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November 30, 2006

Meh

Sorry this place hasn't been too exciting lately. I've banned myself from reading blogs until I get some things done but it hasn't helped. All it means is that I spend more time being frustrated with the mandolin. Well, and paying bills and finishing several backlogged mix CDs (yep, I said I was doing that a few weeks ago. Never finished 'em. Never finish anything, it seems).

How is it that there is so much going on in my head and so little of it translating into actual productive activity? Maybe I'm being too hard on myself, but really, I have so much energy and so many ideas right now and the time just slips through my fingers. How is it 11 PM? I'm not ready for today to be over, there was so much I wanted to do.

By the way, I just cannot get enough of this Tom Brosseau song, Rose. Something about it just really, really works for me. I'm not even relating to it on a personal level (that is, I've not been nostalgically sighing over any old love lately) - it's just the mood, the way he owns that half-resigned, half-hopeful quiet space.

Hard

It is so hard to learn to play an instrument from square one. It is so slow and it is so hard. I feel like I am four years old. ARGH.

Winter Driving

I am really terrified of driving in the winter in bad weather. I have to drive to Bend tomorrow to meet up with some friends for a weekend of camping and snowshoeing. I'm really excited for the snowshoeing. I am NOT really excited for the "SEVERE WINTER WEATHER WARNING" in red that I see listed on Tripcheck for Stinkingwater Pass (isn't that a lovely name?), which I have to cross to get to Bend.

Road conditions are listed as "packed snow" on the pass. And it's not even snowing right now, nor is it expected to snow all weekend - and the roads are still crap. As much as I hate salt on the roads in New England, at least it makes driving in the winter less terrifying. I mean, this isn't even really bad weather, it's just some snow on the roads, and it still makes me not want to go (but I'm still gonna go)! I am, however, buying chains before I leave.

November 29, 2006

Exile

I'm exiling myself from Bloglines today so that I can actually get some work done and some long-overdue personal emails written. No exciting links, sorry. Maybe some pictures tonight, though, 'cause it's a gorgeoooous day out. Snow on the mountains!

Old and Embarrassing

It's a good thing none of you are stalkers.

I just spent the morning cleaning out a ton of old files off of my server* and there was some PURE GOLD in there. But it's all gone now, so don't even try to look for it. Folders and folders of terrible art and poetry. Oh man.

Also. It boggles the mind how much time it must have taken me to meticulously scan, resize, edit, and upload so many hundreds of terrible drawings as a teenager. I have some recollection of doing this, but, um, wow. And of course I totally want to keep all these things, 'cause they take me right back to Angstville, 1999 - they just probably shouldn't be online.

* To make room for new things and because I accidentally maxed out my space and had to bumble through a sketchball command-prompt SSH portal this morning to get it fixed because if I hadn't you wouldn't be seeing this right now. 6 AM I woke up, people. 6 AM.

November 28, 2006

Mole

Just listened to Mole for the first time in over 2 years. Suddenly it is the end of April, 2004, the ground is still hard, the trees are still bare, and this is the only song I want to hear.

Out in the desert, we'll have no worries /
Out in the desert, just you and me

Out in the desert, we'll live care free

Takes me right back there.

(p.s. November mix file is up, linked in that post below)

Coconut Cream Pie

So it turns out that the diner pie at the Starlite Cafe is as good as they say it is. I'm going to have to go back with a book and sit for a while one night. With pie. And coffee.

November 27, 2006

At Least You'll Know You've Had Your Fun

Hey, so this is what November sounded like for me. Some new and some old, just the way I like it. Everything feels like it's sliding into winter; sometimes we get gorgeous bright sunny days and sometimes it's grey and damp but always the light is the light of late fall.

Chris Thile - Heart in a Cage (The Strokes)

It's funny because he took some flak in the bluegrass world for saying "fuck" in a song. But I effin' love this cover. Noam Pikelny on the banjo gets it good. And of course I like anything Chris Thile does. What UP, Tensions Mountain Boys?! (the tension's mounting, boys - get it?)

Fionn Regan - Black Water Child

Hello attractive Irish singer-songwriter! You can play your folksy guitar melodies for me anytime. Sidenote: the river that runs through my hometown is a blackwater river. In the South it means a river dyed dark brown - black - from leaf tannins. Slow-flowing sweet tea, if you will.

Joanna Newsom - Sawdust and Diamonds

So Ys really is awesome. But I like her vocals, so I guess I was easy to convince.

Patty Griffin - Useless Desires

Patty Griffin, why didn't I buy your album sooner? I've had like 5 Patty Griffin songs for years and loved 'em and finally finally I got Impossible Dream and I'm glad I did.

Califone - Our Kitten Sees Ghosts

This is really more October, but I didn't make an October mix. I left my tube of posters at home when I left; my Califone print I bought at the show in October is the only poster in my entire apartment. That and some dead branches and pieces of a broken mirror (not kidding).

Gillian Welch - Pocahontas (Neil Young, live)

It was a coin toss between this one and her cover of Black Star. This one won because I think I still prefer the Radiohead original to the cover. Neil Young, though... yeah.

Peter & the Wolf - The Highway

It's the narrative nature of Peter & the Wolf songs that gets me - these aren't lyrics, this is a short story strung on gentle chords.

The Ghosts - Penny Falls

I heard this one described as plaintive on some blog (forgot which). I don't think it's plaintive, I think it's precious and delicate and earnest. And it works - precious is hard to pull off.

Tobias Froberg - When the Night Turns Cold

The BONGO!

Memphis - I'll Do Whatever You Want

It's Torq from Stars! It sounds just like Stars!

Bonnie Prince Billy - New Partner (Daytrotter session)

I never knew that this was a BPB song. I think it might have been recorded under Will Oldham, not BPB, not sure? I used to love the Frames' version and just learned that it was a cover. Also, topically appropriate? Chew on that fat for a while.

Langhorne Slim - Restless

"Someday darlin' its got to make sense in your head / Can't make up your mind till you wake up and make your bed ..."

I've never seen what Langhorne Slim looks like and I never want to. I imagine him as reedy and thin as his voice, a little greasy around the temples. A good handshake and eyes that get you every time. This is from his new EP.

Big Star - What's Going Ahn

Retro! I need some more Big Star in my life, really.

Steve Earle - Halo 'Round the Moon (KGSR, live)

It's just so warm and comforting and wise.

Ferraby Lionheart - A Crack in Time

Oh y'all. The melody! The melody!

Tom Brosseau - Dark Garage

Some fine harmonica and a sublimely melancholy mood.

Nad Navillus - So You Can Sleep Easier

I never knew how much I liked this one until now.

Chris Thile - I'm Nowhere and You're Everything

Shush. Listen to that banjo. And that falsetto sigh just about halfway in. Almost makes you self-conscious to be listening, eh?

James Yorkston - I Know My Love

This is a trad tune and I've known it since I was little. Yorkston wins for making it totally his own by slowing it way, way down and adding the intimacy that is missing from its more typically jaunty incarnations.

---------------------

OK, so I really really wanted to put the Eddie Vedder and Janet Weiss Tonight You Belong to Me cover on here, but I don't have the mp3, just the YouTube video and an mp3 of the famous duet with Steve Martin and that other lady... but that one just didn't work like the E and J one did for me. So you can just pretend that it's on here.

And, while not on the mix, I got some pure straight hippie bliss this month too: live sets from Mutual Admiration Society, some rare Nickel Creek covers, a couple Dixie Chicks tracks, homemade mp3s of live Thile streams from BBC and Reg's, and two full sets from this time when Gillian Welch, Ani Difranco, and Greg Brown toured together. Yeah.

You can download November if you like. (it's up for real now! just took a while!)

Moderator

Know what's exciting? I'm going to be a moderator at the Idaho Environmental Summit!

It's the first of its kind for Idaho. I can't wait to meet people and get to networking!

I'll be moderating this session: Adaptive Management in Watershed Restoration Efforts: Potential Applications for Idaho’s Watersheds

Um.

One of the ladies in the office has several daughters all with several babies and a new one arrived last week. I saw the pictures this morning. She's cute. But.

The baby's name is

M C Q U A Y L A.

I would spell it without the spaces but you can't even get any real Google hits for that word and I don't want this to be the only one.

Monday Reads: Catching Up

- God Only Knows sounds so good done live, solo, and slow on the ukelele. (swoon)

- Hipster (or, er, yupster) parents dis on my childhood soundtrack. I second Ellen - Don't you talk about Raffi that way! (morethan7)

- Sounds like progress to me: the big corporations are starting to come around on climate change. (Grist)

We have to deal with greenhouse gases. From Shell's point of view, the debate is over. When 98 percent of scientists agree, who is Shell to say, 'Let's debate the science'?

- I really liked this piece by Mr. Safran Foer. It's about having a dog in the city and letting her off the leash - and something more, too. (NYT)

We have been having this latter debate, in different forms, for ages. Again and again we are confronted with the reality — some might say the problem — of sharing our space with other living things, be they dogs, trees, fish or penguins. Dogs in the park are a present example of something that is often too abstracted or far away to gain our consideration.

The very existence of parks is a response to this debate: earlier New Yorkers had the foresight to recognize that if we did not carve out places for nature in our cities, there would be no nature. It was recently estimated that Central Park’s real estate would be worth more than $500 billion. Which is to say we are half a trillion dollars inconvenienced by trees and grass. But we do not think of it as an inconvenience. We think of it as balance.

November 26, 2006

Remember This?

Oh man do you remember this? I DO.

I love how rediscovering something like this Sesame Street clip unearths memories I didn't even know I had - the ditty is completely unfamiliar to me, but the image of the pinball boinking around and spiraling down those ramps - I remember that! I could've seen it yesterday, I remember it so clearly. But I didn't see it yesterday . I saw it when I was 3. That memory is still there, now that I've been reminded of it. So cool.

Hearth

This is where the magic happens:

Except for last night, when I tried to make a dal, and it smelled sooo good, but in the end it just tasted like red lentils. This happens a lot when you cook alone, I think. I'm not sure why.

November 24, 2006

Turkey Recap

Not too much to say about Thanksgiving. There was turkey (free range) and all the fixin's and challah and dinner table conversation with people I'd never before met that spanned Food Network hosts to appendicitis horror stories to fossil fuel usage in industrial agriculture. Guess which topic I brought up?

I also brought a pecan pie. It was effing delicious. Too bad I didn't take a picture 'cause it looked good too. It was seriously better than all previous pecan pies I'd made before. You want the recipe? If so I will type it up. There is really only one secret ingredient. But it is clutch.

Speaking of clutch I have got to learn to drive stick. I cannot believe how many opportunities I have missed. Except for that time when I tried to get Chris to teach me and instead he took me out to do spinouts on the back roads. Yeah that was helpful. Anyway.

Where was I? Oh, Thanksgiving. So there was food and there was conversation and there was also an alphorn. Then there was hours of walking dogs and taking care of dogs with Z. You would not believe how much some Labs can shed. Ugh. Or how fast a Brittany spaniel can run.

After that we watched The Edukators. Now that's my kind of thriller. A little romance, a lot of gorgeous mountain scenery, and some culture-jamming-idealism-gone-too-far drama (and the way cute guy from Goodbye Lenin!).

That's about all I've got. Hope y'all had a good day too.

Quiet

Tonight there's snow coming in, you can see it in the clouds. I'm at home, drinking green tea from my friend Josh and listening to Irish and Scots - the new Damien Rice, Fionn Regan, James Yorkston - and sketching landscapes from photographs I've taken this fall. It is a good way to spend an evening.

November 23, 2006

Good Food, Good Company

Happy Thanksgiving, all. Hope it involves copious quantities of good food eaten in good company! I'm off to Boise in a bit with a just-baked pecan pie. My apartment smells MARVELOUS.

November 22, 2006

Life Lately

For y'all who are more interested in what I've been doing than what I've been reading online:

Life is rolling along. It has pretty much 3 main elements: 1) work, 2) Boise, and 3) solo time. Every once in a while other exciting things happen, like an upcoming weekend in a fire tower with some RARE peeps and then a weekend skiing/snowshoeing/bumming at Mt. Bachelor with some RARE peeps. And I talk on the phone with people sporadically. You, too, can call me - anytime! I am usually not doing anything! I will usually talk for longer than you have the time to talk!

This weekend I went to Boise for Z's orchestra performance. As per routine, I waited to call him 'til after lunchtime, after spending a morning busily making banana bread for my week's breakfasts (meh, not the most successful new recipe, I still need The One) and a pumpkin pie (just 'cause I wanted to). I called, I got no answer. I did some more stuff, baked the pie, called a few more times. No answer. I packed my stuff and headed over anyway.

(changing tenses)

I get to Z's place and his car is there so I knock on the door. No answer. Huh. I decide to take a walk, thinking he must be out for a jog or something. 15 minutes later I call again - and get a sleeeeeepy hello back. Turns out dude decided to nap. All afternoon. Hey, nobody ever said we were peas in a pod... We then had just enough time to whip up some ramen-with-fresh-veg-and-few-flavor-packets and get dressed and go (woo hoo tuxedo!).

But anyway. The program:

W.A. Mozart: Overture to The Abduction from the Seraglio
Richard Wagner: "Forest Murmurs" from Siegfried
John Corigliano: Voyage
Aaron Copland: Three Latin American Sketches
Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 3, Op. 97, Rhenish

(changing tenses again)

I particularly liked the Corigliano and the last two movements of the Schumann. Even better, I didn't fall asleep - or even get sleepy. Those who have attended orchestral performances with me at Dartmouth know that I had a tendency to fall asleep during shows back then. I think it was just sleep deprivation, though. Have I mentioned how nice it is to actually be able to sleep 8 hours a night after 4 straight years of being chronically unrested?

Afterward Z and I went to the orchestra's post-show reception, gorged on finger food, I met people, charmed them, etc. Heard some hilarious Idaho stories from a lifelong Boise resident and enjoyed people-watching. Afterward we headed to The Milky Way with some of Z's orchestra friends for a martini.

(you know, in retrospect we should have taken a picture in our dressy attire with martinis.. alas, I forgot)

So there's this restaurant in Boise, The Milky Way, and they serve what's been repeatedly voted the best martini in Boise (which means, really, all of Idaho and probably the general 10-hour driving radius). And, yes, it was as good as they say it is. Here's an approximation of their method, along with a similar recipe for a gimlet (I need to try this, 'cause I love a good gimlet).

Even better, though, was the bread pudding.

Y'all, it was beyond belief. Tender and buttery and sweet-but-not-too-sweet.

Never have I ever.

(There was also a delightful lemon tart involved in the evening. BUT THE BREAD PUDDING!)

Eventually we were too tired for intelligent conversation and we sacked out for the night and woke up and ate frozen waffles (sigh) and just talked for a long time and then I drove home and then it was dinnertime and then it was bedtime and then it was another Monday.

And now it's Wednesday, tomorrow's Thanksgiving, and is it me or is the time really flying?

Audio Grabbin'

Anybody know how I can rip streaming audio? Not from iTunes, that I can do.
We're talkin' Flash or radio here.

thx y'all.

My Friends

Forget Facebook and Myspace. What would I do without YouTube?

(Some friends who've been entertaining me lately)

(Nic)

(David)

(Brad)

(Jon and Stephen)

(John)

(Chris)

James Yorkston

For all of you who think you should have been born in Scotland, here's some music for your acoustic tastes:

James Yorkston.
He's a Scot from Fife who writes gorgeous moody-fall-day-on-the-moors songs that get inside you.

I found him through an acoustic set he did with Chris Thile for the BBC (hear that here).
But there's so much more!

Here, watch the video:

If you liked that, check out his website and his Myspace. And by all means check out the songs he did with Thile - oh so good!

November 21, 2006

Worst President Ever?

Somehow I missed this essay when it came out in May. I'm linking it here 'cause I want to keep it for future reference (and to send to people who persist in supporting Bush).

It's not wildly partisan or angry - it's just methodically damning across the board, especially when it comes to the things that count - honesty and leadership.

Sean Wilentz, Princeton historian, on why George W. Bush is one of the worst American Presidents in history. (Originally published in Rolling Stone)

Today's Sweet Finds

So many good things on the internets lately! Here are a few.

- How To Make a Pot of Texas Red (Parts 1 and 2): Jeez would you look at how thick that stuff is? 1/3 cup of chile powder? 2 cups of coffee AND a beer? I've never had chili like this, but I totally want to try making it. She also mentions Bobby Flay's recipe, which sounds good too. (Homesick Texan)

Iowa Farmers Learn to Love the Grape. This piece makes me happy because it means that farmers are finding ways to stay on their land - and making pretty good wine! My mom and I actually saw several wineries when we drove through Missouri on the way out West. It's no Napa Valley, but nor should it be. (NYTimes)

- Here's a good interview with my man Al Gore. Doesn't he sound awesome? (GQ)

- The web is all about typography. Period. Nice essay. (IA)

November 20, 2006

Talk About Bad Taste

Who ARE the people who fill out these surveys?

This was a list of potential performers to bring to Dartmouth:

At the event, only 300 students ended up ranking a survey that included Beck, the All-American Rejects, Secret Machines, Hot Hot Heat, 30 Seconds to Mars, the Raconteurs, Jurassic 5, the Black Crows and, of course, the Roots. By a close vote, the All-American Rejects beat the Roots, who were followed by Beck.

All-American Rejects?! Good Lord.

Wool Boots

Apparently these were kinda popular last winter. Well, I only heard about them this winter, but I totally want some. Russian wool felt boots! They are called valenkis.

My feet, I like them to be warm.

November 19, 2006

Pecan Pie

Oh you guys. So for Thanksgiving I've been assigned to make a pecan pie.

Now, I've made pecan pie before. I have several recipes. But I made the mistake of thinking I'll do a little Googling to compare recipes this evening.

It's 2 hours later I'm still looking at pecan pie recipes. The thought of cane syrup, corn syrup, golden syrup, maple syrup, honey, or brown sugar is more than a little nauseating.

I've saved no less than 7 variations that all sound appealing - at least they did a little while ago. That's just the ones that differ from the recipes I already have. My Lord.

If I have great success with my pie on Thursday I'll post the winning recipe. I need to post my chili recipe from the other day, too. I need to remember that one, 'cause it was awesome.


P.S. Totally unrelated, but - sometimes I really wish I'd done more stupid and crazy things when I was still a minor. It's kind of awkward to be making up ground at 22. Better late than never, I suppose...

November 17, 2006

Daytrotter

How come nobody told me about Daytrotter?

Man oh man!

I especially recommend the Langhorne Slim set. Also the Maritime and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin sets.

Gore x2

OK, so when I asked if people thought Al Gore could win the presidency in 08, I got 2 solid NOs and a question. (everyone else: I see the hits for this site and I know more of you read and did not respond, boooo)

First, the question: do you think Gore could defeat Rudy?

My response: probably. I guess a better response would be why the devil would anyone want Rudy Giuliani to be President? I don't know much about him, to be honest. Who are his supporters?

As for the two NOs: thanks for y'all's thoughts. I was kind of surprised, which means it was good for me to hear your responses. I know a lot of culturally astute and intelligent people who don't really like Gore or don't think he could ever win, and it's good to remember that before I run off and jump on the idealist train full-speed ahead. But... why don't you like him? Who would you support, and who could actually win?

[Really, I see it as Gore, Shillary, or Obama. No one else has the, uh, personality. Or vision.)

Also I just read this piece in SFGate about the case for Al Gore and it got me all excited again. He has the historical precedent on his side, among other things.

And as much as it pains me to say this, you can win the presidency without tons of support from the rural conservative white vote, which is certainly where Gore would have a tough time overcoming his image. Take Tester, in Montana - Burns (R) took 44 counties, Tester (D) took 15. Most of those were the more densely populated (and liberal) parts of the state, and he got just enough of the rural places to squeak by. Totally doable. Ditto for McCaskill (D) in Missouri and Kulongoski (D-Gov) in Oregon.

Here's an interesting piece in New West on how Tester was able to make Montana blue not by winning the rural counties but by simply cutting his losses there, losing the overall vote but by slim enough margins that the endcount put him ahead: Rural Montana Voters Carried Jon Tester’s Victory

5 Minutes From my Office


Yeah, it's pretty sweet. Click the pic to see a few more that I took yesterday after work.

Rednecks

That's our Adam Putnam:

Examining the 2006 midterms, Putnam blamed the GOP defeat on “the independent vote, the women vote, the suburban vote.” He said that “heck, even the white rednecks who go to church on Sunday didn't come out to vote for us.”

Putnam is a Republican representative for Florida's 12th, which is just north of where I live. He used to represent my county in the Florida House. He's the second-youngest member of Congress.

But he's a loser. I mean, he even tried to get MANATEES exempted from a marine mammal protections program. Manatees, people.

(story here, via FPCBlog)

Morning LOLz: Wikijokes

The kinds of entry warnings that Wikipedia needs:

Found via Ellen.

November 16, 2006

Decemberists

OK, so I've got a hunch. I think that the odds of me genuinely liking and becoming friends with the kind of person who finds the Decemberists to be nauseating, pretentious, or otherwise terrible are very, very slim.

I mean, that kind of person writes things like this:

You get the sense he scans encyclopedias for his cautionary chides, casually selecting tales famous as the boogeyman in their native lilt and fashioning them into cuddly Wes Anderson pirouettes, an indefensible, objectifying condescension born of bravado and ignorance. Meloy is so embarrassed to be from Helena—and America generally—that he wraps himself in pasts and cultures he could never understand, in an effort to co-opt their dramatic import.

Did you see the slam the Village Voice gave their performance in NYC? The above quote is from it. Except, see, it wasn't a slam on the band or its music or its live show as much as a spiteful attempt at being cooler than Colin Meloy. Stereogum linked it and started a firestorm in the comments between the lovers and the haters. And the haters all sounded so shriveled and mean.

Ott's words to Meloy:

I don't care if you're Slowdive or Sigue Sigue Sputnik: you will regret every minute you didn't spend laughing. Lighten up.

How 'bout you try taking your own advice, hmm, Mr. Ott?

(read the whole mess here)

Getting back to the point with which I started - sure, their sound, aesthetic, and hammy stage antics aren't everyone's cup of tea, and Meloy's definitely got the Anglophile thing going on a little, and they're not my favorite band in the whole world, but I do really enjoy them. I guess I just can't understand where this kind of sentiment comes from: "but when you have a frontman so oppressively irritating as Meloy, so wince-inducingly ironi-precious and egotistical, without any hint of genuine self-effacing humour (such as Morrissey's), it is difficult to pay due attention to anything else."

This person probably also hates the environment and is a political nihilist.
And smokes like a chimney.

UPDATE: OK so it turns out that one of my very good friends can't stand the Decemberists - and she's still awesome. She is also not the kind of person who would use the word "ironi-precious". And B says that Chris Ott is indeed a blowhard, but one who cares deeply about music. Glad to hear it - but he could definitely stand to take his own advice to lighten up.

Free Trade

I've been reading along with some interesting economics discussions online. Most of it I don't really care to try to summarize because I would botch the specifics. I do, however, want to make note of this comment by a Tufts undergrad discussing his/her introductory microecon class:

He did have us chant "free trade is good for all people,"

Oh dear.

Today's Reads

On the Bloglines this morning, some of it old, some of it new, all of it interesting, you know me:

- Fox = still evil. Internal memo urges staffers to look for any statements from Iraqi insurgents who are "thrilled at the prospect of a Dem controlled Congress." (HuffPo)

- San Fran kicks JROTC out of its school system. Sorry, but I think that's pretty stupid. Of course there are problems with the military, and of course we should be teaching a "curriculum of peace," but why target JROTC? (SFGate)

- Wal-Mart's having difficulties with its organic stuff. Namely, they've been mislabeling things. Sheesh. (MoJo)

- I really liked this bit about Abe Lincoln and the tension between personal convictions and "Socratic doubt." Def. recommended. (Andrew Sullivan)

- This piece on designing good posters is pretty on the mark. They're mostly talking about academic posters, but the principles work across... genres? Also they link to this AWESOME Yale MFA exhibit. How come Yale is always so cool? (Design Observer)

- There's rumblings among Florida progressives: they're gettin' excited and gettin' organized! BOUT TIME. Count me in as a long-distance supporter, folks. (FLA Politics)

- And why does Florida need progressives? Well, believe it or not, there are more ACTIVE HATE GROUPS in Florida than in any other state in the country. Here's the Southern Poverty Law Center's map of them in the US and in FL. Many of them are concentrated, unsurprisingly, along the I-4 corridor near Orlando. Told you that place was evil. I should note that many of the hate groups in Florida are chapters of League of the South - whose goal is, yes, an independent Southern nation. (FPCC)

Food Evangelist

Not too crazy about the term food evangelist. But, uh, if you ever wanna know about the food shed, hit me up.

For food evangelists — consumers who might shop at a co-op or who can explain terms like eco-gastronomy, food miles and the food shed — a local label is sometimes more important than an organic one. That group, which market researchers say make up about 10 to 15 percent of food shoppers, are most likely to spend time in the store pondering whether an organic pepper from Chile is better than one grown in a nonorganic field less than 250 miles away.

(from here)

Chili

I'm making pumpkin chili in the slow-cooker today for dinner. It means that at 7 am I smelled like onions and garlic and pumpkin. But I'm ok with that, because when I get home, my chili will be ready!

If it tuns out tasty I'll post the recipe.

November 15, 2006

He Sounds So Put-Together

So I haven't read Special Topics in Calamity Physics. But man, Gawker gets it right in making fun of Marisha Pessl's music taste.

From her bit with the Onion A. V. Club's Random Rules:
Atlantic Starr, "Always"
U2, "One"
Nick Drake, "Northern Sky"
Tom Petty, "Learning To Fly"
Kings Of Convenience, "Toxic Girl"
Bloc Party, "Blue Light (Engineers' Anti-Gravity Mix)"
Linkin Park, "Numb/Encore"
Louis XIV, "Finding Out True Love Is Blind"
Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Free Bird"

Some of those songs are pretty good, for sure. And everybody is allowed to have some Skynyrd. And I may or may not have a few Linkin Parks songs still in my iTunes from high school. But... still. It's really uninspiring.

And really, it's her comments about the songs that are the worst. This is the part that Gawker pointed out, on Nick Drake:

MP: I never knew who Nick Drake was until the Garden State soundtrack, and then I got his greatest hits, and I really like it. It's really restful and thoughtful, something so pure about his sound. It's good for when you're walking around New York listening to your iPod--nice to listen to instead of all the craziness happening around you. I don't know anything about him, though.

The A.V. Club: He was a reclusive, depressive guy who died very young from a drug overdose.

MP: Really? You're kidding. He sounds so put-together.

Oh dear.

But really it's ok, because while Jenny Lewis had some better tunes come up on her list, she also sounded kinda silly in talking about them. And Matt Friedberger totally had that "She put the lime in the coconut" song come up on his shuffle.

Red Meat = Breast Cancer?

Via Pandagon, there's a new study out linking breast cancer to red meat consumption.

The study of more than 90,000 women found that the more red meat the women consumed in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the greater their risk for developing breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat had nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.

The researchers note that the cause of this link is unknown - but that one possibility is the growth hormones that are pumped into industrially-raised cattle. I'd agree that it's highly likely.

Either way, for those of you ladies who do eat red meat - maybe keep it to a minimum? The women at the highest risk (double the risk for cancer) had 1 1/2 servings a day of beef, pork, or lamb - but women who ate 3 servings or fewer a week had no increased risk.

November 14, 2006

Gore

A couple of liberal blogs have been talking about the possibility of Al Gore running in 2008. I would drop anything and everything in 2008 to work full-time on that campaign.

Quick straw poll, y'all, please drop a note in the comments -

1) Should he run?
2) Could he win?

The Weekender

On Saturday I made the grave mistake of thinking I'd do a little shopping before meeting up with Z for dinner.

First I stopped at TJ Maxx. After circling the parking lot several times, looking for an empty parking spot, I ended up parking a foreverlong walk away at the end of the strip mall. Naively, I thought, Surely all of these people aren't in TJ Maxx right now!

Then I walked inside. And they were all in there. People everywhere, pawing everything. Screaming babies, women with overloaded carts, terror-stricken men, bad haircuts and dye jobs and even worse winter jackets. My eye started twitching, so I cut short my ambitious browsing goals and made my way over to the kitchen section for the one item I actually needed - some airtight plastic storage tubs for my flours (white, wheat, whole wheat pastry, bread, plus oat bran, wheat germ, and corn meal, and I still need to get cake flour). I found a few, snatched them up, paid, and scuttled out with a sigh of relief.

You'd think I'd have learned my lesson at this point. But no. I decided to go to the M A L L. The mall is appoximately 1 mile from TJ Maxx and it took me 20 minutes to get there. I pulled in. There were no parking spots. Anywhere. Even next to the crappy stores. Cars circled slowly, like buzzards above a sick animal, just waiting for some sad soul to vacate his or her spot. I stuck a mental middle finger up at the teeming Idahoan masses and left.

I was running a little late at this point, but I wasn't worried. Z and I have yet to do anything anywhere close to the time we say we will. True to form, when I arrived he was just setting out to take a jog with Cali, the dog. I contented myself with talking to M, his housemate, and toying around with M's fabulous Nikon digital SLR. Then Z came back and showered and we sat around in the living room for a while, shooting the proverbial shit with M. 2 hours after arriving at Z's place we left for the grocery store, speedily bought dinner goods, and headed to the house where he was house-and-pet sitting, home of a three-legged husky and 2 lovey-dovey cats.

The plan was to make shish kebobs (kabobs?) with peppers and onions and squash and tomatoes and chorizo plus mashed potatoes and salad. I set Z to work chopping veg and started working on the potatoes. Once I wrested him away from his beloved teriyaki sauce (seriously, I'm going to have to hide that stuff) we settled on olive oil, lemon juice, and a liberal application of chili powder and cilantro. Soon, M arrived, we tossed everything on the grill, and commenced sampling beer.

The selections:

My (rather unsophisticated) thoughts:
Grotten - serviceable but unremarkable brown Belgian-style ale.
Ommegang - excellent! nice fruity finish, super smooth. Belgian.
Imperial Extra Double Stout - tasted like tar and licorice. blackest liquid since crude oil. an acquired taste, perhaps?

Dinner was excellent, as was the conversation. M is one of those people who's blessed with a phenomenal storytelling ability - and the life experiences to match. I don't know exactly what he does for a living but it involves filming sporting events like international rodeo championships. Turns out there's some crazy stuff that goes down on the international rodeo circuit.

Next morning we made pancakes and eggs and puttered about and I got to hear some cool sounds on the horn and then I had to leave to drive to Bend. Which I'll write about soon.

Ew.

I don't know who Google ads thinks I am, but come on. This one appeared atop my inbox this morning. Surely they jest.

"Get your copy of a stunning poster of witty author Ann Coulter!"

November 13, 2006

Pegged

From this weekend, while hanging out and cooking with Z and his housemate M at a house-sitting job:

S: Oh, look, they have some Greg Brown CDs! I love that guy. They say he's kind of a womanizer, but come on, look at that - he doesn't look like a womanizer!

(I show M the CD case, below)

M: Uh-huh. You've dated some jerks.




(Fun Trivia for Old Friends: Guess with whom I have a picture in which he's wearing a black wifebeater?)

Oh Come On.

Sometimes I forget that people like this exist, and my life is the better for it. Then I read articles about these kinds of people, the ones who have brilliant delicate flowers for children who are too good for the best public schools in the country and instead must be transferred immediately to private schools. This kind of thing makes me irrationally angry - not because there aren't problems with public schools, there are, but just the way these people ooze entitlement and a short-sighted approach to education (and the way I met their kids in college and found most of them almost entirely intolerable):

Other parents found the teaching in their public schools unimaginative. Susan Drews, 49, who lives in Yorktown Heights, in Westchester, said that art in the first grade at her son’s public school, for instance, involved “half-baked projects” like gold-sprayed macaroni glued to paper plates. “People went through the motions, they could claim there was an art program, but I didn’t feel it was very rich,” she said.

I glued a lot of fucking macaroni to a lot of fucking paper objects as a kid and I'd like to think I came out with my creativity still intact, bitch.

Chicken!

This is Chicken, the cuddliest obese cat around. We couldn't decide if it was a boy or a girl but either way it was an awesome cat. I'll post about my weekend this evening - including more pictures. Today I'm in Bend for a job training and boy you wouldn't believe the snow that came down while I was driving over! Somebody needs to get herself some better tires. Pronto.

November 11, 2006

In Case

In case you sent me an email or made a comment on here and I haven't replied - I will soon. Kinda in one of those not-really-able-to-reply-to-stuff modes this weekend.

November 10, 2006

Where my French at?

So I was using bumbling through the French version of the iTunes music store tonight, the better to browse Yann Tiersen's catalog (unavailable on the English iTunes store - what gives?) and it asked for my iTunes password (in French). I entered it. I got an error message. In French.

Now I am navigating the Apple retrieve-your-password jungle (humorously, the address is iforgot.apple.com). In French.

My only real thoughts on this matter are these:

1) How come the 10 minutes of my life during which I need someone to read French happen to be when there's nobody around to read it? I mean, for serious, my last 3 boyfriends (and Z) all speak French and the only time I ever got to take advantage of this was when I was actually IN France with one of them.

2) It's amazing what you can infer just from visual clues even if you can't read the words - I've been through enough password retrieval forms that it wasn't too hard to figure out when they were asking for my secret identity question.

3) Does this mean that Apple's gonna think I'm French now? I just got a confirmation email... in French.

p.s. You know that Yann Tiersen did more than the Amelie soundtrack, right? Dude plays the accordion like none other. He's so cool. Ask me about seeing him live in Dublin sometime. One of my top 10 concerts for sure.

November 9, 2006

Mixing

I've been on a mix-making binge tonight: had a bit of a backlog of mixes owed, so I'm getting 'em done and mailed out tomorrow (well, hopefully tomorrow).

If I get to feeling ambitious, I'll post the playlists sometime soon, though not 'til the folks who are receiving them get them. Otherwise it'd spoil the surprise.

However, I will note:

- Going from Neko Case's Star Witness to George Strait's Amarillo by Morning makes for a stellar transition. Just sayin'.

- You can never, ever use Robert Pollard's People Are Leaving anywhere but the last track. Also, this song should be used sparingly in general.

- Every mix oughta have a little banjo.

Grr

So I'm reading this Times piece about New York Congress folk and it's a little annoying. New "locus of power," talking about all the money they're going to bring in, etc. And then this:

“Mississippi gets more than their fair share back in federal money, but who the hell wants to live in Mississippi?” Mr. Rangel said.

WTF, man. Don't you be dissing the South like that.

If you must read the article, which is lame, it's here.

Keillor

GARRISON KEILLOR IS COMING TO BOISE! To benefit the Boise State NPR station!

I am SO there!

You know, I was a little late to jump on the Prairie Home Companion <3 <3 <3 Keillor train. But then I drove across the country with my mom and we listened to the entirety of Lake Wobegon Days through America's late-summer heartland. And then I understood.

Good People

Funny how sometimes when you meet someone you just know she's a kindred spirit. I spent this morning at a pandemic flu workshop (more interesting than you'd think!), talking with some firefighters about tanning hides and hog hunting and fishing and the like. Then I drove way out down to Adrian, which is a little blip of a town down south of Nyssa, to meet the coordinator of one of the local watershed councils. We met at The Mirage, which is Adrian's restaurant/bar/water cooler. The kind of place so local that the waitress didn't even write us a check - we just went up to the register on the way out and told them what we'd gotten.

But anyway. Had a great conversation with this lady about the watershed council and life in rural Oregon and, oddly enough, Dartmouth, as she had a friend who went there years ago (she's married, probably late 20's in age). I couldn't really tell you the details but it was just really nice to talk to someone with whom I felt I could communicate easily and honestly. I love most of the folks I've met out here, but for the most part I'm putting on my Southern charm and wearing my lacers and dredging up various humorous redneck stories to, uh, keep it real out here.


(My lacers are kinda less fancy than these. But I looooove em.)

Same goes for Z. Talking to him after a day in the office makes me realize just what I miss out here in Ontario. More on this later, but hey - it's 5 o'clock and we don't stay late 'round here!

FL-13

Ah, Florida. Your voting problems never cease. This from my home district, home of one of the most expensive House races ever:

Democrat Christine Jennings lost to Republican Vern Buchanan by 368 votes, making it the second closest congressional race in the country.

More than 18,000 voters who showed up at the polls voted in other races but not the Buchanan-Jennings race.

That means nearly 13 percent of voters did not vote for either candidate -- a massive undercount compared with other counties, including Manatee, which reported a 2 percent undervote.

If the missing votes had broken for Jennings by the same percentage as the counted votes in Sarasota County, the Democrat would have won the race by about 600 votes instead of losing by 368, according to a Herald-Tribune review. Even if the undervote had been 8 percent -- more than three times what it was in Manatee -- Jennings would have won by one vote.

While some have speculated that people simply chose not to vote in the District 13 race, many voters say the unusual undervote was caused by badly designed touch-screen ballots, which they say hid the race or made it hard to verify if they had cast their vote.

Hey, at least DeSoto did it right - they only had a 1% undervote.

November 8, 2006

Cellular

Y'all, I just spent almost 4 hours of my evening on the phone.

It was with 3 different people, but still. Since when did I get so into teh cell phone? Sigh. I miss Blitz.

Today's Faves

Things I read and liked today: -

EXCELLENT political history and analysis from the American Prospect (from October, but it's perfect reading for today, seriously, check it out):

Indeed, liberals might assess future democratic rule of Congress not with a commitment to specific, abstract principles of process and democratic theory, but rather with an eye toward policy outcomes. From this perspective, a truth emerges: The changes Republicans have wrought in power are, in the long run, better suited to liberals, because the ideology of activist government stands more to gain than conservatism from institutions that allow for easier passage of new laws.

Garrison Keillor on Salon:

I've run into a lot of people over the past two years who said, "I just don't understand why people can't see through Bush," and they were right, they couldn't. They lived in Republican-free neighborhoods and read the New York Times and listened to NPR and so the political feelings of half the country were a mystery to them. To be successful in politics, you have to cross over the river and see where the other half lives. In the races that I know anything about -- in Minnesota -- Democrats managed to cross that line and talk to Republicans and came back winners. A hard-charging Army National Guard sergeant named Tim Walz stumped everywhere in the 1st District, where two years ago Democrats offered up a symbolic candidate, and beat a six-term Republican. The star of the evening was Amy Klobuchar, blowing a White House-picked Republican out of the water by 20-some points. She is 46, feisty, a county prosecutor, a tireless campaigner of the old school who showed up everywhere, didn't camp out in the latte precincts of the Twin Cities, fought on all fronts, and struck an aggressive tone with hints of populism that rang true this year.

Culturekitchen channels some FDR. Word:

Some real progressive grassroots activists helped some moderate Democrats win, and now that we have won, the progressives and moderates have to maintain respect for eachother. Both sides have to remember this: we could not have won without this progressive/moderate alliance. United in respect, we can find the common ground we need to to win big. Divided over the few issues where we differ, or divided through lack of mutual respect, and we lose. Let's remember this lesson. Republicans work by conformity and dictating from above. Democrats work by respecting diversity and listening to eachother. So let's DO IT folks. As I keep quoting these days, remember what FDR said:

"Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country."

AND MY FAVORITE:

Grist's eulogy for Rep. Pombo, the Anti-Environmentalist:

Who could forget your Ahabian quest to gut the Endangered Species Act? You were like the bad guy from a cheap horror movie, springing to life again and again. Points for persistence!

Then there was the time you put out a report saying mercury's not really so bad for you after all. Again, batshit insane completely hilarious. You cracked us up, Dick.

<3 The Times

The Times is full of good things this morning, and not all of them are political. If you're as addicted as I am, you might've already seen these, but if not:

1) Bread! A whole feature on the virtues of no-knead breadmaking. I'm definitely down with the no-knead camp.

2) Fascinating: what happens to your brain when you speak in tongues. It correlates rather eerily with what people like my grandma say about it.

2) On relationships, marriage, and modern social life:

As Americans lose the wider face-to-face ties that build social trust, they become more dependent on romantic relationships for intimacy and deep communication, and more vulnerable to isolation if a relationship breaks down. In some cases we even cause the breakdown by loading the relationship with too many expectations. Marriage is generally based on more equality and deeper friendship than in the past, but even so, it is hard for it to compensate for the way that work has devoured time once spent cultivating friendships.

I couldn't agree more with this. The whole piece is really interesting and, I think, a damning indictment of this idea that a marriage has to be the social and emotional centerpiece of one's life. But it's easy to understand why people place so much emphasis on marriage: we just don't have the kinds of close social networks that people used to have. Even when we do have great social networks, it's all too easy to slip into major dependence on your significant other, especially when everything else in life might seem uncertain. I know. And if you don't have a significant other, well, that pasture sure looks all the greener for it.

Every single friend of mine who's recently graduated from college tells me the same thing - it's really hard to meet people. Especially the kind of people with whom you want to develop close friendships. We are all quietly struggling with this in our respective locales - Oregon, New York, New Hampshire, Georgia, Texas, California - and the folks who feel the most comfortable in a new place are, predictably, the ones in a relationship. I mean, look at me: what happened with the first nice guy I met in Boise? We certainly aren't just friends anymore, and I'm loving having someone to go do stuff and meet people with. But the problem with this, and again I make a good example, is that one close relationship can't replace a deep network of friends and peers whom you respect. And should things go sour with Z, I lose that connection, in addition to his friends, who I also like. That would put me back at square one.

But how the devil do you build a social network from scratch? I know the answers: putting yourself out there and talking to co-workers, seeking out volunteer or activist organizations, simply initiating conversation when you find the opportunity, going to bars, etc. But that takes time - and a whole lot of social moxie that's doubly daunting if you're at all introverted or less-than-socially-adept.

I'm getting off topic. As for marriage - the writer has some excellent advice:

Paradoxically, we can strengthen our marriages the most by not expecting them to be our sole refuge from the pressures of the modern work force. Instead we need to restructure both work and social life so we can reach out and build ties with others, including people who are single or divorced.

True that. When/If I ever marry, I want it to be on those terms.

Rumsfeld Quits

Holy cow. Rumsfeld is quitting.

Also, it's almost certain that VA and MT are going to go to the Dems.

If I'm dreaming, don't wake me up.

Waking Up to Good News

Ahh, victory. Woke up this morning to loads of good news. Dems got the House and quite possibly the Senate!

And they're doing a recount in FL-13, my district, because the margin was under 400 votes. Jennings is down now, but hey, I'll keep my fingers crossed. Even my dad, who usually doesn't get into political campaigns, put a sign out in our yard for her.

And Kulongoski (D, Gov) held Oregon! Handily! Whew! Go I-5 corridor! Go more-densely-populated liberal hippie Willamette Valley! My coworkers hate you all today, but I do not!

Worst news (for me): Crist taking Florida's governorship. My lord do I dislike that man.
Second-worst news: Otter and Sali won in ID (Gov and ID-1). Sali is a huge moron, but unfortunately, it seems that most of Western Idaho doesn't think so.

Unsurprising: Walden (R) took OR-2, the Big East, easily.

p.s. South Dakota, you rule.

November 7, 2006

Florida Sucks

Good news on the national scene, but Florida... well, Jim Davis is out, here comes 4 years of the got damn Super Tan Man. And it looks like Christine Jennings is out in my district, too. WTF? She was even way up in the polls. Damn.

Glued

So maybe I do kinda wish I had a TV right now. Watching elections results on your laptop is a little anticlimactic. Maybe it's time for some tunes or something.

The Slip

I'm a child of December. Heck, so are many of my friends.

So when My Old Kentucky Blog wrote about a band that's opening for My Morning Jacket (one of my favorite bands in the world) that has a song called Children of December, I had to check it out.

...And I loved it!

Apparently they're Bostonians, been around for over a decade, have a rep for a jam band rocked-out vibe live, and are friends with Jim James. And they make catchy, harmonic, rambly, sweet music.

So do yourself a big favor and go check out The Slip on MOKB.

UPDATE: OK. A little digging around on the internets has made it clear that these guys have a definite jam band-style following. Trading live bootlegs, dorky nicknames for followers, etc. It's cool. I already admitted that I like them, so I can't take it back now. Also, I have totally been hanging out with a certain person who may or may not have a history of being real into the jam band scene.

By the Way,

If election day goes well and you are one of my more liberal friends, don't be surprised if I call you up to be all, YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH! SWEEEEEEEEEEEET! I may or may not have a large bottle of beer on reserve for this evening.

Right now, just antsy for the results. Trying to get work done so that the time moves faster.

V O T E

Today's the day, y'all. You've probably been told to vote 2390274 times already this week. But I'll say it again - VOTE! Even if you're busy, even if you think it doesn't matter.

This counts double for Floridians - Jim Davis needs every vote he can get. I mailed in my ballot absentee last week. The stakes in this election are huge - there's the issues, from growth in DeSoto County to hurricane insurance in Florida to energy independence and Iraq across the country, and then there's the politics. If the Dems win today, it's a wedge against Bush & Co.'s policies and a way to wrest back some power. But I didn't need to tell you this, you already knew it. So what are you waiting for? Go vote!

November 6, 2006

Teh Weekend

There was a lot of awesome this weekend. The awesomest of the awesome, though?

Breakfast at Goldy's.

On Sunday morning I dragged Z out of bed (this took a while) and we went to breakfast. I'd been jonesin' for some breakfast food for weeks. We got there and there was an hour's wait, so we walked down to the Boise Co-op and browsed their vast bulk tea section and I bought one of these (v. exciting!)

I am going to bake it with honey and butter.

But I digress. Eventually it was time for breakfast. Oh, what a breakfast it was! Goldy's calls itself a breakfast bistro - they're only open through lunchtime, and 90% of the menu is breakfast items. Bon Appetit calls Goldy's one of its 10 favorite breakfast joints in America (by the way, I think I'm going to archive that list for future traveling purposes).

We walked in and had hot coffee within seconds - really good coffee. After an arduous decisionmaking process, we ordered and sat back to smell the coffee and baking things and listen to the bustle of a Sunday morning Boisean crowd. And then came the food.

Mine:
Scrambled eggs with cheddar and broccoli
House-made sage sausage
Sweet potato hash browns
A blueberry scone
Endlessly refilled smooooth coffee

His
Blueberry pancakes
One egg over easy
Smoked salmon and caper hash
(with house-made hollandaise)
Ditto on the coffee

I'm not really patient enough to describe my meal in excruciating detail, food pr0n style, but I'll say this:

Perfectly scrambled eggs are hard to do and these were perfect.
Sweet potato hash browns = tha bomb.
Scone: good, but not good enough. alas.
Pancakes to rival Eaton's (though not Wasp's, of course)
SMOKED SALMON AND CAPER HASH OH MY LORD. I am going to learn how to make it. Pronto.

Combine that with reasonable (though not dirt-cheap) prices, friendly service, and portions large enough to eliminate the need for another meal until 7 pm, and you get a new addition to Sarah's Top 5 Breakfast Places. I'd say the above was on my Top 10 Breakfasts Ever Eaten, too.

After breakfast we went shoe shopping and gear ogling. Dude, since when does a nice sleeping pad gotta cost me $79? Well, let me state that more precisely. Since when do I need the top-of-the-line women's 4-season Thermarest that will cost me $79? Somehow all the cheap ones just don't look as, well, cool. (didn't buy it, though)

But - I'm at the end of Sunday here and I never got to the beginning on Friday. Starting from there -

I took off early from work on Friday so that we could get an earlier start out into the woods. We headed out at dark, with a tasty stop at Flying Pie on the way. The 4-lane turned into a 2-lane turned into a 1-lane dirt road and I pulled out our list of scrawled directions to potentially sweet hot springs: Fire Crew, Boiling Springs, Moondipper, Pine Burl.

It was a drizzly night with a low-hanging sky and shrouds of fog on the hillsides. There were no other cars, there were no other people: just everywhere shades of night blue and the wet sheen of rain. We stepped out of the car to check out a trailhead by the river and I remember looking around and thinking, Am I really standing here?

We didn't have much luck with the springs, though - Fire Crew was inundated with cold water, Boiling Springs was only lukewarm, and the other two were a 2-mile hike in, which seemed like a bad idea at 9 pm.

So we made camp and decided to try again in the morning. Not gonna lie, setting up a tent in steady, cold, drizzling rain was not so fun. But curling up dry and warm inside sure was. Morning broke still and close. We broke camp, ate our leftover pizza, and set off for the springs.

(side note: Z's tent is a Walrus - the Armadillo model - and it has a big armadillo graphic on the side. At some point just past dawn, I woke to hear a group of hunters on horseback clomping by: "Hey look, I ain't never seen no armadillo in Idaho before!")

After a fast and glorious little hike along the Payette River, we found our landmark - Dash Creek, narrow and rocky, as swift as its name suggested. 50 yards upstream was Moondipper, lovely but not quite hot enough. We found Pine Burl another 50 yards upstream, and it was just about perfect. I'll describe it for you here, and you'll think I'm being cheesy, but it really was like this: a rock-lined pool tucked deep between boulders; a swift, clear stream; moss and lush, low-hanging plants lining the steep cleft through which the stream runs; big, ancient smooth logs on which to rest when you need a break; water that's just hot enough to push your limits but still feel really great.

And, to top it off, there's a campsite at the top of the rise that looks down on the springs to the north and over the Payette River and the foothills to the south. Yeah. I think I'll be visiting this place again.

So we soaked for a couple hours and then we hiked back and drove home and puttered and ate and did laundry and Z went to orchestra and I puttered some more and then we watched part of this (effin' STRANGE movie, y'all) but started to fall asleep and called it a night.

And then there was Goldy's. And that was my weekend.

On a Wet Day for Hiking

Cali gives her best "PLEASE LET'S GO HIKING NOW" look. It kinda resembles her PLEASE FEED ME or PLEASE THROW THAT STICK FOR ME looks.

Since I haven't had time to write an update post-weekend, here's a link to a few photos instead. I'll get to writing soon enough, really...

Morning Afternoon LOLz: Excusing Rush

This chuckler was in last week's local paper (emphasis mine):

But a few years ago a curious scandal emerged. Rush [Limbaugh], it was muttered darkly, was an addict turned onto jolly-drugs - the implication being he was a hypocrite using prescription medications for recreational purposes. It was further accused he'd gone “doctor-shopping” for medicos to provide him with such closely-controlled substances. Allow me to educate you, friends.

Rush explained at the time he was suffering from severe back pain. For anyone who has never experienced this, when your back hurts you hurt all over. I've been there myself, although luckily not very long at a time. I can't say how many of you may have experienced serious chronic pain, but I can speak from recent experience.

He then goes on to detail how badly HIS back has been hurting lately, which clearly excuses Limbaugh of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

I'm not wealthy like Rush and I can't buy doctors to prescribe pain-killing drugs, but believe me I would do it if I could. It wouldn't be for fun or “recreational purposes” either ... it'd just be to get by from one day to the next.

Ah, rural newspaper columnists.

4th of July

So I was cleaning out my overflowing drafts folder in Gmail today and found this funny bit I wrote about 4th of July in Arcadia. I have no idea to whom I intended to send this, so I guess you all get to read it. You can tell I was getting a little twitchy from all the fireworks fumes...

----

See, around here, people start celebrating as soon as the tents go up - the big white fireworks tents in the Winn-Dixie and Sav-a-Lot parking lots. Everybody and their brother and their half-cousin buys fireworks, lots of them, and they start setting them off before it's even July. Every night from around June 25 through the 3rd is peppered with occasional blasts from bottle rockets, firecrackers, shells, wolf packs, and god knows what else those people have purchased and lit on fire in their driveways.

The 4th, though - that's where it's really at. I started my day at the rodeo grounds. I biked up early in the morning to see if there were any cool photographs to be had, but alas, the photogenic elements of the rodeo (cowboys, bulls, horses) had yet to arrive. So instead I went to the rodeo parade. As someone who grew up watching parades through downtown, stationed in front of my dad's office, crouched on the curb ready to leap ferociously at any and all candies tossed from the floats, it's a little strange to attend one again at this age. It's local election time, so everyone was out: the mayor, school board candidates, and the big daddies - the county commissioners. Each float was a competition to see who could marshall the most small adorable children to sit and wave American flags for their candidate. The folks not up for re-election instead rode in 'gators (all-purpose ranch vehicles). Since it's the rodeo parade, it actually starts off with a mock shootout, complete with cowboys and floozies. Once the parade kicks off, floats are alternated with horseback riders, some of whom decorate their mounts with ribbons, glitter, and, of course, camoflauge hats.

Then I did some uninteresting things, like falling asleep while reading my book (Jared Diamond, Collapse, it's very good but depressing as hell) and swimming for a while and rotating in the sun, rotisserie style, for a little while in a lounge chair.

After dinner we went out to watch the fireworks. Now, there were PLENTY of fireworks to be seen from my own home. Once night falls on July 4, all bets are off for peace and quiet in the evening - it is a constant continuous non-stop cacophony of bangs, hisses, sparkles, whistles, and general LOUD NOISE CONTINUOUSLY FOR HOURS. I'm not exaggerating. This goes on, non-stop, for HOURS. Behind me RIGHT NOW are incessant booms and bangs from fireworks around town.

But anyway, we wanted to see the big town show, so off we went to the high school. They shoot 'em off in a big cow pasture by the school, so the whole town congregates here. There are far more people interested in seeing the show than there are parking spots, so we ended up 1/4 mile to the north at the community college. Turns out every road in all four directions was lined with vehicles. The vast majority of people around here, at least those who seem to come out for fireworks, drive trucks, so people got themselves SET UP with chairs and blankets and radios blaring in the beds of their trucks. I wanted a truck really bad at this point. Some people actually brought trailers so that they could fit all their kin on there, and one (large) family had a trailer and 3 picnic tables full right next to it. You would not believe how many people they fit into these cars. It's real popular to sit on top of your car if you have an SUV, the better to see, I guess. People fit like 6 or 8 bodies on the hoods and roofs of their cars, all clutching their disturbingly ubiquitous styrofoam tubs of sweet tea from the Amoco station.

SO the fireworks happened, yay, that was nice. At first we could not tell where they were happening because ALL THE YOKELS WERE SHOOTING THEIRS OFF TOO. Way to make the fun last, y'all. About this time a haze began to develop across the fields and road from all the firework smoke, and you could smell that familiar acrid scent from all directions. This is when the sirens started in, too. Literally about every five minutes we'd hear another ambulance, presumably to rush little Junior to the hospital, minus whatever appendage he lost when he lit that roman candle too clumsily. The cows started in too - they don't like the noise, obviously, so they just make some of their own - a disgruntled lowing in the distance.

I don't know what kinds of safety measures are typical in most towns, but here, well, things are pretty slack. They set 'em off in a field, like I said, and you can get within about 100 yards of the shooting area - there are loads and LOADS of people always packed right up to the fence, breathing buckets of fireworks smoke and whoopin' and hollerin' with every blast. Man oh man.

Well, that was my night. I ended it with some blueberry pie out sitting on the porch, listening to the WARZONE AROUND MY NEIGHBORHOOD and laughing at the snippets of neighborhood conversation I heard, mostly variations on a theme of: "Jarred! Get away from that thing!" "Yeeeeee Haaaaw!" and "Look out!"

November 5, 2006

Montrails

I got some new hiking shoes. They are fabulous. They look like this:

Full post-weekend update soon!

November 4, 2006

This Came Up on the 10th Position 2 Nights Ago

Hmm.

Tonight

Marc sent this video to me a couple of days ago and I love it:

(Janet Weiss and Eddie Vedder @ S-K's last show. M that is so cool that you were there!)

Hello from Z's place! He's at orchestra, I'm doing laundry and some thinking, and we found the best hot springs yet this weekend. Full update tomorrow.

November 3, 2006

YEAHHHH

OK, I just changed my vacation plans. I'ma be home in January to see Van my man! And the New Years tradition can continue with Liz! (though who knows what form it will take this year, given that so many people are gone from last year's croo...)

Off to Boise now for a weekend in the woods - and maybe some apple pie-baking too. Mmm, autumn.

Miss Arcadia

So back in my day, there were basically two beauty pageants in DeSoto County - Miss DeSoto and the Watermelon Queen. Lately there have been a few more contenders for most-absurd-display-of-pageantry in the county. One of the more rondonkulous events is happening this weekend. Had to share.

There are 256 contestants in the new Miss Arcadia pageant. 256. Why so many? Well, take a look at these categories:

Baby Miss and Mr. Arcadia: birth to 11 months
Toddler Miss and Mr.: 1-2 years
Teensy Miss and Mr.: 3-4 years
Tiny Miss and Mr.: 5-6 years
Mini Miss: 7-8 years
Little Miss: 9-10
Petite Miss: 11-12
Jr. Miss: 13-14 years
Miss Arcadia Queen: 15-18
(this, of course, will be the finale - the high-school girls)
Ms. Arcadia: 18-21, 22-48
Senior Ms. Arcadia: 49 and up.

That's right. Every age from birth 'til death has a category. You could be a beauty queen for LIFE!

(The press release is also a hoot.)

Hot Springs

This piece about hot springs, written in reference to Montana, is pretty accurate about Idaho too.

J.J. is the closest natural hot springs to Missoula when heading west from Lolo on Highway 12, and also the most accessible of the nearby soaking spots (hence the random assortment of naked people). After a mellow walk through a mile of lush cedar and fir trees, my roomies and I came upon the first pool at the bottom of a waterfall. The hottest and most exotic pool, it was of course filled with folks. We moved past the crowded next level, too, which features a large hot pool and then several “cop-a-squat” puddles.

This left us with the cooler pool with the coolest view. Though the scenery and sun were nice trade-offs for the luke-warm water, we actually chose this pool because the couple lounging in it seemed the least threatening of the other options down below: two large hairy hunters or the three patchouli-wafting hippies. This Helena couple exuded PLU vibes (people like us).

I Know I'm Not Alone; Also, Why Boise Rocks

Has anyone seen this Michael Franti flick?

It's called I Know I'm Not Alone.

Michael Franti always makes me happy and hopeful and full of love, so I kinda wanna see it. It's playing in Boise on Sunday at The Flicks.

Also - so this morning I wrote The Flicks, which is one of Boise's independent theatres (maybe the only one? not sure) asking to get on their mailing list and whether they might be showing Old Joy anytime soon. Not an hour later, I get a reply - from the owner - who says she's watching the screener tonight and that it looks fantastic, so maybe they will get it!

Dictionary

Words added to my Thunderbird dictionary this morning:

thrifting
TJ Maxx
hellz

November 2, 2006

What Can You Fit on Two Wheels?

This is mostly for T:

From this collection of crazy photos.

Ryan & Willie

I like Willie Nelson.
I like Ryan Adams.

Ryan producing a Willie album? Sounds pretty sweet to me.

I'll agree with the Aquarium Drunkard - you can tell within the first few seconds that this has Ryan Adams written all over it.. it's just got that vibe. But with Willie's vocals and mood. I think I like it.

Check out more discussion and grab a sample track from Aquarium Drunkard.

:(

This pretty much ruins my day:

Van Morrison is playing in Florida on January 2. Just 3 days after I fly back out West. He has not played in Florida since I was 12 years old and went to see him with my dad and aunt. WHY OH WHY OH WHY.

He is also playing in Vegas the day after I fly back out. I arrive in Boise at 10 pm on the 29th. He plays the night of the 30th. It is an 11-hour drive from Ontario to Vegas. This is clearly feasible.

SIGH.

UPDATE: I am considering changing my plane tickets. It would mean taking an extra week off of work, but - like I said earlier, I have 34 days I can take off! Why not? Then I could be home for New Years (which would also be sweet since Liz and I have been doing New Years for YEARS)! And go see Van my man! And maybe go to the 'Glades with Meg!

Blah.

Thank goodness for Seal. I did not have the energy today to mock the D's op-ed page, but he did.

I'm zapped today because I just sat through a 3-hour meeting so excruciatingly inefficient and dull that it took all I had to stay awake and blinking in my seat. Oh my Lord, the bureaucracy.

November 1, 2006

Late-Night Rotation

Songs I have banned from my late-night playlists, sorry, now's not a good time:

Iron & Wine - Peng!
Elliott Smith - Some Song
Simon & Garfunkel - Kathy's Song

Some good songs from tonight's playlist:

Chris Thile - Set Me Up With One of Your Friends
Alela Diane - The Rifle
Ghosty - Rooms in the Dark
Gillian Welch - Black Star (Radiohead)
Yayahoni - True Love is Not Nice
Matt Bauer - Sea Lion Woman
Nico - These Days

AAHHHHHH

Man, I'm an idiot. So I was just puttering in my kitchen and a few minutes ago I got a knock at my door. A baseball-capped, bearded fellow stood there. It took me a second, and then I placed him - he was one of the guys who'd helped fix my window earlier this week.

He said, without preamble, Hi, I was wonderin' if you'd like t' go to th' Mexican restaurant sometime?

The first thing that came to my mind to say was, Oh, I'm sorry, but I've got a boyfriend, and I don't know what he'd think about that.

He said something along the lines of, Oh, that's ok, and turned to walk away, when I leaned out the door and smiled and stuck my hand out - I'm Sarah, by the way.

I'm Charlie, he said. I'm their oldest son.

Their. Their. Their. The neighbors. My landlady and her family. The landlady's son!!!! My brain started misfiring. Did I really just turn down the landlady's son?

Before he left he told me if I ever needed anything to come see him, he lives downstairs in my building. I put on my best gracious face and told him I would, and that I sure appreciate your stoppin' by.

Now.

1. I don't technically have a boyfriend. (yet?)
2. I could have at least gone to dinner as friends.
3. I do need to meet people in Ontario.
4. Dude is my landlady's son.

Then again,

1. Even impeccable manners to not require one to consent to a date with a stranger who knocks on one's door and invites one out without even an introduction.
2. Just because one is for serious NOT USED TO BEING IN DEMAND BY THE BOYS does not mean one needs to say yes to just anyone.
3. I have a sneaking feeling he's not my type.

And, really,

1. After the dudes fixed my window earlier this week, I came downstairs to get some junk outta my car, and he was outside the landlady's house, and offered to give me a hand. I said that I was fine, my box wasn't heavy, and he said, you sure? Perhaps I should have known this might be coming.

Morning Evening News

Most of it late and/or old, as usual, but interesting!!

- Hey, guess what? Britain says that global warming is gonna start costing us big if we don't do something - within the next 20 years. (source)

- Clifford Geertz has died. He was one of the first researchers to get me interested in anthropology - and in critiquing it. (source)

- Taste of Africa is closing (again) in the Upper Valley. Man, their food is SO. GOOD. It's too bad that they can't keep things going, though they will still do catering, and their location in a gas station probably didn't help either - I certainly never made it out there and I love their food. (source)

- New Bloglines feed of the day: Endangered Ugly Things. Yep, just what the title says.

HRE

Doesn't this sound like the kind of workshop you'd like to attend?

"Fundamentals of Psychological Preparedness for Human Remains Exposure (HRE) Workshop: Preparing for the Worst"

Ah, the world of hazards and emergency management.

Thile!

Lately I have been all about Chris Thile's music. This is probably because I have been actually playing my mandolin. Unfortunately, by playing I mean "plucking awkwardly up and down the scales" - but hey, listening to pros gets one inspired, right?

I get updates on Myspace about shows he's doing and they are never anywhere I can be. I seriously want to schedule my (tentative, hopeful!) plans to visit New York around a chance to see me some Beer Fiddlers.

Here's a funny (and highly recommended) song - Set Me Up With One of Your Friends. Anybody wanna set me up?


And here's a cover of Radiohead's Morning Bell - I like this a lot.

And for you traditionalists, some more trad-y tunes and cuts from his new album, an hour's worth, starting 'round 8 minutes in.