Cupcakes and Linky Love for my Foodies

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So as of late I’ve acquired a new addiction. Cupcake blogs*.

It all started quite a while ago when I was on Surly Dave’s site, looking through his blogroll of cooks. I found one that I absolutely love! Its Simply Recipes Food and Cooking Blog, run by a lady named Elise who posts wonderful, user-friendly recipes. If I’m feeling down, instead of turning to food consumption for comfort, I turn to food blogs, complete with pictures! Yay! I even got a notebook and started putting together my own little cookbook with the recipes I find there, and so far all of them have been delicious.

From that site I found another, of course. These things just tend to escalate, don’t they? Anyway, the second site is Vanilla Garlic, run by one Garrett McCord, who has a thing for putting together interesting ingredient combinations and creating original cupcake recipes. So of course in his blogroll he has a category just for cupcake blogs, which of the eight listed I favorited, um…..seven. Actually, I would have favorited all of them, but one isn’t running anymore.

Perusing these cupcake blogs has been so inspiring, but it took me a little while to try my first batch of cupcakes. I finally did on Monday, and the results were so wonderful!! I was so impressed with myself! The recipe comes from How To Eat a Cupcake, which is a super-fun site. Go check it out! I ended up buying a second notebook just for cupcakes. I think I shall post a new cupcake blog site every week! Bwa-ha-ha-haaaaa!

…Sorry.

So! Now you have something exciting to look forward to! Yay for you!

*Yes, there was reason behind the madness that was Benny’s blog background yesterday.

Fore! I mean, “Four!”

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I may seem a bit distracted the next few days. You see, I’ve got a large LCD TV. I’ve got HD. I’ve got DirectTV. And I’ve got an itchy trigger-thumb on my remote.

DirectTV is featuring four full-time channels devoted to the Masters the next four days. One channel is dedicated to the main broadcast feed of the tournament; a second channel to the day’s highlights. A third channel is devoted exclusively to “Amen Corner” while the fourth focuses solely on Holes 15 and 16. In case I can’t decide which one to watch, I can WATCH ALL FOUR AT THE SAME TIME on one screen, plus have access to several interactive features that will let me pull up additional information!

Let it snow all weekend, I don’t care.

Court and spark

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I discovered another blog with an appreciation for Courtship: iPandora. Blog founder Matthew has been joined by co-blogger and future bride, Grace, aka American Texan.

Currently at the top of the page are their two stories of how they met, became friends, then reached the decision to court and now, ultimately, are engaged. An “engaging” story indeed, told from two viewpoints but with a common vision. Check it out.

Tom Lehrer Day

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Today is Tom Lehrer’s 80th birthday, and yes, he’s still alive. I posted a video from him several days ago, but thought I’d celebrate the occasion with another of his classics that has eerily remained relevant more than 40 years after it was written (the text inserted briefly in the middle of the video was not from Lehrer).







Edgy, cynical and more than a little liberal, Lehrer still had a gift for sticking his needle right in your funny bone. Despite his television exposure in the 1960s, he ultimately chose a lower profile in academia. In an interview he once said he would have gone crazy touring and doing the same songs every night. Besides, he said, “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.”



Happy birthday to one of the greats!

Losing face is but a fraction of what others have lost

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In general I’m not a big fan of disruptive protests, seeing them as typically producing more inconvenience than enlightenment. That said, I’ve taken an untypical satisfaction in the multiple protests around the world seeking to shame China in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics. While I’d personally feel more of a connection if the protesters were trying to call attention to the persistent persecution, monitoring and attempted intimidation of Christians instead of Tibetans by the Chinese government, any ridicule that can be heaped on that totalitarian regime is ultimately in the service of a good cause.

To be clear, I don’t support or endorse any violent or destructive protests, but I am amused by the daring ingenuity of the protests that have made use of international landmarks in London, Paris and San Francisco. The Chinese government’s objective of using the Games as an image booster is blowing up in — and causing it to lose — face.

When China was first awarded the Games I found it regrettable that a country with such a heinous record on human rights and of suborning it’s capitalist partners such as Google had received such a boon. Surely they would use the opportunity to present a more enlightened face to the world while continuing to betray the truth and it’s own people. If nothing else, the protests have shown Beijing that not everyone is buying it or is willing to kowtow or look politely the other way.

(On a related note, last Sunday I heard a man from the Gideons relate how the organization had been granted the privilege of bringing Bibles into the country and placing them in Beijing hotels for the Olympics — on the condition that they would subsequently be removed from the country as soon as the Olympics are over. We prayed that there won’t be a single Bible to be found when the Gideons go back because the guests and staff will have — safely — taken them all).

I know some say embarrassing the host country is improper and rude and that the Games should transcend politics and be about the spirit of athletic competition. Others say the protesters are depriving the torch-bearers of a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Well, if you’re concerned about the athletic spirit and the ideals of fair-play, sportsmanship and a level playing field then I would suggest that China itself has already thrown these principles to the dragons, and it’s only fair to call them on it. I do feel some sympathy for those of good faith looking to honor the Games by carrying the torch who are being deprived of this opportunity, but on a lesser scale than those deprived of liberty and even their life for trying to uphold the light of freedom.

Embarrassment is too mild a price for the Chinese government to pay for its abuses; at the very least I would that they be mortified.

Buddy, you’re nutty

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The NuttyBuddy — a next-generation upgrade on the athletic cup — is getting somewhat infamous in certain, um, parts of the blogosphere. My friend KingDavid, unpaid and unofficial spokesperson for NuttyBuddy, gave me one of the company’s promotional tee-shirts for my birthday last week. While I’ll proudly wear the tee-shirt, I don’t know that I’d go to the lengths the guy in the video below goes to to demonstrate the efficacy of this new technology.

It’s hard to tell what is more disturbing, this clown’s (let’s call him a “Crush Test Dummy”) willingly and repeatedly standing in front of the Nuke LaLoosh of pitching machines, or the constant cackling of the off-screen woman who was feeding the (supposed) baseballs into the machine. Somehow she reminded me of the sound Hillary must have made while coming up with her health care proposals.

One positive thing about this video, however, is that at the end — after taking repeated shots to the gut and thigh and a couple direct hits on the NuttyBuddy — the guy says, “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to have kids.”

On behalf of the gene pool and future generations, I thank him in the name of all humanity.

Great Scots!

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Mitch had a shout-out yesterday recognizing National Tartan Day, the holiday for Americans of Scots descent. Some commenters on Mitch’s post took playful swipes at the manly custom of wearing kilts, to which I quoted The Virginian,: “When you say those words, smile.”

In the book, TV shows and movies the Virginian’s name is never used, but it’s a good bet he was of Scots ancestry. Virginia was a popular destination for the Scots-Irish immigrants of the late 1600s and 1700s and their well-known traits of being independent, quarrelsome and inherently mistrustful of authority played a role in the founding of this country. As recounted in the book The Scots of Virginia by Horace Edward Henderson (also here):

By the time of the Revolution, Virginia had the largest population and it ranked as the most important colony both politically and economically. The largest concentration of Scottish people in America was in Virginia and they played a highly important role in helping Virginia to attain its position of pre-eminence in the new world. But it was not the “aristocratic” planters or gentry in Virginia that lit the first sparks for independence and freedom from Great Britain. It was the Scotch-Irish of Virginia who were the Champions of Liberty and Independence in America. The first calls for individual human rights came not from those who were well-off and prosperous in America but by those who had suffered for centuries from the aggressions, prejudice, harassment and discrimination of the British first, in Scotland, then in Northern Ireland and lastly, in Virginia. And it was not in the privileged sanctity of the Anglican churches or the hallowed halls of the Capitol at Williamsburg where the first cries for freedom rang out in America – but in the roughhewn Presbyterian churches of the Virginia frontier where the earliest calls for freedom were proclaimed.

The fact was that the overwhelming majority of the planter gentry with English blood in Virginia had little sympathy for the initial demands for independence from Britain, much less for any radical ideas about the democratic equality of men. The Scotch-Irish have often been called “the first political radicals in America.” The frontier-spirit of taking justice into one’s own hands, the independent individualism, the competitive spirit to win whatever the obstacles, and their almost ruthless determination to progress that became well-established parts of the American character, are generally considered to have come from Scottish traits. While most Americans of English descent either opposed independence or were non-commital, the majority of the patriotic continental troops were Scotch-Irish. In fact, a Presbyterian loyalist was unheard of.

On the other hand, thirty regiments of English-Americans fought against the patriots with the British forces. Actually, the number of American Loyalists in His Majesty’s army “exceeded in number the troops enlisted (by Congress) to oppose them.” It is estimated that 20,000 Americans fought with the British forces during the Revolution. In fact, George III called it a “Presbyterian war,” many in Britain referred to it as “the Presbyterian revolt,” and the British Prime Minister said, “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson, and that is the end of it.”

And finally, most of the Scots who had come directly from Scotland to America, either went back to Scotland or fled north to Canada. Conclusively, it was the Virginian patriots of Scottish origin who first articulated the demand for liberty and independence which brought freedom and democracy to the United States of America. They also gave America its distinctive characteristics which have made it the most powerful nation on earth based upon its unparalleled spiritual and economic strength. And nowhere in America were these unique Scottish characteristics more in evidence, and of greater influence, than in Virginia. Truly, the Scots of Virginia were America’s greatest patriots!

National Tartan Day is also a good time to remember the Declaration of Arbroath, i.e., the Scottish Declaration of Independence (1320), which famously contained the words:

“It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom — for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.”

It was 50 years ago today…and my mother thought she might be holding me for the last time

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Fort Worth, Texas, Easter Sunday, 1958: an excerpt from my mother’s journal that she kept last year when my father was ill. It arrived in the mail yesterday…

When I was first pregnant with John, it was difficult for me to accept that we were going to have a baby so early in our marriage. We’d had two weeks while he was on leave after we got married. Then he was gone seven months and bingo! Pregnant! I was working, had been working before we got married. My salary was needed because as A1/c [Airman, first class. NW] the pay was meager. Benefits with medical, but buying groceries, paying for a car and putting gas in it, plus payments on our ‘palace’ on wheels that measured 8′ x 28′ including the hitch didn’t allow us to run the little oil stove at night. In Texas, there’s nothing to stop the north wind but barbed wire, so we turned it off around nine o’clock, went to bed when it started cooling down. Chuck got up at four a.m., ran on tip-toes and pranced while he lit the stove and got it started again. He’d jump into bed and touch me with his cold feet, wanting help to warm them. THANKS!

Before we knew it, I got up one morning hemorrhaging. Off to the hospital, admitted for three days, baby saved. How weird. This is October 11, 2007 and it was October 11, 1957 when this emergency happened. But, I had to quit work. No housework, not even sweeping. Stay off your feet and lay low. Then in November, I got the Asian Flu which was the first of the many flu bugs that started taking the nation for years. Into bed, racked with chills and fever, sick and afraid I was going to lose the baby I hadn’t thought I was ready for. Chuck said at the time he felt that I really needed him. I had been so darned independent and sure of myself.

John was born April 3rd, three weeks and two days early. He was six pounds, 1/2 ounce. We had some dreadful experiences after he was born. He was put into the incubator and Intensive Care. The pediatrician and obstetrician told me while I was still in a deep fog from being over anesthetized, “Mrs. Stewart, we usually take the mother to see her baby before she goes to her room from recovery. However, we are very concerned. He’s having some difficulty. We aren’t sure if it’s the heart or the brain, but for his sake we can let you see him through the window but you won’t be able to hold him.” So I said, “I understand, better safe than sorry,” and went back to sleep. I did see him through the window. It was hard to believe that this was our baby. But I was still so groggy that I was asleep in the wheelchair before I got back to my room.

The next morning, Chuck was there. “What’s wrong with our baby?” I cried. “He’s fine, Marilyn, he’s fine.” So throughout the day as I awakened more and more I was torn apart by wanting to hold him and not being able to. The girl in the room with me had her baby. She was a minister’s wife and they named him John Paul. The next day, about ten o’clock, a nurse came into the room. She glanced at the chart at the foot of the bed and said, “Stewart. Oh, honey, we nearly lost your baby early this morning. If it hadn’t been for the intern on duty that suctioned him and suctioned him, he wouldn’t be here. In fact, we don’t know if he’ll make it!”

I was terrified, but supposed to act like an adult, I don’t know. I called and called for Chuck. He didn’t answer. Visiting hours came and I was still calling and he wasn’t showing up. Where was he? Didn’t he know our baby was about to die? I was racked with anguish and anger, where was he when he should be here with me? It was Easter Sunday, too. About three o’clock I got out of bed and went to the window and looked out, as if I could see anything. While I was standing there, tears running down my face, I heard, “Marilyn, what are you doing!” I turned around and there was Chuck with my Mom. He had called Mom and Dad in the wee hours of the morning and told them what was happening. Mom got the first plane out of Indianapolis headed for Fort Worth. They were both upset that a nurse would tell me something like that. I bemoaned that I hadn’t even had a chance to hold my baby. And couldn’t they at least let me do that, just for a few minutes? They did arrange it. I held this tiny bundle that looked up with blurry eyes, a very unhealthy baby with jaundice. That scared me, too, but I’m a MOM, and he was the most precious thing I’d ever held, other than his Dad. “John Avery, you will make it, you WILL, do you know that?”

Mom stayed a couple of days after we got out of the hospital. A week after he was born, the pediatrician said, “I can’t believe that this is the baby that was so sick. This is a miracle. We didn’t expect him to survive but we released him to his parents with hope against hope.” Now look at you, John, you big old woolly bear. You still curl your hair with your fingers when you read, just like you did when you were a baby, and guzzling a bottle empty, contented and full.

The older you get, the more stuff you know

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It was a grand time last night at Keegan’s, and not necessarily because my team – “Fifty Sense” – ended up tieing for first place in the 8:00 p.m. challenge.

Really, what was special was seeing so many MOBsters back at Keeg’s for the traditional Thursday night match – man, was the place LOUD and HAPPY last night. I’ll probably miss someone or some-two, but those in attendance included Learned Foot (or was that Joe Tucci?) from Kool-Aid Report, Derek and Guy from Freedom Dogs, Swiftee (Pair-O-Dice), Barry (erstwhile Watercooler Wisdom), John LaPlante (Policy Guy), Dan Stover (Northern Alliance Wannabe), Leo (Psycmeister’s Ice Palace – all the way down from St. Cloud), AAA (Residual Forces), David and Margaret (too many blogs to mention), Mitch Berg (Shot in the Dark) and Brad Carlson and his gal, Jen. Of course, Ben was there from Hammerswing, along with the complete Night Writer contingent of the Reverend Mother, Mall Diva and Tiger Lilly, plus special guest and commenter Princess Flicker Feather.

Turnout has been kind of sparse of late (and I’ve been missing-in-action as much as anyone), so it was great to see a lot of the gang in person again. With warm weather perhaps finally upon us and the return of the Paddy O’Furniture and the great outdoors to our favorite Irish pub, I hope to see similar gatherings in the near future. When I started blogging 3 years ago, coming to Keegan’s and meeting so many different people was an important to feeling like a part of the community, and led me to make some great friends (but you didn’t have to kiss me last night, Strommie). I may ultimately even get a son-in-law out of the deal.

Notably absent last night were representatives from Fraters, Nihilist in Golf Pants and Anti-Strib, and it seems like forever since I’ve seen Bogus Doug, Doug Bass or DrJonz. Even so it was a prestigious conglomeration and I hope the Thursday night regulars will soon be returning in force.

Also, for those (Marty) who mocked my “Toads” answer to a question about what animal South Africa is trying to exterminate, I’ll have you know my answer was based on having read this article during the week (Africa, Australia, who can tell the difference?).