What's in a name?

As we dicker back and forth about the name for our new kid, it's become clear that names have just as much weight and meaning for us as they do for the rest of the world.

A story came across my radar today made me wonder, though.

There is a reality show centered around a person called Miriam.

See, she's a looker, right? Girls you want to be like her, boys you want to own her? Her milkshakes bring all the etc. etc.? Six frat-looking guys are supposed to woo her, a-la The Bachelorette. Except! (Um, why do these contestants never learn there is a butt? (sic- you'll see why) She is a HE (see?)! A preoperative transexual tragically born devoid of any sense of empathy. The guys were all given large settlements after they sued the show's producers and the buzz around this show in Britain centers around whether the reality show genre has finally become too cruel. If they mean cruel to the hapless viewer, I vote yes yes a thousand times YES already. Stop making them- maybe we can get somebody to ban them or something?

Why did her name have to be Miriam- good old wholesome octagenarian feathered easter hat-wearing Miriam?

I mean, in reality, shouldn't it have been Pat, Tracy, Chris or Kelly?

National Blog Posting Month!

I did it! I am a shining light in the blog world, a coil of piercing bright understanding and wit.

Last year I think I had missed a day (cheater time-stamp post) but met more people and left lots of comments.

This year I posted faithfully but made no friends. (eating worms... and now)

I have some other streaks in the works, and will let you know if any become reality. So far my "ice cream every day" plan is coming together nicely.

Mmmmm... Protein....

I made these biscuits this week and they're super yummy yet require only commonly on-hand ingredients. They are a great way to use one of those two-for-one cottage cheese sales and reheat nicely, too.

Two tips:
1. I think next time I'll reduce the butter because that is a ton of butter.
2. When you go to mix in the cottage cheese, you might as well say to heck with it and mush it all up with your hands. It needs lots of squishing to combine at all and you're going to get messy trying to get them on the cookie sheet anyway, so just imagine you're the foley artist for a horror movie and get in there.

COTTAGE CHEESY BISCUITS
2 cups all purpose flour
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 16-oz. container low fat cottage cheese

Preheat oven to 450. In a large bowl place flour, salt and baking powder. Stir until combined. Add butter and mix until it becomes the size of small peas. Add the cottage cheese and stir until just combined.

Using a large soupspoon your already gunked-up hands, glob onto a non-stick cookie sheet in about 8 piles. Bake until golden, about 12-15 minutes. Serve immediately, because they'll be all melty and yummy in the inside.

These are great with soup or salad, keep nicely in the fridge and are eminently nukable.

HAPpy holidays!

Dobro people are cool.

I got better. Might have something to do with Toby and I not waking up until J was home around 7pm.

And also, I got this awesome email from a guy who teaches dobro in the area. I found him online, emailed him once about lessons, and then failed to contact him a single time even though he sent lots of tantalizing email about local folk/country/americana play-ins.

Tell me this wouldn't cheer you up just a little:
I sent him this:
"Hi-
I've really enjoyed reading your updates and have often thought, "geeze, I should get over there and take a lesson or two", but I've made a sad decision...

I'm selling my poor neglected dobro. I simply don't have time to practice it along with my professional stuff (classical) and my toddler- plus, we have a 2 year-old and we're expecting again in March.

Here's my craigslist ad:
http://portland.craigslist.org/wsc/msg/492681322.html

It's a Regal Black Lightning, I bought it at Folk of the Wood and literally played it once. It has been in our music room by itself and lonely.
I'd like $600 for it.

If you have a student or friend who might be interested could you please forward this to them? Is there anywhere else I might post it?

Take care and thanks again!
-Miriam"
{and he replied}
"Miriam

Congratulations on the "expecting" news. The type of music we play is very social and it sounds like your dance card is full.
I was looking forward to working with you. We have another classically trained Dobro student and he learns very fast. He is progressing with the art at a fantastic rate. This gIves me a lot of satisfaction
and nurses the illusion that I can actually teach well. The reality is that he knows music theory and understands how important practice is to the learning process.

Allow me to suggest another option.

Guitar Option: E

Keep the guitar and play it later when the kids are in school!
I am fundamentally against selling good instruments (my wife claims its a mental illness).
So keeping learning options open is always tactic.

We will respect any decision that you make. And support you if you choice to make a tragic life altering mistake like selling your Dobro.


Best wishes,
Awesome Dobro Guy (IF you happen to be from the Portland area and are looking for a teacher, I'll happily give you his contact info.)

Bah

I hate days like today. I was impatient with Toby, on edge in general and no fun to be around.

I'm not sure I'll post anything more; I'm so taking a nap.

Humbug.

meme me

Meme: n.
A unit of cultural information, such as a cultural practice or idea, that is transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another.

I've seen a couple of nicely written internet memes lately and I would like to combine them into my own personal Ubermeme. I suppose the use of the word "personal" or "private" doesn't really mesh with the idea of an internet meme, meant to be passed around and completed on various "tagged" blogs as it spreads like a virus through the content-needy keyboards of the world. If you like my meme, consider yourself tagged!

So here it is:
Favorite moments performing
+
Most embarrassing moments ever
=
Favorite embarrassing performance moments!

In the spirit of the season, today's moment happened at the end of the Nutcracker. We played it without any cuts, and in my memory it took nigh on three hours to complete. There is something special about the stuff you play in high school- I remember that repertoire much more vividly than the things we fly through in the various gigs I have now. We used to rehearse this stuff once a week for months, and there was the added frisson of nervous self-consciousness involved with anything done in my teens.

So there we were in Davis Concert Hall at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. It's a pretty nice hall, truth be told. I loved the way the wood floor clip-clopped under high heels, and it was the most formal place I knew of in Fairbanks; still is. People predominantly wear jeans or Carharts to the symphony and in one memorable occassion a clarinetist forgot her skirt and wore only a slip, but I digress.


We had played the piece admirably- things just had a way of coming together for our pastoral symphony. I've been a ringer in a quintillion amateur groups since and know that "miracle concerts" are more related to attitude than skill. People enjoy playing, so they play. Sometimes they practice, more often not. Performances are so much better than rehearsals because the extra energy of nerves and fancy black duds helps the weekend players listen more carefully and look up at the conductor just a glance or two more often.

Three hours and a satisfied arctic audience later, we all stood to accept our standing ovation. And I felt that horrible running tickle of a dry winter nose-bleed. I turned to get off stage but there was a wall of stands behind which a line of trombones were planted, and not one of them moved but rather seemed to glare into my soul. Brass can look that way sometimes when you startle them. Finally I just shoved through where I could, my neck hot and my skirt feeling wrinkled and clingy at the back of my knees. The whole thing seems like no big deal now, but at the time as a teenager it was mortification incarnate. There were hundreds of people on stage, and hundreds more in the seats. In a town where you WILL see people you know and are expected to wave when you drive the three miles to Fred Meyer, it felt like the whole world was witnessing my unsanitary bodily malfunction at what was intended to be a rare moment of formality. I bet not one of them remembers it, but that feeling of being trapped on stage took a long time to dissipate for me.

There are lots of other stories which will no doubt appear more embarrassing to the reader, but the timing of this one made it the most personally intense. I still like to see an escape route gap in the stands behind me before we start playing. I don't have anything planned for March yet, but the possibility of blessed events coinciding with musical ones has crossed my mind. Would madame like some black towels to sit upon perhaps?

Doing our part... for the economy.

We bought/received this as a big huge Christmas present this weekend.



It looks really nice in our living room. Our Materialism Guilt Reduction plan is to cancel cable and get a Tivo box for the public channels instead. I have decided that Tivo is essential. It is sooooooo nice to never "have to" watch tv, even though sitting there comatose is clearly not much of a hardship for us in general.

My other new plan is to just screw it and do my bible study while watching. I know. It's clear what my priorities are, right? Well, that's where I am right now, and I'm not going to get up any earlier or give up any time with J. I need all the time I can cobble together during the day for practicing, so there it is. We'll see how it goes, maybe I'll trudge upstairs if the tv's too distracting.

I really like our church's take on Christmas- our pastor and his friends started this old idea of the Advent Conspiracy. "...an international movement restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion, not consumption."

As you can see from the flatscreen 42"-er, we aren't exactly turning it all over to God yet. It's hard to find a balance between doing what we'd like to and doing what we're expected to do. It doesn't feel fair to skimp on generous people we may see only a couple times a year. For us, the reduction of consumption will start with our immediate family and the people we're able to give to relationally.

Fuji

Here are four aspects of Mt. Toby as taken near the end of November in the year of our Lord 2007.






1) Quick as the season of the cherry blossom: This is how he does everything lately.



2) Seriously silly like the mischievous ravens of Hokkaido.










3) Curious as the monkeys in the hotsprings of Nikko.








4) Hungry as... actually, I'm not sure why he wanted to lick the lense, but I will say he was so stealthy I didn't realize he had tried until I saw this.

Satellite Radio is my friend.

I love road trips. The time for conversation, the views and sometimes interesting radio, the change.

It's not nearly as fun when you're pregnant, though. I'm really worn out. My legs feel all itchy and tight and I need a shower.

We heard one of the Bartok violin concertos while driving through the Columbia River Gorge, which I thought worked out rather neatly. Otherwise our soundtrack began with the Bluegrass Gospel Train through the Flathead Valley, progressed to Prairie Home (almost no Garrison vocals today!) and various talk shows. We even did a brief stint on the Classical Christmas station, but after a while the ridiculosity of melismatic opera treatment for "We Three Kings" type of junk got on my nerves. (A while= 3.5 minutes)

Speaking of listening, at the Montana Grandparents' pad I played a note on the piano (middle C) and asked Toby to sing it and he did. He also saw a toy violin and mimicked the motions with the correct hands while singing. Can you see my chest puffing up? Or, wait a tic, that could just be another second-pregnancy symptom.

But we aren't moving our there.

Shopping at the height of the holiday crush this weekend in Kalispell I was reminded why I love small town life.

• The most crowded stores still left plenty of elbow room and I felt no need to disinfect myself upon re-entering our home.
  
• We paid no man for parking.
• When we decided to go home the commute took no longer than the occassional deer or red light dictated.
• There were plenty of carts and nothing I wanted ran out even though we went late on Friday.
• When we stopped for Starbucks the guy chatted with us for a full 20 seconds after he had given us our order, even though we were in the drive-through. No one honked.

Grandma's got the golden ticket.

We happily have several great-relatives here for Toby, and the chances are good that they will stick around long enough that he'll remember them.

We have great grandma Doris, who is very sweet and lives in an assisted living doohicky just down the street from J's parents. It's a nice place(seriously- the residents look happy and it lacks that old-folks-home smell) and she's a kick. Last night we asked her who she liked for president and she said either Mitt Romney or Hillary Clinton. She watches the news channels and has lucid reasons and opinions about most of the rest of the field, though like everyone we've talked to she didn't know much about Huckabee except that he's got a cool name.

Here are great grandma's thoughts on the election: Obama is interesting, but too inexperienced and not proficient enough at the nuances of dealing with the media or international relations. Clinton is strong and knows how to play the game as long as she can keep her over-the-top rabidness in check. Guiliani (which she pronounced Goo-leeahnee) has too many things dividing his constituents (catholic, yet 3rd marriage and pro choice, etc.) and also "he has a certain scent of the mafia about him, don't you think?" (tee hee) Thompson seems too much like a media "bumpkin" and hasn't made enough of an impression. In light of full disclosure, she might be into Romney because he's Mormon like she once was.

When she first said, "I like Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton," I wasn't sure whether she meant for them to be opposed, or on the same ticket. That might just be a worthwhile concept in a two-party world: two-party tickets?

Pretty sharp, eh? And great grandpa, who is 92 today, is still living in his own home in California, though he spends a lot of time in the midwest with his girlfriend. He's fun, too- likes to tease his daughters and do the things that irk them, like playing in the candle with a spoon while they try to clean up after the Thanksgiving feast.

Right, then. It's off to get through a few more movies: we have a list and we've been hard at it. It's a rough job, but somebody's gotta do it when there's a new flatscreen hdtv the size of Manhattan in the basement. Right?

Thanksgiving

Lovely lovely!

We cooked and ate and enjoyed the day together. My mother in law, Debbie, and I are scarily similar in a ridiculous amount of ways. We both like to do things our way, but both think of ourselves as helpful & easygoing, so when we're making things in the kitchen "together" much hilarity ensues.

We're all trying to wear off a few of the bazillion sugared calories by sitting in the living room watching Fido. I'm not sure the relatives like it, but J's parents did so our work here is done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Webcams you can move: rrrrt, zssssst, rrrrrt

We are heading out, destination: Kalispell, Montana.

Here's a really cool webcam mounted at the airport there. You can move it around- actually make the camera turn from your keyboard! Nifty.

Even though we aren't going there right now, here's my favorite hometown webcam. Look at this when you think your weather is annoying. There are generally a couple of super cold days each year (colder than -40, for example) when the ice fog settles in and you can't see that cute church across the parking lot. Also, note how daylight savings time has been rendered even more ineffectual by The Fairbanks is Dang Far North Effect (tm). Here's a cuter Alaska one which watches red squirrels, in North Pole (the town about 15 miles outside of Fairbanks).

We'll be posting from the Toddler Spa's Big Sky Resort as long as no one explodes from all the fabulous food.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving Eve.

Should should should should HAVE TO

The holidays have always been good times for me, and I felt bad for people who stressed about them. This year I'm starting to understand maybe just a little.

First off, no one came to our open house, which isn't all that surprising when you take into consideration all we did was put a sign out on the main road. I forgot to even put it on Craigslist until too late. Or... maybe we could have told every single person in Oregon and still no one would have stopped by because we aren't going to be able to sell it until Toby's growing pubic hairs. Sigh... at least it's clean...?

There's this purply-grey house-selling cloud settled over my right shoulder. It says we shouldn't go away for the holidays, that we should plunk ourselves down on the corner with a big sign saying "BUY MY HOUSE AND I'LL GIVE YOU A PUPPY" and wave it about like the Mattress World guys. I know that trying harder probably has nothing to do with selling FSBO real estate, but it still feels like the thing to do.

I am excited about seeing our relatives and more importantly having Toby expose them to his brilliance, but I don't relish the trip or my expandingness. I know it's annoying when pregnant women complain about how big they are, but GUYS! This is not a "cute bump" pregnancy. Apparently the backs of my arms, the width of my hips and the area just under my chin are all closely involved in growing baby bits, too. They have expanded accordingly, and we are not quite to six months here.

Who doesn't feel hyper aware of the state of their body when visiting relations? Fit people, I suppose, but then they can just feel all svelt and glowy while they bring me another vat of Dreyer's Egg Nog ice cream.

Thee carrss, dey broake.

But they should be returned to us tonight all better for the low low price of 800 (billion) dollars.

The house is almost sorta kinda ready. See?





































The grocery valet is not included in the asking price but we could be convinced to negotiate. I was cleaning up the garage today and still can't fathom how we need all this stuff. It will take us seventeen years to get it boxed up and down to Salem, and another thirty to unpack.

We have another open house tonight, so keep your keyboard crossed.

And then we watched the paint dry.

We are in the middle of our first open house (SUNDAY 1-6!!!!!!) but I'll tear myself away lest I forget to post. There are throngs of people crowding their way through our door, making offers left and right. I'll let J hold them off for a few precious minutes with you.

We painted the bedroom finally.


For some reason it looks really grey on my screen, but it's a sort of green on the wall. Not minty though. So I'm all painting-tired, and J must be double that because he did all the studly ladder work.

Continuing in the home selling naval gazing trend, let me tell you all about how we steam cleaned the carpets and they look awesome.

HEY! Wake up! I'm not done droning, and I need you to tell all your friends to at least stop by our place because we've only had one chick actually come in. Seriously. Go. Tell them all.

I do know how, I'm just out of practice.

Heh! It's technically Saturday, so bully for me and my Nablaksdfha self.

We just watched Children of the Corn. By we I mean I'm watching, surfing and baking while J has fallen asleep on the floor. I am incapable of falling asleep with the TV on- it used to curse me to skip sleeping entirely whenever I went to a sleep over because I didn't want to be so geeky as to shut of the set. (As you can see I've always been this incredibly secure.) I remember this movie being suuuuper freaky to the point I could barely watch, but now it's mainly funny. I wish Stephen King hadn't wussed out with the alien/monster ending like he so often does. He is always a better read, except in Stand By Me.

Speaking of reading, I haven't made it through anything not on a screen or a music stand for a long long while. I've had Cormac McCarthy'sThe Road on my nightstand undisturbed for quite some time, and I've been re-reading the same section of N.T. Wright's New Testament dealio for close to a year.

I see Oprah Herself is endorsing Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet. I completely loved that book in high school- I read it twice back to back.

It's not just that it's hard to find the time, it's that by the time I am free to sit quietly without serving anyone shorter than my viola case my mind is empty and gently buzzing. Something like what I imagine Hannah Montana music must sound like. So the only reading I feel up to is the clues (and sometimes answers) in my Will Shortz crossword compendium #14.

Cool

A post over at OhForFun jogged a memory, and I thought I ought to post this instead of cluttering up her comment space.

I was hired once to do a commercial for air conditioners, and we were "playing" the 4 Seasons. It was in my Tokyo days and I was asked to bring as many multi-cultural girl friends as I could drum up for $350 each. I told them up front they were being hired for their race and hotttness, and nobody said no. None of them played for real, and some of the instruments were lacking a string or two: it was hilarious.

Non-string players do the funniest stuff when they give the instrument a shot. Mostly there are lots of locked and swinging shoulders (think Thriller!) which results in the Cinderella sweeper bow maneuver: picture the motion of a scythe across the strings and you're halfway there. They also tend to go kind of cross-eyed while trying to keep that wily bow on the strings. Usually the viola-side elbow gets propped somewhere twisty on the torso, which makes their spine instantly shoot out backwards at an angle like that dude Igor in Young Frankenstein. I know it's mean, but come on, it's funny. I've found that most people can tell right off the bat if somebody in Hollywood is faking it, so that's always nice to know.

Anyway, my friends totally dug their 1.5 seconds of fame and as I remember since we were all professionally made up and young, we went out on the town that night. The finished ad involved lots of slow-mo and wide angle shots of a whole bunch of instruments with a soupy-sounding desecration of the already trampled Vivaldi piped in. We each had our split second of stardom- I swear it was at least as artistically fulfilling as a Bond CD.

I swear I would have traded the whole paycheck for a tape of that thing, but sadly for the whole internets, one never did materialize.

The kind of rain you have to squint to see.

I'm gonna post right now because it's 1:46 in the afternoon and I'm already tired out. Not because I have much to say, so I'll chatter as though you were all here in my kitchen, and I could make you a cup of coffee and a slice of my new favorite cranberry pumpkin bread. I'll even bake some extra berries and brown sugar on top the way you like.

Toby and I cleaned up the Aumsville Toddler Spa facility, loaded our stuff in the Jeep and trundled back up to PDX in a yucky rainstorm this morning. Can your really say rainstorm in Portland? It's just kind of spitty out, and grey. I used to love the big storms we got in Texas and New York. Tokyo, for that matter, has some impressive weather what with being on a modest-sized rocky island in the middle of several oceans and such. Portland needs to commit to a more passionate take on rain.

I cannot believe how much crap we had from just staying there a week. We made a big trip to Walmart (yay, capitalist oppressors, seduce me with your cheapness- and the fact that fricken everything is now made in China anyway) and also schlepped my mom's steam cleaner back to take a whack at our downstairs carpets before putting the house on the market this weekend. It took 8 trips in and out of the stupid lackluster rain to get it all in there, and half of it will wait to be unloaded until J I can get to it later.

Toby really actually was kind of helpful, sort of. He'll carry stuff around now, and understands the full meaning and ramifications of, "put that back right now." He likes to have jobs to do, and it's way easier to convince him to lug a bag of frozen pierogies equal to his weight into the house than it is to get him to stop running around barefoot in the garage careening in circles while flapping his hands for no obvious reason. I think it's all a shell game from here until he graduates high school. Look, honey, a college with coed dorms! If you get a 1600 on your SATs we'll make sure that's where you're kept.