dilettante

When parents ask me about the appropriate age to start taking their children to museums, my standard response is, "How old are your kids?" And they might say, "Five and eight." At which point I pause for a moment, shake my head, and say, "You're late...To be precise, five and eight years late. Hurry up and take them to a museum tomorrow."
....
I took my 2½ year-old niece to the Getty two weeks ago. I'm trying to take her to museums that are not geared toward children.

In the car on the way there, I explain that we get to ride in a train, and that a museum has art that is made by wonderful artists from all around the world... and you get to see many different types of art. Blah, blah, blah...you get the picture.

Riding in the train, I become a bit panicked. I have a 2½ year-old, taking her to an adult museum. Is there anything that will catch her interest?

So we get off the train and I tell her to start thinking about what kind of things she would like to see.

We walk up to the information booth, and she asks the lady, "DO YOU HAVE PONY ART HERE?"

It was the cutest thing. And to the Getty's credit, the woman in the information booth took her seriously and found four paintings with horses for us to see.

Art and Babies - Art Talk on KCRW

Labels: 12 days of christmas, baby talk, pony art

Fried Mac

I have no words.

Labels: and bacon..., sweet potato balls

Which of the following are not ingredients in Paula Deen's Pineapple-Cranberry Salad? Cream Cheese, Powdered Sugar, Walnuts, Raspberry Jell-o, Whipped Cream, Cranberries.

UPDATE: and the correct answer is: Cranberries. Thanks for playing.
Pineapple-Cranberry Salad Recipe

I think the best thing is this, at the bottom of the webpage:

Ads by Google
1 Tip of a flat belly :
Cut down 3 lbs of your belly every week by using this 1 weird old tip.
Fatburningfurnace.com

Indeed.

Labels: and bacon..., contest, halloween, sweet potato balls

my most visited websites, according to delicious:

Hotmail
Bloglines
Three Bulls
Facebook
Daily Kos
Yahoo Sports Fantasy Football
Blogger
Hulu
sfGate
Craigslist - SF Bay Area baby + kids stuff classifieds
Twitter
Baby Names: Beyond the Trends
dooce
Powells books

It's all really accurate, except for Daily Kos.  I never go there anymore. It has dropped a few spots, but I must've been going there a truly incredible number of times before though, because it is still so high on the list. 

Labels: Fact of the Day, lists, low maintenance, Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast, teh intertubes

one thing about me is that as I have gotten older I have developed a relatively serious fear of flying.  I have a couple strategies for handling a flight. If it is nighttime, I can usually close my eyes and pretend I'm on a bus.  As long as the turbulence is side-to-side and not up-and-down, that works pretty well.

My go-to strategy was to list the US states in alphabetical order.  I don't know about you, but for me it is a challenging enough task that it is pretty distracting, but not so hard that it can't be done and thus fails at the ultimate goal of keeping a panic attack at bay.  Plus, part of me just feels that somehow, someday, that information is going to come in handy.  I think it's a leftover impulse from elementary school.  Like I'll be touring the White House and President Obama will rush out and cry "can anyone list all 50 states?!" and a few hands will go up, and then he'll finish "alphabetically?" And I'll be the only one who can assist him.

But I've moved on from State recitation after a recent flight.  The turbulence was pretty bad, and it seemed to me that even the flight attendants looked nervous.  I was reciting along, eyes squeezed shut, and after one particularly bad bounce I realized that I did not want my last thoughts on earth to be "Maine, Maryland, Michigan, no wait, Massachusetts...."

Labels: candygram for Mongo, days of yore, don't panic

said at exactly the same time:

K: oh, look how cute Nina looks!
C: what the F is she wearing?!

Labels: flim-flam, how much TV do you watch?, relationship advice, tv reality

B playing with her toy duck, waving it around in the air.

K: is that your ducky? are you making him fly? is he a super duck?
C: you know, regular ducks can fly.

Labels: baby talk, ducks, flim-flam, low maintenance

THING #1
Flow Chart for Total Eclipse of the Heart
via Laughing Squid

THING #2
Interview with co-owner of SF Mission Pie
I love love love Mission Pie.
The intro to the interview states:

As her work growing ingredients for pies on a pie-shaped ranch in an effort to illuminate where food comes from suggests, the one-time EPA administrator is deeply philosophical and seems particularly inclined toward the synecdoche. So in some of the specifics of how she's carved out success for herself in the nonprofit world and as a green entrepreneur, you get not just tasty insider tidbits, but also some quietly revolutionary insights on why green, broadly defined, matters, and how it can succeed in small, but important, ways.

which I pretty much shrugged/laughed at. But she really lived up to this lead-in. One of the best things ever is learning something new about how complex is something that seemed so simple. For example, her discussion about efforts to use more local ingrediants. (how hard could that be it seemed to me):

For example, we're in conversation right now with Blue House Farm about producing rhubarb. We've been really frustrated that we have to get so much of our rhubarb from Oregon. I mean, it's a long way away. And from a farming perspective, it would be a meaningful crop because once it's in place and thriving, it's quite a bit easier to harvest than, for example, strawberries.

The general wisdom about rhubarb is not to harvest in the first year. Sometimes it's really hard for a farm to make an investment in something when there's such a delay for the return. It might make all the sense in the world, and be, in terms of business values, exactly the right thing for Mission Pie to support some of the upfront cost knowing that the next season we're going to be really well positioned to receive a lot of what that investment ends up yielding, maybe as a temporarily beneficial price.

Who knew? there is much more, like a combine. Love it.

Labels: cake hole, seasons, SF living, teh intertubes

"I'm not sure if I had been her advisor I would have said for her to do the Glamour cover…because it might begin to trivialize her and what her role is," said the Washington Post's Sally Quinn, a longtime Beltway culture watcher.

Quinn said that Mrs. Obama is still figuring out exactly what her role will be and transitioning in to her new life in the White House.

"This is obviously a very intelligent and educated and high achieving woman and I suspect that at some point she is going to decide that she will concentrate on one particular issue, and go for it," she said.

"But I think right now the best thing she can be, is be in the background, appear to be a supportive mother and wife and not garner any particular attention that might attract criticism of him."

link

so let's start with a Glamour cover "trivializing her role", then we go IMMEDIATELY into she is still figuring out her role. So whatever her role is, which is unknown and still being figured out, Sally Quinn knows that unknown role is trivialized by a Glamour cover. THEN she says M. Obama's role is to "be in the background, appear to be a supportive mother and wife". So even though M. Obama doesn't know what her role is, and she is still figuring it out, Sally Quinn knows her role is to be in the background and be a supportive wife and mother. And then somehow appearing on the cover of Glamour trivializes this?

Sally Quinn only said three things and they were all three collectively and independently stupid. Excellent job, Washington Post. (and I am not even getting into the fact that she was quoted at all in this piece. Let the Daily Howler have the meltdown over that.)

Labels: 5 second rule, candygram for Mongo, shouting out into the void, teh intertubes, the world is a vampire

Last night I was home early so we went out for dinner. (really trying to maintain a 7pm bedtime for B, which limits dinners out for the most part).  I was looking forward to a relaxing dinner chat with C away from computers, tv and book distractions, but we were both sucked into the show that was on the nice flat screen at Flipper's: Greatest 4th Quarters Ever!   It was an October '03 game, Redskins vs. Eagles.  The score was 16-20, Eagles.  12 minutes left.  And with the crap edited out, and just showing the plays, it was taking about 12 minutes. Nice!
The problem was the producers' apparently incorrect understanding of both "Greatest" and "Quarter".  First the Eagles march down the field and score: 16-27. 6 minutes left.  The Redskins have a relatively lame drive that ends with about 4 minutes left and they attempt a 53-yard field goal. They make it: ok, exciting I suppose.  19-27. Then they go for an on-side kick: they recover!  cool enough.  A few first downs, then an admittedly awesome TD pass up the middle.  25-27.  30 seconds left.  They go for the 2-point conversation: overthrown.  13 seconds left.  Eagles recover the on-side kick and kneel. Game Over.

so, Somewhat Interesting Last 90 Seconds: yes. Greatest 4th Quarters Ever: Fail.

The real point of interest (besides speculation on what was going to make this a Greatest 4th Quarters Ever) was seeing who was playing.  "Is the QB Patrick Ramsey? omg." "Ah, Bruce Smith as a Redskin."  "McCants? Who is that guy?"

upon seeing a close-up:

K: Darnerian McCants: yeah I think I remember him.
C: you do not.  Darnerian McCants' mom is watching right now going "you were in the NFL?"

Labels: BURN, candygram for Mongo, dream date, football, how much TV do you watch?

these Top Chef: Las Vegas recaps are awesome.

he receives an autographed copy of Fish: Without a Doubt, Chef Moonen's book. Which Chef Moonen calls his bible? It is weird to call your own book your bible. Would God say that? "You should read this. It's my Bible." I guess he would.

Labels: 12 days of christmas, Fact of the Day, how much TV do you watch?

B does NOT like banana.  She was making the funniest faces so I kept feeding it to her. 

It is awesome to witness what expressions are innate.  Example #1: pouty lip. Example #2: disgusted face: wrinkled nose and scrunched up eyes.

Also, so you can't say I am all B all the time; Sophie Cat was sitting on the ottoman, resting against my legs. She then, naturally, put her leg up over her head and started licking. She did this long drawn out lick from the top of her leg all the way down and as she finished up at her butt. At that point her nose was right up against my leg. So she gave me a nice tiny lick too. Like she was letting me know how much she cared.  By licking her butt and then licking my leg.

Our fantasy football draft started at 8am on the Sunday before the season began.  I had been up with B since oh around 6am.  At 7am I went out for coffee and doughnuts.  After the draft we met some friends for breakfast.  I ordered more coffee.  4 refills and one omelet later, we left.  In fact, I held up the table while I finished drinking that 5th cup of coffee.  I was quite jittery and over caffeinated.  One might wonder why I drank so much coffee then, and indeed one of our friends did ask. 

The reason?  The server was very slow on the refills and I had to ask repeatedly.  That is just not acceptable. In fact, I consider rapid and plentiful coffee refills to be a basic core competency of breakfast restaurants.  I should be turning down the refill offers, not flagging down the server.

So that is the kind of person I am.  I'll drink 3 extra cups of coffee I don't want and that will make me feel unwell, just to make an obscure food-service ethics point.

Labels: and bacon..., dream date, java, shouting out into the void, the world is a vampire, there is too much pepper on my paprikash

Dilettante Dad: it appears Honduras just scored to open the second half.
C: US loses.
K: not necessarily...
C: the odds of them coming back and scoring two goals on the road are about as bad as them beating Spain.
K: But they did beat Spain!
C: yes, but the odds were very low.
K: I think you point would be better served if you used the odds of them beating Brazil.

time passes
Dad: you'll never believe it!!  The US won 3-2!
K: I guess Spain was the proper analogy after all.

bonus material: C comment on our fantasy football forum "Sometimes in sports things are unfair. Like the US Men's National Soccer Team playing arguably their best game ever, coming from behind against Honduras in Honduras to qualify for the World Cup, in a game almost totally untelevised in the US."

Labels: dream date, smack talk, the other football

K: hmmm
C: yes?
K: that guy sitting at the bus stop was rocking the low pants look. His pants were so low he was basically sitting in his underwear.  It gives me a new perspective on low hanging pants.
C: I would think it would give you a new perspective on bus stop benches.

Labels: mr. yuck, SF living, there is too much pepper on my paprikash