In the Headlights

Great Gift Idea

A gift for someone who has everything. 

A small, medium or large tumbleweed to turn into a pet or loving companion.  Or you can cunningly turn it into a centerpiece for your holiday table, or a clever coffee table, or a makeshift bed for company.  Add it to a pot of water for a delicious soup.

Seriously  (or not), Prairie Tumbleweed Farm will happily send you a tumbleweed to do whatever you see fit to do with it.  Some discretion advised.

The web site is a hoot, what with pictures of the tumbleweed harvest, and the tumbleweeds growing in neat little rows.  It may have started as a joke, but today, owner Linda Katz or Garden City Kansas makes about $40 thousand a year shipping tumbleweeds ordered through her website, and aside from her time and shipping costs, it's just about all pure profit.  Sounds like it's ripe for a hostile takeover, to me. 

Meanwhile, order one, put it on a leash and give it to some unsuspecting and humorless friend.

[Image from Prairie Tumbleweed Farm.com]

Thanks, L.C.!

Awake

A new movie is coming out in the next day or two.  Awake.  My friend Tim, an anesthesiologist, isn't looking forward to this at all.

He anticipates a batch of hyper-anxious patients showing up in his operating room.

He agrees that awareness during anesthesia is a problem that is taken very seriously by the medical community, but it is relatively rare, especially in the way that strikes the most fear:  being awake, paralyzed, in pain, unable to communicate.

He adds that the figure of 1:700 applies to a continuum of awareness from being wide awake, to having implicit memory of the event that is elicited through psychological tests following an anesthetic.  So many people who were "aware" aren't aware that they were aware.  In addition some people may have been vaguely or even explicitly aware of events at the beginning and end of their anesthetic that they mistake for intraoperative events.  Some folks think that being aware at all during a procedure means that intraoperative awareness has taken place.  Not so.  Many anesthetics are done with nerve blocks and sedation, or just sedation, where the aim is pain and anxiety control, not unconsciousness.

Tim explains that anesthesia can drop your blood pressure, and some patients are at high risk of morbidity or death if that happens.  Examples are trauma patients who have lost a lot of blood, or some heart patients.  In addition, in obstetrics, general anesthetics are kept light to minimize the depressive effect on the baby.

And that's what he plans to tell his patients when they come for surgery, frightened after seeing Awake.  Can it happen?  yes.  Is it rare?  yes.  Rarer still to be awake and paralyzed like in the movie.

"But", he sighed, "if you have such fears, what you need to do is talk about them with anesthesiologist."  "He or she is in the best position of explaining the anesthetic you will have, and whether awareness is likely, or expected with a particular anesthetic."

*************

In this thriller, a young man needs to have a heart transplant, and after undergoing anesthesia realizes he can hear everything going on in the room.  Including details of a plot to do away with him during the surgery.  I don't know how he gets out of that situation.  It would seem to me that the deck is stacked against him, but I think it would be a very short movie if he didn't get out of it.

Stars Hayden Christopher, Jessica Alba, Terrence Howard.

{Image from About.com]

Mind-bending

At the wedding, Melissa's father astonished me with this number puzzle.  Do it quickly, but do the calculations correctly.

Think of a number between one and ten.

Multiply it by nine.

Add the digits together.

Subtract five.  Remember the result.

Now where one is "a" and two is "b", etc., figure out the letter that corresponds to your number.

Think of a country that begins with that letter.

Now what is the last letter of that country?

Think of an animal that begins with that letter.

Think of the last letter of the name of the animal.

Think of a fruit that begins with that letter.

Make a sentence that includes the name of the country, the animal and the fruit.

*******************

DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!!!!!

********************

Melissa's new father-in-law looked me in the eye and said"

"In Denmark, the kangaroos eat oranges."

I dropped my jaw.

A bit of clarification.

If you multiply any single digit other that "1" by nine, the sum of the digits is nine: 18, 27,36,45, 54,63,72,81. Subtract five and you get 4, so your letter is "d".

Not many countries start with "D".  Most people will think of "Denmark", and for an animal beginning with "k", kangaroo comes to mind, though I might have said "koala" given another moment.  But you are being rushed along.  Likewise, the fruit that begins with an "o"...hurry now...okay.

So the chances are very good that the sentence your victim will come up with is the one above.

*********************

The Wedding

I got back Sunday afternoon from the wedding of Steve and Melissa, in Charlotte, North Carolina.  Mike and Vicky and I drove up (more specifically, Mike drove, Vicky and I entertrained ourselves in many ways).

The wedding weekend was great.  The weather was chilly but beautiful.  We stayed at the Marriott, and the rooms were lovely, great beds, showers, decor, and reasonable.

We got there Friday afternoon, and went to the groom's parents' house for a barbecue rehearsal dinner.  Actually, there was no rehearsal, but lots of wine and fabulous barbecue.  The house was huge and decoreated in fantastic eclectic antiques, paintings, pottery.  The party itself was held in an outside area which was tented in.  The heaters were few and far between, but we all managed to stay warm, migrating into the house for another libation when we got too cold.

After sleeping one party off, the next morning was a wedding brunch given by the groom's aunt uncle.  Omelet station, eggs benedict, cheese grits and shrimp, mimosas, bloody marys, screwdrivers, tenderloin and ham.  All this with the wedding to come in the evening.

That evening was cold again.  The wedding took place outside, in the same place that the rehearsal dinner had been.  Wonderful, again. Beautiful short ceremony.  The bride, who is gorgeous to begin with looked so beautiful.  Her sisters had done her hair and she wore a $129 Isaac Mizrahi gown from Target (the one in the illustration).  Melissa's slim and looked great in the dress.  Now both sides of the family have money as do the bride and groom in their own right.  So this was a decision consciously made.  And she couldn't have looked better if they'd spent thousands.

A few lovely toasts  "the first time I took Melissa out, I knew we were dating.  It just took her eight months to realize it," said Steve.

It was wonderful meeting both sides of the new family, as well as lots of their old friends.  What a great celebration.

So the drive up Friday and back Sunday was a bit much, but I got to read the Sunday New York Times and work the puzzle on the trip back.  We also listened to James Patterson's Sam's Letters to Jennifer on audiobooks.  I was afraid it was going to be blood, gore and serial killers.  Sadly, it was not.  Instead, it was a calculated, treacly tear-jerking mess.  I kept busy waiting for it to redeem itself somehow.  No such luck, but it did pass the time.

Borat

Last week, I finally got around to watching Sacha Baron Cohen's oeuvre, Borat.  I found it to be a work of great seriousness and import.  In fact, I watched much of it with my hands covering my face, peeking through my fingers, sort of the way I watch the evening news.

Really, the guys at the dance studio still "do" Borat.  It's not uncommon for Muki to shout out "I'm king of the castle, king of the castle" out of seemingly nowhere.  "Verrrry niiiiice" and "my sister, she is the number three prostitute in all of Kazakhstan."

The quotes are endless.  Here's a sampling that had me laughing all over again.

Totally un-PC, as you know.

But the most amazing thing was not how far they could push the envelope of taste...they pushed it pretty far, I must say (and yes, the nude wrestling scene was one of the grossest sights ever...I couldn't take my eyes off the screen).  The most amazing thing was that none of the interactions with the interviewees was staged.

The poor folks with the etiquette class, and the feminists came off okay, but most showed how smarmy they really are.  The car salesman ("but where IS this pussy magnet"), the gun salesmen, the frat boys.  OMG, they had plenty to answer for.

Finally, he reaches California and meets his dream girl.  The following sequence, and the fear in her face as she runs through the parking lot.  That wan't staged.

I understand they faced a bunch of lawsuits after making this movie.  I can see why.

It you're not real squeamish, this is a great movie.  Totally deranged, but funny as hell.

[I got the image at Funny Pictures.net.au, which has lots more funny pictures]

Ask Alice

On Thanksgiving, I was cooking and listening to NPR.  It was a great pleasure to listen to Diane Rehm interview a favorite author, Calvin Trillin, about his book about his late wife, Alice.

About Alice is Trillin's memoir about his wife and muse who died in 2001 after more than 35 years of marriage.  In the interview, he was funny, poignant, and very moving.

Alice figures in most of his books, but there is no doubt that even if she wasn't in them, she influenced him and shaded his writing.

She died of lung cancer in 2001. 9/11/2001.

The cancer was diagnosed when she was in her 30's, though she was a life-long non-smoker.  There is a question of whether it was from exposure to second-hand smoke.

She was treated with surgery and radiation therapy, which years later affected her heart.  She was waiting for a heart transplant when she died.

Trillin talks about her beauty, inner and outer, and about his daughters (who also figure prominently in his books), and his four grandchildren, who have allowed him to move on with his life.

*   *   *   *   *

In an aside, they took calls and one of the first was from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.  Hey, I have a friend who lives there.  "Susan in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan".  Wow, I have a good friend names Susan who lives there.  I was totally prepared to here Sue's voice, when another voice came on the air.  I was so disappointed, for a moment, at least.  I guess there's more than one "Susan" in Bloomfield Hills.  Still...

[Image from NPR.org]

Bill-Bored? No Longer!

Normally, I am anti-billboard.  I think they clutter up our highways and make everything ugly.  I know...they bring in revenue.  I am usually happy to see those with quotes from George Carlin that dot U.S.1...they make me think and laugh.  Better still are those that are only on the internet.

Dee Ray sent us a bunch of billboards.  They are all Photoshopped, but hilarious.  Compliments of Dribbleglass and Worth.  I just spent a half-hour at Dribbleglass browsing their trivia, funny pictures and billboards section. A half-hour I can scarcely spare, since I am preposting this on Thanksgiving so that when I go to Melissa's wedding, I won't have to find time to blog.  I wound up saving it to my favorites.

Worth 1000--one picture is worth 1000 words--is perhaps the best Photoshop site, full of contests and amazing pictures.  Some serious gross-out Thanksgiving photos, if you're in the mood for roast long pig.

Meanwhile, check out the stuff below, and link to those sites, but be prepared to get lost for a long time.

By the Time I Get to Charlotte, He'll be Sleepin'

Which is what I'll wish I was doing.

Early Friday, braving the Black Friday traffic, Vicky, Mike and I will head north in Vicky's cushy Caddy, heading for Charlotte, North Carolina.  We figure about a six-hour drive.  No matter, we plan on hitting the road around eight, and the rehearsal dinner isn't until that evening.  I haven't packed yet, naturally, nor do I know what I am taking.

Melissa and Steve are getting married tomorrow, and we plan to be there to drop our jaws when it actually happens.

We work with Melissa.  Steve lives in a city about an hour away, so theirs has been a middling-distance relationship, which I happen to think is pretty ideal, but nobody asks me.  They dated for about five years before getting engaged about two years ago.  I guess they think they can't string it out any longer.

The thing is, Melissa thinks now that she's getting married, she has to move to Steve's city. Don't know why.   Which means she has to quit her job.  Which makes me sad.  Though I'm happy for her.  And really happy for him.

Congratulations Melissa and Steve

(and bye, Melissa.  sniff.)

[Image from Visit Naperville]

Department of Wretched Excess

Laura suggested that if you indulge like this today,

Not on carrots, but you know what I mean.

You'll look like this before the football game is over.

That may be me.  I don't intend to, but who knows.

I'm exhausted.  Long days at work this week, a lot of people taking vacation.

I just cooked some fresh cranberries in sugar and water, and put a 7-lb. turkey breast on to brine.  The folks don't usually like turkey, but I made it this way last year to rave reviews.  I put a gallon of water in a deep pot with a cup of kosher salt and a half cup of sugar.  Swished it around and dropped in the turkey breast.  Put a lid on it and back in the fridge.  The sugar adds a caramelization that's lovely, and the brine makes it moist.  I'll slather it in butter and pepper (no salt!) in the morning, and bake it about three hours at 325 degrees.

What else?  I got some beautiful shrimp from Fresh Market for shrimp cocktail, along with a baguette.

Sweet potatoes and baking potatoes to boil and mash together with butter and cream. 

Creamed spinach:  saute some shallots in butter, add enough flour to make a roux,  and add some sour cream, salt and pepper and fresh nutmeg.  In the meantime, nuke and drain a big bag of spinach leaves and add it to the cream sauce.

Salad:  your choice.  Mine's balsamic vinaigrette.

Dessert, strawberry chiffon pie.  Graham cracker crust, follow the instructions on the box.  Whip some cream and sugar.  Throw a bag of thawed frozen strawberries in a blender and puree.  Soften some gelatin in water and add to the strawberries.  Fold in the whipped cream, and add to one or two pie crusts. 

Yeah.  I'll look like the bottom picture by the time I'm done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Time to Remodel the Bathroom

Aw, Jeez.  Deb says this is how you get a man to wash his hands.  He could still be pretending, though.