Been a while....

I know it's been a while, but it's been a really hectic past few days - and next week is going to be just as busy. I only wanted to stop in and post this clip for you. I hope you like this. I think it's a riot. I hope to get back to my quasi-regular blogging late next week.

Newsalypto

Flu update - Noah is back to 100%. Also, he hit a potty training milestone last night that is a little to gross to discuss in public, but off in the hazy distance I now see a future without Pull-Ups. Whoopee!

On to the news:

A small quiz:

Define asinine:
A. Mayans use a purification ritual to drive away bad spirits left by President Bush.
B. Hillary's re-rant about that vast, right-wing conspiracy.
C. Both

Maybe Mel Gibson can make a new Mayan movie, "Conspiralypto: The Vast Right Wing."

Catalypto: Stray cats attack people. (Note that "cats" is not capitalized - this story does not refer to Brian Setzer and his bandmates running amok.) I may have to be nicer to Sinatra and Twister - they may turn on me yet.

Pizzalypto: It may be time to dig up that old phrase "conspicuous consumption." $1000 for a pizza? Madness. For that price the pizza better wash its own dish when you're done.

Globalypto: How to solve global warming (or Richard Branson just has way too much money).

Myocardioinfarctalypto (ok - I'm stretching this waaaaay to thin). Don't have a heart attack on weekends. You'll die. Because of the vast right-wing, no doubt.

The Unicorn did it!!!! Mythobeastalypto!!!!

F L U

So now my little boy has Influenza A and strep throat. The poor kid is a wreck. I HATE when little kids are sick. They feel so bad and they don't know why. I would give anything to be able to take all his sickness and have it be me who feels bad. He's being such a trooper and so brave. He can always manage a smile, a kiss, and a hug - even when he feels bad. I love that kid so much it just hurts. Luckily I have a wonderful mother who is going to come down on Monday to stay with him so we don't have to miss a bunch of work. THIS is why we moved back to this state. My mom is so great.

Now on to a big rant.

Apparently, no insurance company will pay for Tamiflu, the anti-viral medication. The doctor prescribed it for my son and for everyone else in the household. It's not a cure, but it can ease symptoms and help prevent others in the house from getting the flu. It make absolutely no sense to me that insurance will not pay for this. They consider it "optional" treatment. But wouldn't it be better for the rest of us NOT to get the flu? Wouldn't it cost the insurance companies (and our employers) MORE money if we all get really sick?!?!?!!??!?! Senseless. But since we're dealing with an industry that sees no problem paying for Viagra, yet balked for years at paying for birth control - I guess we're not dealing with any kind of logical thinking. The insurance won't even pay for the Tamiflu for Noah and HE ACTUALLY HAS THE FLU. Dumb. This stuff costs $78 for each person. So $78 x 4 people in my family = $312. Nice.

Send your best wishes to the little guy.

Tasina Appleseed...or how I learned to hug a tree

Oh the things we do for love. I got into a mostly joking argument with a dear relative about the environment. I have pledged to plant a tree in her honor when she is no longer with us. And not just plant the thing, but take care of it, and even replace it if it dies. (It's hard to grow trees in Siberia...er....South Dakota.) I draw the line at talking to the damn thing, although I may offer a word or two to her as I lovingly tend to my new plant.

But let's get one thing straight - I don't HATE the environment. It's environmentalists I have a problem with. Especially nutty, tree-hugging, people-hating, hypocritical, mis-informed, dogmatic environmentalists. Mr. Gore and his ilk present their argument as incontrovertible fact, when the FACT is they are presenting an argument. And any argument has at least two sides. I've had all the green propaganda and like any thinking, rational creature should do, I went out and looked for some other viewpoints. I'm not a scientist - I don't just *know* these things. I read "Trashing the Planet" by Dixie Lee Ray, I read "In A Dark Wood" by the guy that wrote it (can't think of the name right now), I've researched the issue (goodness, I'm starting to sound like Tom Cruise on a rant against psychiatry). But the truth is the tree people are being glib.

Global warming is NOT a fact. It's a theory...and not even a very well-built theory at that. Should a person CHOOSE to subscribe to that theory - fine. But don't make ME subscribe to it. Don't make me switch all my light bulbs to low-wattage just because YOU think I should. (I read an article on this very proposal in California recently but don't have the link handy.) I've seen the argument for global warming and I've seen the argument against. In MY mind, I find the latter to be more credible. Does this mean I burn tires in my backyard? Drop diapers out of car windows? Leave all my lights burning madly day and night? Of course not. Nor would I recommend that anyone do so. More importantly, I'm not trying to legislate my beliefs onto anyone else.

Anyway, I've spent way more time on this topic than I ever planned. Honestly, I find it all kind of boring and unimportant in the grander scheme of things. Beyond a few humorous jabs at the tree people, there's nothing much about environmentalism that interests me at all. 'Nuff said!

I was going to put up another recipe, but all my shows are coming on. Ha! I'll try to get one up tomorrow.

Peace, love, and greenhouse gases to you all! :)

Some News

We've been dealing with an almost 4 year old with a stomach virus. I'm sure you can imagine how things have been. I wouldn't recommend this as a punishment for the worst criminal. It's a good thing he's cute or we'd never put up with this!!! One cute thing Noah does - when he's about to get sick he says, "I'm freaking out!!!" I have no idea where he picked this up. Even if he sees/hears one of the cats getting sick he yells, "Mom! Twister's freaking out!!!" So next time you hear someone say that they're freaking out, you might want to take a couple steps back - just to be safe! :)

Anyway, here a few short blurbs:

I am not a dog lover, but I think doing this is mean.

Of course if there are going to be naked gyms, you'd get these two goofs - not the buff hot guys (there's no nudity in the link - you're safe to click).

Great - another thing to fret about when I'm getting ready in the morning. Brushing my teeth may give me a seizure. I'm sure dentists around the world are thrilled about this story.

Another recipe

Since the post I just did was so boring, here's another recipe. Also, I can make things other than Italian, but I really like these. Maybe next time I'll put up a different kind. I got this recipe from All-Recipes. It's a great site. This is a wonderful, simple, fresh-tasting pasta sauce. Very light and spring-like.

Ingredients
1 lb Roma tomatoes blanched, peeled, seeded, and chopped (or cheat like I do and buy a can of petite diced)
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks green onion, chopped
1 small jar of marinated artichoke hearts
Salt and pepper to taste.

After chopping all the vegetables (I usually chop the artichoke hearts too - this is an incredibly messy procedure), saute them over medium heat until soft. I drizzle the pan with olive oil and probably about 2-3 tablespoons of the marinade from the artichoke hearts. Salt and pepper to taste. Serve over your favorite pasta and garnish with cheese.

This is a very simple but extraordinarily tasty sauce. We almost never use any other kind of sauce on our pasta. The fresh tomatoes are the best, but canned work fine if you don't want to go through all the work of blanching, peeling, etc. We usually serve this over cheese ravioli with a nice Italian sausage. There's a brand we can find here that has mozzarella and artichoke mixed in the sausage. This sauce can also be chilled and makes a wonderful salad dressing. Unlike my other recipes, I really would NOT recommend making changes to this (other than the canned tomato thing). It's very simple, but the flavors just seem to meld so perfectly. I'm a big fan of experimenting with wine, balsamic vinegar, spices, etc., but sometimes it's best to just enjoy something simple and good.

I hate winter

I'm just going to complain and whine and ramble aimlessly around in this post so feel free to skip it.

This weekend and the last were the ONLY two weekends I had any plans this entire winter. So of course we had blizzards both times. Ugh. Someone come back to this site in mid-June and remind me why I moved to South Dakota. (It's because mid-June in St. Louis is kind of like living on the sun - but with 100% humidity.)

I really have nothing else to say. I've been playing over at MySpace quite a bit. I've also been looking for new templates for this blog. Can't really find anything a) that I like or b) is easy to upload. I think I've been to every blog template site in the known universe. I found one really nice one, but it pushed the columns all the way over to the left side and I didn't like that at all. I'm sure there's a way to fix that problem, but it seems to complicated and not really worth the effort. For those of you who are kind enough to offer free blog templates, can I offer you one suggestion? Please make your sites easier to search. I'm sure there are lots of templates I would love, but I don't want to page through 16,000 thumbnails to find them.

I'm hoping we can get out of town tomorrow. The storm is over, but there is apparently no plan in this ENTIRE STATE for snow removal. This is city is the worst place I've ever seen for the lack of snow removal. We had a decent day where everything was getting slushy and they did nothing. Why not scrape the streets down? Because then later that night it snowed again so we had fresh snow on top of rutted, lumpy, re-frozen slush. It certainly makes driving an adventure. I'm sure it's REALLY awful for my husband - I am not a fun passenger. I'm given to gasps and winces and obnoxious (and obvious) suggestions. The dear, sweet man must go through an enormous amount of self-restraint to not slap me silly.

I just read a news story that there is going to be a TV show made about those cavemen from the Geico commercials. My mom will be so disappointed - she has a really weird love for that little gecko they use in the commercials. I even searched all over the internet for a little figurine of that thing to get her for her birthday. All I could find were stuffed animals and bobble-heads that looked nothing like the commercial character.

We just watched a great movie called "The Dancer Upstairs." It stars the ridiculously hot Javier Bardem and was directed by John Malkovich. It's a story about an honest detective in an unnamed Latin American country who is trying to find a communist terrorist. It's loosely based on the Shining Path movement in Peru. I really love the movie (not just for the terribly sexy Javier). Kind of a slow-paced, introspective film. Beautifully shot. Near the beginning of the movie there is an unexpectedly hilarious quip about cat lovers (spoken by the dreamy Mr. Bardem). The line is made more funny by the fact that it's not a comedy at all. If you can find this movie I highly recommend it.

Wow - I hope no one thinks I'm going to start stalking that actor.

This is the most boring post I've ever done - I apologize!!!