Ways to serve your meat

On her blog today, Sister The Bride lists a fine collection of the names of buildings inside the Private Paradise of the Emperor of China.  I thought I'd follow suit with the terms used for carving various meats, at least according to Wynkyn de Worde, the author of the early cookbook, The Boke of Keruying, which has the colophon:

Here endeth the boke of servyce and kervynge and sewynge and all manner of offyce in his kynde unto a prynce or ony other estate and all the feestes in the yere. Emprynted by Wynkyn de Worde at London in the Fletestrete at the sygne of the sonne. The yere of our lorde, M, CCCCC, VIII.

In modern English, that reads:

Here ends the book of service and carving and serving and all manner of office in kind unto a prince or any other estate, and all the feasts in the year. Printed by Wynkyn de Worde at London, in Fleet Street, at the Sign of the Sun. The Year of our Lord, 1508. [See the simple power of agreed-upon spelling conventions?]

de Worde lists proper reference terms for carving of any fish, fowl or meat that might grace the table of King Henry VII (who was king when de Worde was publishing). (I've translated the ones I can figure out, unless they are so obvious it's quaint).   It reads like a carnivore's violent poetry of dinner.

Termes of a Kerver

Break that deer
Lesche that brawne (anybody have a clue?)
Rear that goose
Lift that Swanne
Sauce that capon
Spoil that hen
Frusshe (?) that chicken
Unbrace that mallard (duck)
Unlace that cony (rabbit)
Dismember that heron
Display that crane
Disfigure that peacock
Unjoint that bytture (? a bittern?)
Untack that Curlew
Allay that Pheasant
Wing that Partridge
Wing that Quail
Mince that Plover
Thigh that Pigeon
Border that Pasty
Thigh that Woodcock
Thigh all manner of small byrdes
Timber that fire
Tyere (tear?) that egg
Chine that salmon
String that Lamprey
Splat that Pike
Sauce that Tench
Splay that Bream
Side that Haddock
Tusk that Barbell
Culpon that Trout (culpon means to cut a piece out, from the French, did you know)
Fin that Cheven (? some kind of fish, clearly)
Trausene (?) that Eel
Tranch that Sturgeon (to tranch is to slice a sturgeon, if you look it up)
Undertranch that porpoise (? they ate porpoises in Tudor England?)
Tame that Crab
Barb that Lobster.
Here hendeth the goodly termes.

You might note that he doesn't mention beef, mutton, veal or pork -- do you suppose they were perhaps too obvious to make a point of? --  and that "hennes" are distinct from "chickens", which are distinct from "capons".

Mea Culpa: TurboTax didn't Mistake

Here it is Tax Day, and I have to correct my earlier complaint about TurboTax making mistakes on my taxes. When I went back and dove deep, deep down into the tax code and the software, even delving into last year's taxes, I learned that actually everything was just fine.

It was a case of paper-trails; without getting into too many boring details, the IRS allows one to carry capital losses forward for a number of years, allowing one to offset them against capital gains earned later. I didn't have gains enough this year to offset anything, but for tracking reasons, it's good to keep the paperwork current -- if I sell stock this year or next, I can still count the loss on that sale two years ago.

Minute erratum

Mater has pointed out to me that I misused the word "kibbutz" in my entry on Tuesday. I intended it to mean, "to chat".  The correct word for that is "kibitz" (although this has a corollary meaning of "offering unwanted and intrusive comments", which I didn't intend.)  "Kibbutz", as I should know, having been to one when visiting Israel as a child, is a collective farm or settlement. Mea culpa.

This is like rubbing Norm Coleman's nose in it.

This is so cool -- I don't know if you've seen it. Al Franken was giving a talk at the MPR booth at the Minnesota State Fair, and during it, drew, free-hand, from memory, an accurate map of the United States of America. Video below.



See the brief New York Daily News article about it, here. I am so proud of my senator, even though he's not technically my senator since I don't live in that state anymore. But I supported him!

(Thank The Man for the link.)

There and Back Again

Last Saturday, The Texan and I left Portland in a record-breaking downpour and drove out to the new digs in Idaho. We were transporting to The Family a second car -- their 22-year-old white Toyota Corolla. The Corolla's air conditioning doesn't work any more, nor the radio; the engine runs well, but we were not convinced it would be able to make the 400+ mile summer trip to Boise. So we drove two cars, trading off periodically to relieve boredom. When we stopped in The Dalles for lunch, I reported that "now playing in the Blue Mini" was a CD of the original Broadway cast production of Brigadoon. The Texan replied that the entertainment in the white car was watching the arrow on the fuel gauge swing up and down. The fuel gauge doesn't work, either. (To save you any agonizing suspense, Reader, the Toyota purred without a hiccough the whole way there, using significantly less gas than the Mini Cooper along the way.)

I have been trying to figure out why I wanted to call this entry There and Back Again, the subtitle of The Hobbit. I must be free associating that the road goes ever on. And on. That is one long, long, drive. Seven hours with no stops (but further than one tank of gas, so stops are required), and when you go east, you also lose an hour. Boise is just close enough to attempt in one day, but far enough away to discourage stopping for hikes.

And, particularly on the drive east, what is there to look forward to? We left Portland in a rainstorm (not so good) but at least everything was damp and green. You drive through the Columbia River Gorge, with its magnificent waterfalls, the broad blue river and hillsides thick with conifers.

Image from Flickr.com

Slowly the freeway rises up to an open plateau, the river far below and the trees far behind. This, even, is not unbeautiful (although the view from the freeway isn't the best) -- but at least everything is golden, and gently rolling. And the windmills! The amazing windmills that poke up from every crest like the snout of a dog who has been messing with porcupines.

(I could go on at length about the beauty of manmade sophistication highlighting the elegance of the austere landscape -- I had over six hours to contemplate it -- but I'll save it. Or is it that I'll save you?)

The river and the freeway part ways. You spend over an hour traversing a section a disgruntled friend once called "80 miles of Nevada", high desert plateau, before you enter the Blue Mountains. Dry, also, but genuine mountains of blue spruce, bluer skies, steep cliffs, and snow-fed rivers.

(Taken from the drivers seat of the white car, you can see both the extensive crack in the windshield,

at extreme bottom of the photo, and the Mini out in front, just passing a signpost for La Grande and

places east. Click on any of the photos if you want to see them, larger.)

You turn south, paralleling the Snake River (although that is out of sight many miles away at the bottom of a distant, inhospitable canyon). The landscape is dotted with old memories of gold rush dredgings, defunct mines. The foothills are brown, but with the sun so low behind you, the sky is piercing azure, and you can still make out some of the ruts left from the Oregon Trail, which petered out 130 years ago.

(Well, no ruts in this photo. None of those turned out.)

And then the land just gets browner, and more withered, the hills sucked dry and showing bones like the fingers on a woman who spent too many hours tanning in her youth. Colors are limited to pale blue and pale tan. Texture is scrub. Signs point out "buttes" and "gulches".

(Taken somewhere east of Ontario, west of Caldwell, Idaho.

I was traveling west, home actually, when I took this photo,

so this is what you leave when you drive east. It does not get better for many, many miles.)

The freeway careens down to the bottom of a ravine, meeting up with the Snake River in the heart of the truly ugly industrial town of Ontario, Oregon (of Ore-Ida Tater Tot fame -- get it? Oregon-Idaho Potatoes). You cross over into Idaho. Within a few miles, the concrete, homogenous, unending waves of defunct shopping mall begins, due to uncontrolled sub-urban sprawl (and a ruthless economy), about 25 miles west of Boise.

But at least, now, for us, Boise offers a tidy, loving home to visit. It's not the Shire, there are no round doors -- but residents are friendly, and there are sure to be some excellent second breakfasts available if you visit, too.

Update on HotDish Bleus

There hasn't been much activity on the HotDish Bleus blog recently (which is an understatement). I just posted something there, however.

Mystery Reader The Pirate

Girl-Child's class, every Friday just before Circle Time at the end of the school-day, hosts a Mystery Reader. This is a parent or friend of the school, who reads a book of his or her choice to the children, each week a different person. Two or three years ago, so the legend goes, one Reader remained entirely mysterious by wearing a gorilla suit. The only other parent to have achieved similar legendary status was a Cordon Bleu-trained chef, (mom of a student) who arrived with a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit and a tray of individually-wrapped decorated Devil's Food Cake cupcakes.

HomoDommi took it upon himself to ascend to legend as well. So yesterday he, myself and The Texan (who took the day off from work) went to Helen's Pacific Costumers (Fulfilling Fantasies for Over 100 Years) and selected a pirate costume for him. It was a wonderful place, a huge warehouse stacked floor to ceiling with costumes - hats, breeches, belts, masks, coats, shirts, dresses (we didn't go through the section of animal costumes, the next aisle over). Helen herself was there (although she looked nowhere near 100 years old, so maybe her magic works on more than just fabric). She let us dig and play and try things on -- making comments like, "Those over there are all from a production of Amadeus that I did a couple of years ago. All the actors were 38s." and "That pile is from 1776 -- in that one, all the actors were 6'3" and over 200 pounds." "So, the costumes were period-appropriate," said I, "but the size of the people weren't." "Nah," she responded, agreeing. "That was in Texas. They were all Texan."






We tried on several wonderful combinations -- a personal favorite being a Jack-Sparrow-like brocaded 18th Century frock coat with a mis-matched but equally splended waistcoat under, ("Remember," Helen said, "Pirates didn't order clothes to be tailored -- they just killed a man and took his clothes"). But, even with the dreadlock wig, it looked a little too put-together, a little too subtle for our 2nd-grade audience. In the end, we went with all black with a handkerchief around his head (the wig was so huge that we couldn't find any hats to stay on it).

Perhaps we should have gone with the wig after all -- Girl-Child said she instantly recognized her father from "the little gray hairs curling out from under his head wrap" (and more convincingly, from the wriststrong bracelet that he always wears and forgot to take off). Even so, the boy sent to the Office to pick up the Mystery Reader was more than a little shocked, leading the pirate back to the school room from a safe distance of 10 or 15 feet, eyes wide and wary.

Shutterbug Narcissism at PandusDommus

... In fact, I would submit that cats and kittens might outnumber porn [on the Internet] at this point.

"You're probably right about that," says Scott Lamb, a senior editor at the trend-spotting site Buzzfeed. "That might be for the very prosaic reason that producing anything involving kittens is just so much easier than producing porn." After all, we're a nation of shutterbug narcissists, and cats are the closest thing at hand. "Panda ownership is not so common," he says, "but perhaps if it were, panda videos would be even more popular."

From The Internet is Made of Kittens by Sarah Hepola, at salon.com, Feb. 10, 2009

I haven't been blogging much recently -- kids have been off and on home sick from school, and I've been looking for a job. (Employment. Position. Line of work. Post. "Situation," if I go all Gothic and become a governess on a country estate). The two don't go together well, especially when the kids have been just barely sick enough to not be at school, so they are in full spirits at home.

You'll get to judge for yourself -- should we all get pandas as pets?

Who the Tudor Are You?

Basically, just an ad for the new season of the television show The Tudors (which I haven't seen, but have heard favors melodrama, scene-chewing, and eye-candy over historical accuracy, but why not?), this website will help you understand the role you might have played in Tudor society, had you lived in 16th Century England.

http://www.whothetudorareyou.com/

By the way, wait until the Great Chain of Being comes to a halt (it starts at the top, so for a moment or two you'll think you're a Queen/King before you slide down -- unless of course, you are a Queen/King).

I would, apparently, have been a prostitute, which at least was higher on the hierarchy than thieves or actors. I wouldn't have been disfigured by the diseases that later prostitutes suffered, because they hadn't yet come to English shores. And anyway, by my age, I would have been dead already.

Watch out, Warren Buffet: a 300% return

I won $3 on my ticket! It's not $118 million, but I did earn back my investment stake, with enough left over to buy a small latte. How better to keep the economy afloat?

No one else won the full lottery either, so now the jackpot is up to $136 million. I am going to stiff Starbucks (only get a brewed coffee) and re-invest urr, buy another ticket for Saturday's drawing.

Thus does the economy sink: the lottery is getting my money, not Starbucks. Not to mention basic commodities like toothpaste or another iTune track.

Do not purchase lottery tickets for investment purposes

I'll skip all the warnings you know about playing the lottery (that the last time the lottery was as popular in Western culture was just before the French proletariat cut the heads off the aristocracy; that winners of the lottery tend to be less happy than they were before they won; that the odds of winning the lottery are worse than those of being hit by lightning 14 times, et al. and etc and etc).

A little advertisement is printed on every Powerball ticket, as if to reinforce to the person wasting her money on a fruitless dream that Yes, although your numbers won't match up, not even one of them, to the winning numbers, at least you are still in the game. The ad on my latest ticket is:

Winning Powerball could be like
winning 8 gold medals without
the hours & hours of physical
exertion and wearing a swim cap.

I am speechless. It must be a joke. A deeply self-referential, ironic statement, like the best British comedy. But can it be possible that the powers behind Powerball have a sense of humor? A black, ironic, self-destructive sense of humor? I cannot believe that.

Yet, how could this message possibly be serious? Has our culture so eroded that we are to celebrate laziness (in the absence of celebrating hard physical exertion)? That I am unsure about the intentions of the statement is fearsome in itself. Certainly I do not believe that the average American will get the humor (but maybe I'm too hard on my fellow Americans).

It's not going to prevent me from buying the next ticket, potentially worth $118 million. I know I won't win, but the fantasy, for the cost of $1, is too much fun to ignore. You might ask why I can't have the fantasy for free, but it doesn't work that way, at least not my fantasies. (And yes, I'm aware that means I hold out hope for the possibility of winning, even while knowing that I won't. The ad campaign works: It could happen.)

The quiet power of simple assertion

I discovered about two weeks ago that the local library allows people to rent "Quiet Rooms". Not "rent" per se, because they are free, available for up to two hours a day, and you can sign up for one a week in advance. The rooms are indeed quiet, come with electricity and best of all (and most distractingly) have free wi-fi access to the Internet.

So I've been taking advantage of all my tax dollars provide, and have been coming for a two-hour stint every day since then. Of course, there's been a visit to Houston in the middle of this, so it's only been about 5 visits so far, but so far so good. It is proving invaluable, even in this short period, to have a set time that I have to work on my writing, and to have a nice, well-lit space to work in, and to have time away from my desk at home, which offers many distractions, from unpaid bills, to cats who require coddling, and to children who require feeding or occasional yelling at. Or is it the children who get coddled and the cats who are yelled at?

Anyway, today is the first to present any wrinkles in my new-found work space.

The five quiet rooms are in a line on a single wall of the library. They are high-ceilinged, well-lit, narrow rooms with just enough space for a countertop desk across one wall and two desk chairs side by side. The door of every room is mostly glass -- a wise precaution these days, allowing people to be in quiet space, but not entirely private. (There's a piece to be written about "public privacy", but not today.) Room A is the most coveted because it is a little wider than the other rooms, allowing a bit more of that hard-to-get privacy. The counter is against one of the walls perpendicular to the door, so you can't be seen quite as easily by people passing by, yet you can have the windowed door in the periphery of your vision, whilst looking primarily at a blank wall. Three of the other four rooms require you to sit with your back to the door, a slightly spooky and vulnerable feeling. Room E, although the desk is similarly off to the side, isn't as wide a room, so you are directly in front of the full-length window in the door when you sit.

I had signed up for Room A today. There is a ten minute grace period on the sign-ups, and then, if no one has shown up for an assigned room, it's open season for anyone for the remainder of the sign-up period. I usually arrive at 9-1/2 minutes after the hour, puffing from the run from the car (I intend to walk to the library every day, but usually haven't time).

Today, I was crack on time for a change, but someone was sitting in Room A. Comme c'est, comme ca, I thought (wondering if that's how it's really spelled in French). Thinking that I'd rather not disturb someone if I didn't have to, I checked the signup book -- only Room C was officially open, and no one was sitting there. So, I lodged myself in Room C, thinking I could manage just as well in one room as any other. It didn't occur to me to sign up in the book for Room C at that point.

I pretty instantly fell into the Zone today, and set to work, deep in thought, ears plugged with earphones playing Sibelius' 7th Symphony.

Suddenly I have a guy standing behind me, telling me I'm over time and I have to get out. I had been working for only 20 minutes. It was startling -- I was in one of the rooms where your back is to the door, and with the music in my ears, I hadn't heard him open the door and have no idea how long he had stood there. He spoke, when I finally heard him through the violins, in a tone as if he had been repeating himself for a while, a little impatiently.

My interrupter is a short guy, with neatly clipped, short grizzled hair, wearing baggy jeans and a striped button-down shirt. Slung over his shoulder on a rope is a huge bulky something, the size of a bass cello, extending a good two feet above his head and down his back to his knees. The whole thing is wrapped in black garbage bags. The garbage bags may indicate he's homeless, but his clothes seem too clean.

His eyes... well, there's something weird about his eyes. If this were a book, I'd write that they are pale gray and shine, almost blank, but as if he were on the edge of violent incomprehension, just barely holding back. But this is real life, and I don't generally believe you see that sort of thing in people's eyes in real life. Perhaps I was merely reacting to the music, the end of the third movement, near the crescendo of the piece. All I know is that I did not want to mess with this fellow, standing there, hands at his side, black bagged thing on his back.

In 30 seconds I had gathered up my stuff and fled. At the sign-up book, I see that someone had written the initials "SJ" into the space for Room C, with an arrow from noon to 2, implying that he had signed up 20 minutes before he had arrived -- although when I had checked earlier, the book was blank. All of the other rooms were checked out, although Room A still showed "Vivi" (me), from noon to 2 p.m. However, at 12:20, I had officially lost my reservation. Finally I asked the librarian what the protocol was, and she said, if I had signed up for Room A and was here on time, then Room A is mine, and she walked over to kick out whoever was there.

Turns out, the room was already empty. With relief, I stepped in, closing the door against the eyes of my interrupter, who still stood in the aisle in front of Room C, just watching me. I breathed in a big sigh of relief, which was a mistake -- the room stank, strangulatingly. Body odor, definitely, but there was also something that smelled like old soft warm cheese, without a hint of mold. At least, I really hope it's old cheese, not all body odor, because I don't want to think about what part of the body, or effluents from the body, produced this stench. Whoever was here before hasn't showered in a long while -- another homeless person, apparently. Or, possibly he was a person with a sophisticated palate for what to bring to eat at the library on a Saturday morning, but I doubt it.

After 15 seconds of literally breathless indecision, I gave up and packed my things to leave. The stink was really oppressive. But I thought of that guy's pale eyes, and the way he stood, kind of expectantly, watching me. He enjoyed kicking me out of the other room. In fact, I'm sure he knew this room was stinky and -- because it was the only open room -- that I'd have to work in it if I wanted a quiet room. That is, I'd be here instead of him, because, according to the rules, since "Vivi" hadn't shown up to take Room A, he could have sat in this room instead of kicking me out of Room C.

So instead, I determined not to give in to the creepy creeps of the world. I sat down, started mouth-breathing, and wrote this entry. The air is clearing now (it's been an hour now, and I've had the door propped open) although there's still a faint sourness to it. I've learned: when you squat in another room, write your name on the reservations list -- and check even your assigned room to make sure it's breathable before you commit.

This is the second time this week that I've had someone take advantage of my own easy-goingness. If I had kicked out the person from Room A originally, I would have encountered the stink early enough to swap myself over to Room C (and if I had done it formally, it might have occurred to me to sign up for Room C on the spot). But I didn't, because I didn't want to disturb someone at work if I didn't need to.

The other time, the situation was a little different -- on the flight to Houston, I was assigned to a window seat, which I had been looking forward to. But when I got into the plane, a man was sitting there, with a woman next to him. He off-handedly told me he had the aisle seat, implying the question of whether he could keep the window, and he made no move to change seats, as people usually do when caught in a seat not assigned to them. At the moment, I was mostly concerned with figuring out where to stow my luggage -- the bag I was carrying is too big to fit under the seat and the overhead bins were full -- so I absent-mindedly complied.

We didn't have a bad flight, but I didn't get to look out the window even from a distance (he shut the shade immediately), and on top of that, he and his wife were grousers. They didn't talk to me (thank goodness) but they did complain to each other throughout the flight about everything, gave lip to the flight assistant, and generally did not give the impression of people who were respectful or caring about other people.

My knee jerk principle that it's best to leave people where they are, not to disturb them because they have as much right to be there as I do -- but this seems to have put me on the butt end of things, twice now. I wouldn't mind if I had a sense that the people who took advantage of me had the same chances of occasionally being on the butt end of things, too -- but my sense is that, no, these are people who take advantage of other people's sense of decency and respect, without sharing it.

It's a lesson I've learned before, and apparently forgotten and need to relearn: to assert myself, even when no assertion is genuinely needed (that is, I still got to Houston, comfortably, and I'm still getting my writing time, just with a little more mouth-breathing than usual). It doesn't hurt anyone, and it may make things a little better for me.

(As said by someone wittier than me, this entry would have been shorter, but I ran out of time.)

Beauty is youth, youth beauty...

One of my marvelous nieces (I am fortunate to report I have no non-marvelous nieces) gave me a bottle of Clarins UV Plus Protective Day Screen SPF 40. This delightful, and I'm sure very expensive, concoction applies like the whisper of a fine silk shawl against my cheeks, and I sally out into the watery sunshine of a Portland winter day confident that I am anointed against the full evils of UVA/UVB rays.

A number of little freebies accompanied the bottle: a lipstick (too brown), a lip pencil (not too brown, strangely), mascara (like the touch of a small god, it gives me eyes), bronzing lotion (ha ha), and a tiny glass spray bottle of something called Expertise 3P Screen Mist, Anti-Electromagnetic Waves & Urban Pollution. This is not, as I first assumed, a special cleanser for my computer monitor. Instead, it is a mist,which screens your skin against the electromagnetic waves and urban pollution in your environment. That is, a product which will take over the job previously handled by the barrier that nature provided, i.e., your skin. Applied over your make-up (which is itself to be applied after you have exfoliated, cleansed, emolliated -- i.e., moisturized -- and then smeared on the UV Plus Protective Day Screen SPF 40), it provides that final coat of insulation between you and all the ills of a modern lifestyle.

I'll let you read the accompanying literature yourself. Note the use of science and technology words, to reinforce that Clarins Research is scientifically based; note the references to holistic herbal remedies, to support the paranoia against technology. Somehow they manage to be back-to-nature and scientific-sounding, a clever knife's edge balance to achieve. Note also the conflation of "youth" and "beauty" -- you can't have one without the other.

Look beautiful and feel good in today's world (tm).

The skin's youthful qualities are now threatened by a new type of pollution...
Your skin is in contact with an ever-increasingly polluted environment that is constantly changing. In addition to the types of known pollution (car emissions, cigarettes, etc.) now there is a new type of pollution: electromagnetic waves generated by diverse domestic communications equipment. More insidious because invisible, the way they affect the skin has now been revealed by Clarins Research.

An unprecedented scientific discovery
Clarins Research found a direct correlation between an accelerated skin aging process and being exposed to artificial electromagnetic waves [footnote: In-vitro test.]. A few hours of daily exposure is enough to provoke a fragility of the skin's barrier, its indispensable "shield" of protection. today, the effects that electromagnetic waves can have on the skin are noticeable (irritated, uncomfortable skin) and visible (dull complexion).


Clarins now offers a new Youth and Beauty routine to help preserve your skin's youthful beauty.
Clarins created Expertise 3P; a refreshing, protective mist that leaves behind a non-0cclusive, invisible shield of reinforced protection against all types of pollution we encounter today. And, for the very first time in cosmetology, it also protects against the effects of artificial electromagnetic waves.

Expertise 3P technology: Poly Pollution Protection

Magnetic Defense Complex --> Biological protection against artificial electromagnetic waves

• reinforces the skin's natural berrier
• protects against biological stress

White Tea plus Succory Dock-Cress --> Biological protection against all urban atmospheric pollution

• anti-free radical (the tea)
• anti-intolerance (the tea)
• increases cellular energy (the succory)
• reinforces natural defenses (the succory)

Glycofilm --> Physical Protection

• forms an invisible screen, is very adherent and softens skin
• slows down the penetration of pollution particles into the skin

Method of use

Give your skin the most advanced protection available today to help preserve its youthful beauty and radiance: spray onto face, neck and décolleté daily morning and/or evening over make-up and/or regular skin care.

Clarins extra advice

Share this simple and effective Youth and Beauty routine with the entire family!


Some notes:
If the Magnetic Defense Complex protects us against artificial electromagnetic waves, what will protect us from the natural electromagnetic waves? Are they somehow less dangerous? Do they not cause the skin to *gasp* age?

I am glad to see that White Tea is anti-intolerance. Does this mean it is simply tolerant, or that it disapproves of intolerance? Is Black Tea as judgmental? Can a political joke be made about a Green Tea Party?

Succory Dock-Cress is another term for chicory. Chicory has been used as a treatment for gallstones, gastro-enteritis, sinus problems and bruises. Read about it at wikipedia.

I'm not sure what simple and effective...routine we are supposed to share with the entire family -- applying the screen mist, perhaps? That seems less like a routine and more like an application.

If this is true, and electromagnetic waves are destroying my skin, how do we explain the lovely pink complexions of the true computer nerds, those who live by the light of their CRTs (and now their LCD monitors)?

The Clarins webpage if you would like to investigate for yourself.

Intellectual hobby in daily doses

I have always thought I should read the diaries of Samuel Pepys, and that I'd enjoy them -- for the history, the art, and the sheer snobbery of being able to casually mention that "as Pepys described the theater/civil war/clothes/illness/Great Fire of London ..." (the problem being that, without having read Pepys, I don't actually know what he describes, aside from something about his bodily functions and the Great Fire). So his diaries are yet another thing I haven't gotten around to.

Problem solved: There's a blog that daily updates with an entry of Pepys' Diary from the associated day, annotated with the average temperature in London that month, Parliamentary activities that day, and links to explanations about the major players (and some minor). It started with his first entry (1 January 1660) on 1 January 2003, so we're about 5 years in. My plan is to jump in now and eventually read the whole diary in daily chunks alongside my daily blogs (there is a link to "read the story so far" to catch up).

Today's entry (from January 25, 1664/1665 -- the year confusion is because in his time the year changed in March, although in practice people had already begun to consider January 1 the first day of the New Year) is as charming as I could hope, about three long rambling run-on sentences, mentions of friends and ambitions and body parts.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Happy New Year! Back to Work

Sorry for the long gap with no news. It's been the holidays, so we haven't had time to work on the house, nor time to write about other things.

Also, I'm having irritating and constant trouble with my wireless connection, which I am starting to believe is a problem with my computer's antenna. Went in to see the Apple Geniuses today (whether or not you are disgusted by the name, or the attitudes, it is the job title) but it was so busy I had to reschedule for Friday morning. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed that I retain at least the intermittent Internet access I've had recently.

Abbie Cat, sitting under the glänsa before the party last month (last year).

Sorting the Liquor

I pulled all the liquor out of the cabinet tonight. Look at all that! This isn't even all of it, since I didn't bother to bring up the bottles stored in the basement, of things we don't drink very often (hard ciders and odd beers gifted to us). Also there were several wine bottles I left out, too (on balance, several of these are mixers, not liquor). About a dozen of these bottles have never been opened, including some fine dusty old grappa that has been in the cupboard for years.

Being who I am, and granted my training, I was obliged to sort the liquor. I made a free-form map of drinking alcohol, based on how it is made (fermented or distilled -- roughly left to right), what it is made from (fruit, grains, roots, sugars -- also roughly left to right) and how sweet it is (from not at all to heavily sweetened -- very roughly outside to inside).

I had to consult the keeper of all knowledge, Wikipedia (true facts or truthy facts -- it doesn't matter for a mental map of a liquor cabinet), and I learned a lot I hadn't known. Did you realize Whisky and Barleywine are both made from barley? Well, I hadn't known that. Nor that Creme de Menthe is ideally made with a particular kind of peppermint leaf and unrestricted "grain alcohol". So you could drink a Creme de Menthe whisky.

Others were joking about the household's problem with alcoholism, looking at this pile of proof. I know better -- in an alcoholic's house, there are very few bottles, and all of them are open. They don't last long enough to fill the cabinet.

Maryhill: Addendum and Erratum

Addendum:
I had wondered if our Sam Hill had anything to do with the expression, What in the Sam Hill --? and looked it up on World Wide Words, my source for all things etymological. He is not. No one is quite sure where the expression started, despite some folk etymologies pinning it to a General Sam Hill in Guilford, Connecticut in the late 19th century. He cannot be the source, either, as the expression dates back in printed form to as early as the 1830's.

Erratum:
Others in the household spent some weary hours on wikipedia and other online sources last night, and they learned that while Queen Marie of Romania may have been considered a bit lax in her morals at the time, by modern standards she was reasonably staid. So the household disappointedly concludes that another of the three reputedly scandalous relationships between Sam Hill and his female supporters was merely platonic.