I am what I am.....

All Hallows Eve, Eve.

Sorry for the lack of blogging the last couple of days, but Mr. Fall allergy has been kicking my Autumnal tuckus. The day started  with Gameday out of the other USC, mixed pic for the game but Kirk has been right all year ( see: South Carolina v #1 Alabama ) Moved on to carving pumpkins with a 10 year old.

The key to carving pumpkins with a 10 year old. Bloodies and the outdoor Pandora cranked on the REM channel.

I drew, she carved

Koda lended a paw

 the results.

GAMEDAY

The Worlds Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party

A funny thing happened on the way to Nibelheim.

Kyle is to SEC football as Neil is to :

1. The Collected Works of Jacqueline Susann
2. The Art of Famous Dadaist Marcel Duchamp
3. Wagnerian Opera

If you answered #3 move to the head of the class!

Me and the Wanker.

Yes, he is a rabid, painting his face, big foam finger fan of Richard Wagner's operas. Has traveled all over the world to see productions of them, and lucky for him, this season the New York Metropolitan Opera company is doing the entire RING CYCLE. ( google if you must.. or just let art flow...). Tickets to the real deal are eight million dollars and down in NYC, BUT!! lucky for opera fans all over the world the Met along with M. Bloomburg do a live simulcast of the events in movie theaters. Live and in HD. Last night , was a re-play of the opening weekend's production of Das Rheingold. They really do just set up cameras, live right there inside the Met and show you everything. I mean, it looks like for all the world that you are watching a movie, but it is live ( well, not in our case, but if you go on the Saturday afternoon,..) live tv, with coughing, and mishaps and everything. It really is a very cool thing, for opera fans.
There were a lot of people there to watch, Neil was the second youngest one in the room. You all do know a little bit about this series of operas, you just know it as Kill the Wabbit ( which is from the NEXT opera, not this one )

I really do know next to nothing about opera, but this not at all what you would expect. Huge, complex staging with this very modern, very Cirque de Soleil event. Rheinmaidens fly and sing at one point two of the main characters are going down into hell or gnomeland or somewhere, and the whole stage becomes a series of steps, BUT, you are viewing it from on top... so they are walking sideways on the stage. A little hard to explain, but very trippy.

(The stairs here are flat... as if you were viewing them from above....)

Video: 'Das Rheingold' at the Met - nytimes.com/video from The New York Times on Vimeo.

Not 100% sure this would be the best choice for ones very first opera, but I enjoyed it, only drifted off once, and really the damn Rheinmadens just went on and on about that  gold. The whole process is pretty fun, I would do it again, maybe with some light flirty Italian opera. ( not that we will not be back for the remaining THREE operas left over the next two years.) At least I do know the story, its kind of Thor comic books brought to life.

The NYT Review

Yesterday ( Wednesday )

Yes, we can all deal with a little high 70's not a cloud in the sky late October weather. More please ( today is turning stormy and much colder...)

I ♡ New York.

Real ad running in NYC tonight ( from JMG )

dinner

A lemony tilapia with roasted red peppers
mixed fall vegetables
brown rice

Indigenous Peoples Summer

Happy Global Warming!

It's well on it's way to hitting close to 80, a couple of days 

before Halloween, this far north. Plenty of years Trick-or-Treating

has been done in a few inches of snow.

The bright sun is coming and going..

most of the leaves still on our trees... 

( a good thing..)

flowers that really should not be blooming, 

blooming.

Brown people will kill you and your family.

Three of the Frosh Class at Sarah Lawrence get ready for their Halloween " gang themed " Mixer.
The latest from nut job in a white hood, Ms. Sharron Angle:


WHAT IF.. this OVERT racist is elected to the US Senate? Things are still neck and neck in Nevada. How low is the bottom of this cesspool of a barrel ??

“Is NPR an agent somehow of a jihadist inquisition?”

No, you idiot, it is a cabal of Jews, don't you know ANYTHING ??

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
NPR Staffing Decision 2010
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

breakfast, lunch and dinner

Dahn called this morning and said " hey! how about an old time Thali day! " We were there with bells on!

round one

round two, that little Arby cake looking thing

was like a fried pressed onion thing,

YUMMY!

Parts of Dahn and Neil

I sent this pic out to Craigy on the West Coast, told him

all of Indian Rochester missed him, something awful!

The very nice Sikh gentleman who is always so friendly

showed us how he pins his almost waist length beard 

up, so it looks all neat. Thank you, very much, for
Lunch, Dahn !!!

did you tell Mr. Crawford you had a nice time ?

Miss Kiara went home this morning.

Koda has slept all day long. 

I will be able to sleep later in the morning.

Cutting off........

" Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!

Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once,

That make ingrateful man! "

                                            -  King  Lear , Act 3, Scene 2    

Another one I have been putting off blogging about. Politics is just getting too real out there  as we get closer and closer to the election. It has just been easier to just go all ostrich in the sand and focus only on sports. I watched Sports Center instead of This Week and Meet the Press on Sunday. Rare for me.

Obama and the Gays

Good Lord, fellas... have a cocktail already, ya'll are working my last gay nerve. From P-town to WeHo, the glbt set is just about to go all double conniption out there, You would think it was raining on the Dinah Shore or something. It is a righteous anger, don't get me wrong, but I swear, there are grown up men ( and it really does seem to be mostly men ) who are pulling a two year old in the frozen food aisle , just laying down and kicking....


Things have not moved anywhere near fast enough with the Obama administration, and in two cases , the Obama DOJ is actively working against us. Bad and worse. " I'm cutting off the ATM machine!" cries the well coiffed homo!" We will vote them out! ". " No More Mr. Nice Gay! "  - Well, I said that one, but it was just about New York where a glbt vote really can have some impact, not like ... 99% of the rest of the country.


Here is the deal folks : They have us by the shortest of short hairs, really. The Democratic party is the only game in town for us, end of story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the pink underbelly GOP and it's gay enablers can trot out all the Laura Bushs and that McCain child and all the starched Log Cabiners it wants too, does not change the fact that it is wholly owned by the hard core far, far right wing Christianist movement. Really.

 You want to see how SUPER fast things can go from frying pan to fryer ? The hoods will come off those tea baggers right after they say their oath, and us and the Mexicans are #1 and #2 on their lists. You watch how fast Mr. Mitt - I'm-not-really-from-New England goes right of Sarah and her coven that first snowy day in Iowa. " I hated the gays before hating them was cool".. rally that energized base.


We are on the right side of history on this one, and SO! not to sound like the HRC or any of those types, but this time patience is a virtue. Calm down folks, as everyone is saying these days : " things are going to get better". Focus that anger you are feeling towards something positive. President Obama is not doing everything he could, but he is NOT the enemy.

Jorts are not the answer !

GEORGIA - FLORIDA WEEK '10

1979

The last time that UGA and the hatedgators met with neither team being in the top 20.. BUT, we all know what happened the following year! This is the first year in freaking forever that Florida is just as sucky as we are, so it's our year to be cocky!


From the AJC : "Something will be amiss when Georgia and Florida get together Saturday in Jacksonville for their annual football game: For the first time in 31 years, both teams will show up unranked in the national polls.

The last time that happened -- 1979 -- current Georgia running backs coach Bryan McClendon's father was just one year removed from playing tailback for the Bulldogs.
This time, the teams took odd routes to their annual collision. Florida (4-3, 2-3 SEC) started the season ranked No. 4 in the nation but has lost its past three games. Georgia (4-4, 3-3) fell off the radar with four consecutive losses but has re-emerged by winning three in a row.
Oddest of all, considering the teams' records, the game carries high stakes. The winner becomes the leading challenger to first-place South Carolina for the right to represent the jumbled-up SEC East in the league championship game at the Georgia Dome on Dec. 4.


Crazier things have happened, maybe even already this season.

Sleep Well Tonight.....

Chief Petty Officer Day is out there defending us.

( or else Butler has been taken by the Borg)

I was very grown up about this picture, I pointed out the big gun and the knee pads....

Week Nine... things start to get interesting...

1 Auburn 8-0
2 Oregon 7-0
3 Boise State 6-0
4 TCU 8-0
5 Michigan State 8-0
6 Missouri 7-0
7 Alabama 7-1
8 Utah 7-0
9 Oklahoma 6-1
10 Wisconsin 7-1

Late, late , late in the season, a good time to be #1. You know Ole Miss is chomping at the bits to be the next ( #4 ) giant killer. Auburn has them this weekend, then their homecoming ( Chattanooga ) then us, then the Iron Bowl. They, could, go , all , the , way....

dinner

Left overs.
On a tray, in front of the tv.
Judge away.

Burn off some of that energy

We learned on Miss Kiara's last trip that she does not do well off leash. Koda gets to run and run all over the trail and park but she was all over Mendon.

So they did a little on leash romping this afternoon

It was a very strange weather day up here, too warm, too humid, just heavy and damp. There are snow fences up already, because it is almost November, but still most warm.

She loves being out on the trail

Action shot!

Koda in the yellow leaves. 

Sun-day, Sun-day

Up and about early after a late sports night. Shock and Awe for the third week in a row a BCS #1 went down.... just high high will the Tigers/war-damn-eagles/plainsman be this evening? #2? do they dare dream higher.. or will Oregon and the Smurfs keep them lower ??
Anyway, my day do to post church coffee hour, Neil pets Nitro OR Lucy, there seemed to be some confusion over the pup's name. Sweet dog though.

I gayed up coffee hour, no.. really just sort of Halloweened it up. After the blow out last weekend on these exact same tables, I sort of phoned this one in.

Healthy alternative to the doughnuts n all...

A spur of the moment Jack-o-lantern....or Queen of the Nile...

The ride home from Church, all the colors are just that few days past peaks when the bright yellows and reds give way to the mottled ambers and russets and greeny golds. Just lovely...

Snow fencing all ready up....

My personal pumpkins. The yellow one, I was told, is a mutant white one. My house is a big mess, but I am thinking a nap before I clean.

World Series 2010

Most fun ending in the Giants Phillys game tonight. 

Let's see , the team that GWB used to own, verses the San Francisco values set... think anyone else will notice?? 

Dinner

A little game day Mexican Lasagna

This really could not be more easy to do, its just sort of a lot of prep work. All you are really doing is making a thick chili meat sauce. I chose black beans and pozole.

Getting all mise en placey! From the top left, parsley, with stems ( lots of flavor ), green bell pepper, carrot, hot chili , garlic and onion. Dump all this in your pot with a couple of table spoons of olive oil and a dollop of bacon fat out of your freezer. Cook for a while, this is the one step not to skimp on, about 15+ min on low.. just let the veggies get all together and happy. Wait to add the garlic until the last three or four min.

I totally screwed this up, and added the beans and hominy when I should have added the meat ( hamburger and just zesty breakfast sausage)  so, I just added it afterwards. This tasted really good on its own.

OK, so I added the meat to the beans and just stirred and stirred, it would have been better to do it in reverse, but in the end it was fine. I added a can of chopped tomatoes, a can of tomato puree, and a can of sauce. It was really thick , so I added almost a cup of just water, could have been beer...

Bad picture taking !!  Spray your pan well, then add a little of the chile, spoon all over the bottom then add your corn tortillas, more chili, then cheese, repeat until the pan is full. You can add one more layer of tortillas on the top, I just didn't. 

350 for 45+ min, THEN I cranked it up to 450 for a couple of min to get the cheese all bubbly

Makes A LOT of food.....