Twenty years ago today, the Frecce Tricolori demonst
That same year, 8 commercial airplanes crashed, killing a total of 886 people*. In 1989, people all over the world continued to get on commercial aircraft and fly. That year, there were 11 commercial airline crashes, which killed 983 people. Since then we've had some light years and some heavy years, but the death toll continues. People still fly into and out of the same airports where tragedies occurred, they fly the same carriers, ride in the same types of planes.
My point is this: we make tragedy where we want it. Where it's convenient to go maudlin and sentimental. Elsewhere, we sweep it under the rug and consider it the daily cost of modern convenience.
So when 3,000 people die in a terrorist attack, the country comes screeching to a halt in its mourning. Those 3,000 deaths change the way we live our lives, send us into jingoistic hysteria. They are the raft upon which we launch invasions and the catalyst for hundreds of thousands more deaths**. Three thousand dead in one catastrophic pierced heart terrorism maneuver, and we're willing to burn our Bill of Rights and color-code our sense of safety.
Conversely the 40,000 people who die in automobile crashes every year in the United States, they are a mountain of bleeding corpses that we disregard in our calculation of Life-Changing, nay, World-Changing Tragedies. We go on driving at high speeds, some of us without seat belts, others of us drunk, many of us fiddling with radio knobs or talking on our cell phones. Year after year, city commissioners and state legislators vote against "expensive" public transportation efforts, and citizens rebel against any suggestion that they ought to change the way they travel.
As for the 10,000 gun deaths a year in the U.S., they are a statistical smudge. There is no monument to those dead. No spotlights glinting into the night sky to say, "Never forget." Nope. We'll wake up tomorrow, the little individual tragedies already forgotten. If ten thousand Americans died in a massive gun battle in one day, perhaps we would consider our obsession with free-wheeling gun-ownership, but when those ten thousand die one at a time, we don't notice. We're willing to perform the pierced heart maneuver over and over for an audience of one.
*These numbers include Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which was brought down by a pound of plastic explosives in the forward cargo hold, and Iran Air flight 665, brought down by a missile fired by the US Navy. Total number killed in these two crashes: 270 and 290 respectively.
**Ramstein Air Base happens to be one of the logistical air support hubs for the war on Iraq.
Sir Orion is the Miao Brothers' new nephew. Foxy-bro adopted him on 19 June from a crazy cat lady (literally crazy, by all accounts). I figure that he's our nephew because Foxy is our brother. I can't quite explain his name (I'm sure Foxy could), but Featherstonehaugh (pronounced "fanshaw") was one of my favorite names when I was so little because it is so long (yet so short).
According to my brother, Sir Orion is "rather talkative and he likes to play a hybrid of marco-polo and hide-and-seek". He also enjoys hunting and eating button squash (and bananas too, though I guess they aren't as fun to hunt). In fact, he's quite fond of fruit and he always picks out the fruit bits in his kitty crunchies first (he eats Castor & Pollux kitty food). He enjoys being carried around by his scruff, and since he's a relation of the Miao Brothers, I can assume that he also enjoys catnaps and fleece blanakies.
I'm not sure how old Sir Orion was when my brother got him, or when his actual birfday is. I haven't met him yet, but I got to talk to him on the phone a few days ago.
I started this ages ago, it is the extra pieces from a queen size quilt that I have pieced but still need to finish. I am trying to get started projects done, so this satisfies that requirement. It is about 60"x40" - I think.
I haven't told the stories of the carrot cake I made out of the Baking Illustrated recipe, or my disappointing Paula Deen blueberry muffins- seriously? You'd think Paula "Queen of Butter" Deen would have really tasty muffins but they were actually boring. I thought I had pregnant brain when I made them, because I was sitting there while they were in the oven and I'd think oh! I forgot to put spices in! or oh! I forgot to add the vanilla! Then I'd look at the recipe and realize no, she doesn't use any. What? Anyway, my last couple baking efforts have been passable at best.
Lately the baby's been making me want herbs and spices, like sage and cinnamon. I was looking through Baking Illustrated, thinking wouldn't it be awesome if I baked everything in there and blogged about it, when I saw the coffeecake muffin recipe. Ooh! Cinnamon!
I was not thrilled when I started the recipe and found out I was going to have to pull the food processor out of storage. Sigh. I hate cooking with the food processor. I have a Kitchenaid, that's what you're supposed to bake with. I noticed there were nuts to chop so okay, I decided to use the food processor. I started by chopping together the nuts, some cinnamon and brown sugar and managed to get everything sesame seed sized like they asked, but not in five one second pulses. I started going one, two, three, four, five and there were still a lot of large chunks of nuts. Crap. Then I tried ooooone, twooooooo, threeeeeee, and somewhere in the middle of four it was good. Okay. I separated them out into two bowls- one to mix in later, one for topping- and moved on to the batter.
Oh, the batter. Flour, sugar and salt, mixed with the food processor. Then you add the butter, which was softened and sliced, and process until it looks like oats. Okay, except zap number one? All the butter disappeared. Crap. I think they shouldn't have had you soften the butter. Don't you usually use cold butter when you make streusel? I added some of the flour mix into the streusel top, stirred it up, added the rest of the dry stuff to the food processor and went to the wet stuff. Sour cream? Check. Vanilla? Check. Egg? Frick. Somehow the eggs had been put on the top shelf of the fridge and half of them had frozen and cracked. Damn. This is why I hate top and bottom fridges. Anyway, I found one that was okay and mixed up the wet stuff, then added it to the batter. Again with the one second pulses, and that's where I hit the problem. Pulse until it's moistened? Again, one shot. Then add the streusel and pulse till the streusel's distributed and everything's crumbly? Um, one pulse and everything was mush and not at all well distributed.
I think, had I been thinking, maybe colder butter in larger pieces- half inch pieces did not do it for me here- and I would have been willing to do it in the processor because that is an efficient way to cut it in. However, then I think I should have transferred it to the Kitchenaid and mixed it up the rest of the way so it didn't get to be such a mushy mess. When it came time to add the streusel, definitely stirred it in by hand. Oh well. Moving on!
Putting them into the cups and getting the streusel on them, not a problem. Then I forgot about the last time I baked something from Baking Illustrated and took them at their word- 350 for 18 minutes, turning halfway. When I made the carrot cake the recipe said 35-40 minutes and it really took over an hour. I put the muffins in and was talking to the Husband on Google chat and another friend on Facebook and left them five minutes over how long they needed to go and ew. Gooey. I put them back in the oven and decided whenever I thought about them next I'd check. I think it ended up being about twice the time the book said, about 35 minutes before I checked them again and they were done according to my toothpick. Stupid Baking Illustrated.
After all the bitching I did about these muffins, they came out looking okay and were pretty tasty. The Husband and I each had one and really liked them. I credit the sour cream. The Husband, who is not a nut eater, didn't notice the nuts. I'm not sure why, because I did. Anyway, I think I've learned my lesson. Tomorrow I want to make their quick cinnamon roll recipe and I'm totally going to check after the amount of time they say they need to bake, but be prepared to take them out after twice that time.
I did some googling and apparently I'm the only person out there who has a problem with Baking Illustrated. Huh. It really makes me wonder what my problem is, then. You know, they go through and work and work and work and fine tune their recipes and it's not like they're in Denver- or I'm in Denver, for that matter- making these recipes and having to adjust for altitude. I follow the recipe. I don't substitute things. I seriously doubt my silicone baking cups would have made that much difference in this instance. I just don't know. We'll see tomorrow.
*smooch* #1:
*smooch* #2:
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I've been thinking a lot about my Aunt LaJuana these days. Nothing nostalgic or sentimental, but every time I hike up my pant leg or skirt to check on the progress of my bike-wreck scab, I can't help but think of her.
Aunt LaJuana was a scab picker. One of those people who love to scrape off the dead, battered skin of injuries. She didn't just pick her own scabs, though. She liked to pick other people's scabs. She loved to peel sunburns. As a child, this always frightened me. Like most kids, I was a walking scab factory. Always with a scraped elbow or knee. Some crusty half-healed contusion or abrasion. So there were few things as creepy and terrifying as going to Sunday dinner with a banged up knee. Invariably, someone said, "Oh, and little Redz took a spill on her bike/on the roof/on the monkey bars/on her own two stupid feet. Really banged herself up."
Then Aunt LaJuana descended upon me with her long, vicious claws extended, ready to pick. She didn't care if it hurt or bled or made you squirm, and she was big enough to hold you down if you tried to resist. Plenty big enough. She clocked in around 500 pounds when I was a child, so the only real chance of escape was to run. Unfortunately, my grandmother's house was small and filled with many ornery uncles and cousins who were happy to capture and return an escaped scabbee.
When I was very young, four or five years old, the worst part wasn't even the scab picking. The scariest part was the proximity of the Blood Ruby. Aunt LaJuana wore a ring with a large, dark, glossy, evil-looking ruby in it. She said that if you touched it without her permission, you would disappear. I was predisposed to believe, because my other grandmother had a ruby ring that she claimed had killed someone every time she wore it. Three times she'd worn it since her mother-in-law gave it to her and three times someone she loved died: her mother and two of her sisters. That ruby was remade into a ring for my grandfather, who as far as I know never killed anyone with it.
As for Aunt LaJuana's Bloody Ruby, I knew what she said was true, because I'd seen it happen.
My cousin, Stu, touched it once. Stu is eight years older than I am and he was one of the ornery cousins. So ornery he was dangerous. The kind of kid you wanted to keep your distance from. One Easter, he decided he was too old to believe in things like the Blood Ruby, so he marched up to Aunt LaJuana and touched it. Laid his finger right on it.
Aunt LaJuana let out this terrible moan. A sound of anguish and mourning that made my grandma run in from the kitchen. "Oh, he touched it! He touched the Blood Ruby!" Aunt LaJuana said and she put her head in her hands and sobbed.
Grandma took up the moaning and crying and pulled her apron up over her head. Stu, who'd been laughing and strutting until then, looked concerned. Everyone got involved, crying and carrying on about what a reckless fool he was. He never could obey and he was always in trouble, but they loved him! It broke their hearts what he'd done.
"That's bullshit! That's fucking bullshit!" Stu said, knowing he'd get smacked for that. Only nobody smacked him. Nobody said, "Watch your potty mouth!" Nobody but us other kids could hear him or see him, but none of the adults believed us.
When lunch time came, Grandma set the tables for 18 instead of 19, even though I told her, "I can see him, he's right there, Grandma."
"Don't you tease me, Redz, I know he's gone," she said. "If you try to pull my leg, why I'll pinch you."
That was no idle threat. The mothers of scab pickers are natural pinchers and vicious, to boot. The rest of the kids kept their mouth shut about being able to see Stu.
So while we ate fried chicken and mashed potatoes, with chocolate cake for dessert, Stu stood in the kitchen and cried. The adults just went on like he was invisible. They couldn't see him or hear him, and after a while they stopped talking like it was his funeral and just went on with their usual conversations.
Stu's disappearance lasted all day, until dusk fell and everyone got ready to go home. We packed up our leftovers and started out toward the cars. Some of us looked back at Stu, still huddled up in one corner, but after a moment, Uncle Jack got up from the sofa and put out his cigarette.
"Come on, Stu, let's go," he said.
"You can see me?" Stu said.
"Of course I can see you. The Blood Ruby wears off after a while. Have you been there all along?"
Oh, we wanted to believe it wasn't real. We wanted it to be a cruel prank the adults had played, but as we hurried across the gravel drive to our cars, Aunt LaJuana stood on the stoop and cackled like a witch. None of the rest of us ever touched the ruby, except perhaps the mortician who prepared her for burial. Yes, it was buried with her. Stu didn't learn his lesson. He went on being a disobedient, reckless fool, until adulthood snuck up on him, like the delayed effects of the Blood Ruby. In that sense, maybe we all touched it.
This is such a beautiful, beautiful post on marriage, friendship and partnership.
As I mentioned a while back I have FINALLY beed working on my craft room. I put up shelves, and then had to
re-put them up... there was a cross beam size issue.
So after another trip to IKEA I had usable shelves that no longer need to be wedged to ensure they stay up.
I have been working on a few projects that are long over due.
Of those one is a LONG over due baby quilt for my friend who had her baby WAY back in May.
The other is new pillows for my couch (oh and the curtains in the window), I am experimenting a little for another project that I am going to work on.
Dear Internet,
You're an asshole. I realize that other people use you at approximately the same time I do and that due to Bell's "brilliant" idea to bottleneck the connection so that nobody can download anything (let alone load a simple page) you may be running a tad slower than my impatience is willing to tolerate. Here's the thing; it should not take me 20 minutes and 30 refreshes to load Vox. Or Facebook. Or the freaking Google homepage. I should not be able to start a video on YouTube and be able to complete a crossword puzzle in the time it takes to buffer. A SUNDAY crossword puzzle. Also, I understand that ads are a vital part of supporting webpages but I would prefer if they weren't the only things to load in a reasonable amount of time. I'd prefer it even more if they did not jump all over the page so that I click on 7 of them just trying to get to my inbox!!! (I don't care how many cute singles are on Lavalife.) If I wanted to wade through a stack of ads, I'd go read Vogue.
*Trendy technology based wordplay here* my ass,
Squeak
Dear cleaning crew at work,
Hello. I am the woman who sits at one of the many desks that you do not bother to clean. I know you empty the garbage pails nightly... and that's it. I know you occasionally clean the floor in the lounge... when you feel like it. Here's the thing; nobody's leaving huge messes for you to clean up. You're cleaning up offices; the technicians are responsible for keeping the shop as neat as possible. So I don't think it's asking too much of you to occasionally wipe up 3 grains of salt from my desk if I forget to do it myself after lunch. Or sweep/mop the floor so that the same muddy footprint is not sitting there until it is slowly worn away by me rolling my chair over it (not my footprint!). Or venture in the the washroom more than once a week... what's that? You say that you refill the soap dispenser and the paper towels? Good for you. Now if you'd be so good as to venture more than 6 inches inside the door so that you could SEE the dead beetle that's been sitting on the floor for so long I'm considering renting a tiny sign that says "My name is Luanne; will you be my friend?" and includes an arrow pointing to the corpse... ewwwww is right. See also; the dead mosquito sitting beside my phone on a carpet of dust.
Commercials make cleaning look like fun; why not give it a try?
Squeak
Dear (3rd attempt at hiring a) new cashier at work,
Thank you for not being totally incompetent and for making sure that your breasts are covered at all times. I will admit it's a welcome change from the women who previously held that position. But there are a few things I do think you could improve upon:
1) Keep a little mystery about yourself. For example, do not tell me how much your husband makes on a paycheque, or how you were so loaded last weekend that you couldn't stop putting your hand in your own vomit. I only want to hear about that if I was there (and I'd still only be listening grudgingly to the vomit talk).
2) Do not assume that because the manager is a total pushover that everyone else is. We all know that you are not entitled to ANY vacation time this summer but you have somehow managed to score two weeks of paid holidays when you are barely off your probation. Those of us who have more seniority than you (i.e. everyone) should not have to scramble to book vacation time because you swooped in and took two weeks.
2a) Do not assume that because you had two weeks off over the summer that you are now entitled to sit on your ass and let everyone work around you. The phone does not exist solely so you can call your kids or your husband every 20 minutes.
3) Similar to point 1, do not yell at everyone who does not immediately give you your own way. That is a human being on the other end of the phone. They are not responsible for the fact that your teenage son talks too much and gets you charged extra minutes. It is not necessarily their fault that the wrong pool was shipped out from the warehouse. Have a little respect for the fact that you are talking to someone who has certain procedures they need to follow in order to do their jobs and don't start out screaming as soon as they've said "hello". It would be extra nice if you didn't immediately grab the phone to do this the instant the managers go for lunch.
4) Do NOT (and I can not stress this enough without resorting to physical violence) giggle, smirk or look smug while you're announcing to me that there is a call for an appointment that I need to take. I know I need to take the appointment calls; I'm the appointment co-ordinator and it's my job. The issue here is that *YOU* need to realize that if I am in the middle of doing something (usually picking up your slack) I am not traditionally receptive to you dumping something else on me. Ask me if I mind taking the call (I don't) or if I'm not available to take the call, give them my voicemail and I'll call them back. You are not my superior and you do not dictate when I take calls. Even the bosses don't think they have that capacity (and I'm not telling them otherwise!).
Your holidays were like a mini-vacation for me,
Squeak
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