Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

I'm still standing/Happy Halloween

I'm still standing. This time last week I was pretty sure I was about to be sick (and the Redskins had a bye last week, so it wasn't that, for a change.) No, I've actually gotten kind of in tune with what my body was telling me, and it was screaming "I gotta go to bed." Trouble was, I couldn't rest, so I went the alternative pharmaceutical route. Even if it was just the placebo effect, a week of Airborne and Sambucol kept me upright. I don't feel fabulous, but I didn't lose any ground, despite a few days in a hotel conference room and riding Metro and a few late nights this weekend. I am keeping this stuff handy this winter.

Today was actually a beautiful day here, unusually warm and sunny. It's clouding up now; hopefully the weather will hold through trick-or-treating. I'd like to see 135 kids in cute costumes, which will leave one Hershey bar each for me and Victor. If I get more than 137 kids, I guess I'll be handing out Clif bars. If I get a lot less, the candy goes straight to the office...not because I'll pig out, but because I won't eat it. It'll be July, and the bag will have fallen behind the china cabinet, and I'll find it by following the army of ants marching through the dining room. I don't need that.

Anyway, despite a very long to-do list, the weather was too perfect to ignore, and we did take the dog for a nice long walk through the neighborhood this morning. I snapped this picture of the maple trees that line the main street...I love how the colors fade from green to yellow to red.

(Click for the larger image)

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween evening!

Saturday's Walk for Diabetes

Yesterday was busy, busy, busy...social butterflies that we are, we had two parties, a housewarming in the afternoon and a Halloween costume party in the evening. But before that, I did go downtown with my sister for the Walk for Diabetes. (Victor, bless him, stayed behind and took rat Jim to the vet for me.)

While wandering around the sponsor tables before the walk began, we were picking up pamphlets on exercise and eating. My sister remarked that a big reason she does all the walking and watches her diet is to avoid ending up like our grandmother, who had diabetes and ultimately several strokes. MK sounded almost ashamed that her motivation wasn't more global. But that's a huge part of my motivation too...I can't remember where I saw the statistic, but I have read that lifestyle is over 50% of your risk factor for diseases like diabetes, cancer, and heart disease (that's the next walk, by the way, Heart Association in two weeks). I watched three grandparents die and I see the struggles my living grandmother and great aunt are having with their health now, and I see what my parents are doing now to try to mitigate earlier diet and exercise choices.

If I can help anybody else along the way to helping myself and my family, that's a nice bonus.

Here are the pictures...setting the scene:

I'm not bald...I realized that in all these walk pictures, because I tend to tie my hair back and wear a cap, I look it.

The Casimir Pulasiki statue at Freedom Plaza.

Waterfowl! Even in the city, I find waterfowl!

It wasn't the prettiest day for touristy pictures. Usually you can see a pointy top to this landmark.

Maryland upsets FSU!

Maryland (yes, my Maryland) just beat (as in, won) Florida State. In football.

Really.

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!

Close enough for quasi-government work

I had a deadline at work today, a significant project that's been going on for months and counts for a significant portion of my performance rating (I almost said "grade." Somehow this thing has made me feel like I was in high school again.)

I didn't think I was going to meet the deadline, frankly, and since I've never seen any project here actually meet a deadline, I wasn't worried about it...until a couple weeks ago when my boss "held my feet to the fire" (as they say in office-speak) and explained that it was a "hard" deadline.

So I got them a "deliverable" about twenty minutes ago. And according to my boss, I met my objective. Yay, me...except I still have quite a bit of work to do. See, the project is "finished" in an objective-meeting kind of way, but to say I'm done would be like saying your house was done because you were living in it...but you were getting your water from the neighbor's garden hose, cooking by microwave because you have no stove or oven, and it didn't matter that the AC wasn't hooked up yet because the holes in the walls were still minus the actual glass windows.

Baby pictures

Since Pinky died last week I've been going through my digital photos, looking for pictures of her for a tribute on the rat page. It is a little depressing, seeing the pictures of all the rats we've lost already...maybe pets with a two-year live expectancy aren't my best idea. (My dad has said as much. When I was distraught over one of the rats once, he said "You fall in love with fragile things with short life spans. Why don't you get one of those parrots that lives to be a hundred?")

Anyway. I found this seasonally-appropriate picture from two years ago, not long after I got her. And I know this is really a post for the rat blog, but I don't care. If rodents bother you, you probably shouldn't be reading me anyway...

(It is a (rather big) thumbnail, so if you want to see Pinky even better, just click on the image.)

2fer

To make up for the lack of a real post from yesterday, two short but real posts for today. The first:

I remembered why I stay away from online auctions. I get into a bidding frenzy...once I start, I need whatever I bid on. Losing out, once I have bid, is a crushing defeat. Last night I checked out an online auction a radio station was doing for a local charity. I thought, ok, good cause, I'll find something I can get for 50 bucks. If everything's too expensive, I'll just send the charity a check.

Right there at my $50 was an ice scraper. Actually, it was an ice scraper and a coffee mug and some other promotional stuff with the radio station logo. Good enough. I bid.

A little later I got an e-mail "This notice is to inform you that your bid was
beaten..."

So I shrugged and wrote the charity a $50 check, right?

No, no. I got sucked into the Auction Zone... Someone else wanted my ice scraper? Bastard!

I followed the "Click to re-bid" link...and there. $60. It is, after all, for a good cause. And the auction closes in just an hour.

A few minutes later: "This notice is to inform you that your bid was
beaten..."

Unacceptable! We only have half an hour left!

Ok, $75.

Now I'm just hitting F5, F5, F5, not even waiting for the e-mail. Sorry, pal. That is my ice scraper! Don't you dare bid...ahhhhhhh!

So at 10 pm, somebody out there was staring at the computer screen saying "Damn you, I wanted that ice scraper!" And I went to bed all smug, because I won. I won! Wooo-hoooo! I WON!!!

I won...which means I bought a $90 ice scraper.

The second:

On the Metro today I noticed a guy in a big cowboy hat. Cowboy hats aren't the most typical headwear around here, but they aren't totally unheard of, either. I didn't think much of it.

A few minutes later I realized I had a song going through my head:

I got spurs that jingle-jangle-jingle
As I go riding merrily along...

Next stop was the end of the line. I passed Cowboy Hat guy, and figured that's probably why I had Gene Autry going through my head.

I was still humming (Oh Lillie Belle, Oh Lille Belle...) down by the parking garage, where I saw Cowboy Hat guy pacing, looking a little distraught. And I realized, now that we were away from the crowd...he does have spurs that jingle-jangle-jingle...right there on his pointy-toed boots, the guys is wearing actual spurs.

It took every ounce of self control not to say "What's wrong, buddy, forget where you hitched your horse?"

Recipe for peanut butter & jelly

Ok, I'm kidding. I'm not going to stoop that low just to get a post in today...but since I'm sure nobody would be interested in what I learned in my conference, I pretty much have nothing else on my mind.

It's a technical conference. About a hundred people in the world are interested, and they are all here. There are also about 50 people here who are bored to death, but their bosses are here too so they can't skip out and go sightseeing. I can tell the difference between the interested ones...we have all used up multiple pads of hotel paper on notes, and are trading URLs written on the backs of business cards...while the bored people have one page of notes: doodles of concentric circles and stick figures.

Oh, and I got a plaque during the awards today. It just recognizes me for taking so many hours of training classes, but it is my first plaque ever. I'm absurdly looking forward to getting back to the office so I can hang it up. I have reached a level of geekdom I never dreamed possible.

Vegetarian recipe - Falafel

I'n having falafel for lunch (and trying not to think of Bill O'Reilly). I didn't make it myself; I picked it up at the local organic grocery store. I also picked up a box of the falafel mix, but that's almost like cooking...you have to add hot water and actually form the patties, and that's too much like work for me this week.

But I was thinking about it, and maybe when I have some time and energy I'll give this recipe a try. Since it isn't my recipe (unlike the others I posted this month), I'm just going to link:

Baked Falafel Sandwichs from Weight Watchers Canada.

Who is tougher, the rhinovirus or me?

We have a nasty cold going around the office. Last Tuesday I had a meeting with a guy who was coming down with it...between his coughing, sneezing, and general hang-dog look I could see his wasn't feeling well. And being the compassionate person I am, going through my mind the whole time was "Quit shedding your germs in my air!"

He was out the rest of the week, but by Friday his cubicle mates were all starting to cough and sneeze, too.

This morning I started feeling that back-of-the-throat tickle, and a little dizzy.

I know my resistance is probably rock bottom right now. Last week was a bad one at work, plus I had the worst case of PMS I can remember having. (The other night I was so depressed, weepy, and paranoid that I was ready to roll under a train, except that I didn't have the energy to find one. When the cramps kicked in the next morning I was actually relieved...ah, it's hormones. I'm not having a nervous breakdown after all!...I just had to deal with that pain for 72 hours.) And worst of all, we had to have Pinky, my favorite and most lovable rat, put to sleep at the emergency vet on Friday night.

So last week pretty much sucked, and I'm afraid it may have sucked the kick right out of my immune system. What I'd love to do is take a day or two off, make a pot of soup, and wrap myself in fleece and watch old movies. What I will be doing is going to a conference, where I will be eating processed food, shaking hands, and breathing recirculated hotel air. I go to this conference every fall, and I don't think I've ever come home without at least a slight cold.

So in my travels today I picked up a bottle of Sambucol and a tube of Airborne. It's my own uncontrolled experiment. If I'm not flat on my ass this time next week, I will be a new believer in the powers of roots, rocks, and berries.

Game on, uh, play ball

The Pirates won in OT last night (playing a team that's not in the Whoopass Jamboree, of course).

I thought this was kinda funny:

The Portland Pirates today announced that the start time for the club’s game at the Cumberland County Civic Center this Saturday has been changed to 4:05 p.m.

The change in game time will allow area sports fans to attend the Pirates’ game and also be able to watch the Boston Red Sox in Game 1 of the World Series on Saturday night.

When I first saw the headline, I figured the game was in Lowell, since it's a Boston suburb. But no, it is in Portland. It's not so you can go to the actual game, it's so you can get home to the tv. Well, I guess the Red Sox are probably New England's team.

#34

Going through my e-mail this afternoon, I saw an ad from the University of Maryland about new basketball gear being on sale. I don't need another Terps shirt, heaven knows, but I opened it. The highlighted item was a Len Bias jersey.

It would be one thing if #34 was part of a series, if you could also get Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, and Buck Williams, say. But Len Bias seemed to be the only one. What's with this?

I was at Maryland right after he died, and I don't remember seeing his jersey available then. I'm sure it was too painful, as well as too embarassing for the school...those were not our finest days.

Is he being honored now, almost 18 years (I can't believe it's been that long) later? Do the kids at Maryland now, seeing as how they were just infants in 1986, even know who Lenny Bias was?

I go back to College Park every once in a while, and it feels like a dark cloud passing over when I go through that part of campus on my way to Rt. 1...I always get the image from the news of the cops going through the dumpster outside the dorm looking for the cocaine vial.

I know people my age remember. I guess that jersey may be for us...nostalgia. Homage.

Except I got the dark cloud feeling when I saw the jersey in the ad. I can't help but fear it's just capitalization. If I knew the money was going to something specific and related...addiction services, drug abuse prevention...I might consider it. But since I don't know, this is one shirt I'll pass.

Hockey ass whooped

Yeah, that's the Lowell Lock Monster logo over there on the left...they beat the Pirates last night. Ah, well. Congrats on the win, Kin.

I see that Tom Rowe is coaching Lowell...I saw him play in Washington, both stints with the Caps...he had a little more hair then. Nice guy...I think I have one of his broken sticks in in the rafters of my parents' basement. (I have a large broken hockey stick collection, but you know, those things aren't easy to carry around and display. I once dreamt of opening a sports bar just so I'd have a place to put all the sticks, pucks, and jerseys. I'm not really looking forward to my actual job today; maybe I should revisit that dream...)

Vegetarian recipe - Bean-instead-of-hamburger goulash

When I was a kid we had "hamburger goulash" for dinner practically once a week. It was a stovetop casserole with ground beef, elbow macaroni, canned tomato, and some herbs. At some point I found out it was something my mom had learned to make in freshman home-ec. (I think I also found it in White Trash Cooking...a truly great cookbook, by the way. And you don't need to e-mail me about the fact that this isn't a goulash...I'm Hungarian. I know it isn't a goulash, but that's still the name.)

I always liked it, and found the basic idea adapted quite easily to a vegetarian version.

2 cups macaroni, cooked and drained
1 can of beans, drained
1 large can of tomatoes (crushed, or stewed tomato broken apart, or diced)
Seasoning

Mix everything together in a saucepan and cook until heated through.

What kind of beans? Depends on the seasoning...I use white or kidney beans with Italian-like seasoning, and kidney, black, or pinto beans with Mexican-type seasonings. The tomatoes with the added seasoning in the can (like basil, garlic & oregano, or cumin & jalapeno) make this ridiculously easy. Come to think of it, I probably shouldn't even admit to this one...it's like claiming to have a recipe for peanut butter & jelly.

I want pyramid-shaped grapes, myself

Berlin Man Wants End to Bendy Bananas

Fed up with the inconvenient curved shape of bananas, a Berlin resident has dreamt up a way to straighten this staple of the fruit bowl, even applying to have his banana-straightening method patented.

What I won't be having for lunch

It's my own damn fault for being tempted by the lurid, but man...I'm wishing I hadn't checked out the Bill O'Reilly lawsuit. I eat a lot of falafel, and it's gonna be awhile before I can shake that mental image. Ew. Just...ew.

Vegetarian recipe - Spinach, bean, ricotta, polenta...aw, I admit it, I was cleaning out the fridge

This is a recipe-in-progress started by half a container of ricotta cheese left over from a lasagna I made last week. I didn't want to make another lasagna, so I started looking around the kitchen...I'd bought a tube of polenta without anything in particular in mind, and I always have beans and tomatoes. So...

I cut the polenta up into slices and put it in a baking dish. Then I sauteed a bag of baby spinch in some oil and garlic, and mixed it with the ricotta, a drained can of white beans, and a can of tomato with the sauce. I poured that over the polenta, sprinkled it with more cheese (mozzarella and parmesan) and baked.

The result was gloppy, but tasty. The polenta took on a really creamy texture; I might try it again flying or baking the polenta and just topping it with the glop. I could also have left out the sauce and just used the tomatoes.

Oh, and to bring home the point that this was a get-rid-of-leftover meal, I served it with toasted hot dog buns. Nothing but the finest at Chez Nic...

Go west, young snakehead

I'm a bit late with this, but Chicago now has its own snakehead fish. We told you those things were mobile!

Speaking of snakeheads, found another recipe: Sliced Snakehead Fish and Watercress Soup. If the snakehead ban has already taken effect in your area, I understand you can substitue catfish...but they aren't nearly as ugly.

Really, check out the last picture on Maryland's DNR "Wanted" page.

I don't know why these fish fascinate me so...I hope Ted lets me know when the Sci-Fi movie hits the air.

That eternal question

Portland won last night. I just glanced at the box scores...ok, it is real now. I miss hockey.

I didn't go to the Maryland game, which was homecoming. I watched it on tv...cold, rainy, the Terps couldn't catch a break with the calls, not that that's an excuse for the way they played. It looked like a game from when I was there, actually...homecoming, indeed.

Seems like every fall I end up asking...I'm a sports fan why?

Walk of the week (with water fowl)

This week's charity walk was the Alzheimer's Association Memory Walk. The park where it was held was full of water fowl:

I forgot my Redskins hat this week. Too bad, because it was breezy.

After the walk they had a raffle, and I came away with a gift certificate to a restaurant in Baltimore and a basket of rubber stamp supplies. My sister won a basket of coffee. Victor didn't win anything, and he's not very pleased.

But it's about the charity, right, not the prizes?

Yes, actually. While there, my sister picked up the brochures for her in-laws...the "Should you stop driving?" brochure. The "Help for Caregivers" brochure for her mother-in-law, who after a lifetime of low-normal blood pressure, healthy diet, and exercise has suddenly become hypertensive from the stress. The brochures for the assisted living facilities, something none of them really want to consider.

You can't see the signs well in the picture, but on the back of his jacket the gentleman is wearing one that said "I walk in honor of my wife." The woman's said "I walk in honor of my mother." The little girl's said "I walk in honor of my nanny."

I would have been happy to forgo the prizes if it meant the spouses, parents and grandparents were well enough to be out walking with their families.

Keep your jinx to yourself, kid

We were finishing up the packing today, and someone commented on a thick folder of historical documentation going back three years.

Three years? Three whole years? I scoffed.

One of my co-workers said "I saw stuff Nic was throwing away, and the pages were yellow!" That led to a discussion of how I'd been accumulating crap since I started in January of 1993.

The IT guy in the group looked like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. "You've been here almost 12 years?"

"Yes," I said. "And do me a favor; don't tell me you were still in high school in 1993." (I hate it when they do that. And the first one who tells me it was junior high will get smacked into next week.)

"No," he said. "It's just that I've never been anywhere more than two years, and every company I've worked for has gone out of business in three or four years."

I'm just posting to make the date change color, I admit it

So I was talking about the Invisible Pedestrian costume the other day...today I saw somebody wearing one. Luckily I saw him in time...jaywalking is not a victimless crime.

The move thing is still stressing me. And I found out that once I get moved, my new next door neighbor is the Grand High Poobah of the company. This makes it sound like my new office is in the high-rent district, which isn't quite the case...we have multiple buildings, and Mr. Poobah needs offices in all of them. Next to me he just has an office, in the main building it's more of a suite. Hopefully he won't spend too much time slumming with us, or I'll really have to clean up my dress code. And my web surfing. Shit. Oh, and my language.

We also have some vet emergencies, so I'm really disjointed now. I really am just typing this because I hate breaking a posting streak...

Game...on

Because we are in full pack & move mode at the office this week, the dress code is waived and I'm wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. A Caps sweatshirt, because 90% of my casual wear has a Capitals logo on it somewhere. After I got dressed this morning I realized...hey, today should be the first game.

Damn lockout.

I do admit, there's been something a bit liberating about accepting invitations without saying "Hold on, I'll see if we have a game that night." I won't be using hockey as an excuse to skip the gym several nights a week. But I have a feeling in another week or two I'll be really missing it.

Ted's Whoopass Jamboree is on, though...that's why there's a little Portland Pirate there in the corner. What the heck...if we'd had an NHL season, I'd pretty much be watching the Pirates anyway.

UPDATE to add...I just realized that's the "junior" Pirates logo. Oops. I'll fix that tonight...

UPDATE 2...logo fixed. Wouldn't ya know, I picked an AHL team that doesn't have audio webcasts of the games. Gonna be tricky to really follow them, I'm afraid, and Portland is a little far for a road trip. (The most expensive tickets are $19, though. Wow. It is a different world.)

I was right about one thing: the Pirates roster has some familiar names.

Halloween costumes

I have a Halloween party invitation, and I do want to go, but now I need a costume.

I'm not really good at costumes.

When I was a kid, one year I was a grandfather clock. I made it myself...a tall cardboard box, covered carefully with woodgrain contact paper. I used stencils to make the numbers on the clock face, and made the pendulum out of gold foil.

But I ask you...what the hell kind of costume is a grandfather clock?

Another year I was a bag of french fries. My mom's sewing skills came into play there.

Last time I went to a Halloween party, I took a yellow shirt and made a black zig-zag stripe across the middle. Then I took a white sheet and cut a bunch of holes. Then I took a trick-or-treat bag and filled it with rocks. Get it?

Nobody at the party got it. Total bust.

Oh. Another year I wore a grim reaper hooded robe, but atop that I wore a hawaiian shirt, and I carried a golf bag. I was "Death takes a holiday." Nobody got that, either.

I thought about wearing all black, with a tag on my shirt that says ""Invisible Pedestrian, Not For Blind Kids," but I already established with the Charlie Brown costume that my social group didn't spend the '70's watching television like I did.

Anybody got any ideas?

Otherwise, I may be dropping by my parents' house to see if my clock costume is still in the attic.

Maybe I should just come back tomorrow

It's Thanksgiving in Canada.

And of course, Columbus Day in the U.S.

I'm at work, celebrating nothing. I didn't get enough sleep, and lemme just say that I don't have "Mark Brunell jersey" on my Christmas list. And if that guy here at the office, the one from New York who now roots for the Ravens and hates all things Washington, if he says one freaking word to me today...well, I'm just hoping he forgets that we don't observe federal holidays and he doesn't show up. Oh, and the coffee shop is closed, because it's in a federal building. And I took the Metro so I don't have a car. Do you see where this is going today? No coffee. No food. No sleep. It isn't going to be pretty...

Wangari Maathai & the origin of HIV

Africa laureate dismisses AIDS "bioweapon" flap

Wangari Maathai has made a typically combative start to her first full day as a Nobel laureate, defending a recent suggestion that the HIV virus might have been made in a laboratory as a plot against Africans.

I guess since I wrote about my admiration of Dr. Maathai on Friday, I oughta address this, too.

Personally, I am inclined to believe the "monkey theory"...that HIV is essentially a mutated form of a primate virus that jumped species. I know of scientists who believe otherwise, though...there's a theory that the virus was transmitted in polio vaccines, for example. And some think that it really was specificlly engineered by the CIA (or Hitler, or maybe the KGB.)

If I had a lot of time and energy now, I'd research unethical medical experiments and bioterrorism to put into perspective why people might be inclined to believe conspiracy theories like this. But I don't.

And it doesn't matter. The critical issue with HIV/AIDS in Africa now isn't where the virus came from, it's how to treat the people who have it and to keep it from spreading.

And I stand by my admiration of Wangari Maathai. Flipping through Hope's Edge the other day, since I'd taken it out for the quotes on Friday, I saw something else that turns out to be relevant. Toward the end of the book, Frances Moore Lappe talks about the criticisms of the organizations and movements she wrote about. She says:

They're not perfect. Grameen and the MST, and really all the groups whose stories we share, are just examples of the millions of people worldwide, experimenting, struggling, failing, and succeeding in carving new paths and creating a world in line with their deepest values.

The people we met are pushing the edge of possibilities, not asserting that they've reached an endpoint. They are modeling creativity, not modeling models.

Vegetarian recipe - Alfredo casserole

Most Monday nights I volunteer at an organization that provides meals to people with HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses. Funny thing about making food to serve 1,000...a lot of times you start by saying "Wow, this looks yummy" and end saying "I never want to see this again in my life."

A few weeks ago, I was putting the breadcrumb & cheese topping on tray after tray of this casserole, and even at the end I was saying "This really looks good." We were really busy that night, so I didn't want to bother the chef for the recipe, but the ingredients looked straightforward enough. Later in the week I put together something that looked about the same, and it did make for a nice comfort food dinner, plus it met my requirement of being obscenely easy.

Alfredo casserole

2 cups of penne pasta
1 large zucchini, diced
1 large tomato, seeded and diced
1 small can of corn, drained (or about 1 cup of corn kernels)
1 container of refrigerated Alfredo sauce (10 oz)
Italian seasoning
Bread crumbs
Shredded parmesan cheese

Cook and drain the pasta, then mix it up with the diced vegetables and Alfredo sauce. Season with Italian seasoning (being particularly lazy lately, I used the pre-blended mix of dried herbs, because having to open parsley and basil and oregano was just too much). Put the mixture in a 9" baking dish (or 2-quart casserole) that's been coated with cooking spray. Cover with a mixture of parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs. Bake until the top is browned and the inside is hot and bubbly (I think it was the usual 45 minutes at 350 degrees).

Race for the Cure

We were out of the house even earlier this morning than we are on a normal weekday, in order to go to Bawl'mer for the Maryland Race for the Cure.

I've been walking the Race for the Cure for several years. I have a long list of friends and relatives who are breast cancer survivors...such a long list that it almost seems like treating and surviving breast cancer is a medical routine now.

Doing the Race each spring and fall reminds me...when I see the teenager in the crowd with a sign that doesn't say "In Celebration," but rather "In Memory of my mom"...the recovery rates are improving, but it's not a given.

And it is always inspiring to see so many people together to support the cause, to celebrate the survivors, and to honor those who did not survive.

I didn't want to be too obnoxious about this (and not just because the Ravens have a better record and...I'll be realistic...could win tomorrow), but I did need to show the Redskins colors since the Race began and ended at the Ravens stadium. Victor and I did get heckled a bit while posing for this picture, but we also got a cheer from another 'Skins fan.

Wangari Maathai wins Nobel Peace Prize

Kenyan Environmental Activist [Wangari Maathai] Wins Nobel Peace Prize

This is excellent. I first read about Wangari Maathai's work in Hope's Edge, and in that chapter Frances Moore Lappe related how the Green Belt movement was about more than planting trees:

"Even if you enter with trees," explains Wangari, "until people understand their rights, especially their environmental rights; how to stand up for their rights and have the courage to stand up--until then, even the planting of trees is not safe. People can always be intimidated. They can always be pushed back."

Wangari also uses the "wrong bus syndrome" to illustrate that, though there are many reasons why you may find yourself going in the wrong direction, you still have control:

"Without denying the big obstacles we all face, especially these villagers, we do create many of our own problems--either through omission or commission. Many problems we have a capacity to change. So, I tell them, 'We can change our lives. We can change our destiny. If you've been misled--and many people are in that category--and you discover you were misled, you have a choice. You can decide to continue in the wrong direction and take a chance wherever the bus will lead you. Or you can decide to get out of that bus.'"

From the Nobel Committee press release:

Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women's rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally.

Maathai stood up courageously against the former oppressive regime in Kenya. Her unique forms of action have contributed to drawing attention to political oppression - nationally and internationally. She has served as inspiration for many in the fight for democratic rights and has especially encouraged women to better their situation.

I've been trying recently to articulate the idea that peace and nonviolence are not passive, and Wangari Maathai illustrates this point boldly.

Congratulations, Dr. Maathai.

Vegetarian recipe - 4-bean chili

We're moving offices next week. Things are a bit...hectic. I'm a bit...stressed.

(I found out my new office is about 6 inches deeper than my old one. Someone said "What will you do with the extra space?" I answered "Pad the walls." I was not kidding.)

Anyway, I'm not above resorting to rerun posts to fill space, especially if I can make them fit the theme for the month. Here is the vegetarian version of my chili. This is actually a good recipe for a busy week...I'll get several meals out of it, and the prep time is minimal. Plus it seems so appropriate for the chill in the air in the mornings now.

Here goes:

Cook a chopped onion and two cloves of chopped garlic in olive oil. When the onion is soft, pour a few ounces of beer in the pan. (It doesn't matter what kind of beer, although I wouldn't use anything too sweet. I'd say a "full-bodied ale" would be best.)

Simmer the onions and garlic in the beer for a few minutes.

While that simmers, drain four cans of beans. I like a variety...black, kidney, navy, pinto. Dump the beans and a 28-ounce can of undrained tomatoes (crushed are good. If you use whole tomatoes, break them up.) into a Crock Pot, then add the onion, garlic, and beer.

Season to taste with Super Secret Chili Spice Mix and cook for a few hours (you know, like the length of the early football game plus the first half of the 4:00 game) on low.

Serve over spaghetti, topped with chopped raw onion, chopped fresh tomato, cheddar cheese, and maybe a little sour cream if you were too heavy-handed with the Super Secret Chili Spice. (That stuff sneaks up on ya.)

Leftovers make a good lunch wrapped in a tortilla, and very small amounts of leftovers can even be used up as an omlette filling. It's also good on a baked potato.

And the "super secret spice mix":

Equal parts salt, pepper, paprika, oregano, ground cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes.

You might be saying "Wait a second...isn't that just the ingredients in chili powder, plus the chili powder itself?"

Yeah, pretty much. But it works.

As for amounts, spiciness is so individual. I use about 4 tablespoons of the mix per batch of chili; I think Victor would prefer it hotter and I've had a few people tell me it was too spicy.

I will say (again) that the heat kinda sneaks up on you, so taste it twice and wait a second before deciding whether to dump more spices in. The first time I made it I had to brown an additional pound of meat (that was the non-veg version, obviously) and chop a second onion to get it back to where I could eat it.

Ig Nobel awards

If it's time for Nobel prizes, that means I missed the Ig Nobel awards again this year. But that's okay, the winners are online.

There's some gooood stuff this year, too:

The Effect of Country Music on Suicide

The 5-Second Rule (Is that cookie still good?)

A press favorite, farting fish

And, as they say, many more.

Science is cool, kids.

Vegetarian recipe - Wild Rice & feta salad

I was talking to Victor from work today, and he asked if I'd posted another recipe. I said no, because it's not like I have my recipe cards at the office...except that made me remember that I do have one, and I posted it on my old blog. However, I'm not above repeats, especially on a busy day like today. So, from an earlier post:

I have a horrible mess of a junk drawer in my desk at work. I had to empty it out this morning in a search for staples (which I did not find...staples are the one office supply I never run out of, and yet, no staples.) In the process I found this recipe, which I made up a few years ago as a standard pot luck contribution. I guess it was good enough for someone to ask for my recipe, otherwise it would not have made its way to my kitchenless office.

The recipe is ...

1 cup uncooked wild rice (or mix of wild and brown rice)
1 cup diced celery
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup dried canberries (I use sweetened Craisins)
6 to 8 ouces feta cheese, crumbled
Vinaigrette salad dressing (I use an herb-y bottled vinaigrette)
Cook the rice and allow to cool. Mix the rice, celery, pecans, and cranberries, then enough vinaigrette to coat but not so much that the salad is swimming in oil. Mix in the crumbled feta shortly before serving. Can be served chilled or close to room temperature.

My new rodent friend

He's been in the yard all summer, but usually when I come and go, he flees. Today I guess the lure of the berries in the dogwood tree was just too great...it's getting cooler at night, and that winter fat won't put itself on...and he stuck around while I weeded.

I didn't have to work tonight (Monday nights I have a volunteer job, but we were closed this week) so I intended to go to the gym. Right up until the moment I left the office I had every intention of working out, then I hit sunshine and blue sky. I've been in a bad mood, sleeping poorly, and having headaches and nightmares, and it struck me that I really haven't been getting much sun and fresh air. The lake where I walk is still closed for construction (that sounds wrong, doesn't it?) and the gardens were in horrible shape, so this seemed a good compromise. I got eaten alive by tiny mosquitoes, and it was depressing untangling all the tomato vine and seeing how few tomatoes I got, compared to the horn worms and stink bugs, but at least I met my new friend. And while it isn't aerobic, at least gardening counts as activity.

Meatless Monday

I'm not sure I have enough recipes (even lame ones) for the whole month, but in keep with the veg theme, I did run across the Meatless Monday campaign.

Sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, this is an effort to promote a healthier diet by convincing people to find alternatives to meat one day a week, since animal products are the greatest saturated fat source in American diets.

Meatless Monday is a pretty soft sell, and along the lines of what I've been finding personally...less meat, better health without much effort.

There's also a Meatout Mondays campaign by the Farm Animal Reform Movement. FARM's agenda is more animal welfare activism than health, but I'm not completely and totally unsympathetic. And I'll take recipes wherever I find them.

Vegetarian "recipe" - Pizza

This isn't a recipe, it's just some topping combinations we use on premade pizza crusts (like Boboli crusts, although I prefer the ones from Trader Joe's*). Even before Victor got his GERD diagnosis we'd been making the pizza without sauce (lazy, I tell ya)...just lightly cover the crust with olive oil (we use a refillable pump sprayer) then throw on the toppings. Three favorites:

-Spinach artichoke...like the dip. Saute fresh spinach or use frozen spinach that is thawed and drained; drain (and squeeze) the artichokes, layer on the pizza crust with a mixture of white cheeses (parmesan, mozzarella...I have even spread leftover ricotta on the crust before adding the vegetables). A little chopped red onion is good, too.

-Greekish...Tomato slices, kalamata olives, feta cheese, fresh oregano and mint.

-Onion, apples & blue cheese...remember that steak at The Shark that I go on about every summer? This topping is inspired by them. Saute a sliced onion and a chopped apple in olive oil or butter; add to the pizza with blue cheese.

Oh, and we've also used pita bread in place of the pizza crust...it's a little crisper and less chewy, but works just fine.

*When Trader Joe's opened in our neighborhood, that helped improve our diets, too. They have a lot of healthy and tasty convenience food (frozen meals, prepared salads and soups) and some gourmet sections for the foodies, like an excellent cheese department. They are smaller, cheaper, and somehow less obnoxious than Whole Foods, but have a much better selection of natural, organic, and otherwise "better" food than most supermarkets.

Vegetarian recipe - Spinach-feta pie

This was one of the first meatless dinners in our regular rotation.

10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese (I don't measure the cheese anymore. You can't go wrong with more feta, imo)
4 medium green onions, sliced (I often don't include the green onions because I usually forget to buy them. I must have some subconscious thing against green onions, although I eat them when they're there. I have replaced the onions with chopped sweet pepper [originally to get rid of some leftovers], and it's not bad.)
1/2 cup Bisquick
2/3 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon each salt and pepper (for the pepper I use Hot Shot pepper blend)
2 eggs, or an equivalent amount of egg substitute

Grease a pie plate. Put in the spinach, cheese, and onion (or pepper, or not), kind of mixed up.
In a separate bowl (or a cocktail shaker-like thing), mix together the Bisquick, milk, eggs, and salt and pepper. Pour that mixture in the pie plate over everything else, then bake for 30-35 minutes at 400 degrees.
I like to serve this with green beans simmered in stewed tomatoes.

This is a real recipe originally from Bisquick (one of the Impossibly Easy pies.) Most of the things I'll be posting probably shouldn't be called recipes, they should be called assemby instructions...nothing I make will ever be mistaken for something out of Bon Appétit.

Richard Avedon

Richard Avedon has died.

He was another great one. Some of his most recent work is on his web page (look at "2004 Editorial"), and there's an online exhibit from his show at the Met.

Red & Blue

I've been thinking about the red state/blue state political polarization. I have friends in both the liberal weiner and the right wing nutjob camps, and so much what I hear from both sides is pretty vitriolic. And extreme...my right wing friend thinks that if Kerry wins, the White House will end up a mosque; my left wing friend thinks that Bush's re-election would leave the water undrinkable and the air unbreathable by 2008.

Like a good ISTJ, I trust The System. We have checks and balances to make sure that one man cannot destroy it all in one four-year term. I have my preference...but I'm 2 for 4 in voting for presidential winners, and I've made it through the administrations of the guys for whom I didn't vote. I'm not scared, really, either way.

I did watch the debate last night, but none of the post-game show. I don't read political blogs, and I'm pretty much tuning out my friends on the extremes. While I rolled my eyes at a few of the too-repeated refrains (from both candidates) last night, overall I was impressed...neither was an asshole, and neither was a cartoon.

And it's a bit of a gamble anyway. Without a crystal ball, the next four years are speculation...I watched the debates in 2000 too, and never heard the question "What will you do if terrorists hijack planes and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon?"

And ultimately isn't it like the JibJab guys said...from the liberal weiners to the right wing nutjobs, this land belongs to you and me?

Vegetarian awareness

October 1 is World Vegetarian Day, and in fact, October is Vegetarian Awareness Month.

I'm not trying to convince anybody to become a vegetarian...that would take a heckuva lot of chutzpah, considering that I am not a vegetarian. I am, in the words of one friend, a "vegetarian sympathizer."

At one time, my dietary staple was cheeseburgers. I knew every fast food menu by heart, and could have distinguished between a Whopper and a Big Classic blindfolded. When McDonalds ran 2-fer specials on Quarter Pounders, I bought them in multiples and ate them for breakfast.

About ten years ago I was fitted for a bridesmaid dress and was pushing the outer limits of a size 16. I didn't really care about that, it just sticks in my head as a benchmark...1994, size 16. A few years after that, I started biking. I changed my diet a bit...more chicken and a bit less grease...and ended up a size 8. That wasn't a goal, it was just the size I ended up.

When I wasn't biking all the time, I started creeping back up toward a size 10. I didn't care so much about my actual size, but I couldn't afford a replacement wardrobe, so I started watching my diet a little better. A few years ago I made a concerted effort to stop thinking of meat as a main dish necessity. Since making that change, I actually dropped another size, though my exercise habits have been, frankly, minimal. I've been at size 6 now for two years. My cholesterol went from an acceptable 170-something to 140.

I'm not saying any of this to brag, just to show what can happen just by eating less meat. Now we have meat with dinner maybe twice a week, and most of the time when eating out I go with vegetarian options. The veg friend who calls me a sympathizer does so because I'm practically an activist at the office; I got sick of catered lunches where the only vegetarian options were salad and bread. Vegetarians deserve protein, too, and I've started politely suggesting that all office functions have something reasonable not just for vegetarians but vegans.

Sorry, I'm getting way too longwinded. Basic idea...less meat is healthy, and even somebody who ate cheeseburgers for breakfast can come to appreciate meatless meals. So, in honor of Vegetarian Awareness, I'll be posting some of our favorite vegetarian recipes (in that stream-of-conscience, lack-of-measurements way that I do recipes) and veg-related links throughout the month.

Oh, and I'm not eating them for breakfast (although there's no reason not to, so perhaps I'll start)...but my favorite burger now is the Amy's Organic All American.