I was born in 1962, and spent my early years in Richmond, Indiana and we moved to New Hampshire when I was five. My dad was a clergyman, and a college teacher so there were lots of potlucks. Many of them featured Things Done With Jello. My mom used to make Cherry jello with bing cherries in the summer, and it was a huge treat. Other moms had copper-colored jello molds of leaping fish, and hearts and bundt-cake shaped tower things on their walls; mine didn't. There were jello desserts then, made with things like cream cheese, and cottage cheese, and nuts, and canned fruit and grated carrot peels. And Cool Whip, and ginger ale. A writer friend posted version of this recipe for Orange Stuff; I cleaned up the formatting. This is the kind of thing I remember and I think I'm going to make it. It's made with dry orange jello, canned crushed pineapple, canned mandarin oranges, cool whip, cottage cheese and pecans.

( The recipe is behind the cut )

I was talking withmac_stone about how we learned to cook, how our moms cooked, and how we see people a few years younger than us not knowing how to cook, and it got me all nostalgic for what my friend jasmijnh once referred to as (with a nod at James Lileks) regrettable food.

I still use Campbell's Mushroom Soup (AKA Lutheran Binder) in cooking, though with a freezer I'd make my own. I had Green Bean Casserole for the first time ever last Thanksgiving—going to have that again for sure. But reading about the Orange Stuff made me all nostalgic for church lady food, and pot lucks.

It seems that there's a cultural comfort food category of things like Chili Dog Casserole.

Courtesy of ckd pointing it out Friday night, another entry in Signage: An Occasional Series:




And, I just gotta say: global climate change doubters? New England. Strawberries. In November.



That was my back yard this morning. I'm still getting salad out of it.

0.o

And now, back to Grail.

So I found out when I was having dinner with mutual friends last night that the wasband finally got remarried. They've been engaged forever and last time I spoke to them, they hadn't picked a date yet.

Huh.

I always kinda thought I'd get an invite to the wedding. Dunno why, but I did think that he'd invite me. John wasn't sure when the wedding was, sometime in the past two months, which means that I wouldn't have been able to go anyway because of Faire and Guild obligations.

Not quite sure how I feel about this. Will have to ponder it today.

I'm going to keep this really short and really sweet.

This is NOT a debate space. When someone says something that violates the rules, makes the space feel unsafe, or bothers you, PLEASE email the mod team. DON'T argue with them. Its rude to the op, its rude to other commenters, and it is not the purpose of this space. This space functions best as catharsis, not as further frustration. This is why you have a mod team, we are here to maintain the integrity of this space for all of you, but we can't be here every second. We will find issues a great deal faster if you bring them to us, and then we can prevent them from turning into 100 comment clusterfucks.



Thank you, I will now step down from my soapbox and let you all go back to your regularly scheduled rages.

Thanks to everyone who came out for the book thingy yesterday.

Tomorrow, I start work on the next book thingy. I know you can't wait for the inevitable relentless bitching and cries of dismay that will emanate from my workspace, between intermittent thumping sounds.

I only have to write three books (and a bunch of short stuff) between now and October. Piece of cake, right?

From the Washington Post, as relayed via DailyKOS.

"Because of the limits placed on the exchanges, most of the participants will have some form of premium credit or affordable subsidy. That means most will be ineligible for abortion coverage. The idea that people are going to go out and purchase separate "abortion plans" is both cruel and laughable. If this amendment passes, it will mean that virtually all women with insurance through the exchange who find themselves in the unwanted and unexpected position of needing to terminate a pregnancy will not have coverage for the procedure. Abortion coverage will not be outlawed in this country. It will simply be tiered, reserved for those rich enough to afford insurance themselves or lucky enough to receive from their employers."

The amendment is expected to pass with relative ease. Republicans will join with anti-choice Democrats to push it over the finish line. Once the amendment passes, the bill is cleared for a vote, and all parties expect that vote to succeed. Today looks likely to end with a historic, and important, vote. A vote that is a first step towards helping more than 30 million people secure health-care coverage, and making sure hundreds of millions are better protected from the vagaries of the insurance industry. But Stupak's amendment is a bitter start. It is, however, not the end. Even if it muscles into the House bill, it will also have to pass in the Senate, and then survive conference, before it becomes law.

My note: Even the most ardent, supposed "feminist" politicians have stated they are willing to vote to allow this amendment to stand, as long as they can pass the reform today.

This is PATHETIC. And we have a Democratic majority in both the House and Senate who can't seem to buck up and get a spine, so I dunno folks. What do YOU think is the best way to deal with this grassroots style?

Basically, English baroque buildings, such as Worcester's Guildhall (late period, student of Hawksmoor), are often exquisitely proportioned, large-windowed edifices combining straight lines and curves in an eye-pleasing fashion. One of the few major problems with the external appearances of late English Baroque architecture during the reign of Queen Anne, imo, is the tendency of public buildings erected by her supporters to display an undignified need to LOUDLY proclaim Anne's right to be Monarch and the right of the Monarchy to rule. It's as if Queen Anne was Queenie from Blackadder II and had charged around her Queendom scrawling, "I'M QUEEN!" all over the facades of otherwise beautiful buildings. This, of course, was an understandable reaction by her partisans to the political insecurities of Anne's reign as a late Stuart monarch. The fronts of prominent public buildings were the best advertising hoardings available in towns and cities of the time and therefore at the spearhead of propaganda campaigning by Anne's supporters. With hindsight, however, it does tend to come across as a teensy bit OTT in the "i can haz baroque monarchitude, pwnz" department.

( Charles I 'ad 'is 'ed chopped off! 3 photos. )

In conclusion: an harmoniously proportioned building gracing a much frequented (and, YAY, pedestrianised) thoroughfare and only slightly ruined by gilding the lily with pastede on lolz.

Glossary: English Baroque can mostly be defined as the period in which the fashionable architects didn't feel a building was complete without scrollwork and at least one pineapple.* (Aside: although a Scot built the ultimate architectural tribute to the fruit.)

* Note: I'm not joking about the pineapple. No, srsly, they're all over Wren's churches** and there's even one on top of the monument commemorating the Great Fire of London... and it's gilded LIEK IRONIC POST-CONFLAGRATION FLAMEZ. No, rly!

** A quote from Sir Christopher Wren*** about his intended 1682 restoration of St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle (because I can...): "I could wish the beasts on the west body of the Church which are all decayed & by falling break the lead might be taken of & in leiue of them Pineapples… added to coap the Pinnacles from weather, it would be a decent ornament & the charge not soe considerable as the advantage it would give the fabricke."

*** Where does Terry Pratchett get his ideas from, I wonder.... ;-)

I know life is not fair, but recently I’ve been thinking about one grave injustice: Nina Revoyr is not famous.

Most people I’ve met have never even heard of Nina Revoyr, much less read one of her novels. They’ve never had the pleasure of sinking under the spell of her deceptively simple prose, or falling in love with her palpably real characters. That’s their loss, but it’s also part of a greater injustice, because Nina Revoyr tells the stories that aren’t often enough heard.

She writes incisively about relationships between working-class Japanese-American and African-American communities, and about lesbians whose relationship struggles have moved far past coming-out dramas; she creates fully-realized characters and worlds in which white people have only bit parts; she makes the effects of racism so real that the reader recoils; she treats the black urban community of  LA with a deeper respect than I have found in any other author.

Why isn’t she famous? Oh, wait….

Actually, since (As I remember the factoid I encountered somewhere, somewhen) the static we hear on radios is actually the background radiation of distant stars, it would make sense that space-traveling aliens from some unknown planet would find that more musical than culturally specific human creations.

Just your thought for the day.

BTW, Tuesday, November 10th is the anniversary of Sesame Street's debut episode, and is also the start of its 40th Season

( General intro, about LGBT fiction, YA lit, race, and the few other books about African-American queer girls )

In this context, it’s a real pleasure to discover a third novel about a queer African-American girl, especially one as moving and skillfully written as Tonya Cherie Hegamin’s M+O4EVR. 

( Click for review. Spoilers through the end of chapter 2 of a 10-chapter YA book. )

Edited to add: Congress is in fact OPEN today (Saturday) and people CAN call their Reps NOW! I just called Speaker Pelosi's office in DC and they had people answering the phones. People on the west coast should have a bit more time to phone their local offices, as well, SO PICK UP THE PHONE AND MAKE IT HAPPEN, FOLKS!!! This is SERIOUS!

The Capitol Switchboard is RINGING BUSY, so go here to find the contact info for your reps: http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/mcapdir.html

Don't know who your rep is??? Go here to locate them by zip code (top left corner): http://www.house.gov/

Hello Friends,

Please forward widely!

This morning around 1am, Members of the US Congress House of
Representatives agreed to allow an Up or Down Vote TODAY to create
what would essentially become a "de facto ban" on abortion services
for private as well as potential public insurers. This is outrageous
and NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!

Where do your reps stand?
Check here: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/7/801738/-HCR-House-Debate:-The-Stupak-Amendment

Make sure to contact your Representative in the House and Senate via
email and follow up on Monday morning with a phone call!!!
Go here: http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/issues/abortion/access-to-abortion/health-care-reform.html

News from The NY Times:
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/07/abortion-fight-erupts-in-health-care-debate/
From The Hill (DC):
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/66789-stupak-to-get-up-or-down-vote-on-amendment-to-block-abortion-funding

In Pro-Choice Solidarity!

even on the issue that they are supposed to be good at: abortion.


And the Catholic Bishops Endorse! A Special Thank-You To Planned Parenthood and NARAL

The national Planned Parenthood organization listed $126 million in assets in 2007. Cecile Richards made $385,163 (PDF). The state chapters whose employees put their lives on the line so women can have the right to choose deserve support and protection within the Democratic party that she is not providing.
NARAL paid Nancy Keenan $145,538 from the Foundation (PDF) in 2007, which listed total assets of $4,119,329. But the NARAL PAC reports $87,125 cash on hand as of September 30, 2009.
They knew this was coming since at least July 1 — and they didn’t even raise money for the fight.

All I have been getting from these guys is letters begging for money. The last one was telling me about what I want to thank Planned Parenthood for. There was the occasional "lets call our reps" but no sustained organizing. And now at the 11th hour. ZOMG CALL YOUR REPS!!!! BS. And you know why more American are antiabortion? Because there has been a along ass trend of pro-abortion forces not doing shit except asking for cash. And ceding the moral high ground to the antis. And. NOT ORGANIZING. If they won't protect their own hobbyhorse, is it any wonder that they refuse to consider the larger issue of reproductive justice? You know, I have been watching the public option advocates raising hell for months. The blogs have banded together, and every day of two there is strategy and whipping and organizing and pressure being applied to democratic behinds. What's going on in the feminist blogosphere? Why is there no such effort? So little campus out reach for instance. If it going on, its way too little, and not at all effective. Instead of us attacking the dreadful Hyde Admendment, we are losing and being pushed back. What the point?

Once again, another long time follower, first time poster!

I've tried a few surgeries in my time--namely, cutting a 'hand-me-up' down to my size (my younger brothers are quite bigger than me!), but nothing ever really seemed to work. It was pretty frustrating, as I consider myself quite crafty. Finally, I bought Nicolay's book on the subject matter , and actually, it helped and inspired me quite a bit. I ended up turning a Joe's Crab Shack shirt into a cute little halter...
( Thank goodness for easy instructions! )

Hmmm. U-Haul parked out front. Boxes being loaded in, not unloaded. Looks like the neighbors across the way, the one with the teenage kid they had to call the cops on, the noisy twittering birds, and the new little barky dog, just may be moving out!

Hope the new neighbors are a little bit quieter.

*Crosses fingers*

EDIT - And now the back neighbor is standing on the buzzer and banging on her door yelling for her mother to let her back into the house. Why she can't just take her keys with her when she leaves the house (like normal people), I don't know. And now she's in the house yelling at her mother. Sheesh.

I swear, all my neighbors abuse the buzzer. Back neighbor never takes her keys when she leaves the house. Upstairs neighbor's girlfriend thinks it's funny to lean on the buzzer for a really long time every time she comes to visit.

Don't they know that the neighbors can hear their shenanigans?

Here is my to-do list for November/December:

-NaNoWriMo... sigh. I'm so full of excuses for this one. Didn't see that coming!</sarcasm> I'm going to do my best, but I doubt I'll reach 50,000 words. I'm on just over 5000 now and it's been that way for a few days, I think my average is 300 words a day and then I get distracted.

-Now that I've finished reading Celestine Prophecy, which had an unexpected comedy ending, here is my new reading list. It's nearly all teen lit with the exception of Matthew Reilly, which I think might be junk archeo-adventure:

• Chosen by P.C and Kirsten Cast (library, looks like a Twilight ripoff, but I wanted to read some crappy teen 'horror' to compare myself with)
• Zombie Blondes by Brian James (I only bought because it has a Sas Christian artwork on the cover and I went 'ooh... shiny.' Again, inspiration for my novel.)
• Big Fat Manifesto by Susan Vaught (library, looks pretty good though.)
• Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly (library, thought I might read cos he had a signed poster sent into work. Think I've read Ice Station but can't remember.)
• The Amanda Project: Invisible I by Stella Lennon (bought. looks quite different, bought thinking ooh this could be cool for teaching until I remembered I probably won't be teaching next year.)
• Oh and I almost forgot to add Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I never intended on purchasing, but I was in Kmart, and it was staring at me. Haha. It was next to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters, but I haven't read the original of that one *shame*.

... by the way, I'm on Goodreads which is a pretty cool book networking site if anyone wants to add me
.
-Finish watercolour I'm working on now, which I'm quite happy with. Also finish this one, I've been messing with it for about 6 months. I find if I don't keep doing something in 'the heat of the moment' it tends to take me forever to get something done. Loving working from a large oil canvas to a 'small' (A3) watercolour, but really need to apply myself to do a bit more each week. I find stopping to wait for a layer to dry kind of messes things up because I lose interest.

-Get my vegan on! That's right, back here again. It was about this time last year that I fell off the vegan wagon. It was a slow but gradual process, but I found that I've been miserable food-wise ever since. Eating vegan makes me feel happy on the inside. I've been nearly-vegan for most of this year, if it wasn't for cheese. Stupid cheese! But now I'm prepared to do my research and make the journey to far away supermarkets to get substitutes that don't have that mealy, fucking disgusting aftertaste. Or buy a book like this. Yum! I'm excited about it. Tonight, I'm making some sushi with some strange fish substitute Lee2 bought from Lotus in Northbridge. Looks very tuna-y in the packet, and no cooking instructions, but we'll see...

-Plan for next year... once I find out what I'm teaching next year! *gulp*

For the next few days.  Gotta go play Army.  Y'all be good.