Attack of April

Slightly over six hours left in this wretched month. If it weren't for Noah's birthday, I'd sign up for a medically induced coma for the month of April.

My poor hubby has strep. Who gets strep when it's 80 degrees outside??? People who know me in April, that's who!!

And then there's the cat. (Kat might want to skip this part.) My poor cat has an ear hematoma. Basically his paper thin ear just keeps filling up with blood. It's horrible. We've had 2 drain tubes put in and nothing is working. His poor ear is all deformed now.

I think I may just hide under the covers for the next six hours or so.

My mom sent me an interesting email on the origins of "mayday" and now I can't find it. Evil evil April stole it.

See you tomorrow when I'll be in a vastly better mood (assuming that a meteor doesn't land on my car in the next few hours, the washing machine doesn't start eating the dryer, the other cat finally gives in and comes out as a dog, and sparks start shooting out of my head).

Kids

We tried to make Noah earn his keep....

...but he got kind of mad!



If you think this kid needs a haircut, please comment!!!!!!

The Queen

Watched a fantastic movie today called "The Queen." It's stars Helen Mirren (who won the Best Actress Oscar - deservedly) as Queen Elizabeth II. The movie tells the story of the week that Princess Diana died. The acting in the movie is just amazing. You really start believing that you're watching the real people involved. The story itself is just mesmerizing. It's so interesting to see how there was such a clash between the traditional Queen and modern Prime Minister. At first the Queen seems so cold and distant - it's so obvious that the Royal Family disliked Diana. But her primary struggle is so internal. She wants to stick by the old traditions and protocols, but the situation demanded something different. The whole concept of a monarchy and royalty seems so strange when you're from this country. The whole family seems so stiff and formal - almost trapped by their traditions. But you also do get the feeling that the Queen cares for her family (especially her grandsons) and her country. It's difficult to fault her behavior when she really knows no other way to behave. At one point she says something like, "Country first, self second." She truly believes this and has LIVED it her entire life. Not many people can say that. This is a movie that I am going to buy. I highly recommend it.

P.S. Prince Phillip comes off looking like a class A jerk. I did some reading about him and he does seem woefully out of touch and snooty. He weirdly insists on taking Diana's sons hunting every day. Maybe it's a British thing, but I can't imagine taking children hunting when their mother just died. What strange, strange lives these people lead.

A new recipe

Here's a new recipe for you. This is a lot of work, but absolutely divine. Credit to my mom for finding this one.

Garlic Chicken

Ingredients:
1 or 2 heads of garlic (these are HEADS, not cloves - use as much or as little as you like)
2 cans chicken broth
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
6 tbsp butter - separated in half
3 tbsp flour
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 large lemon, peeled, seeded, and sliced

Directions:
Separate garlic cloves.
Simmer garlic in water for 15 minutes in a small pot
Drain water and remove peels from garlic - do not crush garlic!
Put all cloves back into pot with the broth and simmer for 45 minutes
In a large REGULAR skillet (not teflon), melt butter over medium heat
Chicken can either be cut into bite size pieces or left whole
Salt and pepper chicken to taste and brown thoroughly in skillet - does not have to be cooked through, just well browned.
When chicken is done, remove to a medium casserole dish
Preheat oven to 350
When garlic is done simmering, remove from pot with slotted spoon to the casserole dish. Reserve the broth.
In the same skillet chicken was browned in, melt 3 tbsp butter and add the flour to make a roux
SLOWLY add the chicken broth. Let a little bit dribble in and incorporate it into the roux completely before adding more. Use a wooden spoon to scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.
Slowly add the wine.
Put the chicken and garlic back into the skillet with the sliced lemon and let simmer for 10 minutes.
Put everything back into the casserole dish and bake, covered, for 45 minutes.
Serve alone or over pasta.

The sauce for this dish is amazing. We usually make sure to have a nice crusty bread with this to sop up every last bit.

Enjoy!!

March/April Blues

I don't have much luck in March and April. Bad months for me.

1993 - My son goes into the hospital with rotovirus, every appliance in my house broke down - VCR, fridge, washing machine, had to get the tie rods fixed on my car, and then it all culminated with my uncle dying.

2007 - My aunt dies, my dad gets very sick, my dad goes into the hospital, my cat's ear like blows up, and, as I type this, we are in the first tornado watch of the season.

Nine days left in this month - keep your fingers crossed for me that nothing else happens.

Here's a happy article for you:

I am now a fan of the Miss America pageant. Good for you lady.

Ash

I have this beautiful cousin (she's actually my cousin's daughter - has always been more like a niece to me) and today is her 18th birthday. She was almost born in my car. Only in my family would it seem normal to send a pregnant (and overdue) 19 year old off on a road trip with her 16 year old cousin (me) to see why the baby was late. We got about 1/2 hour out of town and things started happening. I never drove so fast in my life getting her back (this is in the middle of NOWHERE). I'm lucky I didn't kill all of us with my driving. About every 2 miles, my cousin would apologize in advance in case her water broke on my seats. I would just yell at her to shut up and breathe. Of course we were so young and stupid we had no idea that first babies take a LONG time to be born. Ashton wasn't born until two days later.

Ashton is a beautiful, smart, funny, loving young woman. She's always had a very special place in my heart (especially since I'll never have a daughter). I'd put a picture up, but I don't know how she'd feel about that. I wish her all the best and all my love. Happy Birthday Ashton, I love you.

I changed my mind....

....just go ahead and fire the wimp. "Imus said he wouldn't resign but said his critics had the right to call for his firing." Now he DOES deserve to be fired. It's bad enough that these morons make these ridiculous comments - but it's just as bad that they then go on every show in the world to say how sorry they are. No they're not. They're sorry they made equine butts of themselves and got caught. Now they're just doing damage control.

Still haven't gotten my pics off my camera. Check back tomorrow! :)

Uh-oh in the morning

Since it's a holiday I thought I'd blog about stupidity and hate. That's always fun.

Imus, Imus, Imus - what were you thinking man? I've never been a fan of his. I always found him a little bit boring and his over-the-topic antics just seemed like someone trying too hard. I'm sure anyone who is on the net at all has read about his remarks about the Rutgers women's BB team. I think what he said was really insulting and unbelievably idiotic. BUT....all of these calls to fire him and "punish" him I think are kind of silly. The same goes for Mel Gibson, Michael Richards, and the Dixie Chicks (I just have to interject here to say that I once saw this very funny comedian who said that he was going to start an all-boy country group and call them the Chixie Dicks - ahahahhaha). Anyway, all of these activists and groups need to quit demanding that something "be done" about people who make remarks they don't like. The interesting thing to me is that with the Dixie Chicks it WAS done. The constituency that didn't like what they said quit buying the records, quit buying the tickets, and made it very clear to the radio stations that they didn't want to hear them on the air or they would quit listening (of course the twits in the entertainment industry had to do a pitiful retaliation by giving them a ton of Grammys - that no one cares about anyway). That's what should be done with Imus. Don't buy the products from advertisers on his show - or anything from the stations involved. Once it hits the pocketbook, someone will do something. It's funny to me that when the Dixie Chicks were boycotted the entire left screeched about the Dixie Chicks' free speech being violated. It WAS NOT. They were perfectly free to say whatever they wanted and the consumers were perfectly free to respond in a manner that they felt was appropriate. NBC shouldn't have to fire Imus for what he said (the certainly CAN if they want to, but they aren't REQUIRED to). If the public is upset enough about it they will let NBC know and they will act accordingly - just like with the Dixie Chicks. I wonder if the left will screech about Imus' rights being violated then? I doubt it - only the left gets to say any nasty thing it wants to without repercussions. Did anyone freak out when Harry Belafonte called the African-Americans in Bush's cabinet Uncle Toms? Did Al Sharpton call for him to be punished and threaten to picket until something was done? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. That's another topic though. It's just such a crybaby attitude - "oh please go do something about this big bully that called us names." YOU go do something. Why do I even have to say this? Didn't we first learn this lesson with the Montgomery bus boycotts? Instead of whining to the government to save you from the big meanies, be proactive, be a smart consumer, let the market take care of the problem.

'Nuff of that. The holiday was great for us. It's so nice to be at my mom and dad's place. We all had a great time and ate a ton of good food. Noah got to have his second birthday celebration. He got cowboy boots, a hat, cap guns (liberal freak out alert), and a badge. I'll post a picture as soon as I get them off my camera. Hope everyone else reading this had a happy weekend.

Strange news, good news, and really weird views.

Strange news first.

I am now re-thinking my wish to be cremated - because I don't want to be snorted or pressed into a diamond. Well the diamond thing isn't so bad - but when I mentioned it to Dylan, he said, "Yeah, then I can sell you on Ebay." No respect from that kid. Note to the world - it's pine box for me all the way. (Shot into space like Scotty might be ok though.)

I guess the name Bachman-Turner-Overdrive was taken. Probably a good thing. I think parents should legally be able to name their kids anything they want to, but maybe the Swedish government showing some sense is ok too.

Good news

Apparently the nursing programs in this state are doing a great job. Way to go!


Ok - Weird Views.

I haven't blogged much about my husband, Jeff. I don't know why. I would certainly never gripe or complain about him on here - that's just rude. And honestly, he's a great guy so there isn't much griping and complaining to do. And while *I* think he's cute, a picture of him with a pull-up on his head would just be freaky. He's smart, funny, talented, and just really a good person. I probably don't deserve him. I'm sure he puts up with a lot of really obnoxious things from me, but we won't go there. Just to brag, he really is very talented. Here's proof:


The first two are oil and the last is ink. As you can see, he's really into to comic art. This is where we get the really weird views.

We own the new version of Superman. I blogged about it before. I liked it. I like most of the Superman movies and stories. Anyway, in the new movie there is a scene where a bad guy shoots a pistol at Superman. The bullet hits his eye in slow-motion and the bullet just pancakes and drops to the ground. Stay with me - it gets really complicated now. So my husband says that in the first Superman movie, as well as the comic books, Superman's father, Jor-El (I can't believe I know that), explains that Superman's molecular structures is many times more dense than that of humans. My husband argues that if Superman is so molecularly dense that a bullet pancakes upon hitting his eye, then he would just destroy the earth. He would be like a giant sucking black hole killing everyone and everything. At the very least, he would destroy everything he touched, leave giant craters wherever he walked, kill anyone he merely laid a finger on, crush anything he tried to sit on, or, when taking off to fly, send the Earth spinning wildly out of control. Furthermore, if Superman has all this fantastic collective Kryptonic knowledge of physics, science, etc., passed on to him by his father, why is it that the best thing he could think of to be on Earth is a newspaper reporter - and not even the best one.

For some INSANE reason, I tried to join into this discussion with the theory that maybe Superman never really "touches" anything. He can fly - maybe it's just superbly controlled hovering. And maybe the bumbling reporter is just a cover. Jeff quickly countered with A) if he's that molecularly dense he would be so heavy and have such a huge mass that he would be, in effect, a black hole destroying everything in it's path, despite any hovering and B) why does he even need a cover? and why not a better one? At least work for the BBC or some international news agency.

Keep in mind that I'm already cracking up laughing at the tone of indignity that Jeff is taking about this whole issue - like any of it matters. But the absolute funniest, gut-busting, screamingly funny thing he said was this: And if Superman is so great, why is his arch-enemy just a normal bald guy?

I don't know, honey, you tell me!

Guest Blogging - Sioux Lady

Below is a piece written by Sioux Lady. Anyone who wants to "guest blog" on here - just let me know. Being the control freak that I am, I will OF COURSE vet the piece first, but what the heck - it is MY blog! Enjoy.

A PERFECT DIAL “M” FOR MURDER

The similarities and differences between Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 “Dial M for Murder” and Andrew Davis’s 1998 remake “A Perfect Murder” tell us more about cultural changes that have occurred in the last 44 years than they do about the movie-making skills of either.

They movies have the same plot line. A money-desperate husband plots the murder of his beautiful, elegant, heiress wife who he knows has taken a lover and will leave him. He hires/blackmails someone else to do the “wet work.” He leaves her apartment key in a hidden place and shows the killer how that will guarantee his easy access. The killer is to make the killing look like a robbery gone wrong. The husband arranges to be surrounded by others miles from home while the deed is being done, but calls home at just the right time to place his wife in the “kill zone.” The husband hears the murder attempt taking place over the open line. However, the wife kills the killer. The husband makes a key blunder which eventually proves he is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder.

Some plot differences: Hitchcock’s movie is set in London; Davis’s in New York. In “Dial M,” the hired killer is an old Oxford schoolmate of the husband who is a complete stranger to the wife. He was a petty thief at school and, using an alias, has become much worse since – mostly bilking lonely women. In “Perfect,” the hired killer, using an alias, is the wife’s lover. He was a juvenile delinquent and has served time in prison as an adult where he developed an innate artistic talent. He, too, has spent his time since bilking lonely widows and is currently wanted for theft of bearer bonds. The wife does not know of his past and is helping to promote his artistic talent. In both cases, the husband uses the threat of exposure and the payment of a lot of money to get the killer to do the deed.

In “Dial M,” the husband finds a letter from the lover to the wife and mails her anonymous blackmail threats. The wife shares these letters with her lover. In “Perfect,” the husband sets detectives on the lover to learn of his past and on his wife to get pictures of her liaisons. The husband also writes a phony blackmail letter, but doesn’t send it. Both husbands contrive to have the killers pick up dropped envelops containing the love letter in “Dial M” and the blackmail letter and pictures in “Perfect” to place their fingerprints thereupon and use this as part of the threat. In both movies, the husband has the killer in the apartment in order to demonstrate how the murder is to be done. In “Perfect,” however, this requires the husband and lover/killer to meet twice; once when the proposition/threat is made at the lover/killer’s apartment and, again, at the husband’s apartment. This is important to the plot because it gives the lover/killer an opportunity to tape record the husband’s killing directions.

The most important plot difference between the two movies is that, in “Dial M,” the wife, after killing the killer, picks up the phone and finds her husband on the line. In a state of shock, she he tells him what happened. He tells her not to touch anything or call the police and rushes home. After sending her to lie down in the bedroom, he re-arranges the evidence to incriminate her. He places the love letter in the dead killer’s pocket, takes the apartment key out of the killer’s pocket and places it back in his wife’s purse, burns in the fireplace the scarf the killer had tried to use to strangle the wife and replaces it with her stockings to make it look like she planted them there after using them to make “strangle” marks on her neck. He is successful in all of this and she is tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of a blackmailer.

In “Perfect,” the husband arrives home before the police. He goes first to “console” his blood-soaked wife and finds the blood trail back to the kitchen where the killer lies dead with a ski-mask on. He only has time to take her apartment key out of the dead man’s pocket and put it back on her key ring and make scratches on the back door faking a forced entry before the police arrive. Imagine his surprise when the ski-mask is removed and the dead man is not the lover, but a complete stranger the lover hired to do the “wet work.”

The cultural differences between the two movies are immense. First, as to violence. In “Dial M,” while we see the killer try to strangle the wife and her use a scissors to stab him in the back – not one drop of blood is shown. The killer falls backwards on to the scissors which drives it in deep enough to kill him. The place where the killer fell is covered by an area rug in later scenes. That is all the violence there is in the whole movie. In “Perfect,” we see the killer try to murder the wife and her use a handy meat thermometer to stab him in the throat. Blood squirts. There is blood smeared everywhere and one great pool of it. This movie has two more violent scenes.

Language. There is not a “hell” or a “damn” in the whole of “Dial M.” “Perfect” is littered with the “f” word among others.

Sex. In “Dial M,” the husband and wife exchange hello and goodbye spousal kisses. The lover barely touches the wife and the only way we know of any sex between them is because the husband tells the killer he followed them once to the lover’s apartment where they were making spaghetti together. Unless “making spaghetti” was some fifties euphemism for going at it hot and heavy, that is as much “sex” as there is. In “Perfect,” torrid bed scenes and passionate embraces between the wife and lover leave nothing to the imagination – darn it!

The most interesting cultural difference, however, is the difference between the role of the men and women in the two movies particularly that of the two detectives and the two leading ladies. (The role of the lover in “Dial M” is not important. He believes his lover to be innocent and, being a writer of mystery novels, realizes what must have happened, but he cannot prove it.) In “Dial M,” the Scotland Yard detective is the hero of the story. Learning of some odd behavior on the part of the husband after the wife’s conviction, he realizes that something “smells.” With further investigation, he figures out what really happened, entraps the husband, saves the hapless, dazed and confused wife from the gallows and delivers her into the arms of her lover.

In “Perfect,” while the detective believes there is something wrong with the scenario that the killer was robbing the apartment when surprised by the wife who he then tries to kill, he has not the least idea of what really happened. It is the wife who figures it out. She is not just a housewife like the fifties “Dial M” wife, but a high-powered – at least tri-lingual – career woman who works as an assistant to a United Nations ambassador. After the attack she had been as hapless, dazed and confused as the “Dial M” wife, but after a time she gets over it, attempts to contact her lover, gets on with her plan to leave her husband and moves out. She is suspicious that he might have been behind the attack and uses her high-level contacts to have his finances investigated. She learns that he is in deep financial trouble. When she confronts her husband, he shows her proof of her lover’s past and his “proof” of her lover’s attempt at blackmail. She accepts it all as factual, apologizes to him and moves back in. The husband kills the lover who attempts to blackmail him with the recording he had made. The lover – who did really love the wife – had sent her a copy of the recording, but the husband intercepts it and puts it in a safe in the apartment.

“Perfect” does not quite make clear what re-arouses the wife’s suspicions, but, becoming so, she figures out the combination to the safe, finds the recording, and locates the key piece of evidence. Instead of calling the police, she taunts the husband into trying to kill her. Once he strikes her and she has proof of his second attempt, she pulls a gun and shoots him dead in self-defense. When the detective arrives he listens to the recording and gazes at the wife in awe. I did, too!

How did “Dial M” end? The detective first clears the wife using the key piece of evidence; then uses it to entrap the husband. The four main characters are now all in the apartment together. The husband makes a half-hearted attempt to flee, but when he finds the exits guarded, he goes to the bar to pour himself a drink. He cordially asks his wife and lover if they would like one. They graciously accept. The camera pans to the detective who takes a comb from his pocket to smooth his “veddy” English moustache as he smiles in smug self-satisfaction. How civilized!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to figure out which of the movies I prefer.

A Big 4 Kid

Today my little baby turns 4. He's been going on and on about being "a big 4 kid" now. This little guy is such a joy. His older brother made me learn to be a grown up, but Noah has sure made me learn to enjoy it. It's funny to me how different my two boys are. Noah is much much much more mercurial than his brother. But he's funny, and whip-smart, stubborn, cute, wild, naughty, and nice all rolled into one. He is also very very very much a daddy's boy. But that's ok with me - a) it's something that every boy should have and b) when he wakes up at 2 in the morning, he doesn't want me!!! You never think when you love one kid so much that you could ever love another, but amazingly, your heart just grows and grows to make room. I can't imagine a world without Noah. Happy Birthday my love.