Some Have Hats

Dear Cityfolk

Note to people selling duvet covers on Ebay: "Duck Egg Blue" is not a color.

In other news: these guys have been playing tennis for four hours and seventeen minutes. Can't we just text in our vote?

Update: Kyle Busch needs to take "how to lose gracefully" lessons from this guy.

Shout Outs!

Shout outs to our friend Catherine and to Christine, Dane and Adam: thanks to all of you guys for making our 4th so much fun!

I'm sure we had more fun than anyone else in the country.

Hi Jill and Scott!

I am my mother's daughter.

Safety First

Walker family Photo of the Week. I not only have a very patient husband, I also have a very patient dog. We finally managed to convince Caleb that Molly didn't have to ride strapped in for eleven hours. Caleb, who does have to ride strapped in for eleven hours, considers this a great injustice. He tries to paint it as concern for Molly's safety, but I'm on to him.

Perfect Finish

We had a great 4th. I didn't think it could get any better, but for the grand finale I got to see Tony Stewart put Kyle Busch into the wall about twenty yards from the finish line in the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona.

I was already leaning toward declaring Tony Stewart my new favorite driver; he just sealed the deal.

Junior was 38 laps down last time I checked. It's time to buy a new t-shirt.

Update: Caleb would like me to say that his favorite driver is Denny Hamlin and Denny Hamlin came in third. Caleb picked Denny Hamlin because 11 is his favorite number. Maybe I should start picking my drivers that way. Caleb: "Can you also write that I like what's his face, Kasey Kahne, and he's the one who wrecked Junior?" Yes, I can write that. I can also write that it stinks that Kasey Kahne has the car the Junior should be driving, with a big 8 on it. I don't like the new car because I can't spot it in traffic.

Caleb: Whatever.

I also want to write that "Coke Zero 400" is objectively wrong.

One more thing or two:

Caleb: Write that I like Daytona.

Family consensus: if you live in Orlando, you have to like Daytona.

Me: If you don't like Daytona, you are wrong and need an education.

Caleb: Can I write my own stuff?

Me: Sure. What would you like me to type?

Caleb: If you don't like Daytona, you're lost!

Me: I concur.

Caleb's final words: I like cereal.

More Demonic Inversion

I was just doing a little reading about Kevin Jennings, the founder of GLSEN, who has been appointed to head the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.  It makes sense, I suppose, for the administration of Demonic Inversion to appoint a guy who (a) openly admits, with chuckles, to his own drug use and (b) tells the story of "counseling" a high school boy to use condoms when having sex with older men he met on the internet.

Mr. Jennings also wrote the foreword to a book called "Queering Elementary Education."

GLSEN, as you may or may not know, holds workshops at high schools where fisting, rimming, and other fine arts of gay sex are explained to the students, in hopes of squelching homophobia and hatemongering.

Mr. Jennings appointment has not received a lot of press coverage, for reasons I can't fathom. (Yes, that was sarcastic.)

To borrow the perfect phrase from Mr. T, I pity the fool who comes near my son with the intention of "queering" him.

Also, I'd like to know why the left is free to brainwash our kids in any way it sees fit, but if I were to go over to Caleb's school pass out Bibles, I'd be thrown out, if not arrested.

Heading North

We are packed (mostly) and ready to leave for NC tomorrow. We have to wait until the phone guy gets here to fix whatever is wrong with our phone line. If you have been calling us and getting nothing but static, try again on Thursday.

My daughter actually danced and partied on a boat with two rock bands yesterday (Fall Out Boys and Panic at the Disco) and there will be video evidence. I'll post it as soon as I have it. She thinks she can't put it on her resume because she wasn't paid. Obviously I need to explain the fine art of resume padding to her.

Here's a fun photo from dinner with Julie and my best friend Lynn, taken the day they tried to save me from the 90 pound meth addict. We had dinner at the Japanese restaurant right next to the Crest theater, where the L.A. Film Festival was attempting to throw a red carpet extravaganza. We now know the answer to "what if they threw a Big Opening and nobody showed up?" (The answer: the security guards will still yell at mere mortals who walk on to the red carpet to take humorous photos of themselves.)

Things to do in L.A. when it's dead.

Thugocracy

America has become Dr. Zhivago without the ice.

Panic at Casa Orlando

Would someone who is nearby please drive over to the L.A. Harbor and check to see if there is really a Fall Out Boys video being shot right now?

My daughter Julie called me a couple of hours ago to tell me she was selected to be in a Fall Out Boys video based on a photo she had sent in. She was thrilled. I, on the other hand, have watched far too episodes of Unsolved Mysteries.

I told her to call me as soon as she got to the "set." Instead, she sent me a text message: "I got to the harbor safely. We're going on a boat."

Yeah, THAT relieved my mind. I immediately had visions of a guy in a bad toupe with a megaphone in a 15' Bayliner helping her climb on board. "Sweetheart, you're late. The band and all the other actors are already on the island. Hop in and I'll take you right to them."

I've been texting her nonstop. She says she's hanging out at the crafts services table. Like a serial killer wouldn't think of that. She also claims she has seen the band members and also the guys from Panic at the Disco, who have come to hang out.

So when you go, take a photo of Pete Wentz and  one of these guys and make sure the people who claim to be them are not imposters. Make them take off their dark glasses and tell you their middle names and birthdays.

I am in Florida, of course, with Caleb the birthday boy. He is thrilled about Julie's good news. I'll be thrilled when I see the video. Or when I call Julie tomorrow and she answers.

BTW, you are reading this and you are a member of Fall Out Boys or Panic at the Disco, please e-mail me immediately if you are not at the L.A. harbor making a video with 30 random photogenic people, one of whom is a gorgeous redhead who is standing by the crafts services table texting her mother.

Add this to the things my parents never had to worry about.

A Treat for the Carnivores

I was in a red meat mood last night (top-of-the-food-chain, babe!) and I found (and adapted) a recipe for cooking steaks without having to clean the grill.

I've been experimenting for years, trying to figure out how to cook a steak so it tastes like the ones they bring you at a good steak restaurant -- seared on the outside and the perfect shade of pink on the inside. I knew my perfectly seasoned cast iron skillet was the key, but I've still never been able to pull it off. Until last night.

Here's how I did it:

(1) Take the steak out of the refrigerator and let it reach room temperature.

(2) Heat your oven to its highest temperature (usually 500 degrees F) with the cast iron pan inside.  It may take a while until the pan is completely heated.  When the pan has reached the temperature of the oven, remove it place over a lit burner (this works best with a gas range) for a few minutes to let the pan soak up more heat.

(3) Season the steak. I used a mix of fresh ground pepper, cayenne pepper, onion salt and Lowres garlic salt. (The person from whom I got the recipe uses kosher salt and garlic powder with the pepper.)  Rub in the seasonings to make sure the steak is evenly coated on both sides.  On one side of the steak, rub (or spray) a little olive oil in to cover the surface.  This will be the first side placed down the heated pan.

(4) Place the steak(s) on the pan. Sear the first side for 2 minutes, then flip them and sear the other side for 2 minutes.

(5) Put the pan in the oven under the broiler. I cooked mine for six minutes and they were a perfect medium rare. Adjust the time according to your own preference.

*If you care about such things, Target has a brand of beef (Laura's Lean Beef) that is free of antibiotics and growth hormones.

 

The Obligatory Michael Jackson Post

Here is an article about Michael Jackson that is actually interesting and informative.

I was in L.A. the day he died. I was in the middle of moving from my old apartment to my new apartment. The route from the old one to the new one includes Sunset Blvd. (entrance to the mansion where he was living) and Wilshire Blvd. (UCLA Medical Center) ... Only people who have lived in L.A. will understand what that means. And don't forget the hovering helicopters over both apartments for four straight hours. (My husband explained to me why hovering helicopters are so much louder than regular helicopters, while I was wondering if shoulder launched missiles can be purchased at Walmart.)

Just now Caleb was sitting with us, playing a DS game while we were watching the news, from which came this delightful tidbit:

Caleb: Wait, is Michael Jackson still alive?
Me: No.
Caleb: Why can't they get off the situation of him?

I want everyone in L.A. to stay on the situation of him and get it out of their systems (and off of the streets) before I have to go back there.

Pirates and Meth Addicts

That title will only make sense to two people, but they deserve the laugh.

I am in L.A., moving from my furnished apartment into an unfurnished apartment. (The story of why I am moving is long, very funny, and will someday show up in my memoirs.) I have discovered that moving when you are financially-challenged is very different from moving when you just tell people to do stuff and then write them a check at the end. God bless Craig and his list. I bought two great sofas that originally came from Civilization ($200 bucks for the pair -- God bless the global economic meltdown!) and in the process, made a new friend. What are the odds that the person from whom I'd buy sofas would turn out to be a female Catholic playwright roughly my age who loves Italy and is going to school to get a "practical" degree because no one can make a living as a writer any more? I invited her to come sit on her sofas at my new place and we'll have a glass of limoncello and commiserate.

Okay, this story will kill my mother (so Cuz Kim, you don't necessarily have to tell her.) But it's too good to keep to myself. 

I hired a very nice guy named Mike who has a truck to pick up my sofas and move them into my new apartment. Mike usually has a partner, but the partner was out sick and Mike was alone. My new playwright friend and her sons helped on their end, but then the sofas arrived at my new place where Mike was met by my daughter who weighs a LOT less than the sofas, my friend Lynn who has bad wrists from two years as a flight attendant, and me -- bad back, bad wrists, and completely stupid from having crossed 20 time zones in the last week. 

Juli and I helped Mike get sofa #1 strapped to the dolly, and then I prayed hard while Mike was pulling it up the front stairs of my apartment building, while Lynn opened the security door for him. Mike and the sofa were halfway up the stairs when we hear a voice: "Hey, I'm a professional mover, do you want some free help?" I said to Mike, "Free is all I can afford" and he told me not to worry, he'd pay the guy. I said great.

Now, being me, I'm thinking "what are the odds that a professional mover would happen by on a bike just when we needed help with the sofas?" God is good, surely I am meant to live in this apartment and have these sofas, etc. etc.

Juli and Lynn, on the other hand, the first being "a confused Christian" and the latter being "I don't know what the bleep is going on but someday it'll be fine" ... notice that the "professional mover" has all of his worldly goods strapped to the back of his bike, and no teeth.

So -- I need to point out for the sake of any relatives reading this that is was BROAD SPANKING DAYLIGHT -- we all get sofa #1 into the apartment and Mike and the "professional mover" -- who I named Mickey, because I had to call him something when telling this story -- went back for sofa #2. At which point, Juli and Lynn erupt into hysteria. Lynn gets out the cell phone and has 911 ready at the touch of her finger, meanwhile yelling at Juli to hide our purses in the kitchen cabinets. I think they've lost their minds, and that's when they start telling me about Mickey's worldly goods on his bike and lack of teeth. Then they go and hide in the kitchen while I await the return of Mike and Mickey. Who did a fine job of moving my sofas into the apartment. I pay Mike and give Mickey a tip and send them on their merry way. Lynn follows them out to make sure the security door closes tightly.

Then Juli and I get into an argument about whether or not Mickey is actually s a professional mover. (I am convinced that at one time, before he was a homeless meth addict, Mickey was a professional mover. How else would he know that "on its knees" means to turn the sofa sideways and face down? It's not like he googled it. There was no computer on the back of his bike.)

Lynn came back to join Juli in her attack on me: "You can't let a homeless meth addict move a sofa into your apartment!" I make my pitch for Mickey being a professional mover. Juli says, "How do you know he wasn't casing your apartment to come back and rob it?" I say, "Well good! Now he knows that I have NOTHING, so he won't bother. Unless he wants the sofas and I don't think they'll fit on the back of his bike!"

For the sake of my hyperventilating friends and relatives, my new building is VERY secure, in a nice neighborhood (which, apparently, is biked through by homeless meth addicts looking for people moving sofas) and Mike the mover could have thrown Mickey across the street with one hand. And Mickey was very quiet and polite and happy to have ten bucks. Plus I am very sure that he qualifies as "the least of these."

Juli immediately had to text a friend to share the story of what her insane mother has done lately. The friend wrote back, "I'll bet your mom thought the homeless meth addict was sent by Jesus at just the right moment to help get the sofa into her apartment."

Guilty.

I also believe that Jesus takes special care of fools like me.

The pirate story is another tale for another time.

Greetings from the Church in Rome

I don't want to blog about Barbara Nicolosi's wedding before she has a chance to, unless I get her permission, which is difficult to do because she made the unfathomable decision to leave her iPhone at home. I was looking for her in the crowd at St. Peter's this morning. Needless to say, I didn't find her. If anyone in Rome is reading this, and you run into the couple in the picture below, ask them if they have plans for dinner. If they don't, let them borrow your phone and call me.

(Slightly off topic: my iPhone has now been blessed by the Pope. What could be better than that? Debating whether or not to take my laptop to the Angelus tomorrow. Leaning heavily toward yes.)

The wedding was perfect, the reception was perfect, Rome is Rome. There was some drama leading up to the wedding and things were not quite so perfect for a few days. I turned it over to St. Ignatius and told Barb it would be fine. No one else in the wedding party completely trusts St. Ignatius, because I was the only one who got a very good night's sleep the night before the wedding.

Anyone who has been to Rome knows what the hotels mean when they say "high speed wireless internet" and you can explain to the folks who haven't been here why blogging will be light this week. (Joe, that's a good job for you and I know you need something to do.)

Here, in the meantime, is a very nice photo of Mr. and Mrs. Norris Harrington (that sounds like it needs an IV behind it, no?) taken at the reception last night. A great time was being had by all by then.

The Twittersphere

Wocket Man

The Nose on Your Face presents Kim Jung Il in a rare moment of vulnerability

A Working Theory

I just saw this headline about the Vatican lamenting the drop in the number of people in the confession line.

This is a shot in the dark from a dumb convert, but ...

I'm wondering if it has anything to do with their priests telling them there's no such thing as Hell and God is fine with absolutely any behavior (except for polluting the environment or water-boarding, of course) and/or the parading of unrepentant high profile ardent practicing Catholics jauntily down the communion line every Sunday ... (or, to quote our soon-to-be new Supreme Court justice, on the "important" Sundays.)

Just a thought.

Maybe Next Year

For those who have asked, the Second Annual Obscurantists Ball has been canceled this year due to the economy and other circumstances beyond our control. However, there will be a meeting of the Executive Board in Rome next week. Let me know if you have not received your agenda and minutes.

Next year's event will be called the Second Annual, otherwise the set of collector mugs would always look like you'd broken one.

Thoughts?

I'm thinking I can probably get a pretty good deal on a Chrysler Sebring convertible in about a month.

Experts want to weigh in?

Tick Tock

Tomorrow is my birthday. (Yeah, yeah. Send me a Facebook cupcake.) Two days after that, I leave for Rome for Barbara Nicolosi's wedding. Which is great for many reasons, most of them obvious.

I am flying to Madrid first, as I have learned that (for some unknown reason) it is insanely expensive to fly into Rome, so the smart people change planes in the European country of their choice. My choice is Spain. I'll be there long enough to spent one night in a parador (haven't decided which), eat those baked eggs and head back to the airport. Can't think of a better place to sleep off some international jet lag, in hopes of being at least semi-conscious for the wedding.

(Note to the other chosen few who will be there: please don't let me drink at the reception, no matter how much I beg. It won't go well. Ask my husband. On our honeymoon in Rome, I had half a martini and fell asleep at the table on my birthday. I learned my lesson for a couple of years, but now I'm back to thinking I'm that I can will myself to stay awake. Don't listen to me if I swear that I can. Pour me a Coke. With ICE. What is wrong with Europeans that they want to drink room temperature soft drinks when it's 104 degrees outside? Okay, I'm done.)

The Main Reason I Don't Believe in the Death Penalty

When I heard about the death of George Tiller, I was stunned and conflicted. On one hand, it's great news for a lot of future people who might now actually get a chance to live their lives. (Like my husband the adoptee, whose mother's "choice" gave me my entire life, God bless her.) But it's just another senseless act of violence, which is what the pro-lifers are supposed to be against. That's what makes them pro-lifers.

Not to mention the fact that it makes him a "pro-choice" martyr and thereby provides a tremendous amount of fuel for the opposition in their crusade to make pro-lifers look like nuts.

Tiller's family calls his slaying "particularly heart-wrenching" because he was "shot down in his house of worship." [source] The murderer probably thought of it as justice (or maybe he was just a lazy murderer and couldn't be bothered to wait in the bushes outside of Tiller's house.) I call it irony.

The "heart-wrenching" part is that he did not have the chance for God to put him through something that would make him see the evil of what he was doing and beg for divine mercy. Maybe God will put his family through whatever that would have been, and they will pray for his soul, along with every Christian with whom I have discussed Tiller's death.

I've never believed in the death penalty for many reasons, but the main one has always been that a sentence of life in prison would give God a chance to work on that person and maybe he or she would repent before it was too late.

The eternal consequences of taking that chance away?

I wouldn't want to show up at the Pearly Gates with that one on my celestial resume.

Some Cousin of Demonic Inversion

When you have to read Pravda to get the truth, you know you're not in Kansas any more.

The writer's blog is an interesting read, and a reminder of what we used to be able to do, back when we had freedom of speech. He writes things that we couldn't write here because we'd be fired, blacklisted and eventually (what's happening with the Hate Crimes bill lately?) arrested for saying.

I've been thinking lately about my ancestors who came here seeking freedom, and wondering where my descendants will go for the same purpose.

I hear Russia is lovely.