New Blog Home at TypePad

Hi all,

I've moved to TypePad: http://3rdhouseparty.typepad.com/blog/

Please join me over in my new space and update your links. As with any new home, I expect a few odd kinks will be discovered as I continue to unpack. But I'm moved in and ready to invite friends over to hang out in my new digs. Come on ovah!

L.

 

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Having a Cow

I was just doing my lunch dishes, including washing my soup bowl and my spoon rest, when this little scene struck me funny (that's my cow spoon rest enjoying a bubble bath):

 

 

 

I've been extremely irritable the last couple of days. It must be my computer difficulties (more later). I've also been getting calls from my parents - my dad is having a hard time with my mom, yet he's reluctant to move into a continuing care retirement community. He likes his home, which I can't blame him for. I asked him about bringing in a caregiver - he'd mentioned that a neighbor told him of someone who did that. But he said this woman wasn’t around anymore. "So I guess that’s out," he said, with finality. I suggested she's probably not the only caregiver on the face of the earth and maybe he could find someone else. I guess I need to do some more research myself.

 

The approach of Christmas is upsetting my mother. She wants us all to be together. Anyone around for the story of last year's torturous holiday at my brother’s will understand why this is not going to happen this year. Anyway, I’m taking care of my housemate's dog over the holidays, so I can't leave. [I  should explain that my parents will spend Christmas with me, as they have been doing for years except for last year when we all flew to my brother's. However, they may fly to MI the week following Christmas to visit him and his family.] My mother refused to accept dog-sitting as an excuse, so I told her I had way too much work. Last night my dad called saying she was inconsolable. I told him I'd try to go up tomorrow or Saturday. She called me today, to my cell phone for some reason. "I know it's boring up here, so I don’t blame you for not wanting to come up..."

 

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The good news is I finally cleared one big technical hurdle. All it took was one tech guy at my ISP who had experienced my problem and had a fix. I talked to six other tech people, at my host provider and my ISP, who couldn't help me - and I spent hours on the phone with them.

 

I was unable to access my business website, my hoster's site, nor my business email - which is bad since, um, my clients kinda have to reach me. None of the computers in my house, I discovered, could access any of this, though we could go everywhere else on the WWW. Turns out the router needed to be reset. Simple as that. As the tech guy explained it, something about the cache getting changed. (Found a tidbit here about "an old route-cache entry exists pointing to a route that no longer exists.") Gak.

 

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I’m also getting ready to launch my new blog home. I'm having trouble getting the content from here moved there. I imported it, but it's full of gunk and needs to be cleaned up. However, I think I'll launch anyway and clean up the old posts over time. Stay tuned for an official announcement!

 

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Intruders

I was just out walking when I saw a couple of intruders fleeing from someone's backyard - two white-tailed deer, the second one hopping the four-foot fence like an Olympic hurdler. They filed out through the camouflaging gray-brown thicket, white tails waving 'so long!', then they were gone.

 

Their tails seemed exceptionally fluffy and I wondered if I hadn't seen them that close before or if they grow fatter with the cold weather. Last week when I walked by the Tower Hill Farm, the horses' coats had turned into wooly thick blankets. The foal born in the spring trotted over to check me out and nibble at my fleece jacket, while the couple of mares eyed me and continued chomping grass. One of them was sporting inadvertent forelock decorations of well-knotted-in burrs.

 

Apparently it's deer mating season in this area. Here's some information I found online:

During September, deer molt to a highly insulative coat which consists of a dense layer of fine woolly hair under a layer of long hollow brown, gray, and white guard hairs. The guard hairs can be erected to form a very thick insulative coat, which protects against the cold winds of winter. [link]

 

Whitetail deer are the most nervous and shy of our deer. They wave their tails characteristically from side to side when they are startled and fleeing. They are extremely agile and may bound at speeds of up to 30 miles per hour through tangled terrain in a forest. [link]

 

The winter coat of the northern deer has hollow hair shafts, which fill with air, making the coat so buoyant that it would be difficult for the animal to sink should it become exhausted while swimming. The White-tailed Deer is also a graceful runner, with top speeds to 36 mph (58 km/h), although it flees to nearby cover rather than run great distances. This deer can make vertical leaps of 8 1/2 feet (2.6 m) and horizontal leaps of 30 feet (9 m). [link]

 

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Random sampling of frustrations

This morning I dreamed I was crouching beside a high fence and I had my fingers under it so I could just touch the fingers of M, who was on the other side. I couldn't really make him out through the little slats in the fence, and he wouldn't come out, hiding himself, grasping only my fingers in his, a few interlocking knuckles, as if a handshake with palms touching would be too intimate. It made me sad. Or I was sad and so I dreamt it.

 

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I've had several good phone conversations with TO now and I'm looking forward to meeting him. I talked to my astrologer today on the phone and asked for her take on things. All my Virgo and Leo meet my opposites in his Pisces and Aquarius. Could be very good, could be a challenge. But of course these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. He called tonight and we had another good conversation before his cell phone cut out.

 

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A booby prize behind every door

 

I spent the morning on the phone first with tech support for my website host (for my business), then with my ISP, then back to my website host - all to try to figure out why I can't access my business webmail nor my website itself. I can reach everything else on the entire World Wide Web, but my hosting company insisted it must be my ISP or my computer (haha - same problem on my laptop as on my desktop - guess again!). It has yet to be resolved. Plus they had me delete all my cookies, which has since caused me no end of hassles.

 

I spent another hour on the phone with Dell support trying to deal with a couple of laptop issues, also not resolved. Later I was on hold for an hour or so for Symantec support to straighten out a download issue (resolved! yay!). And I exchanged a couple of help tickets with TypePad support as well. Last night I tried to export this blog and import the contents into my new TypePad blog with disastrous results. All the html coding came in as garbage and I had to manually delete an entire year's worth of posts from the new blog. At least I learned one thing - set up a dummy blog before trying this again so I can delete the whole damn thing if needed. This is not yet resolved either, hence the delay in publicly launching the new blog site. But they seem pretty helpful, so I'm optimistic. [Meanwhile, I just had to go back into this post and replace the ?'s that Radio exchanged for all my apostophes.]

 

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Now I'm going to go watch my telenovela, barring Univision technical difficulties. I'd put a link up, but I can't seem to access the Univision site tonight. Par for the course.

 

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Autumnal Striptease

Slipping free of their leafy cover

the trees show so much limb

the embarrassed birds fly south

abandoning imprudently exposed

summer nests for the modesty

of the Bible Belt.

 

Gleefully the impudent shrubs

flaunt their berry-studded undergarments

while the deciduous luxuriate

solely in strands of ruby holly

and strategically placed bittersweet.

Sporting mistletoe crowns

strung with poisonous pearls

they invite the kisses of jack o'lanterns

that watch leering from the stoops

wizening into themselves

dying happy.

 

 

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No inhalation but inspiration

My friend T had a dinner party Saturday night - several people I used to work with and a couple of spouses. The time seemed to fly by. I ate way too much lasagna, drank too much wine (but at least I passed on the weed!), and then ate too much brownies and ice cream. M's husband fell asleep by the fireplace and I think I could have easily done so, too. We joked about partying while middle-aged. T is pushing 60 but has at least twice the stamina I have. MJ is planning for her 50th in February. I was the youngest. On Sunday I felt like the oldest. I didn't sleep well, probably from the caffeine in the brownies. So I got up very early and spent the morning futzing around with my new TypePad blog-home-to-be.

 

Late in the afternoon (after a nap), I met my friend Lori at the Saxonville Open Studios event. I only had about 45 minutes to look around since I got lost on the way, but since there are only about 15 artists working there I managed to take in most of it. Like just about all of the artists' studios I've been to in the Boston area, this group is located in an old mill building. The artists don’t reside in this one, as in some others, but it looks like great work space. I really liked a lot of the work I saw, particularly Emily Rubenfeld's fruit and Anne Gilson Haney's playful collages.

 

Lori bought a couple of prints; she's still getting settled in her house and just finished renovations, so she's in the mode of decorating her nest. I picked up a tiny fired clay bowl by Kay Jorgenson D'Orlando, whose bio says that she's a "PhD neuroscientist whose artist self emerged recently after slowly working her way out over my lifetime." I also made off with a stack of art postcards, which I love to stick up on my office walls in lieu of the real thing, which I generally can't afford. I do have some nice photographs and prints that an artist friend has given me over the years. And lately I've been "email & phone dating" a sculptor (as yet geographically challenged), so we'll see what creative inspiration he may bring.

 

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Moving soon

I've been relatively happy with Radio Userland, once I got it set up over a year ago. But there are things that I haven't liked, including the fact that it's client-based so I have to be sitting at my desk in my office to post (never mind mo-blogging, another story). Glitches have been relatively minor. But this morning my blog suddenly has question marks in place of half of my punctuation - quotes, ellipses, em dashes - all replaced with ? - apparently throughout my entire blog, archives and all. (I went in and fixed them in several recent posts.)

So this morning I went over to TypePad for the umpteenth time and played around with their design tools (which they seem to keep improving) and this time I'm serious! I'm building my new home over there. I know this will be a pain in the butt for people to change my link on your blogrolls (assuming you don't just take the opportunity to clean me off your list) but I hope this will be a one-time thing. I'm still constructing, but should be up soon. When it's ready I'll post the new link.

 

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Gazebo

[Grafton Common, Nov. 13]

GAZEBO  

A small building, usually in a garden, with a good view.

This word is surrounded by more mystery than an earnest etymologist would like. It appears in 1752 without any warning or antecedent in part four of a book by William and John Halfpenny with the title New Designs for Chinese Temples, an influential work that was aimed at the then new English fashion for the oriental in design and architecture. [read more here]

 

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Like white on rice

This morning everything is covered in a blanket of white. It looks like we got about three inches, enough to cover everything, enough for the plows. And it's still coming down, although the radar shows its giant DayGlo blue and green mass moving offshore soon. It's supposed to be sunny today. Out on my deck, the wind blows swirls of powder every few minutes, like Old Man Winter's breath. Otherwise it falls straight down - like rice, I was thinking. Then I remembered a poem I read a long time ago... found it:

Why We Write Poems

 

"Ten thousand Chinese have come

to plant rice in New Hampshire."

- Stephen Dobyns

 

 

Rice will not grow in New Hampshire.

The Chinese do not know this.

 

They travel with small white flutes

and are not afraid of winter.

 

Their hats are silk,

five blue cranes embroidered on each one.

 

After the arrival, they sit in a field of snow,

share their rice with ravens.

 

Then they begin to play their flutes.

The music sounds like two sisters

 

singing of rain forests, the slow ascent

of thousands of cranes.

 

 

– Mekeel McBride

from No Ordinary World

 

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Sorry Everybody

This is great. Click on the gallery.

Some of us -- hopefully most of us -- are trying to understand and appreciate the effect our recent election will have on you, the citizens of the rest of the world. As our so-called leaders redouble their efforts to screw you over, please remember that some of us -- hopefully most of us -- are truly, truly sorry. And we'll say we're sorry, even on the behalf of the ones who aren't.

 

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Weather fit for fur coats

Ingrid checks out the first snow on my deck.

 

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Snow business

This is what it looked like at my house when I returned from my meeting today.

I love my clients. This business, media production, attracts the best people to work with. Here's a snapshot of the conversation in a client meeting today (the project manager is the guy I work for, from the media production company; the corporate client hires the production house):

Client:  (to me) You live somewhere out West, right?

Me:  Um, well, west of route 495! It’s out the Mass. Pike, in Grafton.

Project mgr:  They let her out sometimes with the metal ankle bracelet.

Client:  looks puzzled

Me:  Oh, like Martha Stewart, when they let her out of prison?

Project mgr:  Right, Martha!

[brief discussion of Martha and her cell-block Christmas decorations]

Project mgr:  What do you call those bracelets, when you’re under house arrest?

Me:  It’s like a GPS system…

Project mgr:  But there’s a name for it.  Like LoJack!

Me:  Except when it’s on a person it’s called Whoa-Jack.

Project mgr:  cracks up

Client:  shakes his head

Project mgr:  Okay, where were we?

When there's enough work, it's a great way to make a living.

 

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Gifts of spiders and bees

My lunch date today brought me the web of an orb-weaving spider
and two jars of honey from the beehives he keeps in Vermont.

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See how to preserve spider webs. Also, Knudsen's Collecting and Preserving Plants and Animals.

 

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Breathless wonders

It began at the vernacular body, one-sentence stories: The time my father got sick of the number of agama lizards that had invaded the compound...

My contribution appears there with three others, at this count, but I will reproduce mine here:

When I was five and visiting a neighbor we were upstairs in someone's bedroom where there was a gray cat whose long fur I pushed my face right into rolling it back and forth to feel the soft warm fuzziness against my cheeks and forehead and then my nose watered and my eyes puffed up and the whole world got fuzzy only in a bad way and that's how we learned of my cat allergies.

See also:
* Nomen est Numen: When we first met we sat half-facing each other...

* Laughing Knees: Damn developers are at it again this time flipping sides...

* Via Negativa: Shall we play Twenty Questions the way we used to...

* Frizzy Logic: Back in the dark depths of winter and despair...

* Numenius: The four of us pursued the fly as it zoomed from...

* Pica: So I'm on the phone with my good buddy...

 

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From the Vineyard

Neptune

Radar relays

his coded message

from Cape Poge

to East Chop to West

 

ferries it across

sound and bay

while Mercury’s

impetuous sandals tap

 

in dreams I toss

tangled in his wake

and on waking sleep-walk

to answer back.

(Revised 11/11/04)

 

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Is it just me, or...

Surfing around my usual blog spaces for the past several days I'm beginning to have this feeling like Jeff Goldblum in "The Big Chill" when he says, "I have the feeling there's sex going on around here."

Except that it's not sex, but NaNoWriMo - I have the feeling there's novel writing going on around here. Some people are posting bits of it; some are posting word counts and keeping the torch lit; others are complaining about not doing it or not enough of it; yet others said they were going to do it and, in fact, they've become pretty quiet on the blog scene so maybe they are "really going at it."

I'm not much of a fiction writer, though I've made brief stabs at some very short pieces, none of which I was very happy with. I did write most of a screenplay, though, for a "screenplay writing" course at Emerson many years ago, so I guess that could count as fiction in a way. It was fun when my characters took off in their own directions and things just seemed to happen. It was also fun to hear about my classmates' scripts - disaster movies, slasher movies, you name it. Mine was an offbeat love story featuring a shy middle-aged teacher who's been laid off due to a tax-revolt proposition and is now relegated to working in a shoe store and living in the immaculately maintained home of his dear departed mother; he takes a poetry workshop wherein he meets a free-spirited young woman who writes florid poetry that he finds awful yet that disturbs his dreams with her ankle-braceleted feet (he works in a shoe store, remember). I believe I was originally inspired by the lovely little movie, "Turtle Diary," which is not much like the story I ended up with, other than that the protagonist emerges from his shell, so to speak, by the turn of events.

Anyway, good luck to all those on the NaNoWriMo challenge!

 

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What form will your revolution take?

Over at the Wish Jar Journal, Keri Smith posts that she saw "Motorcycle Diaries" and it fired her up. So she put out a challenge:

All that is required of the artist is to put the energy (the words, the ideas, the paintings) out there, one little piece at a time. One feels something, then expresses something.

And that m'dear I can do. Yes I can.

As my creative writing professor in college was fond of saying, "When the Japanese were in a period of peace, they painting only fans."

What form will your revolution take?

 

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November woods

[Keith Hill Rd, Grafton MA, Nov. 6]

 

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Moving forward

Dave at Via Negativa has rounded up a variety of blogger reactions in the aftermath of the election: Three Days That Shook The Blogging World. Several of the passages I recognized because I'd already come across them as I searched for solace and community in the past week.

Speaking of community, here's an amusing bit from the Boston Globe this morning (my emphasis):

VOTING WILL get underway shortly in the New England states on whether to secede from the United States of America. The new country would be named Red Sox Nation and would comprise Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and most of Connecticut.

Ah, I remember that short-lived joyous celebration...

I'm finding that humor is sometimes the only way I can get through what would otherwise make me feel powerless or despairing. It offers tension release and a way to look at things from a completely different angle -- upside-down, cross-eyed -- so that I get unstuck and feel re-energized to move forward again. I think regular doses are going to be be needed for the long haul.

 

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El Vez for Prez

The liberal resistance is alive and well in the People’s Republic of Cambridge. Last night in the bluest city in the bluest of the blue states, we went to the Middle East club to see El Vez and his two backup bands (Mary McBride and Bobby Conn), all Bush bashers to some extent. El Vez was on his “El Vez for Prez” tour – making his grand entrance onstage in an Uncle Sam jumpsuit singing the Alice Cooper song, “I Wanna Be Elected.” Of course since it’s now after the election, he peppered his banter with “when I’m President, after the recount…” It’s not all Elvis songs, though there was plenty of that, including his second song, dedicated to Bush, “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Chihuahua.” I don’t know how to describe it so I’ll quote here: “a socio-political-Las-Vegas-via-Memphis-by-way-of-Mexico Rock ‘n' Roll Revue. It's a multiculti-hybrid - Elvis kitsch and Mexican culture - that mixes political and social satire while distilling the Chicano experience, presented through the songs of Elvis Presley.” But really you have to see it - what a kick.

It was very entertaining and worth staying up for – alas, he came on at 11:30pm and ran until 1am, which means I got home at around 2am. I’m still recovering. I’d say I’m too old for this, but my compañeras were older than me (and El Vez is 44! Yikes, and doing splits in a skin-tight, tiger-skinned jumpsuit no less. ¡Hijole!). No, I just have one of those sensitive systems that requires adequate sleep, healthy food and constant maintenance. Speaking of food, we met up before the show next door at ZuZu and had wine and some great food: tapas/mazza, a Cuban sandwich, a quesadilla, and we split a Chocolate Baklava Sundae (all spread out in little scoops and bites – yumm!).

 

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Reminiscing

My First Job

 

I remember walking into

its yeasty sugary warmth

an embrace

like an affectionate

overweight aunt

smothering in

honey-dip perfume

confections powdering

our poly pink smocks

sturdy white nurse’s shoes

sticky behind the cases

of donuts, danish, jelly rolls

raspberry, fig and lemon squares

loaves of French and Vienna

rows of toll house and oatmeal.

 

Out back where Saturday’s

beans and brown bread

emerged from enormous ovens

and dough mixers churned

the white-hatted baker

expertly piped Happy Birthday

Karen or Nancy

with a pastry bag spout

before handing back the cake

with a wink.

 

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Kitchen blogging

This morning my Internet connection was down until 10:00. Then 30 minutes later the power went out until 1:00 (no doubt due to the wind gusts we’re getting of up to 55 mph). Fortunately I didn’t have any work deadlines this morning. Alas, I was suffering blog withdrawal, so I put my energy into cleaning my kitchen, which was badly in need of it. This is not one of those ultra-modern designer kitchens with fancy appliances and gadgets that never actually get used. I have a 17-year-old electric stove and an equally old refrigerator with no working light inside, a prized old food processor and a couple of good pans among the tools and cookware I used every day, sometimes many times a day. I love my kitchen, even better when it’s clean. (Of course, almost everyone believes that his or her kitchen is special.)

 

 

It’s a small space – 8x9’ in all, with floor space of only 5x6’ – perfect for one person to cook in because everything I need is right at hand: turn, open, select, shut, turn, set down, turn, open, select, shut, turn, set down, chop, chop, add, stir, open, measure, add, stir... It’s like dancing on a tiny dance floor. But usually solo. Adding another person makes things interesting. It helps if they’re fast on their feet and sensitive to picking up my cues when I’m moving, because I’m used to leading here. I’ve had guys who simply refused to enter the whirl zone when I’m cooking. Others have been happy to join right in. I particularly like those who can wield a knife, because I’m more than happy to relinquish chopping duties, though I have to sometimes bite my tongue when it comes to the specific size and shape of the results. I like sharing in the kitchen, but as they say, if you can’t stand the heat…

 

 

It’s appropriate that my kitchen is at the center of my home, but since my townhouse is sandwiched between my neighbors’ this means I have no window looking outside. I do have a skylight, though, which pours down a lot of light if it’s sunny out, and I can open it via a long pole to let heat rise up and out and, if needed, smoke! I’ve put the pole away for the winter now. There’s also a window or “pass-through” to the dining room and light comes through from the clearstory windows there. I took a cue from one of my neighbors and put up a mirror above the sink that resembles a window and bounces back some light. I have another mirror over the stove, which according to feng shui is supposed to duplicate the burners and therefore luck or prosperity, I can’t remember which. I’ll take either.

 

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Tomorrow night, I’m going with a bunch of friends to see El Vez in Cambridge (see a recent review here). Should be a hoot. Have a good weekend everyone!

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8:45 pm: Well, clean kitchens are meant to be dirtied. Brownies are just coming out of the oven...

 

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Blogs abuzzin' today

I’m getting lots of google hits for that Garrison Keillor piece, "How to Break the Political Fever" that I’ve posted about, which is understandable. Good piece. But even the morning after the election, I had a googler searching here for “santa speedo” (posted about last December, on the Boston Santa Speedo Run) and another for “boobs” (must have been the Janet Jackson thing – I also regularly get searches for “party boobs” and “house party boobs” etc. all the time – SORRY TO DISAPPOINT!! As my friends can attest to, it's ironic anyone would come to me looking for boobs). It’s kinda heartening, though, ain’t it? On the morning after this political disaster, there are people out there searching for beefcake and boobs. It reminds me of that Larsen cartoon where there’s a city in flames and people running and cars jamming the streets and then there’s this dog with his nose to some spot on the ground, with the caption, “And then Ralph found something interesting.”

 

By the way, my favorite recent google search here was “how to escape from a bad party”. Uh, this was pre-election, so don’t be reading anything political into that! Anyway, I wish I could have helped.

 

Speaking of politics, I’m encouraged by the amount of energy I’ve seen being expressed around the blogosphere around asserting political power for the nearly half of all American voters who didn’t give the Bush and the neo-cons the “mandate” they’re claiming. A couple of articles that several people have pointed to are on Slate: here and here. Daily Kos is abuzz with ideas. And as Andrea says, “We are a smart party, people.” We’ll figure it out. I also hope that the moderate Republicans can gain back their own party. Anyone see Bill Weld (former Republican governor of Mass.) on The Daily Show election night? I miss that kind of fiscally conservative, socially liberal kind of Republican. I voted for that kind of Republican. It’s these extremists that make me crazy. But I can see light in the darkness, and it's keeping me warm.

 

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November afternoon

 

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Consolations

Beauty

At a happening: On a brighter note.

 

Art

Art flourishes in political defeat (via Poetry Hut).

 

Body & Soul

At the vernacular body: Innominate

The innominate bone is twinned: each person has one on the right, the other on the left… to form the pelvis, cradle of the world. It provides numerous points of attachment for the muscles and ligaments of the buttocks, the thigh and the groin…

 

It connects the upper body and the nether parts. It is the Tao bone, uniting our dualities, making us one.

 

It is seat, fulcrum and axis; the unseen frame for the shimmy of an ass; the reliable armature of the copulative piston's thrusts.

 

Unnameable and anonymous.

 

The end shaped by our Divinity.

Spirit & Unity

Thanks to Butuki for Candlelight. He is right: “We are all here, even in the rest of the world, sticking together, remembering who we are, and strong within our own circle.”

And a link a friend sent me this morning: “Maiden Rock”

 

Hope

Obama! (excerpted at Daily Kos):

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation, not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." [oh, but read the rest!]

Perspective

At mole: One of the reasons the Kerry campaign was a success: “Democrats have been more united and energized than I have ever seen them.”

And Kos: “We are energised, and will continue to fight for a better future for our country.”
Plus, from elck, the perspective of the long view.

 

Humor

At North Coast Café (via Laughing~Knees)

And we will still have The Daily Show.

 

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What next?

A few days ago, I posted about Garrison Keillor's article, "How to Break the Political Fever" (Time archived it, but I have a copy if anyone wants it). Here's a critical piece:

So what happens next? The winners smirk and gloat, of course, but what do the losers do?

1) Join the winning party

2) Curse the darkness

3) Move to Vancouver

4) Take up the sins of the flesh, all of them, not leaving out a single one

5) Brood, connive, conspire

The exit polls said that the number one issue for voters was "moral values." Therefore, I'm picking #4. My own personal effort at achieving some balance in this country. How about you?

Update: Kos has some thoughts on the need for us to work together and continue the battle. (I guess that would be option #6.)

 

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Get out and vote!

Also, check out betavote (online "votes" from around the world -- if anyone in the world could vote for the U.S. President, who would you vote for?). I think the server's overworked, but if you can get on the site, see the results. Interesting. (Thanks, Jon.)

Besides voting: A friend just sent me an email with this info:

Whether you can spend an hour, an afternoon, or the evening – the Kerry campaign is asking for volunteers to call western state voters until midnight tonight to get out the vote – every volunteer counts. Call the Boston Kerry HQ at 617-367-1551 to find out which of the MANY opportunities is most convenient for you.

 

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Asado

Many years ago, a vegetarian in my writing class told us about a dream he had after going to a barbecue and eating a hamburger for the first time in like 20 years. He was standing on a wide open plain and in the distance he saw a puff of smoke. It kept getting bigger and bigger and finally he saw what it was: a herd of cattle, and they were coming after him! He ran up a tree (kinda like a giant broccoli stalk, no?) as they stampeded beneath him. Somehow I feel like I’m going to have a dream like that tonight. I’m not a vegetarian, but I’m not a big meat eater. Normally. But you can’t have an Argentine asado without eating a lotta meat. And plenty of other food, all afternoon.

 

Here’s what we had:

Chips, peanuts, green olives, and thin-sliced morcilla (blood sausage) on little slices of bread

 

Argentine white wine that Maddy brought, plus Adriana had her sweet white wine and Fernando some red wine

 

Choripán – chorizo sausage between bread (pan), like a hot dog

Grilled ribs and steaks, grilled chicken wings

– all with fresh chimichurri sauce on it
Salad

 

Flan, dulce de leche, pañuelos de hojaldre (little flaky pastries), Haagen Daz dulce de leche ice cream, rum raisin Haagen Daz, some other ice cream, tea

I’m probably forgetting something. Eating all that food and conversing in Spanish for four hours have done me in. So I’ll finish this out with photos.

 

Here’s Fernando and the parrilla (grill) he built over the summer:

 

 

 

Maddy and Adriana:

 

 

 

Sandra enjoying a choripán:

 

 

 

Poor Sasha can smell the mouthwatering asado:

The whole parrilla:

 

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