Don't care about page views? Who are you trying to kid, boss?

BTW, what's the current number of comments posted? We haven't had an update since we hit 40,000 and that was months ago!

I don't have too many kitchen disasters because I don't spend much time in there, and when I do, I stick to cooking basic stuff I know how to do. The worst mishap I can recall was the chocolate birthday cake I made for my sister-in-law last year. It was billed as the best chocolate cake ever. Directions were for a sheet cake, but I don't have such a pan. So I made it in a bundt pan; it stuck and came out in pieces. I managed to disguise the disaster somewhat with the icing but bought a beautiful cake to compensate. The disaster tasted great, the store-bought cake not so good.

I also live in an ageing house with an intelligent woman. The hardest part of this is convincing her that it is normal for the lights in the foyer to go out whenever it rains. And we too appreciate that profound revelations can be brought forth by household disasters. When a catastrophic leak in the upstairs bathroom caused our kitchen ceiling to collapse, we suddenly realized that we didn't actually need a new minivan after all. In fact, we began to seriously reconsider that whole "indoor plumbing" concept.

But I do question the analogy between your house and your corporal self. True, both probably require a bit more time to warm up in cold weather than they used to, and both may seem a little rickety compared to newer models. However, you need only to look at the youngest residents of your home to see that your immortality is assured. Through their lives, accomplishments, and possible offspring your legacy will forever endure.

Whereas your house will just get torn down and forgotten after tuition bills force you to sell it.

I managed to ruin spaghetti the other day. Excuse: I had some kind of bug that makes you do such things.

On the other hand, my house had been inhabited by a smoker for 20 years. So everything got repainted. Ceilings got shellac primer to ensure they stayed white.

Love the column Joel, as we are in a new house, we moved in and looked into those dark spaces that after a while in a home you tend to ignore. I spent much of the first few days removing cobwebs, layers of dust from the top of cabinets, scrubbing baseboards etc.

My favorite cooking story is the time my husband (fiance) at the time tried to make my favorite meal - veal parmagian (sp).

My husband slaved over the meal, shouting out questions as he needed, at the time he was not a very experienced cook. At one point he asked where I kept the flour, I replied that it was in a plastic container.

Later sitting at the table with candles and wine, I had my first bite of the meal he had so lovingly prepared. It was tender and nicely spiced but there was an odd sweet aftertaste. After a few more bites I carefully inquired as to what plastic container he had used to obtain the flour. When he brought it to the table I began to laugh, what he thought was flour was actually icing sugar.

Over the years his cooking skills have greatly improved, mine due to an inability to stay focused on a task I don't really enjoy generally involved some sort of fire extinguishing method.

We're only in the twilight of our adolescence in this country. Your homes are practically brand new compared to what they must have in Yurup (sp?) or even (gasp!) France!

It is so true. Familiarity breeds complacency, and complacency breeds inattention. My father built our house in 1950 and renovated it in 1970. When Ivansdad & I moved back in during the early 1990s, it needed some work. "Brobdingnagian", I believe, was how we described it in the Christmas letter. The house itself was the original Malignant Agent of Chaos. New wiring, insulation, well, hot water tank, etc. My mother was a smoker AND had paid good money to a decorator who apparently used it to find a paint with an unattractive color which would encourage mold growth. Thus, we looked into, scraped, painted, refloored etc., all those nooks & crannies.

However, there are now many things we just don't see, even though given Ivansdad's height our eye-level view is more expansive than most. This may in be because superficially our house is usually neat, kept that way in part because, after years of viewing crime scene pictures, I have a keen sense of what the house would look like to a stranger in a time of crisis at any given moment. Occupational hazard. Periodically I try to sweep through the house purging, when I'm not thwarted by the pack rats with whom I live. I've never been forced into this by a cooking incident, however.

That isn't to say I've never HAD any cooking incidents, just that they've left me in blissful ignorance of the bigger picture.

My only true disaster was many moons ago when I was first married to ex-husband. I made a birthday cake and used the same frosting for the cake as for the decorations (the cookbook said you could do that). It dried to a crust that could only be cut with a hacksaw. The cake was mangled but tasty. I have forgotten to add sugar to cranberry bread, and baking soda to gingerbread, neither is edible without those ingredients. "S" does not cook, period. Once I asked him to help me by dicing the butternut squash. He cut it into very precise 1/2" squares but forgot to peel it first. He swears he didn't do it on purpose, but the result was that I don't ask him to help anymore. He does do great clean up so I can't really complain. I get to have Thanksgiving here in my "it will be finished by then" kitchen. I hope I remember how to cook. I do have almost three weeks to practice.

The disturbing thing about moving into a previously inhabited house is that the dust and dirt are not yours. This has been cured in our case by redoing everything. Of course now the dust is not only ours, but as it is mostly from plaster, it is ten times finer and keeps appearing even after I've sprayed and dusted everything in sight.

interesting kit Joel. I will say though that I believe we age prematurely in North America. A swami vishnu from India, I saw on t.v., said we should easily live to be one hundred with no disease or illnesses if we live our lives thoughtfully--eat the right things, take care of ourselves.

We eat so much processed food today and recklessly live our lives, micro-managing children (who are more capable than we think), that we neglect our own bodies to a point where they breakdown at a very early age.

I've recently been to see a dietician and many $$$ later, she's helping me to rethink how I consume food and water. Many of the things she tells me are things my grandmother used to say (she lived to be 96 and was very healthy).

.... so that's a place to start. Although, there is the frightening revelation that you'll look great, but outlive all your friends and family. I guess that's the irony of our mortal situation.

Ah, yes, the moneymaking aspect of newspapers (and speaking of walnuts...):

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/columnists/brichter/stories/MYSA110506.03B.richter.22e8d20.html

The controversy:

Several readers called last week voicing polite dismay over a suggestive advertisement featuring a buxom Mexican entertainer that appeared in the Oct. 27 Express-News.

While the juxtaposition was unintentional, the ad on Page 3B of the Metro section abutted a news report about a new charity here for disabled people. Conceived by "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria, the story dealt with a sensitive topic -- mental retardation. The ad was the antithesis of sensitive.

It depicted the cover of the Oct. 26 Conexión, an Express-News' bilingual sister publication aimed at Hispanic readers. The cover featured a photo of Mexican singer Alejandra Guzmán, decked out in a tight, gauzy blouse with a roaring tiger on the front, squeezing her breasts, a "come and get me" look on her face. The headline stated the obvious: "wild one."

The publication:

Conexión is a weekly tabloid. Launched in May 2004, it's distributed citywide, largely to Hispanic and bicultural households. It is popular with readers and has been financially successful as an advertising venue.

Chiecchi described Conexión as "edgy," targeting young Hispanics, who, research shows, aren't regular Express-News readers. Conexión includes news, features, entertainment, sports and such promotions as "Hottest Latina" and "Hottest Latino" contests.

Like most readers, most journalists here are dispassionate about Conexión, allowing that while it's a throwback to the wild old days of San Antonio journalism, it's also a moneymaker for the Express-News Publishing Co.

Residues in houses also include the relative happiness or discontent.

In our first house -- 600 square feet cottage built post-WWII -- contained these fingerprints of sadness:

a couple not able to have children eventually sent an invitation to West Virginia for an orphan cousin to come live with them. She did. We found little drawings on walls she made, including cryptic dates. We learned later that she lived more like a servant in the house than a beloved relative or even "adopted" daughter. A neighbor, who we knew briefly before the neighbor died at nearly 90, used to have the girl over for tea parties.

Such sadness in the upper attic room. This "orphan Annie" used to mark her own height marks on a door frame....

I tried to cook an egg in the microwave once. What a mess!

then there was this burning bag of microwaved popcorn that my 4 year old made. the smell took over a month to go away.

One one of the many occasions we have had to swoop into a new town and buy a house in a single weekend (courtesy of Himself's company's relocation policies, one *must* buy a house to get the benefits, and usually in a matter of days) we viewed a house which, while it would not in any case have suited us, had a hateful atmosphere. Both #1 and I got out of the there within 30 second of walking in, took deep breaths, and agreed that no matter what the inducement we would never live there.

I have no idea what it was, but it was repellent.

College Parkian, agree.

Our house was the former residence of the Witches of Southwick, so to speak. Two daughters, so we are told, of the former owner, a single mother (divorced?), were practicing withcraft while residing within. As various neighbors have shared with us, the two young women dressed in black, wore dark, black makeup, and had very strange friends visit and played odd, loud music at late hours.

(Besides horrible window coverings, linoleum, and wallpaper--we got a $5,000 redecorating credit as part of the terms of closing, plus no watering on the outside for 3 and 1/2 months while the house was on the market) The house itself had only two remnants of the daughters' activities--small gold stars all over a bedroom ceiling (took hours to remove standing on a ladder) and numerous wax stains on the upstairs carpet that a thorough cleaning by a professional carpet cleaner prior to our moving in could not remove.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

College Parkian, did you ever learn if her adulthood was happier than her childhood?

One thing about an older house is they can be full of mystery, not always sad; doors that have been plastered over, old cellar doors built over, pantries in an age where they no longer exist; rooms at which you can only guess what they were built for; and of course, the ever-fascinating attics in houses (and garages) that do have them. It's suprising how many relics of the past you can find 15 feet or more above the ground.

Also, when you dig up oyster shells from around an older house you ask yourself: was this imported and buried specifically for some kind of soil aeration, is it leftover from a picnic they never cleaned up, or is it from a native american garbage dump?

The location I'm thinking of was in Fairfax county, a distance from the Bay.

Nothing like an old house to remind you that "forever" is a very silly word.

BTW, about the comment count: I'm a little worried I may have hit my 1,000 mark already.

Linda, responding to your queries from yesterday:

The Miami Book Fair International is Nov. 12 - 19, but most of the main events will happen over the weekend Nov. 18 - 19. With over 300 authors in attendance, I do get a kind of stress/anxiety reaction trying to figure out which ones to see and which ones to miss, but TBG and I have a tentative plan.

At 11:00 we're seeing Kurt Andersen and George Kalogerakis, and TBG is going to stick by me to ensure that I don't lose my nerve when I get the chance to talk to Andersen. I have the letter he wrote me 26 years ago saying that my letter to him was his very first fan letter. Think he'll like being reminded of that?

In the same room following Andersen is Dave Barry (joined by co-author Ridley Pearson.) But we'll be out in the book-signing line for Andersen, so probably will not be able to get a seat for the unspeakably popular Barry (this is Miami, remember; he's a god here.)

At 1:00 I CANNOT miss Jonathan Franzen. Achenbach may be my favorite writer, but Franzen wrote my favorite book, "How to be Alone." And Franzen is an interesting guy: neurotic, depressive, literate, intellectual. I read that he wrote parts of "The Corrections" while wearing a blindfold and earplugs. That's dedication. (or something.)

TBG will miss the Franzen shindig in order to catch Daniel Handler (of Lemony Snicket fame)followed by Andy Borowitz. (The Handler panel also includes Heidi Julavits and A.M. Homes, and Borowitz is joined by David Rakoff)

Then we will be unscheduled, browsing the stalls and recovering from the excitement, until 6:00 when Barack Obama speaks. Actually, we'll probably have to schedule our arrival at that venue for about 5:00 if we want to get a seat because Obama is a huge draw too. A lot of people will be coming just to see him, I think. We'll see. Nora Ephron is scheduled for 4:00--that's a possibility if we're in a humorous mood at that point.

On Sunday, our only scheduled plan is Carl Hiaasen at 10 a.m.

As I told TBG, I know what "book burn-out" feels like, from previous years at this fair. When I first arrive I think I've died and gone to heaven, but after 8 or 10 hours of books, authors, readers, publishers, everywhere you look, piles, stacks, truckloads of books, well, it can be enervating in the end. Makes me yearn for a quiet corner to, you know, curl up with a good book. Hey! I should suggest that to the fair organizers. A Reading Room!

For further information, you can visit the excellent website:
http://www.miamibookfair.com

Carl Hiaasen at 10 a.m. Wow. Fun.
KB and other Florida-book-tourists, if you get close to Carl, you can whisper that I have my environmentally-inclined tech writing students read CH's _Hoot_.

Best story: the mother of a 20-year old called me and emailed my boss to COMPLAIN. See, those hard earned tuition dollars are not meant to be spent on a teacher who assigns a young-adult book in a COLLEGE class.

Most students appreciate the whirlwind read that touches on Environmental Impact Statements, Species of Interest v. Endangered Species, development, kids and activism, etc.

Kb, who wouldn't like being reminded of when they first got fan mail? Just as long as you don't say... "and it took me this long to track your brilliant, gorgeous, yummy self down at long last. I think we have such a special soul bond, don't we?" or worse yet, start quoting from "Misery".

And I gotta tell dr, that I already know how teakettles can become one with the broiler.. 3 times, and what horrible metallic smoke they emit when they do, as well. When I ran out of teakettles, I once burned 4 pans boiling water in a month right before I got Wilbrodog.

This is Wilbrodog's secret purpose in life: to make sure I never burn another teakettle; to always make sure I never have to eat ALL I cook; and to alert me to the kitchen timer.

Food. It's what dogs are good for.

Wilbrod/Loomis -- mysteries in houses, yes, ranging from the spiritual to the what-is-in-the garbage dump.

We stumblied upon the garbage pit in a second house, finding marbles, aspirin bottles, tin soldiers, fish bones....and all sorts of interesting detritus.

I think that some of us can sense presences or residues....woo. woo. Twilight theme....will we argue? What is the sciencey position on such residues?

Maybe they're olfactory. I was finishing "Jacobson's organ and the remarkable nature of smell" by Lyall Watson last night.

Since I've also been following some smell research, I would like to blog about it and some other things as well as soon as I dig up the urls.

Wilbro:
Re Orphan Annie -- she died in a car accident in her twenties, somewhere deep in West Virginia. I think her short live was very hard, with not many angels in it.

The other sad part is that the kind couple next door did not have children either, yet wanted them. I don't know why they did not adopt, as I suspect the number of adoptable babies, given culture in the fifties would have been there.

So, the kind couple were a nice neighborly presence for O. Annie whose guardians were indifferent.

I agree that houses have a certain feeling about them. I've walked into places and knew immediately whether I could live in them or not.

My biggest um...mistake in the kitchen was when I put a heavy cast aluminum pot on the stove to heat water (to cook artichokes, as I recall) and then went out on the back porch to talk with friends. The cooktop was the Corning glass type. When I went back in to check on the progress toward boiling, I realized that I had turned on the wrong burner, the one that the lid was on, and that part of the lid was glowing. I picked it up, and a chunk of it the shape of a big bite stayed on the cooktop. And what happens when molten metal cools off on a glass surface? Yep, crrrrrack!

It actually turned out to be a brilliant mistake...we prefer a gas stove and it gave us the incentive to switch from electric to gas.

Ha! dr, many years ago my husband made a pumpkin pie to take to a Thanksgiving dinner. He used a ready-made pie crust, and left the paper lining in. Very embarrassing! He has also left the sugar out of pumpkin pie, rendering it inedible, even when you mix in *lots* of Cool Whip. (I don't know how he can bake something without taking a taste of the filling.)

I have melted the enamel off a teapot, and off a burner cover. I've also been known to cook dirt in the oven to sterilize it for potting soil, which I would not recommend to anyone! That was a long time ago - maybe it was difficult to find potting soil?

kb, TBG - I know how difficult it is to navigate through a book fair (I have the same problem at the Garden Show and the Folklife Festival) - but I will suggest these:
Isabel Allende, Kati Marton, Jules Feiffer, Neal Gabler (he's the liberal media writer on Fox Newswatch, and is pretty funny - he's written a book about Walt Disney)
Good luck getting to see Obama!

I'm hoping C-SPAN will show some of the talks, and maybe I'll see you guys too.

Wilbrod, there's a good chance the oyster shells were fossils--much of that area is underlain by marine sediments.

"I think that some of us can sense presences or residues....woo. woo. Twilight theme....will we argue? What is the sciencey position on such residues?"

The pointy science position is that it's absolute garbage...yet, when I was around 20, I briefly house-sat for someone in an old house in Martinsville, and I could NOT go into the basement--it terrified me. I obsessed over the basement at night. Finally, after two weeks I got someone else to watch the house and moved out. I never did go into the basement.

Then there's the house my family lived in in Lynchburg for a year, where cabinets would spontaneously open and close, the lights would turn themselves on and off, the sewing machine would run all by itself, and the bedroom that was always freezing cold, even when the heater was on. My parents had wondered why the rent was so cheap--turns out the owners had a hard time finding renters. My aunts didn't even like to visit after they had spent one night there. I refuse to believe in poltergeists, but that house was freaky.

Dooley,
You are defintely the sciency type and yet you explain a former family abode with all these weird things going on? A sewing machine that sews by itself? C,mon! Are you pulling our collective legs?

Wilbrod,
Looking forward to whatever recent science that you post on smell.

Kbertooch,
Thanks for the answer to my question. It does look like the Miami Book Fair will, as you've already mentioned, have some of the same repeats as the Texas Book Fair. You think that a one hour wait to hear Obama speak will be sufficient? If Allende is there, I, like mostlylurking, would recommend her (books), as I would Kati Marton, if you're interested in Hungary. This last book she wrote she claimed was her most difficult of six, as she had to weave the lives of the nine Jewish Hungarian exiles together into a coherent narrative. Now to use the link you provided for the fair and browse.

A big bone turned in our yard about two weeks ago. We buried a sheltie out there in 2003 and I first thought maybe our resident skunk or a squirrel had been digging about (they'd have to go too deep), but this thing is huge--bovine or possibly human. *w* Hubby and put our heads together and figured we left our current sheltie outdoors when Los Tres Hermanas were having a Halloween party. They have a smoker and barbecue a ton. Our only alternative explanation for this bone fragment is that our dog may have gotten yappy while we were gone and, during one of their fiestas, they may have thrown a mastodon rib over the fence to shut up our houndy dog.

Returned at noon from the funeral in Pennsylvania yesterday to hear the sad news from Pat and martooni. My thoughts are with both of you. Martooni, I suggest you get in touch with your Higher Power, but when last heard from (according to a report from the Utah Highway Patrol) he was last seen soaking his feet on the shores of the Salton Sea while dressed in a bathrobe with a rope belt, so so whatever happens to be Plan B or Plan C might be a better idea. But whatever it is, good luck with it. If the boodle could help, you know we would.

College Park asks, does anyone know a person named Aristole? CP, ask Curmudgeon when he returns. I think Aristotle was a bit before his time, though it has always been hard to pin down Mudge's actual birth year. I don't think he goes back much further than William of Occam and Moses Maimonides. He once claimed to have an autographed baseball signed by the Venerable Bede, but I'm pretty sure it was a forgery.

And yello, there may have been a Curmudgeon sighting on your boodle. But as you point out, there have been false sightings before this.

College Parkian: As promised, I used real footnotes in my blog this week, and dedicated them to you.

<3

http://readthinklive.blogspot.com/2006/11/robert-wright.html

Linda and mostlylurking, thanks for the suggestions. Look for us on CNN, for sure. It shouldn't be hard to spot us; that aluminum foil really reflects the tv lights!

pat, i'm sorry to hear about your loss. you're in my thoughts

martooni, it's hard. some interesting statistics: 80% of people who quit drinking do so on their own, without any help whatsoever. and you have us! the spontaneous remission rate among alcoholics is 5% annually. your year is coming, and it may already be here. our thoughts are with you. there are non-religious (and non-spiritual) sobriety support groups, i'll try and get some links.

and as for houses. when we moved into our house in 01, it had last been redecorated in 1972. the kitchen was done in red and yellow psychedelic flower wallpaper, and EVERYTHING was wallpapered, including the ceiling doorframes and lightswitch covers. but right now i have to go facilitate a kitchen disaster.

My offical position on ghosts is thus: I don't believe that ghosts exist, but I am dead certain that people do experience/see ghosts. I've heard too many personal anecdotes from people I consider trustworthy to think otherwise. However, to proceed to research the events as ghosts are proven is a bit iffy.

I once saw a show on a haunted house, which covered the activity of mice, creaking floors and other effects of aging and neglect that could certainly produce a "haunted house feel".

Also, this book discussed fear pheromones. There's also been research on infrasound, which can promote fear responses. Many bridges get "haunted" reputations because they produce excess infrasound. I know there's one bridge I can't stand being under locally.

I find very few unfinished basements attractive to enter, myself. I don't like the musty smell and the odor of decomposing bugs that they attract.

My offical position on ghosts is thus: I don't believe that ghosts exist, but I am dead certain that people do experience/see ghosts. I've heard too many personal anecdotes from people I consider trustworthy to think otherwise.

I once saw a show on a haunted house, which covered the activity of mice, creaking floors and other effects of aging and neglect that could certainly produce a "haunted house feel".

Also, this book discussed fear pheromones. There's also been research on infrasound, which can promote fear responses. Many bridges get "haunted" reputations because they produce excess infrasound. I know there's one bridge I can't stand being under locally.

I find very few unfinished basements attractive to enter, myself. I don't like the musty smell and the odor of decomposing bugs that they attract.

Somebody had me the digitalis. *in reference to the end of the Redskins-Dallas game*

Whoops.

Do you need mouth-to-mouth from a sexy young graduate student to go with that digitalis, Cmmrbnd?

Redskins, unbelievable. I'm back to the theory that miracles happen everyday.

That might put me back into arrest, Wilbrod (cardiac and otherwise). But thanks for the thought.

BTW, I didn't know there were redskins fans in Wales, Cmmrbnd. Isn't football played with a splotchy white ball over there?

I boycotted the Redskins today.
That'll show me.

Pat, My deepest sympathies.

Please tell me you edited that. Its too painful to read it through. What I really should be doing is writing a how not to cook book. This is also the full reason why I consider Curmudgeon a small g god.

Dr, I think even the best cook has a horror story of two. My mom also burnt a teakettle once.

Dooley is going to go wild over this breaking news about possible living fossils.

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=288971

It could be that it is in fact a throwback; every now and then a horse is born with extra toes. Julius Caesar was supposed to own a horse like that.

I don't know if he'll be so enthralled to start rolling in gunk, though.

Wilbrodthegnome.blogspot.com

This wasn't fully the blog I had in mind to write, but it's a start.

Hi, RD! Today is a Bad Day here at Black Rock because the Cowboys lost to (and I quote) "the Hated Redskins". It is nothing, I hope, that roast chicken with rice can't cure.

Although my father died in our house (in his sleep, of natural causes, thank you) and I once saw a ghost of a cat here, I have never thought of our house as haunted. My teenage cousin house-sat for us this summer and reported that all was well except he and a friend saw a ghost. They said it came down the hall and looked at them. I remain skeptical; my mother occasionally saw things but for a while she was on medication which made her delusional, so that doesn't count. If it was a ghost I'm sure it was benign, as I'm informed by strangers and guests that the house's aura or vibe is good.

Pat, I'm so sorry about the little girl. Thank you for your lovely description.

Ivansmom, love your description of *tidy* being an occupational hazard. I have a mental picture of tidy house = clean underwear.

Being Pennsylvania German, I grew up cooking. For grad school, I'd be in 1 part of Ohio for the week, and the diagonal border for the weekends. Ex had never cooked, and he called me, so proud, one day because he'd invented a recipe and would be happy to make it for me when I returned Friday night. Microwaved green beans & spaetzle with a can of tuna dumped over the top, finished off with saltine crumbs. . . we went out.

Martooni, how are you doing?

Small? I hope that was only a "short" joke, dr.

If Curmudgeon were here, he'd probably recollect more than a few dishes he's burned or otherwise ruined. Especially galling to him might be an infamous pot of his "slow-simmer-all-afternoon" spaghetti sauce that simmered a wee bit hotter than it was supposed to, and had approximately a half inch of carbonaceous material at the bottom that resembled coal slag or characoal brickettes, and if crushed slightly might have produced diamonds. Said "hypercarmelization" (as he might put it), infilitrated the non-burnt portions of the spaghetti sauce, giving it that smokey flavor, so much so that an arson investigator would run for his oxygen mask.

Sounds like a great dish if it could put De Boers out of business. But good point, we all have our almighty foul-ups from time to time. Which is another thing dogs are good for-- eating your culinary goofs.

The dolphin is cool, but not earth-shaking. Poorly developed back appendages occasionally occur in various whales, I think maybe as much as 0.5% of the humpback whale population (my references are at work). But it could well be a HOX mutation that resulted in the hind limb development in the dolphin, rather than a true atavism (throwback).

A few years ago I prepared a fossil whale that seemed to have a set of ribs attached to its last neck vertebra. I originally thought that this was a throwback to the Jurassic mammal ancestors that still had neck ribs (modern mammals are unusual in their lack of neck ribs). This was exciting because it suggested that the genetic material to go neck ribs had hung around unused for 180 million years. My mistaken assumption, however, was that the extra ribs in my fossil were homologous with the neck ribs in early mammals. In fact, what had happened was a HOX gene mutation that caused the last neck vertebra to develop instead as a back vertebra, complete with ribs. Turns out this same mutation occurs in 10% of the modern sei whale population, and in about 0.5% of the modern human population.

References on the ribs:

Turner, W., 1871. On the so-called two-headed ribs in whales and in man. Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, 5: 348-361.

Dooley, A. C. Jr., 2001. "Double-headed" ribs in a Miocene whale. Jeffersoniana 8, 8 p.

http://www.vmnh.net/index.cfm?pg=177

Funny you should mention "Bad Day at Black Rock," ivansmom. Do you know that movie? One of my favorites. It is also a little weird for me, because my father used to look a bit like Ernest Borgnine in that movie (though very different personality), while Spencer Tracy looks very much like my grandfather (though different personality). (Nobody in my family looks like Robert Ryan, only Robert Redford.)

I didn't think it was earth-shaking. An overstatement. Maybe a breaching-sized splash, though?

Splooosh!

I wish the article had included a picture.

I think I saw the movie "Bad Day at Black Rock" many years ago, though I can't be sure. The title, of course, is part of the zeitgeist, but actually I was remembering a children's book of the same name, taken from the Western story line, by Chris van Allsburg -- same guy who wrote Jumanji et al. Extraordinary use of crayon on pencil drawing, and a little painful. Very funny.

It is interesting how parenthood both contracts and expands one's horizons.

Simpson's Treehouse of Horror tonight -- don't miss it!

It did-- oh, I see. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061105/ap_on_sc/japan_dolphin_legs

There is a video at Yahoo! News but I couldn't really link directly to it.

Halloween candy taste test. Domaine Les Palliers Gigondas paired with M&Ms brings out the sweetness of the candy. Contrariwise, when sipped with a bite-size Mr. Goodbar, the sugar-laden "chocolate" taste almost disappears but the taste of the peanuts is brought to the fore. However, the sweetness of Hershey's Special Dark is stripped away, leaving whatever honest-to-Gosh chocolate taste the candy possessed, along with the robust red of the wine.

I'd better finish up that roast chicken.

Moral: chocolate and red wine cancel each other out, Ivansmom?

That would explain why you have chocolate raisins, but not chocolate wine.

Cool picture of the dolphin, although I couldn't get the video to run. Be interesting to see if the muscles and nerves are developed and functional--usually when the back leg bones develop, the associated soft tissues are not functional (if they're present at all).

As always, I'm very late...

Pat, I'm very sorry. It's already been said, but do remember the good things she brought into your life.
______________________________

My best kitchen disaster wasn't even in a kitchen, and it wasn't my disaster. Really!

Picture an Army barracks in Germany. Picture a senior sergeant with enough foresight to set up a "munchies fund" and a microwave at the entrance to the barracks. Picture a wet-behind-the-ears soldier (NOT me, I swear) who wanted to warm his Pop-Tart up in the microwave, and tossed it in --

complete with wrapper.

The stench of scorched aluminized plastic lingered for weeks.

:-)

I heard about the kitchen disaster of "upper level government offical" (during the Bush I administration FYI).who was the father of a less-than bright classmate of mine.

He tried to hardboil eggs in the microwave. They exploded all over. The general rumor was that my classmate may even have improved on his father's overall smarts. Which is frightening to think about.

Gene Weingarten wrote about stupid names tending to indicate stupid parents and thus hereditary deficits in IQ. Names are a matter of taste, but that poor classmmate definitely also had an one-of-a kind name for a very good reason.

Ah! This theme of culinary disasters brings so many memory. I did like Mary and forgot something under the grill. It was only only 4 tablespoons flour let there to be browned for use in the traditional pig's feet and meat ball stew. I wasn't aware that burning 4 tablesoons of flour produces a cubic mile of white smoke. On the greasy smoke department I placed a too-thin fondue parmesan in a pan of too-hot oil and got an explosion and instataneous combustion of the fondue. Fortunately there were a number fully clothed guests in the kitchen/dining room to absorbs most of the greasy soot. It placed the flour incident in perspective; the fire department may have shown up but at least I was alone.
I found interesting things while renovating this old house: noughty magazines from the late 60's behind the old furnace, children writing behind the drywall (tiny children living inside walls ?), ancient mice bodies and turds and a fully functional wasp nests in oneinside wall.
The worst thing is a coat of paint applied on greasy dirt, the initial coat may stick but further coatings will make the paint peel thus revealing the old coat of dirt that wasn't washed before painting.

Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy, Their're gonna execute ol' Saddmam. Get ready for it folks, this is gonna be the Mother of all Closures. When this mother snaps shut the bile and stupidity will illuminate Western culture. This is what we've sunk to now. The only thing we would convict him of didn't involve western companies. Gas the Kurds? Were did you get chemicals Saddam?
Wage aggressive war against the Iranians? Where'd you get the weapons Dear? The Caryle Group? Why not try capturing Osama?

Wilbrod, I think it would be very, very very, very, very very, very, very very, very, very very, very, very very, very, very very, very, very very wise of all of us on the boodle to NOT repeat NOT mention ANYTHING concerning Weingarten's column in the magazine today, especially, say, the last few grafs. Nothing. Zero. Zip.

How did I get an ad for Ann Coulter on my blog entry, "Understanding Mr. Nosey?"

I am verklempt from veeping.

I was thinking of an entirely different column. Today's column was so ho-hum that I've forgotten those "unwise" grafs already, Curmudgeon. No worries from me. It's the other 50 boodlers you may need to warn.

Besides, all we have to mention is that Gene Weingarten reads ALL of his fan mail, should anybody have important contributions to make on any subject whatsoever; past and future, imaginary or real, including puppies, moppets, toilets or climates.

(He may write you a limerick back in gratitude, too, he's that desperate for fan mail praising his brilliance and wit to the skies.

weingarten at washpost dot com )

I don't know, Wilbrod! But I'd bet your renaissance outlook on life would horrify her.

I got an ad for *gay jewelry* (not that there's anything wrong with that) when I news.google'd to an article on that pastor who was just fired. Far as I'm concerned, anyone who buys or wears jewelry is all right with me!

That's funny! And I think that's very apt if that pastor ever decides to come out.

I did consider the possibility that Coulter is, in fact, a specimen of Lophiomys, the crested rat.

Honestly, that's the only link I could think of, although I could also see her as the Goldilocks who not only broke into the bears' home, but then told every card-carrying NRA members how bad the bears were and got them shot as well.

Wiengarten says

3. As a rhetorical device, poop is funny

and

I repeat, poop is always funny

or, was it the crap about the French you were warning us off?

Carmelization?

No, no, no, Cmmrbnd.

Carmelization is what happens to your credit card after a weekend at that trendy resort spot on the California coast south of Monterey and north of Big Sur--after kicking back at a B&B hugging the shore, dining at fine restaurants, sipping California wines, having late night drinks at the Hog's Breath, and shopping at all the little boutiques.

You've done it, Boko999!

HIT THE DECKS, EVERYBODY!!!

And no, it's not about the poop hitting the fr- uh, the fan.

I wonder how many readers will stop by thinking this might be a story on Pauly Walnuts of The Sopranos?

Just had a wonderful dinner with Slyness and Mr. Slyness. Delicious food and delightful company. Slyness is counting down the days until retirement and she's free to attend a DC BPH.

======

Great editorial in The Other Paper today. Read the entire thing, but this is my favorite part...

It is frightening to contemplate the new excesses [Bush] could concoct if he woke up next Wednesday and found that his party had maintained its hold on the House and Senate.

http://tinyurl.com/yzb8mk

My favourite writer in english is Graham Greene. "Small Earthquake In Chile: Not Many Killed."(contest for dullest headline) OK, he's got a sense of humour, but name someone who could use the english language as gracefully, nicely, keenly, or so pointedly while still maintaining a no nonsense focus on the material....
Evelyn Waugh
Curmudgeon reminds me of what I'd think Evelyn Waugh would be like, if I knew him, in a strictly non-bibli
Greene wrote with a mathemetical elegnance I've never encountered outside of the guy who wrote the Alexanderia Quartet
Could anyone name some moderns please?

related to the zoo guy

Boko999, I've never read Graham Greene. For a minute I thought you meant the "Wind in the Willows" guy, but that's Kenneth Grahame.

Henry Graham Greene died in 1991. He wrote a novel in 1982 and his final works were published in 2004. You'll have to define "modern" for us all before we can give you a meaningful reply.

Which novel would you recommend for somebody green at reading Greene?

Dear Ms. Pelosi:

Please add one more thing to your first 100 days list. God willing you're in the position to use it. Please shore up e-vote protections and fix the voter disenfranchisement encouraged by the current administration.

Love,
dbG

P.S. Please do something about the data mining of America as well. The following scenarios aren't as far-fetched as they sound!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/03/AR2006110301472.html

Curmudgeon's style reminds me occasionally of Avram Davidson, only less heavy on the words nobody knows anymore.
"Or All the Seas with Oysters" was a good short story by Avram Davidson.

I must read "Adventures in Unhistory", which sounds like Curmudgeon's life story.

I'm fond of the fanasty writers that engage in twisty plots, exposition and wordplay, such as Terry Pratchett... the opposite of the no-nonsense focus on the material you describe for Greene.

I'm going to have fun imagining Greene's tone in my journal tonight, I can tell. I might even write a children's book threatening to give the reader a hiding if they dont read the book.

In my heart, 19th century literature beats 20th century by a million to one, when you're talking "non-genre" literature, although I do like John Irving. Otherwise, as far as I am concerned, the real action is in mystery, sci-fi, fanasty, and children's literature.

//Boko999, I've never read Graham Greene//

Wilbrod- I envy you, get anything.

Yes. Modern. Is that like the post pre-Raphealites who apparently came before the gent they named themselves after?
Ah, the Humanities.
I'll accept, writes well, breathing.

Boko, my favorite Evelyn Waugh quote is from a character called (IIRC) Broadhurst, a newspaper reporter: "I am a writer, and [therefore] not a nice man."

I'm a huge Graham Greene fan. Favorites: Our Man in Havana (book AND terrific movie: Alec Guiness, Ernie Kovacs (!!!), Noel Coward and Robert Newton--what more could one want?); "The Heart of the Matter"; "A Burnt-out Case" [read it five times}; "The Power and the Glory" and "The Third Man" (novella as well as screenplay for the famous movie).

What I'd recommend to a new Greene reader: hmmm. Tough one. Greene wrote what he called two classes of novels: serious novels, and what he called "entertainments" (lighter mysteries and thrillers, such as Havana, This Gun for Hire, 3rd Man, etc.). So it sort of helps to know which category a book is from. Among the entertainments I'm very partial to Our Man in Havana (and see the movie, too, doesn't matter which one before the other, book or movie), and among the serious novels either Power & the Glory, or A Burnt-out Case.

terry pratchett is cool. he and neil gaiman (of Sandman fame, and who just put out a collection of short stories) co-authored a book called Good Omens, which is probably one of the funniest things written since the inaccurately named hitchhiker's trilogy.

and there, i have given myself an idea. boko, i'm gonna recommend american gods by neil gaiman. it's good. if you like that one, read anansi boys. then good omens. after that, the pickings get a little thinner for long fiction. i liked neverwhere, but not everyone does, and he wrote one called stardust which i read in a single sitting, but is less general and more fantasy fiction. the sandman comics are really good too. sometimes you can get them at the library (i know bethesda has the whole set, if you're in montgomery county).

back to pratchett: he appeals to the same part of me that piers anthony did, once upon a time, but i think pratchett is way better. piers is funny, but he gets tired eventually, and it's hard for me to read his stuff like i used to. maybe i should go get some more pratchett tomorrow. mmmmm the library.

Achenbach can name some.

If you want pure elegance in good writing and don't mind non-fiction, there are many science non-fiction writers who do very well.

I like "The Beak of the Finch"-- pultizer winner. You breathe the Galapagos islands as you read it.
Jared Diamond's "Germs, Guns, and Steel" is good, too.
E.O. Wilson is still breathing, I think, so you should read some of his stuff. Biophilia is nice.
Lewis Thomas of "Lives of a Cell" is also breathing, methinks.

And I am so, so frankly envious of Flu: The Story Of The Great Influenza Pandemic
by Gina Kolata. I felt a little less envious when I found it took her 12 years to write, but not that much.

I am very amazed at the sheer complexity of the material she presents in such an easy-to-read matter. The reader just sit back for the historical ride and let all the stories and personalities intersect at the flu epidemic.
That smoothness of storytelling took a LOT of rewriting, I can tell.

And I rather like mathematical books-- "PI in the Sky, counting, thinking and being."

I just don't like the 20th century much for non-genre fiction. For genre non-fiction, it is brillant.

Scoop?

I own almost all Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, Sparks.

As far as I am concerned, "The Fifth Elephant" was ahead of its time in parodying geopolitics, oil industry, etc. Some of his early books I find an uneven read, but always worth it for the brilliant throwaway lines and puns and the sly satire. He gets better with age, and Death is always present in his books.

Piers Anthony recycles himself way too much, and after a few books in the same series, everybody's either slept with each other or is related to each other, often both.
"On a pale Horse" is worth reading even if you're past the juvenile plotting stage, though. I can read it every 5 years and still like it, I think.

"A Burnt Out Case" is my favourite. Travels with My Aunt(I'm a head), Brighton Rock.
Ernie Kovacs (Yeah, the message is the medium,so what?)

Maybe we should bring books to swap at the BPH? ;).

SCC medium is the messege
Don't tell, I'll get chucked out of the country

Wilbrod, I'm a bit of a Spanish Flu "fan, have read just about everything written on it. Kolata's book is mpretty good, but John Barry's "The Great Influenze" is even better, almost "majesterial."

And Wilbrod, I wonder if you might just like "Motherless Brooklyn" by Jonathan Lethem. It is ostensibly a private eye mystery, except that the hero/narrator has Tourette's Syndrome, which significantly affects just about everything in his life (as you might imagine--and perhaps might identify with in a sort of sympatico way). And he's not really a private detective (well, you have to read it), though he doers solve the murder of his mentor. But it is wonderfully good. (Lethem is a very inventive writer.)

And I always take every available opportunity to tout John LeCarre, most especially his "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," which I regard as THE best novel of the 20th century, bar none, bar any genre categorization. It is not "just" a spy novel. (I rank LeCarre's "A Small Town in Germany" as the third-best novel of the 20th century, just behind Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man."

Don't go much for spy novels but I did pick up his "The Tailor of Panama" and liked it a lot.

You saying I'm twitchy? That's what you're saying, buster? You want to see this fist twitch right back at you? First giddy, now twitchy. What next will it be?

Ahem, yeah I wouldn't mind reading it if it has authentic color. I had a teacher long ago, who I think had Tourette's.
He did the signing okay, but he kept stamping his feet whenever lecturing. I had a talk with him about possibly not dancing whenever he talked, cause it was soooo distracting. He was agreeable but it never let up and finally I figured it must be Tourette's or something similar.

Whichever book discussed the epidemiologists, the development of medicine as a science, the various personalities, and Wilson's xenophobic policies going into WWII, that's the one I read.

Yes, a friend recommended Barry's book to me. I'll read it if I did read the wrong one by accident.

I already have some family history about the great flu which my grandmother wrote which I believe you have NOT read.

Lecarre writes with a similar grace to Greene. Smiley's People.
"The Quiet American" is a Greene novel made into a decent movie. It expresses the love and pissedoffedness that we nonAmericans feel for the US

Yes, your grandmother showed me that stuff about your family and the flu, Wilbrod. (Just kidding.)

It sounds like you read the Barry book.

No, I'm not suggesting you're twitchy. (Er, you're not...twitchy...are you?) I'm suggesting that being deaf you might have some sympatico with someone who also has difficulty communicating by speech, that's all.

Oh, I like reading about neurologically alternative people, no problem.

I'm a big Oliver Sacks fan. "An anthropologist on Mars", "the Man who Mistook his wife for a Hat", and so on. "Awakenings" is a nice novel, and I liked his memoirs "A leg to stand on".

Yeah, I like Monk too, but don't get to see it as I don't get cable.

BTW, bedtime betides. I must hoist anchor and heave off into the waves of sleep.

After my parents died, I discovered a framed expession of thanks certificate from New York City to my great aunt Jay amongst their papers. She was a nurse in 1918 . The New york gang survived to move to New Hampshire. Go figure

of course it may be a forgery.
Robin, get me the Mormons

Lawyers have instructed my to disavow portions of my 11:40. This I now do.

I read Graham Greene a long time ago - Our Man in Havana, The Quiet Americam. I tried reading End of the Affair when the movie with Ralph Fiennes came out a few years ago, but I didn't get into it - and I don't think I ever saw the movie either. But yeah, he's a good writer. And I love Le Carre - I agree with Mu-, er, Cmmrbnd about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. His latest, The Mission Song, is very good - a quick read. The Russia House is another one I've read several times. Hmmm, maybe I should re-read A Small Town in Germany.

I read an interesting book this weekend called This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. It's about how music is processed by the brain. He explains things about music and how we process sound that was enlightening to me as a non-musician (but someone who loves music). The author was a musician and recording engineer before he became a neuroscientist, so he uses examples from rock music which I could relate to. He mentions Steely Dan quite a bit.

"I'm an astronomer's son"

The Russia House is another fine book with Michele Phieffer. Anything she's in is excellent.

mostly, your mention of the russia house reminds me of a restaurant my parents once went to in DC which they swear is a front for a drug ring or spies or something. they had to order 24 hours in advance, and they had ask for water, which was brought from the kitchen two glasses at a time, and they were one of only two groups of people in the restaurant, and a fire truck pulled up in the alley while they were eating, with no lights or sirens or anything, just drove up in the alley. there were other funny/suspicious things, i don't remember what they were. it's late. bed time.

Ordering a "half chinese food to go",will confuse fifth columnists in Chinese take-aways.

Interesting story on the Canuckistani version of the Jamestown colony (and earlier, too!--those Canucks are wily, I tell ya) and autopsies performed by the settlers on their deceased brethern, who died of scurvy. (Scurvy prevention being the principle reason why Curmudgeon goes to BPHs, in order to secure the life-giving antiscorbutic properties supplied by a couple of Tom Collinses.) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/05/AR2006110500765.html

(N.B. Ceviche and margaritas are also excellent antiscorbutics. While I wouldn't recommend mixing them together, they can be orally administered sequentially.)

Not to diss Santorum again, although I love doing it, but how, exactly, are those poll workers going to help him win? :-)

"So at a campaign rally in Blue Bell, Pa., Sen. Rick Santorum was telling Republican diehards to ignore polls showing big leads for his Democratic challenger, Robert P. Casey Jr. 'Democrats have polls,' he declared. 'We have workers at the polls!'"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/05/AR2006110501302.html

Boko999;

New Hampshire must be disavowed??? Dem's fightin' wurdz!!!

_______________________

mostlylurking;

Thanks for the reference. :-)

I loved the Alexandria Quartet. Lawrence Durrell. I read it first in University (but not for a course). I was so fully absorbed in that imagined world that my life in the real world felt like a dream. Zoo Guy (Gerry Durrell) told a story that when he was a small boy and Larry was grown up, Larry would bring all his intellectual friends to stay from time to time. The young Gerry could not defend himself against their wit. The biggest insult he could up with when baited by Larry was, "You, you, you..... Author, you!"

A contemporary who writes beautifully is William Boyd. Any Human Heart is a novel worth spending the weekend on.

Wilbrod, you mention you like mathematical books. I recommend "Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk" by Peter Bernstein. I don't read much math myself, but I though theis was a very good explanation of probability, and very readable.

Boko999 writes:
The Russia House is another fine book with Michele Phieffer. Anything she's in is excellent.

Yeah, Michelle Pfeiffer is in the book and the character Yekaterina Orlova runs around in real life. *w*

Steve-2
Since you're about, I'll post a few grafs on Francis Butler Loomis, mentioned in McCullough's "Path Between the Seas"--rather timely given that elections are tomorrow.

Did do a second lookup on DeWitt Loomis in "Andrew Carnegie" very early Saturday morning at the big-box discount retailer. He came highly recommended when Carnegie decided to move his operations from the Midwest to New York City. Not only was he Carnegie's bookkeeper and kept track of extremely complicated financial transactions, but also his highly trusted personal assistant.

Morning everyone, our internet and phone are offline at home, that is when you realize your addiction!

dr, looks like the gopher got its revenge.

So where are we all on the BPH? Both the 8th & 9th work for me.

:-)

dmd, it would do well to remind everyone, never taunt a gopher when there is a football game involved.

Gopher power rules.

Sadly Cmmrbnd, a simple burning is so commonplace that son3, on returning from a 6 week cadet camp, many moons ago, simply sighed (with pleasure?) and said, ah the taste of home, and proceeded to eat the burnt offerings.

Steve-2 and Cmmrbnd,
Francis Butler Loomis graduated Marietta Colege in 1883, and shortly thereafter joined the staff of the New York Tribune. This would have been about the time that journalist John Russell Young--a close friend of former President (and our family's Porter cousin) Ulysses S. Grant, despite the difference in their ages--joined Horace Greeley's publishing empire, becoming managing editor of the New York Tribune in the late 1860s.

Francis Loomis also had charge of the press and publicity bureau of the Republican National Committee (Ken Mehlman's position today) in the campaigns of 1884 and 1888 (both times working directly against Democratic candidate and his and our Porter cousin Grover Cleveland). Loomis was also State Librarian of Ohio 1885-87, and in 1889 was posted as U.S. Consul to St. Etienne, France--having served prior to that time as the Washington correspondent for several important newspapers. In 1893, on his return from France, he was the editor of the Cincinnati Tribune.

Briefly: McKinley appointed him envoy to Venezuela in 1897, in 1901 he was appointed minister to Portugal, and in 1902 was made the First Assistant Secretary of State and moved to D.C. While in this post, he handled diplomatic relations with Santo Domingo, Panama and Central America and settled diplomatic questions raised by the Japanese Russian war. Under Roosevelt, he was also involved in diplomatic activities, including with Japan, entertaining Prince Fushimi when he visited the U.S. In October 1908, he received the Decoration of the Sacred Treasury of the First Calss from Japan's emperor.

In 1905 he was appointed a special ambasador to France to receive, in France, the remains of John Paul Jones. In 1904 he had received from France the Legion of Honor award. On the death of Mr. Hay in 1905, he was appointed Secretary of State ad interim, but resigned in 1905 to put his personal affairs in order.

Here's where the story gets a bit dicey. His brother, journalist Frederick Kent Loomis, represented the State Department on a trip to Ethiopia, but went missing from the steamer the Kaiser Wilhelm, and murder was suspected. Frederick's body was found on June 13, 1904. This is indeed the most mysterious murder on the family tree and I have briefly Boodled about it. This raises all sorts of questions about how involved Francis Butler Loomis was in arranging or having a hand in the trip of his brother, Frederick, who was editor of the Parkersburg, West Virginia newspaper. Frederick's traveling partner for the voyage was a very shadowy character from San Antonio!

There were actually four brother and a sister in this family. The head of this Loomis clan served as a judge in Marietta, Ohio; their grandfather, a lumber dealer in Little Rock; their great-grandfather, a magistrate in Connecticut.

Another brother, Charles Wheeler Loomis, was father to F. Wheeler Loomis, physicist and professor at University of Urbana-Champagne, who handled the day-to-day activities of the MIT Radar Lab, while his cousin, Alfred Lee Loomis, was beginning to direct funding from Wall Street to Ernest Lawrence so that a cyclotron could be built at Berkeley. When "Tuxedo Park" author Jennet Conant said that there was no family relationship between Alfred Lee and Wheeler, I felt compelled to step in, e-mail, and set the record straight.

http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/history/Loomis.htm

Seriously off-topic, but this goes for everyone on here with dependents:

Hey Pat, I just saw your Mommyblog post on wills. You wondered why you'd want to name a guardian since you have a close family, implying that of course someone would step up for the kids, and wondered why people worried about foster care prospects. It really is important to name a guardian for your kids, because the courts will at least initially take no notice of your close family's offers without that, and the kids might very well be split up, even among family members. If everything did eventually work out there would be a long period (conceivably years) while the matter worked itself through the system and your kids were in limbo. I take your point about the absurdity of having to name a guardian when you'd assume your family would be there anyway. In addition to the problams above, it is entirely possible that some family or friends might feel too shy or overwhelmed ot hesitant to offer to take children after a tragedy, while they'd be proud and delighted if you asked them in advance.

While attorney advice is best (I also paid an estate attorney to look over the will I wrote), I'd go to a DC/Maryland version of Quicken or just stop by a legal forms store (there'll be one near the county courthouse) and do something basic. While money issues, etc., are of course important the crucial thing is the guardianship and it is pretty easy to do.

Sorry. Please return to your regularly scheduled program.

Re. John LeCarré
I loved the Smiley's people cycle a lot too Cmmrbnd. His single Who-done-it, a Murder of Quality is a classic of the genre imo. The humor in "The looking glass war" is so dry I was afraid the book would break in tiny pieces. I am not so keen on some recent books though. Taking on the big pharmas doing illegal testing in Africa (The Constant Gardener) is a bit of a cliché and The Tailor of Panama did not have enough Panamean jokes. The new one looks promising though. A Perfect Spy is probably the best autobiography disguised as a novel, a great contrast to the novels published as autobiographies of today.

In the litterary news the Goncourt, the highest prize for a novel in French, was given this morning to the 900 pages best-seller "Les bienveillantes" by Jonathan Littell, an American that has been living in Yurop for a long time. He is the son of Robert Littel the spy/action novelist. I read one of Littell Sr.'s novel The Company (about the CIA) and it was is pretty darn good (it won a Dagger award).
"Les bienveillantes" is a narrative by a SS colonel that is quite controversial right now in the Old Yurop. It has lots of historians and some Jewish organizations in a tizzy. The author is translating the book himself and it should be published in English in the Spring of 2008.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2425968.html

SCC "literary", among others

Thank you for sharing Loomis. Having this Boodle-to-Book connection makes both more interesting. Sounds like your family has deep Ohio roots. Completely tangential, I love Marietta. Too small for me to live there. But it's a beautiful little town to visit.

Steve-2, thanks for the book tip.

Ivansmom... very important advice, you don't want any kids in foster care for even one day or two if you can avoid it.

Cmmrbnd, I'm too americanized to recite the history of St. Croix by heart, but I sure knew Canucks were here before the Virginians (and of course, the Native Americans here before all of us).

The scurvy story is interesting-- I did a paper in a certain censored language about food preservation before the invention of canning, since I was curious how people managed not to get scurvy every winter in Europe.
One, the body can have 90 days store of scurvy (varies), but that will get used up by illness fast.
Two, the secret is in the onions. even peasants had plenty of onions that lasted the winter, and onions do have vitamin C. When you know your onions, you won't die an agonizing death of scurvy, but you'll be really hungry for the first salads of spring. Citrus fruits were even better, but still expensive.
Three: if you really want to know, read Larousse's encyclopedia gastronomique.

Methods consisted of letting a big fat layer cover the food and go rancid; the food under the rancid fat layer would still be good; curing, smoking, pickling, etc.

I don't know if the canucks just knew their onions after a while, or they simply started eating pine needles and resins (also a source of vitamin C), or just raw meat (the eskimos eat meat raw-- preserves the vitamin C and ferment them for extra vitamin C).

My grandma records that for christmas they would basically get a bar of chocolate and an orange as their christmas present-- the only time they'd get to eat oranges, it sounded like. When she could remedy that, she sure did. She's a big orange and vitamin C addict.

The colonials in virginia were fond of eating violet leaves in salads. They're okay, but not all that.

And I forgot the most obvious food preservation technique of all-- they'd freeze food, too. Storing them properly was a bit of a risk with bears about, though.

I will vouch for the following books mentioned recently:

The Company by Jonathon Littell
American Gods and Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

The Company serves as a fairly good thinly disguised history of the CIA. There are about four distinct sections of the book that each stand alone with a larger plot line connecting the events. Like Richard Condon, it becomes difficult to separate the knowing insider gossip from the pure artifice.

And in the cloak and dagger trade, that's not too bad an idea, Yello.

Whoa, back from another wild and wooly (and cold!) weekend of racing, catching up on the Boodling.

I've never set walnuts on fire, but I've burnt plenty of pecans and almonds.

It's never a good thing when ya set your nuts on fire.

There have been innumerable cooking/hosting disasters in my home, and everyone in it knows where the fire extinguisher is (under the sink, five feet from the oven and stove).

bc

Ivansmom, may I ask a legal question? Younger daughter informed me that her boyfriend has decided he's afraid to marry, given the poor statistics on marriage in his family. It concerns me that she could be far away and still have her dad and me as next of kin. Would a will and power of attorney for the BF solve those issues? I'd rather see her married but want to present the legal ramifications fairly.

Let's not overlook the fact he might simply mean "not married... to HER."

Telling her about the legal ramifications of that decision is the right thing to do, as well as the fact that his reasons may be excuses, pure and simple.

I know a woman who basically hung around 11 years waiting for her bf to marry her. She finally got the guts to break up, and got married within 2 years to a new guy who appreciates her a LOT more.

The thing she heard from her family was, "if he ever wanted to marry you, he'd have done it a long time ago."

Wilbrod, that had occurred to me, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt at this point. He wants to be a neurosurgeon and has the smarts to make it, but he'll need her income to get through the training. (Ha!) I'm not a fan of shacking up but have to be diplomatic. You know, the typical mother stuff. Not taking this question to the mommyblog, for sure!

Slyness, first I'd recommend a living will with lots of copies, so should your daughter be incapacitated everyone will know what she wants. A traditional will goes into effect after death, so if she wants to make sure her boyfriend (or anyone else, like you) gets any of her estate, a will would be appropriate. She can certainly also give her boyfriend a power of attorney, to act for her should she become incapacitated. This is a huge responsibility, including (depending on the jurisdiction) health and financial matters, so she needs to be sure the relationship has that level of commitment. I have recommended this for several of my friends, straight and gay, in committed relationships who either can't or don't want to marry. Simple forms are available for all three things, but make sure she uses a form specific to the jurisdiction (state) in which she lives, as state law controls on these issues.

Canada has let it be known that the Northwest Passage is their turf, subject to use only by the terms of various treaties...

BTW, we have some lovely filth in our house...haven't incinerated anything in the kitchen, but I can attest to the thermal strength of a certain pre-manufactured buscuit hawked by this pasty looking white guy in a funny hat. They may bee cooked at 375F for upwards of an hour with no visible adverse effects and still be edible in the a.m.. Must be some iteration of Play Dough.

I had an ex who I helped once like that, no promissory notes, everything was in my name. I was left with some debts. However I am fortunate because he has a very high sense of responsibility and did his best to help me resolve those debt and now he can, he is always offering me "payback". But, he also is very traditional and believes in marriage and the lot.

Maybe you should talk to HIM about what he is thinking exactly and ask him what he thinks about the lviing will and other issues.

Whoops, advice mode... shutting up now. This is just tripping some alarms for me; of course, all issues of trust depends so much on character, whether there's a legal document or not.
Ivansmom's advice sounds fanastic to me, though.

Mindless eating... something I know about. (Sigh).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/05/AR2006110500389.html

Slyness, I'm trying very hard to keep my nose out of that domestic problem you're having, but do you know how many medical students go through med school on the strength of their wives/girlfriends money and support, and then when they finally make it and hang out the shingle--they dump with wife who got them there in favor os the 22-year-old trophy wife. And this guy wants your daughter to pay for his med school WITHOUT marrying her? So he basically just wants her for her money to get him through med school? And you want to give HIM power of attorney over HER estate?

Am I the only one who doesn't like that arrangement one bit?

OK, not my business. I'll shut up.

Best scene in my head from this article:
Another time, when he was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he told half the diners at a restaurant/lab that their complementary glass of cabernet sauvignon that night came from California, the other half were told the same wine came from North Dakota. Not only did the North Dakota group eat less of their dinner, they headed for the exits quicker.

Can't you just imagine it?

"So this wine is all the way from the glorius badlands of North Dakota, from grapes lovingly stomped on the roads by wild mustangs, then steeped with just a hair or two of the prairie dog that bit you."

I knew Cmmrbnd would agree one hundred percent with me on that and say it better than I did.
A good guy would NOT ask a girlfriend to make all that sacrifice without offering much in return, especially since the future is unreliable.
In residency years, the guy is very likely to be working 80 hours a week or more and basically be non-existent as a boyfriend. It's an emotionally stressful time. Your daughter is gonna realize medical school was the easy part.
And if he has the excuses down pat, it'll be "Oh when I finish this residency, we'll have fun again, etc. Until like Cmmrbnd says, he finds somebody else that's so new, who makes him feel really cool about being a doctor rather than somebody who owes his girlfriend his ass, basically.

My solution: he has to learn how to get a loan. If he doesn't want to, he directly borrows from your daughter with paperwork included, so there's a paper trail.

It's that simple. Any guy with honor would not only sign it, but actually bring up the idea in the first place. Trust me, hell hath no fury like a woman who's stuck with debts due to a boyfriend. ;).

This is a public service announcement and not an endorsement, but TimesSelect is FREE this week (and of course the WaPo OpEd page is free all the time).

Paul Krugman has hair on fire over Bush and Ted Koppel asks some interesting questions about the "long war".

In a word, "meh". Still not worth $50/year. But I'll be there for MoDo/Friedman Wednesday.

Wilbrod, wrt scurvy, there's no knowledge like old knowledge:

o "From the record, pemmican was made from thin slices of lean meat from large game animals such as: bison, moose, elk, and deer. They were dried over a fire, or in the sun and wind. The dried meat was ground and shredded between stones, to which was added ground dried wild berries. Finally, melted fat, suet, and bone marrow grease was added to the mixture. It could be eaten as a soup, broth, stew or as is. When available, leaves of the peppermint plant or wild onions were added for flavour. It's greatest asset was that it kept well."

o "The Hudson's Bay Company bought tons of pemmican from the Indians and later the Metis[, who] had established a certain standard of quality. It paid a premium price for pemmican made solely from the best of lean meats and only bone marrow grease. This was called sweet pemmican, which could be preserved for years. The record shows that some eaten four years later could not be discerned from the fresh kind, either in taste or quality.

"Pemmican was originally stored in the stomach or intestines of animals. The Hudson's Bay Company demanded that pemmican be stored in 45 kg parfleches sealed with melted tallow. It was prepared and reserved as the staple food of the fur brigades. During the fur trade, if a paddler requires 3.6 to 4.5 kgs of meat per day to sustain him, 0.7 to 0.9 kgs of pemmican would provide the equivalent nutrition. Hudson's Bay Company pemmican consisted of 50% dried meat and 50% fat/marrow.

"Next to the fur trade, pemmican production was the most important industry on the high plains. It became so important to the fur trade that the Hudson's Bay Company sought to monopolize the pemmican market. This angered the Metis who were the main suppliers. Thus they withheld the supply thereby breaking the attempted monopoly."

o "In today's context, the dried meat provided protein, the berries vitamins essential for warding off scurvy whereas the fat and marrow were important as a ready source of energy. No wonder it became the ideal staple food of the fur brigades. Dieticians today would find it difficult to concoct a better balanced basic meal or diet without the benefits of refrigeration or preservatives since greens, roots and tubers could be added to the pemmican when available."

o Liboiron, Henri, and Bob St-Cyr. "Experiments in Pemmican Preparation." _Saskatchewan Archaeology_ Vol. 9 (1988): 43-45. Notukeu Museum and Archaeology On-line. 6 Nov. 2006 < http://journals.aol.com/a2002v2002/NAMoments/entries/2005/01/14/-the-notukeu-museum-and-archaeology-on-line/1741 >.

new kit, fyi

Thanks, Ivansmom, for the info. And Wilbrod and Cmmrbnd, you are both completely correct. My daughter sniffs, "We have a better relationship than most married couples!" That cracks me up. But they are two very bright kids so I have to be careful about what I say. After all, what does a 50-some mom have to say that a 21-year-old could possibly find useful?

Right, pemmican, I was never sure how much vitamin C survived the drying process, because vitamin C is water-soluble.
It's good they found that the end result does have more vitamin C than some would think.

I had a thought; rose-hips also often survive the early winter and they are high in vitamin C and relatively dry to start with.
Many native plants can be made into an infusion (tea); in fact, boneset can be dried and made into a tea with good levels of vitamin C, and blackberry root also makes a tea. So a little native american knowledge may well have helped things on their way.
Barley tea/"coffee" isn't much drunk nowadays, but it's popular all around the world to give to children instead of tea (including in French Canada), as well as a decaf bedtime drink.
Roasted Chicory is a bit more popular as a coffee alternative in the southern US, but I've never tried it.

I wonder what kind of book Cmmrbnd is doing research for.

Good afternoon,friends. When I think about houses and their respective ghost, I am often reminded of those run-down houses we lived in as children. One time we moved into a house, the same one that caught on fire, and before we could get our stuff in the house, bugs were crawling all over the place. Huge bugs. My sisters and I were so afraid of the bugs, we got on a table in the middle of the floor, and did not move until my mother got back.

Slyness, I had a co-worker that helped her husband through school, and they had a child together. The child had physical and mental ailments at birth, and do you know that creep when he finished school left that poor woman with that child to care for, and married someone else. Your case may be an exception to the rule, but sometimes those situations do not work out for the best for the party that does the most giving.

I am not the best cook in the world, so I've had my share of burned meals. The problem now is that I forget something is on the stove. I don't do much cooking now because of that problem. Better to use the microwave.

I'm reminded of a movie that Shirley McLain played in called, "Used People", and I believe it describes us all to some extent. We come in this world as screaming babies, and we grow up and begin our lives, usually with someone that we love (if we're lucky) and have children. These loved ones get our best, the best of our lives and love, and then they move on with their own lives. We have what is left, and many times, what is left is short and painful. We become used people, and very few people want "used" anything.

It is too depressing to even think about. I hope I have not killed the boodle, but it is what JA expresses in this kit, whether we want to face the fact or not. Join me in leaning on faith, and believing that God loves us so much more than we can imagine through Him that died for all, Jesus Christ.

The book fair sounds like a book lover's dream. Have fun, folks.

Regarding "no knowledge like old knowledge," Entenpfuhl, I'm not sure what time period your post is discussing. There's nothing in it to suggest any awareness that this diet in fact prevented scurvy (if it did), nor what exactly the antiscorbutic agent was. Meat alone generally doesn't provice enough vitamin C, which is why sailors who had barrels and barrels of salt pork and salt beef still died in droves. It wasn't until approx. 177 that Capt. Cook was able to show conclusively that vegatables in general and limes and citrus in particular were important in supplying vitamin C. (And hence the nickname Limeys).

That they put ground berries in the pemmican (and sometimes mint leaves and onion) is interesting, but was this for flavor, etc., or was there some belief that these contributed some nutritional benefit? Do we know that hunters and trappers existed on pemmican for 90 days at a stretch without ANY other kinds of plants? I'd think that would be pretty unusual, if not downright unlikely. Sailors, were often forced to go long periods without fruit/vegatables, and long before Cook's voyage (1775), sailors knew that if they went too long, it became dangerous to their health, though they might not have known why or how. The question remains, what did hunters, trappers, and other land-based explorers and soldiers "know" about their own nutrition as it pertained to extreme, long-term survivalist conditions?

A drive-by posting today...

1. Cooking fiascos. The one that comes to mind immediately was the time I cooked to impress a girlfriend back in the olden days and made something with gorgonzola cheese without knowing what that tastes like.

3 Northwest passage. This has going on a long time. My two cents: I think both our countries would be in a better position in the long run by having it a national rather than international waterway.

3. Graham Greene. Been a while for me. The Tenth Man drew me in to his other books. The West Africa one (Heart of the Matter?) was also very good.

3. Slyness, good comments already made, so 'nuf said.

Also, tx to yellojkt for the PSA

Thanks Ivansmom, if making out a will is that simple, I just may as well go ahead and do it.

But one of the biggest problems is figuring out what we want, or what is best for our kids as it changes every six months or so. If we default these decisians to the court, maybe what is best for our kids can be determined at the time. The courts don't always make the worst decisions, do they?

SCC nice numbering, dummy

Pat, the problem is that in the absence of instructions, a dispute that eats up the estate's value is more likely.

All nuts are difficult to toast. They seem to keep toasting even after you take them from the heat. No ovens for me anymore, I use the toaster oven on "toast" mode for nuts. It turns off when done.

The means of primitive food preservation are many. Sugar, salt, and vinegar.