Teach your children well

Another example of how the Europeans get it right and we don’t. If you teach children to appreciate good food and nutrition, they grow up to be adults who appreciate good food and nutrition.

Jamie Oliver (the Naked Chef) managed to get the British schools to change their school food policy and is trying to get American schools to do the same. It is sad that someone from another country has to rescue us from our chicken-finger-eating ways. More here.

Yes, DO cry over spilt oil

Here is a visualization of the Gulf oil spill on a Google map of the area:

Even with that map, it is hard to understand just how big the spill is, so here is the same visualization of it If It Was My Home* of Hartford, Connecticut -- pretty much wiping out the entire area between Boston and New York City:

Ironically, if it were a land-based spill, it would not have gotten this big, as it would have been more easily contained. It’s 48 days later, over 400 species of animals have been affected, and over 40 million gallons of oil have gushed forth. Tar is already washing up on beaches in Alabama, Florida and Louisiana. If you have never stepped in tar-sand, let me tell you it does not wash off easily, you basically have to scrape it off your skin with a paint scraper. Unless you are a duck, egret, or seal, then you have to hope someone catches you and gives you a bath in Dawn dish detergent. If you are a fish, tough luck, you will suffocate. Experts say it is only a matter of time before the slick gets caught in the Gulf current and works its way up the East Coast and then farther east to Bermuda and Europe.

I encourage you to put a map of the slick over your town on your blog, to help more people understand how big it is (you will have to do a screencap to get the picture).

*Grammatically speaking that should say “If It Were My Home” but let’s not get picky, the guy wrote a program that can put the spill on a map anywhere in the world, ‘k?

“What I really need are a pistol and a sword” and other random Halloween statements

One night last week while I was in Chicago on biz, The BF called me and we had a very serious conversation about our costumes for Meg & Mo’s Werewolf Bar Mitzvah/Halloween Party this weekend (we are going as Captain Morgan And His Wench). Right about the time that I realized that anyone overhearing this earnest discussion about eye patches and boot covers and the sewing of jabots and hats matching coats would think we were crazy, The BF says “What I really need are a pistol and a sword.” Now I had been having a very trying time at work, the kind of week where you think maybe if I blow something up or throw something out a window, I’ll feel better. So my new mantra has been “What I really need are a pistol and a sword.” It seems to be working for me.

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Someone in my apartment building keeps leaving bowls of Halloween candy by the elevator, and it's the highlight of my day.

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The other night I went shopping for the aforementioned eye patch and assorted Wench-like accessories, and overheard two young men who were quite dismayed over the inaccuracy of the insignia on the Star Trek costumes. Dude, you are buying a $35 polyester costume at Party City. Did you really think it would be authentic?

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My favorite Halloween costume as a child was 1977, 5th grade, Princess Leia. White turtleneck, white long-sleeved dress that my grandma had sewn out of a sheet, and a gold chain belt of my mother’s. I wore my hair in two buns that were more like munchkins than the coffee rolls Carrie Fisher sported, but there was no doubting who I was. We went trick-or-treating with some family friends in a nice development of endless cul-de-sacs in the next town. One of their neighbors was dressed as a tomato and she kept losing her newspaper stuffing, so by the end of the night she looked like a sun-dried tomato, only it was 1977 and no one knew what those were yet.  When we were done, our dads “inspected” our candy. Funny how the Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups were always “suspiciously damaged.”

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On one of our early morning walks, Meg and I were discussing how all the commercially available costumes for women are always “sexy”. Sexy Vampire. Sexy Nurse. Sexy Angel. You can even be a Sexy Detective. It’s all so very wrong. Mariska Hargitay is a sexy detective. A grown woman in a miniskirt, crop top, white knee socks and a Sherlock Holmes hat is just pathetic.

We thought it would be a great feminist statement to buy 6 “sexy” costumes, cut them up and sew them back together as one patchwork outfit of misappropriated identities (you can take the women out of the women’s college, etc.). It never happened, but this text exchange did, a few days later:

Meg: I think I am going to be a Flight Attendant for Halloween

Me: Regular or Sexy?

Meg: Stop that!

Me: I don’t think you can buy a non-sexy flight attendant costume

Meg: I found one on Etsy!

So now I am going as a Pirate Wench and she is going as Joan Halloway from Mad Men (insert slight jealousy here). We’re going to be sexy without baring our midriffs, exposing our boobs or hiking up our skirts.

And we will inspect our own candy, thank you.

And by candy, I mean cocktails. Happy Sexy Halloween.

Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy

This is not new, but it’s new to me. So funny and, sadly, so true.

Thanks to this fabulously talented friend for posting it on Facebook.

I found the bit about flying especially relevant: today I flew to/from Washington DC for biz. There & back -- with meetings in between -– in less time than it would have taken to drive round trip. Yes, Louis CK, that is amazing. The airport I flew out of, however? Not amazing. The Fisher Price airport is more sophisticated than the crazy place I flew in and out of...

By the light of the golden arches

No matter where you go in America, you are never more than 5 minutes from an artery-clogging Big Mac. Unless you are in the Dakotas. Then it might be a couple of hours.

Found here. More info at the source.

Well, that's one way to get more shoes....

[Not the closet in question. This be Mariah's shrine de shoes}

A 51-year old San Diego woman is accused of embezzling more than $9.9 million over 7 years from her employer to fund her personal lifestyle and gambling habit.

"The woman is also accused of using nearly $25,000 to convert a bedroom into a closet to store her extensive shoe and clothing collection. Investigators say that the collection consisted of 400 pairs of shoes valued at a total of $240,000, designer clothing valued at a total of $300,000, and 160 designer purses valued at a total of $320,000. The closet included a granite covered center island, crystal chandelier, and a 32 inch plasma television."

The Sheriff's Department says that the woman was able to conceal the alleged scheme for so long because of her position at the company: chief financial officer. The losses resulting from the alleged thefts forced the company to conduct layoffs and restructure its operations.

The woman faces charges of grand theft and embezzlement.

Her laid-off co-workers must love her. So sad. The full story here.

Cigars and Ice Cream

I have this amusing (to me) habit of editing people's grocery lists. If I'm at their house and their grocery list is on the fridge or counter, I will secretly add two items, "cigars" and "ice cream". I will try to copy their handwriting as much as possible. I do not stick around to see if they notice. I have been caught only once.

Diana's post at Please Sir yesterday sends you to {this is glamorous} which in turn sends you to artist Frances Trombly, who has recreated everyday objects out of fabric and yarn, including a Publix grocery receipt. This reminded me (a) I love the internet and (b) of this book Milk Eggs Vodka, which I once stood laughing over in Borders for way too long (without buying, sorry Bill Keaggy). Bill has collected hundreds of discarded shopping lists and assembled them into a
sometimes sad ("if enough money, buy chips"), often humorous ("squirt gun, hot peppers, bee trap, pie pans") but always fascinating snapshot of how random our collective needs are (and how bad our collective spelling is). The more incongruous the list of items, the more you have to wonder about who was buying them and why. He even wrote a Short Story About Life Based on Other People's Grocery Lists (note, you have to hover your mouse over the lists to get the advance arrows). Here are a few of the many lists he features in the book:

{My grandma used to recycle old envelopes and reuse them for phone messages and shopping lists. To my knowledge she never used the credit card payment form though. You know, the one with the credit card account number on it and your full address? Not too bright Mr. Coffee and Beer...}

{Note the second line "if you buy more rice I'll punch you!" I'm thinking one spouse writes the list and the other spouse is bad shopper...}

{I've been there sister.}

Since he is still collecting lists, there are hundreds more on his website, but so far none of them say "cigars" and "ice cream". Yet.

If they don't have it, you don't need it

{Hardware store dog (Bo), originally uploaded by estteolson}

I had to go to Home Desperate this weekend to pick up some little thing and I was dreading it. I miss small mom & pop hardware stores like the one in the town I grew up in. It had creaky old wooden floors and the store was really narrow but ran the full length of the building. You could get keys made, buy tools and grass seed, pick out paint and wallpaper and order lumber. But you could also get some Pfalzgraff (when they still had only 6 patterns and hadn't moved into every outlet mall in Suburbanville), a hurricane lamp, real linen dishtowels, a crock pot, baking pans, horsehair brushes, and a red flyer wagon. I bought a steamed pudding mold there that I still use. I think there was a cat. If there wasn't, there should have been. They had the best selection of greeting cards, lots of Boynton, Kliban and other non-Hallmark staples. There was a simplicity about shopping there that the big box stores completely lack. You could walk in, find what you wanted pretty quickly (and if not, someone who worked there -- and who actually knew what they were talking about -- would help you find it). You didn't have to hike through a huge warehouse of a store, and there were only two or three options at most for each item, not like the option overload of modern-day shopping.

I know there are still stores like this -- there's one on the main street of the town just west of mine. But they are a dying breed, and those that are still around are having to scale back on what they offer as the big box stores eat their profits. I know for a fact that the store near me did not have the item I ended up buying at HD, because I went there first. I did, however, buy some soy candles, a flower pot, and some picture hooks. ;-)