3415 Mathematically challenged

It's no secret. Numbers are not my field. I took algebra and geometry in high school and managed to graduate from college with zero math, getting caught in a net of new requirements when I was in my mid-30s as I decided to update my teacher's certificate (I never used it), which by then had a basic math requirement. So when I saw this week's poetry topic. . . "to think as mathematicians, to equate. While we do equate our world with words when we write poetry, I think a prompt like this, to see the world as a mathematical equation. . ." I'd already blacked out by the end of the instructions.

However, even with my math challenged brain I sensed something was wrong with the meat prices this morning. If meat is about to pass its due date for safety, it is marked down, and if you get to the counter at the right time, you can pick up some bargains. I watched the clerk with her little calculator this morning paste the mark-down stickers on the meat.

Something looked a little odd, but not being able to compute in my head I just selected the items that looked good, not noticing that 1 lb. hamburger at $2.89 was now reduced to $.90 which the label said was 40% off or $1.07/lb. I wish I'd bought several. A one pound package that costs $.90 is obviously, $.90/lb, and $1.07 isn't 40% of $2.89--so everything on the sticker was mixed up. I picked up .55 lb of boneless ribeye which was originally $13.49/lb reduced to $8.18/lb and the label said "you pay $3.60 instead of $7.42". I did buy two, because although I can't figure numbers, my heart was beating "bargain, bargain." A similar thing with the stew meat. I'm not sure what sort of calculator/label printer the meat department clerk had, but it definitely went to school with me.

If I weren't so math challenged, I would have pointed out the mistake to someone, but didn't figure it out until I got home and was putting the groceries away.

My Aristocratic Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Venerable Lady Librarian the Loquacious of Withering Glance Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

I tried on several--thought this one fit best. What's your title?

HT In Season Christian Librarian

3412 Sweet Land

Tonight we went to see Sweet Land at the Grandview Drexel. That's my third movie in three weeks--twice to see Dream Girls and then this low budget indy which has been slowly building in popularity since its release in 2005. It is based on a 1989 short story by Will Weaver. "A Gravestone Made of Wheat" and is about a Norwegian immigrant farmer in southwestern Minnesota who receives a mail-order bride from Norway, only to discover she's a German who had recently moved to Norway. It is not a "Hollywood" product, and is a beautiful love story of Olaf and Inge as they struggle against the community's prejudice and the moral standards of that era.

The movie begins with Inge's death as an old woman in the 80s, reflects back to the Viet Nam era when Olaf dies, and then starts over with them as young strangers who fall in love around 1920. They encounter prejudice and suspicion in Olaf's strongly Lutheran Norwegian community (it takes place shortly after WWI) and can't marry because her papers are not in order.

Although it's an exceptionally well done film with a wonderful love story and beautiful photography depicting lush farmland and warm friendships, I can't help wondering if there will ever be a film made for commercial release that depicts Christians or even Americans in a positive light? The rural Minnesotan Lutheran congregation insists on speaking only English, even though many of them know Norwegian and the pastor can speak German. As I've come to expect in any film or TV production, everyone but the Christians exhibit Christ's love. There is one very minor character who appears at the beginning and the end whose heart is in the right place--he's of course, an outspoken Socialist.

Inge and Olaf's love story starts and ends with war--WWI and VietNam. The land struggle shows the two of them, both immigrants, harvesting acres of corn by hand, pitted against the modern age of machine farming just developing as farm markets inflated by the war collapse. Yes, and the big, bad commercial interests gobbling up the little guys--and the banker is a relative, a Lutheran sharing the pew on Sunday with the man whose farm he'll auction on Monday.

In what must be the tiniest of sub-plots, there are even two Native Americans, probably from a near-by reservation, helping the banker displace the farmer with 9 children about to be auctioned off his land. The director, Ali Selim, is of Arab parentage doing a xenophobia film when suspicion of Arabs is high, and it's a carbon neutral film (for environmentalists). Ah, the feelgoodiness of it. Oh, it's a good story, absolutely, a story of love and overcoming, and change as the community eventually comes to their aid, but sometimes I just get so tired. . .

Sweet Land
movie reviews
Ali Selim
Minnesota

3411 Gentlemen, please remove your hats

We went to a nice, not elaborate, restaurant last night for Greek cuisine instead of our usual Rusty Bucket (Sports Bar) date. Dinners $15-25, wait staff all dressed in black and well groomed. The attire was casual, but clean jeans and Christmas-present-shirt type. Almost no one in cut offs and sweats. In white slacks and a red jacket, I might have been the most over-dressed. It's a happy place with fake Greek decor--naked statues, grape leaves, that sort of stuff. The tables are filled with Friday after work comrades, widow friendships and family groups.

Does it sound sort of antiquated and old fashioned, like manners; is it too much to expect a guy to take off his baseball cap in a full service restaurant in the evening? The guy at the next table never took off his cap. I couldn't tell if he was with his mom or his date, or if his IQ was a bit low--it was sort of dark. Grow up fellas. Little League is over.

manners
men's hats
restaurant etiquette
Columbus, Ohio

3410 The 10 books no one would lie about

Why would anyone lie and say they'd read these books but didn't? I can see people lying about reading anything, but these? According to a story at 24dash.com , Brits do.

1. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R Tolkien

2. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

3. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

4. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus - John Gray

5. 1984 - George Orwell

6. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone - J.K Rowling

7. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

8. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

9. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

10.Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank

I read War and Peace, parts of it in Russian, and saw a couple of versions of the movie. I read the John Gray book--I think I got it for $.50 at a used book sale. This reminds me, our book club is reading Great Expectations by Dickens for February, and I haven't started it yet. No lie. And I think it will be my first Dickens book. My background in American and British literature is the pits.

HT Readers Read.

3409 Wash your hands and other good stuff

I heard on the news today that the "cruise ship virus" has hit some Columbus hospitals--both patients and staff. The recommendations are that people wash their hands when around patients, preparing food, or using the bathrooms. Duh!

Did you know there are an estimated 1.4 million salmonella infections annually in the U.S.? Most are food borne, but many are acquired from animals, particularly pet rodents, such as hamsters, mice or rats. Another reason to wash you hands after handling animals, particularly at the pet store. NEJM 356:21-8 (January 4, 2007)

Nearly 20% of automobile crashes involve driver sleepiness unrelated to alcohol, and the total direct and indirect costs of sleepiness and sleep disorders amount to hundreds of billions of dollars annually in the U.S. An estimated 50-70 million Americans have sleep-related problems. This information was included in a review of Sleep disorders and sleep depreivation: an unmet public health problem, published in 2006 by the National Academies Press, published in NEJM 356;2, January 11, 2006. You can read the summary and chapters here. I personally think this book belongs in your public library--it's not very expensive--because the recommendations involve national issues and policies. Mine would only have to give up one cook book or one Elvis title to buy it. Hand washing won't help you sleep better, but good sleep hygiene will.

3408 You can't marry your dental hygienist

or optician, or massage therapist because current law in some states won't even let you get acquainted. Even if you change doctors, you're prohibited from any contact for two years. You can't even date her sister or brother! Read Eugene Volokh in Opinion Journal to see how far we've gone with that bugaboo term "health care provider/practitioner," and sexual harrassment. This makes Victorian manners and morals look positively decadent.

And you alternative medicine folks aren't off the hook. In Minnesota "the law applies to a wide range of alternative health care practitioners, and not just massage therapists [where a suit was brought by the former husband of a woman who married her former client under this crazy law]. In particular, it covers people who practice "(1) acupressure; (2) anthroposophy; (3) aroma therapy; (4) ayurveda; (5) cranial sacral therapy; (6) culturally traditional healing practices; (7) detoxification practices and therapies; (8) energetic healing; (9) polarity therapy; (10) folk practices; (11) healing practices utilizing food, food supplements, nutrients, and the physical forces of heat, cold, water, touch, and light; (12) Gerson therapy and colostrum therapy; (13) healing touch; (14) herbology or herbalism; (15) homeopathy; (16) nondiagnostic iridology; (17) body work, massage, and massage therapy; (18) meditation; (19) mind-body healing practices; (20) naturopathy; (21) noninvasive instrumentalities; and (22) traditional Oriental practices, such as Qi Gong energy healing."

Poetry Thursday #4

Our prompt this week is "Why I love poetry." In 153 words or less. I don't have a "poetry base;" no courses, no publications. But I love it when poetry nails it. Sometimes it's only a line or a phrase, but there's a connection. An ah-ha moment. Yesterday I read a poem about an Irish WWI airman who died in Italy (Yeats). It's today's news almost 90 years ago.

This week I was reading "The Best American Poetry, 2006," guest editor, Billy Collins. On pp. 30-33, there is a poem by Amy Gerstler, "For my niece Sidney, age six." She begins with Margaret Davy in 1542 being boiled to death for poisoning her employer, an item she came across reading the 1910 Encyclopaedia Britannica. She uses it to launch a poem about what simmers in the crock-pot of her head, and moves on to speculate that her untamable, curious niece may someday like Martin Luther nail theses to a door (about which she also read that day in the encyclopedia).

I used to own 7 sets of encyclopedias. My favorite which I still enjoy browsing with a cup of coffee belonged to my grandfather--the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published in 1910 (I also own the 12th and 13th). It's printed on tissue thin paper and bound in black leather which is crumbling a bit on the spines.

In this poem, Gerstler writes about owning 5 sets of encyclopedias. . .

"That's the way I like to start my day;
drinking hot black coffee and reading
the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica.
Its pages are tissue thin and the covers
rub off on your hands in dirt colored
crumbs (the kind a rubber eraser
makes) but the prose voice is all knowing
and incurably sure of itself. . . "

Connect!

Poetry Thursday
Poetry
Amy Gerstler
American poetry

3406 The violence around us

If you're wringing your hands about the violence in Baghdad, Babel and Baqouba open your local metropolitan newspaper. I've seen the violence statistics for California compared to Iraq. But things have been rough this past week in mild-mannered Columbus, OH, test market of the country.

Over the week-end at the movie theater about 2 miles north of here where we like to go for $1.00 admission, Delmar gunned down his wife Ernestine, killing her, after tracking her and their two daughters down. Then he put the shotgun in his mouth and killed himself. Eric from the homicide squad said, "They'd been having some problems." No! Really?

I was waiting in line at the post office yesterday (again, my neighborhood) and a woman customer told the clerk she was changing her daughter's address for mail delivery because a number of apartments on Dierker Rd. had been broken into, so her daughter was moving in with her for awhile.

There was a police chase 2 days ago from Wilmington to Columbus that finally ended at a bridge over one of our rivers. One perp jumped out of the car and over the guard rail. There's not much ice on the river, but it's terribly cold. They dragged the river for some time, and finally found him yesterday. All caught on video for the evening news, of course. The two other burglary suspects, both with records and weapons, aren't divulging their buddy's name.

A store owner, Abdel Shalash a father of two, was shot and killed by some teenagers for $150.

A school bus driver was stopped for a traffic violation yesterday and police found cocaine on the bus--he was on his way to pick up kids. I didn't know Columbus outsourced this task to private companies, but apparently he had a long record of problems. Today none of the buses are running because that company isn't sending out any of its drivers. I hope they aren't just pouting and are checking their security files.

Habitat for Humanity homeowners in central Ohio are being scammed by mortgage companies to refinance from 0% to 8.99% and take their equity for cash with closing costs of $7,000.

A 16 month old baby was beaten to death a few months ago, and they've finally charged her father's girlfriend. Parents were never married, of course.

50 year old Chris Wright got life for stabbing to death a man who rushed to the aid of a neighbor Wright was robbing.

There's a lot of sin and violence out there. Just open your paper.

3405 Sandy Berger, keep out

There has been a library at Queen's College, Oxford, ever since its foundation in 1341 by Robert Eglesfield, Chaplain to Queen Philippa, consort of Edward III. The current building was built at the end of the 16th century, and has about 50,000 volumes in the lending library, and 100,000 in rare books, printed before 900 and over 500 manuscripts, of which 50 are mediaeval.

The latest newsletter reminded "members" who have entry cards of the security procedures:

Security
Please remember:

· Do not let anyone 'tailgate' you into
the Library.

· Do not hold the door open for anyone
entering when you are leaving.

· Do not offer to swipe your card so
that someone else can get in,
whatever they say.

Bags
All bags other than the smallest handbag
must be left on the shelves to the right of the
front door. No bag capable of holding a book
must be brought into the Library.

No mention of pants, socks or undershorts as receptacles for anything other than the usual body parts. But I'm guessing with medieval manuscripts, they are a bit more vigilant than our National Archives staff was about document stuffing.

List of rules from the library's website.

3404 What I didn't and did find at the library

Your kid got a paper due next week? It isn't just the journals and books that lack balance, perspective and diversity. You might want to browse the digitized sources, especially if you are homeschooling. The titles may not be what you remember from your school days. Publishing firms are bought and sold; editorial boards change direction; standards of reliability must meet market demands. Someone had to compile and write them, too--someone with a point of view, someone your children will be citing as an authoritative source. Recently I took a quick spin through "Annals of American History which is produced by Encyclopedia Britannica."

I can log on at home, but I was at the library. By clicking to Religion, I found the first paragraph set the tone:

"America was first colonized by religious exiles, who found in the New World their first opportunity for religious liberty. The United States, as a result, became the first country in the Western world to make an effective separation between church and state, as well as the first to write into its basic law the principle of religious toleration. This enormous diversity of religion is one of the hallmarks of the country."

So that's the framework. What will be the focus? Essays, articles and documents that don't meet the standard of tolerance and separation of church and state. How Indians were mistreated by missionaries. Brief (skimpy) one page articles on major Protestant denominations like the Presbyterians and Methodists bringing their history all the way up to--about 1800 in this source--and huge coverage of very minor organizations and movements of the 20th century I've never heard of (toleration and diversity, right?)

Original documents? That's what Annals does. It's just extremely selective. And if a kid is writing a paper, it's much easier to use this source than pull paper sources. (Although if there are recent compilations in paper, they too will be sifted and filtered to be politically acceptable to the left.) There's an eight page article in Annals by Clarence Darrow about what to expect from different religious groups if you seat their members on a jury; some court cases that reflect poorly on Christians; and a selection of "scholarly" articles, mostly negative about people of faith.

By using the timeline, I was able to pull up the 2003 gay Bishop document of the Anglican Church. I'm not well informed about the Anglicans, but I'm guessing there have been a few other achievements in the last decade. The timeline stops with 2003, although the copyright of the database is 2007. Has nothing much has happened in the last three years? I was a bit surprised to find that the Thomas Jefferson/Sally Hemings paternity debate was deemed worthy of inclusion (actually not surprised at all), and that "Fast Food Nation" was a historical treasure--and not even exerpts from the book, but pieces of an on-line interview. The USS Cole story didn't make the cut that I could find.

So I turned to the reference shelves and looked through some of the handsome, hard bound multiple volume sources. The three volume, 50's in America by Salem Press (2005), had no entry for Christianity at all, but Stan Freeberg got in. No denomination, not even Roman Catholics, had an entry. I took a peek at Modern America 1914-1945 by Facts on File (c1995, but purchased by the library in 2005). In the Table of Contents I found a section on Religion. The first topic of 4 subdivisions? Women and the Church.

3403 Great cat photos

Crazy Aunt Purl writes longer entries than I do. Her husband left her and the cats (she's gorgeous, funny and knits), but she hangs in there entertaining the blog troops and creating fabulous knitzy things.

"Being rejected sucks. Being abandoned sucks. Being alone and almost-divorced sucks. Of course, not having to clean up after anyone ever again ... is PRICELESS." Crazy Aunt Purl

3402 Do what it takes

to get the homeless off the streets. USA Today has a good article today (1-24-07) on what programs are working for the homeless in large metropolitan areas. Last week (1-18-07) the Wall St. Journal had an article about successful programs like "Ready, Willing and Able," which has saved NY a lot of money by getting the homeless into permanent housing and jobs. Getting the hard core 10% off the streets into safe housing units, not temporary shelters, without the carrot to reform their lives first, is working and is cheaper than other programs. It also helps restore businesses in the neighborhood, or at least gives them a chance. I know this irritates both the left and the right. Some on the right want the homeless to "earn it," and on the left, the do-gooders think we should expect nothing from them.

From a Christian point of view, Matthew 25 never says you do this (offering shelter, clothing, food) in order to reform someone. It might; it could; but probably won't. Homelessness at its root really isn't about being without homes, but being confused, sick, brain damaged from alcohol and drugs, mentally ill, mentally retarded and a prison system that dumps ex-cons on society with nothing to do. No six month government grant run by a 25 year old social worker is going to "fix" weird uncle Harry. We're reaping the harvest of misguided social ideas of the 60s and 70s which closed institutions and put people on the streets.

Some think if you make decent housing available without demanding the homeless change their lifestyle first, their numbers will increase. How many alcoholics do you know personally who stop drinking because someone tells them to? Do you know what we're getting with the present system? Public libraries with people who smell so bad they drive away anyone else who would use the newspaper or computer. Urine filled stairwells in the city. Hostile people begging. Cardboard shelters under by-passes. No accessible restrooms for the rest of us because stores or buildings don't want the homeless creating filth. Enclaves of mentally deranged people sleeping on heat grates. "How's that working for you?"

Permanent housing and assistance grants work better than shelters (which many homeless are afraid of because of violence). It will continue to work until it decreases the number of homeless so much that their advocates and the bureaucrats start losing government funding; then they'll find something else to ask for with their favorite phrase, "Yes, but. . . "

3401 Caring Service from Staples

Mr. Cloud wrote this past week about several incidences which indicated the little guy wasn't getting very good service from businesses and governments. I agreed with most of his points.

However, we had an odd thing happen yesterday that has restored my faith in the chain store, even though the clerk had made a mistake thinking we'd made a mistake.

My husband is going to Haiti on a mission trip in February, and in addition to helping with building and maintenance, he will be teaching a perspective drawing course for students studying English (although a very poor country, most of the children learn four languages). He doesn't know how many will be taking this optional unit, but he's preparing 60 packets of handouts, so I suggested he take the originals to Staples [office supply store] which has always done an excellent job on my blogs (yes, I have my blogs bound). He added a title page with the name of the school "Institution Univers" There were TWO messages left on our answering machine from the staff asking if we had misspelled Univers, and they wouldn't print until they heard back from us.

I smiled, but was touched to get that kind of service.

Are liberals ruining Wal-Mart?

And in another, unrelated item, I'll just mention my favorite giant American success store--Wal-Mart. I love Wal-Marts, and although I don't like the super stores as much as the older "just huge" stores, and nothing around here matches what you find in Arkansas, I visited the grand opening of one on Friday near here. I think Wal-Mart has been so pressured by bad publicity from the left, that they are losing their touch. Either that, or Columbus' unemployment rate is so low, it is hard to staff stores.

I actually had an African cashier who couldn't speak English. I only bought a bunch of bananas and thought it had rung up incorrectly and asked her to recheck the per pound price. She was obviously confused, so I repeated my question. She looked up, pointed at the ceiling. I again asked her to check the price. She smiled, took the label off and pressed some keys. She smiled and nodded. I smiled and nodded (didn't do well in math so had no idea if it was correct). I took the sales slip and the bananas to the customer service. The slip clearly said, TWO ITEMS, and I only had one bunch of bananas. That much math I know. I got my refund and left the store.

Then yesterday we stopped there again looking for various items on the Haiti list. Knee pads. Didn't have them. 12' measuring tape. Didn't have it. Carpenter apron. None. Bug repellent. Check in grocery. One young man we asked had a speech impediment and such poor English (but he was one of our own) that we could hardly understand him. I spoke to four or five staff people, and all were on loan from other stores in the Columbus metro area, one was from Delaware (north of Columbus).

3400 Best selling books for youth

How often is a best seller for young people actually written by someone under 18 or even 21? The USA Today Best-selling books for 2006 list for young people has Christopher Paolini's Eragon as number one and his Eldest: Inheritance Book II was fourth. I'm not sure I read books for youth even when I was a teen and I claim total ignorance on this genre and mysteries and fantasies.

What I find fascinating is Paolini's background. Farm raised, and home schooled, he finished high school by age 15. He'd also had a few failed attempts (by age 15) at novel writing. In this interview for other teens interested in writing, he mentions, sort of off hand as though everyone does this, the depth of reading he'd done (before age 15) in Teutonic and Old Norse history in order to have the background for his characters, language and country.

He says when he was little he didn't want to learn to read--didn't think it was important, but that his mother was persistent and patient (a former teacher).

"Then she took me to the library. It's easy to write those words now, but they cannot convey how that single event changed my life. In the library, hidden in the children's section, was a series of short mystery novels. Attracted by their covers, I took one home and read it eagerly. I discovered another world, peopled with interesting characters facing compelling situations." Can you imagine how busy he must have kept the Interlibrary or Regional Loan department at his public library?

When he had his first book self-published after years of drafts and editing, the family marketed it themselves--beginning with talks at libraries. These parents obviously had a lot of faith in their boy! I think I heard an interview on the radio where he said they'd mortgaged their home to do this. But don't quote me.

"The Paolini family spent the next year promoting the book themselves. Beginning with talks at the local library and high school, they then traveled across the U.S. Christopher gave over 135 presentations at libraries, bookstores, and schools in 2002 and early 2003." His webpage

Someone who bought it brought the title to the attention of a publisher, who signed him, and by mid-2004 Eragon had sold over 1 million copies.

3399 The Mexican model

More Albanians reside beyond Albania's present borders than within them. Remind you of anyone around here?
see "The Chicago Connection," by Allison Stanger, The American Scholar, Autumn 2006.

3398 Silly word choices

An article on full body scans for skin cancer for female veterans I noticed this odd phrasing, "We found that 16% of subjects would refuse the examination if the primary care provider were of the opposite sex, whereas 38% would not refuse but be less willing to be examined. "

Seems that whole sentence could be tightened up a bit by using the term, "male doctor."

And who knew our brave women soldiers were so squeamish around men?

Archives of Dermatology. 2006;142:312-316.

3397 Cooking the blog

No one cares what you had for lunch is a book for bloggers, the premise being that bloggers run out of things to write about when all they can think of is what they ate for lunch. This has never happened to me--having nothing to write about--although I have on occasion written about my lunch. Here's our dinner menu today.



Sweet sour meatballs (fully leaded)
Tender crisp fresh asparagus
Baked butternut squash with drizzled maple syrup (sugar free)
Chocolate peanut butter pie (low fat, low sugar)
To make the meatballs you first have to leave the computer--probably when Blogger.com is acting up. Go to the kitchen and mix in a sauce pan one 15 oz can of sauerkraut, one 12 oz. jar of chili sauce, and one 16 oz can of whole cranberry sauce (sizes make no difference). Remove half of it from the pan and put it in the freezer for another day. Makes a wonderful topping for a boneless pork roast. While the mix is warming up, check the computer to see if Blogger is working, and if so, download that picture before it quits.

Go back to the kitchen and tear and crumble in a bowl at least two pieces of stale bread and let it dry a little while you go back and finish your blog entry. Oh, turn off stove and remove the sauce because you might forget and it will scorch.

If you forgot to remove the Cool Whip from the freezer earlier (for the pie), do it now! Put cream cheese on the counter to soften. Later, add 2 eggs to the bread crumbs and 1/2 package of dry onion soup. It will have all the seasoning these meatballs will need. You now have a really disgusting looking yellow mess in the bowl and something yummy smelling on the stove. Return to computer for awhile.

Next, add one and a half pounds of ground chuck to the bread crumbs and thoroughly mix. Shape into 10 nice sized meatballs, and lightly brown for a few minutes. Spray a casserole dish with a non-stick (I use olive oil), and arrange the meatballs. Pour the sauce over the meatballs, completely covering them. Put in the oven at 375 for at least 45 minutes. Check your e-mail.

Return to the kitchen to make the pie. Cream together one cup of creamy, natural peanut butter with one cup of Splenda and one teaspoon vanilla. Add half an 8 oz carton of sugar free Cool Whip. Mixture is a bit stiff especially if blogging has impaired your muscle tone. Pour mixture into a purchased chocolate graham cracker 9" crust. You can make your own if you don't blog. Put it in the frig to firm, 'cause you're running late now.

Go back to computer and check for errors. Now it is time to get the veggies ready. Put some water to boil in tea kettle. Peel and cut the butternut squash into small pieces, put in small casserole sprayed with non-stick, dab a bit of butter and drizzle some sugar-free maple syrup over it and put in oven with meatballs. (About 15 minutes, with the last 5 or so at 400 after you take out the meatballs.) Wash and cut the asparagus and put in small pan. About 5 minutes before serving, add the hot water to the asparagus and return to a brisk boil; turn off heat and cover. Remove pie from frig, warm a tablespoon of sugar-free hot fudge in microwave and drizzle it over the peanut butter filling; return to frig. Take meatballs out of the oven and reset at 400 to finish the squash for 5 minutes. Set table, feed cat, call husband to table.

Makes about 10 meatballs. Freezes well, or makes great sandwiches the next day.

3396 Who knew?

WASP is shorthand for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It's a very useful acronym and I think sounds a whole lot better than SWAP, if you rearrange the word order*. I know it has been misused in a snarky way for certain rich northeastern presidential candidates, but as one whose ancestors were Scots-Irish, English and German and married to a Scot, it works well. So I was a bit taken aback to find out that WASP is used in the medical literature to mean "Wait and See Prescription," used with antimicrobial therapy.

That was definitely the medical treatment I had as a kid.

*Or, White Aging Saggy People.

3395 Are you living in the fast lane?

Karen Quinn wants to talk. She's got a contest and you can reach her by video, essay or e-mail, or just send one line, but you've got to get it in by February 16. I've looked through the list of prizes, and I'm here to tell ya, this is one fabulous contest. This is Karen's way to market her new book, Wife in the Fast Lane. Pretty clever.

Here's a sample of a one-liner:

"I was coloring my hair, sending a file to the office, answering a students question on the phone that “just can’t wait”, and helping a 2 year old heifer have her first calf."

If you're from the city you probably didn't know "heifer" is the word for a cow that hasn't been a mommy yet. Or that there are 55 different words in English for sheep. I guess cattle get to claim that word "heifer" right up to the time the little guy pops out. Sounds like the way some people use virgin, doesn't it?

I've never lived in the fast lane--don't even know where it is or how to get there. Anyone got a map? Keep it. I've spent my life carefully arranging my schedule, saying NO to things I really didn't want to do, and avoiding high maintenance people who would chew up my free time. As it says in my bio, somewhere, "My motto is you can have it all, just not all at the same time."