Sunday, June 29, 2008

I'm for Hillary

Today I read an article entitled "Women's group slams Kennedy for 'betrayl'".

Here are some of the highlights:

In a sharply critical statement, the New York state chapter of NOW took aim at Kennedy Monday for what it called an "ultimate betrayal," and suggested the Massachusetts Democrat "can't or won't" handle the idea of Clinton becoming President of the United States.

"Sen. Kennedy's endorsement of Hillary Clinton's opponent in the Democratic presidential primary campaign has really hit women hard," said the statement. "Women have forgiven Kennedy, stuck up for him, stood by him, hushed the fact that he was late in his support of Title IX, the ERA, the Family Leave and Medical Act to name a few."

"And now the greatest betrayal! We are repaid with his abandonment!" the statement continues. "He's picked the new guy over us. He's joined the list of progressive white men who can't or won't handle the prospect of a woman president who is Hillary Clinton."

But the NOW state chapter suggested Monday Kennedy's decision was a larger representation of society's ongoing disrespect for women's rights.

"This latest move by Kennedy is so telling about the status of and respect for women's rights, women's voices, women's equality, women's authority and our ability – indeed, our obligation — to promote and earn and deserve and elect, unabashedly, a president that is the first woman after centuries of men who 'know what's best for us.'"

This woman named Clara summed my feelings up perfectly in her response:

I am so dissapointed by the news media, particulary CNN and MSNBC…especially the news anchors Wolf and Chris…it is unbelivable just to feel the bias that exists against Hillary…it is ok when she is attacked ; but whenever she responds its not ok with you people…I think you guys have the fear of having someone who can actually change things when she gets there…so you have decided to back Obama because you know he wont get things done, that way nothing changes for you, which is what you want, with your fat paychecks…I just hope American people will wake up on this one…inspiration is not going to feed my kids or guarantee a better future for them..in Africa we say, when you aducate a woman you aducate the world…and this scares the hell out of you guys…for two hundred years we have men in the leadership and its time for a woman, because all these men including you, have been raised by the good women to get where they are and it just make sense to have a woman up there…God I hate Politics.

I have nothing more to say on this right now.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Am I a fraud?

After a few days of creative block I start to believe that I am a fraud. I can't make gray go with black, too many things align, and this design looks like the last 10 layouts of 1993. I surfed the web for inspiration. Inspiration? Thats such a fuzzy concept. Also known as stealing others brilliancy...navigation structure, textured background...my God I am a fraud. An Andy Warhol. A Google ganker...

My head was stuffy, so I took a walk during lunch. Up and down Marshall Street, crossing the road here and there and then turning around and retracing my steps. The mechanic working on the Saturn VUE asked me if I was lost. "No not lost, just going nowhere."

Who is going to clean up all that trash on Marshall Street? Trash blown out of the garbage truck, dumpsters carelessly losing their cargo, vile filth, broken Barbie dolls with knotty hair, greasy pizza boxes, stray walmart bags. All this trash collecting against the temporary walls of Goshen and Gilmer Street. And these plastic bottles...when will those degrade?

My brother's wife had their third child last week. His name is Isequeal...I don't know how to spell that, I like the name, it rhymes with MySQL. After the baby was born my brother bought a motorcycle and today he took his 5 year old daughter fishing.

Back in the office I had a leak of ideas. Just a leak mind you, no waterfall. {consequently did you hear about the $15million waterfall feature some danish artist built in Manhatten?} The leak was enough to get underway with a design...my design. A design I designed. Now tomorrow I'll need to get in early to get ahead of that design...

Tonight I cooked a pound of scallops. I picked two warm cucumbers from Chris's garden and chopped them with some fresh basil and oregano. I marinated them in balsamic vinegar. Then I ate the whole pound of scallops with a glass of red wine.

Tomorrow I will organize the pieces of my world, I will get them all in the designated cubbies. But for tonight I have enough energy to read 1 bedtime story to the girls and fall asleep with my makeup on.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

The Garden

Hubby says "I'm going to plant a garden right here."





Me: "Yeah okay, nothing grows in this clay. You'll have to use store bought soil."





Hubby: "I am going to use this soil. And I am going to till the soil with my own hands" (Literally)





Me: "Ha Good luck!"


6 weeks later:





Cherry tomatoes:






Roma tomatoes:






Green beans:





Cucumbers:





Cucumber tendrils (aren't they cute!!):





Beautiful:





My contribution: the herbs. The parsley at the bottom of this picture has died :(




So if your tomatoes have salmonella in a few months, give me a call, we should have plenty (organic too!).

Monday, June 9, 2008

Bodega del Vino

Oh good lord, I have come across a culinary miracle.
Who's idea was this? Who could have thought up such a delicious treat?

So I am sitting at Bottega del Vino on 59th and 5th and they bring out bread, seasoned with parsley, and a small dish of black goo.

I think, wtf is that? Caviar? Yuck, because you know caviar is fish eggs and I am a vegan (um, mostly…at least on Mondays).

But I figure I'm spending my first paycheck on this dinner I might as well try the fish larva…so I dip the miniature spoon in the black substance, and spread it across a small piece of bread, lift the bread to my mouth and….

Holy holy holy, this was NOT fish eggs, it was olive pate. Who thought of olive pate? Because I'm pretty sure he is the smartest most compassionate man alive, and deserve to win a Nobel Peace prize for this invention.

Too bad I'd already ordered a $20 antipasto and $40 mushroom tortellini because I could have made a night out of chowing on that olive pate.

Olive pate, yum, are you kidding me? It was heaven.

Oh and if you are looking for a vino in the price range of $5,000-$20,000 a bottle you can find it here as well. They also have Tiffany-priced wine which is delicious at about a $15/glass.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

9 PM from the Big Apple

I am in New York, again, this time on a business trip. The weather is brutally hot. I ate lunch at a small expensive sandwich shop on the SeaPort, the restaurant was crowded, the server sat me on a corner of an already occupied table. My dinner mates were from Ireland, but I was weary and not in the mood to hear tell of their family vacation so I opened my computer and did an impressive job of acting occupied through lunch.

But there was one thing I couldn't help but notice. The young girl (she was probably 15) was wearing a shirt with her bra showing in the back. The straps of her bra were twisted. It looked painful to the point when I couldn't stop myself from offering to straighten her out. "Would you like me to untangle your bra strap?" I asked her. She laughed and said yes. It was a strange thing of me to ask, and a strange thing for her to accept. But it didn't seem to bother either of us, as two women who have to deal with these inconveniences in life. I fixed it, she was grateful, I paid my bill and walked out onto the boardwalk.

Along the way back to the hotel, I stopped in Borders bookstore on Wall St and Broadway to get out of the oppressive heat that had settled over New York. I ordered a Dean and Deluca large ice tea, I drank the entire cup without stopping to breath. I would have asked for another but there were no free refills and the tea had cost 4 bucks and tasted old and filmy.

Borders was a fitting place for me to spend an afternoon. I collect books in the manner that some women collect shoes. I adore books, but more like a piece of art, rarely finding time or patience to read more than a few lines.

For this reason, and because I commute 40 minutes each way to work, I greatly enjoy books on tape. My all time favorite is a delicious little novel … Eat, Pray, Love.

Though I obviously own this book on cd, I like typography, oh and cracking book binds. For months I've wanted to buy a paper copy of that book, for a specific purpose that might make some cringe, cover your ears at this part, I want to own a paper copy of this book so that I can cut out pages and post them in my journal. Really I need two copies, in case I cut one side but needed the text from the other side of the page too. Throwing myself in front of the morality book train a little more forcefully, I admit to you that I have already cut up a number of well written book passages that have made my heart patter, including, sigh, a couple of passages from Genesis out of two gently used Bibles.

So I'm looking at Eat, Pray, Love, and it's $15, no discount. And I'm thinking about my favorite passage in which she describes a beautiful Venetian woman who fell in love with a man who left her with three children and a broken heart. The author describes the woman as saying "He was powerful, and I died of love in his shadow."

This passage makes my intestines wiggly. It moves me profoundly into a state of sad irrepair. I want to cut this passage out and paste it in my journal so that I can mourn with this woman, in an emo trance I'll call poetry.

But $15 just to mutilate this book for a passage… is that sound commerce?…. I pick up the book, fan the pages against my palm, (this is a strange habit I have which allows me to feel the energy of the book without reading it, quacky I know, bite me), and then I bend the paperback up and down looking at the cover. I opened up the book somewhere in the middle of the tale, and am baffled to look down at the words "He was powerful, and I died of love in his shadow." By dumb chance I'd turned right to the passage that I'd been mulling over for the last 15 minutes, and honestly I'd been mulling over for the last 15 months since I initially heard those words.

I don't need to tell you folks, that's some kinda magic.

Nevertheless, I didn't buy the book. Instead I picked up 2 books on graphic design and the latest Chuck Palahniuk novel.

I opened the 15 foot high doors, with relative ease, and walked out on the Manhattan streets, shoving the Borders bag into my massive yellow tote. And then I realized it was raining, pouring rain, and the road was steaming from the days heat. Street vendors quickly wrapped up the watches, t-shirts, and handbags on their tables, and replaced them with umbrellas and rain ponchos. Witnessing this efficient crossover of goods, I concluded that New York street vendors have perfected the art of opportunism. Wall Street indeed.

Back at the hotel I ordered an overpriced Margareta pizza from a local pizza oven, and cuddle under the covers to review my new books and tomorrows agenda. It's fairly quiet here, just the hum of the AC units, and distant murmur of traffic. I miss my kids. I call Chris for the 4th time today but he gets annoyed so I leave him alone and decide to live here in this hotel room for the next 2 days easing into my loneliness… After all, I've been away from home before. I can do this.

I'm still in bed now, next to an empty pizza box, trying to hack into some locals wifi so that I can post this blog. I haven't hacked in yet, but I did find out that Microsoft Word can spell check Palahniuk's name…impressive, eh? Goodnight everyone.