He'd be embarrassed, but..

I am so proud right now. Of my nephew. Watching the debate, my sis and I were on direct link via Google Chat (And, I daresay, a scary psychic link). And she told me at the beginning that my nephew, M, was watching with her. Now, M is 14. How many 14 year olds watched the debate tonight? But every now and then, my sis told me a comment that M had made. After it was over, he had a few more. More importantly - he watched the whole thing. And had opinions. Regardless of his politics, I am incredibly glad that my 14 year old nephew cares enough to watch one and a half hours of political discourse when he could be playing online, or reading one of his books, or doing one of a million other things. I know adults that don't care that much. I'm proud of him. I know he's involved in an organization at school - completely on his own, my sis wouldn't push him into something like that - and I'm so glad that he cares. That says a lot about the person he is, and the person he will become. About the kind of parents my sister and brother-in-law are. In short, I'm proud (have you gotten that fact yet? Well, I just watched a debate where they repeated things). And I've had enough to drink during the presidential grandstanding (I had to - "I have a bracelet too" - we're in a jewelry war?) to share that with the world at large. It's enough to make me think that the future won't be so bad.

The benefit to still having acne at age 30:

When you walk in the door to your house with your arms full, and a cat-who-shall-remain-nameless (LUCIUS, I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO, STOP TRYING!) makes an escape attempt through your legs, causing you to land flat on your face on the carpet at 80 mph, causing, in turn, a large rug burn right under your nose and a smaller one on your chin that actually get bloodier and more painful 36 hours after they happened ……People will assume it’s just another massive zit gone bad. Or that your husband belted you one. I guess it speaks well of The Professor that everyone assumes I’ve had a facial eruption. PS: Said not-so-unnamed cat stopped an inch outside of the door, sat down and looked at me. When I stood up, he made a beeline back in the house and went to his food bowl. I will never understand why he needs to go out so badly, when every time he makes it free from my tyranny, he immediately heads back inside. Life's about the journey, Deborah, not the destination... PPS: My arms were not full of my laptop at the time, so the only thing you need to worry about is my face, if you feel so inclined.

This is why I don't watch a whole lot of TV:

Because I have to deal with stupid commercials. We now live in a world where the response to the following is not a bewildered "that doesn't even make sense", but a laugh and "That probably could happen." Because you know, kittens on a credit card - like toothpaste in a carry-on - are obvious signs that you're a security risk. Besides the fact that this is completely counter to American ideals while calling itself "American Express", it points out just how much we've been conditioned to think like that. We all know who I blame. And now I'm going to end this rant and go read some nice historical romance to get me back to my happy place.

Big Sisters always have all the fun

And it now Appears I'm live-blogging in pictures at the end of this post. My big sis is at an Obama event today, where she'll be one of thousands that get to hear him. Living as I do in a state that has no chance of throwing any electoral votes his way, I'm going to live vicariously through her today and try not to acknowledge the fact that I'm jealous. Oh wait. I guess I just acknowledged it. Update: They closed the gates in front of her once, but then reopened them - the city was expecting 20,000 in a park that is estimated to only hold 10,000 people. A little later: Ohh! She's emailing me pictures! Here's one of the crowd: And here's one of a plane with a banner that my old eyes can't read: A few minutes later, and the crowd does the wave: Prayers are now over, dignitaries speaking...but no one came to hear any of them! Well, unless their mother is there. Hmm...no updates in 23 minutes means either A) my niece is not happy about the outing, or B) My sis is too busy listening to update me. Hmmph. Doesn't she care about my needs? Hmm...Still no Obama. I wonder if she's reading my blog on her shiny flashy techy iPhone - she sent that last update about 2 minutes after I complained about the lack of info. And finally! We have visual confirmation!

To make you all hungry

I'm working on a couple of new posts for that cooking blog of mine, one of which is the latest recipe in our Julia Child cookbook review. My sister, ever the impatient one, asked - nay demanded! - pictures. Because I am the model of perfection in younger siblings, I am obliging. She may be sorry she asked. The dish: Roast Chicken Steeped with Port Wine, Cream and Mushrooms (from "Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume 1") served with Mushroom and Thyme Risotto Step One: Roast a chicken. Here's the bird, in all of it's shrink-wrapped glory: Here's the bird, halfway through roasting, in the oven, mostly dead: Here's the roasted bird, assuredly dead and thoroughly cooked, on my new pretty platter: Step Two: Start the risotto. Here's the rice in one of the first baths of chicken broth: Here's the chicken broth of which I am especially proud, since I just made a fresh batch this week: And now, because I am thrifty, I chopped up the mushroom stems and slowly...ohhh..sooo...sllloowwly...sauteed them in a little buttery thyme and white wine: Here's the rice towards the second half of the process, with a shot of the merrily simmering broth. Ahh, you two really are the perfect couple! Step Three: Time to pour the first glass of wine and start putting it all together. First of all, it's time to start those port-y mushrooms for the bird! Ok, I missed the shot of the port-y mushrooms doing their thing in the half-and-half. So now we're on to the Pièce de résistance - flaming the hacked-apart bird in cognac: Oh god, you see way too much of my dirty counters there. In case you're scared, that's The Professor's hairy arm doing the flaming honors. Flaming honors? He's gonna love that one. Then we add the porty-creamy-mushrooms to the pan: And then - thank Julia - we dine on one porty, creamy, mushroomy, slighly-cognacy roasted chicken! In all modesty, this is one of the best roast birds I have ever put together. The mushrooms were awesome, the chicken was tender...maybe Julia knew what she was doing?

Communication. It's the Key.

The Professor, looking at the calendar: So in the last 6 weeks of the year, I have your birthday, our anniversary and Christmas. Me: Yep. It's a good time of year to be me. TP: So what do you want me to buy you? Me: Surprise me! I love surprises! TP: Okkkaayyy....{thinks for another minute}. What should I surprise you with?

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving...

I've read this blog post about 3 times today. The interesting part, to me, starts at about the 4th paragraph:

Over the next 100,000 years, the odds of humanity surviving are probably 50 percent, though species that evolve from us could last longer. The odds of us surviving the next hundred million years are roughly nil. Earth itself will become inhospitable for human life within the next 250 million years, certainly by the time the continents come back together into Pangea Ultima, and it will be inhospitable for all life within the next billion years.

And once again, I'm brought back to how incredibly apropos Monty Python is in yet another moment of life:

The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding In all of the directions it can whizz As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is. So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure, How amazingly unlikely is your birth, And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, 'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth.

Rock Me, Amadeus*

Our TV decided to quit working this week. Yes, that TV. After a weekend with 5-6 people in the house at all times - two of which were teenagers, who carry their own special brand of Hell with them at all times - it was supposed to be a relief to go to work Monday morning. Granted, it would be the relief of going to the pool when it's 100 degrees outside, only to discover that the water temperature is 85. But still, a little relief can go a long way. Except that the IT people on base chose last weekend to upgrade all of the computers from Office 2003 to 2007. Cue: The Panic Music. Four of the five people in my department needed me to sit with them and teach them how to use Microsoft Word all over again. I tried explaining that a lot of the shortcut keys still work (Ctrl-S still saves; Ctrl-P still prints. What else do they really need?). I got blank looks. Apparently, these are some of the best kept secrets in the Microsoft kingdom? To make things even more fun, three of the nine computers in my department didn't get updated - which means that two people couldn't even open Outlook to read the email telling them they had been upgraded. Is that irony at work? I spent the entire ride home contemplating which bottle of wine to open first. Then I walked in the door and The Professor told me the TV was broken. Needless to say, there has been much reading in the past 72 hours - both on my previous TV and the one that we bought last night. I could write an epic on the diferences between the two (it would basically dwell on what a piece of crap our last TV was), but we'll just leave it at: yay for shiny new toys in the living room! And so, today I took the day off of work. I wandered into the living room around 7 AM - about the time The Professor was leaving for work - and discovered that not only was Amadeus just starting on OVTV ("Youth Culture TV" does not equal Amadeus in my book, but what do I know about youth culture?), but also - ALSO - my wonderful husband had made me a pot of coffee. It's like God stepped into my life and saw what I needed. *I just watched Amadeus a month or so ago, and sent my Nashville girls an email the next day asking why the movie makes the song "Rock Me, Amadeus" get stuck in my head, when there could hardly be two musical genres so far apart. It's happening again.

In Which I Fall Behind on Life

The past couple of weeks at work have been a blur. In fact, all of June was just insane and the craziness slid into July. I'm still learning my way around my job, which is frustrating because it's been 3 months and it's NEVER taken me this long to get the hang of something. I can order the books and make the spreadsheets like I was born with my brain fully integrated with my PC. Wrapping that brain around how the government (supposedly) pays our vendors - you know, the ones who haven't been paid lately? - and keeping personnel files that have SIX distinct sections APIECE is putting more than a crimp in my daily nerd-fest. The 4 day course in "how to be a good supervisor" and the two week vacation may have contributed to the in-boxes - both virtual and real - that I can't seem to empty. Aha! This is why people have complained about paperwork since some idiotic bureaucrat invented the concept. I bet he did it to get back at his boss.

No More Birds. Unless They're Plucked and Deep Fried. Oh, and Happy Independence Day!

The Bird Experience did not end well for anyone. I would go into details, but that would make me remember the funky smell that hung around my front stoop (Does anyone say "front stoop" anymore?), and honestly, I'd kinda like to forget that. So here's the nutshell version: Ernestina needs to work on her mothering because 2 of her babies dove headfirst onto my concrete stoop when they were about 2 days old. The third baby died in the nest, hence the smell. Ernestina and partner left and didn't look back. So it's the Fourth of July - a day that we are all thankful for, because we get paid to stay home from work and put everything in our refrigerator on the grill and drink Coronas. Well, I'm getting paid for today. Thank you America! But seriously, I have to hold myself back from going all "I heart America" every year. I have one small flag, but The Professor feels that even that is a little tacky, so I can't hang it out front. I currently have it tucked between the pictures of Dead People On Our Walls - Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, which I find just hilarious. If you want some good music, hop on over to www.apr.org and listen to their live stream. It's 9:30, and they're playing some awesome music - of course, it''s an "America" themed show, but it's a look back at all different types of "American" Music. At the moment, they're doing some awesome stuff from the Cincinnati Pops. I'm sure they'll end with the usual "God Bless America" suspects later. If I'm lucky, The Bestest Friend will be here to make fun of me for getting goosebumps. Update: This radio show is awesome. They started with some sing-along stuff from a concert, moved on to some spirituals, played a TWENTY MINUTE medley of songs from Oklahoma! and have now moved onto some Gershwin stuff. It's a good day.