Someday, When I Finish This Dissertation, I'll...

• Read an actual long and involved novel - maybe even a series! - instead of short stories.
  
• Get a life.
• Stop getting headaches.
• Stop having weary eyes (seriously, I've had tired dry eyes for the past three weeks).
• Feel like I can relax.
• Maybe end my dependency on Diet Coke.
  
• Do something fun and not feel guilty
• Build a bonfire and burn a copy of the dissertation.
  

This Is What It's Come To

While talking to my dad on the phone

Dad: So, we're having [insert number] over for Thanksgiving. Prepare accordingly.

Me: Oh. Okay.


We reached the point where it is just assumed that I am in charge of all food-related aspects of Thanksgiving. Not that this is anything new, but in the past there have been at least been the pretense that I will receive assistance.

Dare I Make A Christmas Wishlist For The Kittehs?

I'm seriously tempted to do it just to annoy one of my siblings. I can just see her frothing right now. Hee!

Everybody in my family makes a list - it's tradition - and I was considering putting a fountain for the kittehs on my list, because that's the type of thing I/they could use and that my parents might get for me. But suddenly, the idea of making a list for them really amuses me. And yes, it amuses me mostly because I know how much that one sibling would be annoyed by it. Especially if I compose it in LOLSpeak.

But honestly, could you possibly deny these two some goodies?

Oops, Forgot Friday's Post - This Is A Combo

I intended to post this last night (I had posted it elsewhere:

Game Time! Below is a quotation. Name the book title, author, and date of publication (if possible). No cheating!!!

“It was after the catastrophe when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics, at the time. Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control. I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen? That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.”

For today, since it is Caturday, there are kittehs!

A Sign I'm Getting Old

My facebook status the other day was a line from "Everyday Is Like Sunday." Specifically, it was the line "come, come, nuclear bomb." Apparently, this horrified a teenage relative who has befriended me. Having no idea that it was a line from a song - despite the fact that a friend had followed up the title - she thought I was seriously suggesting that we get bombed.

Sigh.

Mixed Feelings

My niece is trying out for the cheerleading squad this week. As you might imagine, I have all sorts of feminist analyses of the situation rumbling through my head. I'm sure I don't need to go into all of them. I want her to be happy and making the squad will make her happy. I know plenty of people who were cheerleaders who are great people. I probably wouldn't even worry about it if it weren't for a conversation I had with her last winter.

We were at one of my nephews' basketball games. The team played in a church league - this was generally ok, but there were a few things I found "interesting" about the league. Perhaps a post for another day. Anyway, the league has cheerleaders.

At this point I should probably mention that the kids were playing in a school gymnasium and there were two games in-play at the same time. While my nephew was playing in his game, there was a game between two teams in the girls' league for the same age-level. So, I'm sitting there watching his game and occasionally glancing over at the other, and I start to wonder why the 8 yr old boy's basketball team had cheerleaders but the 8 yr old girl's team did not. Same league, cheerleaders don't belong to a specific team. In the game my nephew played, they cheered for both teams, switching every quarter. So I wondered, why can't they cheer for the girls playing on the next court every other quarter?

I wasn't sure if this was always the case, though, so I asked my niece if the cheer squad ever cheers for the girls. She replied, stating that girls are suppose to cheer for boys not girls. WAIT JUST ONE MINUTE!!! I hope that I dealt with it well at the time. I asked her why that was so, and she looked bewildered. She really didn't have an answer. She might have rethought that idea. It wasn't a good time for a feminist chat from Aunt K8 since we were suppose to be watching and cheering on her brother.

So, this is the type of thing that concerns me - that she might still think that it is all about cheering on the boys. Cheering on the boys is great, but I'm hoping that the squad cheers on the girls as well. I know that it isn't practical to have middle school cheerleaders cheering at every single athletic event at the school, but the practice of only cheering on the boys really disturbs me. It diminishes women's and girls' athletics by implying that they aren't worthy of the school-sanctioned support of the cheer squad. It also perpetuates this damaging idea my niece had (and I hope doesn't still have) that girls don't cheer for and support other girls.

So yes, I have mixed feelings. Rah rah, go team!

Any Ideas?**

So, here's the situation: I have a lot of semolina flour that needs to be used.


I've been making pizzas and have considered pasta, but I still have about 2 pounds of the stuff left. Does anyone out there have a recipe they like includes it? I think I have some bread recipes that call for it, but I'm really willing to try all sorts of things.

**Earlier today I actually had an idea for a substantial post, but I've since forgotten what it was. I must be getting old.

Guilty Pleasures And Other Oddities

Today I:

• Danced around the kitchen while listening to (and singing along to) "I Enjoy Being A Girl"
• Followed up listening to Mozart with listening to Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus"
• Couldn't figure out what was wrong with my laptop until I realized that Plum had her head on the Control key
• Ate some Halloween candy

Oh good grief, I don't feel guilty. I probably should, but I don't.

In other news, I made a pizza:


Usually, I make thin crust pizza, but I had a lot of tomato slices so I figured the crust needed a little more heft. The last of my Amish Paste tomatoes are on there. I saved a few before the freeze and the last of them finally ripened. And they were good!

NaBloPoMo - #1

Since I've been bad about blogging, I've decided to blog each day this month. They might be short posts, and they might involve photos, but they will be posts. To start off, I give you Touchdown Sophie to honor today's Colts' win.

More Gratuitous Pictures Of The Kittehs

Sophie knows what's going on and is keeping her eyes on me.


Plum is still crazy.


But they both still love each other.


This is the reason why I rarely eat at the kitchen table. It's also the reason I don't use a tablecloth anymore. It's much easier to just wipe down the table on a regular basis.

Both kittehs still enjoy playing with packing paper.



While spending some time at my parents' house, Sophie took advantage of the heat generated by the satellite receiver on top of the tv in the basement.

One last picture!

Found A Quotation I Like

This just cracked me up. I hope the Shakespeare folks out there appreciate it, too.

"It has on occasion been a source of puzzlement to me that there are a number of otherwise sensible people, many of them old enough to know better, who maintain, perhaps from some kind of strange cultural snobbery, that William Shakespeare could not have written the plays that bear his name, and that these plays must, obviously, have been written by a member of the British aristocracy, written by some lord or earl forced to hide his literary light under a bushel. And, this is chiefly a source of puzzlement to me because the British aristocracy, while it has produced more than its share of hunters, eccentrics, farmers, warriors, diplomats, con men, heroes, robbers, politicians, and monsters, has never been noted in any century or era for the production of great writers."

from Neil Gaiman's Introduction to Lord Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter. He goes on to note that Lord Dunsany was "one of the rare exceptions."

Attack Of The Mutant Vegetables

I'm helping out my parents for a few days this week. A couple of days ago, I went out to their garden to see what needed to be done. Well, a lot needed to be done (and still needs to be done), but one thing in particular stuck out. Or should I say, stuck up through the ground. Even with the top of it showing above the ground, I had no idea how big this beet really was.

It is an enormous beet. I couldn't pull it all the way out. It broke at the bottom. There probably should have been someone there to film me pulling it out of the ground with both hands. I'm sure it looked pretty funny. Anyway, after it broke off I shoveled around it and found that I had left 4 inches in the ground. Unbelievable! People - don't let your beets get this big. It's just bad gardening.

That's a size 9 shoe next to it. Yeah.