Easter, 2013

5 things:

1.  Nelson Mandela is in the hospital.

2.  The Pope sends greetings "to those who suffer."

3.  Syracuse beats Marquette, advances to the Final Four of the Elite East (??)

4.  How to make sure you have enough $$ for retirement (from Dan Ariely's "Strangers on a Train" in the WSJ).  The Repugs seem to be onto something.....:

Dear Dan,

What is the best way to make sure Americans have sufficient funds for retirement?

—Ben

There are basically two ways to help people have enough money for retirement: getting them to save more and getting them to die younger. The easier one by far is getting people to die younger. How might you achieve this? By allowing citizens to smoke, subsidizing sugary and fatty foods, and making it hard for them to get access to preventative health care. But, when you think about this, it seems like we're already doing most of what we can on this front. 

A version of this article appeared March 30, 2013, on page C12 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Strangers On a Train.

5.  Transcendental Meditation is reputed to be far more effective than any pill for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and all of that.  I'm checking it out.

Holy Saturday

5 things:

1.  At noon on this day (Holy Saturday), the Lenten fast used to END.  And my dad would have a nice, big sandwich for lunch and a good suck of a Jim Beam highball.  I can't remember what I had for lunch.  Probably peanut butter & jelly?

2.  Sweet Jebus....My annuity arrived a day EARLY this month, which means that I could go to Trader Joe's this a.m. and get two bottles of Spanish Olive Oil plus some of those round O's multigrain cereal things and a rack of lamb!!

3.  So far, I have not cooked the rack of lamb, but I'm gonna do it now.  I just need to remember how to make the sauce:  lemon juice, garlic, honey, olive oil (got plenty of that now), salt.  and then roast the rack of lamb drenched in the sauce.

4.  Gonna do it!  now!

5.  Happy freakin' easter, everyone, if that's what floats your boat.  I'm glad Il Papa included Muslims in his foot-washing gig on Thursday.  I am especially glad he is wearing his good, old black shoes instead of the papal white or red shoes.  What nonsense to be wearing anything but what FITS!!!!

Third Day of Omer

5 things:

1.  To love the world so much that every day something breaks open our hearts

2.  To live mindfully

3.  To  open my eyes and behold the wonders

4.  To know that in every moment, I am only passing through.

5.  Miskan.org and Psalm 119: 17-19

Onstag...

5 things:

1.  Looking for construction paper (all different colored sheets)

2.  Once I find it, I'll write thank you notes to one and all who made my visit to Chicago so wonderful,

3.  Easier said than done, apparently.

4.  None in CVS, none in Safeway.  Have to look in Staples?  or Utrechts??

5.  I used to have some, but no more.  This is why I am so slow at sending cards.

How Green Is Their Valley....

5 things:

1.  My three grandnieces in Chicago are champs at recycling and the sensible use of resources.

2.  When they visit my niece & her husband (their parents), they go through their refrigerator and throw out everything that's outdated.  They remind them about nutrition vs. convenience.

3.  They regularly and usually take public transportation in a city where the car is still king.  How far away do you live from somebody?  Ordinarily, you get the answer in "minutes," not miles or blocks, which means most people drive.  With them, it's "three stops."

4.  They separate their trash into glass & cans, newspapers, garbage, and other refuse, whether the city has caught up yet with distribution of the proper containers.  The gardeners among them compost their garbage.

5.  All three of them are largely vegetarian, thought not yet vegan.  They still feed their husbands meat once in a while.  

chicago and back

5 Things:

1.  Railroad trips are the best.

2.  Cheaper than the bus.

3.  Don't take as long.

4.  Don't make as many stops.

5.  And they have cafe cars.

Feliz Lunes-y

5 things:

1.  Got through St. Patrick's day weekend here with only minor inconvenience.  Between Metro track work, the Rock & Roll marathon on Saturday, and the St. Pat's day parade yesterday, though, transportation was dicey....

2.  Snow is forecast for today, but there's no snow here.  There was snow falling in the dog park across town earlier.  So far, nowt here.

3.  The Pope is doing his best to charm the villagers in the Vatican.  Fine.  Let's see what comes out of his mouth when he speaks ex cathedra.

4.  The president of Argentina is a woman, and she gave the cardinal (now Pope) lots to think about!

5.  I got three free books from Solas Nua on Irish Book Day (March 17) this year:   Jesus and Billy Are Off to Barcelona by Dierdre Purcell,  Mrs. Whippy by Cecelia Ahern, and The Comedian by Joseph O'Connor.  I've read the first, and am halfway through the second (about a woman who LOVES ice cream!). Will finish the second and read the third tonight.

Book Titles I Love

Five things:

1.  Timothy Failure: Mistakes Were Made

2.  Start Where You Are

3.  The Buddha Walks Into a Bar

4.  Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

5.  The Zen of Deafness

Tuesday....

5 things:

1.  It was almost 60F when I got up this ayem.  AND

2.  It was POURING rain!  I mean really coming down.  By the time I got to the Metro stop, my pant legs were soaked, as was the 18" x 24" sketch pad I was hauling.

3.  My companion in the elevator going up to the street was commiserating about the rain.  He had to carry his sandwiches in a plastic bag!!

4.  I hadn't had anything to eat, so when I got to Cathy's and she asked me what I'd like, I told her I wanted a SANDWICH.  There is something so appealing about a sandwich you make yourself and carry from home.  You can't buy one like it anywhere downtown, and the proper sandwich bread is scarce as hen's teeth.

5.  Paul Ryan is skating very close to disaster with his abominable "let's kill Medicare" nonsense.

Village Gossip, Monday.....

5 things:

1.  Last week I read something by the First Lady--about how she & the Mr. have encouraged their daughters to ski!  Yes, "Let's Keep Moving"!! or something is her mantra this year.  But then this morning, in CVS,  one of the tabloids had a shocking headline:  (and I'm just extrapolating...I didn't buy a copy) "Obamas have big fight over her wild spending!  She takes the kids to Aspen, and he goes to Florida."  (zzzzz).  Some of the sidebars show Malia and Sasha skiing (presumably in Aspen).  Actually, I don't see where Mrs. Obama is any big wild spender.  I mean, she grows the White House's veggies!!  Just like my mom did during WWII.  (And have YOU priced out a head of cabbage lately??  Whew!)

2.  Let's ask what was the Prex doing in Florida?  Last week I read that the White House Press people were ticked off because Barack did not tell them he was golfing with....gasp.....Tiger Woods!  That may be their story and they're sticking with it, but I also read that Barack really was golfing with OIL MAGNATES, and he didn't want the public (who at that very day/hour/moment were demonstrating out in front of the WH and getting arrested because they are against fracking and the pipeline and such) to know!!  Was poor Tiger Wood just a front?  (And I still have to laugh about the time his wife bashed in the back window of his car--you go, girl!)  Is Michelle gonna take lessons from Elin on OTHER ways to use those golf clubs?  Was Barack getting friendly with the greedy oil merchants?   And today they say he was down there getting away from the fireworks at home.  One doesn't know what to believe these days.  The Republicans can't tell the truth from a hole in the wall, and Newt Gingrich will never get to be Pope.

3.  Joe Biden is LOTS SMARTER than any old ash tray.  He is about 15 times smarter than Dick Cheney and 100 times smarter than W.  Besides, he's funny, and people like him.  His WIFE is a PHD, for cat's sake!  More than you can say about other vice-presidents.  Remember Spiro Agnew??  And let's all get down on our knee bones and thank our lucky stars that other Joe (Lieberman) didn't get in!  Uff da!  Have you read what he's doing this week??

4.  I just made a recipe (Pollo e Patate della Mama) out of a Lidia Bastianich cookbook, and I hate to say this, but it wasn't very good.  I left out the bacon rolls because although bacon tends to put me right in the hospital, it does have a delicious taste.  That's the breaks, I guess.  Leave the good stuff out of a recipe, and pay the price.  I think those big-time Italian chef women have cast iron stomachs. There's a picture of Lidia and her Mama in this book, and they are shuffling cards and looking like they're enjoying whatever clear spirits are in their glasses.  Grappa?

5.  Or maybe they're just having a suck off a bottle of EverClear!?  Much cheaper.

another sun day!

5 things:

1.  Favorite breakfast today:  grated raw potato (1) mixed with beaten egg (1), fried in 1 T butter, served with 2 T maple syrup.  Oh boy!  Pretty good for the diet, too: 1 carb, 1 protein, 1 fat, and then cheating with the maple syrup.

2.  No Jamieson's with the coffee this Sunday a.m., either.  Mar dhea!

3.  Wonder if L. has any NEW tricks today (this would be day 5, I think!!)?

4.  Don't like what I've drawn for the painting.  Don't like the colors, either.  There's no SUNLIGHT!!  Think I'll do a different one.  Or a different focus?

5.  My favorite writer's new book is VERY DARK (Emma Donoghue's Astray)!  Mostly about immigrants, immigration.  That's the part we don't talk about in my family of immigrants. We're safe now--2nd generation here.  We've left all the crap behind, and most of my generation are dead--telling no tales!

Meanwhile....

5 things:

1.  The fambly is expanding by leaps (L.D. Denson, Chicago, 3 days ago) and bounds (?? Denson, Edinburgh (actually Peebles), next month.

2.  And my painting is S L O W L Y getting off the ground.

3.  My all-in-one has crapped out seriously.  No more buying ink for that!

4.  Do other grownups sometimes find their grown children pains in the butt?

5.  Sneaking into a diet, one day at a time.  First step (done), buy bread I don't find irresistible.

Love Chocolate? Take a look.....

5 things is just one for this post:

1.  Surprising results here....Women love chocolate, but let's make sure that the chocolate growers honor women, not disparage them!  If you're into buying stocks, check out how the food people treat the land, the water, and the workers, especially the women!!  Sisterhood!!

http://www.behindthebrands.org/en-us/scorecard

WINDY!

5 things:

1.  Wind is 29 mph here right now.  That puts the apparent temperature in the low 20s.  No danger of frostbite in 30 mins.

2.  Yesterday was Lennox's grandma Penny's birthday!!  Still beautiful & going strong!!

3.  Here's Lennox:

4.  He's an All-American baby, that's for sure.  He combines a bunch of ethnic groups, including African-American, German, Greek, Irish, Jewish, Native American.  But what will his personality be like as he grows up?  Already they're saying he's "calm, contented."  He's doubtless more than that, but jeez...he's just two days old.  Give him some time. I think he looks like quite the kid--a broth of a lad.  Broth, being what you get when you boil down a savory essence.....

5.  Going to trim the rubber tree now.  Guess there's a trick to it, but I don't know what it is, despite spending a long time online doing research.  It looks as if there's one main trunk that's had it.  The rest is sprouting new leaves!!  Fingers crossed!..

Snow Day! (Without SNOW)

5 things:

1.  All the skool kids and teachers hereabouts are celebrating a day off skool today thanks to a bit of snow on the ground and lots of breathless weather emergency reports yesterday.

2.  Maureen Dowd sticks it to Dick Cheney this morning.  Do you suppose he knows?  Or cares?

3.  No baby yet in Chicago.  Grandson still "liking" messages of support on FB.

4.  A person I know was told by his doctors some 30 years ago that he would not survive another two years unless he changed his eating/drinking habits.  He just laughed.  A typical dinner for him in those days would be 1 bottle of vodka, a steak, a package of frozen green beans with dumplings (remember those?), and for dessert, a half gallon of ice cream which he shared with his dog.  He was married for more than 50 years and took care of his wife himself when she got sick with her final illness.  He got married again last week at the age of 89.  God love ya, mr. new bridegroom!  Am rethinking the health-giving benefits of having a dog.

5.  The pope and cardinals are giving homosexuality a bad name!

Feliz Lunes-y

5 things:

1.  The sparks has been here, and there is no problem with the wiring in the kitchen.  That means the refrigerator is at fault--it won't even make ice cubes reliably--and has to be repaired or replaced.  So....it's possible to get a good new fridge on sale for around $600 or so.  Repairing this one could cost $200-$400.

2.  The vote?  repair.......0
                       replace.....2

3.  It's unanimous....now to find a new fridge!

4.  Sparks said all the power outages we've had in the past year and a half have not helped the fridge.

5.  My admiration for repair persons who can FIX things quickly and competently continues to be sky high.  I don't know why more young people don't go into this field.  I don't know why more retirees like me don't take a course in this kind of thing, too.
                     

Sunday!

5 things:

1.  Ordered a book: Nita Leland's The New Creative Artist!  Love books, and love ordering them from used booksellers, who ship the books to me via USPS!  I'm doing anything I can to help the US post office survive this idiot congress.

2.   Talked with a mailman yesterday as he picked up mail to be sent from the mailbox near our back yard.  I wished him luck with all the changes Congress has in store for us, and he said, "Yeah!  We've had the mail all our lives!!  Why change it?!"  He is so right.  It's the one thing we have always been able to count on.  I remember getting mail delivered on Christmas day from one of my brothers during WWII.  The post office would do that.  And I've always loved most of the people (with very few exceptions) who work in the p.o.  They do their best to be of service.  If you are an introvert like me, you value each and every interaction you have when you leave the house.  YOU GO, POST OFFICE!!

3.  Let's hear it for TEACHERS, too!!  OMG, how many teachers have helped me live as long as I have and do the things I've done and at the end of the day, enjoy my leisure by getting into a good book!!

4.  All of a sudden, it's chilly again here.  It was below freezing this a.m. (30F) when I got up, and this is after 4 or 5 warmish days.  Read somewhere last night that this year so far has been like "the year without a summer":  1816.  You can look it up:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

5.  Ver vaist?

March 2

Just now getting to this.  Been a busy day.  I'm relying heavily on my favorite blogs today.

1.  Everyday hero!!

http://www.juancole.com/2013/03/creeping-creationism-schools.html

2.  Like short stories??

http://www.bookish.com/articles/emma-donoghue-picks-10-favorite-short-story-collections

3.  Lesson #5000:  Follow the recipe!!
I tried to make a chicken dish that starts with chopped garlic and dried tomatoes (NOT the canned kind with the oil),  and the only good thing is the chicken.  My local supermarket did NOT have sundried tomatoes in a package.  It only had them in a jar.  So I thought...what the heck....Wrong, so wrong.

4.  The wine was horrible, too.  Again, lesson 5001, stick with what you know, not with what you remember!

5.  I bought 100 forever first-class stamps today.  I've been out of stamps for a long time.  And I lost them.  Fortunately, someone found them and brought them to me, but what a sinking feeling.  This is typical of what can happen when Mercury goes retrograde.  The challenge will be writing letters to send with these stamps!  I've gotten very lazy about writing letters.  I'll start with my dear friends here, who often send me letters (to which I don't reply in proper form:  on paper with envelopes and stamps, etc.

Now What???

Five things:

1.  NYT: Give Up Your Pew for Lent

2.  Lots of people have a bad cough-flu kind of thing now....including me.

3.  I have been voting in the US for more than 50 years, and I can never
remember the continuing appeals for money following on the heels of a completed
election (e.g., the presidential election in 2012)--or two years in advance of the next one.  Somebody's getting rich off this, and I suspect it's the media.

4.  Only 19 days till Spring!  And my friend Linda's cherry tree, which ordinarily blossoms 3 weeks in advance of the cherry trees on the mall, is already showing pink buds!  Does this mean that the Cherry Blossom Festival, beginning March 20, is more or less gonna be in sync with the blossoms this year?

5.  Nationofchange.org has a splendid commentary on the sequester:  Basically, today, unless Congress comes to its collective senses (??), the sequester begins.  Just remember who did this.  Congress.  And Congress can stop it--even today.