| Coincidence? I Think Not. |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|10:15 am] |
OK, I know I've been away from LJ for a while -- I've been hanging out mostly on Facebook, and doing a lot of work at my kids' school... but now I'm back.
For your consideration:
The Sarah Palin is-it-sexist-or-is-it-not Newsweek cover:
The cover of the teen chick-lit book, Pretty Little Liars:
I'm just sayin'. |
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| Recipes By Request |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|01:35 pm] |
In response to a couple of emails, here are recipes I've promised folks:
Patti's AssKicking Curry Mayonnaise
Most homemade mayo recipes call for dry mustard - the problem is that dry mustard nearly always contains wheat flour, which I can't eat. So in the interest of kicking things up a notch, I put together a mayo recipe with curry powder instead -- naturally, the mayo looks a little yellow (my son thought it was pudding), but the flavor is awesome.
1/4 C. Eggbeaters
1/4 C. Olive oil
1/2 tsp. curry powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 C. lemon juice
Add all of these to the bowl of your food processor, and blend together. Then slowly pour in:
1 C. canola oil
Mix off and on until it's nice and thick and creamy. Store in your fridge - it's good for two weeks or so, if you haven't eaten it all by then.
Basic Pesto Recipe
4 C freshly picked basil leaves, washed and packed
1/2 C Parmesan cheese, grated
1 C olive oil
6 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 C toasted pine nuts (optional)
Salt and pepper
Blend them all together in your food processor or blender. Add to pasta, or (as in my case) eat with a spoon, smeared on cheese, or glopped onto a cracker. Nom nom nom. |
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| First Harvest |
[Jun. 27th, 2009|01:33 pm] |
Sunday was Litha, or Midsummer, so it's the time of year when the gardens are really starting to look good. It's not quite hot or dry enough for things to die yet, and everything is green and lush and full. I got back from a week and a half of vacation, and found that in my absence my tomato plants had shot up a good three feet, the sunflowers are as tall as I am, and the beans and cucumbers are not only climbing their trellises but also the neighboring fence.
The herb circle looks good, if a bit sparse -- I mulched it this year with straw, which makes for an odd appearance but far less weeding. The basil is nice and green, and the three sage clumps I transplanted back in the spring have survived nicely. They're flowering, so I plucked those off, and gathered up some lovely white sage to dry and burn. I trimmed back the nearby lemon balm, in hopes that better light will get to the rosemary, which seems a bit wanky so far. It's getting taller, but not much fuller.
Of the eight corn stands I put in at Breanna's request, five are looking good - about chest high already, and I can see where the cobs are beginning to form. The other three look sort of meh - I suspect the dog may have taken a nap on them when I wasn't looking. The greens are nice and thick, so I thinned them out, and so far Mr. McBunbuns has not been nibbling on them, so that's a good thing. First picking of the season, and here's what I got:
Two pounds of green onions
Half a pound of parsley
A boatload of basil - enough to make a full quart of pesto sauce
Enough arugula to fill TWO gallon-size ziplock bags
About a half pound of romaine lettuce
Also, in the interest of working smarter, not harder, I tried something new this year. Usually I pick my stuff, toss it in my giant basket, and bring it all in to clean it up in the kitchen. This leads to about four pounds of dirt and several surprised spiders in my kitchen sink each time, which I have to clean up. This year, I finally figured out that if I spray all the stuff off with the hose OUTSIDE before I toss it in the basket, there's a lot less dirt to sweep up in the house. It only took me a couple of decades of gardening to grok onto that.
So lunch today was an open-faced turkey sandwich on homemade bread, smeared with pesto, and a boatload of onions and arugula. I swear, my favorite meals are the ones I can get fresh from my back yard.
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| The Pleasures of Simple Shopping |
[May. 31st, 2009|09:31 am] |
So yesterday Dave and I decided to go try out a farmer's market I'd read about down in Lancaster, about 20 minutes away. Honestly, I figured I'd show up and find two or three tables with flea-market type items, a bunch of Avon ladies, and some limp looking strawberries for sale. Color me pleasantly surprised!
Two dozen tables, all local growers, selling items they had just picked -- I came home with lettuce and spinach (the spinach had been gathered just two hours earlier by a young lady who was celebrating her seventh birthday this weekend ), giant stalks of garlic including a complimentary piece of scape, a bundle of asparagus, and a sack of small red potatoes, as well as two dozen fresh eggs. Total shelled out? About $12, and then we also bought a chewy hoof for the dog.
( More Shoppy Things ) |
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| And so May winds down... |
[May. 28th, 2009|01:23 pm] |
Spent the morning working in the vegetable garden -- fortunately, not much weeding was needed because of the layers of newspaper underneath the topsoil. The beans have sprouted and will need to be trellised soon, as will the cucumbers. Strawberries are looking good, although there's been one minor casualty - Brisco decided to take a nap in the sunny patch, and so one of the strawberry plants is a bit squashy looking, from being underneath the dog's rear end. It may survive, this remains to be seen. The corn is looking healthy and green, no losses yet, and I'm hoping that the old adage about "knee high by the 4th of July" holds true -- at the rate it's going, it might well be knee high by mid-June.
( Gardeny Things... ) |
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| Of fences and patios and such |
[May. 26th, 2009|05:34 pm] |
So we spent the entire weekend doing manual labor out in the sun. It all began when I started to hate the fence at the end of the driveway. It's a 30-odd foot length of ugly-ass paneling with that cheap prefabricated latticework along the top. The fence has been in bad shape since we moved in six years ago, and has gotten progressively worse. Bad enough that it was ugly, but even worse, we couldn't open the gate between the driveway and the back yard, because of the fence's gradual collapse.
( More wanton destruction and creation ) |
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| In Touch Magazine Has Teh Stoopid |
[May. 14th, 2009|01:26 pm] |
In Touch magazine, which sits right by the front door at Barnes and Noble just released their fully obnoxious "Best Beach Bodies" issue for the summer. In this, they trash female celebrities like Lindsay Lohan for being too thin, Uma Thurman for having naturally sagging boobs, and Kate Hudson for "flaunting" her curves. In other words, if you're a chick, you're pretty much damned if you do, damned if you don't.
On the dude side of the spectrum, Harry Connick Jr. and Jack Black are poked fun at for their portly physiques, but I guarantee you no one will ever tell either of them that they can't find work until they drop some weight. Hell, look at some of last year's photos of my boyfriend Russell Crowe -- he gained a good thirty or more pounds, and he's still been tapped to play Robin Hood ( a side note, here -- Russell could gain all the weight he wants, he's still on the top of my list, at any size. Mrow.).
The only thing about In Touch that makes me not want to set it on fire is that they named Hugh Jackman as having one of the "best beach bodies" this year. Now, having seen Wolverine once, and planning to lick the cover of the DVD box as many times as I can, I can say without a doubt that this was indeed a wise choice. Note to producers of the next Wolverine movie: we can haz more naked wet claw time, please? But Jackman, like Crowe and all those other guys who get a shitload of money for every movie, can change their appearance all the time and still work. Women who gain weight get stuck as the "funny friend" or the "depressed fat girl" in movies. Just once I'd like to see a movie with Janeane Garafolo or Margaret Cho or Camryn Manheim as the female lead in a film where she ends up with some hottie like Hugh Jackman. Even guys like Jack Black end up with hot chicks in the movies, because we all know skinny girls love funny chunky dudes - why do you think Seth Rogan is getting all Teh Ladiez? |
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| What us girls really want |
[May. 12th, 2009|02:38 pm] |
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Yes, apparently our delicate minds are too fragile to do really hard thingies on the computer like write manuscripts, edit HTML code, play WOW or reprogram our husband's display so that the screen is upside down when he logs on (happy birthday, dear). All those things like logic and communication are just icky, or at least, that's what the folks at Dell think.
Now, if you're a girl, you don't have to have one of those complicated ol' BOY computers! No, you get yourvery own DELLA, which has programs on it that let you make grocery lists, plan your yoga workout, and count your calories. Yay! What fun! Oh, and the promotional blurb points out in the very first sentence how CUTE they are! Because I don't give a shit if my laptop is portable, has an assload of memory and a kick-ass video enhancer. No, I want it to be cute, with sparkles and puppies and unicorns or babies sitting in flowerpots. I wonder if the Guys Edition will be called XTREME DELLZ and have automated porn updates and a Fantasy Football app. Oh, wait, no, because guys don't have to get stereotyped -- Teh Menfolx unnerstand them thar compooters! Worst marketing plan EVER, Dell people. Jesus. It's like when Mattel came out with that Barbie doll that talked, and all it said was "Math is hard!" and "Let's go shopping!" Dear Dell Marketing Department -
You've just reduced 51% of the population to a stereotype, so you can fucking bite me.
Love,
patti |
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| Why Gardens are Good |
[May. 11th, 2009|12:43 pm] |
Spent the weekend prepping the beds for planting over the next few days. I've got my beans and tomatoes started, and this year (per Breanna's request) we're going to try a small patch of corn. I'm moving the tomatoes to a new bed this year, since the last two years the soil on the east fence was sort of "meh" for the tomatoes. Everything else seems to like growing over there, so I've added a bit of dried blood to the soil for extra nutrients. This years' spread will include: tomatoes, beans, onions, three different kinds of peppers, corn, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, more onions, arugula and red lettuce, strawberries, and sunflowers. I'm also counting on a few renegade squash vines to surface as they always do -- I refuse to buy plants because I'm the only one in the family who actually eats squash, but I'm happy to devour any noms that volunteer on their own.
As it was Mothers' Day, I got my annual gift of two yards of dirt (that's two truckloads, for you non-gardeny types), with a third promised today for the middle of the week. Also, Dave and Zac are building me a compost bin, which I've been asking for, and Breanna is officially in charge of making sure we fill every single container with some sort of flower or edible item. She's been diagramming and making sketches, filling in and crossing out. She mapped the herb garden out for me, after I moved the giant sage plant from the north corner to the herb circle (plans for expanding the patio would infringe on the sage's existing spot, so I figured I better move it now before it gets bigger). The herb garden this year will have sage, basil (lots of pesto! yum!), oregano, chives, mint (yes, in a pot), rosemary, parsley and the stray bits of fennel that are already peeking up through the dirt.
So this kept us all busy, and the kids were fascinated by the concept of laying down newspaper under the dirt we brought in, and I had to explain that whole "keeps the weeds away and then biodegrades" bit to them, and much fun was had in spraying the newspapers to get them good and wet. A side note: if you are like me and you don't actually GET the newspaper, be prepared for some odd looks when you go to retrieve a batch OUT of the recycling bin). Lots of work was done, even put Cait and her boyfriend to shoveling loads of soil, as well as mowing. The grand thing about all of this was that it kept my mind off of Tanner, and I did pretty well. When I sat down for dinner, though, I looked at his spot by the fence and burst into tears. This too shall pass, but I don't have to like it. Working on the yard kept me from thinking about it, at least for a little while, and let me focus on the bringing of new life into the soil, rather than the loss of it.
Today I went to the greenhouse to look at trees -- we're going to plant a Tanner Tree back by the fence, although I'm thinking a nice shade bush like a rhodedendron might be better. Zac's buddy Sam brought us a sympathy card and a memorial stone with a pawprint, so we can put it under our Tanner Tree when we get it in place. It's little things like that which remind us how fortunate we are, in that we have so many people who care about us. |
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| Saying Goodbye |
[May. 8th, 2009|06:30 pm] |
Tonight, we had to put our beloved nine-year-old golden lab to sleep. He's had cancer for almost a year, and although he lasted far longer than anyone had expected, it was time for us to let him go. He was hurting, and tired, and it was time.
This morning, I was in JoAnn's picking up a packet of modeling clay, so I could make imprints of his paws. I burst into tears, right there in the store, and a woman walked by asked if I was okay. I told her no, I wasn't, and before I knew it I was spilling out all about Tanner and how much it hurt to let him go. She told me she had lost her dog just two days ago, and there we were, two strangers sobbing and hugging each other in the Kids Craft aisle at JoAnn's. It is such simple acts of connection, of two people bonding over the shared love for a lost animal, that is getting me through this.
The kids are coping in different ways. Cait and Breanna are much like me -- we hold nothing back, we wear our feelings and thoughts like a brightly colored hat for the world to see. With us, what you see is exactly what you get, there is no artifice or hiding of what we think and feel. Much sobbing and sniffling from the three of us.
Zac, however, is like Dave, and the two of them tend to internalize things; Zac more so than his dad. I talked to Zac about this, and told him it's okay to keep feelings inside sometimes, as long as you understand that when you *need* to talk to someone, you do so. He gets this, and as I was talking to him, the strangest thing happened. For a moment there, as I looked at his face, the nine-year-old boy vanished and I got a brief glimpse of the man he will some day become. I can't explain it, other than to say it was as though something crossed over, some shift in him that has set him on the road out of childhood and into something deeper -- not necessarily adulthood, because that will come eventually, but some other plane of being, some internal soulful awareness that he himself is not even aware of yet.
I am waiting for Dave and Cait to return from the vet, and all there is to do is wait, because nothing else seems real. I know in my head that we've done the right thing, but the rest of me ... well, Tanner is gone, and there is a big labrador-shaped hole in my heart.
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| Stupid Ohio Revised Code |
[May. 4th, 2009|04:58 pm] |
Says I can't keep chickens in a subdivision. Christ on a cracker, I have a half an acre and a privacy fence, and all I want is a couple of nice little hens to lay eggs.
Phhht.
All the more reason to pack my butt off to the country. Dave was even ready to build me a portable coop, and I saw the most darling little pullets at Farm & Fleet today.
Worst part? When I told the kids this, they were upset because they were going to SURPRISE ME with chicks for Mother's Day :( |
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| More Rehoming - Crafty Sewing Thingies! |
[Apr. 29th, 2009|12:15 pm] |
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Okay, it's a smaller pile today, but there's some goodies in here. For those of you not paying attention, I'm trying to get rid of stuff I don't use. Instead of tossing it, or just handing it to the local thrift store, I'm offering it up first to my friends. Have at it: 5 Market Day insulated lunch totes, still in packages
Several yards of red craft felt
2 yards of green craft felt
1 yard (more or less) of blue craft felt
Patterns: Some of these are partially used, but many are brand new. Even the used ones still have all their pieces.
Simplicity 8929 Size 8 ½ - 16 ½, Girls' Pajamas. Partly used.
Simplicity 9334, Barbie clothes. Partly used.
Simplicity 5386, Men's "Matrix" costume, S - XL, never used.
Simplicity 4380, Women's "Matrix" costume (it's like the one Trinity wears), size 14 - 22, never used.
Simplicity 5363, Women's assortment of Halloween costumes, never used.
Simplicity 8814, Toddler size 1 - 4, assortment of Halloween costumes, never used.
Simplicity 5368, Kids size 2 - 6x, fleece sweats and jackets, never used.
Simplicity 5931, Adult size XS - XL, adult bathrobe, never used.
Simplicity 8851, Women's size 14 - 20, assortment of Halloween costumes, partly used.
Simplicity 8638, Girls' size 3 - 6, design your own jumper. Never used.
Simplicity 8674, Girls size 2 - 4, 6 different summer shorts and tops. Never used.
Simplicity 5520, Kids size 3 - 8. Four Halloween costumes - two princesses, a knight, and some sort of barbarian warrior. I used the knight costume but not the others.
Simplicity 0669, toddler size 2 - 4. Assortment of Halloween costumes. Partly used.
Simplicity 5512, kids 3 - 8. Assortment of cloaks and capes for Halloween. Partly cut. McCalls P480, Kids 7 - 14, polar fleece vests & Sweaters. Never used.
McCalls P479, Adult L - XL, polar fleece vests & sweaters. Never used.
McCalls 3065, Size 12 - 18, women's skirt in 4 lengths, never used. Butterick 5226, Girls size 7 - 10, vest, jumper, pants and skirt, never used.
Butterick 4631, girls 6 - 8. Four no-sew Halloween costumes - two princesses, a witch, and Little Red Riding Hood. Partly used (guess which one!)
Butterick 5164, toddler 2 - 4. Fleece jumpers, overalls, pants, sweaters. Partly used.
Butterick 4209, set of hand puppets - bear, mouse, rabbit, cat, monkey, pig and dog. Super cute, but my kids think puppets are boring. Never used.
Butterick 3230, fantasy hand puppets - king & queen, wizard, dragon, knight, jester. Again, never used. Alrighty, if you want them, claim 'em. I'm happy to mail patterns to you if you live somewhere else.
(Edited to show stuff that's already been claimed)
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| Made From Scratch |
[Apr. 27th, 2009|10:15 am] |
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So I just finished reading Jenna Woginrich's book "Made from Scratch: the Simple Pleasures of a Hand-made Life," and I'm feeling inspired. For those of you who may want to read an exerpt, check out last month's Mother Earth News, which is how I stumbled across Jenna in the first place.
Spent the weekend working in the yard, getting the garden ready for this year's planting. I managed to clear out the large brush pile that lived behind our shed -- and by large, I mean "could hide a small elephant in it". The biggest problem with this is that disposing of the brush pile entailed cutting all the brush into pieces short enough to fit into either a trash can or a lawn bag. Do you know how many 12" sticks you can fit into a lawn bag or a trash can? Me either, but it's a LOT. I know this because I chopped them all. I have a blister on my finger (and yes, 'tis my middle one) the size of a quarter, from the shears, but by golly, I did some choppin'. Five cans and six bags later, I was done, but for a few stubby logs that will be perfect for firewood. All that's left now is to chainsaw the big stumps into short fat logs that I can quarter later on, and stack them along the back fence.
Odd as this may sound (and as ungirly as it may be) I actually like splitting wood. It's a productive thing to do, and there's something about swinging an axe that feels really really good. (I should note that I originally typed that as "swinging an exe" and that made me laugh out loud). Of course, this is from the woman whose favorite part of remodeling is demolition, so I suppose it's not a surprise that I like to destroy harmless pieces of wood, either.
Dave and I talked again last night, sitting by the fire pit outside, about the homesteading concept. My goal is to have us living somewhere else by this time in 2012. May still be in Ohio, maybe not, but definitely not in the burbs. No, I want to be somewhere that I can have some chickens, rows and rows of vegetables, my laundry flapping in the sun, and not have to see a mini-van or a Kroger or a mother-lovin' Starbucks. It's not that I'm opposed to society, I just feel like I've reached a point in my life where I don't need the consumerism, the commercialism that's marketed to us every day as "you need you need you need you NEEEEED." The older I get, the less I need. Less space, less Stuff, less drama. |
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| Let the Rehoming Begin |
[Apr. 20th, 2009|12:08 pm] |
As part of my Year of Living Simply project, I've spent the morning going through a significant amount of stuff. I've managed to pull out four bags of clothes to send off to the Kidney Foundation, as well as three bags of throw-away stuff that no one would ever want, including me.
However, I've also stumbled across a few items that I hate to just hand off to strangers, and are nice enough not to throw away, so I'm going to offer them up for grabs to my friends. You claim it, it's yours. If you live near me, come grab it. If you don't, let me know where you are, and it's yours for the cost of shipping.
Please see the list below, and let me know if you want any of this. And yes, there's more to come, including kitchen appliances, acres and acres of fabric, and a bunch of other stuff.
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A bread machine, comes with book of recipes and a slicer. There's nothing wrong with it at all, it's just that I like to bake my bread in the oven, in a loaf pan.
A Pampered Chef pizza stone, never used. These are great, but I already have two of them I use regularly, and don't need a third.
A Pampered Chef cutting board with built in measuring cups. Still in the shrink wrap. I've never used it because I don't measure.
Several CDs and booklets from the Ohio Division of Wildlife, including owl sounds, bird sounds and songs, books on how to identify insects, butterflies, wildlife, amphibians, etc. I have double copies of all these so I'm getting rid of one set. Very cool if you have kids or if you spend a lot of time outside.
Several copies of Pampered Chef's Season's Best Cookbook, fall/winter 2006, and spring/summer 2007
A waterbed liner and heater for a queen sized waterbed
A Disney princess kitchen set, looks like this one: http://www.toysrus.co.uk/medias/sys_master/8609558681224160.jpg
Also, anyone who likes to use lemon balm in their salads or other recipes, I have a ton of it in my garden that I'm probably going to rip out. If you want some, let me know and I'll put it in a pot for you before I till the garden up.
UPDATE: Most stuff has been claimed, but there are still a few thingies left - cookbooks, lemon balm, and the waterbed stuff. Let me know if you'd like any of them -- and thanks to all of you who are taking some of this stuff out of my house!
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| Simple Pleasures - Sunshine, Birds and Rogue Onions |
[Apr. 19th, 2009|10:50 am] |
It's the little things that make me smile. Yesterday I was puttering around outside and decided to break from working and eat lunch. I ate out on the patio, sitting in the sun, listening to the birds chirping and twittering away. It was so nice and relaxing that I just put my feet up and basked in the glory of it all for about twenty minutes, before my family came looking for me. For a few short minutes there, I couldn't hear the sounds of the suburbs -- no neighbors slamming car doors, no cheering noises from the PASA complex (which can carry up to two miles on a clear day), no fire trucks screaming down Refugee Road. It was nice.
Then I began clearing leaves out of the garden, because I need to till it eventually, and found, much to my great delight, a bunch of rogue onions that had survived the winter. Nice fat green ones, happy to see me. I pulled nearly a pound of them out, brought them in and washed off the dirt (and one very baffled worm) and stuck them in the fridge. I think tonight maybe we'll have onion soup, because they're nice hearty oniony sorts of onions... Z is already snacking on them, because he likes a green onion covered in just salt.
I was bummed out to have to go to work last night; wanted to just spend the rest of the evening enjoying myself.
Hooray for life's little treats. |
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| A Year of Living Simply |
[Apr. 17th, 2009|04:49 pm] |
I know, I know, it's been ages since I blogged. I've been a bit overwhelmed with stuff -- spent a good portion of February laid up with bronchitis, most of March getting caught up on other stuff, and then scrambling around trying to get myself prepared for spring. We managed to take a week of vacation, which was marvelous, and were able to visit with the stepdaughters and see some old friends down in Charleston. It was good to be in familiar territory once again.
I've been thinking a lot lately about the idea of moving around a bit. Mr. TheWicked points out to me that every ten years or so I get itchy feet and start feeling restless, so the idea of packing up and relocating someplace new is appealing. It's not, sadly, a practical thought right now, though, and for a variety of reasons. One, I promised the Elder Heathen she'd graduate from high school where she started, so we've got at least one more school year here. Also, the inlaws are not in the best of health, so for now at least we need to stay local.
However, we've talked for some time about buying an old farmhouse somewhere that we can have some land, and try to get somewhere close to living off the grid. While I know that realistically, we probably can't be 100% self-sustaining, I'm in love with the idea of being able to homestead somewhere, grow as much of my own food as possible, and live in a manner that is more thoughtful and earth-based. Ideally, we'd like to end up in Virginia in the next few years, although that will in part be dependent on job availability for Mr. TheWicked. I am fortunate enough that I can work anywhere that has decent WiFi service.
That having been said, I've been pondering some of the ways we, as a family, can make changes now, prior to ever even thinking about shifting locales. I want us to *consciously* live a more thoughtful life, to simplify things, to get rid of the excess trappings of suburban life that aren't necessary. I want this to become second nature for my spouse and children, rather than having it be just something where everyone goes "oh mom's on her hippie kick again." I want to live a sustainable existance, thinking before doing, and eliminating the clutter that seems to have accumulated. Thus, I am designating the next twelve months as The Year of Simpler Living. Each week I'm going to give myself a specific project to work on that will help me work towards my goal of a simpler lifestyle.
Some of this, naturally, will include me getting rid of a lot of stuff that looked really great when I got it and then languished away from lack of use. Be warned, I will be posting notices regularly for the rehoming of some of my stuff, so if you see anything on the List of Discarded Stuff that you want, let me know asap, or it goes off to Freecycle.
I'm also going to get my whole family on board with recycling, composting, gardening, and cleaning out Teh Crap. The older I get, the less Crap I actually need, so it's time to make some big changes.
Some of the other stuff I want to do this year:
Install a dual-flush retrofit on all three toilets
Get a spinning composter
Clean out the basement before the Halloween decorations and craft supplies take over
Donate all the clothes that no one wears
Add some new stuff to the vegetable garden
Organize a plant swap for my friends
Pay all my bills online so I only have to buy stamps at Yule
Spend more time outside
Spend more time doing stuff with my family, instead of just being in the same room |
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| Reason #791 to Love the Onion |
[Feb. 26th, 2009|03:28 pm] |
Head Lice Going Around the Senate.
Best part:Since news of the infestation first broke, Congress has been inundated with angry calls from Senate parents, many of whom are blaming party leaders for the outbreak.
"We paid a lot of good money to get our children into the Senate," said Roberta McCain, 96. "Unless things change, I'll be transferring John to a better branch of government next year." |
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| A Few Random Observations on Pop Culture |
[Feb. 25th, 2009|07:07 pm] |
When you're really sick, it's hard to get motivated to do anything. As such, I've spent the past few days staring at the Idiot Box, and have come to a few random thoughts, in no particular order.
1. Regarding Nadia Suleman, the welfare-collecting mom of six who added a litter of eight more to her brood: please, for the love of god, stop making this woman a celebrity. I'm all in favor of people having lots of kids if they can afford them. For someone who doesn't have a job or her own home, and used her mom's credit card to pay for in vitro fertilization.... just ew. Let's not reward this sort of behavior by giving her any more publicity.
2. Regarding the Chris Brown/Rihanna assault case: How is it that in 2009 there are still people who think that if she got beaten up, she probably did something to provoke it? WTF? My nine year olds know that it's not okay to hit people just because they do things we don't like, I'm reasonably certain that a 20-year-old rapper should know this as well.
3. Regarding Law & Order: It's always on somewhere. Constantly, 24 hours a day. My druthers: More Belzer and Meloni, less Chris Noth and Angry Moody Criminal Intent Dude.
4. Regarding America's Next Top Model: I think I watched this while I was heavily medicated, and saw a girl worrying about her body image. She then blurted out that she's a size 2. And we wonder why little girls are bulimic.
5. Regarding Michelle Obama's Vogue cover: Is this one of the most beautiful women on the planet or what? This is what little girls should aspire to -- a law degree, a career, and acres upon acres of class.
6. Regarding the Oscars: No, I didn't watch them. Thanks to YouTube, I managed to watch about 12 minutes of things I found appealing from the ceremony. Dustin Lance Black is adorable, and I loved his acceptance speech. Sean Penn knows people think he's a jerk, but he doesn't care, and he thinks it's kinda funny... which it is. Kate Winslet was long overdue, and I loved that her dad whistled at her from across the theater... and I loved the look of sheer delight on her face when she heard it. Also, why is it that we care more about what women wear and whether or not Hugh Jackman is gay than the things these people are being honored for? |
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pattithewicked's journal
