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They don't call this "the frozen North" for nothing. Up Nort' here in Wisconsin we've gotten a lot of snow this year. Then rain. Then snow and bitter cold. Then a thaw. Then this past Thursday we had thunderstorms and torrential rain ... and then it froze. So this morning I went to our local outfitter (not REI, the pseudo co-op) and invested in a pair of Yak Trax.

I bought a pair for Mr. Ether last week. He's the one who takes Molly, the official spokesdog of the Criminal Investigations? Hell, Yes!™ movement, to the bark park every day. He gave them an enthusiastic thumbs up after the last couple of days.

Anxious to try mine out, I offered to do the dog park detail today. A good portion of the path was covered in ice, bumpy in parts and smooth as a skating rink in others. (The work of what our friend Carl calls the "atmospheric Zamboni.") All around me the other dog walkers were mincing along, gingerly taking teeny tiny steps to avoid slipping. I, on the other hand, walked briskly with confidence and never slipped even once. (The only danger I encountered was from an overly enthusiastic pit bull puppy named Ophelia, who jumped up and put a nose print on my sunglasses.)

I'm here to say, if you live in places where snow and ice are a reality, $20 for a pair of Yak Trax might be money well-spent. Molly agrees. WOOF!

Guitar Lessons

I love my guitar lessons! I have a 45 minute lesson every other week and I always feel elated when I leave. Full of hope, full of promise. The funny thing is, I always have incredible anxiety leading up to my lesson. The weekend before, when I realize that my lesson is coming up and I haven't played nearly enough. I start to think about calling and canceling just this once. I did that a few times with my old teacher; so far I haven't with the new one.

The day of, I have a bit of a panic attack because I know that I'll have to play my pieces for her. It doesn't help that she is a nationally known singer/songwriter/recording artist. I get all shaky, and the piece that I played at a reasonable speed when I practiced is so s-l-o-w as to be nearly unrecognizable and full of mistakes such as putting my fingers on the wrong strings (at which the kindergarten teacher in me comes out and I say, "Oopsie!")

And then she smiles and tells me that I'm doing great, that I just need to play these things over and over again and I'll get it up to speed, and she loves her adult students. And I leave with a song in my head -- tonight it's Greg Brown's Sleeper as played by Eliza Gilkyson -- and feeling as if, yes, I might someday be a guitar player.

Academy Awards Regrets

I would have liked to have seen Philippe Petit balance the statue on his chin when Man On Wire won "best documentary." Cool film; highly recommended.

Mmmmmmmmm.

We had a most wonderful dinner experience this evening and I wanted to share it with you (dear readers) in case you might want to seek out something like it in your vicinity! A friend of ours from way back is a librarian by vocation, but her first love has always been cooking for groups of people. A couple of years ago she came into an inheritance and used it to buy a house (lucky for us) right in our neighborhood. There she hosts dinner parties with home cooked food made from scratch, served family-style (except without the family-style humiliation.) She maintains a mailing list, and when she's ready to host a dinner, she sends out an announcement. The dinners are a fixed menu and fixed price ($25 for two) with appetizers, main dish, sides, and dessert. Tonight the menu included chicken pot pie -- my absolute favorite comfort food -- and butterscotch pudding for dessert.

It turned out that Mr. Ether knew most of the other diners that were there. It was a little weird in that, rather than sitting and letting the food digest, they all beat it out of there immediately after eating. I think they were all anxious to get home and watch the Oscars. Not us. (We haven't gotten a conversion box yet, so our TV is non-functioning except for the Fox channel; if I were a TV watcher, that would be my idea of Hell ... but I'm not, which is why we don't have a conversion box.)

It was lovely, especially because mean-spirited weasels like Dick Cheney were not welcome. If you care to check out the website, you can find it here or host/chef Deb's blog here.

Book Review: The Voyage of the Narwhal

The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett, is a novel about Arctic exploration in the mid-nineteenth century. The protagonist of the story is Erasmus Darwin Wells, a naturalist who sees his middle age approaching and considers himself to be something of a failure in life. Given an opportunity to redeem himself by signing on with an expedition that is heading to Arctic regions of the Northwest Passage, ostensibly in search of the [real] lost expedition of Sir John Franklin, he leaps at the chance of adventure, and perhaps fame.

The Narwhal expedition is being led by Zechariah Voorhees, a young man who was mentored by Erasmus' father and is now engaged to be married to Erasmus' sister Lavinia. "Zeke" would love to be the one to find the remains of the Franklin expedition where others have failed, and more than that he is obsessed with searching for an open polar sea. (Note: An expedition leader with an obsession is almost always not good.)

The first half of the book proceeds as one might expect it would: ice, cold, deprivation, frostbite ... you know, the usual stuff of Arctic tales. It was compelling (although in my opinion, nowhere near as compelling as reading the true story Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing, which is EXCELLENT.)

My interest picked up in the second half of the book, when the expedition has returned and Erasmus must resume his life in pre-Civil War Philadelphia. That's all I'm going to give away; you knew they were going to come back, didn't you? I mean, they had to, because Erasmus is kind of telling the story ...

Barrett had done her research, and I liked the interweaving of fact and fiction. My one complaint is that the sensibilities seemed too modern. Barrett did a good job of painting human emotions and desires, but I'm not sure that people living in that time would have framed them in quite the way they were portrayed.

Overall, I enjoyed The Voyage of the Narwhal. If you are looking for something a little different, if you like historical fiction, I recommend it. It is probably not one that I'll keep to read again.

Stem Cell Research

I was heartened to see this in the news today:

Expect an executive order soon from President Barack Obama on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.

That's the word from White House adviser David Axelrod.

Under President George W. Bush, federal money for research on human embryonic stems cells was limited to those stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001. No federal dollars could be used on research with cell lines from embryos destroyed from that point forward.

I believe that my mother's death in 2001 was hastened, albeit indirectly, by Bush's ban on stem cell research. My mom was diagnosed with nonHodgekin's lymphoma in late spring of 2001. Her oncologist was very involved with doing stem cell research at the University of Wisconsin at that same time. I think that he was exceedingly distracted by the fallout from Bush's ruling, and consequently my mother did not get his full attention. She may not have lived much longer anyway, but I firmly believe she could have been a hell of a lot more comfortable. The doctor dropped the ball on that one, but would it have been different had he not been distracted?

Oh well, water under the bridge now, but I think of it when stem cell research comes up.

L.O.V.E.

Tax the Speculators!

As far as I can tell, the economic stimulus package that Obama is taking on the road in an attempt to drum up populist support, is another boondoggle for the poor and working people of this country. The cuts that have been made in an effort to appease the Rethuglicans (and I feel like I have to resort to name-calling in this instance, just to make myself feel a little better) are of the very things that everyday people need in order to pull themselves out of this hole that our government has been digging for nearly the last 30 years. (Thanks, Ronald Reagan. You were a saint. Not.) Look at how the cuts that are proposed by [extremely wealthy] "centrists" Susan Collins and Ben Nelson disproportionately affect women and children. Again. They just don't get it, or don't care.

What is the answer? Well it seems as if a lot of people have answers, from Jon Stewart to Paul Krugman to Ralph Nader, the man that progressives love to hate. If only Congress would listen. This is what Nader posted on Wednesday, and it makes good sense:

Let’s start with a fairness point. Why should you pay a 5 to 6 percent sales tax for buying the necessities of life, when tomorrow, some speculator on Wall Street can buy $100 million worth of Exxon derivatives and not pay one penny in sales tax? Let’s further add a point of common sense. The basic premise of taxation should be to first tax what society likes the least or dislikes the most, before it taxes honest labor or human needs. (Read the whole thing here)

Wow -- tax the rich. What a concept! I, for one, am sick and tired of being trickled down on. What would the world look like if we really put the needs of people first?

I try to make a practice of not hating ... anyone. I believe in living by nonviolent principles, and hate is violent. But I come dangerously close to hating the wealthy, corpulent politicians who are where they are today because of a lifetime of privilege, who use their position of power as a bully pulpit to preach "work ethic" to the rest of us. Now, I cannot pretend that I have known poverty. My dad was a doctor -- albeit one who worked in the public sector, so though we were never ridiculously wealthy, we were always well off.

However, I have worked for my entire adult life. We live in a modest house and have always taken modest vacations. We have very little in savings, certainly not enough to guarantee a college education for our children or an easy retirement for us. We may not be poor, but our future is looking anything but certain at this point in time. And how dare they, HOW DARE THEY, give more of our money away to the already fabulously wealthy while wagging their fingers at the general populace and talking about "work ethic"? These people who wear $1,000 shoes, maintain multiple homes, send their children to private schools, and eat out every day -- often on the taxpayers' dime?

This entire stimulus plan should be thrown out and started over. The Rethugs need to be told, "Shut the hell up!" and the Dems (including Barack Obama) asked, "Just who do you think elected you to this office?" I'm pissed off!

Please give a warm welcome to guest blogger Daisy.

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We're lucky that she didn't barf on the keyboard.

Pass the Popcorn Please

Because I love Terry Pratchett so much, I was a little loathe to see a screen adaptation of one of his books. Thanks to Cinderbelle however, and her Netflix membership, we spent the last two evenings watching the BBC production of Hogfather. It wasn't bad. In fact, I quite enjoyed it. Some of the characters were not quite as I had pictured them, but all in all it was very true to the book (which I reviewed here a few days ago.)

One question: HAVE YOU BEEN NAUGHTY OR NICE?

Recommended!

Happy Birthday, Sparkly Seacow!

My baby girl turned 13 today. I don't know where the last decade plus three has gone, but it seems like only yesterday that I was forcing my friends and loved ones to walk with me around the neighborhood while I was in labor in -27˚F weather. This child has brought me so much joy. Happy birthday! I love you!

Yippee!

Season 2 of Chad Vader is finally here! Just to catch you up on season 1: Chad Vader, Darth's younger brother, is the day shift manager at Empire Market, where he is locked in mortal combat with Clint, the night shift manager, and striving to win the heart of Clarissa. You can watch all of season 1 on the You Tubes.

What Duck?

Last year, when the news was announced that British author Terry Pratchett had a rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, a collective sigh went up around the Disc ... er, world. If you read much of my blog, you will know that I consider Terry Pratchett to be one of the finest writers alive today. I have Mr. Ether to thank for getting me hooked, and believe me, it is an addiction ... but a good one, all things considered.

The Discworld books are frequently shelved with fantasy books, but they are very much satire. Bright and joyful satire. Terry Pratchett clearly loves his fellow human beings, with all their foibles and idiosyncrasies. And he loves poking fun at them.

When I try to name a favorite character, each one makes me think of 3 more favorites: Sam Vimes, Captain Carrot, the Librarian, Quoth the Raven, Leonard of Quirm, Bloody Stupid Johnson, Death, Nobby Nobbs, Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax, the Igors, Lu Tse, Gaspode the wonder dog ... they are all wonderful, imaginative, and likable.

I recommend Pratchett to many people, and I am frequently surprised when people come back to me and say that they tried a Pratchett book but just couldn't get into it. So let me offer a few tips for reading Terry Pratchett. First of all, he has been writing for many years now, and I have to say that the earlier books in the Discworld series are not as well developed as the more recent ones. Furthermore, while all of the books comprise one series, there are different series' within the series that follow specific characters or groups of characters. I like some of them better than others. If you want to follow a specific thread, you can consult the L-Space. Finally, I think people see that he has so many books and assume that they will be a quick, fluffy, fantasy read. So be forewarned: when you pick up a Pratchett book, you are reading literature. The plots are multi-layered and may take a while to figure out what's going on.

All of this is to lead up to a book review of Hogfather. It is December 32, Hogswatchnight. The night when the Hogfather travels around the Disc in his sleigh pulled by 4 pigs, delivering presents to all of the good little boys and girls. But the Hogfather has disappeared and a proxy is filling in for him. Only a few people have noticed that strange things are afoot: Susan Sto-Helit (Death's granddaughter) and the wizards at the Unseen University have just a few hours to figure out what is going on and put things right so that the sun will rise on the new day.

If you haven't read any Pratchett, this is a good one to start with. It explores one of his favorite recurring themes, belief, in a way that I certainly can believe in. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Hogfather and intend to make the reading of it an annual tradition each December.

Millennium hand and shrimp. Buggr'it!