Round and Round We Go!!

Look at Dominic go!  He's almost walking!!  Meanwhile, Elaine, the dog, just wants to chew her bone in peace!!



Dominic is Rachael's boy, Cathy's first grandson!!  He's about a year, I think....Can't say for sure, he's growing so fast!! 

Update on Mostly Nothing....

I have a spider bite!  On the inside elbow of my left arm, which always is crooked under my head when I sleep.  It could have been worse:  it could have bit me on the nose.  But small favors, eh?  And I went to my second part-time job today to clean an apartment.  I have always said, "The work is the reward," and in this case, that's abundantly true. Cleaning is one hell of a workout! I have no need to buy a gym membership.  I sweat more, lift more, and stretch more, and in the end, THEY PAY ME!!  Uff da!  (In case I haven't explained this at least 50 times in my blog writhings, that's an old Norwegian expression (possibly Swedish, too) pronounced "OOF dah."  It means about what it sounds like: "Oof!" or "Whew!" or "Oh, my goodness!!"  I grew up in ND surrounded by Scandinavians, and I learned to say "Uff da" from my schoolmates in the first grade.)

As I wrote to a friend in Germany early this aft, from the site of my employment, "All that's left is vacuuming (done last to catch all the grit dislodged by dusting and washing mirrors, countertops, and windows, leaving a note for my employers to buy more furniture polish, and then hiking to the bank to deposit my check!!!")  That's the other good thing about cleaning:  your wages are Cash on the Barrelhead!! Money in your pocket when you leave the place.

And you think retirement is just traveling and embroidering drool bibs and painting mountain scenes on small mirrors?  Not by half!!


 

Welcome to INFORMED COMMENT!

I love finding good sources online.  Informed Comment, Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion, is written by Professor Juan Cole.  His biography is in the "About" section of his website/blog, but I'll post it here so you get some idea of his knowledge and insight:

Juan Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan, March, 2009) and he also recently authored Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). He has been a regular guest on PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, and has also appeared on ABC Nightly News, Nightline, the Today Show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, the Colbert Report, Democracy Now! and many others. He has given many radio and press interviews. He has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. He has commented extensively on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Iraq War, the politics of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Iranian domestic struggles and foreign affairs. He has a regular column at Truthdig. He continues to study and write about contemporary Islamic movements, whether mainstream or radical, whether Sunni and Salafi or Shi`ite. Cole commands Arabic, Persian and Urdu and reads some Turkish, knows both Middle Eastern and South Asian Islam. He lived in various parts of the Muslim world for nearly 10 years, and continues to travel widely there. 

When I read his current post, "Top Ten Myths about the Libya War," I especially loved the first paragraph, last sentence:

The Libyan Revolution has largely succeeded, and this is a moment of celebration, not only for Libyans but for a youth generation in the Arab world that has pursued a political opening across the region. The secret of the uprising’s final days of success lay in a popular revolt in the working-class districts of the capital, which did most of the hard work of throwing off the rule of secret police and military cliques. It succeeded so well that when revolutionary brigades entered the city from the west, many encountered little or no resistance, and they walked right into the center of the capital. Muammar Qaddafi was in hiding as I went to press, and three of his sons were in custody. Saif al-Islam Qaddafi had apparently been the de facto ruler of the country in recent years, so his capture signaled a checkmate. (Checkmate is a corruption of the Persian “shah maat,” the “king is confounded,” since chess came west from India via Iran). Checkmate.

This particular sentence is not world-shaking analysis, but I loved finding out about chess coming from India via Iran, and that "Checkmate" comes from the Persian "shah maat"!!   70 years in school, and I'm just finding this out!

To take your mind off the hurricane and (cough) earthquake.....

Last night at the play (The Sydney Theater Company's "Uncle Vanya"...FABULOUS), I sat next to a woman who had just moved here from Southern California, and we had a good laugh about DC's recent "earthquake."  (Are you done laughing yet, Sherwood?)

Anyway, I found this today, and it's certainly VERY interesting.  Especially since it confirms what I've always suspected--that food processors' adding high fructose corn syrup to nearly EVERYTHING--has added to our weight problems.

It'll take your mind off the news.  It should be in the news, but of course, when one of the major donors to US political candidates is the producer of high fructose corn syrup, you can imagine how far that will get.




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MUSHROOM UPDATE:

P.S.  This is what the fairy ring looked like yesterday morning.  That would be day
three or day four.  A number of them have detached from their stems and flipped
gill-side up.  Wonder what they'll look like after Hurricane Irene dumps her rain on them?
 All the books say fairy rings disappear without a trace after 5 days.  Wanna place a bet?

Fairy Ring, Continued...Day Three

Remember that old salesman joke?  "Two weeks ago, I cudn't even spel salesman, and now I ARE one!"  Two weeks ago, I was living the old humdrum existence, and now I know lots more about fairy rings than I ever imagined possible, thanks to my curious readers and this lovely link:

http://www.mushroom-appreciation.com/fairy-rings.html

This morning, most questions of the day continued to be about the mushrooms:  Are they all poisonous?  Are they all the same? 

I checked the above link and found this:

Almost any type of ground-fruiting mushroom could theoretically grow in a fairy ring, but it's generally accepted that 60 or so species make this pattern.

The most well known is the fairy ring mushroom or scotch bonnet (Marasmius oreades). This edible species causes the grass to grow and become greener, and is famous for fruiting in fairy rings.

Some other species you may recognize are:

• Amanita muscaria (the poisonous toadstool)

• Amanita phalloides (the poisonous death cap)

• Calvatia cyathiformis (the edible purple-spored puffball)

• Chlorophyllum molybdites (the poisonous green-spored parasol)**

• Clitocybe nuda (the edible wood blewit)

• Tricholoma matsutake (the famous edible matsutake mushroom)

This list is far from exhaustive, but I hope you notice something important. Both edible and poisonous mushrooms produce fairy rings!

For this reason, it's important to never use ring formation as a tool for mushroom identification.

**OUR mushroom, the one featured in these photos.  They don't look green...the green spores are found when you turn the mushroom cap over and look in the gills (the ribs of the parasol).   Even if they have only ONE green spore or none, they're still poisonous!

Another phenomenon that bears mentioning is that fairy rings don't always produce mushrooms.  If you have a ring of a darker shade of green in your lawn, or a circular bald patch, that's a fairy ring!  It's caused by the underground network of the fungus.  Only when the soil and moisture conditions are right, does the network produce a mushroom.

I suspect so many people have never seen the ring of mushrooms is because many lawn services have poisoned absolutely anything that disturbs the growth of precious green grass.  Fairy rings, as you might imagine, are hell on lawns.

I love it, also, that the first one I've seen out here is in Takoma Park, MD, which is a peaceable community of, as Mad Cabbie said t'other day, "old hippies and young progressive lefties."  Mad also said "there's a place for everyone in TP."  That this welcoming, open attitude also extends to fairy rings fills my retired old heart with joy!!

This might answer Joared's recent question, too: "What's their significance for those in whose yard they appear?"  I don't know what folklore says, but to me a fairy ring in your yard means you're living in tune with nature! Lucky you!!  Whenever it rains, I love to say "The Rain Kachina has come to bless the day" (along with, "Oh sh*t, I forgot my umbrella!").  So if I ever see a fairy ring on our lawn (which would irritate Charles the lawn man no end), I'll be spouting, "The fairies have come to bless the lawn and dance on it!!

Fairy Ring, Continued...Day Two

The mushrooms have expanded and flattened!   The whole thing should disappear without a trace after five days, and this is day two.  (Actually, it's the second day I've seen it in existence, and I could be wrong.) (hah)

Sherwood had a sensible comment on the relationship between the mushrooms' edibility and the nature of the fairies. 

After Fenella from Rooks Nest said she feared the fairies would be "mean" because they constructed the ring out of poisonous mushrooms, Sherwood reminded us of the greater danger and malevolent intent behind edible materials--as in Hansel and Gretel, in which the witch's house was made out of gingerbread!! 

I never thought of that.  Thank you, Sherwood, for reminding us of the danger of sweets.  We 'mericans have not gotten overweight eating foods that cause projectile vomiting!

Fairy Ring!! On Carroll Avenue, Takoma Park, MD August 20, 2011

BFF, despite having grown up in Bal'mer and seen mushrooms of many colors (orange, spotted) when it rained, has never before seen a fairy ring until this very morning!  I haven't seen one since I left the Midwest.  This one was right near the center of town--a block down and across the street from the Farmers Market area.

Folklore says that fairy rings (also called fairy circles, elf rings, elf circles, or pixie rings) appear when a fairy or elf has visited!!  The rings disappear without a trace after five days or so, but if you hang around, you might get to spot an elf or fairy and catch it when it visits the ring!!  Other stories say fairies and elves dance in the circles.  People are warned, too, not to step into the circle! The Celts recommended running around the circle 9 times to avoid being pulled in.

The mushrooms are only one part of the underground network of fungi. Many fairy rings have no mushrooms at all, but are simply rings of darker green grass or no grass at all.  Much depends on the rainfall and soil type. 

France has a fairy ring that is 700 years old!  England has another famous ancient ring.

Many different mushrooms form fairy rings, but the mushroom here, chlorophyllum molybdites, the green spored lepiota, is very common in North American fairy rings.  It is also very poisonous.  Deaths from eating these mushrooms, which look very much like the edible and delicious lepiota rhacodes, are rare, but several days of projectile vomiting and diarrhea might have you wishing for the end.

Digby Hits One Out of the Park

Here's a great post from Hullaballoo!!  My favorite part is the last part:

Finally, let's think about the way the President frames the Democrats in this argument as the wives who have reluctantly agreed to give up their frilly little dresses and the Republicans as the stern husbands who nevertheless insist that they get to keep their golf clubs. Ok, daddy's a prick who won't pitch in. But he's also the Man of the House, who the little lady Democrats are pouting about not being fair --- but giving in to in the end. Because he's in charge.

Let's just say it's not a very appealing image.

I hate to make tooo big a deal out of this. It's just a passing comment in a long speech. But this family metaphor is destructive enough without attaching a whole boatload of additional sexist and classist freight to it. Obama and his political advisors have always had a bit of a tin ear when it comes to this sort of thing and they need to get a handle on it if they don't want to appear to be totally out of touch out there. This metaphor should go into the garbage bin immediately.

Tin Ears don't belong to Obama alone, however. There's this paragraph just preceding these:

Michelle Obama is an accomplished woman and the mere idea of her having to answer to her husband for her spending on "shoes and dresses" rubs me the wrong way. I'm sure he would explain that this is supposed to be a mutual kitchen table budget discussion, but the whole thing is so freighted with sexist 1950s stereotypes that what comes to mind is a Dagwood strip rather than anything recognizable in 2011. It reminds me of Bush saying that he sent Laura early to Crawford to "sweep off the porch." Or more recently, Rick Perry apologizing for his wrinkled shirt and saying not to blame his wife. I wish all of them would stop.

Going Back to School? Buy American! *Caution*

Wandering around the web this ayem, I came across a nifty website for people who want to buy American!  You can search online for Made-in-USA items in such diverse categories as Art, Automotive, Bicycles, Books, Business, Camping, Clothing, Collectibles, Computers, Crafts, Education, Electronics, Food, Gifts, Hardware, Health, Hobbies, Home, Industrial, Kids, Kitchen, Music, Pets, Services, Sports, Tools, Toys, Women, Miscellaneous.

I checked out bicycles just for fun, and the category includes not only bicycles themselves but also bike products and services.

If you can get past the "patriot" b.s., you can actually find stuff you need and want to buy that's made right here in the U.S. of A.  If your company makes something here in the US,  you can submit your website, too.

Just sayin......

*Caution*  I've been looking through all the categories, and I'm finding lots of right-wing stuff.  Check out "Education" and tell me what you think.  I may take this down.

The Iowa "Poll": Lest We Be Led Astray by Media Hysterics....

Well, according to the ever-yellow journalists in our media, the antic Michele Bachmann (that's one "l" in the first name and two "n"s in the last name) from Minnesota's 6th Congressional District might just as well take a quick trip to DC and measure the White House family quarters for drapes.  She "won" the Iowa "Poll."

BUT as this article reminds us, "...the 'straw poll' is not a poll at all—and it's certainly not scientific."

It's an all-day fundraiser at Iowa State University for Republicans on August 13, and any Iowa resident or student of any political affiliation or party with the price of a ticket ($30) can get inside the circus tent and vote for the candidate of their choice.  Bachmann can't claim to be the choice of rank-and-file Iowans if they allowed Democrats and anyone else to vote and muddy the picture.

Just between us, I don't know what happened to T-Paw--his pals can rent buses and zip down highway 35-W to Ames just as easily as Bachmann's backers can, if not with votes, then with money to buy more tickets for those who can vote, but I'm pretty glad he's out of the picture.  He might think he would have made a great president, but we NEED public schools and Medicare & Medicaid and all the other things that have made us (until recently) competitive.

Linda's Guide to Investing in 2011!

If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today!

If you purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG, you would have $33.00.

If you purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman brothers, you would have $0.00 today.

However, if you purchased $1,000 worth of beer, drank all the beer, and turned in the aluminum cans for recycling, you would have $214.00.

Thus the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle.

It is called the 401-Keg Plan

(Thanks, Linda!! Sounds like a winner to me!  Do they pay us to bring back aluminum cans here in DC?)

O frabjous day! Callooh!! Callay!!

Waiting for the table!

(She chortled as she dashed out to greet the FedEx guy).....Did I say I was settling in to my new abode?

WELL!!!  Mr. FedEx just delivered a CASE OF SPANISH RED WINES.  The sender is none other than my old St. Mary's Cathedral classmate Jimmy.  Needless to say, when I arrived there after spending four years at the public school near our house, Jimmy was the smartest and most desirable pupil in Sister Hillary's classroom. What's more, he continued exuding his charm and brilliance all through high school and college.  He married the beautiful Sandy, a foreign student (from Moorhead), and together they raised a bunch of lively kids.  Jim wound up owning a manufacturing plant in Rhode Island and being a rock solid member of the Democratic Party.  Jim got his interest in politics early, serving as a page for Senator William Langer, R-ND, whose career was instructive in many ways.  Langer was a legend for good and not so good, depending on which side of the aisle his fellow legislators sat, but North Dakota's farmers loved him and voted for him anyway.  "Colorful" seems too feeble to describe him, as evidenced in this article from the U.S. Senate Art and History:

North Dakota Republican William Langer had a colorful political career for decades before he entered the United States Senate. From 1916 to 1920, he served as the state's attorney general, fiercely enforcing Prohibition. During those years, he had led a posse against illegal liquor stores, commandeered telephone lines during a vice raid, censured 275 North Dakota schools for failing to display the American flag, been blamed for the suicide of a former attorney general, and escaped impeachment by one vote. His unorthodox methods, Langer conceded, "tended to make feelings rather bitter." A vigorous champion of the North Dakota farmers, Langer enjoyed immense popularity and in 1932 won the governorship. In 1934, following conviction on charges of political corruption, he was removed from office, but after a reversal on appeal and two new trials, he was exonerated and again elected governor. In 1940 Langer won a seat in the United States Senate.

 I value Jim and Sandy's opinions of the current meshugaas in Washington.  They are probably the most well-read people I know, devouring many newspapers and magazine articles on the state of the United States.  They read it all, both the rabid stuff from the right wing rags and items from liberal sources.  Jim has learned the value of "know your enemy."

I'm just tickled pink to get such a gift from such a generous, wonderful friend.  Not too many years ago, Jim battled cancer that was predicted to wipe him out in a few short weeks or months.  (Fortunately, one of his doctors in Boston, Dr. Atul Gawande, disagreed with the diagnosis AND prognosis.)  But while Jim and Dr. Gawande were battling for his life, Jim made a list of what was most important to him.  After Sandy, his children, and his birth family, he wrote "old friends."  I'm certainly one of the luckiest of these, though hardly the oldest.  Cough. 

Many thanks, Jim!  I can't believe all these lovely bottles of Rioja!

Settling In....

Empty boxes are gone from living room.  My beautiful favorite rug is cleaned and will arrive tomorrow.  Thanks be that nobody else wanted it--not even as a gift.  Having a nice, big dog bite out of the end will do that for a rug.  "Ewww....what happened??"

The rug man said "It's been repaired, and that's how it got the hole."  Sorry, rug man.  I have a picture, somewhere, of the very dog--a golden retriever with a low tolerance for inactivity.  When his Georgetown masters left him alone a bit too often, he started gnawing on the rug. 

Thus, I got the rug with the bite out of it at a neighborhood moving sale for a song--"How High the Moon"--and a dance--"The Masochism Tango."  Surely you remember that ballad by Tom Lehrer?

I know too well
I'm underneath your spell,
So, darling, if you smell
Something burning....
It's my heart!!

Yes, I paid too much, but I couldn't help myself.  It's got flowers on it.  And the rug man told me the pattern is called "French flowers."  Cool. 

And yes, I voted for Ronald Reagan, too.  Once.  This is humiliating confessions week at Xtreme English.

Over and out to lunch....

 

Keys!

Was it Barbara Ehrenreich who said you're not really homeless as long as you have KEYS??  I got a bunch of nice new (as in different) keys this past week when I moved to the Takoma district in DC.*  The famous Takoma Park, Maryland, is right across the street.  Takoma Park, MD, is the former world headquarters of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and the hometown of Goldie Hawn!  Home to many activists, it is also a nuclear free zone and affectionately called "The People's Republic of Takoma Park."  Not to be overshadowed by its Maryland cousin, Takoma DC boasts a Carnegie Library, which also was the first library in the District of Columbia. The Washington Opera now practices in the former Seventh Day Adventist publishing building just on the edge of downtown.  The building also houses a number of art studios.

I'm liking it here, but uff da!  Enough with the moving!!  If it weren't for my grandson Sam, his mom my daughter Sally, my friend Marteal's son, Julian, my neighbor Barbara, my housemate Donna, and my longtime companion and inseparable coworker, Cathy, I'd still be up a creek. They all worked long and hard.  Julian came after work one night and hauled many boxes down to the main floor so Sam et al. didn't have to do it the following day after their 5 hour drive from NJ:  "You and my mom and your books!!" he puffed.  Ah, but there's nothing like those teenage athletes (Sam, lacrosse; Julian, football)!  The legs! The backs!  The biceps!!  The lungs!!

I ate my hot dogs tonight speared on a chopstick because my entire set of stainless steel flatware disappeared, along with my second-level corkscrew (numero uno vanished almost immediately), and the five remaining pieces (salad plates) of my parents' first set of dishes.  Ah well.  My Irish friend Andrew always says you can't be attached to your possessions when you live in a city.  I agree. 

Anyway.  It's very comfy in this apt, although there is not much furniture at the mo:  seating for five (six if you count the hassock), bed for one, a highboy (or, as they call it east of here, "chesterdraws"), and a desk that I bought for $20 on the sidewalk in front of the stationery store on Connecticut Ave at its going-out-of-business sale at least 10 years ago.  We've had lots more furniture than that over the years, but as I get older, it's just easier to give furniture away than to move it.  It can be replaced by visits to the fabulous local yard sales throughout the summer.

So now it's nest rebuilding time again.  It's also book sorting time for the first time ever.  Categorizing. Alphabetizing within categories, etc.  It's slow going--I keep stopping to READ!

*Wikipedia says Takoma DC is "also Takoma Park."  Don't THINK so!  The longtime Takoma DC residents in this building are very clear that Takoma Park is across the street!

The Heroines of Norway

http://talkaboutequality.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/if-a-married-lesbian-couple-saves-40-teens-from-the-norway-massacre-and-no-one-writes-about-it-did-it-really-happen/