Race card

The first time I heard about Obama "playing the race card" as the Republicans are calling it, I defended him.

But this time, I'm feeling like it's overkill and unnecessary.

For some reason, Obama's remark that the Republicans will try to scare voters by saying that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills" rubbed me the wrong way.

And then I think, it's quite the tightrope he has to walk . . .

My Wordle

New toy.

See a larger version here.

Hat tip to Migraine Chick for the link.

Almost French by Sarah Turnbull

Sarah Turnbull, an Australian, is touring Europe when she meets Frederic, a Parisian.

She ejects her itinerary and follows him to Paris.

And the payoff (for us) is this lovely book.

Sarah has a view of Paris and the French as an expat who is living with and eventually marries a native. It's an outsider's insider view and it provides a nice contrast to Adam Gopnik's Paris to the Moon.

While she can't avoid hobnobbing with some expats (although she tries mightily to avoid it), Turnbull's Paris, because of her intimate relationship with a Parisian, is filled with experiences and affectionate insights about the ups and downs of trying to fit in as a unpretentious Aussie in the hierarchical, class based world of Paris.

Turnbull is honest enough about herself to allow the reader to get frustrated with her tendency to take personally what are essentially cultural differences. She is also fond enough of the French to provide believable explanations for their abominably rude behavior.

I finished Paris to the Moon feeling that while Paris is a nice place to visit, I wouldn't want to live there.

I finished Almost French feeling that in the right circumstances, I could probably enjoy living in Paris too.

Mamma Mia!

Silly.

Fun.

Campy.

The final credits montage alone is worth sitting through the movie.

Meryl Streep hams it up and Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth join in.

Christine Baranski does a fabulous turn as a cougar pursued by some luscious eye candy.

All this and an exquisite setting.

Eccentric America

Oh boy and I do mean eccentric.

On the way home today, we stopped by Colorado Gators in Mosca, Colorado, a fish farm which has somehow morphed into a wacky home to more than 400 alligators, turtles, snakes and other reptiles, along with some ostriches, donkeys and other critters.

It's heaven for adolescent boys.

Upon entering, they corral you and take your picture holding a live alligator. They even give you a bravery certificate which they coax the live alligator into "signing" by teasing open his mouth so he bites your award.

After quitting the alligator farm, you can travel further up Highway 17 and visit the UFO Watchtower in Hooper, Colorado. As we drove in, we were herded by a very excited Australian shepherd and then greeted by a three legged dog.

By this time, I was pretty eccentric'd out so I just sat in the car and took pictures while Steve explored the little Quonset hut of an exhibit.

Strange little corner of America . . .

Santa Fe Spanish Market

What an unexpected treat.

We had no idea that this weekend was Spanish Market weekend.

We had no idea what Spanish Market was.

Imagine an enormous weekend market with more than 250 artists and artisans stretched for blocks

Imagine traditional Spanish art, furniture, weavings, tinwork.

Don't forget the contemporary Spanish artists and artisans stretched for even more blocks.

Add a little live music.

And then do it all again on Sunday.

The photo above is of Frankie Nazario Lucero, this year's poster child, autographing the 2008 Spanish Market poster which features his beautiful bulto.

10,000 Waves

After much prodding from Steve, I visited this spa yesterday afternoon.

Set in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Ski Santa Fe, the spa makes the most of its setting with outdoor pools and bathhouses nestled in the hills.

You can show up without reservations to use the women's or communal onsen pools or schedule a massage or spa treatment or even stay in their Japanese ryokan inspired lodging.

I called ahead and booked a 55 minute therapeutic massage which also gave me access to the women's and communal pools. In addition, I had use of a wonderful outdoor waterfall seating area and the relaxation room. I showed up early for my massage in order to relax in the pools and stayed for quite a while afterwards also.

Long enough that I got caught in an intense rain shower while enjoying the outdoor women's pool. It was quite a unique experience, soaking in the hot pool while a cool rain splashed down around me.

Highly recommended.

Santa Fe School of Cooking

I took a cooking class yesterday at the Santa Fe School of Cooking.

It was a demonstration class on New Mexican cooking.

As a born & bred Midwesterner, I have a bit of a conservative palate. Although I've gotten more adventuresome as I've gotten older, spicy foods still scare me.

But what did Mary Schmich say? Do one thing every day that scares you.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about, you should google her name with that phrase. Or just click here.)

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, scary food.

Boy, was it good! Each course better than the last. Most of it not spicy at all and none of it overwhelmingly spicy.

Yum.

So, here's the menu they cooked and served:

Traditional New Mexican III:

Classic New Mexican Green Chile Stew, Blue Corn and Green Chile Muffins, Piñon Butter, Quesadillas, Salsa Fresca and Rich Natillas.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

or OLPH, as we've always "affectionately" referred to her.

This one is a 14th century icon in the San Miguel Mission.

Boys and their toys

The little boy.

Do they ever grow up?

Photo props

Yes, I have a part of a blown truck tire in my car.

Why, you ask?

Because my husband's an artist.

That's all I can say.

Bishop's Castle

When we left Aspen on Friday, I told Steve that I didn't want to know where we were going. I knew that we were going to take 2 days to get to Santa Fe and Steve had mentioned all kinds of different ideas for where we might meander on our route.

I wanted to be surprised.

And, I was.

We drove and drove, the final stretch on windy mountain roads through a torrential hail, lightning and thunderstorm.

And then we pulled up to a clearing with a medieval vision rising among the pines.

Unbelievable.

Jim Bishop is a freak. He's a bit of a libertarian crossed with an anarchist who's been building this castle since 1969 singlehandedly.

The castle is full of wrought iron (Jim being a wrought iron worker since his teens) and gets more and more treacherous the higher you climb. I chickened out about 2/3 of the way up but Steve made it all the way to the highest point.

Yikes.

Traveling

In Santa Fe for the next week, so posting schedule may be kinda screwy . . .

Stations by Michael Flanagan

The subtitle of this book is An Imagined Journey.

Quite imagined.

The author creates an engaging fictional railroad, family, artwork and history that will feel remarkably real to anyone who has experienced the area of the country which he presents.

Using painted photographs or photographed paintings, Flanagan weaves a story of a couple, a brother and a bygone railroad.

Beautiful images, both visual and verbal.

Meetings, meetings

Going on vacation tomorrow.

So, of course, it's time to have lots of meetings.

See, the thing about meetings is that, at them, you usually sit around and accumulate tasks.

So, having many meetings right before you go away either means that you're panicked about trying to get things done before you leave or you're crestfallen to realize that your return to work to-do pile is already enormous and you haven't even left yet.

Since I'm leaving early tomorrow am (immediately after yet another meeting), it is the latter scenario which I am facing.

Couple that with the fact that I'll only be in town for 4 days before I turn around and leave again . . .

Yep, back to back trips are perhaps not the wisest scheduling move.

Ah, well.

MIP

Personal responsibility.

I guess the lack of it isn't limited to Aspen but here's where I is and here's what I'm shaking my head at.

Five kids, one eighteen and 4 under eighteen, Rachel's peers, were busted for drinking at one of our local outdoor free concerts. Minor in possession.

Their parents' reactions?

Parents of some of the minors were worried that police interviewed their children and administered a breathalyzer test before the kids had a chance to call their parents.

A father of one of the kids charac­terized the series of arrests as a “witch hunt” that was inappropriate­ly handled by police.

And, another defendant, who blew a low reading on the breathalyzer, reportedly was insulting and argu­mentative during the arrest, telling police that she was from a good Aspen family and deserved special treatment because she wasn’t doing drugs “like everyone else does.”

Deputy District Attorney Richard Nedlin said the girl’s statement indicated she believed she was somehow “above the law.”

The girl, however, said that while she was sorry for what she did, Pitkin County deputies had ill-treated her and made “off-whack remarks.”

Judge Ely reminded the girl that police and sheriff’s deputies are the ultimate authority in such matters and that “ Yes, sir” goes a long way.

Wow.

Now, my daughter isn't one of these kids. She thinks this sort of behavior is asinine. (Yay!)

But, I'm here to tell you (and she already knows it), if you catch her engaging in this sort of stupidity, give her hell. If you're a cop and you catch her, so long as you don't violate her civil liberties (no police brutality, please), have at it.

Oh, and I don't think that calling her parents before she's breathalyzed and questioned is a civil liberty . . .

There will be no messages from me that, when you're caught, you don't have to face the music. No messages that you're above the rules.

Heck, I'm the one who ratted her out to the school for calling herself in sick . . .

Slap down

Lame.

errrr, lame duck.

Bush vetoed H.R. 6331, Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 earlier today and released a predictably inane justification of said veto.

By 5 pm, the House had voted to override his veto and by 6 pm, the Senate did likewise.

Occasionally, government is actually speedy.

This, coming on the heels of the Aspen City Council's unexpected approval of the Aspen Club's Conceptual SPA last night, might just restore my faith in democracy.

Or not.

Have to wait until November for that . . .

Photo Credit

Good night

Just got back from another interminable Aspen City Council meeting, this time attending in support of a development proposal from another long time local business.

It definitely takes a special kind of person to sign on to suffer through those lengthy, painful weekly meetings. Not sure what that says about our council members.

I didn't speak during the public comment period since it was getting repetitious and the council was going to continue the matter anyhow.

But I did get a shout out from one of the council members when I left while he was speaking.

Not sure what that was about . . .

More bonding and cooking

Rachel and I cooked again today.

We tried to decide on a main course recipe but couldn't get past whether to cook chicken or lamb or beef or pork or pasta or veggie, etc. so we ended up in the soup genre again.

This time, we went with a no bean chili since I cannot eat beans.

And I do mean cannot as in not able. I have tried to eat beans but I have this gag reflex that's triggered on the first bite. Even if I don't know they're there, woop, dere it is. It even happens with hummus.

Don't ask me.

So, no bean chili it was. We found a recipe, checked the ingredients, made up the shopping list, grabbed the shuttle, shopped (with our reusable shopping bags) and caught the shuttle home.

And then we cooked.

And it was good.

Here's the No Beans About It Chili recipe. We didn't really alter it at all, except that we found fire roasted crushed tomatoes and we served it atop of Lime Tostitos with sour cream and shredded sharp cheddar cheese. We were worried about how spicy it might be but, as noted by several reviewers on the Allrecipes.com website, found that it was quite mild despite the chili powder and the hot sauce.

No Beans About It - Chili

Submitted by: GINAGINA Rated: 4 out of 5 by 39 members

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 1 Hour

Ready In: 1 Hour 15 Minutes Yields: 6 servings

"My husband won't eat beans but LOVES chili, so I had to come up with this variation on an old favorite. Instead, it contains lots of canned tomatoes and onion. This is great served over rice with some shredded cheese and a dollop of sour cream."

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound ground beef 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 large onion, chopped 2 tablespoons chili powder 1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon ground cumin 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce 1 (28 ounce) can crushed tomatoes 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Crumble the ground beef into a stock pot or large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the onion and garlic, and cook stirring frequently until beef is evenly browned. Drain off excess grease.
2.	Season with chili powder, oregano, cumin and hot sauce. Stir in the tomatoes and vinegar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, and simmer for about 1 hour - or longer if you have time. Stir occasionally to prevent burning on the bottom.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2008 Allrecipes.com

Printed from Allrecipes.com 7/13/2008

Cooking/Bonding

I decided that Rachel has been spending too much time in her cave (as I call it). Her room faces south and gets very hot with the sun streaming in so she keeps the blinds closed and sits at her desk, in the dark, watching DVDs or videos online or reading online fan fiction.

She spends so much time sitting there that she wore out her chair. (Read about it here.)

So, in an attempt to get her out of her room and to increase the time we spend together, I told Rachel that she and I were going to cook together today.

Cook what?

Whatever you want.

I don't know what I want to cook . . .

Rachel loves soup so after poking around online and googling different ideas, we decided on Baked Potato soup and found what looked like a good recipe on Allrecipes.com.

We made up a shopping list and since Steve had the car, we took the free shuttle up to the grocery store. Feeling in a green mood, we purchased two reusable bags to tote our groceries and caught the free shuttle home.

Only to realize that we forgot the bacon. It was right there on the list but . . .

So we walked up to the other grocery store.

Finally, we had everything we needed and a'cooking we went.

Rachel's never made soup from scratch before and it was pretty darn good, if I do say so.

Rachel wants to know if it's weird to make soup in the summer.

Here's the recipe. We also added a packet of powdered Hidden Valley Ranch dressing and would probably add two next time. In addition, we used 6 potatoes. We baked three in the microwave and then cubed them with the skins on. We peeled three and cubed and boiled them. The boiled cubes retained a bit more of their shape while the baked ones mixed into the soup more. I would suggest getting some extra sour cream for garnish (we neglected to think of this).

It's pretty high in fat which we don't really care about but there's plenty you could do to the recipe if that stuff matters to you. Use 1% milk, low fat sour cream, substitute chicken broth for half the milk, use low fat cheese, use turkey bacon, etc.

Baked Potato Soup I

Submitted by: Sherry Haupt Rated: 5 out of 5 by 924 members

Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 25 Minutes

Ready In: 40 Minutes Yields: 6 servings

"This soup incorporates pre-baked cubes of potato with onion, crumbled bacon, cheddar cheese and sour cream in a milk soup base which has been thickened with a roux."

INGREDIENTS:

12 slices bacon 2/3 cup margarine 2/3 cup all-purpose flour 7 cups milk 4 large baked potatoes, peeled and cubed

4 green onions, chopped 1 1/4 cups shredded Cheddar cheese 1 cup sour cream 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium heat until browned. Drain, crumble, and set aside.
2.	In a stock pot or Dutch oven, melt the margarine over medium heat. Whisk in flour until smooth. Gradually stir in milk, whisking constantly until thickened. Stir in potatoes and onions. Bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
3.	Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. Mix in bacon, cheese, sour cream, salt, and pepper. Continue cooking, stirring frequently, until cheese is melted.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2008 Allrecipes.com

Printed from Allrecipes.com 7/12/2008

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

Graphic novels are weirdly effective.

Or at least the two that I've read have been.

They turn the normal reader/writer dynamic on its head. Rather than leaving the reader to imagine the visuals, the writer of the graphic novel leaves the reader to imagine the details, to connect the dots and fill in the story.

Persepolis presents us with the memoir of a young girl who, in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution, is sent to Europe to attend high school.

In Iran, she's surrounded by loving family while navigating the difficult and dangerous fundamental society that was the result of the revolution. In Europe, she's immersed in the stable education system but is an adolescent alone with little in the way of adult guidance.

Satrapi is too outspoken for the strict Iranian society and is too buttoned-up for the looser European society. When she moves from the streets of Tehran to the more familiar streets of Vienna, an environ which more closely resembles that with which I am acquainted, I felt her alienation even more keenly.

From the Random House Pantheon website:

Originally published to wide critical acclaim in France, where it elicited comparisons to Art Spiegelman's Maus, Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

Bush is a ****

(Insert whatever pejorative descriptor you'd like above)

So,

the Senate finally got its act together and, in a moment of great political theater, on July 9, retroactively rescinded the 10% Medicare pay cut which went into effect on July 1.

Both the House and the Senate approved this measure by veto proof margins.

But Bush is still going to veto the bill.

Why? Who knows.

Oh, he and his people can give you reasons but really . . .

It's just a huge delay.

Does he have any idea what headaches this delay will cause?
Does he have any idea how much this delay will cost?
(Does he care?)

See, Medicare has to pay current claims within a certain timeframe from the date of receipt. As of Monday, they are going to have to start paying claims at the 10% decrease since the bill rescinding the decrease is not law yet.

This means that when the bill becomes law (as it seems likely it will), Medicare will have to go back and adjust all of the claims that they have already paid. Health care providers will have to go back and repost all of these adjustments. Secondary claims will all have to be refiled. Secondary insurances will have to go back and adjust all the claims that they have already paid. Health care providers will have to go back and repost all of these adjustments.

This happened a couple of years ago and it was a nightmare. Twelve months later, providers were still trying to get secondary insurances to pay pittances in additional coinsurance. It was a losing proposition.

Yep, Bush is a ****.

Split decision

The Senate giveth and the Senate taketh away.

There were votes on two bills in the Senate today.

In the first, the Senate caved and provided retroactive immunity to the phone companies who conspired with the Bush administration to violate the law with illegal wiretaps.

But in the second, in a surprise move, Senator Ted Kennedy flew in between his daily cancer treatments in Boston to vote to rollback the 10% Medicare cut which went into effect on July 1. His dramatic appearance, which caught the Republicans by surprise, was enough to swing the vote margin into the win column.

Needing 60 yea votes to defeat the 10% decrease, on June 26 with Kennedy and McCain's absences, the vote was 58 yea and 30 nay, with every Democrat voting yea except for Harry Reid who voted nay simply to preserve the bill for another day.

That other day was today and the vote was a veto proof 69 yeas to 30 nays, with 9 Republicans switching their votes once they saw which way the wind was blowing.

Of note is the fact that in the first situation, Obama switched sides and voted to extend retroactive immunity (Clinton held fast) and in the second situation, McCain once again took the coward's way out and failed to show up.

Car alarms should be banned!

I have never heard a car alarm going off because someone was breaking into a car.

I have often heard car alarms going off because of malfunctions. In fact, the only time I've heard car alarms going off is because of malfunctions.

I had a car which I bought used which came with a car alarm. The really nice feature about this car alarm was that it sounded every time it rained really hard. So not only was I annoying my neighbors, often in the middle of the night, but I had to run outside in the pouring rain to deal with it.

I disabled that bad boy forever.

The other day, my neighbor's car alarm went off every few minutes for what seemed like hours (but was probably closer to a half hour or so) because he had gotten his key fob wet rafting. Poor guy was out in the parking lot with his head under the hood trying to disable the damn thing as it kept sounding off. He'd silence it, then the key fob would short and he'd practically bang his head on the raised hood trying to grab the key fob and find the button again.

Just turn it off, for good.

Photo Credit

Cigarettes are litter!

Why are cigarette smokers so irresponsible?

Ok, ok.

Why are some cigarette smokers so irresponsible?

I see a couple of Food & Wine volunteers taking a smoking break on a stone bench in a grassy area and watch incredulously as they stub out their butts in the grass . . . and leave them there. Even though the volunteers are next going to walk right past a trash receptacle.

An entire apartment complex in Aspen burns down because someone left a smoldering cigarette in a planter on a balcony.

About a week later after much publicity about the cause of the conflagration, there's another fire at another apartment complex caused by the very same behavior.

Duh!

Walk down the street or pedestrian malls in front of any of Aspen's late night clubs first thing in the morning and the cigarette butt litter looks like confetti. I'm guessing that my tax dollars are going to clean that up.

Occasionally, when I'm in an especially bad mood or feeling especially confrontational, I will pick up the butt that has just been discarded right in front of me in a parking lot and place it under the windshield wiper on the offender's windshield.

Or I'll call the person back with "Excuse me. I think you dropped something."

Kinda cool

This is a copy of the immigration record from Ellis Island for the Hellig Olav's arrival from Copenhagen on November 9, 1920. If you look in the middle of the page, you'll find my great grandmother, my grandmother and my great uncle. Of note is the caption at the top of the page. While they were traveling from Sweden where my great grandmother was born, they were returning home to Chicago.

I found this on the Ellis Island website. Perhaps due to the mistake on the ship manifest, my grandmother, whose name was Lilly, is listed in the Ellis Island search engine as Sildae.

Below is a photo of the Hellig Olav, the ship on which they traveled for 13 days, from 10/28/1920 through 11/9/1920.

Paternalism

Susie shared this article with me last week.

Chicago, City of Broad Strictures

In my hypocritical way, I agree with the entire article except for the smoking ban.

I like smoking bans.

Just the other night, as I was walking home from a local club, I was thinking how cool it was that I didn't reek of cigarette smoke.

Due to a catastrophic apartment fire where the entire building burnt down because of an improperly extinguished cigarette, apartment complexes in Aspen are contemplating banning smoking. One place already has.

One of the hotels I stayed in in Orlando was entirely smoke free. I thought that was very cool.

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Once again, true love triumphs over adversity.

It's difficult for me to be objective about Austen. I struggle to filter my reactions to her unfamiliar language, her unfamiliar time and class based society, and my aversion to Harlequin romance type sagas. All of that poses obstacles to my unfettered enjoyment of her prose.

On an intellectual level, the eighteenth century English preoccupation with class and breeding that is so central to Austen's tales captures my interest even while it engenders a certain amount of disdain.

And yet, on an emotional level, I can't help myself. I like her happy endings, her accounts of triumphal love.

So, I'm off to read yet another . . .

Ugh.

Just found out tonight that another couple we know is splitting.

That's at least three since April.

Feels like an epidemic . . .

Spike

Yikes.

I've been blogging since May of 2006. In that time, I've had 6,293 visitors to this blog.

2,166 of those have visited since Sunday.

I used to average approximately 10 visitors per day.

Right now, my average per day is 309.

Can you say flash in the pan?

Shhhh

I guess I'm not supposed to talk about it.

But, there's a hint in the picture.

I'll be impressed if you figure it out . . .