Human Beauty

Tonight I came across a wonderful blog, quite by accident. Perhaps I really ought to take up surfing (the in the water with a board kind), since recording my way to this fantastic photoblog is, uh, revealing. Perhaps this stream of consciousness will be valuable to those of you out there for whom this is meaningful information: I was looking for confirmation that the gruesome bug I found crawling on my couch was (actually, is, since the cats have not had their way with it yet) an earwig. Confirmed. Apparently, there is also a band named "Earwig" and a slew of blogs which also incorporate "earwig" in some form into their titles. I didn't click on any of these, or the band. Instead, for some odd reason, the search also brought up an entry in Dave Barry's blog from 2006 on a Folger's commercial called "Happy Morning" that has quite the cult following. Thinking that there must be a more recent "Happy Morning" episode, I googled that title and among the blogs and other arenas mentioning the same piece over and over (apparently there is no sequel), I found, several entries down from the link to Happy Morning, a link to Parigo Studios.

They are based near the Kansas City area in Lexington, MO. They do wedding portraits, but these are perhaps some of the best photographed you will ever see. There is a real artistry here, a real feel and eye for the human condition: this is art in every sense. Do not be misled by any associations you have with the words "wedding photography." The photographs happen to be mainly from weddings; they are about all other sorts of things. I've copied this one, from the wedding of "Joe and Julie," who, the blog says, met on their grade school bus. I love the photo on the left--- (the bride looks so young !): it captures the lovely quirk to her smile, lights upon the je ne sais quoi of her attractiveness, all in a glance. her joy in this and several other photos almost brought tears to my eyes. One should be so lucky to be photographed like this in one's lifetime. I've added this site to my list of midwest blogs.

For contrast, here is "Happy Morning." Blogdom seemed agog at its genius and its truth about us humans. Again, justaposition works best here; I need say no more. I'd rather reuse my Illy grounds than drink Folgers, so I may be biased.

Pie Weights and Spring Cleaning

On June 3rd, I wrote optimistically, I cannot believe it has been almost a month since I've posted, especially since I visit my blog often to use my own links to stay up to date on what everyone else has been writing. There will be a real post here by the end of this weekend. Off to garden before the rain hits first.

Right. It is a very, very busy time at work, and truth be told, I've been paying more attention to other people's blogs than my own. I've also been trying to bring my very rusty French up to speed via everything that is available on the web. Even compared to five years ago, the increase in the number and quality of resources available on the internet is wonderful and astounding. I wonder if this has to do with the Barcelona Accords (link to be posted), since a number of the best sites are from within the EU and are aimed at getting university level students ready to function as students or perhaps even in entry level business positions in other countries within or bordering the EU. I have been listening to French audio at RFI, and taking the little quizzes on aural comprehension is humbling. I'm at about 65%, maybe 75% when I am not tired. Alas, I have never had the opportunity to live in a French speaking country, but I am getting ready to travel again, and with middle age comes boldness.The desire to communicate and comprehend simply quashes the fear of messing up and the imagined horror of one's own incomprehensibility. I'd forgotten how happy the very sounds of other languages make me (as you can tell from at least one posting, I know Latin, but that is not the same sort of thing). I had also planned to learn another language, just for fun, something for me. For a long time, I thought maybe Irish Gaelic, since we have family on the west coast of Ireland and when I was very young, my cousins used to speak to me in Gaelic. Perhaps on that note, it is not new enough, or exotic enough, but it will have to wait. I actually window shopped for languages the new-fangled way: I went to sites on the internet such as omniglot, and listened to samples of languages I thought I'd like to know. I hit up Rosetta Stone's site, as that is actually a very good method for learning a language (they're not kidding in all of those ads). For a long time, I have been interested in northern Europe, and so I listened very carefully to Swedish (also a maybe), Danish (didn't like it as much as I thought I would). I did more than this, of course, but perhaps this aspect is the most interesting part, that one can sample grammars and lessons on line, one can see if there is a real aural appeal. Naturally, there are many reasons people learn a language. In my profession (sorry, yes, the vagueness will have to stay), the Northern countries also would offer some practical opportunities. Finnish. Yes, it has fifteen cases and vowel harmony, but I've encountered cases and spelling shifts in other languages. I have found an excellent course, Finnish for Foreigners online, and have been working through it at a leisurely pace. There, all in one breath, is what I have been up to in my spare time. yes, of course I plan to go to Finland...

Maybe there is a connection here to the picture I posted. In late May/ early June, I spent some time getting my apartment in better shape. Even after a few years, I find that a number of things are parked exactly where I (mis)placed them "temporarily" immediately after I moved in. So it was a surprise, and a pleasant one, when in the middle of making a pastry crust for a peach tart, I thought, "oh, I wish I had those beans I used to use for pie weights [to keep the dough from rising up when the crust cooks]," and I reached down to where I would have kept the can in the old place and put my hand directly on the right thing, which had been sitting there waiting for me all that time. So I had all of these thoughts about how spring cleaning, or even hunting about in a cabinet for a specific thing, can suddenly raise or lift a weight from the past. No puns on pies or gaining weight, which, uh, I don't really do.

So there it was, my old Illy Cafe can, marked so that I didn't try to cook the beans, sitting on the counter next to the latest Starbucks bag, espresso the constant, a small bit of my past self refound as it should be. It all worked literally and metaphorically (it had been years since I made the peach tart). My reconnection with modern languages feels the same: I used to do this , I think, quite surprised, that I was understanding as much French as I did, that is is all still in there, somehow, and the sheer pleasure of that has taken the edge off not a few of my days.

I've added some links on the sidebar: a great and current blog by a meteorological scientist working in Finland Dave In Suomi, and that of a Finnish journalist and geneologist there who writes of her life and work, Daydreaming in Helsinki.
Thanks to Willoboe, whose blog brought Dave's to my attention. And now, I really do have to get my constantly sleep-deprived self back to some real work !

What Taste Loves and the Body Refuses

Crab cakes, homemade and simmering under the lid of the pan; Vietnamese coffee, served up as you find it in Houston and Saigon (Ho-Chi-Minh City to you little ones), sweet chilled condensed milk in a glass(in Houston, with ice), thick brewed hot coffee poured on top; almond torte for dessert; salad in between: spring greens, herbs, beautiful little tomatoes. I can't eat any of these things. I love them all. My only real allergy is to crab, an allergy now full blown to the point of meriting an Epipen, which I carry everywhere, in case of accidental ingestion. I grew up eating crab, fresh from the ocean, Mrs. Paul's, didn't matter, crab is good, delicious, sweet. Other foods are stuffed with it; can't touch those then either. The severity of the reaction apparently inched up as I aged, until one year in my thirities, I found myself driving myself to an ER around midnight, scratching fierely itching swelling palms and on my steering wheel, slipping off my sandals at a light to rub the soles of my feet on the clutch. I was taken in immediately, even ahead of a guy with his arm dangling at an inhuman angle who said "You go 'head, honey," as I pointed him out to a triage nurse, who, I was sure, had made a mistake. My whole body was red and swollen by that point. No more crab, ever. This allergy may migrate, expand, to other shellfish and maybe to salmon, I'm told (iodine is the common factor), and thus the secondary reason for the Epipen. With the coffee, it seems to be the condensed milk, or maybe the contrast of hot and cold. Cappucinos, as you'll see from several posts, do not bother me. The almond thing is fairly new, not as severe as the crab, though maybe related to it, but a flag of caution all the same. As if anaphylactic shock weren't bad enough, the severe intestinal distress brought on by the lot of these, and anything else my body's weak point can't handle, is, uh, gut wrenching (sorry, sorry, I know. Have blogs no boundaries ?). I've a long standing diagnosis and some remedies for the effects of my fickle system, though nothing to make it less fickle.

At the moment, I absolutely have to go to bed, so let me get to the first point, and return to others later in the week: due mainly to the first and severe condition, though somewhat due to the nature of the beast in its entirety, I have become one of those people, who query the hosts of parties, pass up what is termed "oh probably tuna salad" at potlucks, prods suspisciously at fillings, and after praising someone's garden to the skies, says no thank you to the salad, please. One of those. The rub of it all: I love food, I love to try new food, and except for the crab, which is so clear cut, other foods sometimes get a pass, so I sometimes forget and eat merrily away. If I am lucky, the awful spasms come later, when I am at home and have time, but I have sometimes been fantastically unlucky and nowhere near home. Sorry to break at such a cliffhanger, but I really do have to go to bed. Comments welcome, special diets and amateur diagnoses should know better.

Short Post: NHH's, or, Nausea Ad Nauseam

I will be catching up on things this weekend. The VTI tragedy is also very much on my mind. This post is really a brief interrogatory: re the Don Imus fiasco, how is it that this incident and its result, which was catalyzed by and continues to feed upon language deemed unacceptable in civilized society, seems to have given every journalist in the US and elsewhere permission to repeat the exact words of this slur ad nauseam ? Everyone in the media, it seems, can now use the phrase with impunity, except, of course, Imus. For the record, I am a very strong proponent of First Amendment rights. Rather than debating whether they apply in Imus's case per se, I am more interested in the disparity in the claims for legitimate use (or maybe, in the lack of them, since I have yet to see one news anchor or commentator defend, or be called upon to defend, the repetition of the offending phrase). The whole thing really feels like kids saying to an adult, "Tommy said it first. I'm just telling you what Tommy said..."

Chemical Farms

I had wondered when we would find out who had supplied the poisonous wheat gluten to Menu Foods, the company that, as it turns out, manufactures a great deal of the "unique" and expensive (as well as generic) cat and dog food in the US and Canada. The latest link in what is now a devastating chain of broken trust between pet and owner, owner and brand name, brands and their suppliers, etc., has come to light. Though I did not see it in the print media, sites such as The Daily Kos were talking about it last week. I found it after checking the update on MenuFoods' site. It is a company called ChemNutra ("The China Source Experts"). The irony of the spliced "chem+"nutra" is now only too obvious, as the fact that one would buy wheat gluten, something so easily, but not, I'm sure, as cheaply ---and I mean in every sense of that word--- produceable in the US and Canada, from that slave-labor dependent, human-rights denying, dog-shooting nation. I suppose if I wanted a monolithic, but perhaps more famous theme blog, I would try to chronicle a year of trying to live without, or buy any products made in China. Trust me, I've given it a casual go, and it's not easy, except on the most superficial level. By-products are everywhere. For example, would you have known that Science Diet also used ChemNutra as its supplier for their one recipe that contains wheat gluten ? Read the package, and it seems as if it's all coming from the US, or at least places that respect human rights. The only good news ? Since ChemNutra is a US company, they can be sued and held responsible. Here is how their website describes the company:

ChemNutra imports quality ingredients from China to the U.S. for the feed, food and pharma industries. We are a professionally managed, American owned company experienced in negotiating, securing and delivering ultra-competitive pricing on high-quality chemicals and ingredients from quality-assured manufacturers in China. We bridge the business and cultural gaps…including all regulatory, compliance, import and transportation requirements.

We specialize in Taurine, L-Cysteine, Glycine, Vital Wheat Gluten, and Glucuronolactone, and we also handle many other ingredients.

ChemNutra imports over 4,000 tons per year, and our customers include several Fortune 500 companies.

Note, when you go to their products list, that the "chemicals" they are talking about are human and animal nutrients, including a long list of vitamins. Naturally, ChemNutra has been quick to name its Chinese source, a company one presumes is beyond the reach of true regulation and the law. Simply click on "Media Info" on their web site to read the whole press release, excerpted here: ChemNutra Inc. yesterday recalled all wheat gluten it had imported from one of its three Chinese wheat gluten suppliers – Xuzhou Anying Biologic Technology Development Co. Ltd. [...]ChemNutra did not ship to facilities that manufacture food for human consumption, and the distributor ChemNutra shipped to supplies wheat gluten only to pet food manufacturers. The total quantity of Xuzhou Anying wheat gluten shipped was 792 metric tons. ChemNutra learned on March 8 from one pet food manufacturer that the wheat gluten it had sold them – all from the Xuzhou Anying - was among ingredients suspected as a potential cause of pet food problems.

That's seven hundred ninety-two metric tons. And "among the ingredients suspected as a potential cause" stills sounds too hopeful, doesn't it ?

Let me close this post with a report from the AP wires from today's local paper, as irony by juxtaposition says so much more than I might be able to sum up otherwise:

BEIJING: One person died and more than 200 people fell sick after eating food that may have been contaminated with rat poison at a hospital restaurant in northeast China, state media and the hospital said Tuesday.Xinhua News Agency said the victims included patients and staff at the Heilongjiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It said the victims all ate porridge for breakfast at the hospital's restaurant Monday, and investigators suspected the water had been contaminated by rat poison.
Mass poisonings are common in China.

My ipod's Five W's

First, I admit to owning one (30 gb video version, black), and second, confess to playing it more through my Bose or in the car (definitely not a Bose in there) with one of those fm transmit devices than to actually podding up with earbuds, though this may be due to the nature of my work and the hours I keep. I spent some excellent time during summer evenings watching videos on its tiny screen, earbuds in, podded out on my porch.

The point ? Over at Two Dishes But To One Table Evan, the author, has a response to someone asking how many songs on his ipod begin with the "5 W" question words: who, what, when, where, and why. This seemed interesting, especially as Evan termed it, these are "the questions I walk around listening to." As confessed, I haven't done much walking with them lately, but I was curious to see what would turn up. Alas, apparently there is a paucity of questions in the songs I spend time with, but here is the result of my search of my ipod library. Out of 316 items:

Who is this Man ? ; Bob Telson/Lee Breur Gospel at Colonus
What A Wonderful World; Armstrong
What a Bore; Muzzle
When We Collide; KD Lang
O Brother, Where Art Thou ? (Album)
Why do the Nations So Furiously Rage ? (Handel, Messiah)

•Unless you count the album title for O Brother, Where are Thou ?, it is interesting that the only two songs that actually ask a question come from oratorios.

•No where’s or why’s on my list, at least not as the first word or a question.

And so I decided to check for "how ?," the artful question that binds the five W’s into a narrative. I found three, but note that only one is interrogative, asking in what mannner; the other two express magnitude:

How Shall I See You Through ? (Gospel at Colonus again)
How Great Our Lord; Randy Newman’s Faust
How Far You’ve Come The Wallflowers, Rebel, Sweetheart

Image: St. Patrick's Day Ice Storm, 2007

Lapsed Blogging

Am exhausted. Working hard and on the hunt for my true work simultaneously. Am watching 24 and barely following, e.g. just figured out Charles Logan was the president last season. Will give this blog some time someday soon. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that porci gruniunt means "the pigs are grunting" in Latin and I could have lived quite well, I think, without knowing that.

No no info on my last post; I could never discover the story behind what I saw.