I am so proud of my country right now, I could burst!

For Eric and Val, who live in the 6th District

This is the last post for today, I promise.

Bachmann McCarthy Overdrive

Season 2 is over already?!

Is there anyone else out there who is addicted to watches Mad Men on AMC?

This is gonna be a long wait for Season 3.

Nicely said, sir

[Powell] told Tom Brokaw that he was troubled by what other Republicans, not McCain, had said: “ ‘Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.’ Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?”

Word.

Random post

The "Watch me!" command is amazingly effective when one is holding a treat.

(It's a shame that Bailey's not quite in focus -- how cute would that have been?! -- but then again, I was holding the treat in one hand, the camera in the other, had Murray's leash looped around my wrist, and was maintaining both dogs' attention. Not too shabby, really.)

No pictures later

We had a minor crisis last night (Jim might appreciate this)...A day or two ago, Morgan was told asked to bring up something from the basement freezer, and didn't quite close the freezer door all the way on her way back upstairs. Ack. 

Fortunately, it truly was a minor crisis, as 1) because it'd only been a day or two, and the door was only open a crack, only the first layer of things were impacted, 2) I'd been meaning to defrost and clean out that freezer for the last, oh, two years or so (this does not say much about my housekeeping skills, does it) and this got that task off the "I'll get to it one of these days" list and into the "I'm going to do do that right now!" category, and  3) while some things were a loss (mystery doughs, pie crusts, bananas, realllllllllly old bags of veggies, popsicles, a few pre-packaged lean cuisine type meals I'd bought back when I was still working full-time for That Place [which means they've been in there for at least 18 months and probably longer; and now I'm using parentheses within parentheses, uh oh]), most of the meats and my soups, stews, and other leftovers meals were so buried that they were still frozen solid, and so nothing important had to be thrown out.  Wow, did I really get all that into one sentence?

I did have to whip up a quick batch of strawberry jam last night -- which wasn't a big deal; I'd go to far greater lengths than that to save strawberries. We had to have a thawed small cheese pizza last night as an appetizer, which no one seemed to mind too much. The girls will be having chicken nuggets this morning as part of their breakfast (when and why did I buy chicken nuggets???). And there will be a few other odd meals over the next few days. But really, it could have been worse. And hey, now that freezer's defrosted and cleaned out, Morgan has learned the importance of making sure the freezer door's closed all the way, and I'm eating fresh strawberry jam with my toast. Life is good. 

Teaser post

Tonight is one of our no-meat dinners: Lentil soup (although it's so thick it's more like a stew) with cheese and fresh-baked bread, and an apple crisp for dessert. Very autumn-like, no?

Pictures later.

Oh, and also

We got a new puppy last week. Husky lab mix, now 11 weeks old and 24 lbs. Yup, he's gonna be big.

Meet Murray. 

Not the best shot (just a quick  point and shoot) but the RAW images are still on the camera.

If you think his right eye has a tinge of blue, you're right. 

Off to eat Thanksgiving dinner now. More later. 

In which my kitchen is a disaster

So we're having Thanksgiving tonight (long story; I'll tell you about it later). I volunteered to make a pie, dinner rolls, and cranberry sauce. Well, the pie turned into two pies. I wanted to make something new -- the apple cranberry pie featured on the cover of the current issue of Cook's Illustrated -- but then got worried that people might not like it. So I made a plain ol' apple pie too. Just in case. And then I decided to make two cranberry sauces for basically the same reason: I wanted to try a cranberry pear ginger sauce -- but what if people don't like cranberry pear ginger sauce? What if they want just plain cranberry? Best have some on hand. Just in case.  

It's been grand fun. Messy, but fun. I tried a new pie crust recipe that I think is now my absolute favorite pie crust recipe: the secret ingredient is vodka. Yes, vodka. Crazy!

Everything's looking good and smelling even better. Nom. 

In descending order: dinner rolls, apple-cranberry pie, cranberry pear ginger sauce, cranberry sauce, and the apple pie (still in the oven baking).

Happy Thanksgiving!

ich bin eine gute hausfrau, ja

I've never been much for menu planning. I'm much more of a fly-by-the-seat-my-pants type of cook, unless we're hosting something, and even then I'm prone to a lot of improvisation. But it's something I always feel like I should be doing. In theory, it sure seems that it would make things easier. And the last few months I've had to make some dietary changes in response to some health issues. (More on that coming in a later entry.) It's made a difference, but these changes don't always translate into things that the kids and Pete enjoy. Since I have no desire to make one meal for me and a separate meal for them -- or go all evil and make them make their own gorram food -- I'm now on a constant hunt for recipes that will work for all four of us. That's not easy to do without some advance planning. 

Anyway, for the last few weeks I've been giving this menu-planning thing a try. Surprisingly, I'm liking it. A lot. It's always grand fun going through cookbooks and websites (yes, yes, I'm a big dork). It's *especially* fun trying out new recipes, things I might not otherwise make for the four of us because I don't have all the ingredients available. (I don't know about you, but I don't usually have items like "6 ounces mixed wild mushrooms" (Wild Mushroom and Broccoli Tart) or "2.5 cups passata" (Eggplant and Chickpea Tagine) on hand.) That puts the kibosh on trying new and fun recipes, unless you're the type to make a quick run to the grocery store for just a few things, which I'm not. I'd like to claim it's because it's a waste of gas, but really, it's because it's a pain in the...rear. By the time I go there and get back for those couple of things, I could have dinner half done. 

How are these kinds of ingredients suddenly available, you ask? Why, because when I "schedule" a recipe, I do a quick check of what's in the frig and pantry and then add any necessary ingredients to the grocery shopping list. That in turn makes grocery shopping faster and easier, because I'm not haphazardly guessing at what we may or may not be having for our dinners. While I love to cook, I do not particularly enjoy grocery shopping. Actually, most of the time I loathe it. So I am all for anything that helps gets me in and out of the grocery store faster. 

We don't eat out or order in a lot to begin with, but if we did, I'm going to guess that knowing what's the on the menu and having the ingredients on hand to make it would help cut that down. 

Menu planning. Why haven't I been doing this before now?

For those who might be curious, here's what's on this week's menu:

Monday: Pasta with tomato garden sauce and some of that fresh bread -- a light whole wheat -- you see rising in the above picture.

Tuesday: Italian Veggie Turkey Soup (the kids LOVE this one) with more of that homemade bread. Yum!

Wednesday: Potato, Red Onion, and Feta Frittata*, with roasted veggies as a side dish.

Thursday: Tofu stir-fry with egg noodles*, and baked stuffed apples for dessert (a strange combination, I know, but one the kids like).

Friday: Ratatouille*, with Potatoes Dauphinois* and Eggplant, Smoked Mozzarella, and Basil Rolls* as the sides. Or perhaps the eggplant, smoked mozz, and basil rolls will be appetizers instead of a side. I haven't quite decided.

Saturday: Leftovers night!

Sunday: Whole roasted chicken, with brown rice and a vegetable medley as the sides. 

Sounds good, no? 

I'll try to remember to take some pictures.


*Starred recipes are from Vegetarian, which is fast becoming one of my favorite cookbooks.

Sunday morning reading

I do loves me some Sunday NY Times. 

Would McCain, Palin, or Biden resign if (heaven forbid) one of their children was captured? 

Farewell, Paul. We're going to miss you.

Edible schoolyards: Taking kids beyond chicken nuggets.

If the government always comes to your rescue when the chips are down, why limit your risks?

Running 26.2 miles in under 2 hours, 4 minutes? Oh yeah.

When spell-check can't help: A quiz and answers.

And on a local note, yet another Twin Cities cyclist has died after after being hit by an SUV. Damn. How many biking fatalities does this make for the year? TOO MANY. Guys and girls, I know you don't need this warning, but I'm going to say it anyway: please be careful out there.   

And as long as I'm talking politics

I think Governor Palin is a poor VP pick for a couple of reasons. Leaving aside the fact that I simply don't agree with her on a lot of the issues, I don't think that she's qualified to be next in line for the presidency. (Being able to see Russia on a clear day just doesn't cut it for me.) And I'm quite insulted at the idea that as a woman, they think that I'm going to go vote for the McCain-Palin ticket simply because Palin has a uterus. Please. To use a phrase from my formative decade, gag me with spoon.  If they wanted a female candidate in an attempt to get more of the female vote -- and honestly, I have problems with that approach; I don't care about a candidate's gender, I simply want the best person for the job -- there were other, more qualified politicians who could have and should have been selected (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison come immediately to mind).

(Sidenote that will become relevant in just a moment: why was it that it was seemingly OK for someone to ask McCain, "So how do we beat that bitch?" re: Senator Clinton -- if he did have a problem with the word "bitch" and its connotations, he stayed pretty quiet about it -- but any criticism of Palin results in cries of "Sexism!" from both the McCain camp and other Republicans?)   

That said, one sentence in Judith Warner's column today in the New York Times stopped me dead in the middle of reading:

They know she can't possibly do it all -- the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders.

Imagine this sentence being written about a male candidate. 

They know he can't do it all -- the kids, the special-needs baby, the big job, the big conversations with foreign leaders. 

It would never get written! This is a standard that is *never* applied to a male candidate, no matter his party affiliation, no matter how strong or weak his qualifications are, no matter what his home life is like. And it disgusts me. Like I said above, I don't care for Palin as a VP pick, and I think the Republicans who let sexist attacks on Clinton slide but now scream when it happens to Palin are a bunch of hypocrites. But that doesn't mean that this blatant, stupid sexism is OK. Because it IS sexism, no question about it.  

I don't know what it's going to take to change this kind of thinking, to level the playing field so that both men and women in politics, business, academics, all fields, are held to the same standards, but I sure am sick of it. I'd love to think that this will no longer be an issue by the time my daughters are adults, but alas. I fear that's wishful and deluded thinking.    

Debate

It's all over the news that Senator McCain wants to postpone tonight's scheduled debate because of the financial crisis and proposed bailout. (If you somehow didn't know about this, you can read about it in the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox, etc. Pick your poison.)

This is a terrible idea. Right now, we the people need to hear from both candidates. I'm hardly a financial guru, but it seems rather likely that the economic issues of the moment are going to continue into the next administration. So not only do we need to know what the candidates support and propose doing and how each proposes doing it, but also what they think needs to happen going forward. And we need to hear it now. Not a week from now, not a month from now, not after whatever legislative fix is in place, but now. What better forum than this first scheduled debate?

Note that I am neither endorsing nor rejecting the bailout. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, if everything "they" are saying is true and we're looking down the barrel of near-certain economic collapse, I certainly don't want to risk a Great Depression by letting the markets go into free fall. On the other hand, the blatant socialism of this proposed bailout doesn't sit well with me. (And can anyone explain to me why it is that socialized health insurance is decried and defeated, but a socialized bailout of Wall Street seems to be OK?) Thankfully, I'm not running for political office, so I can sit here and dither. But McCain is running for office. That means that he doesn't have the luxury of dithering or asking for more time -- or saying that this one matter is so important that he can't turn his attention to anything else. At the very least, that doesn't say much about his ability to multi-task, an ability that one would think should be an important part of a presidential candidate's skills set.

And least it seems that I'm unfairly dogging on McCain, let the record show that I want this debate to happen because I want to hear from Senator Obama, too. If he's got a comprehensive plan for dealing with this both now and going forward, I don't know what it is. And that's not good.

Frankly, leadership seems to be in awfully short quantities right now.  To use an overused cliche, someone needs to step up to the plate. Tonight's debate is the perfect opportunity for that. Postponing the debate sells both the candidates and the voters short.

Breakfast

I picked up the camera the other day for the first time in weeks*, and realized that I took a bunch of pictures when we went to the Copper Dome after getting the girls off to the first day of school but never did get around to getting them off the camera, processed, and posted.

If you're ever in St. Paul, go check this place out. The decor -- flour, flour, and more flour -- is interesting and the food's great. And if you live here, what's your excuse? Give me a call. I'll meet you there for breakfast.


It doesn't really have a dome.



Flour!


Love the old time feel to the register. And the flour.


The menu's huge. Lots of choices, very small print.
This is just the first page (and I cut off a big chunk of it).
If you want pancakes, I recommend the Oatmeal Bran Banana Nut pancakes.
They're good.


But this time, I went for a ham and cheese omelette.
Also very good.


And hashbrowns. Mmmm. Hashbrowns.


I don't remember exactly what Pete had, but it was good too.


More flour.


I have resolved to get me into more pictures (because I'm bad about doing that).
So, here I am in the ladies' room of the Copper Dome.


Goblin Flour? How cool is that!

I wish they were still in business. I'd buy it for the name alone, just so that the girls could make goblin bread sandwiches for their lunches. Heh.


*The usual excuses: busy, settling into the school routine, sick, blah blah blah.

See, kids, we're not lame; we're simply years ahead of the trends

AFTER decades of obsessing about fat, calories and carbs, many dieters have made the unorthodox decision to simply enjoy food again. That doesn’t mean they’re giving up on health or even weight loss. Instead, consumers and nutritionists say they are seeing a shift toward “positive eating” — shunning deprivation diets and instead focusing on adding seasonal vegetables, nuts, berries and other healthful foods to their plates.

The article says people are starting to cook for themselves, too. And they're avoiding pre-packaged, processed foods.

o.O

I really need to figure out a way to market this kind of stuff before it becomes all hip and cool. Harumph.

Saluting an Iraq veteran

My brother's out of the army as of midnight last night. We were going to go out with his wife and him to celebrate tonight, but they've both got a mild case of food poisoning after a late-night dinner last night (eek!) and we've got a sick kid. So we'll hold off on the celebration. But oh, I am so glad and relieved that he's out -- and at the same time, incredibly proud of how well he served his country, too.   

Job well done, little brother. Enjoy your civilian years. You've earned them.

First day of school

4th grade!!!
(That's our old mailbox next to Morgan;
Pete made it into a planter.)


New backpacks, such fun.


Such serious students.


And a little sepia to finish off the session.


And now that the girls are off to school, Mr. Yon Saucy and I are going to brave RNC madness and go have breakfast at my favorite breakfast place, the Copper Dome. (Ignore the negative reviews. Those people are clearly deranged.) Yum.

Last day of summer vacation

You may have heard that the Republican National Convention is currently happening over in St. Paul. We're doing our level best to avoid it, so we spent the last day of the girls' summer vacation going to the Zoo in the morning and Cascade Bay in the afternoon.

The Zoo was crowded and the animals were mostly hiding away snoozing, but I managed to get a couple of OK shots.

Siesta time for the grizzlies -- at 10 a.m.!
Rough life, dude.


I wouldn't want to mess with those claws.


The snow leopards were only marginally more awake.


I don't think he (she?) liked the humidity.


And like I said, most of the other critters were hidden away asleep, so that was it for pictures.

I didn't bring the camera along to Cascade Bay, but it was a good way to close out the summer. We swam, played water tag and other games, and then the girls found some friends they hadn't seen since school got out last June and promptly ditched us. We were all right about being ditched, though, and retired to our lounge chairs and read -- with periodic breaks to hop in to get cooled off -- while the kids went down the various slides and floated around the lazy river a few dozen last times. For not only was today the last day of summer vacation; it was Cascade Bay's last day of the season. I have to admit that I was a little sad when they blew the whistles at 5 and booted us all out. Dang, this summer went by fast.

But tomorrow we start 4th grade! The girls' Girl Scouts troop, in conjunction with the Boy Scouts troop, is doing the first-day-of-school flag raising ceremony. Great excitement, I tell you, especially since they're now Junior Girl Scouts and have new green vests and insignia that they'll wear for the first time tomorrow. I'd like to think that all the Girl Scouts are this excited about wearing their Girl Scouts' gear for the first day of school (instead of new back-to-school duds) and raising the flag, but I suspect it's just my two quivering with anticipation. Heh.

Give us this (week) our daily (white) bread

Behold, white bread rising.

So, I make our own bread, right? Cuz I'm a touch obsessed about things like taste and quality, and avoiding HFCS and mystery ingredients that I can't pronounce...Anyway, as I was mixing up this week's bread batch late this afternoon, I made an oops. I'd intended to make a light whole-wheat, but...somehow completely forgot to add the whole wheat flour. (It probably didn't help that I'd just got up from a nap and was a mite groggy.) Instead, I went on auto-pilot and added cup after cup after cup of white flour. Like, 14 cups worth. By the time I realized it, it was too late to fix. Oops.

Oh well. This'll be a nice treat for lunch sandwiches for work -- and school. School. How is it possible that this is the last day of August, that the girls go back to school on Tuesday, that summer's essentially done?!

Dog owners, read this

If you have a Four Paws Pimple Ball with Bell (Item #20227-001, UPC Code 0 4566320227 9), throw it away. Now. It can cause serious injury or death.

In Chai's case, it resulted in the loss of his tongue.

(Warning: the videos are hard to watch. That poor dog.)

We don't have any Four Paws products in our house -- Bailey prefers a non-Four Paws squeaky toy over anything and everything else, and she only plays with that one sporadically -- so saying that I'm going to boycott the company until they get this resolved is meaningless, really. But if I was looking for pet toys, I wouldn't buy their products. Anyway, I sent an email to Allen Simon, Four Paws' CEO, urging him to pull this product from the market and make restitution to Chai's owners for his medical care. If you'd like to do the same, the email addy is: hbirk@fourpaws.com

Guest Blogger: Morgan

Inanimate or living?
by Morgan S.

These two pictures of my American girl doll before and after I went to sleep form a question.


This was Kit before I went to sleep.


This is Kit after I woke up. Her hair is different!

Is this doll Toy Story coming to life? Or is it just silly and the dog walked on Kit's head? We're not so sure ourselves. "Inanimate or living?" YOU decide!

*blank stare*

My allergies are kicking in and I'm sneezing like mad. Tomorrow I have to go in for a minor outpatient procedure/treatment, first in a series*. The GI ick continues, although much better than it was before. What the hell ride am I on? Whatever it is, I want to get off. NOW.

On a happier note, our 14 & 1/2-year-old blender, a wedding gift, died in the middle of making banana-mango smoothies yesterday. OK, that wasn't very happy; that was really frustrating. (And messy.) Here's the happy part: today I got a new one. New kitchen toy. Whoot.



*It's nothing serious, so don't be concerned. And no, I am not going to tell you what it is, because that's entirely TMI.

So, China's Thumbelinas win gymnastics gold...

...but questions remain about the gymnasts' ages.

I haven't seen the team competition yet (we've DVRing the Olympics, watching the bits we're especially interested in and fast forwarding through the rest, and we're behind by about a day [and yes, I know that "DVR" isn't a verb]), but I will say this: when I was 12, I was 4'11" and weighed 78 pounds. When I was 16, I'd reached my full height of 5'4" and weighed about 115 pounds*. That's purely anecdotal and means nothing, of course. But reading about these girls' (they are not women, no no no) heights and weights, and comparing them to their American counterparts...Huh.

I really wish the IOC had done its job and investigated this.


*and thought I was fat. Good grief.

Look, I'm a manga character!

Ha ha ha. This was fun. Plus, Manga-me has boobage. Nifty.

All the cool kids are doing it, so go here to make yourself into a manga character. (Boobage not required.)

Hint of fall today

It's August, but it doesn't feel like summer. It's rainy and cool. A few leaves have fallen. I'm wearing a sweatshirt. We won't going to the pool or for a bike ride today. Instead, we'll stay in and bake bread, and play games and watch TV. This always happens in August: a day or patch of days that carry a tang of autumn. Summer will bounce back -- it always does -- but today I'm remembering how short our warm season really is up here.

I really didn't want to write this post

For the last month or so, I've been having some GI issues. I doubt that it's anything too serious -- we've ruled out food allergies, food poisoning, bugs, viruses, etc.; my white blood cell count is normal; blood pressure and pulse are good; weight's good; my overall physical condition is, as my doctor put it, "fantastic" -- but it is persistent and annoying and, to be honest, a little bit debilitating at times.

Once things settle down, I'm going to go get 'scoped so we have a better idea of what might be going on, but since we don't know for sure...Well, the long story made short is that on my doctor's advice, I won't be running the marathon. I'll be there the morning of, and I'll start off with the rest of the field, but I won't be running the whole thing. (Maybe half.)

I was very upset when he told me this two weeks ago, but I've slowly come around to his reasoning. We don't know what's going on. It's probably fine. But I have to admit that training's been a struggle for the last month, and that my energy levels aren't where they should be. And it's not like he told me to stop running altogether: he said he didn't think that continuing to train for the marathon would be wise at this point.

If this wasn't me, if this was a friend who'd been having some health issues and whose doctor had told her he didn't think it was wise to do this, and she asked me what I thought, what would I say to her? Of course I'd tell her to listen to her doctor. Once I looked at it from that perspective, it was easy to make the decision.

And of course, there's always next year. It's not like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, after all.

But I am disappointed.

Lots of pictures

Wednesday we left for a little camping trip on the St. Croix River. This is one of the areas I consider "ours" -- we did a lot of camping there pre-kids and a fair amount post-kids -- but we haven't made it out there the last few years. It felt awfully good to be back.


Thursday morning sunrise, by Pete (who thinks that he doesn't take good pictures! Ha!)

Thursday happened to be my birthday. At my request, we celebrated by spending the day on the river in a canoe. It was perfect.




(There's no good way to take a picture of four people when they're all in a canoe, I'm afraid.)

On a side note, I am delighted, for the girls have finally discovered and are enthralled by Harry Potter. (Pay no attention to Morgan's Spy Kids. She didn't want to bring the bigger book on the river.) They're gobbling them up as fast as they can, and we've already had several deeply satisfying discussions about books 1, 2, and 3. Huzzah!

Friday we went fishing in one of the small river channels. Morgan caught her first fish within 20 minutes



(it's so small that we really should have thrown it back, but she didn't want to; I guess we're going to have it mounted -- don't laugh!) and another two little ones right after that (she was OK throwing those back in). After the third fish almost touched her leg on its way back into the river (ewwww!) she decided fishing was grand fun, and she was done.

Emma and I stayed out there for hours, but Morgan -- who, for the record, wouldn't have anything to do with putting the bait on her hook, getting the fish off the hook, or handling the fish at all -- had apparently nabbed all the luck, for poor Emma caught nothing but nibbles. Given that Emma was putting bait on the hook all by herself and had no issues with handling the fish, she thought that was more than a bit unfair, but overall stayed fairly cheerful about it. She and I are going fishing on Sunday, though.



And Monday, and Tuesday, and every other day until she finally catches a fish. That's all right. I like fishing. I actually feel sort of bad that we haven't taken the kids fishing before, even though we live right by a river. It's weird, but it's just not something I think to do. Lame, I know. Well, that's about to change, because Emma's caught the fishing bug bad.

I'd have loved to have stayed through Sunday, but we had to pack it up and head for home Friday afternoon, because there was something Super Cool going on Saturday morning (today) that we absolutely had to be here for, no ifs, ands, or buts about it...


Emma taking off.

Flying!! See, a few weeks ago, I saw a blurb in the newspaper about the Young Eagles program and promptly signed the girls up for today's session. Oh wow, that was amazing -- and I was just on the ground taking pictures. If you've got kids between the ages of 8 - 17, you should really check out this program. The pilots were awesome and the planes were phenomenal. The girls' flights ended several hours ago, and they're still bouncing around.

I'm afraid I have no plane knowledge whatsoever, so forgive my ignorance about makes, models, and stuff.




Emma got "the red plane."




Morgan was in "the yellow plane."


Taxiing.


Into the wild blue yonder -- literally! It's kind of weird, watching your kid zoom off into the sky...


Emma coming in.


I know her face is hard to see in this one, but she was SO excited, I had to post this one. And I love the pilot's grin.

Emma, our little chatterbox, was stunned speechless for about 10 minutes after she got out of the plane. I've never seen her like that before: she literally couldn't talk. She's flown before, but that's been on big commercial jets, nothing like this. A whole new world just exploded into being for her.


Morgan didn't wave coming in, or even smile. We were a little worried that maybe she'd been frightened out of her gourd -- but no. (Turned out that she had a control panel in front of her that she was focusing on.) She loved it. She's usually the quieter of the two (this isn't saying much as they're both talkers), but she came off that plane babbling a mile a minute and quivering with excitement. I don't know that it was quite as earth-shaking as Emma's experience -- the kid wants to be a pilot, and not when she grows up, but now -- but that was totally WICKED! (Who knows what movie that's from?)


They're officially Young Eagles now. Awesome, girls.


We sat around watching the planes coming in and out for a while after, and someone came out and took our picture, because these are new benches and they were pleased as punch that people were actually sitting on the benches and watching the planes take off and land. Tee hee.

(There are a ton of Chapter 54 Young Eagles pictures -- taken by the Chapter 54 folks, not yours truly -- from today's session here, if you're interested.)

And then we went out for breakfast, and then headed home, and that was the end to our super-fantastic mini-vacation. Now we have to go mow the lawn. Pooh.

Vanished posts, and reservations

Dana Torres (Robert Maxwell)

In my last entry, I said the next post was going to be about the female body. Well, I did write it, and I thought I posted it, but...huh. Doesn't seem to be there, now does it?

Let me explain...no, there is too much. Let me sum up. (Bonus point to whoever can tell me what movie that's from.) Basically, it stemmed from this New York Times Well entry comparing 5-time Olympian and 41-year-old Dana Torres (she of the amazing abs) to 80-year-old Estelle Parsons


Estelle Parsons (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)

an actress who, while not in Olympic form, is in pretty amazing shape.

I took exception to the statement that "Ms. Torres and her 'phenomenally ripped' belly have become the 'physical ideal for mothers, women at or approaching middle age, and just women in general.'" Oh, bother. Like this is remotely realistic for most of us poor schlups who don't have at least $100,000 a year for coaches, masseuses, chiropractors, nannies, and the like. I much prefer Ms. Parsons' appproach, because first, that IS realistic. Anyone who claims she can't find at least 30 minutes a day for exercise either needs to reevaluate what she's doing or is flat-out lying. (Parents with newborns and/or multiples get a free pass on this one.) And second, an Olympian, I'm not. Most of us aren't. Most of us won't be. But when I'm 80, I sure would like to be healthy and fit -- and that is something I can strive for.

And then there's 62-year-old Helen Mirren...


This picture's all over the Internet, but I got this one at www.examiner.com

Um. Wow. I have no idea what she's doing to keep in shape, but clearly, it's working. Wow!

Dang it, the post-that-didn't-post was a lot better than this summary. Anyway, what do you think? Would you rather be a Dara or an Estelle? Or Helen? (Hubba, hubba.)


# # #



Pete and I biking happily along during last year's 3-Speed Tour

In other news, I just got the last available room at the Bridgewaters Bed & Breakfast for next year's 3-Speed Tour. Hate me. =D