our favourite place, across the parking lot -- the food was not great, and the service was laughably bad.
We were seated quickly, and the view was nice: our waiter came over immediately, and asked us if we wanted to order drinks. No wine menu. It took him a minute or two to find one -- no problem there, but could you give us a minute to actually look at the wine menu (and the food menu too) before deciding? Perhaps bring us some water? Tell us the specials?
One of the specials apparently comes with ganache-y as a side: I am able to figure out what he means, but Sue misses it and asks: finally she gets that he is talking about gnocchi.
We order wine. He brings back an open bottle, and we are able to tell at a glance, almost instinctively, that this is not the one we ordered. Oh yes it is, he insists, pointing to the winery name on the label. Oh no, it isn't, we insist, pointing out that merlots are usually red, and like most chardonnays this is white.
He apologizes profusely, and heads back to the wine station, brings a bottle (unopened this time), shows the label and proceeds to not open it. He tries to open it, just can't quite figure out that the corkscrew needs to be further into the cork. A lot further in. LOML suggests that one of us can perhaps help, and in short order the cork is released.
The service was okay from this point on, not good, but not awful either. The food: mine was okay, LOML's was apparently awful: Sue took forever eating hers, and her mother-in-law proclaimed it wonderful. Of course, I am not sure that her MIL actually knows much about good food....
At least we had a very pleasant evening.

Anyway, I enjoy watching Doctor Who, and here they are showing new episodes on Friday nights -- but that's okay, since we have TiVo now: I recorded the new episode, so I could watch it Saturday evening instead. The kids have decided that they want LOML to read them to sleep, and I sit down to watch Doctor Who. However, as is often the case, Skibo is bored with the book LOML's reading to Boo, and wanders into the living room. He stands, transfixed, mouth agape. And another Doctor Who fan is born. I can see the nightmares now, and am ready for weeks ahead with him hiding behind the sofa during the scary parts!

This weekend was also the premiere of the new spinoff series Torchwood --- it was okay: the pacing worked, I liked the reappearance of Captain Jack Harkness from an earlier series of DW: I watched the episode twice, as there were a few things I missed first time round, and the second viewing certainly helped a bit. Not sure that it is going to work: we'll have to see. I'll give it a try for a few weeks, probably.

Yours, with thrills, chills and dinner spills,
N.

Remembering the past

Today, of course, is the anniversary of the planes flying into the twin towers, and the pentagon. I remember the horror of the day, the weeks and months following: the anger and sadness. And I remember discovering something about myself following that: I had forgotten how to deal with this sort of gash in the skin of daily life.
Growing up in the UK, we had to deal on a regular basis with terror inflicting itself into our world. Not just the pub and car bombings, though growing up near Windsor, a regular target, these were a big deal. But also the threats against Heathrow airport: I remember the week when we had to drive through a police/army cordon every day to get to school, having to get out, and having the car searched, guards looking under the car with mirrors on poles, for all the world like shrunken DDR dentists.

What I forgot was how I used to cope with horror: how to let it upset, distress and worry me, but how not to let it paralyze: how to learn to deal with the distress without letting fear take control. In short, how not to let the Bush league use the situation to their advantage.

Now, the US never had the "advantage" that the UK had: they had had only a few major incidents over the decades: Pearl Harbor, the Oklahoma bombing, perhaps the first World Trade Center bombing: these were not enough to inure the people, to let them learn that in spite of fear, life can go on: that one can be vigilant without being racist: etc.

But every time I start thinking this way, feeling vaguely superior because I know intellectually that fear need not paralyze me, I remember that it did paralyze me for days, weeks after the attacks.

And also, I remember that the UK is now essentially a land without privacy, and I am not happy about that. Although I hope that in the long run a land without privacy will eventually lead to a culture and a civilization which is more permissive of no-harm transgressions, I am not sure how long this will take, and whether the cost to pay now is too high.

I do want to emphasize: I don't want to minimize the tragedy of 9/11. But at the same time, I don't want to allow the tragedy to be taken over by anyone for their own political purposes.

Yours, in rumination. Like a cow.
N.

Barking seals

Almost every parent knows what's coming next in this post. We now have two little barking seals. One of them, Boo, just wakes herself up with the coughing, and needs to sleep with us. And so we bring her into our room, where she can sleep better knowing we are there.
But Skibo wakes a little later -- I almost don't hear him, it's so quiet -- a rasping, difficult breathing that scares. And so I turn on the shower to hot, sit in the bathroom with him on my lap while the poor wee thing sits and tries to catch his breath. It's the croup -- and it's not cold enough outside to use the cold air trick: so moist air in the shower it has to be.
Eventually, I end up sleeping on Skibo's bed, with him in with Boo and LOML. The bed is uncomfortable for an adult, and the sleep is a long time coming for me, and punctuated by frequent near-waking moments.
I'm not worried for the children ---I know that while we are watching them they should be okay.... I hope.


Yours, in need of an earlier night tonight,
N.

More relaxing

More relaxing was required today. Last week was not a good one for LOML at work, and so we needed downtime, relaxation, recovery, so that next week can be faced fresh.
After videoconferencing with LOML's parents (which we do every Sunday morning) we went to the botanical gardens for a walk -- it is finally just unbearably hot enough to do that before midday, and it was a very pleasant morning, throwing leftover bread to the ducks and geese, exploring the trails, etc.
This afternoon I cooked a bolognese-ish style sauce for meals a couple of evenings this week, and cooked a roast chicken for dinner. The kids sat in front of the tv for a couple of hours, which usually would bother me, but they both have seal-barking coughs, and we didn't want them running around too much, so we chose the cheap way out.
I also spoke to my parents: it looks like they are going to come out to visit in a few weeks time, which will be wonderful (though we are probably going to have to spend a few dollars on a sofa-bed so LOML and I can sleep in with the sprogs while they are here!
All in all a nice weekend.

Yours, contented.
N.

Relaxing morning

This morning was relaxing. We woke up without plans for the day, other than
not to venture out too far from the house before about noon (there was a football game going on down the road at 1pm, and that does tend to clog the arteries of the highway.

At 11 we walked up the street to the local cafe, where LOML and I had coffee, the kids had juice, and nobody ate much of the baked goods we ordered (they were, to a baker, less than inspiring).

This was followed by wandering to a nice little craft-y shop nearby: they sell lots of stamping tools, jewelery supplies, art supplies, etc: they are local, not a chain: and the owners are lovely people who actually work in the store every day, rather than just paying minimum wage and living of others labour.

Skibo ended up with a puzzle -- a nice one, in which the pieces don't come out! (this is definitely a plus --- no pieces to keep track of!) and Boo with a little furry soft puppet. She wanted a larger one, which was rather more expensive, a very nice Siamese cat about the size of a real cat --- we told her if she waited to next week and postponed getting a toy this week, she could have it then --- but she's not ready yet for delayed gratification! Since her birthday is coming up in November, we'll get it for her then:-)
The store owner told us, though, that one of her best friends also has her eye on it: and her birthday is the week before Boo's, so she will probably get it first: oh the subtle difficulties and problems these little people called children visit upon us.

Yours, relaxed-ish
N.



making bread...

Skibo, the middle aged man

Skibo is beginning to lose his baby fat, to skinny up: to become a little boy, rather than a toddler. So it was a bit of a surprise this morning when I was beginning help him (more encourage than help) to get dressed: he put on his shorts, pulled them up, and I helped to do the button at the waist.
He complained: "the shorts are too tight" he said: he unbuttoned the shorts -- exclaimed "Aaaah" in a that's-better way, and sat on the sofa, looking for all the world like he ought to be overweight, middle aged, and popping a beer after dinner!

Yours, in amusement, and hopefully not premonition,
N.

My first day of school!

My first day of school was today! Or more precisely, today was the day that I resumed running the origami club at the Montessori school. I had not put any effort into getting it advertised, and I knew some of the students from last year would be likely to have moved on --- I used to get about half a dozen students most weeks last year --- so I thought the turnout today would be small.
This, it turned out, would be a good thing: the school had shifted rooms around, and put me in a room with one small table and 4 chairs. I could get a couple more if needs warrent, but small would be good.

I was mistaken. I had five return from last year, and five more turn up for the first time! We had to move the club on short notice to the meeting room, which was set up for 12 chairs around a large table. Two more students would have been too many! And I am planning to try to persuade a few more students to come along!

They all did very well: we folded a classical fold: the Masu box, with lid and 2x2 divider in the box: and in 40 minutes they had all folded all three pieces: as they are mostly only about 9 or 10 years old, I think that this is really impressive!
And one somewhat older student came along and despite never having folded before did extremely well: I think that he will learn quickly and be a good assistant teacher for the club!

Yours, neatly creased,
N.

Imaginary friends

My imaginary friends when I was small were the Waggywahs. My mother tells the story of how their name came to be as follows:

"When you were small, I really liked jaguars, especially the E-type. And every time we were out around town, and I saw one, I'd point and say 'Look, a jaguar!'"

Apparently I was fascinated with whatever it was my mother was pointing at -- and had no clue that it was a rather nice car. So I started seeing, and talking to and playing with, waggywahs too.

Boo has a whole family of friends: most especially Malady, but also her sisters/brothers/relatives/whatever Maggady, Claggady, Zaggady, Zueggedy, etc. She is fully aware that they are imaginary, and on occasion will describe them as such, and in a context which makes it clear that she knows what that means. At the same time, she will often claim they have been doing actual things. Occasionally they'll apparently tell her it is okay to do things that we tell her she is not allowed to do. This, of course, makes us cranky.

Skibo has his own private imaginary friend Dodo. We are pretty clear that his name is a corruption of the name of our dog Sojo (short for Sojourner, so not pronounced in any spanish Soho-type of way!) He has not yet told us much about Dodo, except when he wants something he always explains that Dodo does this, or has it, or is allowed it...

Quite fascinating for a realist to watch:-)

Yours, in friendship,
N.

Memories of first day of school

Various folks are propogating this meme, and now I've been sucked in too. I have only the invented memories that you get when your mother tells you stories over and over again: with the exception of the wrought iron fence, very tall surrounding the school. Of course, that fence was probably only 3 or 4 feet tall, but I was a little bit shorter then:-)

The supposed memories, which my mother swears are true are:
- wanting to play with my imaginary friends, the waggywahs
- being fearful of going into the school without my mother
-being asked how my first day was, and telling my mother that it was fine: and that I had sat next to a fat boy named Treasure. And from then on, Trevor's name was always Treasure.


Yours, imagining the memories,
N.

p.s. Anyone care to see if the can guess the etymology of my imaginary friends names?

What I'm (going to be) listening to: poetry edition

With Boo and Skibo learning about space, I am pretty sure that they are going to learn the following little verse: she learned it last year, complete with a bunch of actions: putting on a helmet, blasting off, hands moving like rocket ships....

Space Trip

My space suit is on,
I'm ready for the trip.
Let's blast off in a rocket ship!

Ready for the countdown,
Engine is on.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.....We're gone!

There goes Venus,
Now past Mars.
Dodging comets and shooting stars!

Landing on a planet,
Lots to do.
We'll be back in a light year or two!

Rozanne Williams

Yours, enchanted,
N.

In, out, in, out

Is Larry Craig really doing the Hokie Cokie? Is that really what it's all about for him?

I admit to feeling sorry for him: there he is, happily in the closet, having to resort to soliciting anonymous encounters with others like himself, and he gets caught.
If he could have been happy in himself, in his body, in his sexuality, perhaps he could have been happy in his life. Instead, he's become the butt of a bunch of jokes -- some of them mine --- and will be miserable, probably for a long time to come.

It is harsh to wish someone ill because of their past actions, words, deeds, thoughts: and I am conflicted, because I do not wish to be or seem harsh: but his words and actions have hurt a great number of people, especially people who are like he seems to be: unwilling to divulge what to them seems an awful, terrible secret to an uncaring hateful world. But still, he has been one of the ones making that world uncaring and hateful.

Oh well, to paraphrase: detest the hatemongering, not the hatemongerers.

But I still don't know if he is planning to resign!

Yours, caring about those he has hurt,
N.

One of those days

One of those days --- LOML had had a dreadful day, so I came home early to help look after the sprogs: and they were fine, really, but sometimes, somedays "fine" just doesn't cut it!
Raw nerves, and small child screeches to cut through the desired silence, even the acceptable dull roar, to find the senses and touch those nerves.
And it is still hotter than it needs to be: 95 as a high for the next few days. Still, Sen. Stevens (Nutcase, Alaska) has pronounced that the worst of global warming is now over, so I guess that we can all just relax and listen to the gurgling tubes that are the internet.

Yours, grumpy tonight,
N.

Planetarium

Boo and Skibo are studying space this semester at the Montessori school, and so we are doing what we can to encourage their interests in the stars, the planets and the sky in general. Boo is already asking for a telescope for her birthday -- we had been thinking for a while of getting one, though it may have to wait for Christmas so that it can be a joint gift instead of just hers -- however the other day in Target I noticed that they had a planetarium-in-a-box for twenty or thirty bucks, and decided it was time to try this out --- it's endorsed by the National Geographical Society, so it must be good, right?

Other than the fact that it needed 5 AAA batteries and all we had on hand were 30 AA batteries, so a trip to the gas station a block up the street was necessary, it worked. I won't say that it worked wonderfully well yet: the stars were a bit blurry, and the words were illegible for me. But at least it put the constellations up in the sky above us on the ceiling: and it comes with at 45 minute cd guided tour of the sky --- which we will listen to as soon as we can get the children ready for bed early enough -- or more likely once dark comes earlier in the evening!

Still, we are excited to show them how to find star constellations (and to tell them the myths behind the names!) and the planets!

Yours, in astral projection,
N.

Dancing

Boo is taking dance classes this semester for the first time: and tonight, LOML needed to work on some stuff for tomorrow, so Skibo and I went with Boo to her class: unfortunately it is about a 25 minute drive each way, so there was lots of time for fussing back and forth between them in the back of the minivan (including on the way back actually stopping the vehicle and placing one of them in the miscreant relocation program -- seating them in a different row -- the first time I've actually had to do it: the threat is usually sufficient). Still we got there, and Boo got her tap shoes on (the first half is tap, the second half ballet). Now, Skibo was extremely keen to watch her dancing, but unfortunately the tap class was behind a closed door: however, after twenty minutes (and extremely good behaviour on his part!)
the class switched to ballet, and we were able to watch it for a few minutes.

It was wonderful to see -- and forgive the proud-parenthood-ness when I say that she was the only child in the class to get what the teacher was saying -- and she was one of the younger children too! She extended her wings to fly like an aeroplane, she jumped over boxes beautifully, and best of all, she leapt into a second position bent knee, feet turned out perfectly. Not a single other child managed it.

After the class the teacher came up and asked if Boo was my child --- and told me that she was wonderful, so smart and "I think I can teach her to be a wonderful dancer".

Yours, pleased as punch,
N.

Summer Joy

This picture evokes a memory --- of days gone by, when I felt like they do here! Another exciting thing to see just around the next corner....

Yours, remembering,
N.

Scotch eggs, the recipe

I looked at several recipes --- Sam posted a link to Delia Smith's recipe, and it is a good one -- I increased the amount of sausage slightly, and I think that hers might be a little less meaty than I would like.
Here is what I used/did:

1 lb sausage (I used a local farm sausage that I like: spicy would work for me, but not for the children!)
6 eggs (I happened to have extra large)
Fresh or dried herbs to taste
Salt, pepper.
Flour
1 beaten egg
Breadcrumbs

Mix the herbs and seasonings in with the sausage. Form six equal sized patties, each about 3 inches by 5 inches, oval-ish in shape.

I hardboiled the eggs per Delia Smith's directions, cooled and peeled them:
dusted them in flour, which I brushed off with my hands as much as possible.
I wrapped them in sausage: at this stage, I think the extra quantity of sausage I used made it much easier. To wrap with sausage, I sort of rolled the egg up in the patty, and sealed round the egg. Easier to try than to describe in words!

Then I lightly dusted the sausage with flour, brushed off excess, dipped into the beaten egg and then into breadcrumbs, and into hot oil. My oil was at the high end of the 350-375 range she suggests, and I'd probably take it at the low end next time.

The scotch eggs were done in well under six minutes, and were definitely more on the brown rather than golden brown side. But they were absolutely delicious.

Yours, stuffed,
N.