Meat

Did you read the appalling story about meat and E. coli in yesterday's New York Times? You will never eat ground beef from the supermarket again. One of the most egregious comments was from one Dr. Kenneth Petersen of the USDA, who was quoted as follows:

Dr. Kenneth Petersen, an assistant administrator with the department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said that the department could mandate testing, but that it needed to consider the impact on companies as well as consumers. “I have to look at the entire industry, not just what is best for public health,” Dr. Petersen said.

I'm sorry, but letting corporations dance willy-nilly on the packing house floor without putting public health first is criminal and cynical. The impact on companies should not be a consideration when addressing the health and safety of the food supply for the American public. I hope that Dr. Petersen has had his head handed to him and I faxed a letter to that effect to his boss.

Ever since reading Fast Food Nation, we've tried hard to eliminate supermarket meat from our diet. In each of the past two years, we've bought about a quarter of a steer - grass fed, locally raised, artisanally butchered, excellent beef. The meat is not hugely more expensive than what comes from the supermarket - we pay one price per pound, not less for ground beef and more for filet - though we do have to lay out the cash for a lot of meat all at once, and have freezer space to hold it all.

We know where to get live chickens in our county (though we opt for the recently dead ones), and I can find humanely raised pork and lamb at the Greenmarket. And since joining the CSA a few years ago, our diet - especially in the summer/fall - has skewed towards vegetables. Meat's become an accent, an occasional meal.

I don't think humans should forgo meat - animals eat animals, after all - but I do think that it's incumbent upon us to do it as graciously as possible, and to remember what Michael Pollan said: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Why Yes, I Am A Nerd

Did you know I was a nerd? I kind of am. I like word games, like Scrabble (in the flesh and on FaceBook) and Moxie (on my iPhone). I spent countless hours in college playing Boggle with my roommate, while we listened to Springsteen and drank Black Russians. I think logic puzzles – the kind that you need a grid (and a pencil eraser) to figure out – are fun. Back in the day, I got an 800 on the analytic section of the GRE. Most mornings, I do the Ken-Ken in the Times, though it makes me crazy that they print it across the fold.

I have a Nintendo DS, but the games I had for it never really grabbed my attention. I tried MillionHeir/Mystery Case Files – but it’s kind of tedious, and not terribly challenging (and the music is annoying). Rhythm Heaven is fun, but it’s more about timing, not logic. But what’s really gotten under my skin?

Professor Layton.

I haven’t played the first one (Curious Village), but I’m in the midst of the Diabolical Box and it’s enchanting. It has a meandering little story line with a lot of puzzles – some tricky, some simple, many varieties. The scenery and people are somewhat reminiscent of those in the Miyazaki films. Sometimes the story advances through little videos, sometimes it’s more interactive in that you have to "talk" to the characters you encounter. I like that you can play it with the sound off because all of the dialogue is also shown as sub-titles - but the spoken dialogue is pretty well acted, with a mess of British accents. The puzzles are clever, and there's a "memo" feature that lets you scribble on the screen to figure out sums or paths. I did, however, resort to modeling a cube out of folded paper to solve one of the brainteasers.

The only bad thing? It's keeping me from reading! Instead of climbing into bed with my current book, I'm playing a video game. My husband thinks I've lost my mind. In point of fact though, I may be exercising it to enhance plasticity and stave off forgetfulness. Good justification, right?

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Disclosure: The lovely ladies at Brand About Town sent me a copy of Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box; I didn't pay for it. They neither asked for a review, nor paid for one.

Wordless Wednesday: Canning

My Italian grandmother of a husband has been at it again. A bushel of tomatoes, and a half a bushel of peaches, have become:

• Tomato sauce (a/k/a pommarola)
• Halved tomatoes packed in puree
• Bolognese sauce
• Tomato puree (1 jar)
• Peach halves in light syrup
• Spiced peach butter
• Peach syrup

Warm

She climbs into our bed
somewhere in the middle
of the night
and throws an arm over me,
proprietary,
"you're mine, Mama".

I have a hard time denying her,
me,
this simple pleasure.

Someday she won't want
such sweet proximity,
she'll cut her apron strings,
she'll grow into her own,
she'll proudly sleep all night in her own bed.

But now,
the little, warm, sleeping body
with the heavy arm draped across my belly
is far closer to the babe in the womb
- my babe -
than I'd ever thought possible
almost six years ago.

She takes my breath away.

On Language

Dear C&B2:

"Cylinder" is not a verb.

Yours,

Magpie


The news that William Safire has died leaves me a bit wistful. On the one hand, his politics were execrable. On the other, his explorations of language both written and oral were erudite and entertaining, not to mention a reason to open the New York Times magazine every Sunday. And, though it was words for Spiro Agnew, you have to respect one who can pen such an ace archetype of alliteration as "nattering nabobs of negativism".

I do believe that he would have agreed that "cylinder" is not a verb.

Forty Nine

Seven squared.

Indium.

The number of strings on a harp.

The number of keys on a celesta

The code for international direct dial phone calls to Germany.

The Crying of Lot 49.

Alaska.

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William Faulkner was born on this day. So were Mark Rothko, Ethel Rosenberg and Glenn Gould. Emily Post died on the 25th of September. And it's the feast day of Saint Finbarr.

But today? Today, today? It's my husband's birthday. Happy birthday, sweetie.

Greek Synchronicity

The inimitable Niobe finds all manner of electronic ephemera, most recently the website of the Oracle of Delphi. One of my teeth has been bugging me, so I thought I'd address the problem to the Oracle.

You have asked:
What's the matter with my tooth?

I respond:
Find glory in a storied industry
Whose wrought chronologies be not to scale.

My dentist, whose office is adorned with a cringe inducing foot-powered drill and and antique dental cabinet of many small drawers, will be amused to hear that his is a "storied industry".

Later in the day, I was poking around my child's elementary school's website. The site has links to some other educational sites, including the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. Putting aside the weird jargon of "manipulatives", I was struck by the notion that children in the K-2 age group might be expected to know what the Sieve of Eratosthenes is. Do you know? I'd never heard of it, but, as ever, Wikipedia elucidated me: it's an algorithm for finding prime numbers.

So, dear readers, where have you found Greek today?

Family Game Homework Night

I thought only Congress could decree things to be "National Day of Thus and Such", but Hasbro has proclaimed tonight to be "National Family Game Night".

And even though I'm kind of viscerally opposed to participating, sheep-like, in invented holidays, I rather like sitting down en famille and playing games. Unfortunately, while we could play Jenga, or Chutes and Ladders, or Pictureka tonight, I think we're stuck playing an Everyday Math version of War instead.

The joys of homework: it involves the entire family.

Let's Review: Recycled Pencils

Oh, I know, I've been down this road before, what with my evisceration of the Smencils and their packaging. But at some point while I was mulling over the whole recycled pencil situation, and poking around on the intertubes, I came across another purveyor of recycled pencils. One thing led to another, and a week or so later, I had a bunch of O'Bon pencils and a couple of their notebooks on my doorstep.


Let's start with the obvious: they're not scented. You don't need to wash your hands when you're done writing with them, because they're not scented. You don't have to wrinkle up your nose and cringe, because they're not scented. This is a good thing. The mere idea of scented pencils is just bewildering - why did someone think that was a good idea?

So, O'Bon = good, because they don't smell. But they are also fetchingly designed. The company sent me five packs of pencils. A dozen colored pencils, each one wrapped with a vibrant photograph of fruit in the appropriate color. Three 10 packs of black pencils: pop-art rainbows, animal prints, and my favorite, newsprint. And a set of artist pencils - 10 pencils graduated in hardness. Each set is packed in a cardboard box; the 10 packs are in an efficient triangular box - no plastic tubes! no vinyl case!

They sharpened easily, and did I mention that they don't smell?


The company's mission is pretty good, and unlike Smencils, I can't find any holes in their environmental argument. In their own words:

Why buy O'BON products such as O'BON pencils?

Multiple reasons. By using old newspaper to make our pencils, we aren't cutting down any trees or using any new raw materials to make our products. By choosing O'BON, our customers are making the better environmental choice. The graphite in the pencils are wrapped with used newspaper so tightly that the graphite inside is given a strong layer of protection. This means that the graphite hardly ever breaks, resulting in a pencil that lasts about 3 times longer than the average wood one. And to top it all off, our designs are the best in the business.

See for yourself. I can't possibly use all of the pencils I got, even what with having a first grader who has homework to do, so I'm giving away a set of the wildlife pencils and a matching notebook. Leave me a comment on this post before day's end on Friday, and I'll choose a winner at random. [Edited to add: Mama Goose wins the pencils and pad!]

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Disclosure: The company sent me 52 pencils and two notebooks, for which I paid nothing, but which have a retail value of under $30 in the aggregate. Nobody paid me for this review, and the giveaway was my idea.

Ave Verum Corpus

It's my mother's birthday. Or it would be. Actually, I guess it is. After all, January 27 is Mozart's birthday, and he's been dead for a lot longer than Moky has.

What to say, what to say? I kind of want to mark the day in somehow, and she has been in the back of my head all day.

In some strange detour on the web earlier, I found a plastic birdhouse that repels dogs - if the dog barks, the birdhouse makes a noise that shuts up the dog. It would have been a perfect gift, a yard ornament to combat the neighbor's barker that drove her bananas - especially because she'd never have spent $69 on a plastic birdhouse of dubious merit.

I thought about the last time I saw her - I kissed her cheek before the undertaker zipped her up. And then they bumped the removal trolley down the front steps and hoisted her into the waiting Cadillac hearse. At that point, my sister turned to me and said "she'd have hated that". "Yeah", I added, "it's a good thing it's so early that none of the neighbors are up."

She was easy to buy presents for - she was abstemious and frugal - so I could get her a stellar piece of cheese or some fancy chocolates or a soft and lovely sweater or the fleece hat she's wearing in the photo to the left or a brand-spanking-new hard cover book just out - and she would be pleased and tickled and happy to eat the cheese, washed down with some boxed wine. But a ride in a limo would have appalled her, just as she had no interest in manicures and massages - too indulgent, too ostentatious.

She would have been 74 today, and I wonder what she might have liked, this time, this year.

Happy birthday, Moky. Requiscat in Pace. And I hope Mozart is there singing the Ave Verum Corpus with you.



(Note: photo taken by my sister on my mother's 73rd birthday.)

Executive Chef

On the other hand, the fact that my husband isn't going to work every day means that he's cooking dinner every night. Oh, he cooked a lot before, but now he's got more time to devote to it, so it's not just hamburgers and a salad alternating with pasta. And I've become the executive chef. What's been happening is I look at the list of vegetables from the CSA, the list we keep on the fridge because otherwise stuff gets skanky because we forget about it, and I say "how about you make ______?"

We had beautiful baby Red River kale, plenty of onions, and one Delicata squash. So the other day, I suggested risotto with roasted squash, kale and caramelized onions. He makes a fine risotto, though he usually sticks to ham and peas, or ham and asparagus - but he was game for the vegetable variation I suggested. Both the squash and the onions take a while to do, so it's totally not the kind of thing you start after work.

I can't give you a recipe, but he roasted the squash, pulled it out of its shell, and chopped it. He cooked four onions until they were nice and golden brown. The squash and onions were added to the risotto about midway through. The kale got rough chopped and thrown into the risotto about five minutes before the end - just enough time to wilt it. There was plenty of parmesan involved.

And it was good.

Friable

Easily crumbled or crushed into powder. It’s how I’m feeling these days. I don’t think I’m toxic, as in friable asbestos, but I’m certainly frayed around the edges, and in need of binding. Or a new hem.

I don’t know why. Could be that it’s getting darker earlier. Could be that I keep getting calendar reminders that my mother’s birthday is – would be? – next week. Could be that the child is pushing all of my buttons. Could be that I’m just worried.

Sunday, we headed off in the car for an adventure – lunch and a garden tour. We hadn’t even gotten to the bottom of our street when the kid burst into hysterics and wailed that she wanted to go home. Naturally, I kept driving. She continued to sob, her father started to glower, and I wanted to leave the two of them on the side of the highway to walk home. As we pulled into the iconic roadside attraction hamburger joint for lunch, she sniffed and asked for a Coke – and perked right up when I said yes. A Coke, some chicken nuggets and a ride on the 50¢ helicopter and she was right as rain.

Like everyone else I know, I’m kind of worried about money. My husband has been out of work since April – not because he was laid off, but because he’s gone blind in one eye. When it first happened, he was told that there was a good chance that the vision that spontaneously disappeared would spontaneously return. It’s now been nearly six months, and there’s been no change. He received short term disability for a while, but that ran out, and the process of filing for long term disability is deeply convoluted and increasingly attenuated. So, we’re short a salary, and we’re paying more for health insurance, and there are property taxes and mortgages and bills bills bills to be paid, and the girlie needs new shoes. On top of the worry brought on by the eye problems and attendant absence of cash is the fact that I was hoping, dearly and not unreasonably hoping, that his job was going to morph into the kind of wonderful that would allow me to quit mine and find something part time and close to home. Alas, that wasn’t meant to be. And I shouldn’t whine – I do have a job after all, and we do have health insurance, and we do have a roof over our heads.

But I’m tired, and on Sunday, after we got home from our salvaged outing, I was struck by a palpable feeling of not rightness, a physical manifestation of whatever dark cloud is sitting on my soul right now. If you look at me sideways, I’ll burst into tears. I turned off my alarm this morning, and forgot to get up. I'm waylaid by inertia and I'm cranky to a fare-thee-well.

Do tell me that this too shall pass.

Wordless Wednesday: File Folders

It isn't the best photo, but I needed to memorialize the contents of a file drawer of my mother's. There's a file in there labeled "Nuts and Cranks" and another labeled "Madness". I don't even know what's in them, but it doesn't much matter, does it? Sometimes you can judge the book by its cover.

Let's Review: Reduced Calorie Orange "Juice"

Really, the only reason I bought a container of Trop50 was because I had a free coupon and a hare-brained idea for a so-called performance art piece for my own amusement. But then, once home, I had to try it. Right? Waste not, want not?

It cavorts in the grocery case with the real orange juice, all those 64 ounce cartons lined up, with a little pulp, a lot of pulp, no pulp at all, from concentrate, not from concentrate. But it's sneaky, it's a 59 ounce carton, a little taller than the others, a little bit more slender, and holding 8% less. Deceptive, if you ask me.

And it's got 50% less sugar and calories - because it's really not orange juice, it's an "orange juice beverage with vitamins", containing 42% juice. Here's the ingredients list, not including the vitamins and minerals:

Filtered water, not from concentrate pasteurized orange juice, modified food starch, citric acid, malic acid, natural flavors and Reb A (PureVia brand)

So, they took regular orange juice, watered it down, and added stuff back in - like sweetener (the Reb A, also known as stevia) and thickener (modified food starch) and flavor.

Okay, okay. The real question is - how does it taste? Frankly, it's not very good. I tried it side by side against a glass of regular Tropicana orange juice - in a blind tasting (yeah, I roped my husband into serving as my lab assistant). The Trop50 doesn't have the same mouthfeel of the orange juice, it tastes artificially sweetened, and it has a vaguely bitter, unpleasant aftertaste.

You want fewer calories than the 110 in an eight ounce glass of orange juice? Drink less juice. Or water it down yourself. Or drink water with a lemon wedge squeezed into it. Or just have a glass of water, and save all the calories for a nice, refreshing gin & tonic on the back porch at the end of the day.

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Disclosure: I got a free coupon for this "juice" at the BlogHer conference, so I paid nothing for it. And no one paid me for this review.

From the Rain Comes Hope

It's overcast again, just like it was last year. Actually, it's more than overcast; it's raining and drizzling, stopping and starting. And once again, I'm glad that it's not that shockingly brilliant bright blue sky punctuated by smoke and horror.

This past April, President Obama signed legislation to recognize September 11 as a federally observed National Day of Service and Remembrance. How does one participate?

Just set aside a little time this 9/11 to plan or perform at least one good deed that helps someone else who may need assistance, or to support a cause that you care about. You choose.

As my contribution, I'd like to first point you towards the August Just Posts, as rounded up by Holly and Alejna. As ever, they've compiled some good posts to read, including, if I may pat myself on the back, my post about the cost of a colonoscopy.

Second, if you missed it, there was a special issue of the New York Times Magazine last month, focused on women, and "how changing the lives of women and girls in the developing world can change everything". The centerpiece was an article by Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, excerpted from their new book Half the Sky.

There’s a growing recognition among everyone from the World Bank to the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff to aid organizations like CARE that focusing on women and girls is the most effective way to fight global poverty and extremism. That’s why foreign aid is increasingly directed to women. The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution.

Kristof and Wu, helpfully, included a sidebar labeled Do-It-Yourself Foreign Aid, and so, in the spirit of this National Day of Service and Remembrance, I am going to send a donation to the Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital, in support of the Edna Hospital in Somaliland, and with the hope of helping to alleviate obstetric fistula.

How will you participate?

Number Nine

Three squared.

September.

The square root of eighty-one.

Fluorine.

Pluto (before demotion).

Innings.

Title IX.

Muses.

Revolution 9.

How We Have Worked

This Labor Day, this end of summer day, I cast about for something productive to do and lit upon the mountain of CSA peppers.


Somehow, what with being away for a while, and trying to eat all the vegetables that don't keep so well, we'd ended up with a dozen perfect red Carmen peppers, along with assorted other small peppers (like that yellow one - a banana pepper, maybe). In a fit of great madness, I decided to roast and marinate and can them - yes, actual mason jars in boiling water bath.

The jury's out on whether it was worth it, because it was rather a lot of work for three pints of pickled peppers. But lordy, do I feel butch.


I used a book called Well-Preserved, by Eugenia Bone - she'd gotten a write up in the Times in the spring, and the book had wormed itself onto the list in my head. It's a small, idiosyncratic cookbook, a general demystification of the canning process with lots of tips. I might actually try making sauerkraut later in the fall. I don't think I'll can my own tuna, because, um, blech.

Labor for labor day. Somehow, it seemed apt.

Wish You Were Here - Photo edition

Dear Moky:

Here are some of the pictures we took on our trip to Maine.

MAINE

Click on the picture; it'll take you to a web album. I hope you like them.

Love,

M.

Wish You Were Here

Dear Moky,

We've just gotten back from a short vacation, up in Maine mostly. We left on Friday, a little worried about the possibility of Tropical Storm Danny getting in the way of our plans - but time and tide wait for no man, and we had a boat to catch. On the drive up from New York to Maine, we stopped for lunch at about the mid-point, at a pizza place in Worcester that I found on Roadfood.com. "Pizza place" doesn't really do it justice - this was the best pizza I've ever had: paper thin crust, perfect toppings. We got two - one with the usual tomato and cheese, which Mir ate almost all of by herself. The second one had sliced potatoes, caramelized onions, bacon, shallots, garlic butter and a sprinkling of grated cheese - no tomato, no mozzarella. I think I have never tasted ANYTHING as good. You'd have loved the place, if for nothing other than the mess of galvanized trays and stands and pitchers.

We stayed in a little hotel (inn? what's the difference) up on Pemaquid Point - the kind of funky, gracious, idiosyncratic hotel that would have appealed to you. It had been built in the late 1800s as a boarding house - and still has the narrow hallways to show for it. I was tickled to find a huge antique nautical chart in our room - of Long Island Sound. Funny to find that up in Maine. After dropping our stuff, we headed out to a lobster place for beer and lobsters and bugs and the sunset. Mir said she wanted a lobster, and she duly ate both claws - even cracked them herself. Of course, she dipped the lobster meat in ketchup, but what are you going to do?

Luckily, the threatened hurricane moved offshore, but did dump a lot of water - it rained all day Saturday, meaning that we had to stick to indoor activities. Luckily, there's a little aquarium on the next peninsula - so we drove over there and spent some time mucking around in their terrific touch tank. Mir picked up sea cucumbers and lobsters and starfish and crabs, and managed to get soaking wet - good thing we were inside, eh? After another lobster lunch, we headed to the mothership: LL Bean. What else to do on a rainy day? Mir got some new clothes for school and we headed back to the hotel, stopping in Wiscasset for a lobster roll at Red's Eats - thanks to a recommendation from Anna. It may indeed have been the best lobster roll ever - even better than the fancy one in Boston a couple of months ago that cost twice as much.

After breakfast on Sunday, we headed to Rockland, to board our boat - the schooner Nathaniel Bowditch. Wow. Again, you'd have loved it. Granted, the accomodations are spartan, at best, and there are ladders to navigate to get down to the bunks and the heads and the galley, but the sailing was splendid, the food was great, the weather was perfect, and the boat had an abundance of character. We were encouraged to help with the sailing, like providing muscle to raise the mainsail and pull up the anchor, but mostly we just stared out at the glorious wild coast of Maine. And people stared at us! There are so few of those big old sailboats left that when one shows up, everyone looks and takes a picture. We sailed from Rockland up to Castine and back, anchoring near Warren Island one night, and in Pulpit Harbor the next. And on that second night, Mir slept up on deck in a lifeboat with the four year old son of the captain - counting 3000 stars in the sky!

After docking again the next day, we moseyed down to Boston - with a stop in Yarmouth for lunch with an old friend of mine. She's got a house on the water with killer views - no beach, too cold to swim, but beautiful none-the-less. I know that you'd rather have a beach and warmer water, but you'd have liked this, I think.

Boston was a great way station - we checked into our swanky hotel and headed straight to the pool/hot tub/sauna/steam room. After all, we hadn't had a shower on board the boat, and hauling up anchors is hard work! We had an early dinner at an old German beer hall, thanks to a recommendation from Erika - the blog friends really came through on the restaurant tips.

Finally, yesterday, we drove home via the scenic and indirect route. One thing led to another and we stopped in Northampton, to show Mir where you'd gone to college. I had an ice cream cone there that knocked my socks off (well, I wasn't wearing socks, but, you know). It was Burnt Sugar 'n' Butter ice cream - sort of caramelly, with a salty kick from the butter. Looks like there's a Herrell's in Huntington - I wonder if you've ever been there?

We put enough miles on the new car to break her in - and she performed beautifully. She's fun to drive, and perfect for our little family of three. And Mir tackled three whole lobsters, though all little one pounders - not like that enormous one you once had on Cape Cod. I think it might have been the perfect vacation, even if it was only five nights away from home. I'm sorry you weren't there.

Love,

-M.

P.S. I'll have some photos to show you, soon.

Her Name Is Kate

What happens when Cash For Clunkers meets Mid-Life Crisis?


You trade in the sad 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee, which had been racking up the repair bills, including a radiator replacement at the end of July when the radiator disintegrated spectacularly during that traffic jam caused by the wrong-way drunk stoned woman on the Taconic, and get the Six-Speed! Heated Seats! Chili Red! Mini! Clubman!

And you get your sister-in-law to dye another blue streak in your hair.

Kate's going to be put through her paces this weekend. We're heading off to Maine, a last-gasp-of-summer what-to-do-between-the-end-of-camp-and-the-beginning-of-first-grade. Salt air, lobster rolls, adventure - here we come.

Wordless Wednesday: Graffiti in Cambridge

Q: What's going on here?


A: Unsuspecting people & informed participants (like yourself) are inspiring a choreographer.

Tunes for Tuesday, Times Two

ONE:
I'm the guest DJ over at Music Savvy Mom today. Go check it out - see and hear the not-kid music that I'm listening to. And consider participating yourself - it's fun.

TWO:
The other day we unearthed a couple of boxes of CDs that haven't been touched since we moved FIVE years ago. So, in the spirit of Tunes for Tuesday, I'm giving away two discs. Leave a comment (before Thursday) and tell me whether you want

Loreena McKennitt: The Visit

or:

The soundtrack to Marie Christine, featuring Audra McDonald.

I'm happy we dug out that box of CDs - we found the Broadway shows that we'll need for our road trip at the end of the week. I'm looking forward to singing along to Hair and A Chorus Line as we sail down the highway on the way to Maine.

Sword Fighting

The child, she is a natural at the Wii Sports Resort sword fighting.



However, I don't think she's going to win any Olympic medals in fencing. Her style is a little, shall we say, violent? All she does is bash her opponent on the head, and make Daddy fear for the safety of the television.

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In unrelated news, Painted Maypole was the random winner of my Pay It Forward. A small package is on its way to her.

Let's Review: Scented Pencils

Last year, the PTA at my sister's kids' school decided to be all environmentally correct in their fundraiser - the fundraiser where the parents have to guilt their friends and neighbors into buying stuff no one really wants. Our father signed up to buy five-packs of cunning rip-stop nylon shopping bags for everyone in the family, and there wasn't really anything else we needed, but, to be supportive, I bought some colored pencils for the kid. Smencils, to be precise, colored pencils made of recycled newspaper and soaked in scent to become smelly pencils. Wouldn't "scencils" have been a better name? Scented pencils. I digress.

Yesterday, I decided we should tackle some of the over-the-summer homework that the girlie has - you know, bone up on kindergarten skills in preparation for first grade. So, out came the Smencils.

The packaging made me apeshit. It's all well and good to make pencils out of newspaper; I like that, you even see the rings of paper when you sharpen the pencil. But every single pencil is encased in its own hard plastic "corn-based biodegradable Freshness Tube" and all the pencil tubes are in a zippered vinyl tote - so there's more packaging than pencils. Why, I ask you, does a pencil need a Freshness Tube? Especially when the company says "we guarantee Smencils will maintain their scent for 2 years - in or out of their Freshness Tubes". When was the last time a kid's pencil in general use lasted for 2 years? And if it keeps its scent for two years without a tube, why does it need the tube in the first place?

Furthermore, I'm skeptical about the whole corn-based biodegradable business. It's not biodegradable in your backyard (it requires a "controlled composting environment", and according to Smithsonian, there are only 113 such facilities across the US). It has to be kept separated from the recycling of other plastics, the kinds with a number in a triangle, "lest it contaminate the recycling stream". So if you can't compost it, and you can't recycle it, it ends up in the landfill!

There's also the "morality of turning a foodstuff into packaging when so many people in the world are hungry", and the possible environmental impact of using genetically modified corn for making said packaging.

Couldn't the Smencils have been packed in a simple cardboard box like pencils used to be?

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Disclosure: I purchased the Smencils, and no one paid me for this review.

Wordless Wednesday: Wet

(In a fountain at Harvard.)

Performance Art, Or, Maybe Not

So, a couple of weeks ago, Jean Martha (via Twitter) pointed me to an interview on a Wall Street Journal blog, an interview with a guy named Sam Pocker, who bills himself as a stand-up economist and does performance art in supermarkets.

An idea began forming in my head. I could create a performance art piece, if only for my own enjoyment, by taking all the free coupons I’d gotten recently and going to the supermarket and buying nothing but those items! I’d pay nothing! I’d participate in consumer society! It was genius!

Providently, we needed limes for the pomegranate margaritas (which sort of redeemed the pomegranate juice, by the way, though the tequila may have negated the so-called health benefits of said pomegranate juice), so I gathered my coupons and my sister and off we went. I told her, mysteriously, that I was engaged in a “project” when she asked why I insisted on segregating the strange assemblage of unrelated products that I was purchasing. She cottoned on quickly, “what is this, for your blog?”

There was a little trouble locating the “right” size of one of the items, and the first container of Trop50 that I grabbed was expired, but the real snafu came when I tried to check out. Silly me, I thought six items through the self-checker would be a breeze – until I tried to scan a coupon and found that the self-checker wouldn't take the free coupons. I tried to abort the whole transaction – but instead I unintentionally summoned help, "help is on the way" chirped the robotic attendant, over and over. Some poor bewildered cashier wandered over, and couldn’t help at all because she’d lost her magic swipe card. The people behind me groaned at my breach of supermarket etiquette*. My sister fled to the next aisle, where the manager of the in-house bank branch tried to pick her up ("Nice butterfly" he said, about her temporary tattoo). The supermarket manager came over, and started punching buttons, and asked me “where’d you get all these coupons anyway?” I told him they were from a conference, and though I don’t think he thought I was a fraud, I am sure he thought I was nuts. In fact, I believe I told him I was nuts.

Eventually, he got the machine to accept four of the six coupons, and took the other two and got the cash value of those two coupons from the manager’s desk.

I was disappointed – I wanted a register receipt that had a zero balance on it, or zero plus tax, anyway. Instead, I paid $12.47 and got cash back of $11.48, meaning that I spent $.99 on sales tax for my six items, and now you know I'm nuts, because why did I bother writing this all down?

It seemed like such a nice performance art piece in my head, but it turned into a fiasco. But just wait until I review the Trop 50. And the Ragu? It's going to camp for the end of summer food drive.



* Can you believe there's a whole WikiHow page devoted to supermarket checkout-line etiquette? The mind reels.

You Want to Know How Much A Colonoscopy Costs?

I’m as confused as the next person about health care reform - but I know we need it; it’s completely bat-shit crazy the way it is now. In my heart of hearts, I think we should have a one-payer socialized system, and I'm disappointed that the “public option” may be dropped from the current attempt at health care reform.

You know that I had two colonoscopies done this summer. Both were done by the same gastroenterologist –but for some scheduling reason unclear to me, the first was done in the hospital, and the second was done in the doctor’s office. Mind you, it’s not a sole practitioner’s office, it’s a big clinic operation with a full scale suite for endoscopies and colonoscopies (and who knows what else). The insurance we have is the kind where you have to stay in-network, and then you pay a small co-pay. In an effort towards transparency, the insurance company sends an Explanation of Benefits out after any claims, showing what the doctor billed, and what insurance paid, and what the patient’s responsibility is.

I compiled the numbers for the two colonoscopies and I’m kind of flabbergasted.

#1 in the hospital

Charges billed by doctors and hospital	$9,142.84
Amount paid by insurance	$5,742.67
Co-pay due from me	$125.00

#2 in the doctor’s office

Charges billed by doctors and lab	$5,322.76
Amount paid by insurance	$2,922.63
Co-pay due from me	$30.00

The submitted charges for the procedure in the hospital were 72% higher than the charges for the scope in the doctor’s office. And the insurance company paid out 96% more for the hospital procedure. At the end of the day, my doctor got reimbursed just about the same amount – so why did he schedule one of the scopes into the hospital? It wasn't for convenience; the hospital is about a half mile from his office. Why isn’t the insurance company protesting? They had to pre-approve the procedure – why didn’t they require that the first scope be done in the office – which would have saved them nearly $3,000? Why did the insurance company pay a bigger percentage of the first scope (63%) and less for the second scope (55%)?

The thing that strikes me about all of this is the irrationality – there’s seemingly no rhyme or reason to either the pricing or the reimbursement. Why is the system so broken?

An article in the September Atlantic suggests that the way out of the mess is to put decision making back into the hands of the consumer – also known as the patients. I don't know that consumer driven health care is the answer, but if I’d known how much the colonoscopy was going to cost in the hospital as compared to in the office, I’d have chosen the office both times - even though the bulk of the cost wasn't coming (directly) out of my pocket. And I’d have saved myself nearly $100 on the co-pay in the process.

Again, I have no idea what the answer is, or how to achieve it, but there is a problem and it needs to be solved. Further, it seems clear that a solution lies in the systems in place in other first world countries. "Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. There are, however, wide variations in the specifics, with three main approaches taken." That's a quote from Paul Krugman, in today's Times. Go read the whole piece. He ends thusly:

So we can do this. At this point, all that stands in the way of universal health care in America are the greed of the medical-industrial complex, the lies of the right-wing propaganda machine, and the gullibility of voters who believe those lies.

I don't know where this will end.

Let's Review: Swag, Part 2

It's been a couple of weeks since I got home from BlogHer, and all of the swag has been unpacked and consumed, stored, used, donated, or gifted. I know I already did this once, but there were a few more products that I wanted to mention. Again, no one paid me to do this, I didn’t buy any of these products, and none of them cost more than a token amount of money. But I know that you want to know what I think.

Smashies

I'm a little conflicted about this stuff. On the one hand, it's just fruit - organic smashed fruit a/k/a applesauce - on the other hand, it's packaged to a fair-thee-well. Yes, it's convenient to toss in the kid's lunchbox, or my handbag if we're heading off on an outing. And she loved the two I brought home from BlogHer. But, I send her off to school with a lunch-box, which she brings home at the end of the day, and it's a lot cheaper and more ecologically correct to send a whole apple, or to portion out some applesauce from a big jar into a small plastic container that we'll use over and over. Basically, it's a totally unnecessary product.

Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake

I confess that I was completely skeptical about this DVD. I've been going to the ballet since I was a kid, I've studied ballet, and I work in the field. My kid saw the New York City Ballet Nutcracker when she was three, has been to other dance performances, has watched ballet class, watches dancing on YouTube, and has a mess of age appropriate books about ballet. The DVD sounded irritating and altogether too cute. But, in an effort to give it a fair hearing, I put it on. The kid watched it twice in a row, mesmerized, and has asked for it repeatedly since then. To be sure, it's got a whole lot of corny going on - including an animated fairy as narrator. But overall, it's pretty charming. There's footage of the Paris Opera Ballet's Swan Lake, with a voice over telling you who's who and what's what. There are medium-sized kids in ballet class at the School of American Ballet, intercut with a flock of four year old girls in tutus on a lawn. It's gently didactic, showing and naming a few ballet steps. For a small child, it's a nice introduction to the world of ballet.

Pictureka

One of the parties I went to was a low-key, no-swag-bag cocktail party thrown by Johnson & Johnson and Hasbro and Mom Central. There weren't any bandaids, or OB tampons, but Hasbro had card games around, if you wanted one. I brought Pictureka home because the packaging said it was appropriate for age six and up. And the 5 and 3/4 year old likes it! The game is pretty simple without being dumb - it's got loose rules with a lot of room for interpretation - and I think we'll play it often.

One last thought about this swag business. I thoroughly understand why BlogHer needs sponsors, and I thoroughly understand why sponsors want to get product samples into the hands of the attendees. But indiscriminate stuffing of product into bags isn't the way to go, unless it's genuinely something that everyone needs (not everyone needs baby food, which was in the Walmart bag). Further, there's the schleppage factor - the sponsor has to get the stuff to the conference, the attendees have to get the stuff home. One win-win solution is coupons. I came home with a bunch of coupons for free product. I'll redeem the ones I want to try (thanks Method, Tide, Gap) and I'll probably pass along the coupon for a free jar of Ragu to someone who needs it more than we do (remember, I live with an Italian grandmother). My husband already ate the free McDonald's hamburger. Another solution would be for the sponsor to collect names and addresses, and ship the product to the interested blogger. That's what Hasbro did. Yeah, they handed out some games at their cocktail party, but they also handed out cards on which you could choose up to five games (out of maybe 15 choices). They haven't come yet, but I think we'll be getting a bunch of games to play.

About BlogHer 2009? That's all she wrote. Until next year.

Wordless Wednesday: Another Polar Bear

Different zoo, different polar bear, same iPhone camera.

That Tooth Of Mine

After some people asked me what had happened to that tooth of mine in 1969, I started to wonder. Why was I sorry?

It occurred to me that it could be from the time I chipped my front tooth on one of those merry-go-round things that used to be in playgrounds and backyards. Dangerous whirling metal objects causing childhood trauma and trips to the dentist! No wonder they've been banned.

But I didn't open up the little folded up piece of paper to see if it was merely a chip. Anyway, it probably isn't that at all - wouldn't the chip have gone flying?





Photo found at 1000 Awesome Things.

Belkin, Mommyblogging and Balance

So, Lisa Belkin commented on my BlogHer recap:

"not nearly as annoying as I thought it was going to be.." Thanks. I think, : )

I've been mulling this over, that is, why I was anticipating that that particular panel would be annoying.

In every given time slot during the BlogHer conference day, there are multiple things going on, different "tracks" they call them. If you're lucky, you want to go to one and only one. If you're less lucky, you have to make a choice. The worst scenario is when you want to go to one panel, and end up next door because the first one was too crowded.

The Belkin panel was at the same time as the "Brands and Bloggers" panel. I kind of wanted to go to that one because it was going to be run by Jory Des Jardins, and the panelists included Liz Gumbinner (of Mom-101 and Cool Mom Picks) and other women on "both sides of the Brand/Blogger border". It sounded potentially interesting and provocative, and while I'm really not a review blogger, I follow the discussions about commercialism and transparency with some curiousity.

But it was full! Standing room only, not a seat in the room. So I went next door to the panel titled "MommyBlogging: 'Balance' is a Big, Fat, Lying, McLiar LIE for Moms who Blog (and the rest of us too)", the panel that Lisa Belkin was moderating.

Belkin has written for my local paper, the New York Times, for years. Not so long ago, she started writing a parenting blog on the Times website - in addition to continuing to appear in print. Her blog, to my mind, tends to be intentionally polarizing. She seems to pick topics that are going to engender a big pile-on of comments on both sides of an issue - breastfeeding, IVF, drinking, potty-training, college tuition - and frequently ends posts with a question to prompt comments. I dip into her blog from time to time, but it's not on my daily reads. In any case, it wasn't Belkin that I found potentially annoying; it was the combination of "mommyblogging" and "balance".

First, I'm not a mommyblogger. Yes, I have a child who calls me Mama. I also have a sister, but having a sister doesn't make me a sisterblogger. Nor does having a husband make me a wifeblogger.

I don't even particularly identify as a "mom". I'm someone's mother, but I'm also someone's wife, someone's sister, aunt, cousin, child, niece, in-law and step-sister. I'm also someone's employee, boss to several people, and friend hither and yon.

In short, I'm me. I am a blogger - I write about what moves me, I write about what interests me, I write about things that irritate me no end. In short, I write about whatever the hell I feel like writing about, which does include my kid from time to time.

Second, "balance" is overrated. Either you're coping or you're not coping. I get up, go to work, come home. My house is messy, our meals are unplanned, the kid needs her fingernails cut. But she's fed and shod, the bills get paid, important things don't (usually) fall by the wayside. We just deal and accept a degree of chaos. It seems to me that complaining about balance is an instance of whining for the sake of whining.

With that said, heading into a panel about "balance" under the "mommyblogging" label was like expecting that all of my buttons were going to be pushed. And happily, they weren't. Belkin was an engaging moderator, the panelists (Angela Tseng, Pauline Karwowski and Rita Arens) were spirited and articulate, and the audience piped up too.

So, I wasn't annoyed, but I don't think I learned anything.

How about you? Do you struggle with "balance", or do you just put your head down and get things done? And what does "balance" mean, anyway?

Let's Review: Pomegranate Juice

A month or so ago, I got an email from someone at Pom Wonderful, wondering if I'd like to try a case of their pomegranate juice. Sure, why not? I'd been vaguely curious about their product ever since a 2008 New Yorker profile of Lynda Resnick, the owner of the company, which focused on her creation of the pomegranate juice market beginning in 2002.

A box of eight cute little 8-ounce bottles showed up, packed on ice because it's fresh juice and needs to be refrigerated. I cracked one open and winced. Man, that stuff is astringent - to the point that it makes your tongue all weird. And it's awfully high in calories - 8 ounces has 160 calories - in contrast, a 12 ounce can of Coca-Cola has only 140 calories. Ounce for ounce, the pomegranate juice has 71% more calories than Coke.

The box came with some promotional material about the "health benefits" of pomegranate juice, but because I'm a natural skeptic, I figured I should poke around a little and see what other people had to say.

Consumer Reports does say that "there's some preliminary human evidence that pomegranate juice may yield tangible health benefits. In a small clinical trial published last year in the journal Clinical Nutrition, for example, drinking a glass of pomegranate juice each day for one year reduced blood pressure, decreased the oxidation that causes “bad” LDL cholesterol to stick to artery walls, and reduced clogging of arteries in the neck (a risk factor for stroke)."

However, and also according to Consumer Reports, "pomegranate juice may offer some health benefits, but it can also interact with some medications, including ACE inhibitors and antihypertensive drugs".

Pom Wonderful claims to be the "antioxidant superpower". But what does that mean? What's the point of antioxidants anyway?

According to the Times, there is "no evidence that [antioxidant supplements] prolong life, and strong evidence that they might shorten it." Furthermore, Barry Popkin, quoted elsewhere in the Times, says that "drinking a glass of fruit juice a day...has been linked...to increased calorie intake and higher risks of diabetes and heart disease".

I think the Pom Wonderful people are selling a bill of goods. It's not great juice, it's high in calories, and its health benefits are dubious.

I'm too cheap to throw the stuff away, so I've been slipping it in my morning smoothies: one banana, a half cup of plain yogurt, and 4 ounces of the pomegranate juice. It comes out a nice shade of pink, but even banana and yogurt don't mask the astringency. I also have been making pink lemonade by adding a couple of tablespoons to a half gallon of plain lemonade, and some of the pomegranate juice made its way into my eggplant caponata.

But will I be buying it any time soon? Nope.

---

Disclosure: The pomegranate juice was provided to me by the manufacturer, at no cost to me. And they did not pay me for this review.

Pay It Forward, Heathen

Don't you love getting things in the mail? I don't mean bills, I don't mean the new clothes you ordered for the kid, I don't even mean the monthly shipment of coffee that keeps your household from spiraling into a cranky uncaffeinated disaster.

No, I'm talking about things you're sort of expecting, but you don't know what they're going to be - like birthday cards and giveaways from far-flung bloggers.

Kelly, of Heathen Family Revival, recently sent me a great package - a set of notecards using her own photo of asparagus, and a handmade fabric roll-up case for crayons - something for me, and something for the kid.

It's now incumbent on me to send something to one of you. I don't know what it'll be, I don't know if it'll be handmade, I don't know whether you'll like it, but I'll send it by ordinary US mail to help keep the post office in business.

Leave me a comment on this post by Thursday 8/13, and tell me one banal thing about your kitchen. I'll pick a winner at random on Friday 8/14. Sometime after that, sooner than later, I'll send you your gift, and then you'll Pay It Forward on your own blog and give someone else something cool.

Wordless Wednesday: Swimming

At the beginning of the summer, she wouldn't put her head underwater. By the time camp is over in a couple weeks, she will probably have completed Level 2 of the Red Cross Learn to Swim program. I'm kind of proud of her.

I Know What I'm Doing In 2014

As much fun as it was to have a colonoscopy in June and another one in July, it’s much nicer to be told that all’s well and I don’t need another one for FIVE years.

Don’t let me stop you from having one of your own though. The procedure is a piece of cake, and the prep really isn’t that bad. My two cents? The orange flavor packet for the Trilyte is better than the lemon-lime, and drinking it at room temperature is easier than drinking it cold. Mind you, “better” and “easier” are incremental improvements, but improvements none-the-less.

You know you ought to, so just do it.

Mock Caponata

The thing about the CSA is that you end up with vegetables that you might not actually have bought if you saw them at the market. Like eggplant. I don’t love eggplant, but one came home the other day, along with a couple of zucchini and three different kinds of peppers and a mess of parsley and some other stuff.

But the eggplant. It sat there balefully in the fridge while I wondered what to make of it. Ha, I said, caponata – it would go well with the cold leftover steak we were going to have for dinner. I picked up the Campagna cookbook at 6:00 and instead of being dissuaded by the admonition that this "isn't one of those speedy weeknight dishes you can start cooking at 7:00 pm and have on the table at 7:30", I forged onward. Cookbooks, to me, are for inspiration - not for line by line instructions and specific measurements.

Guerrilla Mock Caponata

Dice an onion and toss it in a hot saucepan with some olive oil. Whack up a couple of peppers and toss them in – I used a sweet banana pepper, and a slightly spicy Mariachi pepper. Stir ‘em around a bit, then add a chopped eggplant and a chopped zucchini. Don’t bother salting the eggplant – who has time for that? Add a little tangy liquid – I used a couple of ounces of pomegranate juice – and slam a lid on the pot. Let it cook for a bit. Give it a stir, toss in a mess of chopped garlic, and add some more sweet and sour stuff. I used a tablespoon of pomegranate molasses, a splash of red wine vinegar and a dash of orange olive oil – along with a teaspoon of capers and a couple of tablespoons of chopped raisins. Cook, covered for a while longer, and then let cool to room temperature. Stir in some chopped parsley and serve. It’s a nice cross between a vegetable side dish and a condiment.

If I may say so myself, it was awfully tasty.

Most recipes for caponata will likely have celery and tomato and olives, and no zucchini – but to me, it's all about the sweet and tangy. I got there by using what I had around, but other things would work too - I thought of tossing in a blob of ketchup, or orange juice, or wine.

Oh, and start to finish? It took an hour, including 15 minutes on the stove unattended, and 15 minutes to cool.

Tooth Fairy

fEB. 17, [1969]

Dear, Tooth Fairy,

I am sorry this

happened, but

please take it.

Love,

---

Yes, there's a tooth of mine folded up in a little piece of paper and taped to the typed note. It's a terrible image, but it's hard to scan a three dimensional object.

I've been hanging onto this for months - waiting to post it until the girlie lost her first tooth - which happened yesterday, at camp. Alas, instead of writing a note to the tooth fairy, she had a temper tantrum, and went to bed without even slipping the tooth under her pillow. Don't worry, the tooth fairy came anyway.

Let's Review: Swag

In the aftermath of all the BlogHer swag hysterics, I thought I’d review some of the swag that I came home with. No one paid me to do this, I didn’t buy any of these products, and none of them cost more than a token amount of money. But I know that you want to know what I think, right?

Wiley Day-Glo Orange Luggage Tag: I <3 Blogging

I flew out to Chicago with a carry-on bag that’s my husband’s. I’ve never used it before, and it’s black, and everyone else’s bag is black, and when I was getting off the plane I was pretty sure I had the right bag, but not sure enough that I didn’t have to check the address tag that he’d hidden. So, on the way home, I dangled the Day-Glo Orange Luggage Tag off the handle, and bingo! No chance of missing my bag. Thanks, Wiley!

Eucerin Everyday Protection Face Lotion SPF 30

For years I’ve been using a moisturizer from Kiehl’s. My father, who travels all the time, always brings back sample size bottles of the Kiehl’s from some swanky hotel. I swipe his bottles, all’s right with the world. But I ran out, and I haven’t been able to find a moisturizer that I like. I think the Eucerin might be it. It’s a drugstore brand (so it’s cheap), it feels nice on my face, and it’s even got sunscreen (which my dermatologist will be happy about).

Blue Avocado BlogHer Conference Bag

I've written before about my love for carabiners, and although I’m long on reusable bags for shopping and groceries, the nylon sack handed out at check-in is a keeper – inside it’s got a little attached stuff sack with a carabiner! That wasn't the only carabiner I got: Karianna was handing out "karibiners" clipped to her business card.

Bounce Dryer Bar

“Stick it and forget it”. I don’t know about you, but the thought of gluing a waxy bar of chemicals to the inside of my dryer completely skeeves me out. I’m kind of in the dryer sheets are unnecessary and environmentally incorrect camp, though I often use them because they help with the static business. I find that a whole sheet leaves too much scent, so I cut them in half (which has the added benefit of making a box last twice as long). But I don’t like touching the sheets – they feel gross and leave a residue on my hands (especially if you’re cutting up a whole box – I’m a weirdo, what do you want?). Anyway recently I’ve switched to using Method’s dryer sheets – they smell better and I got sucked in by their holy green no-animal-fat product description. So the Bounce Dryer Bar? Thanks, but no thanks.

Tag Reader Spiderman Book

I was a little irritated to get a Tag Reader Spiderman book in one of the swag bags, along with a coupon for a discount on the Reader – it seemed like giving away a razor blade to force you to buy the whole razor. But then I realized that the book stands along, and doesn’t need the Reader at all. Besides, the girlie loved the book. It’s not fine literature, but if she likes it, I can’t complain.

Wordless Wednesday: Nora Goes Bowling

Nora couldn't be at BlogHer in the flesh, but she got there on a stick. She went bowling, she went out to dinner, she napped, she saw friends, she ate cheeseburgers. She even got stuck in my cleavage. If you need more photographic evidence as to Nora's travels, check here and here.

The requisite BlogHer post

Maggie Dammit describes it as akin to Alice in Wonderland, down the rabbit hole. I think it's kind of like a college reunion - lots of people with whom you have commonality, but don't see very often or even like very much. For a few days, real life paused and I found myself in some parallel universe.

I had a great time meeting and seeing people - wonderful warm generous lovely smart people - like Cecily and Mel and Aurelia and Annette and Amanda and VodkaMom and Marinka and Jean and Lori and and Becky and Becky and Catherine and Susan and Ree and IzzyMom and Grace and Emma and if you're not listed, it doesn't mean I don't love you. I met Lisa Stone when I didn't have any cards on me. I gave Kelcey a ride to the airport and never saw her again - her humor panel room was overflowing. I met Florinda for the first time and she was a perfect roommate.

I found the sessions I went to inspirational - I wanted to give Kelly a standing ovation when she finished talking about the "transformative power of blogging", the community keynote made us laugh and cry, and the mommyblogging panel on balance with Lisa Belkin wasn't nearly as annoying as I thought it would be.

I was delighted to meet the Johnson & Johnson people who sponsored me; they were lovely and seemed genuinely happy to have been able to support the random handful of bloggers who won their sweepstakes.

I was happy to wear another hat when I got to thank the representatives from Method and Sprout. Several months ago, they'd come through generously when I asked for product for a silent auction charity event I was working on.

I didn't win a netbook (which I don't need anyway) or a washer/dryer (which I do). And I didn't win new tires, but I did have my picture taken with the Michelin man (and anyway I need two new cars, not four new tires, thank you very much).

I was tickled to be invited to a private party given by Nintendo, a swank party complete with horse-drawn carriages and a spectacular view of Chicago from the 95th floor of the Hancock building. Nintendo's outreach reps are charming, and all of the guests got a DSi in the slickest gift box ever - it opens up to a vanity mirror, with lights and applause.

That gift box was one of the best things I brought home for the girlie, but she did like the Strawberry Shortcake dolls and the Schleich white tiger and the toy car and the clown nose and the coloring books and the chocolate lollipop. And my husband ate all of the chocolates that came from the Room 704 party (but he hasn't seen the vibrator yet).

I even left the hotel on Saturday morning, and - with Gwen - went to the Art Institute of Chicago and walked back along the lake.

And there's a lot of shite floating around about swag and marketing and PR, but eh. For me, the weekend was fun, and maybe I'll post some pictures tomorrow. After all, I've got some downtime tomorrow - I'm detoxing from BlogHer by having a colonscopy. Joy.

Starting And Flying

My first blog posts were on 23 July 2006 - three years ago today. Somehow, it seems fitting that I'm getting on a plane to Chicago later, to fly to the BlogHer conference for the second time. What's more: I am tickled and grateful to have won one of the Blogher Johnson & Johnson sweepstakes - so my trip is covered. Phew!

Despite Thoreau's admonition to "beware of all enterprises that require new clothes", I've done something I've never done before: I had a pedicure. Somehow, it seemed like the right time to use the gift certificate I got for Christmas.

To keep you busy while I'm gone, I filched a meme from Schmutzie: please, if you would be so kind, leave me a comment answering these three four questions.

1. What is your website url?
2. Where are you from in real life?
3. What do you want to be when you grow up?
4. Should I keep my blogroll? It's gotten out of hand and out of date.

And, if you're going to be in Chicago, find me!

Wordless Wednesday: Anonymous

There are graves in Boston's North End cemetery that are worn, flaked, erased to the point of anonymity, but still standing. I like to think that the second set is a mama and her baby, mama still protecting her baby.