the new year

So much for resolutions! Here it is 2009 and have not made a dent since????? well. I am rejoicing to see that Obama made it and will be our 44th president this week!...

much has happened and the last 2 campaign years have been totally absorbing... been following twitterlike Salon, NY Times, Slate, Huffington Post mainly...

will get some pics out of the closet or something and blog.

back to blogspot

Sureprise: I have been away for a while, a year and a half. In the mean time I have kept my thoughts alive on facebook and My-space, for heaven's sake!!!! But with a little encouragement I will share a daily blog over here too.....

Saturday 14th

"Tin Top in Parker County

Hell-of-a night. Unsettled Spring weather. Halcyan days of blue skys and bluer wild flowers with crashing storms and violent destruction.

After a night of terror for some in North Texas, we are left cold, kinda hung over feeling. Wind blowing from the North.

Watched the movie Brick. Try to find the soundtrack. The whole thing works so well as a piece of film. I do not know how the events and story make sense, but the filming: each scene is vivid and compelling.... maybe because of what you can't see, hear or follow. The intent is so straight and sure. Unwavering....

I made breakfast:

oatmeal plus:

cup of milk, two cups water. Bring to a boil and add:
1 cup 3 minute oats
1/2 cup brown sugar (or more)
1/2 tsp salt (or more)
4 or 5 prunes
1/2 cup raisins (or more)
1/2 cup Craisins (dried cranberries)
1 tsp cinnamin

Let come to rolling boil again then cut heat to simmer. Stir from time to time....I would have cut up an apples if I had thought of it!

Eat all for hearty breakfast.
Blue Bonnets in the snow

Equidorian Plant (and a Cheap Supper)

The Green Day Plant

Oh yes. In the jungle of equitorial Equidor, and plant was identified for the first time.

Stop and smell the GREEN DAY. A botanist from Switzerland, Dr. Jason R. Grant, just wrote to NRDC to tell them that he named a new tropical plant species after Green Day. It's called Macrocarpaea dies-viridis (dies-viridis is Latin for Green Day), and the scientific journal Harvard Papers in Botany just published an article about it! In his message, Dr. Grant says, "My students and I discovered this new species in February 2006 in Ecuador, and listened to Green Day music while driving, and in the evenings. Obviously as a botanist I am concerned with the environment, and applaud the efforts of the Natural Resources Defense Council."
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Supper tonight: money tight, I made up some pancake mix, fried a slice of balogny and warmed a bit of Monterey Pepper Jack on top and had a great supper....

Pancake mix:

2 cups all purpose flour
2 heaping tablespoons sour cream
pinch of soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4th cup oil (corn or whatever)
1/2 cup milk
water to get desired consistancy
egg if you have one (I did not on this batch)

Mix the above, not over-mix! fry a large (7", say) pancake in a pan slicked with a little oil. Corn oil I like. Lard ok too, bacon fat etc.
remove and keep warm, while you fry gently a slice of Balogny. Turn and put a slab of Monterey Pepper Jack on top to melt slightly. Place meat and cheese on the pancake, and fold in half. "Serve", meaning EAT!!!!!! Yum. Good.

keep rest of batter in the fridge for breakfast....

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Lush wood in the desert mountains a spring-fed stream up in the Guadaloupe mountains creates a mini forest, quite lush and wonderful, Photo taked last Thanksgiving.....

School days

Garrison K, of Prairie Home Companion, has a great little piece about what a dis-service it is for a parent to do the art projects for their children, and worse, giving the job to the art department of thier business cooperation, sometimes paying comercial artists to do it.

When I was in the 3rd grade, in the early 40's, our teacher set up a valentine box, decorated with hearts and cupids, and a slot on top, of course. We were told to drop Valentine messages in for our friends and school-mates in our class. To be opened on February 14th, and one of us would play Dan Cupid. (Dan?)

Mom told me that in her school days, she and her friends would make Valentines out of colored paper with scisors and glue, messages done in crayon. I decided that was what I would do. Everybody else went to the Dime store and bought theirs. But it was a good project and kept me out of trouble, spreading out over the dining room table, making a grand mess for poor Mama to clean up!

I do not think my efforts were appreciated, since I was made some fun of by students whose mothers bought there greetings at Woolworths, and some of my oversized efforts would not go in the box slot, and received a frown from the teacher. But I had fun doing it. Wish I had kept an example of the home-made efforts!!!! Even though my secret heart-throb, Margaret Beck, hardly even thanked me for hers, the most elaborate I made!!!!

Enjoyed Garrison's piece, and think that every ounce of creativity in children should be encouraged.... all the time. And maybe they will grow up to love and understand the place of art and craft in the human psyche and what it does for the soul and mind....

We gotta hand it to him!

Obama for Pres


Blogspot just changed me over to my google accout and I almost forgot what I wanted to put on there. Oh yes. That funny slip Biden made: Quote:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy ... I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Sharptons reply was that he bathes every day. Jesse, who is inspiring and artulate.. just punted.

Obama, Obama a wonderful guy!
he's got it: Charisma
that reaches the sky.....

A great fight ensuing: Hillary vs. Barak....

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Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia is back at Salon after 6 years! I love to read that bright gal! Check out this quote:

"I love the way Barack Obama has nimbly upstaged the ponderous Hillary machine. It's a Bette Davis/Joan Crawford bitch fest! But Obama's effusive gusts of generalities irritate me; it's all sizzle and no steak right now. He needs seasoning: 2012 may be his year. I wish Nancy Pelosi were running. Despite her foot-dragging mishandling of the flap over her transcontinental military jet, Pelosi has style and pizazz and knows how to put the shiv in while smiling ever so brightly at the cameras. She's brass knuckles in a velvet glove, and I'm loving every minute of it."

It's Saturday, Opera season

Adolfo Hohenstein
Mimì e Rodolfo:

Soli d'inverno è cosa da morire!
Soli! Mentre a primavera
c'è compagno il sol!

Ah, to be alone in winter is death!

La Boheme forever. Probably the most heavenly beautiful opera ever.... Love in poverty... deprevation.... but joy and love lift the tragedy and waste to sublime levels.... the harmony and texture and weaving and twining of voices and orchestra has rarely been so perfect... color and line entwine like a Mucha poster....

(nel Cabaret fracasso di piatti e bicchieri rotti)

Would not like to be without opera. A life time obsession. The Met on Saturday afternoon. I soaked it up in the womb, according to Mama. She listened regularly. I was born Feb 23rd, opera season at its best....