I'm burning up

I would burn down my house if only Denis Leary would come rescue me! The word "hot" is definitely overused, but let's face it: firemen deserve the term! On Rescue Me, the scorching Denis Leary plays Tommy Gavin, an FDNY firefighter struggling to cope with the aftermath of 9-11. He and the rest of the guys at 62 Truck are doing the best they can to come to grips with the tragedy, which means they're suppressing their emotions and thoughts by drinking to excess, talking to ghosts, popping pills, brawling, destroying their families, and getting laid whenever they can. What, you thought they would be noble? As they often say on the show, fuck that!

Rescue Me is one of the best shows on TV. The fifth season begins spring 2009. I watched the previous 4 seasons on DVD in a 2-week binge. To tide one over, there are 10 minisodes available on crackle.com. I'm going through complete withdrawal, having watched every episode available, and all extant video clips in the known universe. God, that Denis Leary is entrancing...mmmmm....

Going green when you're seeing red

As our corn casseroles baked side by side, Bluestem and I drank coffee in her lovely solarium and chatted about menstruation. Yes, everything was cast in a pink glow and in soft focus, and we both wore long flowing dresses and floppy garden hats...

My male readers, please bear with me, and maybe you'll learn something about your dear sisters. We are indeed stronger than you.

There are some things about having my period that really irk me. #1 is having to spend somewhere around $6--$7 for a box of pads, and I go through a box each period, now that I've turned 40 and my female parts are rioting. Pads are wasteful; I don't even want to think about the landfill I contribute to each month. I am not the kind of person who enjoys destroying the environment, but I also want to get through my period with relative comfort and ease, and by that I mean, I don't want to kill anybody. I've thought about using reusable pads, but the thought of washing them over and over doesn't appeal to me. So I continued to buy box after box of Stayfree, literally bleeding my money away.

Then Bluestem told me about the Diva Cup, which is a silicone cup that you insert in your vaginal canal that catches your menstrual flow. In other words, it's a little plastic thingie you cram into your cooch which catches all that icky blood flowing out. It's reusable, it's easy to use (after you get used to it) and it's a green alternative for the red time of the month! I am dying to use it! I ordered one from South Coast Shopping. It was $22.34 including shipping and handling, so I will have recovered the cost in just three menstrual cycles. I can't wait to try it! I will of course blog all about it!

Give thanks for this corn casserole!

It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without this corn casserole recipe. My mom started making it many years ago, and we have to have it at Thanksgiving and Christmas or else. One year for some reason we forgot to make it at Christmas, and that was the year we all started drinking heavily and badmouthing one another and it took a double batch of corn casserole the next year to repair our broken family relationships.

Ok, not really. But it is awfully darn good, and I wouldn't be surprised if this corn casserole won a Nobel Peace Prize someday. Here's the recipe:

1/4 C. butter (half a stick)
1/4 C. finely-chopped onion
1/4 C. chopped celery
1/4 C. chopped bell pepper (different colors are pretty!)
2 Tbsp. finely-chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
2 Tbsp. flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1 C. milk
1 15 oz box of frozen corn
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray an 8x8 baking dish or medium casserole dish. In a large skillet, melt the butter. Add onions, celery, bell pepper, and parsley. Cook until onions are soft. Add paprika and salt. Stir in flour, and keep stirring until bubbly. Slowly add milk, constantly stirring. Bring to a boil. Add corn, stirring constantly. Take off heat and fold in eggs. When thoroughly mixed, pour into prepared baking dish. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. You may want to undercook if you're planning on reheating it the next day; then it won't be dry. This can be made ahead of time for holidays and potlucks. Double this recipe for double the deliciousness! If you double it, don't increase the amount of salt. Double everything else.

I made a double batch of corn casserole with my dear friend Bluestem, quite the venerable blogger herself. This is the second year we've gotten together to make our Thanksgiving side dishes. We portioned out the corn casserole and baked them together but in two separate dishes, and that worked out beautifully! However, when we set them on the stovetop to cool, one of the dishes was still boiling and bubbling, because we forgot to turn off the element! We were wondering what the hell was going on, and when we discovered the element was turned on, we were shocked! My friend has a new stove and it's hard to remember how to turn it off. Ooops...

As the casserole baked, we sat in her lovely sunroom, drank coffee, and chatted intimately about menstruation. That post coming right up...

Lo, e'er I bore thee

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person in the history of blogging to inflict photos of their new haircut on their blog. Most blogs are cesspools of self-indulgence and this one is no exception. Oh, and I also got my eyebrows waxed! A waxed brow does nicely frame the eye.

Fur & Furniture

"A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the whole world."
--Jane Austen, Persuasion.

I'd like to re-write that: A single lady, with a cat to whom she's unnaturally attached, is the worst preserver of furniture in the whole world.

Judge not, lest ye be an Election Judge

I earned my combat pay on Election Day serving as an Election Judge at a local Voting Center. It used to be called a precinct; now it's a Voting Center. However, the sexy new name does not make you forget that you're spending 17 hours in a cinderblock Drivers License Facility in Elgin, IL.

The day started at 5 a.m. I am by my own admission one of those annoyingly chirpy Morning People. But getting up at 4 a.m. is cruel. 4 a.m. is an UnGodly Hour. The Pope should declare the hours between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. UnGodly. Yes, people who have had little sleep the night before are responsible for setting up all the voting machines and keeping the democratic processes of our fair republic humming along. Once we set up the machines, put up the posters in the obligatory if not official languages of English and Spanish, and set up the laptop and the Judges Booth Control computer, we were good to go by 6 a.m. when the polls opened. There was already a long line of voters waiting at that UnGodly hour!

That's Kane County Clerk John A. Cunningham in the photo there. He would like for you to know that his nickname is "Jack," and that's in quotes. Because let's face it, "Jack" is really an exotic, whimsical nickname for someone named John. He's a friendly sort though, and pays the judges $145, which works out to less than minimum wage per hour after a 17 hour day.

I worked with 7 other judges in my Voting Center. Some of them remember voting for Abraham Lincoln, having decided to do so after he handily trounced Stephen A. Douglas in the debates and then appeared in some humorous sketches on Saturday Night Live. One woman went to the prom with Rutherford B. Hayes. Another mentioned the really good fish sandwich Jesus split with her. There's something about being an Election Judge that attracts the aged and infirm--oh yeah, you get to sit on your ass all day! But now there's a lot of technology to master, and the old judges are nervous. There was only one other judge who was competent, and we could've run the joint ourselves. Everyone else moved at a pace best described as "a spritely glacier." It was incredibly frustrating to watch someone who voted against the Louisiana Purchase slooooooowly turning Every Single Page of voters applications to find the right one; the concept of slicing down the middle and then cutting that half in half and then flipping quickly didn't mean anything to the alphabetically-challenged. When voter applications were issued on clay tablets, I wonder if these people moved any quicker...probably not.

The whole rainbow of humanity voted in this election. It was amazing to see young and old, black and white, able and disabled, intelligent and idiotic (ok, mostly idiotic...) stepping up to the booths. Some of the elderly voters wanted help, which is ok as long as they fill out an affidavit saying they needed assistance. One grandma told her grandson who was helping her that she "didn't want no black man", and another grandma snapped, "I don't want that man with the droopy jowls!" There were moments of great joy as well as great comedy, I have to tell you...

At any rate...however glacial...we all bonded in a spirit of democracy, shared our snacks, and dealt with all the suckers who were "registered" incompetently and incompletely by various drivers license facilities (they should abolish Motor Voter registrations! So many people never made it onto the rolls! I felt like I was disenfranchising someone every time I pointed out they weren't registered. And the number of people who had moved out of the area three years ago and thought they could still vote in their old precinct was astounding! We need to educate the public about voter registration, especially when you need to re-register, like if you move or change your name, and the number of heartbreaking problems at the polls would drop.)

I was completely brain-dead and laryngitic by the end of the day. I collapsed when I got home--I think I fell asleep in the middle of IMming a friend. It was the fastest 17 hours of my life! Ultimately it was an incredible rush, to be helping people who wanted to vote--I have no interest in politics, in running for office, but voting is such a privilege and I'm truly humbled and awed by the process, and grateful that I could help out. The only downside is, I now hate freakin' old people.

My mind's eye

There's a vast distance between the artistic vision of my mind's eye and the pedestrian reality that results from my creative endeavors. The scarf I'm knitting, the soup I'm cooking, the photos I'm taking--I see a glorious possibility in my mind, and then reality falls short. Why is that? Is that a measure of true artistic talent, if you can realize what you see in your mind's eye? If that's the case, then I fall woefully short. But I keep trying.

This photo I took this morning, of what in my mind's eye was a breathtaking sherbet and a dramatic silhouetted tree. Um, it's just a pic of a tree.

In my mind's eye, I pictured glowing candles reflected in the glass, beacons of light in the autumnal dark. Ok, I took pictures of little blobs of something:

A friend said that sometimes when you don't have your camera, all you can do is remember the moment in your mind's eye. The mind's eye really is the finest camera, paintbrush, pen, and clay. What we see in our minds never fully translates to the work of our hands, but there is joy in trying to duplicate what we envision. It's just that Reality is such a harsh and exacting mistress!