Hello, Panky!

You will no doubt be pleased to hear that when I bought Pete a t-shirt on Grand Cayman I also picked up a souvenir of my vacation for Panky here, who will treasure it until after lunch, when the vomit, it shall fly! This souvenir wends its way across the United States at this moment in the loving care of the postal service. Because Miss Sasha sometimes reads this blog, I’m not giving away the plot. I will say however the souvenir in itself is utterly meaningless, I bought it mostly to keep up slovenly appearances and this thing is smaller than a breadbox – not that Miss Sasha has ever lived in a house with a breadbox. Have you?

I’m a union gal. I belong to a union again since my co-workers at the unnamed university voted to unionize after more than ten years of trying. Since the writers’ strike began, I’ve heard some complaints in conversation about how the writers are spoiled millionaires wrecking it for everyone; mostly I’ve heard people talk about how strikebreaking is no longer inevitable, and the writers, who are mostly regular not-millionaires like you and me, may win their demands yet. When we stand up for ourselves, other people are in a better position to stand up for themselves, too. That kind of real security can only be good for us, for our neighborhoods and for the economy. I support the WGA 100%. I haven’t watched The Daily Show since it came back on the air.

That said, the temptation provided by Jon Stewart’s fileting of filthy idiot Jonah Goldberg and his filthy and idiotic book proved too much for me. I won’t link to it. If you’re inclined, you know where to find it. It’s bad, choppy video of an incomprehensible interview on a galling topic, and I had to shut it off before it was over because I use dictionaries rather than my imagination to define words. So. Now you know my secret shame!

The pomegranate’s on the table and I’m off to the tanning salon.

Kisses,
Persephone

Update: alternatively…

My brother Todd cannot resist forwarding emails about interesting gadgets, geegaws and contraptions. It’s practically genetic. Dad was all about the kitchen whatsises. I have a pile of ’em and it’s going to take years to figure out if I can use them as cooking implements or installation art.

Todd forwarded the image of this ladder and I’m hooked on it. It might help you to know I’m so small I’m almost spherical, and I can barely see what’s on the first shelf in my cabinets. My kitchen contains an old 4′ wooden ladder the cats use to sharpen their claws and I use to find the vital wheat gluten; a dollar store stepstool that – hilariously – collapses randomly and a nesting chair Topaz sits on when I’m cooking so she can stare at me with those huge liquid eyes. In my kitchen, this thing would be both useful thingy and decorative objet. Todd’s email did not suggest a manufacturer or distributor of this item, so I can’t guess its price. Ah well. I could investigate further – perhaps in the spring, when I can afford to indulge my curiosity about whatever’s on the top shelf in my cabinets. Until then, I hope it’s incubating nicely.

My work week increased by five theoretical hours last week, which translated to five actual new hours this week. I’m not complaining. Honestly, I can’t muster the attention span to formulate a complaint. I languished two invigorating days with a fever, holding up my hand and miscounting my fingers. Sometime soon, I’ll add a new family member to my shopping list, and with any luck, one day he and I can shop online for motherboards, machine parts and amorphous goo – all of which will render UPS safety geeks speechless. It’s going to take cash. I’m saving up.

On the other hand, I don’t know where the last two weeks went. I wake up in the morning behind the chore chart eight ball, and I don’t know where I can wedge in time for exercise or housework. My apartment is not spotless. It’s actually quite spotty. I do not approve! Worse: I’m having trouble concentrating on writing. A little side project I’ve been working on languishes. Today, I decided: that’s enough of that! What of that project is ready to go should go, and I should quit standing around with my mind blank. That’s only funny in the funny pages.

Monday, I go back to the orthodontist after an absence of about six months. At the orthodontist’s office, I am a celebrity! I am loved and admired because I am happy and bring treats. I love my straight teeth and make jokes, but teeth do not stay where we put them and my teeth are making more moves than Allied Van Lines. Thus, I am baking oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and walnuts.

Bon appetit!

Today is Siobhan’s birthday and in honor of the only person I’ve ever met on a first name basis with her UPS man, let’s talk about shopping. Today is the beginning of the online shopping season. I heard this on the news this morning as I did some stretching and bending. Since it pays to be flexible, this morning I’ve replaced my co-workers’ soymilk (with which I replaced cow milk) with almond milk. We’ll see soon if they run screaming – or even notice.

A few days ago, I found myself seated in the blast zone of a complete stranger expounding upon the medicinal uses of cinnamon for controlling blood sugar in certain kinds of diabetics and pre-diabetics. Her extended family, seated all around me, showed a propensity toward hyperglycemia. This stranger advised that drops of cinnamon oil – “It burns. Want some?” – or two teaspoons of cinnamon per day would help regulate blood sugar. I sat there picturing Cinnabon as the front line in the Battle of Good and Evil, with little raisins carried out on Red Cross stretchers and walnuts tending broken pecans. There was icing everywhere! Everywhere! And I resolved to look this up next time I sat down at the World’s Largest Encyclopedia. Which is where you are now. See?

According to Cheryl Korn, internet expert on everything from the Buffalo Sabres to the basics of organic food, cinnamon is made of surprising goo.

Cinnamon’s primary chemical constituents include cinnamadehyde, gum, tannin, mamitol, coumarins, and essential oils (aldehydes, eugenol, and pinene.)

It would be terrible of you to make a joke like, “Mamitol, Tannin! Coumarins and eugenol pinene!” so I won’t either. Probably.

Cinnamon has many medicinal purposes including calming a cough, which produces the spitting of a whitish phlegm in the elderly. They can chew or swallow a small pinch of cinnamon for effective relief. This also helps with the problem of cold hands and feet, especially at night.

Just half a teaspoon per day may reduce blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels by as much as 20 percent in Type II diabetes patients not taking insulin. Some research seems to point to cinnamon augmenting the action of insulin; however, this has yet to be proven.

Cinnamon is mildly carminative and can be used to treat nausea, flatulence and possibly diarrhea. It increases peripheral blood flow and is a urine stimulant. Cinnamon is also a great essential oil with antibacterial and antifungal qualities.

Then I had to look up carminative because it wasn’t – like fuck – a word commonly used around the dinner table. Wikipedia:

A carminative, also known as carminativum (plural carminativa), is a medicinal drug with antispasmodic activity that is used against cramps of the digestive tract in combination with flatulence. They are often mixtures of essential oils and herbal spices with a tradition in folk medicine for this use.

Wikipedia says: “See anti-foaming agent.” My stars! That is blunt.

Further sources rhapsodize:

In Chinese medicine, cinnamon is one of the most widely used “warming” herbs that aid in circulation and digestion. It is a common ingredient used in tea for nausea during pregnancy. It is also used following delivery to decrease hemorrhage. Cinnamon raises vitality, warms the system, stimulates all the vital functions of the body, counteracts congestion, improves digestion, relieves abdominal spasms and aids in peripheral circulation.

The essential oils contained in cinnamon include eugenol, cinnamic aldehyde, methyl-eugenol, tannin, and mannitol, which gives cinnamon its sweet flavor. It also contains cinnzelanin and cinnzelanol, which are both known insecticides. Try putting some liquid soap and cinnamon in a spray bottle and use on plants as an organic bug repellent. Cinnamon is also included in many medicinal recipes that are used for lice, scabies, and other skin parasites.

Cinnamon has antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial activities. It has been shown to suppress E. coli, staphylococcus, and candida albicans.

Between cinnamon and wearing flipflops in public showers, I should be okay, right? Maybe not.

Along with the medicinal effects come the side effects and interactions that medicinal cinnamon causes. Some people may be sensitive or allergic to cinnamon. Also, some people may develop dermatitis after exposure to it. Therefore, to take precautions to these possible side effects, only small amounts should be given to a person who lacks prier exposure to it. Chronic chewing of cinnamon gum or use of cinnamon flavored toothpaste can cause inflammation of the mouth, and lead to pre-cancerous growth. The highly concentrated cinnamon oil is more likely to cause side effects than the cinnamon powder. Cinnamon oil should never be ingested.

Cinnamon oil is exactly what that dinner guest recommended, so I’m back at the beginning. I don’t know anything for sure.

My coffee is tasty. Happy Birthday, Siobhan!

This is an experiment. Somewhere between Blogger, the unnamed university and PIC’s host, a grudge match is a-brewin’.

Thanks for your scientific curiosity!

It got a lot tougher to trick family members into doing stuff I wanted after they started reading the blog. I’ve had to get tricker still by assuming a couple of extra aliases and doing – um – things. But back to what I want –

Daria: How was your trip?
Tata: Good! Pete did all the driving. We took an accidental scenic tour of Staunton, Virginia and roasted a chicken for Darla. Then we did what we always do.
Daria: Drink box wine and stay up too late talking?
Tata: Exactly, so getting up in the morning was exciting but less so than you might think. I didn’t notice we’d forgotten to bring in my little suitcase until about 2 AM, so I couldn’t be bothered. It was warm, so I slept in a t-shirt. Pete opened the window for some fresh air. In the middle of the night, I woke up chilly because I was, you know, wearing no pants.
Daria: I can’t remember the last time I did that. Oooh! Tequila. So you got under the covers?
Tata: We were sleeping in Dara’s old room and the blanket only appeared to cover the bed, see, so no matter how close we got the blanket only covered one of us. I was chilly enough that it was a situation but not so chilly that it wasn’t an antic. Eventually, I fell asleep and dreamed about what I wouldn’t do for a Klondike Bar. Hey, did I tell you about Mom’s phone?
Daria: Mom’s phone? What phone? Mom screens every call.
Tata: I was thinking about the last time I was at her house. The phone rang about every fifteen minutes while we were waiting for a call from Grandpa. It was all sales calls. I couldn’t believe it.
Daria: I hate the screening. Mom! Mom! Pick up! I know you’re there! I know you’re running to the phone, you’re just about there and – pick up, Mom!
Tata: She says she hates the sales calls but I swear they make her feel popular. I kept asking why she didn’t do something about it, it’s just so simple. She was all like, “I have to give thinking about that idea further consideration before I ponder it.” I just about swallowed my tongue! So there I am thinking about the holidays, picturing the non-stop ringing of the phone and I did something rash.
Daria: What did you do?
Tata: I added Mom’s home phone number to the National Do Not Call List.
Daria: No, you didn’t!
Tata: Yes, I did, and I’d do it again! – Though I’m sure I just put a cadre of phone operators out of jobs. Alas! I do not increase the Gross National Product! These are the sad, sad consequences of my ruthless prank!
Daria: You’re back at work, right? Did you ever put on some pants?
Tata: Why? You afraid someone’ll look for my union label?

– Certainly, I enjoy seeing something reasonable happen through trickery and outright lying. Siobhan and I share this desire to the bottoms of our pointy shoes. She tricks her father into eating vegetables by pretending to coat them in schmaltz. We call it the I Can’t Believe It’s Not Transfat! Diet. I will someday trick my mother into writing a will while playing Scrabble in front of witnesses. What’ve you got for that double word score, Mom? P-R-O-B-A-T-E?

Photo by Pete.

Pete and I drove to Virginia yesterday, collected Dad’s slides and drove back today. We are lumpy things lying on my couch, at great risk of suddenly snoring. We stopped at Charlie Brown’s and fell face-down into gin & tonics and comfort foods. I don’t remember much. It’s all a blur of receipts and unarmed mashed potatoes. Hey, we’re home!

This is a view of and from the driveway at Dad’s and Darla’s house in the Shenandoah Valley. That right there is a shed and a Blue Ridge Mountain, if you wondered. It is one of many. People say things like, “We’re going over the mountain to the Apple Cider Festival. Can I bring you a dozen doughnuts?” to which you must respond, “Yes, thank you.” No. Really.

The cats seem happy to have us home again.

CNN:

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Robert Goulet, the handsome, big-voiced baritone whose Broadway debut in “Camelot” launched an award-winning stage and recording career, has died. He was 73. Robert Goulet had a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis.

The singer died Tuesday morning in a Los Angeles hospital while awaiting a lung transplant, said Goulet spokesman Norm Johnson. He had been awaiting a lung transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after being found last month to have a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis. Goulet had remained in good spirits even as he waited for the transplant, said Vera Goulet, his wife of 25 years.

“Just watch my vocal cords,” she said he told doctors before they inserted a breathing tube.

The Massachusetts-born Goulet, who spent much of his youth in Canada, gained stardom in 1960 with “Camelot,” the Lerner and Loewe musical that starred Richard Burton as King Arthur and Julie Andrews as his Queen Guenevere. Goulet played Sir Lancelot, the arrogant French knight who falls in love with Guenevere.

He became a hit with American TV viewers with appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and other programs. Sullivan labeled him the “American baritone from Canada,” where he had already been a popular star in the 1950s, hosting his own show called “General Electric’s Showtime.”

He made an excellent comic villain, and seemed to have a wicked sense of humor about himself.

Emerald Nuts: Robert Goulet

Beware of Robert Goulet, for he will mess with your stuff once you fall asleep.

I took this picture weeks ago in the family store. People who’d drop dead driven five miles from the Menlo Park Mall go bananas for dust-magnet statues of woodland and farm animals they hope to never see in person. It’s exciting to watch customers stare in wonder at the glazed ceramic cows, knowing the farthest thing from their minds is burgers and brisket. I’m no vegetarian; the last thing I want is porcine paperweights reminding me of guilt-laden bacon I’m not eating.

Please. Don’t get me started on the absurdity of selling porcelain chickens to city dwellers who’d call the cops if they heard a rooster crow. At least the bunnies don’t look to me like waylaid entrees.