This week, I apologize for my sarcasm, which evidently doesn’t always translate well. Last week I snarked about the 13 things I would never blog about (or somebody should shoot me), and went on to list some pretty worthy blog topics that a lot of you in the TT community hold near and dear, including one person who is a very near and dear to me. She knows I mean no offense, but to show my contrition to the rest of you, I’m blogging about all those things I said I would never blog about last week. So here is my Thirteen Great Things to Blog About:

1. My Dog.This guy. He’s gettin’ old.
2. My Cat.She hates everybody except me and Wacky Mommy.
3. My Other Cat.The original Himself. Efficient hunter. Follows me into the bathroom and chirrups until I turn on the bathtub to dribble on his head.
4. My Health. I’m about 20 lbs. overweight, but in decent cardio shape. I’ll be in better shape when I go back to playing hockey three times a week in September.
5. My Sex Life. Sorry, my wife is censoring this one.
6. Cars. Um… I drive one. (Not sure where to go with this one.)
7. Television. It is a very bad influence on society. I don’t think children should be exposed to it. (I’m watching TV as I write this, so you understand I’m not really all that dogmatic about this.)
8. Pictures of My Children. Not going to do it. Sorry. I love the little nuggets, but I have privacy concerns.
9. Football. I grew up watching it. Isn’t that enough?
10. Basketball. I grew up watching NCAA but don’t care for the pro game.
11. Beer. Some beer tastes good. I prefer liquor.
12. Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan (I hope I spelled their names correctly). I gather they are teen show biz queens. Well cool. I hope they have talent and they make people happy and feel good about themselves just the way they are.
13. NASCAR. Look, I grew up in Iowa, and it was a regular feature of my youth to go to the Saturday night dirt track stock car races at the Muscatine County fair grounds in West Liberty. Ah, the smell of partially combusted gasoline, mixed with damp earth and oil, the roar of the engines and the smoke and moths under the lights and the wooden-spooned Frosty Malt from the concession stand under the grand stand. But NASCAR? Eh. Not so much. They’ve smoothed off all the rough edges and made it some kind of slick racing buildboards in a stadium thing.

So there: no war, no hockey and minimal snark-snark (I hope). Happy TT and Cheers to all.

Well Jumpin’ Jehosaphat, last week I irked some with my anti-Mel list, so this week I’m reverting to my usual sweet and mellow self and making it up to y’all with a two-fer. First, a list of 13 things I will never blog about (and if I do, somebody please shoot me):

1. My dog.
2. My cat.
3. My other cat.
4. Any health issues I may encounter.
5. My sex life.
6. Cars.
7. Television.
8. Pictures of my children.
9. Football.
10. Basketball.
11. Beer.
12. Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan. I don’t even care if I spelled their names wrong.
13. NASCAR.

But wait! There’s more! You also get: 13 things I should blog about, but haven’t yet!

1. The election debacle in Mexico (I’m soliciting a guest author with better knowledge than I for this one).
2. Portland Public Schools politics. I could devote an entire blog to this.
3. Reviews of books I’m currently reading. Right now it’s Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte.
4. Indian software developers in the US, US software development offices in India, and the politics and economics of high tech immigration and offshoring.
5. My anti-libertarian manifesto, which has been stewing about in my brain for a while now.
6. My marinara recipe.
7. My guacamole recipe.
8. Places I’ve traveled.
9. A critique of the high tech work world and the nerds who inhabit it.
10. My previous life as a rock musician and the inadvertent comedy therein.
11. String theory and the higher dimensions it describes.
12. Evangelical Christianity’s eschatological view of the wars in the Middle East.
13. The narcissism inherent in blogging.

Happy TT everyone!

Wow, looks like Thursday Thirteen is the only thing getting me to blog this week. I am thoroughly, utterly depressed about the continuing carnage in Lebanon. The mainstream media can’t seem to draw the distinction between direct armed conflict between Hezbollah and the I.D.F. and the morally indefensible bombardment of civilians and infrastructure. It’s all “fighting”, as in “fighting continued today across Lebanon”. Bombing apartment buildings in South Beirut is not fighting, it is arguably an ongoing war crime. Likewise for lobbing rockets at Haifa.

And the U.S. position on this? We want a speedy resolution, just not yet. The Israeli strategy (backed up by expedited arms shipments and diplomatic foot-dragging by the U.S.) is to turn the Lebanese against Hezbollah. From the Washington Post:

According to retired Israeli army Col. Gal Luft, the goal of the campaign is to “create a rift between the Lebanese population and Hezbollah supporters.” The message to Lebanon’s elite, he said, is this: “If you want your air conditioning to work and if you want to be able to fly to Paris for shopping, you must pull your head out of the sand and take action toward shutting down Hezbollah-land.”

Zbignew Brezinski put it like this: “I hate to say this but I will say it. I think what the Israelis are doing today for example in Lebanon is in effect, in effect — maybe not in intent — the killing of hostages.” Juan Cole, as usual, has perhaps the most comprehensive analysis of the situation available on the Web.

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. No! It’s time for another Thursday Thirteen, and, like last week, I’m doing a light-hearted one to contrast the deeply troubling times we are in the midst of. This week: Thirteen Things I’m Looking Forward To:

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Time again for the Thursday Thirteen. It’s been a tough week for those of us who don’t like war. I’m tempted to list thirteen reasons war sucks, like charred bodies of children scattered like dry leaves by the side of the road, killed while fleeing with their families. Like bombed out airports, roads, bridges, dairies, factories and power plants, part of a pattern of mass destruction of civilian infrastructure. Like missiles lobbed blindly towards civilian centers in hopes of killing innocents. But I’ve been writing about this shit all week.

So herewith are Thirteen Things That Give Me Hope:

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So I’m still not entirely clear on this “meme” thing. It’s a blogger thing, and I’m just not all that hip. Anyway, there’s this kind of meta-blog, ThursdayThirteen.com, that invites participants to compile lists each Thursday so that everybody can get to know each other a little better. I gather rule #1 about blogging is to make it all about “me, me, me.” Maybe that’s why it’s called a “meme.” Anyway, here is my first crack. All about me. I’m calling it Thirteen Things People Might Not Know About Me.

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Sitting in the yard, listening to Celia Cruz, just finished off a nice stong mojito. What’s a mojito, you ask? Hold on, Wacky Girl just asked me to write something about her. She is 6 1/2. She loves to ice skate. She looks good in any color. She is blonde with blue eyes. She’s really good at forward stroking, one foot snow plow stops and forward cross-overs. We’re working on t-stops, back crossovers, back stroking and hockey stops. She’s doing her first competition in a week and a half. She did an exhibition of her routine on Saturday at the rink. We’ve skated every day since.

Okay, back to the mojito. It is a traditional Cuban cocktail. It’s a very sweet, minty refreshing thing that goes straight to your head.It’s basically sugar and rum. The sugar puts you into diabetic shock just before the rum hits you. We had them at Andina the other night before going to see a play. So I picked up a bottle of rum (I’m usually more of a vodka guy) yesterday and gave it a shot. The recipe I started with was far too limey and not sweet enough. Wacky Mommy and I got looped off of them anyway. So today, for lunch (it’s five o’clock somewhere), I perfected the recipe. Here it is:

Several sprigs of mint
2 1/2 oz. simple syrup (see below for recipe)
1 1/2 oz. light rum
1 small lime wedge
ice
soda water

Save a little sprig of mint for a garnish, and put the rest in a glass with the simple syrup. Mash it thoroughly with a spoon. Squeeze the lime in, add the rum and lots of ice. Top with a splash of soda, stir well, and garnish with a mint sprig. At Andina, they served it with a stick of sugar cane. You can make them stronger if you want, in which case I highly recommend buying some decent rum. I don’t know rum, but I know the Bacardi I bought was pretty harsh tasting compared to what they used at the restaurant.

To make simple syrup, heat equal parts water and sugar until it almost boils, stirring to make sure all the sugar disolves. Cool before using. Make lots and put it in the fridge for tomorrow, since you’ll be drinking a lot of these. I’m going to post this at Wacky Mommy, too. Here’s another recipe, perhaps more traditional.

(At hockey, that is.) I haven’t been playing hockey all that long, just a couple of years. I grew up skating, but didn’t pick up a stick until recently. So I’m not all that good, especially considering some of the crew I play with (which typically includes some Junior B and college players and occasionally a minor league pro in the off season). But they cut me slack and don’t laugh at me too much.

Turns out, I’m my own harshest critic. It is particularly hard to get a sense of my skills since I just play pick up, and we never keep score. Sometimes we don’t even have goalies. So the other day, I decided to keep track of my fuck-ups vs. good plays. That is, every time I make an offensive or defensive move, I make a mental note as to whether it was good or bad. For instance: a pass that connects: good. A pass that connects with an opponent: bad. A defensive take-away: good. Getting stood up at the blue line: bad. Then when I come off the ice, I have a fine-grained +/- in my head for each shift. And whattaya know? I’m not as bad as I thought. Also, it makes me better because I’m trying to make good plays since I’m keeping track.

Now, of course, I’m taking it off the ice into life. Not a bad way to live. Look at every action and consider it in the context of the global good. At the end of the day, you’ve got a pretty good idea where you stand with the universe. Once again, hockey is nothing but a metaphor for life. And a damn good workout.

What? Himself dishing? Sure, what the hell.

Our neighbors really like to think of themselves as environmentalists. When it came time to buy a new vehicle, they were really conflicted because there aren’t any hybrid mini-vans out there. So they got a mini-mini-van, the Mazda 5 (or is it 6?). It’s a cool vehicle, really. I think it’s the smallest car you can get with three rows of seating (seats 6). But (now get this) they got it in a 5-speed because “mileage is really important to us.” Uh. Okay. So I’m thinking, with modern technology, a 5-speed automatic is proably just about as efficient as a 5-speed manual. Sure enough, the EPA ratings are 1 MPG less for the auto. And if the environment is that important to them, why are they buying a vehicle that seats 6 for their family of 3?

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Pssst — hey you guys, it’s me. Wacky Mommy. Hockey God gave me his password so I could clean up the spam in here. The spammers, they want to party with him! They like his site as it is Great! Also they show an abnormal curiosity about his, uh, butt. And who can blame them?

He wasn’t thinking that maybe I’d post while I was tidying up. Heh heh heh heh (maniacal cackling). The power! It’s in my hands! I could really hotrod it through his blog if I wanted. Vroooooom, vrooooooooooooom… I mean — I could put up girly-girl quotes (wait, here’s one: “People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within” — Elizabeth Kubler Ross). Or there are always cute potty training stories, or I could share a crumb cake recipe or two.

Here’s another quote:

“As I get older, I just prefer to knit.”

— Tracey Ullman

Oh, wait!

From “Postcards from the Edge” (1990)

Julie Marsden: “You’ve got to learn to deal with your feelings, Suzanne, before they deal with you.”

Suzanne Vale: “Do you always talk in bumper stickers?”

Julie Marsden: “You know, addiction isn’t the problem – it’s the solution.”

Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip! Yeah that’s the sound of him being whipped by me. I would not do that to the big fella.

I bid you adieu. Hope you are doing well, wherever you are.

Love,

Wacky Mommy

PS — And a joke: “Why did the monkey fall out of the tree?”

Answer: “Because he was dead.”

Ha! Ha!

And here’s a link to Dad Gone Mad, best-known for pissing off Rockstar Mommy by nicknaming her “Crotchstar Mommy.” So. Not. Okay. And second-best known for such quotes as: “But if one of those little shits (is) whining about needing (to) leave the field to take a leak in the middle of our moment of glory, I�m kicking him off the team. For some things, you hold it � even if that means pinching your wiener and doing the pee-pee dance in front of 40,000 people.”

In the week since an F2 tornado struck Iowa City (my home town), I’ve found numerous blogs and photo galleries beyond those I previously posted. Today I found iowacitytornados.com. It’s still pretty sparse, but it could turn out to be a good central clearing house. They have a much better map of the torndado’s path than the Des Moines Register, and also link to the National Weather Service reports of the 12(!) tornados confirmed in eastern Iowa on April 13.