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Mark Knopfler ~ Brothers in Arms
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvE97zz5loc[/youtube] Mark Knopfler is such a distinctive musician. There’s no one else with his voice, or his guitar work. I know some people don’t like his voice, but I adore it. This video is about the British soldiers & the Falklands war.
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Quote of the Day
“If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.” ~Elmore Leonard (Guess who started back at her old job yesterday, after five blissful months of unemployment? Yup, moi. Sigh.)
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I Heart Bissell Right Now
Really. Take this review for what it’s worth, because we haven’t tested any of the competitors. Just the Bissell. But when your dog has diarrhea repeatedly on your off-white carpet, you don’t care what brand you’re using, so long as it works. And work it did. Saturday morning, when we woke up to find Genevieve barfing her guts out, we were worried. But we had a lot going on that day, and didn’t see the shit storm she left behind the television, all over our fancy wiring system for the (rhymes with) Gielson box. We came home later and found a holy mess, and our old carpet cleaner wasn’t up…
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Wordless Wednesday
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Leonard Cohen ~ Everybody Knows
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yG5e1oaen-M[/youtube] It’s getting harder and harder to find you tube videos of songs for this, due to copyright infringement, etc. So here we have Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows, which is a great song, but the video is to a TV series, The Man from Uncle. I first heard it in the wonderful and underrated Adam Egoyan film, Exotica. Actually, it was also in Pump Up The Volume, but I didn’t like that movie at all, so I guess I missed the song. I also really like this L song, Liz Phair, Johnny Feelgood. Couldn’t find a decent video that was embeddable. So click and enjoy. There is certainly a less…
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Sunday Dog Blogging
Regular readers will know that our beautiful doggie, Genevieve has been feeling poorly for awhile now. She isn’t her regular perky self, and we’ve been experimenting with different treatments to try to help her. We’ve had a ton of tests done, put her on pain meds, thyroid meds, and meds to help keep her from peeing on the floor. The thyroid seems the most likely to me, and she was on the meds for about 5 days, but we pulled her off this weekend. Why, you may ask? Well, yesterday Ted woke up to discover dog vomit at the top of the stairs. He cleaned it up, but later I…
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Love is the Answer
(graphic found here) Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. ~ Zelda Fitzgerald Ted and I watched a very interesting episode of Bill Moyers Journal (you can watch the entire episode by following the link…it’s about an hour) the other day, one which dealt with Faith and Social Justice. The panelists were Cornel West, Serene Jones, and Gary Dorrien, three heavy hitting scholars and members of the social gospel movement. They were discussing what our ethics and values say about our society, most specifically how our system encourages greed and immoral conduct, and the culture of indifference in which we find ourselves. They argued…
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(Just Like) Starting Over
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Fortunate Son
Fortunate Son is Walter Mosley’s parable of color and class in America, exemplified by two boys, one black, one white, who live together for a few years as children, and consider themselves to be brothers. Tommy is the black brother, who was born with a hole in his lung, which curses his health and strength his entire life. He spends his first 6 months of life in the hospital, visited every day by his devoted single mother, who comes to see him as soon as she gets off of work. Eric is the same age as Tommy, and is born in the same hospital. He is described over and over…
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The Cola Wars Continue
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgq4knffRKc[/youtube] We’ve been hearing a lot about High Fructose Corn Syrup vs. Sugar lately, and we decided to do a very low-tech cola taste test on Saturday. I went to my local grocery store, where I procured one Pepsi, one Coke, one Mexican Coke (aka, Coke with sugar), and one Pepsi Natural (aka, Pepsi with sugar). Ted wanted to try some other cola brands as well, but at $7.80 for four sodas, we decided that four were enough. We decided that a blind taste test was best, so I marked the bottoms of some paper cups with the four varieties, and we each had a sample of all four. We…
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Kim Wilde ~ View From A Bridge
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM_v3Vd5ay4[/youtube] My brother Richard used to have a Kim Wilde album, Kids in America, which he listened to a lot, and so I listened a lot. I’d like to say that I was really into her, but I was too dorky for that, and at the time was more likely to be listening to Air Supply. Then a few years later, she covered “You Keep Me Hanging On“, which I loved loved loved. Is that dorky of me, to get into a cover? (Ted’s answer…yes)* Anyway, a year or so after that, when Ted and I were dating, he made me a mix-tape (a sure sign of 80s love…the mix-tape…
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Google Reader
Any readers who access my blog via Google Reader have surely noticed an abundance of prescription drug ads in my posts lately. It appears my blog was hacked. Joan told me about it over a week ago, and I looked around but the power was out that day and it seemed like a Google issue, so I forgot about it. Then today, Michelle emailed me about it, and I thought, hmmm, maybe I should look into this some more. So I searched around about WordPress/Goodle Reader issues, and found a page with some solutions, but they were above my technical ability to execute…so I asked Ted’s friend, Rahul, and he…
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I Am the Flag
Ted was born in Ontario, Canada, and came to the Bay Area at the ripe old age of 1. When the family naturalized as U.S. Citizens 5 or 6 years later, some neighbors gave them a little book, titled, I Am the Flag: A Portrait of America, by Lawrence M. Jones. It’s kinda groovy, with very early 70s illustrations. I thought it appropriate to copy here, for Independence Day. I am a composite being of all the people of America. I am the union if you are united. I am one and indivisible if you are undivided. I am as strong as the weakest link. I am an emblem of…
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Happy Anniversary!
16 years ago today, I made the best move I’ve made in my life. I married my best friend, my partner in crime, my love. I think we all make mistakes in life, or wonder about the path not taken. We wonder how things might have been different if we had taken x job, or moved to y city, or finished school (or not finished school). One thing I know, is that I have never regretted the decision to marry Ted. He has been, and always is, the best husband I could ever want. Someone who is always on my side, always has me back, always trusts me to do…
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Jalapeno Jelly Glazed Salmon
gorgeous picture found here I saw this recipe on my current favorite cooking show, America’s Test Kitchen, and it looked so easy and delicious that I decided that I had to try it. The beginning of this week was ungodly hot, with Sunday topping out at 108, and Monday a more reasonable, but still toasty, 97 or so. So grilling is the perfect way to avoid heating up the kitchen. This recipe was truly delicious, and I suspect we’ll be having it again, especially since I still have 1/2 jar of jalapeno jelly in my fridge, and no idea what else I would use it for. I’ve grilled fish before,…