Apr. 28, 2007
sand PAINTING
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9:20 am
It wasn’t a sand sculpture, it was a sand painting. i did wake kevin, and we rushed over there and it was quite beautiful. they were almost done with it, and then, yesterday, they had a ceremony at the completion and swept it all up.
here’s the sand they used.
and here’s one of the tibetan monks, hard at work.
we went upstairs to get a shot from above. kevin took this picture, and i took another one, and i leaned way over the edge of the balcony and wondered what would happen if i slipped and dropped the camera into the middle of the sand. i feel that the monk probably wouldn’t yell at me.
luckily it didn’t happen.
the detail was amazing.
we rushed home to get ready for the wine and food at the sangamo club, and then we ate and drank and ate and drank...kevin decided to take pictures of the food, and i haven’t looked at them yet. the pastel de choclo was a disappointment. it wasn’t made with chicken, but beef, but it did have the traditional black olives and corn and hard boiled eggs in it. but it tasted a little bit dried out.
the wine was plentiful. plentifully plentiful.
more on that later.
but only in theory about the later, because it promises to be a warm and dazzling weekend, so we’ll probably be outside most of the time.
ok then,
saturday morning grace.
Apr. 26, 2007
food and drink and food and drink and...
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3:57 pm
in a couple of hours we’re going to yet another food-and-wine event sponsored by the corkscrew wine emporium. featured will be the elusive “passtel del choclo,” some kind of chilean chicken corn pie.
theoretically it will be good. theoretically we’ll be able to actually ascertain if it’s good or not, because by then we’ll already have had two or three glasses of wine.
right now we’re going to view the sand sculpture that the tibetan monks have been creating at the lobby of sangamon auditorium. tomorrow night the same monks will be performing there, on the very stage where kevin and i just paraded around and around.
we’re going to view the sand sculpture in theory, anyway, because kevin is still sleeping. after working all night and coming home at 8:30 a.m. and seeming very very wide awake, which much mean he had lots of caffeine thoughout the night.
should i go wake him up? i really want to see the sand sculpture, and it’s only open today till five and i can’t go there tomorrow morning.
maybe i’ll try to make some loud noise. bang some dishes around, stuff like that.
except the man can sleep through anything.
i’ll give him fifteen more minutes.
would he rather sleep or see the sand sculpture? hard to say.
hopefully i’ll be posting a photo of it later.
hopefully.
in theory.
ok then,
thursday grace.
Apr. 25, 2007
VIVA LAS VEGAS!
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11:55 am
we’re going to law vegas in about five weeks from now, with mom and dad. i can’t recall the last time i saw dad this excited about something. the second-to-last time he went to vegas, i believe he won $2,500. playing quarter slots. and he didn’t spend lots and lots of money to win, either. he made enough to pay for the trip and bring some money home. to my recollection.
because of his windfall, which he did at the Paris Casino, they invited him back for a “slots tournament.” he got a free room with the deal, and at the time i was living in LA and joined him and my brother david for a few days of nonstop gambling.
well, dad did the nonstop gambling. david and i hung out by the Paris pool for a while, which was quite nice. we’d all go to different casinos, panting to keep up with dad, and we’d agree to meet at a certain spot in an hour or two. dad NEVER EVER made it to any of these prearranged meetings. i don’t know why i kept thinking he would make it, but every time i’d wait and wait and wait for him.
eventually he’d show up, but never ever anywhere near the time.
but that’s ok, because dad LOVES LAS VEGAS. this time kevin and i can explore different vegas places together as dad wins big. kevin has never been there, and i wonder if he’ll like it. i do find it kind of fascinating for a while, until i get tired of all the noise and chaos.
we’re going to see “O”, by cirque de soleil, which i saw several years ago and thought was one of the best things i’ve ever seen.
and hopefully we’ll make lots of money. since that’s what people do there.
ok then,
wednesday grace.
Apr. 23, 2007
TA DA!
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3:12 pm
the king and queen! resplendent in gold! it was a successful ballet; the dancers were superb, the sets were dazzling and as you can see, the costumes were incredible. AND kevin and i never marched out into the middle of the dancers dancing.
it was tiring, and i can’t say why. last night kevin took a nap before going to work at 11:00 p.m.; he started napping at nine and i napped with him and then i just continued to sleep all night long.
these dancers in the company continue to amaze me. i read their bios and most of them are in at least a few if not a bunch of different things at school, plus they have all that ballet dancing to do, and some of them have jobs teaching ballet, too.
more insight into the dancers' pain - gina troppa was sitting backstage in between acts, looking a little bit beat, and i asked her if her feet were bleeding (I WAS KIDDING). and she said no, that was during the “nutcracker.”
during one rehearsal julie told the dancers that they have to dance through the pain. and that continues to amaze me, that they’re able to dance and make it look beautiful instead of incredibly difficult, plus they’re smiling like crazy.
i have to go, even though i have many many things i want to discuss, but here’s the photo of our other costumes.
ok then,
sunny monday grace.
Apr. 19, 2007
approaching performance...
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11:24 am
and today there was a good big photo of sleeping b. herself on the cover of the A&E section of the paper, and a nice article inside plus a few other photos. unfortunately, this included a photo of me and kevin and gil. they both looked quite fine but i looked really old and like i had no eyebrows and my hair was poking out from beneath my crown and i looked kind of like a mentally disabled person.
not my best look.
at least it’s not as bad as the photo in the paper when i was in “you can’t take it with you,” a couple of years ago at the theatre centre. that one was a big cover photo, and none of the women in the play had worn any makeup that night and in the photo we all looked bedraggled and really really bad and i’m amazed that anybody at all went to see the show since it was a comedy but we all looked utterly depressed.
and now we have two more chances to not cause ballet pandemonium on the stage.
ok then,
grace.
Apr. 18, 2007
smack dab in the middle of a whole gaggle of ballerinas...
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11:04 pm
have i ever mentioned that i sometimes have that actor nightmare, where you’re in a play but you don’t know your lines or what you’re supposed to be doing, and you have no time to prepare? it’s a pretty common dream.
but tonight it was kind of a reality. except in a ballet.
which is funny, anyway, that i’m IN a ballet. but in the first act, after the “garland dance,” kevin and i have to strut onstage and circle around and then sleeping beauty herself appears, for the very first time (as an adult, as opposed to in the prologue when she’s a plastic baby).
we haven’t rehearsed this very much, not really, and each time either julie, the head of the ballet company, has told us when to come on, or we’ve been very late.
tonight we were early. very very early. the garland dancers were onstage, as were a bunch of other dancers, i think they’re the girlfriends of sleeping beauty, and we thought they’d completely stopped dancing. they did stop, BUT NOT COMPLETELY.
so we started strutting out, and all of a sudden they were STILL DANCING and we were right in the middle of them and they looked a little confused and of course we realized we were much too early but there was nothing we could do, we couldn’t run back behind the curtain, so we kept walking and it wasn’t pretty. at all.
and the thing is that there are only TWO MORE REHEARSALS till the real deal. really only one rehearsal, because on friday night there will be an audience and it would be quite mortifying to cause yet another ballerina traffic jam in front of people who are there to watch the show.
the ballet dancers, they have to WORK throughout the ballet, dancing dancing dancing. and like i’ve written, all we have to do is parade around and sit down. and we can’t screw it up!
in the third act we have to enter and we’ve only done that about two times, but luckily there are a bunch of little girls who follow us on, and they know exactly where it’s all supposed to happen. so one of them says “GO!” and we parade out. last night one of them said GO but it wasn’t reallly time, but i think they figured it out amongst themselves, relieving us of any of the burden.
but that first act, i hope we do it right. we don’t want to leave the dancers standing there onstage with nothing going on, but i just couldn’t bear going on and having all the dancers suddenly trying to walk exactly where we’re walking.
tonight it was even more clear just how hard they work. they have three guests artists for the show, all guys, and one of the guys did a dance with one of the ballerinas and it looked so beautiful and effortless and good. but then he came offstage and was crouched in the wings and i watched him as he panted and panted and sweated and sweated.
very very hard work.
all we have to do is keep our smiles going through the third act. this is a very long act, and tonight since the guest artists were there we saw the actual act and it lasts about four years. we have to sit there smiling and chatting a little, and my mouth got so very very tired of smiling and i started to feel like it couldn’t possibly look like a smile anymore, surely it must be a weird grimace. and my lips got chapped.
but gil, he has to stand up for the whole thing, plus he has nobody to interact with, so really, we have it easy. plus of course we don’t have to dance.
tomorrow, costumes.
ok then,
grace attempting to stop looking up plane fares all day long.
Apr. 15, 2007
p.s.
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11:59 pm
in back of the kitties you may notice a chocolate-looking bunny. sadly, it’s not a chocolate bunny, it’s a very good replica of one that randy gave me for easter. and since we’re starting to be completely devoid of any storage space whatsoever in the whole entire house, the faux chocolate bunny might just live there in the table along with the two kitties in their plush and fabulous kitty beds.
next to them sits a cardboard box with some little plants in it that need to be planted very very soon.
but that’s another story.
ok now that i have exactly one minute left before midnight,
g
obsessing for a change
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11:57 pm
i feel that although i did actually do some things today in the outside world, the world beyond this (INCREDIBLY disorganized) office, like we went running and we went to the VFW hall to hear the jazz band “real time” and danced a little - all i mostly did was sit here and obsessively look for vacation destinations. there are very very cheap vacation destinations out there, and i don’t even recall exactly why i started looking them up, but i did. ireland, for one thing, there’s a trip for 7 nights including flight from chicago and b&bs and car rental for only $2400 for two people.
i found this on a website called dooleyvacations.com. i found that website at travelzoo.com, which lists millions of things on it. it’s a little bit mind-boggling, all the things out there.
anyway, that’s not even the reason i’m writing right now. i just walked into the kitchen after WALKING AWAY FROM THE COMPUTER and there were the two kitties, each in one of the two kitty beds that we now have.
randy is fairly horrified that we have cat beds on our kitchen table. but that’s all we really use it for; it’s where honey sleeps. but now that we have two beds, they can both sleep there, and they weren’t even trying to kill each other and they were JUST SO CUTE that i had to take a picture of them, and then i had turn the computer back on so i could show you.
ok, i was really going to get to bed b4 midnight and i have about four minutes in which to accomplish that goal.
goodnight,
grace
the house of commons
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1:45 pm
the other night, kind of late, i was flipping channels and stopped, of all places, on channel 14. in spfld, channel 14 is c-span, and i don’t recollect any time in my life that i’ve stopped on c-span.
but the other night it was riveting. it was a show from the bbc, and it featured the british parliament, mostly the house of commons. it was just fascinating to watch. i guess you can kind of compare it to the house of representatives in washington, but only kind of. for one thing, the members of parliament (mp’s) sit facing each other on raised platforms, with a place down in the middle for people to step forward to talk. instead of desks, they sit on what look like very comfy red leather couches.
but the most interesting part about the parliamentary process was just how interesting it seemed to be. i’ve seen a second or two of the live feeds from the us govt chambers and i’ve never lingered more than the briefest of brief moments because they all seem incredibly deadly dull and ponderous.
the mp’s are different altogether. first, tony blair was talking, and he was fervent and passionate and also at the same time he seemed rather amused. he spoke rapidly, and then the opposition, the leader of the conservatives, would start to talk, and he, too, was animated and sometimes the mps chuckled, and it seemed like they were all having a jolly ripping good time.
if they got agitated, they’d start to boo and thump on the floor, and mostly all of them wore very bright ties.
i’d highly recommend that you watch the show, except i just looked it up on tvguide online and couldn’t find the listing anywhere. was it all a dream? i don’t think so. i’d never have a dream that interesting or animated. i’m pretty sure that last night my dream involved doing laundry.
we saw “fools” at the theatre centre last night, and the production was really good. my friend felicia coulter was fabulous, as usual, and lots of other people were good, too - some of them i’ve never seen before. the backdrops were remarkably well-done, also. the play itself - well, it’s not one of neil simon’s best, although i did think the first act was pretty funny. but by the second act, it just kind of lost my interest. but it was worth seeing, and it was nice that there were actually some people there to see it. annie and gary germann sat right in front of us, and it was nice to see them.
big rehearsals this week for “sleeping beauty.” yesterday we had our first costume rehearsal, but only one sleeve of my costume was finished. it was a mighty fancy sleeve, i must say, and i’m looking forward to having a matched set of them. the rehearsal went ok, but things seemed a bit tense. we actually stayed for the entire show for the first time, and i’m amazed at how much dancing sleeping beauty herself has to do. on and on and on, it was tiring just watching her. all the ballerinas, they continue to amaze me because they’re so good and make it all seem so graceful.
all i have to do is not trip on my dress and not fall off the stage. so i think it’ll go well.
ok then,
grace on sunday.
Apr. 12, 2007
yet another chilean corn pie recipe
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9:58 pm
with all these recipes, i feel that i’m going to have to actually make one of them. this recipe doesn’t have any beef, just chicken, but all of them have both olives and raisins. this one also contains no powdered sugar, for all you diabetics out there. or all you people who prefer not to mix your powdered sugar with your chicken and corn and raisins and olives.
one more CHILEAN CORN PIE recipe
this is from a website called “recipes down under,” which i assume means australian recipes. except for the chilean ones.
more about food...
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9:53 pm
today i also received an e-mail from my friend erica. so that’s TWO e-mails from friends today, this is quite an accomplishment for me because lately nobody at all has been writing to me, except for my husband, and i see him pretty much most of the time when one of us isn’t working. not that i’m not happy to hear from him, but i see him in person as well.
anyway, erica e-mailed me about donating food, and it seems like a very good thing to do, and i’ve been trying to remember a story about sharing food with somebody, but something like baking cupcakes for the people where i work probably doesn’t count, does it?
here’s erica’s e-mail:
Hello,
I just wanted to let you know that if you go to the website www.SpreadtheSharing.com, you will have the opportunity to tell a very short anecdote about a time when you shared food, or someone shared it with you.
For every story that is told, Country Crock will donate a meal to America’s Second Harvest. As an affiliate of A2H, our Foodbank benefits by this donation as well.
It’s really easy, it’s free, and it only takes a few minutes. I just told one this morning, and there’s no limit on how many stories you can tell.
Please take a few seconds to share a story, and spread the message so that we can help A2H and Country Crock reach their goal of one million meals donated.
Thank you for your time!
Erica
Erica Smith
Fundraising Assistant
Central Illinois Foodbank
2000 E. Moffat Street
Springfield, IL 62702
217-522-4022
whatever you do, DON’T MAKE THE CHILEAN CORN PIE!!!!
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9:47 pm
i’m sure that many of you are in the midst of making the recipe that i linked for the chilean corn pie, the elusive passtel de choclo. when i read this recipe yesterday (on cooks.com), i realized that the directions instruct you to “add meat and cook until brown,” but there’s no actual meat listed in the ingredients. i found a recipe that had the meat in it, but decided that nobody was going to attempt to make the dish.
but today my very astute friend gary e-mailed me and pointed out the lack of meat. plus he’d been much more thorough than me in reading the recipe and noticed that although flour is listed in the ingredients, there’s then no mention of it in the instructions.
so if you were to attempt to make the recipe, you’d be so frustrated by the mystery meat, not to mention the flour that you’d gone to the trouble of getting out but then not using, that you might just get very discouraged by the whole thing. perhaps somebody is trying to mess with our minds. some kind of evil plot, no doubt.
anyway, here is a much more authentic recipe by somebody named jose. it seems a little strange, what with the powdered sugar and all, but i bet it’s good.
Pastel de Choclo (English)
Dear Cyber-friends:
...I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce you to the
pleasures of the Chilean corn and meat pie ("pastel de choclo").
Regards,
Jose Iribarne
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CORN AND MEAT PIE
Serves 12.
This is a popular Chilean recipe.
6 large ears of corn, grate the kernels
8 leaves of fresh basil, finely chopped
1 tsp. salt
3 tbsp. butter
1/2-1 cup milk
4 large onions, chopped
3 tbsps. oil
1 lb. (1/2 kg) finely ground lean beef
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp. ground cumin
4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
1 cup black olives
1 cup raisins
12 pieces of chicken, browned in hot oil, seasoned with salt,
pepper and cumin
2 tbsps. confectioners' sugar
Heat the grated corn, chopped basil, salt and butter in a large pot. Add
the milk little by little, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens.
Cook over low heat for 5 minutes. Leave to one side while you prepare the
meat filling. Fry the onions in oil until transparent, add the ground meat
and stir to brown. Season with salt, pepper and ground cumin. To prepare
the pie use an oven-proof dish that you can take to the table. Spread over
the bottom of the dish the onion-ground meat mixture. Arrange over this
the hard boiled egg slices, olives and raisins. Put the chicken pieces on
top, bone the chicken if you like. Cover the filling with the corn
mixture. Sprinkle the confectioners' sugar over the top. Bake in a hot
oven 400 Deg. F (205 Deg. C) for 30-35 minutes until the crust is golden
brown. Serve at once. In Chile more sugar is served to sprinkle over the
“pastel” as it is eaten. Serve with “Ensalada Chilena”.
Apr. 11, 2007
CHILEAN CORN PIE
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3:41 pm
there, i spent two more minutes searching online and found the elusive Passtel de Choclo. it’s chilean corn pie, which doesn’t sound quite as glamorous as the chilean words for it. it has creamed corn and raisins and olives in it, which sounds a little bit odd. DON’T TELL RANDY ABOUT IT, because he’s going to the dinner with us and he has very strict rules about mixing fruits with savory thing. like, DON’T PUT FRUIT IN A SALAD. i think he’s also opposed to nuts in salads, but maybe not, all i know is his rules are very strict and he’s very disparaging when you break a rule.
here’s a link to the chilean corn pie, in case for some reason you decide you need to make it.
Chilean Corn Pie
more translating
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3:36 pm
so i looked up Passtel de Choclo on an internet translation site. it didn’t know the word passtel, but it said that choclo meant sabot.
WHAT’S SABOT?
Fluffhead Oblo (translation part two)
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3:33 pm
here’s the compelling and dramatic conclusion to the prescription chicken pie website:
trag to warm up itself, licor with flavor to fruit, and. She said, we not encontr nothing suspicious in the quarters of. Nobodies of flour of them, Firebrass, it stopped, said despu s briefly. Hab to a thing, significant not by its presence but by its absence. it cooks infantile and such to warn Duncan and a. Protective thought of Moneo r nor W I request Orne this l tachona. Cold Prado Precipitadamente strawberry, l agarr to boys. Weapon to around maintain them both congealed Oblo deslumbr in her Sight, Cecelia. Suggested, pitching towards salt pepper tableful of Serranos, d nde Esmay. Was snugged ascending against Barin, and Brun was Not She? Brun? That fluffhead? Shes does not prescribe biscochuelo now fluffhead Oblo
dispersed to his head string bean...
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3:31 pm
we’re going to a wine dinner in a couple of weeks, and one of the dishes they’re serving is called Passtel de Choclo, a traditional Chilean dish. that’s all they said about it, though, so i wanted to see what was in it. i had to share with you the first entry i found for passtel de choclo; the website is called:
Prescription chicken pie
and google translated it, and here’s the result. which i found extremely funny.
linados they nail for l Didnt wish me you. Immediately they wished to obtain are solved of you first entered Profeso Navarrese concert morning call. Good for cooking good lobsters thoughts good words made Ella hab to said that to l vendr to a. It when it it llam In the entrance gp formulates 1 queens prescribes masitas returns, took when enfermer of. The protectors and were treated the woman accused for their injuries Were. Dispersed to his head string bean with they were inclined to a side. The cord that it pressed in his left cheek, as soon as detr s. Of or do said apathetically and with shrimps you linado site of the finding of. Remeter far one septuage simo of a percent of that n mere Sounds absurd Aclamations. of snails Jill
more katrina photos
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11:36 am
wednesday
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11:33 am
mom sent me some photos which were forwarded by her friend stan. i have no info about them, except they’re titled “start of Katrina.”
Apr. 10, 2007
the Rutger Women’s Basketball Team
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5:25 pm
as i was running on the treadmill this morning, i watched the press conference with the Rutger Women’s basketball team. as i’m sure you’ve heard by now (unless you’re living in a cave, afraid you’re going to be assaulted with more stories of anna nicole not to mention that annoying heather mills and her one leg), don imus said some nasty things about the RWBT, and then everybody leapt on him and he’s been apologizing, apparently, but he has not yet actually called the team itself to apologize, which you’d think if he was actually sorry he’d have done that first.
the women were very articulate and very tall. the team captain spoke, and another woman on the team spoke, and then they took lots and lots of questions from reporters and other people, and some of the questions were ok but some were kind of dumb; they asked them if they thought that presidential candidates should be on the don imus show. the team captain grinned and said she thought it was all about money and getting votes, and she didn’t say it was a stupid question, which was quite nice of her.
they were asked what programming the network should run instead of imus' show for the next two weeks while he’s suspended. the captain said that since she wasn’t a programming executive, she didn’t know, but she thought they’d probably think of something. she did say it would be good if they ran some highlights of the team’s games, which i thought was an obvious and excellent idea.
if i am reincarnated, i’d like to be a tall basketball player.
even though don imus appears to be a man who can’t seem to ever shut his stupid mouth, i do think at least he put the rutger women’s basketball team in the spotlight. the women all kept talking about the need for women’s voices to be heard; not just african-american women, they said, but all women. and i thought, why aren’t there more articles and things on tv about women’s sports? but maybe there are some, but i just never read them. but i feel that’s not true. even though i don’t generally follow sports, i do sort of hear about it, and it’s usually mostly the men the men the men.
the women on the team talked about the fact that even though things are supposed to be equal between men and women, they aren’t, and it’d be nice if they were.
things to think about, while running to nowhere.
ok then,
tuesday grace.
tuesday already
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9:51 am
kevin didn’t buy one toilet, he bought TWO. two for one sale? nope, he decided that since one went bad, he should replace both of them. the roto rooter man installed one, and kevin installed the other, and dad was quite impressed that kevin knew how to do that.
the rest of saturday wasn’t nearly that thrilling, but we did go to the symphony saturday night. the first act was only eight minutes long, the second, “ode to joy” was over an hour. during that time, the symphony chorus was going to sing, and they all sat there up in their chairs, looking out over the audience. i kept watching them, and they mostly looked bored. it wouldn’t be so easy, though, looking anything but bored while just sitting for an hour. it’s not like grinning wildly or making faces at the audience would have been appropriate. i saw one young woman yawn hugely without covering her mouth, but really i was surprised by the lack of yawning by the folks on the stage.
not that it was boring, but it seems it’d get a little old, sitting up there all the time, plus they just did the show friday night in bloomington, plus i’m sure they had to rehearse it at least once with the orchestra.
on sunday morning i had kevin search for an easter basket i gave him. he found it quickly, because he’s good at finding things. he says when he was a kid, his parents went to great lengths to hide the kids' easter baskets, and the kids were good at finding them. one year his parents hid his brother’s basket in the tank part of the toilet, all wrapped in plastic. another time they hid it up in a tree.
the grilled turkey was delicious.
even though it’s grey and gloomy outside right now, it’s going to get warm again by the end of the week. all is good.
ok then,
grace on tuesday morning.
p.s. did you see barack obama on the letterman show last night? it would be so amazingly great if he becomes president.
Apr. 07, 2007
nothing at all
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11:51 am
that’s what the roto rooter man found in our toilet. the pets are off the hook. for now, anyway. mr. RR and i are now waiting for the return of kevin and our new toilet. breathless anticipation is the only way to describe the excitement level around here.
and speaking of pets...i just read more about the pet food recall, and the thing that struck me most was a report about china and their handling of food, which i suppose also includes food for human beings. the report said “chemical scares and mass poisonings are common in China, which has been struggling to improve a dismal food-safety record. Manufacturers often mislabel food products or add illegal substances to them. Cooks routinely disregard hygiene rules or mistakenly use industrial chemicals instead of salt and other ingredients.”
ARE COOKS IN CHINA BLIND? how does one mistake INDUSTRIAL CHEMICALS for SALT???
personally, i don’t store chemicals next to salt. but i envision a blind old chinese cook going to his pantry and shakily trying to read the labels on his giant glass jars full of white powder. i assume none of them are labelled, or maybe the print is very tiny, and he can’t ascertain if it’s salt or the chemical he uses to clean the toilet.
and speaking of toilets...our new one has arrived.
like i said, nonstop excitement around here, and it’s not even noon.
ok then,
still waiting for chocolate eggs or bunnies grace.
GRILLED turkey
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grace@graceuncensored.com
@
11:16 am
we’re having the family over for dinner tomorrow night because it’s EASTER. not that we’ve ever actually really celebrated easter in my own family, except for the baskets full of candy when i was a kid. but tomorrow night, TURKEY, and i was in a quandry about how to cook the other things in the oven so kevin decided to grill the turkey. this sounds like a splendid idea, the only possible drawback being that the house won’t be permeated with that fabulous baking-turkey smell.
we can always go outside to experience it, but of course it’s RIDICULOUSLY cold. the tulips in front, which were being quite brave, today are all pitifully drooped over. very sad.
a very huge roto rooter man is here trying to fix our toilet. i think he’s giving up now. doesn’t this seem wrong? shouldn’t a roto rooter man be able to fix a toilet? right now he’s telling kevin that he doesn’t remember the last time he wasn’t able to fix a toilet. he’s going to take it outside and crack it open, i think, because he’s dying to know why he can’t fix it. he said that people have gotten cell phones stuck in toilets. i know there are no cell phones in ours. but what could it be? a shoe? i’m sure not a shoe. did mollie or one of the kitties drag something into the toilet and then flush it without us knowing?
a dead bird! or maybe a squirrel! soon maybe we will know. i should get my video camera and get a shot of the guy out in our front lawn busting open the toilet, but maybe that would be too odd.
winnie the cat, who is sitting on most of this chair that i’m trying to sit on, is quietly chuckling to himself. i’m sure he knows what’s up.
at least we have two toilets. maybe we’ll be going to lowe’s soon, to buy a new one. and clearly, easter weekend doesn’t get any better than going to lowe’s to buy a toilet!
ok then, i wish your weekend could be at least slightyly as scintillating as mine,
grace waiting for chocolate eggs.
Apr. 06, 2007
brrrr...
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grace@graceuncensored.com
@
11:16 am
on the bright side, at least we didn’t have a foot or two of snow here, like they did in the northeast. i’d like to go to maine someday, but only in the middle of summer when there’s probably very little chance of snow.
that is all now on this good friday. GOOD friday.
g
Apr. 04, 2007
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grace@graceuncensored.com
@
3:21 pm
every day i open the paper and yet another republican has entered the presidential race. i keep thinking that if the list continues to grow at this pace, soon there will be at least one person from each and every state in the union.
i’ve been giving some serious thought to how people would possibly choose from such a large number of people (and by “people,” it is, of course, at least up till now, just men). everybody is furiously raising piles and piles of cash, or at least i hope they are, because if they don’t, they might as well forget it. it’s ALL ABOUT THE CASH. at least that’s what people tell me.
the other day a columnist commented on the inevitability of the presidential race getting really boring and tedious and he’s already tired of it and the election is such a long way away.
so, i’ve come up with a solution, a way to make it much more interesting. i’m not talking about the democrats here, because as you know i truly believe that barack obama is my man, he’s going to win the nomination.
but what to do with all these republicans - there’s Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of NYC, Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor, Tomy Thompson, former US Sec. of Health & Human Services AND former Wisconsin Governor, Rept. Duncan Hunter of CA, Sen. John McCain of AZ, Tx. Rep. Ron Paul, former MA Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. Sam Brownback of KA, Jim Gilmer, former Governor of Virginia, Fred Thompson , former Tennessee Senator, and Rep. Tom Tancredo from CO.
whew, that’s a lot of states.
I say, instead of all these guys spending their valuable time trying to raise money and getting some recognition the old-fashioned way - let’s make it a beauty contest.
not actual physical beauty, of course, although you know that physical appealingness is all part of the presidential hopeful package. But let’s make it a TV show, with all these guys from all these states, and they have to answer questions and walk down a runway in some kind of costume from their home state, and let’s just leave out the swimsuit competition because i doubt that many people would care to see that.
but there would be a panel of judges who would ask them questions - not the long political questions that prompt responses that go on and on forever, and people stop listening after a while because it’s all a bunch of canned stuff; don’t try to explain your plan for cutting taxes or fixing the health care system - but pertinent questions, things that americans really want to know. Like, how do you feel about cell phones on airplanes? and what about in restaurants, for that matter, don’t you think talking on cell phones should be banned from restaurants?
and what about fast food? since it’s clear that people aren’t going to stop eating big macs, don’t you think researchers could figure out a way to make them low calorie and fat-free? Bam, obesity solved.
some important questions would be about our Youth. ask them to list three bands that our Youth are listening to. Ask them if they know what kind of media they’re listening to it on. Find out if the candidates have ever looked at Myspace or youtube or facebook. it’s crucial to find a candidate who has at least some knowledge of actual Youth in America.
And what is the candidate’s favorite TV show? have they ever watched Lost, for example? I get the feeling that my sister and brother-in-law sort of feel it’s a crime that i haven’t started watching Lost yet. And do the candidates watch reality TV, and if so, which ones? Do they know who the top contenders on “American Idol” are?
People want to know. They want a candidate they can relate to.
like i said, there shouldn’t be a swim suit competition, but each candidate should have to demonstrate physical fitness. We don’t want a president who’s going to keel over from a heart attack, do we? Each candidate would have to do some kind of sport or exercise, something that he actually participates in regularly. or better yet, make them all do a series of exercises, maybe an obstacle course where they’d have to do some chin-ups and some crunches and run through tires and stuff like that.
Obviously, the candidates wouldn’t walk the runway in an evening gown (although that certainly would be immensely popular), but they’d need to wear a tuxedo and demonstrate their poise and charm in that attire.
And then there’s the talent competition. This would be most like the Miss America Pageant, with each contestant doing something - singing, playing the piano or the ukelele or the xylophone, telling a joke, doing card tricks, tap dancing, unicycling, juggling. Surely if a guy has made it to governor or representative or whatever office he holds or held, he must have done something entertaining at some point in his life.
Don’t Americans deserve a President who can make us smile once in a while?
All i’m saying is, there is an alternative to the long and boring presidential election road ahead of us.
ok then,
patriotic grace.
Apr. 03, 2007
monday night
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grace@graceuncensored.com
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12:10 am
whew, managed somehow to get through monday alive. it was a spectacularly beautiful day, and we spent part of it planting many things in the garden, including carrots, which bunnies totally devoured last year. perhaps that won’t happen this year, because we’re allegedly going to have a fence around the garden, plus some pet or another will hopefully EAT the bunnies. because the bunnies really must go.
i haven’t looked up any recipes for pet food yet, but i have been spending some time at a food-related site. people food and nutrition, that is. it’s called sparkpeople.com. and if you happen to have any obsessive-compulsive eating issues, any concerns about dieting and all of that, i highly, HIGHLY recommend this site. it’s totally free, and when you sign up you can input the food that you eat in a day and it tells you how many total calories you’ve eaten and it breaks it all down into how much fat and carbs and protein and everything, you can select whatever vitamins or anything that you want to track, and it’s incredibly user-friendly. and once i start filling in all the food i ate in a day, it was fascinating to see it as a pie chart.
not a pie you could eat, however.
one good thing is that i’ve been so busy adding the food i’ve eaten, i haven’t been focusing on eating too much, plus i know that whatever i eat, i’ll then have to type it in and i don’t want to be horrified by the total number of calories i’ve consumed in a day.
i try not to bore you with my dieting obsession, but on the other hand i know that plenty of people have this exact same obsession, so you should really take a look at that site.
aside from that...monday is over. it was a perfectly fine day, too, it was just that sunday night thing that was so bad. maybe next sunday night i need to go bowling or something, to take my mind off the beginning of another week, which will be just fine anyway.
we tried on our costumes for “sleeping beaty” on sunday, and they’re going to be very fancy. except kevin is wearing a dress and it’s going to be very very short only they hadn’t hemmed it yet so it looked like a red tunic or pinafore or something. luckily he’s the one who’s going to be wearing the very short dress, not me. i get to wear a train.
next weekend we’re going to a tractor pull. a LAWN tractor pull, no less. kevin almost coerced me into being the MC for the tractor pull, but i said that maybe they should find somebody who actually knows something about lawn tractor-pulling.
instead we’ll be signing in the tractor-pullers. it should be QUITE a day.
ok then,
monday grace.
Apr. 01, 2007
i really really really shoulda
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grace@graceuncensored.com
@
11:46 pm
gone to bed already. instead, i’m looking at news on the internet and there are MORE PET FOOD RECALLS.
soon they’re going to find out that it’s all tainted. but they can’t figure out just exactly what is going on, and they keep adding products to the list. now it includes POUNCE MOIST MEATY cat treats. i looked at our three kinds of pounce treats, and none of them is called moist meaty, but i was revulsed to see that the second ingredient in them was “animal digest.” does that not sound just GROSS?
amy and jim went to st. louis today and apparently loaded up on organic pet food. and online there are stories of lots of people doing the same thing. and alternative mentioned is making your own pet food. i looked at some of the recipes, and the first one was “sauteed liver.” ugh. i don’t want to saute any liver.
but maybe it’s the best thing to do. i’m sure if i look i can find lots of recipes.
maybe everybody will just start setting extra places at the table for their pets, letting them join in with whatever the family is eating.
i know mollie would be delighted with that.
animal digest, good lord.
ok ok ok,
grace h.
sunday night
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grace@graceuncensored.com
@
11:14 pm
hmmmm. the big story is that hilary clinton has raised FORTY TWO BAZILLION MILLION QUATRILLION HUNDRED ZILLION JILLION DOLLARS, more than ANY PERSON EVER has raised at this point in a presidential campaign.
that’s what happens when you have this really good money-making machine.
i can’t believe that i’m so depressed about this. before i’d heard of mr. obama, i’d have been fine with it.
aside from that...cold weather, it’s a comin'. brrrr. when it gets cold near the end of the week, i think i’ll just stay inside and crank up the heat and look out at the green green grass, budding trees and tulips and pretend that it’s warm out there. i refuse to go running in that kind of weather, because that would be ADMITTING THAT IT’S REALLY COLD.
on one side of the driveway we have tulips and daffodils. on the other side of the driveway, we have the stalks and leaves of tulips and daffodils. the evil bunnies have bitten the heads off the flowers. why only on one side of the driveway, though? plus the new bulbs we planted around the mailbox are thriving.
stupid rabbits.
i wonder if there would be any possible scenario in which i wouldn’t feel so generally annoyed by life late on a sunday night. perhaps if i went to bed at eight.
ok already,
scowling sunday grace.
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