Happy Christmas!

It's over. Kind of a relief. Although we got a lot more X-mas decor that I put up after shopping extreme clearance on December 26th. Christmas was really nice, though. We cooked a ham (have you done that? turns out baking a regular ham is tasty and not salty like the processed ones and takes a long time.) We had a variation of a Swedish smorgasbord. We went to the Grand Canyon on Christmas Eve, we were there with all the shintos and hindus and other Christmas rejects. My dad and his wife were here, we did a bunch of things I'd wanted to do with them, mostly involved eating different places. Like here and here.
It was nice not to travel for once.
It was nice to have them here and also kind of nice when they left Saturday afternoon and we went to True Grit and had another night and day of holiday weekend left. In all a perfectly lovely southwestern Christmas, it was even a white one (no, not an SB1070 joke) with the reasonable amount of snow we got on the 22nd.
Even though I am among the Christmas rejects, I was/am still grateful for the opportunity to spend time with people (and dogs) I love. Another highlight is that I ate way, way too many meatballs and have been practically mainlining broccoli and green pepper strips while I'm at work this week to try to compensate. Mmmm. Meatballs.

Snowflake

On the way to BWI last week, I boarded my flight from PHX to Cincinnati. When I got to my seat, I was supposed to have the window but this older couple had sat themselves in the window and the aisle with a bag in between them. I have had terrible luck lately on airplanes and had my seat taken by other more frequently than it should. I don't really care, so long as I don't get stuck in the middle when I'm supposed to have an end. But even then I don't make a big deal about it, just silently brood most of the flight. Anyway, I got to the seat and gave them my best midwestern grin, "Hi, sorry, I'm here, too." They remarked they didn't mind sharing so long as they had such a jolly companion. As Erica asked upon the retelling of the story, how did they know you were jolly? A good question.
I sat on the aisle, they asked me questions. They were from Snowflake, AZ and as the conversation went on, I realized, they were Mormon. Now, I don't like to think of myself as someone immediately creeped out by someone because of their religion, but apparently I am (maybe helped by questions from strangers like, "so, are you GOING to get married?"). Overall, they were perfectly nice and kind of like a satisfaction of my earlier strong interest/obsession with Mormonism. They at one point asked if I knew anything about Mormonism... an honest answer would be I wrote a lengthy research paper in college on the sensationalistic anti-mormon polygamy literature of the 19th century, I am almost done with Under the Banner of Heaven and if I have met a fallen Mormon after a couple of drinks over the past 10 years, it usually ends with me poking them in the chest and getting way too excited. But I said, "yes, a little."
Snowflake, as you will now know if you clicked on that link is a Mormon town in Arizona named for Mr. Snow and Mr. Flake. The husband of this couple is a Flake. Through our conversation, I learned they were headed to Nauvoo to see their daughter and grandchildren in a religious pageant that I deduced was in honor of Pioneer Day. They were carrying with them a family tree with accountings of which ancestors had been saved. Holy crap, this was like super Mormons. It was basically like some really bizarre dream come true. And way more entertaining than my seatmate from BWI to Atlanta on the return who forced me to feign sleep most of the way after she said (in a completely and inappropriately loud voice) "PHOENIX! WELL THAT MUST BE A WHOLE DIFFERENT... EXPERIENCE." After a full-day of little sleep and hangover recovery, I had no idea what this meant and I didn't want to explore. So I said, "well, actually, I don't live in Phoenix, I have a two-hour drive ahead of me when I get there" and closed my eyes. Oh, modern air travel.

Oatmeal Pancakes

I made oatmeal pancakes this morning (before the aforedreamed nytimes and coffee session), basically this recipe. Except not really at all. All of the ingredients, except nutmeg and wheat germ because I didn't have any. And about 3-6 times as much oatmeal, but cooked, steel cut oats. They were good, real good and a nice way to avoid sweet breakfasts leaving me vaguely nauseated and hungry an hour later.

I am also experimenting withe making my own yogurt from here. And even looking forward to making my own laundry detergent when what we have runs out. Although I've always really liked making things I never considered I could make myself, I do have to give credit for many of these ideas to the Christian Mommy Blogs I've been frequented. I mean, I might not believe in Satan. Or hell. Or Jesus. Or "submission" to one's husband. Or letting God decide how many kids one has (since apparently God always chooses, like, 17)... but I sure can I get behind saving a buck or two!

I'll let you know how the yogurt, laundry detergent and possible birth-again turn out.

Bad Sarah, for reals.

So Sarah Palin is totally crazy. But I guess the real question is, crazy like a fox? (or a caribou, in her case?)

"I believe Alaska is one of the refuge states in the last days, and hundreds of thousands of people are going to come to the state to seek refuge and the church has to be ready to minister to them."

Um, hundred of thousands of people don't even believe Alaska exists. Increasingly, I may be one of them. All of this crazy-ass Sarah Palin stuff has given me some good tips, though. When arguing my point, be sure to mention that's what God wants. She says God wants off-shore drilling. Well, I say God also wants to you find my crack possession client not guilty. God also wants me to have an iPod touch and go on some kind of tropical vacation later this year. Um, and professors, yeah, since it's my last year and all, God would prefer you give me straight As and require no effort on my part. I mean, it's for God and all. Wow, this is awesome. I can see why she's so qualified to be John McCain irregular heartbeat away from leader of superawesome America.

Addendum: Found this-- while Palin was mayor of Wasilla, the town was billing sexual assault victim's insurance for their evidence-collecting exams. WTF?

Proof the Baby Jesus Loves Me... And is a Socialist.

So the thing about states like Wisconsin (Minnesota USED to be much more this way)... is they love poor people. Ok, no one in America really LOVES poor people. But these socialist-leaning states provide a lot more social services-- health care, housing and so on than do many others. Taxes are higher, yes. But people value libraries and parks and childhood nutrition. The campaign in Minnesota a few years back sums it up perfectly, "Happy to Pay for a Better Minnesota." Raise my taxes, please, and give me schools and park board sports for my kids. Now, lucky for me, taxes are for people who make money.* In Wisconsin there is this homestead credit for renters. You file for this with your state taxes and it's supposed to give some money back to low-income renters. Great, awesome. Even if I didn't qualify, I would love this idea. Well, I do qualify. Heck, I paid $6000 more in rent last year than I earned (thank you, Uncle Sam.) So I file for it... and get $1150 back. Um, whoah. Awesome. This further relieves the stress of paying more or less for two apartments this summer in an unpaid internship AND... well... allowed me today to buy a new bike off craigslist. She is so beautiful. And so fast and fun and who ever knew how crappy my old bike was until she came along. She is this one, although the 2005 model. And bright red. Ooh la la. She also came to me from a woman in Monroe, WI with both a "ten commandments" and a Ron Paul sign in her front yard. An the most incredible added bonus? Upon getting her home, I found this:


Yes, that's right, the metallic baby jesus rides with me. And so I think I am totally converted... Obviously the baby jesus created the Wisconsin Homestead Credit so that I could get a new bike and see how much faster and cooler I could ride with him on my side. My left side, to be precise. So, baby jesus... THANKS!

He's here! (in the world)

Giving it Up

I do believe that this is the first time in my life I've been aware of people around me not eating meat for Lent. I remember kids growing up giving up candy or swearing or something, and maybe they were eating fish on Fridays... I just don't remember it. And maybe by high school religion wasn't cool. And in college it certainly wasn't cool. And after college, well, I was in New York and hanging around the non-religious-and-cultural-Jews-if-anything-crowd. But now it's everywhere. Giving up meat on Fridays seems a little silly to me, but maybe that's just compared to the other two of the big three (um, Jews fast for 24 hours and don't eat pork or mix milk and meat... and Muslims, man, they don't eat all day for a month. THAT'S hardcore...) Or, because the way I understand it, we're giving things up because Jesus did? I mean, if he died for our sins, don't we owe him a little more than abstaining from Skittles for a month? But this isn't about my religious relativism. It's about how now I've noticed how the whole world is into it-- Taco Bell has special signs that tell you among others things, their cinnamon twists are appropriate for Fridays (because if they weren't... that'd be gross...) and McDonald's has taken out an ad on a street near my house bragging that the Filet-o-Fish is 2/$3 every day, "not just Fridays."
Anyway, the point of this is how out of touch I am with Catholicism. Like when I questioned the man in the bar in Peru, during the selection of the new pope, when he claimed there were a billion Catholics in the world. "No way!" I was wrong. There are a lot of them. Whoops.