Recipe featuring pesto and roasted grapes

Chicken (or "Chicken;" or Tofu; or Zucchini; or even Paneer) Pesto Salad with Roasted Grapes

(this makes about 4 servings)

• two entire (cooked) boneless, skinless chicken breasts (or four portions of unseasoned fake chicken product, or cooked tofu, etc.), chilled or at room temperature
• 1 smallish red onion, coarsely chopped, roasted and cooled (see below)
• 1 cup (more is ok) seedless grapes, roasted and cooled (see below) - I think that the red ones look cooler, but the green ones work just fine too
• [optional: cubes of fresh mozarella or paneer]
• 1 large pile of fresh basil leaves, thick stringy stems removed, and washed and dried (oh, say, a food-processor bowl full, loosely packed)
• 3-4 cloves garlic, peeled & cut in half
• walnut-sized chunk of hard Italian cheese (e.g. parmesan or romano, etc.), broken into smaller pieces if you're using the food processor, otherwise grated very fine
• a couple of handfuls of walnuts or pine nuts, toasted briefly & cooled
• olive oil
• salt
• pepper

I've never tried making this with tofu, but you could cut some tofu into cubes and cook them in a bit of oil, either in a skillet (use more oil) or on the bottom shelf of the oven (just enough oil to coat the cubes) for about 30-40 minutes; the goal is to make them sort of chewy and less crumbly. They sell pre-roasted tofu, though it's usually seasoned with something.

There are some good fake chicken products on the market nowadays; the best ones for this recipe would be the gluten-based kind (e.g. seitan, although it might be a bit on the chewy side) that comes refrigerated in sort of a shrink-wrap package. The canned stuff is often too salty, and the frozen kinds that I've tried are the wrong texture for this dish. Just avoid the kind that is pre-marinated in ginger-soy sauce, etc. It's yummy, but not so good with the pesto.

You could also use chunks of grilled zucchini or patty-pan squash (cooked through, but not soggy or mushy) if you don't want dead animals in your lunch. What you want is something firm and dense enough to hold its shape, with a mild flavor that won't compete with the pesto flavor, and that contrasts with the texture & color of the grapes. I think eggplant might be too weird, but I could see trying it with paneer (see photo) or some kind of fresh cheese thing, esp. if you're serving it as a side dish.

If you're using chicken, just brush it with oil, sprinkle it with a bit of salt & pepper and grill it or broil it in the oven with the grapes & onions (see next step). I often grill a couple of extras & toss them in the fridge and/or use leftovers if I have them. Chop into generous bite-sized chunks.

Place the onion & grapes in a bowl and toss with some olive oil (enough so that everything is coated with it, but no more), sprinkle with salt & pepper, and spread it all out on a cookie sheet. This is where you don't want pools of olive oil all over the place or it might scorch. Put the cookie sheet on the top shelf of a pretty hot (425F or so) oven until the grapes start to pop and the onions are getting soft. Times vary. Start checking after 10 minutes and shake or stir as necessary.

Purists may want to keep the grapes and onions separate so that each can roast for the optimal time period, but I'm personally not going to get two cookie sheets dirty if I'm the one doing the dishes.

You can, incidentally, do that part in a toaster oven if you're making a smaller quantity, or if your oven doesn't work.

The next part is where you make the pesto. It's actually more of a pesto-flavored dressing; it's much runnier than regular pesto. If you don't want to bother making the pesto, or maybe you have some that you made already, just take about 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of it and stir in enough olive oil to make it the texture of salad dressing.

If you don't have a food processor, just chop (and chop and chop) the basil & garlic & nuts together with a chef's knife, or smash it with a mortar & pestle, or do whatever it is that you usually do to make pesto, then grate the cheese (very fine) and combine it thoroughly with the basil & garlic. Then put it in a bowl and add olive oil until it is smooth and sort of pourable.

Julie suggested in the comments recently that one should dry-roast the unpeeled garlic cloves in a skillet before using them in pesto. I've never tried this, but it seems plausible, and Julie is really smart. She's a librarian. Toasting the garlic lightly seems like an especially good idea in the late winter/early spring, when last year's garlic starts getting ready to sprout and is kind of bitter and a little too strong. You should definitely toast the walnuts or pine nuts and let them cool before using them in the pesto.

You can toast nuts in the oven on a dry (ungreased) cookie sheet, on the top shelf (temperature isn't really critical), stirring occasionally to toast evenly. But I like to use a heavy cast-iron skillet: spread the nuts evenly on the bottom of the pan (no oil, etc. in the pan) and turn on the heat - way up high until the pan is good and hot. Keep stirring the nuts so they toast evenly. Don't let them burn, or even darken very much. They'll release some oil as they heat up, and they scorch easily. Turn the heat down if they seem to be heating up too fast. They're done when they're very golden brown (pine nuts) and smell all toasty-delicious.

The nuts will hold heat after you take them off the burner (and so will the cast iron pan!), so I usually dump them into a shallow stainless steel bowl and toss them a while to help them cool off.

But back to the pesto. If you're using a food processor, please be sure you have washed and dried the basil. Why do I care? you ask. If there is water in the basil, and you are adding the oil while the food processor is going (which is half the fun!), the oil and water will congeal. Emuslify. Whatever they call it. In any case, you'll end up with what looks sort of like basil-flavored crisco, and you'll have to add more oil than you really need in order to make it pourable. If you do find this happening, just process in short bursts and take your time.

Anyway, you'll be using that chopping blade, the one that looks kind of like the satellite photo of a tropical storm. Fill the food processor bowl with the basil, the garlic, and the cheese and process it for a bit. Add a little oil to start with if necessary, just to get things going -- and then when it's all pretty evenly chopped, leave the thing running and pour olive oil very slowly down the chute thingy of the food processor.

Fun, no?

How much olive oil to use can vary. I've never even attempted to measure it. I'm going to guess that it's about half a cup, but it could be more if you used a lot of basil. It is possible to use too much, so stop every once in a while and stir it with a spoon to assess the texture. It should be pourable, but less runny than, say, olive oil. If you've used too much, add more basil (spinach will work OK too if you're out of basil).

Some folks like to add salt to their pesto. I don't. I find that the cheese is plenty salty enough, and the chicken & grapes & onions already have salt & pepper on them.

Once you've got everything prepared and cooled, put it all in a big bowl and stir in the pesto dressing, a bit at a time, to coat everything evenly and generously, but not to the point where it's all drippy. Add salt & pepper to taste.

You might not need all the pesto stuff. Save the surplus and use it like you would use pesto, or add more basil, etc. to it to make more of the regular kind of pesto. Also, if you have any of the chicken salad left, you might want to add a bit more of the dressing and/or a splash of lemon juice to freshen it up the next day.

This isn't the sort of chicken salad you would make into a sandwich, necessarily (although you can, and I have). You could serve it stuffed into a slightly warmed pita, with some shredded romaine lettuce. Or on a bed of some kind of greens. If you like those godawful "wrap" things, go ahead and wrap this beautiful salad in an enormous spinach tortilla & hide it from everyone. Hell, you can put sprouts in it for all I care.

I think it's especially nice with a Spanish or Portuguese white wine, nice & cold & refreshing.

I sure hope Julie remembers to bring some basil for me Friday. [Update: She did!]

Gardens, neighbors, vegetables

It's been ages since I had a garden. Like, twelve years, maybe? It was a ways north of Minneapolis, at about 47 degrees latitude, which put it in Hardiness Zone 3 (as opposed to the balmy Zone 4 I'd grown up with in Minneapolis). For perspective, the US-Canada border is at the 49th parallel; Minneapolis is at the 45th.

The growing season, in other words, was short. Daylight hours, however, were long in the summer, so some things (sweet corn, for example) did pretty well. Kale, broccoli, beets, potatoes -- great. Acorn squash did fine, and so did beans, and brussels sprouts and carrots. It was a respectable enough garden, considering. Zucchini, of course, took over everything. But watermelons, not so great. Tomatoes hardly ever ripened, even though I started them indoors. Twelve tomato plants might give me 10 or 11 ripe tomatoes and lots of compost. It was pointless to even try tomatoes. One year I tried to grow a row of sunflowers next to our little fake-redwood cabin. I started them inside -- they grow fast anyway, right? and we watched them grow very rapidly indeed once I put them out on the sunny side of the house. I'm totally not making this up: the day after the flowers opened, we had a hard frost and everything died. Except the kale.

I had a friend who'd moved to that area from Louisiana; every year she tried to grow okra. For seventeen years, it failed every time.

When we moved back to balmy Minneapolis, we had a house in an old, inner-city neighborhood with contaminated soil, according to the neighborhood newsletters: lead paint, traffic fumes, industry -- that kind of thing. My mom, an enthusiastic organic gardner, asked me whether I was going to put a vegetable garden in our new yard. Nah, I told her, the soil is so contaminated and I don't know how long we're going to be here (not that long, it turned out), and blah blah blah I just didn't want to bother with testing it and carting in new soil and alla that crap.

"Well what about pot gardening?" asks mom, helpfully.

"Mom, if I'm not going to eat anything grown in this yard, I'm sure as hell not going to smoke it!" I reply, annoyed.

"Containers, honey," she says. "On that big deck you have upstairs. Cooking herbs, tomatoes, that kind of thing."

"Um, yeah, right," I mutter.

Whatever.

We just grew flowers. The yard was full of gorgeous perennials, so even someone like me who isn't much of a flower gardener could easily make it look fabulous. I did have a couple of hanging pots with some mint and lemon thyme and so on, but not too much. We were oh so busy in those days.

So then I moved here about ten years ago or so, and suddenlly found myself in zone seven. I mean, you can grow just about anything here, although lilacs don't do all that well. But wisteria, wow!

Our first place didn't have a yard, or even much space for container gardening, though I think we put a couple of pepper plants on the front steps our first summer here. Or maybe we just talked about it, I can't recall.

Anyway, it was with great delight that I read about vergelimbo's fabulous fire escape garden, and also his industrial garden space repurposing project. He did have to bring in some soil, and then he fenced in the area around his shop, and now he has this fabulous garden! [The picture was taken earlier in the season.]

I'm hoping to get invited to one of the small dinner parties he mentions in his post about it all.

Because, see, I met this vergelimbo guy in person the other day. He's sort of a neighbor, and it turns out we know a whole bunch of the same people and hang out at a lot of the same places -- and have done so for years. How we failed to ever meet each other in the last like eight years or so is something of a mystery to both of us, but there you have it.

Plus we both moved here from the north to be with our sweethearts, then broke up shortly thereafter, and decided that we liked it enough here to stay on anyway. It was totally fun to talk with somebody who moved here from somewhere else -- someone who has lived in much bigger and more, you know, "cosmopolitan" type cities, and especially someone who is youthful and single and creative and educated -- who doesn't think that this little town is stiflingly dull.

I get really irked with folks who think that this place is some kind of hell-hole with nothing for hip young single people to do. I happen to think that if you're bored here, it's because you're boring, and you'd be bored wherever you lived.

I'll probably have more to say about this 'locavore'* thing he mentions in another post, but I need to re-read parts of Peter Singer and Jim Mason's new-ish book "The Way We Eat: Why our food choices matter" first.

*A locavore, apparently, is one who chooses to eat only (or mostly) things that are grown within a given radius of home. It's a great idea, no question. It supports your regional agricultural community, reduces the use of fossil fuel for transportation, and brings you, generally, much fresher, higher-quality produce -- just for starters. Plus, it's a great impetus to grow your own food, which is something I've lost touch with and I miss doing it.

Conspiracy, or maybe just folks coveting their neighbor's goods?

I have another question for youall: Who in the hell keeps messing with the Bill of Rights?

No, not those bastards in the gubmint -- I'm talking about my personal copy of the Bill of Rights, the one that is posted over my desk. It's not one of those fancy facsimile copies, just a transcript that I typed out and printed for my own personal reference. A souvenir, sort of, as I sit here and read the news and watch them slip away.

I figure I can cross them off one by one. It'll be a game -- sort of like hangman, I'm thinking.

But anyway, they keep disappearing. The copies, I mean. I have no idea who's taking them. Housekeeping? Probably not. Sneaky colleagues? Are they being hostile, or maybe making fun of me, or do they really just want their own copy?

A couple of people (n=2) have asked me for a copy, so I printed a bunch out and there's a stack of copies in the top tray of my inbox so that people can help themselves. Do they take those? No, they keep taking the one off my bulletin board.

If you want to make your own copy, you can find a transcript here. Or you can go here to download a high-res copy of any of your favorite Charters of Freedom documents. Amendments 11-27 are posted here in case you want to check those out before somebody starts chipping away at them too.

I guess I shouldn't worry too much about it. The copies disappearing from my bulletin board. It's easy enough to post another copy. And whoever it is doesn't seem inclined to take anything else -- not even the Abbie Hoffman postcard that I put up when one of my colleagues suggested that I didn't have enough flag-themed articles decorating my cubicle. Not even my pink 'Hello Kitty' glasses case -- which I gotta figure that a lot of the guys here in the tech dept secretly covet -- or even one single one of the antimicrobial pens that I hand out for laughs at meetings. Calculator, scissors, staple remover, PMS tea -- all right here.

Although, now that I think about it, didn't there used to be a whole bunch of fortune-cookie fortunes tacked up there too?

What happened to them? I was going to have a lucky weekend in bed, dammit.

Walking down hallways, thinking way too hard

Say you're walking down an ordinary office building type of hallway. Not a crowded hallway, not a particularly long hallway -- but not a really short one either. Let's say that there's just one other person walking in the same hallway. Doesn't matter whether they're walking in the same direction or you are walking towards each other. If you are both approaching a slightly narrower part of the hallway -- a fire doorway, for example, with both of the doors open unless there's a fire alarm. It does not matter how fast you are walking or how fast they are walking, or how far either of you is from the doorway, you will both reach it at precisely the same time. Every time. And one of you has to stand aside and let the other pass so as not to violate the personal-space-in-a-nearly-empty-hallway rules. It doesn't even seem to matter if one or both of you tried to slow down/speed up a bit in order to pass each other before or after the doorway.

Why? Am I the only one bothered by this? Does it happen to anyone else? Am I imagining it? Is there an equation or a formula somewhere that predicts or explains this phenomenon? Am I losing my mind?

Patchouli-flavored hippie flashback

I got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning or something. I may in fact have gotten into bed on the wrong side.

I ignored my shrieking alarm clock for so long that it stopped entirely and when I did finally wake up my neck hurt like crazy. Probably from trying to keep my head under the pillows. So I decided that even though I was kind of late already I would take a nice hot bath. And what's a nice hot bath without bubbles? I was out of my regular kinds and grabbed the first likely-looking bottle from the part of the shelf where these things live.

I didn't have my glasses on and it's entirely possible that I wouldn't have read the label anyway, at least not closely enough to have noticed 'patchouli oil' prominently among the ingredients. And I was kind of rushed, so I didn't even sniff the bottle when I opened it, just poured it into the running water and went in the other room to do my morning exercises.

I sort of noticed the smell, but it was kind of pleasant overall, kind of citrusy and woodsy and pepperminty. And the hot water felt great on my sore neck.

But when I got out of the tub I could feel this aromatic presence everywhere, this lingering and dense cloud of odor. And it's not a bad smell, really, by itself, but it's such a strong scent and so strongly associated with other, less pleasant smells. Like those clove-scented cigarettes. And those dreadlocked blonde hippie kids with their principled rejection of such haute-bourgeois concepts as bathing and shaving and washing their clothes.

So I put on this long, embroidered, hippie-chick style dress, a funky silver and amber necklace from the market in Istanbul, and some lace-up espadrilles. I was out the door in no time. I didn't even, like, comb my hair or anything.

But please don't make me smoke one of those clove cigarettes, OK?

Holga vs. 2 large kitties

So in addition to the numerous llamas, there were cats at this delightful wedding I went to recently.

If you click on the picture [or here], you can see what happened with the kitty at the table. She was quite brazen.

I happen to like cats and I'm rather blase about cats who belly up to the table and eat from your plate when you're not looking, but I recognize that not everyone knows what that's about. I mean, they're not exactly subtle when they take food off your plate. They sometimes didn't even bother to sneak. I was charmed, at any rate. I am less charmed when they eat off your plate when you are actually looking at them and you don't have a camera in your hand, but that's just me.

There were also quite a few other cats at this establishment, though I only successfully photographed those two -- and, like the llamas, the chickens, and the goats, they seemed to have free run.

Not that I disapprove (nor, as far as I could tell, did any of the other wedding guests). But it does seem kind of unusual, don't you think? Charming, to be sure, given the rural setting.

And they were such large cats. Here is another of the cats basking in the waning sunlight waiting for the whole event to get rolling. (And, it's likely, waiting for the whole thing to be over already, cats being the way they generally are.)

There will be more Holga photos to come, just as soon as I get my photo-processing allowance.

There's a bit of a backlog in the photo procesing department before I get to the Asheville pics. Sorry about that. Niether blogging nor photography is much of an income stream here at alphabitch.org. If you'd like to see that change, please email me at holga - AT - alphabitch - DOT - org and let me know. I'll certainly continue to post these rather low-res images, but I'd be happy to put up a tip jar or some such in exchange for prints or higher-resolution (e.g. printable) copies of the Holga photos if youall are genuinely clamoring for more photos.

Even if you're not exactly clamoring for more, and are not willing to pay actual money for your very own copies or to support what is after all my, ahem, habit, I sure have appreciated (and quite honestly would appreciate more of) your comments about the Holga pictures.

Also I encourage all of you to get your own Holga if you have any interest at all. The actual camera is cheap as hell, although the film and the processing and printing can be a huge money drain, especially if you are as lazy as I am about framing the shots, etc. I'm working on reducing the ratio of bullshit/unsuccessful shots to interesting/successful ones. And it's happening surprisingly fast, given that I usually work with digital photos and/or photos I can process myself and crop or delete without printing.

Success with the Holga requires a bizarre combination of discipline and letting go of control & expectations. Very good for some of us. But amazingly fun and it will -- I feel certain -- make one a better photographer when one returns to everyday life and one's regular camera [caution: the latter statement is purely conjecture on my part. And maybe a little wishful thinking.].

Friday llama blogging

Hey, remember that nice wedding I went to a while ago? Did I mention there were llamas there? There were llamas there. At least I think they were llamas. I'm not entirely sure if these are llamas or alpacas, to be perfectly honest.

But in any case, there I was with the Holga, and there were the llamas (or whatever), so of course I had to photograph them. They didn't seem to mind, though when I rejoined the crowd at the party, someone mentioned that they'd been waiting anxiously to see whether I was going to grab hold of the fence, which was of course electrified (it's visible at the bottom of the frame and behind the llama's head). I didn't. I could see the insulator thingys at the corners and I figured it was probably electric. How else are you going to keep a bunch of llamas inside the fence?

Intrepid traveler returns

I guess it's true that I don't get out enough. I went to Asheville with a friend this weekend and I got home today & feel as if I've been away forever.

I was gone for maybe 36 hours, if that. It's not that far away; a couple of hours, maybe?

But it's a funny thing about traveling -- whether by car or plane: even though I am just sitting there on my ass the entire time, I always arrive feeling as though I've walked, carrying my luggage, for however long it took me to get there. It's as if my body somehow knows how far I've gone, and gets tired on account of it. But it also knows I've been sitting on my ass the whole damn time, so I'm also kind of wired and restless.

I never said I was consistent.

I did, however, have a great time. I love going to Asheville, and I always want to move there after I visit. This lasts a day or so. There's just not a great job market in my field, though, and I would totally suck at waiting tables or working retail. Plus I was looking at the real estate prices and there is no freaking way I could afford to live there at all. But it's full of sweet young things with groovy tattoos, and middle-aged hippie retirees, and everybody brings their dogs everywhere and there are lots of restaurants and there's music and art and, well, tourists. You know how they are. And little shops. There are lots of little shops.

Asheville is totally different than here. This is a great place to live, but I probably wouldn't want to visit, if you know what I mean.

I'd post pictures, but I only brought the Holga. It'll take me a while to get the film processed, etc.

'Hypnotised by that gyrating god'

What does Tom Jones have in common with John Coltrane and Elvis Presley?

It seems that the Welsh pop star now has his own church. Well, (also like the other two), he didn't actually start his own religion or anything, but there is a church dedicated to him. On account of his "soulful, spiritual, and supernatural voice."

Yep.

I don't make this stuff up, you know. I read it on the BBC news site.

It seems that one Pastor Jack Stahl out of Sacramento, CA, has dedicated his church to Mr. Jones, using his music in baptisms, marriages, funerals, and -- no lie -- exorcisms.

Pastor Jack, 43, who dresses up as Tom Jones during services, has been fascinated by the singer since he saw the show "This is Tom Jones" in 1969. Apparently the six-year-old was "hypnotised by that gyrating god and it was almost as if angels had surrounded me."

I guess it's not so much about the lyrics, but rather the guy's voice which Pastor Jack finds so inspirational. "So it just made sense that years later when I started my own ministry that I would incorporate the angelic voice of Tom Jones in it," he said. He does not, however, encourage female congregants to throw their undergarments at him.

When asked to comment, Mr. Jones noted that "It's weird, but a positive thing [...] He saw the light through me, so it works."

You've gotta check this out: it's a super-spectacular 1985 performance of "War." Big production number. At about 28 seconds in, there's this set change, and choreography, and fog, and shiny costumes and oh my god. Plus explosions!

"Life is much too short to spend fighting wars each day
War cannot give life, only take it away
[...]
Peace, love & understanding
Tell me, is there no place for them today?"

Funny you should ask.

Go Speed Racer, Go

How much fun can a gal have in one lunch break? Lots, I tell you. I went with my co-workers out to lunch at the Sonic (I had a pronto pup, onion rings, and a root beer float), and then we went to the Go-Kart Palace, or whatever it's called, right up the street.

I have mixed feelings about recreational internal combustion engines, but let's face it, go-karts are a blast. I didn't even feel guilty about it for a minute. And I almost nailed that one kid (on purpose!) who kept taking that corner too wide and slowing down right in front of me. But I gave him a little space and then passed him on the straightaway. And then we all went in and played air hockey and everybody else played video games. I went out and watched the go-karts some more.

I'm going back again only next time I'm going to ride for a whole hour. Maybe more.

Vintage lingerie

Over at Hedonistic Pleasureseeker's place, a few of us had a discussion a while back about our enthusiasm for vintage lingerie and how difficult it is to find nowadays. Of course Miss Hedonist had a link to a vintage lingerie website that had some beautiful stuff, but it was a little bit spendy for my liking.

Most of the ones I have (see pictures below) are from eBay; a couple of them even arrived still in the original package. I've also found them at estate sales, but I haven't seen any like these in thrift shops for years.

Anyway, frequent commenter Pony asked for photos, so here they are. I was going to take some of them on the clothesline with the Holga (and maybe I did, but they're not back from the processing lab) but it rained and I had to bring them in and drape them over the hooks in the bathroom to finish drying. The BVM at left is actually a bath towel hung from the curtain rod. From outside at night it looks like a stained glass window if the bathroom light is on.

I first started wearing these old, 1940s & 1950s style slips when I was in high school and got hold of a trunkful of old dresses, hats, shoes, and lingerie that had belonged to my fathers' aunts and great-aunts.

One of the latter, my great-great-aunt Elizabeth, had been a milliner for many years, so the hats were spectacular, and each had a dress, suit, or coat to match. And of course shoes. A few even had matching belts.

And everything in the trunk either fit me perfectly or was easily altered. Most of it was handmade, and all those ladies were excellent seamstresses. I really miss all that old stuff. I wore it all through high school & college -- and some of it much longer. The stuff I have now is disappointing somehow. They just don't make stuff like they used to.

I will admit, however, that modern bras are way more comfortable than those old bullet-bras; I'm not even going to go there. But these old slips are constructed to enhance a gal's, um, figure, and her clothing. They're tailored in such a way that there's no bunched up extra fabric at your waist; they're full-length so there's no extra elastic waistband, which makes them comfortable under both skirts and dresses.

And, in general, vintage lingerie is much higher in quality than what you find nowadays. The few full-length slips I find new in stores are generally not fitted, and come in two useless lengths: too short and too long. And they generate enough static electricity to power your iPod all day. Or they would, if iPods ran on static.

Plus the older ones are pretty. I know some of the younger gals like to wear them as dresses. Not my style nowadays, but I do recall going out dancing in a pale blue lace number under a black leather jacket with big-ass army boots and a spiked leather dog collar. I believe I left the house with a black turtleneck and a black plaid schoolgirl skirt over the slip.

Ah, the eighties.

The randomizer makes me nervous sometimes

So there I was this morning at the bus stop, listening to the music and watching my neighbors drive by, one at a time, in their cars looking bored and annoyed and tired.

The morning was cool and beautiful, and the music was all over the map; I was randomizing from the big playlist (7,473 songs). And Nanci Griffith started singing "10 Degrees and Getting Colder:"

"He was standing by the highway
With a sign that just said Mother
When he heard a driver coming
About a half a mile away
So he held the sign up higher
Where no decent soul could miss it
It was ten degrees or colder
Down by Boulder Dam that day"

So OK, I wasn't hitchhiking, my heart isn't broken, and it's certainly not ten degrees, and I'm nowhere near Boulder. But just then my friend and neighbor D. pulled up in her car and I hopped in and took the earphones out of my ears. She made some joke about picking up hitchhikers and I laughed & told her what song was playing; we both thought it was kind of funny.

My office is out of D's way, and I was in no hurry, so I had her drop me off at the central bus transfer facility downtown and I put the headphones back in, and it's Liz Phair, singing "Ride:"

"I get a ride
Right by your side
Under your skin
I'm digging in

Well I don't know, but I've been told
The road to heaven is paved with gold
And if I die before I wake,
I need a ride"

I know it's not really paying attention to me and it has no way of knowing what I'm doing, I just thought it was kind of strange is all. Like that time I pulled into the parking ramp and Joni Mitchell started singing about how they paved paradise & put up a parking lot.

I'm sure the iPod randomizer really is random, but maybe there's some kind of way to focus its power and use it like Tarot cards or astrology or something. To tell the future, or answer questions about, well, whether you're likely to get a ride halfway to work.

Get your mind outta the gutter

You can't make this shit up. I have no idea whether or not this is for real, but it's a video clip (posted on youtube.com) in which these two guys are talking about a banana. And how its many beautiful characteristics that suit it so well for human, um, consumption are proof of Divine Providence. At least I think that's what they're talking about:

"Notice how gracefully it sits in the hand. Notice it has a point at the top for ease of entry, it's just the right shape for the human mouth. It's even curved toward the human face to make the whole process so much easier..."

They really say that. Without smirking in the slightest. Anyway, they examine the banana and offer it up to heathen atheist evilutionists (like myself, I guess) as proof that god exists and really cares about us.

Obviously, if he wants us to do that with our bananas he cares at least a little.

As the lovely belledame over at Fetch Me My Axe puts it: "it's just a banana, people. Sometimes a banana is just a cigar. And/or proof that there is, in fact, a God."

But then I came across this version of the same video, which includes the beginning of the piece, in which these guys explain creationism Intelligent Design by displaying a soda can and using it to ridicule -- what, exactly? science? "I have an intellectually stimulating theory," says the guy on the left,

"It's my theory of where the soda can may have come from -- billions of years ago there was a big bang in space -- nobody knows what caused this big bang, it just happened ... and from this bang issued this huge rock, on top of this rock was found a sweet brown bubbly substance and over millions of years, aluminum crept up the sides, formed itself in a can, then a lid, then a tab..."

And then he talks about how that's a crazy and absurd "theory" and clearly the can was designed and manufactured, implying the existence of a designer and a manufacturer. And then they bring on the banana, "the atheists' nightmare!" I believe we're meant to conclude that it's crazy to think that bananas and humans just, you know, evolved.

This is what they want to teach young people?

The Holga goes to a party

The Holga and I recently attended a beautiful wedding. And that (see photo at left) is a very happy couple.

I even got kind of weepy during the ceremony -- I did! I cried! at a wedding! and that has certainly never happened to me before.

For a minute there I could almost understand why someone might think it was a good idea to get married.

For a minute there I was willing to consider the possibility that I'd never actually even been in love before and I should just shut up already because I clearly don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And there was even a minute or two during which I was prepared to let go forever of my politics and my cynicism and even my chronic grumpiness, at least with regard to weddings and the institution of marriage.

Almost.

I did manage to banish all that cynicism, grumpiness, and politics for the rest of the day and have a great time dancing and drinking and talking and eating fabulous food. I did not waste a second of it in pointless analysis. I love dancing!

See, I don't usually go to weddings, and I can't imagine that I'd ever participate in one; I'm not religious, I'm not especially romantic, and I'm basically kind of a scofflaw when it comes right down to it.

I guess I've been grumpy about weddings ever since I found out that my cousin's wedding dress cost more than all my college loans put together. And of course her daddy paid for it, along with her tuition. And her dress was ugly and the food was lousy, and the place was full of mean-spirited gossipy people. Just like at my other cousin's wedding, where on top of all that the groom's friends put a ball & chain around his ankle. Hahahahaha. Isn't that funny? Or my other cousin's wedding, where the bride (five months pregnant!) fainted at the feet of the Blessed Virgin Mary as she did that old-school R.C. thing of stopping to leave her flowers in front of the statue. Just before she left the church to start her happy new life with my cousin the convicted felon with anger management issues. They were both 19.

Oh, and cynical, did I mention that I'm cynical?

And then there's that whole 'forever & ever' thing. And forsaking all others? Just not my cuppa cappuccino, if you know what I mean. I could probably do it, but it's not something I long for.

Plus, marriage is a cornerstone of the patriarchy & everything. The very cornerstoniest, if dear Aunt Twisty is to be believed.

A lot of folks I know attribute my antipathy to marriage to a 'sour grapes' type attitude on my part, on account of I'm a lesbian & I can't get married, not legally or anything like that, & so I just want to rain on everyone else's happy little picnic. And maybe I do, but I'm not, strictly speaking, a lesbian any more. More of a has-bian I guess you could say. And as a bisexual I guess I could marry a man if I wanted to, but if I think about that too hard, it's more than just silly that I could marry a man but not a woman. I like men just fine, don't get me wrong about that. More than just fine, some of them. But it makes my brain hurt to think about it.

I've said a number of times before, that the only reason I'm in favor of making same-sex marriage legal is so that I can demonstrate more comprehensively my opposition to the whole thing by declining the opportunity to marry a woman either. I mean, it was one thing to live as an outlaw with my lovely ex-wife, and it's funny to call her my lovely ex-wife, but in truth we were never married, and would probably not have chosen to marry if we could have done. We talked about it. But it doesn't really mean anything to say that, because it's entirely hypothetical.

But none of that is my point. My point is that I attended the wedding of the happy couple pictured above, and it was beautiful. Yes, they spent a lot of time planning it and took great pains to ensure that everything was just the way they wanted it. Yes, it was probably expensive, and a bit of a hassle here and there. But it really seemed to me that they had a handle on what the whole event really means, and even what the whole 'marriage' thing is actually about.

Plus it seems like they are so in love. I mean that deep kind of love that is sensible and goofy and adorable and reliable and funny and sweet. And romantic and very likely pretty hot -- I don't know them well enough to ask them about it. But they are love geeks. And the day was gorgeous and the food was delicious and the wine flowed freely and the guests mingled and danced and everybody there had so much genuine affection for these two.

I personally hope they live happily ever after.

Bill Clinton made my sister hot

My sister is a mailman. OK 'Letter Carrier' is I guess their official title but she says 'mailman' and I respect that. I respect deeply what mailmen do. I love getting mail. It's pretty fucking amazing if you think about it. And they work damn hard, and it's a pretty thankless job a lot of the time.

But yesterday she told me that she'd pretty much seen it all in the whacked-out customer department: "Nobody's ever tried to tell me I'm imagining the weather before," she said.

Like a lot of places, it's been insanely hot where she lives and works. Just take a minute to imagine what it's like walking around outside in 100-degree weather carrying 50 pounds of mail at a time for eight or ten hours. Not pretty. And she doesn't live in a place where 100-degree weather is usual, although it does happen from time to time.

So picture this: she's walking along her appointed rounds with her fifty-pound sack and sweating like crazy and trying to move as slowly as possible and still complete her route more or less on time. And as she approaches this nice, air-conditioned house -- to which she has been delivering the mail for years -- out pops this guy. She's never seen him before, and thinks maybe he's anticipating a package or expecting something exciting in the mail. He's walking very purposefully towards her

People do that kind of thing sometimes.

He appears to be a regular guy -- a republican and a little bit of a nutjob, she figures, based on what she's seen in his mail. But as soon as she's close enough to hear him, he starts going off about how global warming is a myth. How it was Bill Clinton who convinced "all you liberals" that temperatures were rising and didn't she know that it was this hot for the entire summer of 1933?

No "hi there," no "hot enough for ya?" lame-ass weather jokes, no greeting of any kind, just this tirade about how global warming is a made-up liberal fantasy -- an excuse to disguise liberals' efforts to take over the world and mess with (trample, even) the rights of individuals and their corporate overlords. OK, I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the idea.

Crazy stuff, but he was really worked up about it. Especially the Clinton-blaming part of it. And how on account of Clinton, everyone was going around believing it was actually hotter out than it was.

Or something.