I am screaming in my head

Best of Mother Earth: 1996 McDonalds Hamburger

Monday Randomness

If I was single, chances are I probably would not even own a TV. Husband turned Dish Network back on last week after a summer off. I was extremely "meh" about it -- at first. Then I discovered that they play reruns of House on USA. All the time. Marathon style. I've been in a state of Hugh Laurie bliss for days. Hot damn, I can watch House seven days a week now. It's nice to get caught up on storylines that I missed since I only started watching the show last season. I'm planning on buying the DVDs too, which is totally weird for me since I historically have only bought DVDs of Japanese TV shows.

I canned tomatoes all by myself like a big girl last night. I usually get it on the hot canning action when my stepmom and her mom do it and have been reluctant to try it on my own. I don't have a big canning pot or those nifty jar lifter tongs. My biggest pot was barely big enough to process pint jars so I did four half pints and one full pint. I followed the instructions in my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook so hopefully nobody will be getting botulism from my handiwork.

The kid across the ally offered to pick up dog poop and mow our lawn last night. We gave him $12. Is that fair? We had no idea what the going rate is these days and he seemed reluctant to even accept anything. I told him to come back if he thinks we owe him more. Nifty: the kid used a manual push mower.

I have eggplant from the garden but I do not want to eat eggplant. That sucks. Stupid pregnancy hormones.

I will be making my triumphant return to the kitchen this week. It has been far, far too long since I've cooked anything more strenuous than boxed pancake mix. We actually went grocery shopping for actual ingredients this weekend. Tonight will be either meatballs and egg noodles (Swedish for me, red sauce for Husband) or fettuccine alfredo with grilled shrimp.

Aldi rocks. So hard.

I have been eating (gasp!) meat lately. I have felt absolutely terrible about it. This isn't going to last much longer. It's only because I'm eating whatever I can keep down right now. Yesterday was particularly bad. Husband had some boys over to watch football and eat breakfast. We had thick cut bacon from Everett's, maple sausage, and andouille sausage to go along with our pancakes and eggs. Man, that bacon was good but I felt like crap on a stick the rest of the day. The night culminated in me not being able to move from the couch and wishing that the Tylenol would hurry up and kick in already. Good thing there was another House marathon on to help take my mind off of things.

I was a busy bee in the kitchen yesterday. I made chocolate crinkles. I have to say, that was a great decision on my part. Toot toot! There's my horn.

I want to open a cheese shop.

Food of my people

Polish sausage, pierogies, and onions.  Oooooohhhh yeeeaaahhh.  It's even better the second day.

So yeaahhh, the vegetarian thing has fallen by the wayside momentarily and had been replaced by the whatever-I-can-keep-down diet.  The baby likes cereal and potatoes.

In the news

• CERN's large hadron collider will not, I repeat, will NOT kill us all tomorrow.  So relax.  And watch it live!  Don't know about you, but I can't wait to find out if we're actually operating in 12 dimentions rather than the paltry four we know about.
  
• It is entirely possible/probable that Kim Jong Il recently suffered a stroke.  Almost time to break out the party hats!
• I wanted to buy Spore, but thanks to EA's draconian, accusatory DRM I will refrain.  And even though it would break my heart, I would also avoid The Sims 3 if they keep this up.  Oh Maxis, why did you sell out to EA in the first place?
• I refuse to install Google's Chrome (or Chrom or however they want to misspell it) due to privacy concerns.  Don't be evil, indeed.
• I'm already sick of football.

Don't let this guy into the US

Let pupils abandon spelling rules, says academic

"Change has to be [from the] bottom up. It is already happening on the internet – people are simplifying spelling all the time.

That's because people on the Internet are fucking knuckledragging stupid.

In which she talks about politics and social issues

Not to get all conspiracy theorist-y, but I am fairly confident that some, if not all, of the violence caused by supposed "anarchists" at the protests are perpetrated by police agents provocateurs. They've done it before -- just ask anyone involved with the monthly Critical Mass rallies.

I've gotten reports that people are being harassed and/or arrested and/or assaulted by "peace officers" simply for making eye contact, using a public restroom urinal, or standing on a public sidewalk. This is, to use a woefully underpowered word, unacceptable.

A big thanks goes out to John McCain for handing us hippy commie liberals Sarah Palin on a silver platter. That was very, um, masochistic of you. Cheers!

Also getting big laughs is Norm Coleman's one-trick-pony attack ads on Al Franken. Really Norm? The tax thing is all you've got? And paying an eight year old child for this? That's the lowest of the low. Anyone with two functioning neurons knows that Franken's tax guy screwed up, not Franken himself.

I'm super pumped tonight for the Ralph Nader rally tonight at Orchestra Hall. How bad did I want these tickets? Bad enough to brave the BO stink of a small but charming bookstore to purchase them. I would have taken some time to browse the selection, but dang, dudes. A little soap once in a while wouldn't hurt.

Back to Sarah Palin, since she's so completely loathsome. This woman stands for everything I am against. Also, she stands against everything that I am. Pro-NRA, anti-choice, anti-environment, warmongering, pro-corporate, anti-GLBT, anti-sex education, right-wing Christian extremist cuddlebunny ARGH. That makes me more nauseous that I already am. This liberal, pacifist, non-hetero, pro-choice, pro-consumer, non-white, non-Christian environmentalist will be taking her votes elsewhere. And if all else fails I suppose I could buy a chunk of land up north and declare it a sovereign nation. All I ask is for the government to GTFO my business.

Things just don't work out

We had big plans this weekend. My brother-in-law got married on Sunday. The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner was Saturday. I had planned on going to the protest at the RNC yesterday, then we were going to the Take Back Labor Day show at Harriet Island. Husband's band was going to move from our basement to their new practice space too.

Aside from the wedding and some of the band moving, nothing else was accomplished. We stayed overnight at my parents' place on Sunday since it was two miles away from the reception hall. My dad was convinced that our truck was going to turn into a giant fireball with us in it if we drove it -- which was certainly a distinct possibility -- and proceeded to tear it apart and fix it all day yesterday. It was a combination of a lot of things gone wrong but now I'm ecstatic to report that our truck is in good working order and we're no longer running at about one mile per gallon.

Unfortunately that meant that we were stuck in the south suburbs all day. My stepmom took me to K-Mart and bought me an awesome new vacuum (she's got this vacuum thing. Don't ask). Dan went to the gift opening. I stayed in my parents' basement and fell asleep in front of the No Reservations marathon on the Travel Channel because I was nauseous and I'm pretty sure I was a not very attractive shade of green.

I'm disappointed that I didn't get to protest and channel my inner hippy peacemonger. I hear the cops were bitches though and I suppose tear gas and mace aren't good for a developing fetus.

We'll be going to see Ralph Nader speak on Thursday so I have that to look forward to.