How much more will fall?

Okay. Not to rub it in for those of you that WANT snow, (sorry Cami) but we were blanketed with the white stuff again, today. I have to tell you my brain is getting as soft as the snow thats falling. So those of you that have gotten the odd comments from me today, I blame the snow! It's all white here! I can't get away from the all white! And don't even get me started on the assbags that are out driving in it. Or the three different assbags I've seen today with poorly covered INFANTS out in it. One of them didn't even have a pair of shoes on the tiny tiny feet. Sigh.
But I do love winter. I really do.

Juno

MM and I went to see a movie yesterday evening. Juno. You know the one. 16 year old pregnant girl?
I must tell you, I thought it was a great movie, very well done. The girl, Juno, has a great, sarcastic sense of humor. Despite it's delicate subject matter, the movie is a comedy,(with some drama) and I did note the numerous men in the theater (probably dragged there by their wives/girlfriends) were laughing as frequently as the women in the audience. So, if you want to see a good movie, go see it.

What really got me thinking was this, though. MM and I were discussing the prospect of life imitating art. Specifically, would a sixteen year old girl, (or, any teenagers for that matter) see this movie, and WANT to be pregnant, like Juno? Or would it serve as more of a cautionary tale, of the difficulty, and turmoil a pregnancy adds to life, especially the life of a teenager. We both thought the latter. You'd have to see the movie to decide for yourselves on that one.

What I can talk about, without really ruining a good movie for the rest of you, is the role of movies, music, and media in our lives? We hear countless stories of the influence it has. For instance, Pearl Jam's Jeremy. Did someone else hear that song, and decide to do what he did? How about the video game, Grand Theft Auto? Kids using that as an excuse to drive like a homicidal maniac, and then get out and beat down a few thugs? Or, even, the nightly news. Especially in cities. Do the kids see that and think a life of crime is for them? Should we be forbidding children from all of these things in their lives? It would mean blindfolding them and wrapping them in bubble wrap. They are going to see it. And I don't mean the little kids. It's easy to prevent the little ones from being subjected to this. I'm talking older kids, say, from the age of 10 and up. They all have friends, and talk amongst themselves, and come to the inevitable conclusion that we adults are "old" and we "just don't understand". Truthfully, we may not.
But rather then preventing them from seeing all the crime, the teenage pregnancy's, from hearing the music, or playing the game, (because you know they find a way to do it, if they really want to), aren't we, as the adults in their lives, more responsible to talk with them about those things? So they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Grand Theft Auto IS NOT real life, that crime IS NOT the answer, that, teenage pregnancy does happen, and can be dealt with, one way or another. That guns are not to play with, that Shout at the Devil is just a song, that, though the news is sad/awful/full of violence and death, that we can make a difference by choosing not to go that route?
And that brings me to one, last thought, in this blog that just kind of snowballed into being. At what age do we start letting the innocence take a hit? I suppose that is dependant on each child, and their personalities. I made a comment on Holly's blog the other day, that parenting isn't for sissies. I stand by that comment.

Wordless Wednesday

playing with my new camera

So when you start with this. . .



And add in some of this


and spend some quality time with it, and a knife...


you end up with a big bowl of this



which can be served thusly


MM and I went a little crazy in the fruit aisle of a store the other day, as you can see. The fun thing? I am sitting here, eating the best fruit salad, ever, with all these tropical fruits in it, the pineapple, the mango, the papaya (we couldn't find star fruit, darn the luck!) and it is snowing HUGELY outside. When I am done with my fruit, I am going to layer up and go play with my new camera some more!

Spice World

It seems like each week that goes by, despite a physical therapist who doesn't do a whole lot for me, my right hand is FINALLY beginning to act like it should. Each day that goes by, it gets better. I still have trouble lifting things that require some wrist twisting, but it's getting there.
I'm still home from it, though. I am not going back to work until Feb. 18th. I think a wee bit of the stir crazy is starting to settle in. A good kind of stir crazy. The kind that has you doing things, like
furniture re-arranging (the need to do it runs in my family). I did that a few weeks ago, actually.
And, a little something I like to call kitchen madness. I was sitting here Friday, just looking, and the thought crawled through my head. "My kitchen. It's cluttered." So I pulled everything off the counters, cleaned, and re arranged it all. I even put new tinfoil covers on my burner plates. But what really made me crazy was my spice rack. I've got one of those spinny ones, with a place in the center I find handy to keep cooking utensils. It's a nice spice rack. A few years old, only. But have you ever really looked at all the spices they toss in there? Ones that we just don't use that frequently? Like Celery seed. Or Marjoram. Sure, they get the occasional use. But nothing like the cinnamon, or oregano. Well, I started going through my spice rack, dumping all the old spices, washing each glass jar. And I even relabeled them, and filled them with the things I use on a regular basis. While I was doing that, I emptied out the cumin container. Can I just say, I HATE the smell of cumin? I really don't like the spice, as a whole. Now, all you cumin lovers don't get in a twist. I know it has its uses. And thats fine. As long as I don't have to smell it, or taste it, it's all good!
What I love, is the allspice. After I dumped the cumin, I opened up a fresh allspice to erase the demon smell from my kitchen. Fresh ground nutmeg is good, too. Or Cinammon, in a pinch. But nothing beats the allspice.
So I am happy, my kitchen is happy, and, my spice rack is now a little more cohesive.
AND I got a new camera this weekend.
All is good in my little spice world.
How about the rest of you? If you comment, I'd like you to also tell me of a spice you love, or love to hate.

Ride, Sally, Ride

Okay couldn't resist the title.
Meet Sally Kristen Ride. Most of us have some sort of memory of her, right? Because she is still alive!
She was born in Encino, California where she spent much time going to school, and playing tennis. She began playing tennis at age 10, and was nationally ranked by the time she was college aged. She was accepted to, and began her education at Swarthmore College, but dropped out to pursue a tennis career. 3 months of this showed her she wasn't cut out for this, so, she enrolled at Stanford. She graduated at 27 years old, with a B.A., B.S. and a Master's Degree. (in Physics) She decided to to her doctorate work in astrophysics, also at Stanford. During this time, NASA put out a call in the Stanford paper looking for astronaut candidates. She was one one of 8000 to apply, and one of SIX women to be accepted into the program. Only 35 people were chosen out of the 8000.
She went through rigorous training at NASA, parachute jumping, water survival, gravity and weightlessness training (if only we could all have 'weightlessness training'.). She enjoyed the flight training so much it became her favorite hobby. During her training, she was the Capsule Communicator for the second, and third Space Shuttle flights, and helped to develop the Space Shuttle's robot arm.
On June 18, 1983, she became the first American woman in space, as a crewmember on the Space Shuttle Challenger. They deployed 2 communication sattellites, did some pharmaceutical experiments, and were the first to use the robot arm. She went up again, on the Challenger, in 1984. She was in training for her 3rd flight when the Challenger exploded. After that, she was named to the Presidential Commission for investigating the accident, and headed the subcommittee on Operations. After the investigation, she was then assigned to NASA headquarters in Washington, DC. While there, she became more involved with the future of the Space program, writing a report called "Leadership and America's future in space", and she founded NASA's Office of Exploration.
She left NASA in 1987, and took a job back at Stanford, at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Arms Control. During this time, she was briefly married to another astronaut. It ended in divorce. In 1989, she became a professor of physics as UC San Diego, and the director of the California Space Institute. In 2003, she was asked to serve on the SPace Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation board.
Now on leave from the University, she is the president, and CEO of Sally Ride Science, a company she founded in 2001 that creates science programs, and publications for elementary and middle school students, with a particular focus on girls. She has also written, and co-written multiple books about space, aimed at children, to encourage them to study science.
She has won multiple awards, including the Lindbergh Eagle,and the National Spaceflight Medal, twice. She has been inducted into the National Woman's Hall of Fame, and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. 2 elementary schools are named after her, (Texas, and Maryland), and she was also inducted into the California Hall of Fame.

*** post posting***
run, don't walk to MM's today. Yes he posted 2 days in a row. But todays post? Get the kleenex out for. It is so very worth the visit. Go. Now. Really.

sandwiches and the need to smack people with pickles*

I put myself through nursing school with the help of the GI bill (Go NAVY!), and, working at a Mini-mart. I started in the deli of said mini mart, where the specialty was broasted chicken and potato's, and of course, deli sandwiches.
Does anyone else beside's me notice the summer trend of having deli sandwiches for dinner? Deli sandwiches made in a mini mart? No? Yes? It's true. I can attest to it. Whole families, coming in with huge sandwich orders. It got to the point where I could make sandwiches at the speed of light. Then, before my shift would end, my own mother would call, wanting me to bring home deli sandwiches for dinner. Which would make me grumpy, because, the last thing I wanted for dinner was a sandwich from my own mini mart. Worse? If she didn't want the sandwiches, she wanted the broasted chicken. Greasy, broasted chicken. My mom makes really good fried chicken, and why she wanted mini mart chicken, I will never know. My first summer working there, my clothes that I wore to work actually drew ants.
We used the generic, pre-sliced dill pickles for our sandwiches. The kind that fly across the room, extremly well. And stick to the wall. Little pickle frisbees. When someone used to bog me down with ridiculous sandwich orders, I would envision throwing said pickles at them, and only being satisfied when a pickle would stick to the middle of their forehead, like a third eye. Of course, needing to keep my job stopped me from actually ever realizing my dream.


*this is what happens when I ask MM for any, random blog topic. Go over to his blog if you want to read something interesting today.