Frog and Goat

This morning cable was out, not so comcastic, so I read Martha Stewart Living instead. I am about to crack on an article but before I do, I need to shout from the rooftops that I LOVE that magazine. I don’t know what it is exactly but I really LOVE that magazine. I’ve been a subscriber for years and purposefully held onto the subscription even while Martha was in legal hell and jail. Say what you will about her but she puts out excellent and beautiful products. There’s quality and craftsmanship and other magazines should take a note. I’m looking at you Real Simple (a magazine that I’ve subscribed to since its inception but am going to let lapse–you aren’t simple anymore–seriously, $200+ dresses ain’t simple, and the articles have gotten whiny).

Here’s the article.

Come back down to earth, Martha. When I entertain weekend guests, I don’t have so many rooms that I need to number them and outfit them with expensive coffee table books, stationary and housekeeping staff. I have one room and the mattress should be replaced. I do set up some homey necessities–towels, reading material (quite often back issues of MSL), soaps, water glasses, fresh flowers, etc. But, lord have mercy…I don’t type up dos and don’ts lists, itineraries for long walks in the woods, tennis schedules, etc. And, I’m sure most of the magazine’s readers don’t either. Want to provide us with entertaining tips? Get real. Get practical.

Even grandma would shake her body to the ground:
Chuck Brown-Bustin’ Loose
Pacha Massive-Don’t Let Go
Teddy Bears-Cobra Style
Robert Randolph w/Eric Clapton (you’ll have to select the play button)-Jesus is Just Alright
Stevie Wonder-Higher Ground
Moby-Southside
Beck-Hell Yes
John Spenser Blues Explosion-Talk About The Blues

Winding down a bit…feeling a little melancholy:
Morphine-French Fries with Pepper
Lynyrd Skynyrd-You Got That Right

I took Friday off to extend the long weekend. It’s a good thing I did since we stayed up to 1am playing Wii on Thursday night–that bowling sure is addictive. Friday we ran errands so that we’d be ready to have The Niece as a house guest on Saturday.

She brought over some games for the Wii and so we spent quite a bit of time while she was here playing games. I finally got to try the Carnival game and yesterday morning the better-half made popcorn so it would seem that The Niece and I really were at a carnival. We stone-cold munched that popcorn. The Niece now holds the house record for most strikes in a row (4) and highest score (220). The way she bowls is hilarious and in real life the alley owner would probably ask her to leave (the ball arcs and crashes to the alley) but she can knock some pins down.

Set up for rant: Sunday morning at 1:45am the phone rang and it was the facility where the better-half’s mother lives telling him that his mother had fallen (nothing new under the sun) and cracked her head (also nothing new). She was being transported to the ER for what turned out to be staples. The phone rang again about 20-30 minutes later telling him which hospital.

Just as we were drifting back off to sleep, the cat started making scratching sounds. We have two doors to our bedroom and one was shut. He was too damn dumb to walk out the other door and around to the litter box so he just pissed on the carpet in our room. We cleaned it up, well, mostly the better-half did and drifted back off to sleep only to be awakened by another phone call to let us know that his mother was ready to be picked up. The better-half was off. At 6 am The Niece appeared and asked me if I was ready to get up. I told her no, but there was bacon calling us so off we went to make breakfast.

The better-half got home around 7 and ate breakfast with us…breakfast on groggy Sunday mornings takes many courses–a little fruit, a little bacon, a little egg, a little muffin, etc. Then the better-half started a charcoal chimney to begin the process of smoking a beef brisket. We had The Niece’s family over for dinner late yesterday afternoon. In addition to the brisket, we served barbeque sauce (The Niece made it), potato salad, green bean salad, baked beans (with bacon!) and a mixed berry roll. To start we had an assortment of cheeses, crackers, two kinds of salami, olives and gherkins. We ate outside and watched the kids get three kinds of nutty. Good times.

Let’s just get right to my rant, shall we? The better-half brought home the MIL’s neck pillow that had been stained with blood from her head wound. I took the cover off–noticed a bunch of other stains–squirted it with Zout (which is an amazing stain remover) and then washed the pillow and the case on the delicate cycle. The pillow faired better than the case but I sent them both back through the wash with another coating of Zout. The pillow did pretty well but the case still had remnants of blood.

About this time it was time for some Wii action, so I put another stain killer product on the pillow case and threw it in the washer. It’s still sitting there waiting for something else to be washed. While The Niece and I played, the better-half called his mother to see how she was doing. She told him that salt and cold water would probably take that stain out. At this point in my exhaustion and hearing this cleaning tip, I rolled my eyes until they fell out onto the floor and had to be dusted off. Whatthefuckever. The pillow was already stained and whatever amount of blood stain I am able to get out is whatever I’m able to get out without resorting to some freakin’ Hints From Heloise moment. If she was so worried about the stain, she should have toddled off to the kitchen at her place and cleaned it herself. Kissmybigfatass.

We’ve recently eaten at two fine restaurants in the area. Last weekend we went to the Ironhorse in Ashland. After seeing in a local paper that the Ironhorse was under new ownership, and noticing the new owner was someone I went to college with, we decided to take a couple of friends with us. I felt it was pretty weird seeing a friend from college that I haven’t seen in 18 years. My face may look the same but my body is bigger and I’m way more grey than I was in 1990. Anyway, the new owner was caught giving me the look by the better-half but after he came over to the table to check on things, it was obvious he didn’t really know how he knew me. He’s worked in many restaurants over the years so I suppose people just start looking like people, if that makes any sense. I know when I was training all the time people would come up to me and say things to me like I was supposed to know them and nine times out of ten they were in one of my classes and I’d only get a vague sense of recollection.

The food was excellent even though I dead-panned to the owner/friend that his food was passable—I was going for a joke. It took him off-guard and I certainly made sure he knew I liked the food. I had a lamb shank that was prepared perfectly and the butter beans that came with were excellent and I don’t normally like butter beans. I had a raspberry lemon tart for dessert that was mind-blowing—it was fresh, light and delicious. Our table declared it the best dessert (someone else ordered the strawberry shortcake). We all shared in a charcuterie tray and oh baby it was good. Everyone else at the table had the ribeye with chimichurri. I had a bite of the steak and it was charred perfectly and was damn fine.

If you are in the Ashland area, stop by the Ironhorse. Just don’t tell the owner his food is passable.

Speaking of railroads (the Ironhorse is on the tracks in Ashland), last night the better-half and I tried the not-so-new Thai place in our own neck of the woods, the Pad Thai Restaurant. It’s been there for awhile now but we keep forgetting to go there. It is on railroad tracks as well and last night a train went by, shaking the place. A young boy sitting several tables away joyfully announced “Train” as it went by. The food was delicious and the place stayed pretty busy while we were there. One family came in and it was obvious they are regulars since they joked around with the folks who run the place and they got their appetizer without really having to order it.

The restaurant is in an old warehouse building that’s been there way longer than I’ve been on this earth. When I was a kid, they used to have auctions there and my dad and I would go. I always liked going there because it was dark and scary and it always seemed like the place was about to collapse. I once found an old German pfennig while wandering around so it was not only dark, scary, full of grown ups but also foreign coins just happened to be laying around in the shadows. The building still looks like parts of it may fall down but remarkably there are many businesses in the building so I guess it’s sturdier than it looks.

The food, as I’ve said, was delicious and prepared pretty quickly. We started with an order of fried crispy rolls and then moved on to pork drunken noodles for me. Although I think they put steak on instead. Either that or it was the beefiest pork I’ve ever had. The better-half ordered a shrimp cashew stir-fry. We ordered both medium hot and there was some sweating and nose blowing. The better-half heats up pretty quickly with Thai food. I, being a lady, merely glisten.

So, should my ire head towards yahoo or the AP for putting together this mess?

Even if the article is about whatever ceremony, the headline is about Kenny and that picture is decidedly not Kenny.

Lame.

• Having a complete fucktard running my organization
• Having my zipper’s pull tag break off in the bathroom
• Having a co-worker remove work so the rest of us can’t utilize tools because she felt like it and no one will call her on it
• Having my leave balance screwed over

All of those things seem to just melt away with the news out of California.

There’s an article in today’s NY Times about women in the fields of science, technology and engineering. The article describes the macho and sometimes hostile environment women experience in these male-dominated fields.

I don’t question that it is hard for women to maintain long work experience in those fields. What I question and where I point my finger is that the NY Times decided to put this article in their Fashion and Style section. Seriously? They have a Technology section. They have a Science section. They have a Business section. What was the thinking behind this placement? Hey this story is about women let’s put it in the Fashion and Style section even though there is nothing in the story that talks about Fashion or Style.

The NY Times is part of the problem because they shuffle a story like this into the fluffy section (yes, bring the hate that I, as a woman, have decided that the Fashion and Style section is fluffy). I don’t work in the fields described in the article. I have a sister who does and I was once a system administrator. I work with someone who has a daughter in high school who wants to be an engineer. I owe it to these women to stand up and tell the NY Times to stuff it. I’m firing up my email to unleash the hounds.

Update:
My email:
I enjoyed your article on diversity in the SET fields. I have worked as a system administrator and my sister holds a PhD and works for an environmental company so the subject is close to me. I question the decision to place this story in the Fashion and Style section of the NY Times website when there are more appropriate sections for this story (business, science or technology). I think by placing this article in a section populated by “what’s new on the catwalk” stories demotes the subject.

It’s disappointing to see serious stories about women shuffled off to the “fluff” section of the paper.

The writer’s response:
Its not as bad as all that. I write a column about life and work. Have been for nine years. Until last year it ran every week in the business section, where apparently you never saw it. No one else did, either, so I asked that it be moved to Styles which has twice the readership and where I get twice the space. Now people like you actually find it, and that, after all, is the point…
No ghettoizing here, really.
Thanks for writing

I just can’t stop listening to this song by Josh Ritter.

And, while you are there, check out the website…nicely done.

At least the theme song is still awesome. I’m not so sure about how this movie will be.

Friday night we drove across the river to the south side of the city (merrily paying tolls) to see the Richmond Symphony perform at a church. Since the city decided to rip up nearly every building in the downtown area to build new buildings and parking lots (which begs the question if no one was interested in downtown with the old, crumbling buildings will they be all “ooooh shiny new buildings, let’s have dinner downtown), the Symphony has been itinerant.

Friday’s show was part of the Bach Festival with music from J.S. Bach, a segment by Schoenberg and Villa-Lobos, and then ending with more Bach. The final segment was the double violin concerto and one of the violinists was a thirteen year old who played beautifully. As we all stood and clapped, the violinists came back to the front of the stage to take another bow. I sort of wanted them to break into Devil Went Down To Georgia for an encore. Yeah, you can’t take me anywhere.