A list for today

Monday I will be off to Philadelphia. I've never been so this should be fun. Well, fun when I'm not sitting in conference rooms listening to people talk about how they plan to preserve audio and video. Since, I won't be home for a week I need to clean up all the stuff off my desk and get all my travel things in order. The weekend will be devoted to packing and cooking. If I don't make things for my family to eat they tend to go out. Costing me a ton more money.

Here are a few thoughts that are rattling around in my head.

1.I've got the coolest cell phone app. It tracks my exercise then awards me stuff at the end of the workout. Saturday's epic run earned me an avocado. Just one. Seems like I was getting shafted by my phone. Expending 493 calories should have grabbed me at least a Milky Way bar. And, not one of those "fun" size ones but a full-size clog-your-arteries bounce-off-the-wall candy bars. Sunday I burned off 423 calories (Hey, I was tired from the day before). What did the cell phone give me? 4 pears. My first thought; I wonder if they mean 4 pears poached in brandy and served in a puddle of creme anglaise with a drizzle of chocolate sauce.That seemed like a great reward.

2. Chatting it up with Keely  the other day about attending Blissdom we hit on an terrific idea. I've never been able to justify going to a conference that I have to pay for so coming up with the money for this was just not sitting right. It wasn't the $120 in plane tickets or even the cost of splitting the room. (Becky: Keely invited me to share yours. Hope you don't mind) I'd do that just for the opportunity to meet up with these two wonderful women. It's the $360.00 in conference fees that are getting to me. It is a little hard to come up with that kind of money for a non-work related event. Then Keely and I hit on a fabulous idea:

Have some vegetarian related organization sponsor me.

So what do you all think? Vegetarian Times? Meatless Monday? Vegetarian Resource Group? I could do whole posts about traveling as a vegetarian. Or maybe, representing the truly meatless without being scary. Anyone else I should pitch this to? Got a concept or idea these groups would be looking for?

3. Got contacted by the U.S. State Department again about one of the collections on the digital library. If I was a conspiracy theorist I would be getting concerned by all these phone calls and emails. Oh, they start out innocent enough. "Ms. Reilly could we make an appointment to talk about India Illustrated?", I'm beginning to think that is code for "what is your personal opinion about the political and social history of the British Raj.  Good thing I don't have a passport. I may be put on some sort of watch list or something. It is bad enough that I'm one of those "radical militant librarians". (The FBI term for librarians that opposed the use of secret warrants authorized under Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act and in my case the whole PATRIOT Act. Which was and still is a POS).

4. The Meatless Monday people have gone all promotional on me.

I think the cow looks angry.

5. I'm collecting all suggestions about what to do in Philadelphia. I did go get a Frommer's travel guide. Not a new addition, of course. I got mine from Half Priced Books. It's a 2005 or 6. The historical stuff can't have changed too much in the last 100 years so I think I'm good on that but if you have places that I just have to see. Like giant fruit or chickens or something please send me the deets.



I may not post on Monday since I have to be on a plane at 6am. Who thought that that is ever a good time to leave? I hope the crew have had their coffee. Maybe I won't chance it and buy them one. Can't hurt.

Love,
M

Everything can be qualified or the word of the day

Every morning JR and I sit down at the breakfast table to review our upcoming day, talk about the past evening, discuss our children's future or sometimes even our own. We talk about our upcoming car purchase like it is happening tomorrow instead of next summer. We talk about our finances like they are actually improving. We talk about our possibly Disney trip like we will really go and not decide that it is way too much money when we are already flying to Seattle over the Christmas holiday. We talk about our, our children's, my mother's health issues. It's all very meaningful and high-level stuff and this morning was no different.

JR: Nessa, you are so ladylike.

Me: She's a burper alright.

JR: She's more of a belcher.

Me: That's what I said, a burper.

JR: No, she's a belcher.

Me: What? You are now quantifying burps? Wait, that should be qualifying because you didn't put an actual number to burping synonyms. 

JR: Yeah, I am. It goes burp then belch than eruption?

Me: Hahaha. You know that I'll have to look this up, right?

JR: Oh course you will dear.

Me: The synonyms for burp are: burp, bubble, belch, eruct. I, personally, think that is out of order. If we are really qualifying burps it should be bubble, burp, belch, then eruct. The online synonym thesaurus doesn't qualify words.That is not in it's pay grade.

JR: Hahaha, eruct! That's a funny word. I'll have to use it in a sentence today

Me: Like; "What Tripper is licking right now makes me eruct in my mouth".

JR: *snort*... I've got to go to work now.

See high-level, important, life changing conversation at the Dog's Life household. 

Today's word of the day is eruct. 

e·ruct

[ih-ruhkt] Show IPA

–verb (used with object), verb (used without object)

1.

to belch forth, as gas from the stomach.

2.

to emit or issue violently, as matter from a volcano.

---

Origin:
1660–70;  < L ērūctāre  to vomit, discharge violently, freq. of ērūgere

Can you use it in a sentence today?

Love,

M 

Just about everything about this scares me.

This week's Spin Cycle is Halloween and believe it or not I think I'm on time.
What are the odds?
Not very good I can tell you.
Since, SK gives us a fair bit of latitude on this sort of thing I think I'll use all of it. Yeah, sort of like the bag full of candy I'd collect then promptly chow down on Halloweens in the past.

On Friday I posted this photograph:

It scares the crap out of me.

There is a ton of stuff on this page that scares me but lets start with it's reason for being. This photograph came from a 1910s booklet promoting the great city of Houston, Texas. Yes, folks the reason you should come to Houston is because we let toddlers smoke pipes

and promote ethnic stereotypes by showing Mexican women carrying flowers on their heads. 

I'm a little concerned that the baby on the top left with the flower in her hand was stoned. Look at those eyes and tell me I'm wrong. I've seen eyes like that (true, in the mirror but it was the mid-70s; we all had eyes like that) and they were stoned. This was the early 1900s. I think they were still putting cocaine in Coca Cola.

And, the baby on the top right. Is she supposed to be posing as a bathing beauty? Because she does seem to have the moves down. This was the Victorian era. Didn't they reserve those poses for "fast" women?

She is adorable though.

Last but not least, let's address the elephant in this room. The scariest part of this photograph....the nun! 
(please say this in that dramatic way made famous by Monty Python in "the Bishop" sketch)

 Am I wrong or does she not look like a man dressed up like a nun? I had heard that nuns were scary but holy cow! She/he'd make me pee my pants if she/he came at me with a ruler. And, is she/he casting her/his eyes up to God or something else? Was this a social/religious statement by the photographers? It boggles the mind that they thought this was a good image for Houston.

Truly, I'm scared. Somebody hold me!

Love,
M


PS: It's Monday. Let's all try to make it meatless. It's good for you and it's good for the planet. And we all like you and the planet. Really? What's not to like?

Pictures of Children

 Trouble tempting imps.

 Hugable happy honeys

 

 Talented Treasures

 

High jink playing scalawags

 lil Tomfoolery

 

Wonderful wandering whelp

 Tremendous pranksters

  

Fat Buddha baby 

 

Lots of lovelies all at once

 

 I love pictures of children.

Have a great weekend.

Love,

M

Sketches in Afghanistan. Spin Cycle

The Spin Cycle this week is collages (Then and Now). Now, I'm pretty lame when it comes to this sort of thing normally but this one, for me, should have been a phone-in spin. I've got access to oodles of cool historical images and coming up with current stuff is easy. Hello, Internet? I love you.

Anyway, we have this new collection of materials coming out next week that lends itself to this week's Spin. You all are getting a sneak peak at a fabulous collection of sketches from the First Afghan War (1839-1842). The sketches were done by James Atkinson. He was a surgeon, Oriental/Persian scholar and an artist.

J. Atkinson was like the embedded reporter for that war. The sketches are from all over the region and show everything from daily Afghan life to battle scenes. 

Right off I noticed a marked similarity between these sketches and photographs of Afghanistan today.

war in context

Men dressed in camouflage toting weapons. 

That dress may look different and the weapons more sophisticated but the basic concepts are still the same.

cashingray.com

Is it just me?

Love,

M

RTT - Updates and alerts

Keely's got random covered. Click the funny purple button. It's okay. The ham won't hurt you.

Exercise update: Gretchen thought up this idea to give a quick update of her exercise for the week as part of her RTT post. I thought that was a terribly brilliant idea of hers. So I stole it. This way I don't have to bore you anymore than I normally would and I would be somewhat accountable. It's a win win for both of us. So here you go, in the last seven days I have walked/run 8.4 miles over the weekend, worked out to two 30 minutes videos on Monday and walked 30 minutes around campus on Thursday. Not bad. Could be better. On the diet front I let the wine fridge go empty cutting 300 calories a day from my daily intake. I'm not sure I could make much more of a sacrifice than that!


Halloween spoiler:
So I wouldn't eat this:

I made this:

Sugar/spiced mixed nuts.

Because nuts are good for you

Travel Alert: I'll be in Philadelphia on November 1st for a week. So if you live in the area and want to get together please let me know. I love meeting blog friends in person. I promise I won't stalk you in real life much.Or if you know of something that I MUST DO while there let me know that also. This will be my first trip to Philly. FYI, chances are I won't be sampling the cheese steaks.

Costume ideas: 

Zombie Librarian. I think my Halloween is covered.

Have a great Tuesday everyone
Love,
M

Photographic proof that I do not shut up

Alton Brown was signing books at my Coscto on Sunday.

Give a good look at each of the pictures that the nice man that AB brought with him took for me. Notice anything unusual? 

Not my jiggly arm or crazy hair.

Or that my bra strap was starting to slide down my arm.

Or that Alton is shall we say, not on the tall side.

Or that it looks like I outweigh him.

The man, seriously, has no butt.

I checked.

You ladies can thank me later.

Notice who is doing all the talking.

"My friend Becky in Atlanta says Hi!"

AB: "Tell Becky Hi!"

(as an aside, he does have some great looking forearms)

"My daughter-in-law only like avocados in your guacamole. She says thanks"

AB: "You mean she doesn't like them outside of guac?"

"No. It's weird I know because guac is like all avocado with just a little bit of other stuff thrown in but really who can know why one person likes something but not the main ingredient on it's own. Maybe, it's the texture. But we love her anyway"

AB: "Uhhhh"

 (Notice glazed look. I'm pretty sure he was thinking; get this crazy woman away from me.)

 

Did I mention the veggie show I want Food Network to produce? NO!

Did I mention that he is the Bill Nye of food? NO!

Probably just as well. He must have already been truly afraid of me by then.

It could have been worse. I could have been the person immediately after the man that loves AB so much that he named his kid Alton. Yes, there was a 2 year old 3 people behind me named Alton. Whose father was wearing a t-shirt that had him and AB on it. Of course AB had never posed for it. It was photoshopped by his brother-in-law. That is how much this guy loves AB. How do I know all this? Well, he was only 3 people behind me and we did have 2 hours to kill. Standing behind him would have been SO much worse.

I do have to say that until that point I had a pretty productive day. I walked/ran 4.2 miles with Nessa, made veggie eggs benedict for breakfast, hard-boiled a dozen eggs and made sugar-spiced nuts all before I left at 11am. After I got home at 1:30? Nothing. I read the rest of the afternoon. I was truly lazy.

Hope your weekend went well. 

Love,

M

I say it was a double dare!

So I griped and complained about the Food Network the other day and a good majority of you agreed that they needed to maybe possibly probably rethink their programming. Or, maybe I just interpreted your responses that way. Let's check a few of the comments to be sure I wasn't just extrapolating:

Jan said...

The Food Network is no longer about food - it's about stressful competitions and making people who can't cook any better than you or me (and have far less understanding of what constitutes good food) "stars." I can't watch it any more - it irritates the bejebus out of me.

Pseudo said...

Well done!! Let's get this post out and about and see what happens ; -) I have to admit, I love Diner's Drive-ins and Dives as it makes me feel like I am on a road trip, other than that I've lost interest. I am not a vegetarian, but would love a vegetarian show for the meatless nights ( try to cook meat only 2-3 times week).

blueviolet said...

I think they're really missing a key market when they don't do a show for vegetarians!

Extrapolating? Nope! I don't think so. Then I got this comment from MitMoi. She tells it like it is.

MitMoi said...

Here's what I think. Excellent Idea. Now make it happen. Find out who the production company is for Good Eats, Giada deLaurentis, and Saran Moulton. Write the proposal, outline a few shows, pitch them the idea. You're a librarian - do the research and point out how it doesn't have to have fringe (ie: PETA) appeal. I bet you could do it.

I'm thinking this was a dare. This might have been a double dare.

Am I wrong, Mit? Were you NOT just challenging me to figure this out?

I thought, I could do this!
I have the tools.
I have the people.
I have the PBS connections.

I had to have a plan. Librarians have to have a plan. We just work that way. We are sort of the planners and organizers of the world. The internet would not be near as chaotic if librarians had been consulted first. (I'm just sayin').

First step, check the Food Network website for how to propose a show. Here's what they say:

SHOW IDEAS
Food Network appreciates your interest (yeah right!) in suggesting ideas, but we only accept series and specials proposals only from television production companies with national or major market production credentials. If you are a production company (if you are not please don't bother), please send us your credentials and a history of your production experience only. After reviewing them, Food Network will determine whether or not to send you a release form with a request for further information. DO NOT send any pitch ideas or proposals as they will be returned unread (if we haven't already thrown them into the trash after laughing ourselves silly). Please send your company's credentials to:
Food Network
75 Ninth Avenue
NY NY 10011
Attention: Submissions New Show Proposals
*Italicized remarks made by the blog author as emphasis. Not a Food Network opinion. Though, I'm pretty sure they are saying this under their breath.)

I say this is bullshit (pardon my language).  So I checked on who does the production for Good Eats. Be Square Productions was started by Alton Brown after he did a stint on PBS. Or I think that's what I got from his bio. Just try to find the page to propose a show. I dare you!

Everyday Italian is produced by Teale-Edwards Productions LLC. They at least have an address that you can pitch a show to. Granted there is not a place to specifically pitch a show but at least you can find an address. That's like amazing.

I checked out the production company for Sara Moulton and personally I find them kind of scary.

So there you have it. The production companies and the Food Network.
What do you think I should do?
Who do you think I should pitch a show to?
Do you think I should contact the local PBS station? I do have friends there.
Do you want to help me write my proposal? Please do!
Any and all suggestions will be appreciated.
To tell you the truth I am counting on all of you to help out. I'm more than willing to be the village idiot in this crusade as long as I know that you all have my back. Jan? We could do a whole bunch of stuff about organic and sustainable food?

If you want in leave a comment and email me your suggestions.

Love,
The Crusader M

Drop the boa and nobody gets hurt

 

 Back in the 1950s the University of Houston students would hold a festival called Frontier Fiesta. 

 They would build a frontier western town on the campus. 

 Complete with saloons, dance halls, and open air stages. 

 They would have dances, stage performers, mock bank robberies, and a parade.

(Does this not remind you of the movie Animal House?)

They had beard growing contests and beard shaving events.

Thousands of people would show up and the students pretty much took over the city of Houston.

 Often celebrities would show up.

Anyone know who this is?

We've been trying to figure it out.

And she brought her little dog!

As with most things, Frontier Fiesta has waxed and waned in popularity over these years. I know that they still have something of a fiesta but it will probably never be the same. The times, they be a changin'.

I have heard that back in the 50s Frontier Fiesta got a little out of hand.

Ya Think?

I find it exciting that these students pulled together to put on something of this magnitude. In 1954 they spent $100,000. When you consider that my parents bought their first house in 1962 for a whooping $17,000, what the students raised and spent on Frontier Fiesta was a boatload of money. If it was just money alone that would be a triumph but they coordinated the whole thing right down to riding horses into the city and robbing the bank. They also worked closely with the PBS station on campus to film a bit one year. I'll post some of that later. 

There is a little University of Houston history for you. Brought to you by the students from the 1950s and the Digital Services department here at the library. There is more stuff at Frontier Fiesta here.

See! I told you I'd be back to goofy pictures and history today.

Love,

M

Where I rant about the FoodNetwork.

If you are perfectly happy with the FoodNetwork please just pass this one up. But, if like me, you are finding them to be a little tedious, formulaic, and not responsive to viewer needs than read on.

I sent an email to the Food Network commenting on the fact that they put a show on specifically about meat but didn't balance that out with one specifically about veggies. I figure that if 6% of the population is vegetarian than maybe the Food Network could make 6% of their programming designed for vegetarians.

Let's do a little math (I know a librarian doing math is about as likely as the Food Network putting on a vegetarian show but stay with me here.). If the Food Network offers approximately 18 hours of programming per day then 6% of that would be.... 1.08 hours of programming (Please check my math. I'm a librarian not a mathematician.) So 1 hour a day should be devoted to vegetarian programming (I'd be happy with 1 hour a week). 

All this seemed perfectly reasonable to me so I fired off said email. I received this lovely auto-response back from them. Okay, it was in the evening and no one was in the office. I get it but it sort of rubbed me the wrong way because I've sent an email or two in the past and received nothing.

We have received your email message with the subject:

  OTHER comment

and we appreciate your taking the time to write to us.  Your comments and suggestions on our programming, as well as our website, are very important to us.  Your feedback will be shared with the appropriate departments for consideration when planning future programming and development.

Thank you for your interest in the Food Network and FOODNETWORK.com

Best regards,

Food Network Customer Service

Shall we break down their response a little.  

OTHER comment means that once you have taken the time to actually find their contact page, (no easy task mind you, there is a little tiny link at the very bottom of their homepage or you could do what I did which was to use the search box.), they don't give you an option in the drop down menu to comment about the network programming philosophy as a whole. Only to question or comment on specific shows or chefs. Unless you chose OTHER. Kind of made me feel second class or steerage.


Your feedback will be shared with the appropriate departments. Since my option was OTHER I take this to mean the appropriate department is the nearest trash receptacle. Since, I've written them before (only once or twice. Not enough to be a pest. YET!) and received no response the trash can seems the most likely place for my emails. This statement on their website pretty much confirms my suspicions. "Suggestions and comments will be automatically forwarded and shared with the Programming and Website teams, and no further correspondence will be forthcoming from us." I understand, they get lots of emails every day. They can't be expected to answer all of them but wait a minute; I work for a library that services 40,000 students plus faculty and staff and we seem to be able to respond to every single inquiry. We wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't. The ratio of staff to questioner is probably (or should be) roughly the same. I would be happy if I knew that they logged my comment into a database for further inquiry or that they thought it was stupid and couldn't or wouldn't be able to accommodate me. Makes one think a bit about their commitment to their constituents.

Thank you for your interest in the Food Network and FOODNETWORK.com. Which I take to mean; thank you for watching shows with ingredients you can't afford, can't find, will never use again after you do find them and spring for the exorbitant price, and don't have the time, equipment or help to clean up after you've made the meal that has dirtied almost every pan you own after working.all.day.long.  Oh, and thank you for having such low expectations that we can fill hours of programming with reality based shows that take little or no brains or money to produce.

I totally understand that Alton Brown and a few others have real lives and can't be producing shows all the time but surely you guys are clever enough to come up with something better than reality shows? They are sort of the bottom-feeders of the TV show world (my opinion).


I, also, understand that not everyone is a vegetarian but I live with a bunch of omnivores and cook for them every.single.day. I make or adapt meals that usually include something for everyone. Because I don't chose to eat meat does not mean that I expect others to make that same choice. I am not on the PETA fringe.

What I would like to see is some alternatives. As Thomas Jefferson said; "(he ate meat) as a condiment to the vegetables which constitute my principal diet". FoodNetwork could we have a couple of 30 minute shows where the meat is the condiment and not the primary ingredient?

Thanks for letting me rant. Sorry about it but I just felt I had to get this off my chest. It was beginning to make me crazy. I'll be back to crazy photos and history tomorrow. I promise.

Love,
M


 

Phoenicia. I like any place where I can buy mung beans.

JR had heard about this place from a truck driver and according to JR truck drivers make the best informants when it comes to this sort of thing. Never one to take things at face value I had to look them up on the internet. I wasn't impressed (mostly because I was tired and not willing to wander around their website trying to figure out what was what) but JR was insistent. We had to go. 

JR isn't all that insistent about anything. (Julie? Tell them how truly mellow JR is). JR usually just lets me make all the plans and he goes along for the ride. It makes for a great working relationship for us. But this time he was adamant.

So Saturday morning found us at the Phoenicia grocery. 5 steps into the front door and I knew I had found a place I could call my grocery home. While not any of the sections were huge the variety was remarkable. They had three types of eggplant in the tiny produce section, for pete's sake.

Tucked in one corner they had a bakery section that featured baklava and spanakoptia. Two of my favorite things.

A small case in the bakery section was devoted to Belgian Chocolates. Seriously, devoted is the only word that should ever be attached to the words Belgian Chocolates. Don't you think?

A full aisle was devoted to dried beans.
I picked up a bag of red lentils and black beans but the green lentils and mung beans were tempting. 

Then there was the crockery aisle. 

What can I say? 

I drooled. 

Literally! 

JR was embarrassed.

Look at all the pretty colors.

Some things were shiny.

I go for shiny in a big way. 

Come to me my pretties.

Not to be outdone.....

The Hookah section.

Any decent ethnic grocery store worth it's salt should have a hookah section.

I always say.

Okay, I never say that.

But, I should because it seemed really at home in this store.

Back to the real food.

Not, of course, that we didn't think that hashish wasn't real food in the 70s.

But, it was never sold in the grocery store and I doubt if it was sold at this one either.

I should have checked.

Nuts

No, real ones. 

Nuts and seeds aisle.

A whole aisle!

Oh baby!

I'll be back.

Want to know how to pick the best olive oil from a whole aisle of different olive oils?

Ask the couple that are arguing talking in Italian.

I spent $2 bucks more on the biggest glass jug of olive oil I've ever purchased from their her recommendation. Trust me when I say it was totally worth the extra money. In fact, I was going to buy the Costco brand of oil. 

I won't be doing that again.
There are no words for the taste of this oil.

Then there was this:

 

Pita that makes it's way from the ceiling into the loving hands of the bakery associate. 

Hot and toasty. 

Chewy and warm.

To say I was fascinated is too mild a word.

Captivated is probably a better one.

JR had to push me along or you would have seen nothing but pictures of this contraption. 

There you have a mini trip to the Phoenicia grocery store. I left out the meat and dairy section. Obviously, the meat section because we don't spend any time there but the dairy section (where I do spend too much time and it shows) was too expansive to take all in on the first trip. We'll be back. Back to pick up fresh goat cheese if nothing else. Oh and the green lentils. I need those.

So what did you all do over the weekend?

Love,

M