"What Can We Do?"

I've made no secret here of the fact that I supported Clinton, and that Obama has yet to gain my confidence; regardless, I believe that the best hope for our nation lies in Democratic control of the government, because we're in a hell of a mess. And yesterday, that was the theme of one diary in myDD.com to which I posted some comments; the diarist ended by posing the question "what can we do?".

My intent is to answer that question, and I started by proposing some of "my" answers in one comment. But first, I need to work through a bit of my own political - or perhaps social - belief system.

The diarist was suggesting that we're in such a financial mess that no one - Obama included - might be able to get us out of the mess without sacrificing some of the things progressives believe in, including what the diarist referred to as "entitlement programs".

I made three comments in that diary, two of them relevant to this one: the one mentioned above, which I'll get to, but in my first comment, I expressed some dismay at the idea that a self-described progressive seemed to have "bought in" on the Republican meme/talking point of "entitlement" programs. The diarist actually used the words "entitlement spending spiraling out of control", particularly with regard to things like Medicare.

I didn't disagree with the diarist that we're in a heck of a mess; we are. But I do believe that basic programs like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and some forms of welfare program are, or should be viewed as a part of our social compact, rather than "entitlement". And that Universal Health Care is something that should never be put on the table and negotiated away by the progressive movement. To me, that means social programs need to be well-managed, that such services go to people who have either earned them or need a safety net; people who need that safety net also need to receive some sort of additional support - training, education, etc.

The diary from yesterday that I'm referring to struck a chord with me for an altogether different reason, too: yesterday morning, as I usually do, I was listening to NPR while putzing around getting ready for work and my day; one of the news articles was by NPR reporter David Greene, who was in New Orleans. His story was, theoretically, focused on politics and "courting the Latino vote". However, in the story, he noted that illegal immigrants, mostly from Mexico, had flooded into New Orleans to take jobs rebuilding the city, and that many blacks were feeling displaced, perceiving that jobs are being "stolen" from them.

The reason the aforementioned diary and the term "entitlement" struck a chord with me was because the term "entitled" was used in the story, by a contractor - a Latino, US citizen, who hired both illegal Latino workers and African American workers; the contractor bent over backwards trying to avoid coming across as racist, and expressed discomfort with what he was saying, but the point he felt he had to make was that his black employees didn't work as hard as the illegal immigrants and that he perceived them as feeling "entitled" to work over the illegal immigrants.

There's more depth to it that that, of course, and you can and should listen to the podcast here - it's only about 8 minutes long.

Uncomfortable? Yeah. Talking about race relations in this country is always uncomfortable. But all of this feeds into the debate over what Republicans have negatively labeled "entitlement programs" and my theories on our national social compact.

But, the point of my second comment was to pose my answers to the diarists question: "What can we do?"

I think there's a lot that a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress can do, but we have to recognize that they're politicians; no politician is perfect and all politicians need one of two things: to know that voters "have their backs" or to have their feet held to the fire. A Dem controlled government, even for eight years, will need both of those, to remedy the mess we're in. Will it mean looking at programs which support our social compact? Yes. But there's a hell of a lot more gone wrong, and is fixable than that. Years of Republican dismantling of our economy, our political and social structures. And Democrats, in control, can repair and rebuild those.

So here's my set of original list with an addition from another commenter:

--start original--
Not to have been totally negative in my first comment - I agree with Indie that there are things that can be done to address this - the real question is whether or not enough Democrats will bite the bullet.

1) return the tax codes to some semblance of sanity, including taxing the wealthy and the corporate world at their truly fair levels;

2) punish those corporations that have set up fake off-shore headquarters to avoid taxes;

3) pass legislation that sets reasonable limits on corporate profiteering/greed;

4) re-establish genuine but reasonable regulatory processes over the financial world and US stock and commodities markets;

5) re-think the most extremely generous cases of free-trade;

6) create a credible, logical and achievable energy policy which is not dictated by big oil, big auto, big sugar, big corn;

6) recognize the importance of our allies and return to an era of international political negotiation and collaboration;

7) deal with China and Russia in the above ways (negotiation, collaboration and fair, but firm trade policies;

8) recognize that we don't really need to be the world's police force and our military doesn't need to be spread all over the world; in conjunction with this, demand that our allies begin to fund more of their own national defense needs, and stop the US subsidization of their defense.

For starters.
--end original--

And, with a h/t to Susan from 29 for this great addition:

"Seriously, I would add a full scale review of the no-bid contracting system, with an eye towards prosecution for war profiteering that would include huge fines as well as jail time for the guilty."

My list is not exhaustive; feel free to make additions or critique it.

Cross-posted at myDD.com

A Peach Of A Puzzle

One of the things I do is cook.

On Monday nights, I cook a family-style dinner for my housemates. For those who aren't in the know, Madison, WI is, for its size, out-sized expensive. Especially if you're living on the isthmus. And since it has a so-called "progressive" history, the progressivism and the expensiveness of housing have resulted in quite a few housing co-ops. I live in one of those, Hypatia.

(Bonus: if you can tell me about "Hypatia" without googling it, I'll make you the peach puzzle. But 1) you have to be honest and admit if you googled it, and 2) you have to pick up the peach puzzle. I don't deliver. ...) ;-)

Some people find it a challenge to cook a full dinner for anywhere from 12-20 people (depending on dinner guests), but having "grown up" cooking for my brother and sister-in-law in their restaurant, I find it to be pretty easy. So long as there's adequate variety in supplies, of course. There really hasn't been, lately. Variety in supplies, I mean. We have lots of staples (a variety of beans, rice, pastas, canned tomatoes, flours, potatoes, etc) and very little in the way of vegetables. Partly that can be blamed on the relative lack of variety right now at the Dane County Farmer's Market, but partly it's b/c the produce buyer seems to have lost interest in his job (a common danger in co-op living, I might point out); although, we certainly are well-stocked every week with his particular favorites. Having lived with him for 4 years now, I'm pretty knowledgeable on those. Lots of lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, some radishes, eggs and scallions. Not a lot one can do to vary that combination every week, eh? I've repeatedly asked him to buy with a thought towards the cooks (three cooks currently, with three dinners per week) being able to actually cook more than just pasta, breads, rice and beans, but to little avail.

And so, I'm on strike.

When I moved into Hypatia, I promised to cook dessert every week with my dinner; I also warned that when I became irked with my housemates, there would be no dessert. While my ire in this post notes only one housemate, I've a litany of irks, and almost all of the housemates catch a share of the flack.

So, what's for dinner tonight? Well, not Peach Puzzle, that's for sure.


Pasties. (That "a" is pronounced as in 'cat') Vegan pasties, to boot. Carb-filled vegan pasties, b/c that's what we've got to cook with. To be honest it's not a real pasty; I made a bread dough, rather than a more traditional crust, and the filling is onions, potatoes, carrots and that vile thing known as TVP (for the record, I actually like TVP in some things; my housemates, almost to a person, hate it. So, when I'm mad at them, not only do they not get dessert, they do get TVP. ) }:P

Speaking of the bread, it's the New York Time's No Knead Bread recipe. It's brilliantly easy, but everyone, including the food blogger I just linked to, makes it more difficult than it needs to be. To make an adequate amount, I use a 5 gallon pickle bucket, and multiply the recipe by 5. And, I make it with half whole wheat, half all-purpose flour. And add one cup of wheat gluten. And often, I bake it in a big, commercial four-loaf loaf pan, rather than a dutch oven. Note that the 5x recipe will fill a very large - larger than average dutch oven twice. You can double or triple the recipe, divide it accordingly and bake it in regular loaf pans too, but it won't be as crusty-yummie. And I don't use those silly towels to handle it.

To make the pasties, of course, I kneaded it with lots of extra flour (it's ok, even though the above blogger cautions against extra flour - remember, I'm making pasties, not bread, so a different texture is fine here) then rolled out handfuls into about 10 inch rounds and filled & sealed them. I've played around with that recipe a lot in the past - added all sorts of seeds and nuts, substituted part oat flour, etc.

I did talk the bulk food buyer into purchasing some pinto beans (the beans that all south-westerners are raised on, but are almost unheard of up here in Wisconsin, outside of the really, really bad Mexican restaurants, by which I mean all Mexican food restaurants) so there's a crock pot full of ranchero beans, too. It's usual for me to put five dishes on the table but tonight, there may only be the two dishes, unless I relent a bit and make a salad out of all that lettuce.

What else? What else? Oh, yeah. That picture at the top right, and the title. That's the dessert they won't get tonight. Peach Puzzle.

A couple weeks ago, housemate Marissa emailed me the recipe with a subject heading of "you simply have to make this recipe!!" I admit, it caught my fancy. I'm not a big fruit pie fan, but this seemed clever. So, I had a go at it.

Peaches and Syrup

7 medium peaches, peeled (see note)

3/4 cup packed light brown sugar

6 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Dough

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces and chilled

6 tablespoons milk

1. For the peaches and syrup: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 400 degrees. Place a 6-ounce custard cup or ramekin upside down in the center of a 9-inch pie plate and arrange the peaches around the custard cup. Combine the brown sugar, water, butter, vanilla, and salt in a medium saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar dissolves and the butter melts, about 5 minutes. Pour the syrup over the peaches.

2. For the dough: Pulse the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a food processor until blended. Add the butter and pulse until the flour mixture is pale yellow and resembles course cornmeal. Put the mixture into a medium bowl. (To make the dough by hand: Use the large holes on a box grater to grate frozen butter into the bowl with the flour mixture, then rub flour-coated pieces between your fingers until the flour mixture turns pale yellow and coarse.)

3. Using a rubber spatula, fold the milk into the flour mixture, pressing the mixture against the sides of the bowl to form the dough. Squeeze the dough together and flatten into a disk. On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough into a 9-inch circle. Lay the dough directly over the peaches and press and fit the dough so that it fits snuggly around peaches. (The dough will stretch as you fit it around the peaches, but do not attach the dough to the pie plate.) Bake until the top is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pan to a rack and let cool for 30 minutes.

4. Place a large rimmed serving plate over the top of the pie plate and quickly invert the puzzle onto a plate. Cut into wedges around each peach and serve, pouring syrup over each portion. Serve with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

Assembling Peach Puzzle

1. Place a custard cup or ramekin upside down in the center of a 9-inch pie plate. Arrange the peeled peaches around the cup.

2. Fit the dough snugly around the peaches without attaching the dough to the pie plate. Bake as directed. Once cooled, quickly invert the puzzle onto a rimmed serving plate.

A couple of things to note:

1) Wait the 30 minutes, minimum, before inverting.

2) This is well worth the effort, but when inverting it, it makes a mess, unless you have a serving dish with a really deep rim - at least two inches, and barely larger in circumference than the pie plate. If not, stand facing an easily-cleanable counter and backsplash; invert it by flipping towards the backsplash. If you flip it towards yourself, you'll be covered in icky, sticky, yummie but HOT syrup. (I did not get it all over myself, but I did get it all over the floor.) Why? Because not all of the sauce finds its way to the custard cup.

3) It needs to be eaten fairly quickly, unless you like a very ooey-gooey texture of raw-biscuit-like crust the next day. Why? Because not all of the sauce finds its way to the custard cup.

4) You're not supposed to stone the peaches, but when eating it, the stones are a pain in the neck. And, depending on your oven, the crust may bake before the peaches are done. So, next time I make this, I plan to try something different - halve the peaches, stone them and then cup one half into the other. Or maybe add a couple of extra peaches and overlap the peach halves all the way 'round the circle. That would also give you the benefit of being able to portion it into more or fewer servings than the 7 required by the whole peaches. I also think a pile of fresh apricot halves might work. I'll have to think about that one....

Anyway, housemate Marissa found the recipe on NPR and I suppose I should share the story behind it:

NPR.org, March 19, 2007 · Recipe by Lois Schlademan
Stow, Ohio

This recipe (which won the grand prize in the Cook's Country lost recipe contest) has all the abracadabra of a magic trick as well as beautiful presentation and great taste. Lois says the name refers to the "puzzling" cooking method. Her recipe begins by placing a custard cup upside down in the center of a pie plate. Seven peaches (peeled but still whole) are arranged around the cup and then drizzled with a mixture of brown sugar, butter, and vanilla. A buttery biscuit dough is then domed over the peaches and the custard cup. As the peaches bake under the crust, a vacuum forms inside the custard cup and the juices in the pie plate are pulled up inside the cup. Once cooled, the pie plate is flipped over to reveal the peaches nestled into the flaky biscuit. So where's the butterscotch-like syrup? It's all in the cup!

As you might imagine, Lois's recipe is unique—in our research, we failed to come across a single recipe like it. Lois says that her mother made peach puzzle back in the 1940s or 1950s and that it has been a family favorite ever since.

Gig 'em Aggies

I've occasionally mentioned the fact that I recently bought a Jeep; not a fancy one - just a plain old basic one, as you can see. A 2000, with what I think of as a bit too much mileage at 98,000, but that's actually pretty average. As you can also see, one of the first things I did was go out and buy a Texas Aggie cover for the spare tire. I had to!

In part it was an indulgence purchase; with gas at $4/gallon and only likely to go higher, its 20 mpg average pretty much sucks. But, I live downtown, I work downtown, I walk everywhere during the week, and only drive it a bit on the weekends; if I'm not leaving town, a tank of gas easily lasts me six or seven weeks.

One great thing about it - having calculated what it would cost for me to drive the Jeep home to Colorado for my summer vacation, I concluded that it would be cheaper (and great fun) to ride Amtrak instead, so I purchased my train tickets last week. I'm looking forward to it, although not having a car while in CO will be quite the different experience.

In all honesty, it was also probably a bit of a nostalgia purchase; my first 4x4, which I loved (but which was a money pit par excellence) was a classic 1969 Ford Bronco. The pic of it at left is the only one I have of the Bronco digitized, and it's a little dark. I'd love to own another one some day, but I sold it seven years ago, when I bought a 4x4 Ranger. One of the cute things about the Bronco was that, as a child, I had a toy Bronco, exactly the same color - back then, the turquoise blue was a standard Ford color for pickups and Broncos. Being a geek, I rigged up a mechanism to affix the toy Bronco atop the dashboard on the real Bronco - together, they were quite an attention-getter (and, I can't deny it, a real guy magnet. This was when I was still at Texas A&M, and the college guys were constantly wanting to look at it and ask about it.

At any rate, the Jeep is not such a standout - they're a dime-a-dozen around Madison and, I suppose, pretty much everywhere. But it's fun to drive.

No, here in Madison, it's Texas Aggies which are pretty rare - there are very few of us, despite the fact that the UW is, like A&M, a research-intensive land grant institution. And that's why it was kinda cool, a couple of weeks ago, when Other Half and I were hanging out at James Madison Park.

We'd gone shopping, picked up some "finger" food while we were at it, and stopped at the park to picnic; Other Half loves to hear the sound of the water, so we've tended to do that at least once a weekend this summer. After eating, we'd stretched out on the blanket to relax a bit, when I heard a horn honking a familiar pattern: beep-beep-beep-beep, beeep-beeep beeep-beeep. It doesn't translate well in writing, but it's the Aggie War Hymn. Our "fight song". "Hullah-ba-loo ca-neck, ca-neck". Which makes even less sense to you non-Aggies, eh? ;-)

Well, here it is in auditory and visual form:


I looked up and over to where my Jeep was parked curbside; a lone mini-van was passing; clearly, the driver had seen the Aggie tire cover and not knowing who it belonged to, honked the war hymn to let me know another Aggie was passing by.

We're pretty odd, we Aggies. But you can't say that we don't have a strong connection, wherever we are.

Sex in the City You Ain't

Meh.

Over the last few years, I've enjoyed - tremendously - the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra's Concerts on the Square. Every Wednesday evening for six weeks in the middle of the summer, the WCO uses Wisconsin's state capitol building (Wisconsinites insist it's the most beautiful state capitol building, and having seen quite a few of them, I'm not going to disagree, although I will point out that the gold leaf-covered dome of the Colorado state capitol is something special too) as a backdrop for a 90-minute concert.

People picnic, people relax and enjoy the company of friends, and then, when the music starts, people shut up and listen. Or do they?

Starting early on Wednesday mornings, a set-up crew begins preparing the Capitol lawns for the thousands in the audience; they begin by putting out hundreds - hundreds - of these lawn signs:

By 3 pm, people start staking out their space with blankets.

Today was no different. Housemate Marissa had the afternoon free, so offered to put out a blanket; housemate Matt and I willingly agreed to join her after we both got off work. I ran home, assembled a bit of food to picnic on, and joined Marissa about 5:45; Matt arrived perhaps 45 minutes later, and the concert started at 7 pm.

And I don't know what it is - perhaps I'm IMSing, although I certainly started the evening out in a good mood - but the noise from people around us was so loud that it nearly drowned out the music.

I took a closer look around. Now, people are probably going to accuse me of being sexist here, but I'm not, really. If anything, I suspect I'm being ageist. And elitist. Marissa had picked out the location - closer than I'd ever been to the actual orchestra (the crowd is less dense the further out on the lawns one goes, and friends and I have always tended to gather at a greater distance. There's a huge sound system, so being closer isn't necessarily better.

Looking around, I saw a view that I'd not experienced before in the previous four summers, and one that struck me: We were completely surrounded by blankets-full of younger, mostly single-appearing, somewhat "professional"-appearing females. Seriously. Within a ten- or eleven-blanket span around us, there were only two or three other males.

From where I was setting, I could reach out and touch one of those above signs, as could the blanket full of women to my left and the blanket full of women to my right. But as the music started, these women did not quiet down; they did not end their conversations nor even lower their voices. They raised their voices. Marissa and Matt noticed this too, of course.

After just a few minutes, as the orchestra quieted to an end of the first piece, the voice of the woman on my right who was talking at that time blared out in the quiet, and so I leaned over and asked, fairly civilly, "can you please keep it down? Thanks."

Not surprisingly, as the orchestra launched into their second piece, I caught her sarcastic comment to her blanket-mates "Oh, I guess we need to shut up now, so assholes around us can hear the music".

I am indeed, I suppose, an asshole, or, as I said, perhaps I'm IMSing, which mkes me an asshole for thinking that everyone goes to the concerts to hear the music, as opposed to hearing the vacuous, inane chatter of a group of Sex In The City wannabes. Because Sex In The City indeed was not only the tenor of their chatter but also the manner they seemed to affect. Whatever the case, they did quiet down, just a tad, for the next couple of pieces of music, and I turned my attention to the blanket to my left, when one woman laughed loudly; a quick "shhhh" caught their attention and they quieted down too - though not much.

Realistically, my chiding made little difference; for the remainder of the first half of the program, the noise surrounding us remained a mask over the music; I did notice a few people further out making grimaces and glaring at people, so I know I wasn't the only one irritated.

However, the last straw came as the conductor announced intermission. The previously sarcastic one to my right picked it right back up, saying, and clearly intending me to overhear "Oh, do you suppose it's ok for us to talk again during intermission, or is some asshole going to yell at us?"

I leaned over and told Matt and Marissa, who'd heard the comment too, that I couldn't take any more and was leaving; as I got up, I turned and said to them "If I want Sex In The City, I guess I should just go see the movie, because y'all sure ain't it."

After a couple seconds of silence and looking at each other, one of 'em looked back at me and said "Huh?"

I'd like to think that proved my point, but alas, I'm also faced with the very real possibility that such a searing little witticism is lost on any but a gay male.

Either that, or it was neither searing nor witty.

*sigh*

Spammed By Qweird Utah

Ok, so this is *not* a post I would typically write (that's what Qweird Utah said too, but I don't believe her) . It's one of those "answer all these questions so people learn more about you" things. This one happens to be questions about significant others, lovers, husbands, wives, what-ever-you-call-thems. In my case "Other Half":

How long have you been married?
We're not. But that's not for lack of him trying. I keep saying "I'll be happy to move to Spain, once you graduate" but he doesn't want to move back to Europe.

Where did you meet?
We're totally 21st Century - we met online.

How long did you date?
We still are dating. I blame it on him, b/c he doesn't want to return to Europe, or move to Canada - all viable options, since he carries an EU passport.

How old is he?
You're trying to make me embarrass myself. He's 25.

Who eats more?
Him. Don't you hate that, when the skinniest one always eats the most? Life's unfair.

Who is taller?

He is by, oh, 8 or 9 inches (should I be transitioning to metric, I wonder? In any case, that's a lie - he's only 6 inches taller.) I blame my mother - seems as though I received all of her genes and none of my slim, tall father's genes.

Who is smarter?
If you go by education level, I am, for one more year, after which we'll be equal. Otherwise, he's smarter at the book stuff, I'm smarter at the practical stuff.

Whose temper is worse?
Good question. We both fly off the handle occasionally, but if it's at each other, it seldom lasts more than 10-15 minutes. I do recall us going to bed angry once, but that was sometime in the first couple of months. He definitely has road rage worse than I do.

Who does the laundry?
Ha! During our courtship he claimed to love doing the laundry, but he lies! He lies! ;-) He also promised to iron my shirts. He's done that exactly once. So, we generally launder together or tag-team it.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed?
We've struggled with that one a bit, and have flip-flopped some. Currently, I'm sleeping on the right side of the bed, because the window closest to the bed is on the right side, and it has a fan on it, which makes it cooler. The real question here should be: "Who's the cold sleeper and who's the hot sleeper?" (That's cold as in "who prefers the bedroom to be cooler".) I'm the cold sleeper. Even at this time of year, you'll find him in full pajamas, huddled under all the covers, while I'm lying on top of all the covers. I do keep pointing out, to no avail, that it's not very romantic of him.

Who pays the bills?

We're not living together yet. He goes to grad school in a different city, after all. Dependent on his schedule, during the school year he's usually in Madison Thursday evening thru Monday morning. Right now he's doing an internship in Milwaukee, so he's only here Friday evening thru Sunday evening. But, we're both meticulous about paying our bills, and I do pay some of his - he paid off the last little bit on my 2005 Focus so he's driving it, but I'm still paying the insurance and other associated costs. Qweird Utah mentioned "FICA scores", so I will too. I dunno what his are, but when I went to my credit union to take out a loan for my Jeep, it was 837. I was a little distressed until the loan officer said "no, no, that's good - it only goes up to 850." Who knew that my FICA scores would end up being better than my GRE scores? (No, of course they weren't. Geez. That's a joke, people.)

Who cooks dinner?

Mostly me. I'm far and away the better cook. But occasionally he treats by cooking some of his "national" dishes for me, and he does a fine, if meticulous job of it. Knedliki, anyone? They're rather tasty when served with a marinara sauce. He's also got the schnitzel down. The veggies, however, tend to be lacking in Central European foods. Fortunately, I like saurkraut. But whatever you do, don't make the mistake of saying "Eastern Europe". You'll swiftly be corrected and treated to a little lesson in European history and geography.

Who drives when you are together?
We're pretty balanced on this; with these gas prices, if we're doing a lot of driving, we take the Focus and he drives. But in the gorgeous summer weather that is Madison, we usually put the top down on the Jeep and I drive.

Who is more stubborn?

Bwah-ha-ha! Can you say "tvrdohlavý jako mezek"? Sure you can! Repeat after me: Stubborn. As. A. Mule.

Who kissed whom first?

Wow. I really don't even remember. Despite all the stereotypes about gay males, we were very well-behaved for the first several weeks, even though we shared a bed from the start.

Who is the first to admit to being wrong?
I guess that one is fairly well balanced. We're both pretty good about saying "I'm sorry" if we fly off the handle over something. It's usually pretty minor stuff when that happens. Although - he always insists that he's right. But I know when he's wrong, so I just forgive him and move on. ;-)

Whose parents do you see the most?
Good grief. His parents live in Brno, after all. Have I mentioned that Brno has what I consider to be a very cool logo? Up in the top right corner. In reality, he hasn't met my parents yet, either. I blame him, b/c he works all the time to pay for grad school. But I also blame my parents; despite the fact that I get along with them well, they're not very comfortable with who I am. Then again, they felt that way about divorced people too, until my older brother married a divorcee and gave them grandchildren. Grandchildren do tend to overcome most biases, don't they? In fundamentally decent people, anyway.

Who proposed?

I did. Or, I do. I guess. Regularly. It goes like this, about once a week:

me "Hey, guess what?"

him "You're proposing to me? I accept!"

me "Oh, no, that's not what, but ok, I guess."

In reality, I don't feel much pressure in that regard, but he seems to.

What’s his best physical attribute?

I have my own opinions about that which I'll not address, but I'll note that I've been told by multiple people that they think he's got classic "Euro-model" looks. And he does. He's hawt.

Who has more friends?

Depends on what you mean by "friends". We both have a very small group of close friends - most of his are in Europe and mine are scattered across the States; I have a fairly large group of acquaintances in Madison whom I enjoy spending time with, but he definitely has little patience for random acquaintances. At present our social life does revolve more around my acquaintances here in Madison.

What are you most proud of him for?
He definitely is a hard worker, bright and a quick study. The company he's interning for offered to hire him full-time only a week into his internship. MY government, of course has something to say about that: a big fat NO. H1B visas are sorta hard to come by.

Who has more siblings?
I have four sibs - one adopted, three by birth. He's a singleton.

Who wears the pants in the family?

Him. I much prefer to wear shorts at every possible opportunity. Although I do constantly encourage him to wear shorts, too. Not that I have any ulterior motives or anything. By the way, have I mentioned how sexy his legs are?

Other Half's Ex

Well, this was an unusual weekend, more for what didn't happen than what did. Saturday night was the first weekend night (except for two weekends over the Christmas/New Year's holidays) that Other Half and wasn't here with me for the full weekend. I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself, but house mates Abi and Marissa rode to the rescue. We watched "A Flea Market Documentary", which Marissa had just received from Netflix. And then, Sunday morning, Abi and I, finding ourselves up early, decided to hit the Northgate Flea Market. It's not much of a flea market, but then Madison doesn't seem to have much in the way of flea markets anyway.

"Sara With No 'H'" has more on the Northgate Flea Market. Although written in 2005, it is still accurate today. Except that the Northgate Antique Mall is now closed, which is a bummer, b/c over the last five years, I managed to purchase a number of Christmas gifts at that antique mall.

Neither Abi nor I found a treasure at the flea market, so we wandered down the street a bit further, to take in the North Side Farmer's Market.

But, the interesting part of the weekend story is why Other Half wasn't here. I suppose a brief history is in order, although he's never happy with me talking about him online.

Other Half is a grad student at a university in Wisconsin, and a Czech national. He's doing an internship in Milwaukee this summer, so comes over on Friday nights and back to Milw. on Sunday nights.

On Thursday last, he called me, in a bit of a tizzy. He'd just received a phone call from his ex (also a Czech national, who happens to still live in the Czech Republic.) But Ex had called to say "I'm in Atlanta, I'll be in Milwaukee in two hours; I have to talk to you about something important."

Of course, Other Half who'd not skyped with his mom in three or four days, immediately started worrying that something had happened to his mom or dad; Ex and Other Half's mom are still pretty close friends, y'see, and neither of them had quite believed Other Half when he'd said "it's over" and had followed through on that by packing up and moving to the States more than a year ago. His mom came to believe it, once he started skyping her on the weekends from my place, and Ex seemed to move out of the picture.

So, after thinking a bit, I called Other Half back (last Thursday afternoon) and said "why don't you call your mom?" He was on the phone with her already, and had been assured that everyone was fine, and she had no idea why Ex was in the States - although she did know that he was on vacation for the next month.

And so.... Other Half picked up Ex at the Milwaukee airport Thursday last, and learns that Ex had just decided to "surprise" him, by spending his month of vacation here, in the US. With MY boyfriend.

I suppose that, if I were a drama queen, I'd have gone into hysterics at that point, jumped in my Jeep and driven to Milwaukee. But, I'm not (and besides, at that point, the interstate was still closed b/c of flooding and I'd have had to drive an extra hour out of my way. I-94 reopened the following afternoon, however.)

Instead, I said "well, you can bring him to Madison for the weekend, if you want. I won't let him stay here, but he can stay at a hotel, and we can take him to the Farmer's Market, and tootle around in the Jeep - it's supposed to be a nice weekend".

"Or," I added, "you can tell him how rude and obnoxious it is for him to just assume he can show up and think he can stay with you for a month. Tell him you have work, you have me, and he can spend the extra hundred bucks to change his flight schedule, so he can return to Europe on Friday. But whatever you end up deciding is ok with me - you know I'm not the jealous type."

Of course, Other Half isn't as up-front in expressing himself as I can be, and to be honest, I think he feels a bit guilty still about the way he broke up with Ex. And, as Other Half said "he looks terrible. He's lost tons of weight, hasn't taken care of himself...." So, he caved. Ex is staying in MY boyfriend's apartment, in Milwaukee. Other Half drove over to Madison on Friday evening as usual, but returned to Milwaukee on Saturday afternoon. He did, finally, forcefully tell Ex that Ex could *not* stay for the whole month, but the agreement is that Ex scheduled a return flight to Prague for Monday, June 30th. And it seems likely that MY boyfriend will stay in Milwaukee next weekend, for the full weekend. He'd told me a couple weeks ago that he'd probably have to stay and work through Friday night, because the company he's interning for is moving into a new facility over next weekend, and they're having a 'packing party' on Friday and into the evening. But now he's suggesting that he'll stay in Milw. the entire weekend, b/c Ex will still be there.

I'm really not the jealous type; and there are funny parts to this story which keep me laughing. For one, if the scenario was reversed, and it was my Ex who showed up unannounced, Other Half admitted that he'd "be at your side the entire time he was here". Yes, Other half is a very jealous type. Hell, he's jealous whenever I hang out with some of my *straight* male friends. And it drives him a bit crazy that I refuse to be jealous. :-p For another, he's getting his just desserts, for not being forceful enough with Ex. It's making Other Half feel miserable, and my unwillingness to sympathize, but rather to say "sure, bring him over to Madison!" isn't making him feel any better. :-D And besides, this is priceless material, for the next time he gets mad at me....

Happy Juneteenth

What, you ask, is Juneteenth? It's the date - June 19th, 1865, that the slaves of Texas finally learned that they'd been declared emancipated - more than two years earlier - by Abraham Lincoln as of January 1, 1863.

Time magazine has an adequate "brief history" of Juneteenth, worth checking out.

I've attended quite a few Juneteenth celebrations, both in Texas and in Colorado, but not, as yet, here in Madison. Milwaukee has a good-sized celebration and Madison has one too; however, I've been a bit surprised at exactly how many people I've run across in Madison who've never heard of Juneteenth. Maybe I ought not be quite so surprised....

Although it's not a national holiday, 29 states and DC now recognize Juneteenth as either a state holiday or (more often the case) a "state holiday observance". What the heck that means, I don't know - probably that state employees don't get the day off. That list includes Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, Delaware, Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, California, Wyoming, Illinois, Missouri, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Colorado, Arkansas, Oregon, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Virginia, Washington State, Tennessee, Massachusetts, North Carolina, West Virginia, South Carolina, Vermont and the District of Columbia.

As one of little faith, I'm more than a little uncomfortable with the fact that the movement to establish Juneteenth as a national holiday is led by the National Juneteenth Christian Leadership Council, but I do recognize that leadership in the black communities often does come bound up with faith. Regardless, I'm all for Juneteenth being elevated to the level of a national holiday, so y'all spring for a stamp and add your voices to the National Juneteenth Holiday Campaign, ok?

And while you're at it, check out this splendid little website on "The Middle Passage".

More On Identity Politics

I'll leave it to Pam and others to tell.



I've added Pam's House Blend to my Blog (Roll) Stuff, b/c I've been reading her for awhile and she is by far the coolest of the cool.