Today is father’s day and I wish I could spend the day with my dad celebrating the day and thanking him for all that he’s done for me over the years, but he’s busy.
He’s busy being a hero. My dad flies Medivac helicopters, he flies critically sick and injured patients to the hospital when an ambulance would be too slow. He works very hard, he works evenings and weekends and for days at a time and he absolutely loves it. Thing is, this is his retirement job, this is what he does for fun now that he’s done with regular work.
I’m sad that I can’t see my dad today, but on the other hand, I’m glad that my dad is out there saving people and making someone else’s father’s day that much better.
Inverse Relations
Please, click this link and check out item number 18. Don’t worry, I’ll wait…..That’s #18
Got it? Read it? Got the premise?
Yeah, okay, so adertising…specifically the cult of personality advertising aka bumperstickers. There’s a car in the parking ramp where I work that sports a bumper sticker that says “Not Normal” and every time I see that car I think “your anti-Bush, pro-current alt-rock act stickers covering your black VW Jetta pretty much make it clear you are anything BUT not normal. Seriously. I bet if I met you, you’d be the most normal person ever. I bet you’re just a regular person with a standard sense of humor, politics that run middle of the road, musical tastes, fashion tastes and food tastes that are not so different.”
I’m not saying you’re boring, I bet you’re a perfectly cromulent person. You’re probably charming and you probably believe fiercely in teh things you believe in. You believe enough to attach stickers to your car to that effect. It’s just that if you feel the need to remind us that you are ‘not normal’ then you probably recognize that we have forgotten or do not seem to appreciate just to what degree you deviate from the normal and if the rest of us can not even see just how deviant or ‘not normal’ you are then…well…we are probably just seeing you for the normal person that you are.
I’m not ddissing your bumper sticker, it’s a very nice sticker, I just wonder why. If you have to advertise that you are strange, not normal or a freak you probably aren’t.
On the other hand, if you had a bumpersticker that proclaimed your adamant belief in your own bipedalism, I’d think that was pretty strange.
As for what is on my car? Not much yet. I have the parking sticker for the ramp, that pretty much lets you know that I am either staff, student or faculty at a little midwester arts college. I also have a one of those jesus fish reshaped into a science rocket and a minnesota public radio static window cling that I have not yet attached. I believe in science and I am a member of mpr.
Dos Piñatas
My party….
2 pinatas! Pinwheel hats! Much grilling! A flask of Makers Mark! A kite shaped like a pirate ship! Devil Horns!
Did I mention 2 Pinatas? Did I? Because I just wanted to make sure you knew that at my party there was not one but two (dos!) pinatas! The second was a happy coincidence as David’s sister (not knowing how much I wanted a pinata and not knowing that David got me one) decided that the best thing I could have on my birthday was something to beat up and then eat the candy from inside.
Wonderful.
Great big thanks to David and April for throwing the best birthday party ever!!! Everyone agreed that it was the best kind of birthday party a 7 year old (or me) could ask for.
I’ll try to post pictures soon. Watch for them here and over on the side! I especially want to post pics of the pinwheel hats.
Heather’s curried potato salad
Feeds many
boil, cool and chop 5 pounds red potatoes.
While the potatoes are cooking/cooling make the sauce.
3/4 cup plain yogurt (or more or less)
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp brown mustard seeds
1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/2 tbl vegetable oil
1 bunch of green onions sliced thin
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped small
1/4 cup golden raisins
vegetable oil
1 tbl or more Penzeys Garam Masala
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp ground coriander
1 pinch amchoor (optional, i just happen to have it)
Mayonaise
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/4 – 1/2 cup frozen peas (thawed)
heat the 1/2 tbl veg oil in a small frying pan. Add cumin, mustard, fenugreek and turmeric. Heat, stirring constantly until the seeds stard popping. Dump the whole thing into the yogurt and mix well.
Saute raisins, onions and garlic in as little oil as you can get away with.
Add to the yogurt.
Add the rest of the spices and let this sit so the spices and the yogurt can get it on in their own special way.
When the potatoes are ready, add the yogurt sauce, and peas and gently mix.
Add as much mayo as you need to make sure everything is sauced. You could go with all yogurt, that’s cool, but I found that people like the added dimension of the mayo flavor or something.
Garnish with the chopped cilantro that I forgot to buy or chopped pistachios or whatever strikes your fancy.
Sometimes things are hard
Things that are hard
* Getting up at ass am to go down to Roosevelt High School and help administer the ACT test to hopeful high school school students. I hate getting up that early, especially when you are being snuggled by a dog, a boy and another dog.
* Being in high school is hard. I felt bad watching some of those kids struggle through on that test. I did, however, chastise the girl who forgot a pencil. This is the test to see if you are prepared for collegem if you can;t even prepare for the test…well then…
* Reading about the roots of the palestinian.isreali conflict. It’s hard, it’s frustrating. You want to grab the UN and scream “why did you let this happen? why did you condone it?”, then you remember that the UN is pretty much useless and you can almost always make a connection between the UN’s ineptitude and some egregious human rights violation. It’s so frustrating to read about this. I should go back to the Calvin and Hobbes book.
* penises
* Letting other people plan your party. I thought it would be totally chill to sit back and let other people plan my birthday party. No one has thrown a party for me since childhood. Now I know why, because I desperately want to jump in and start making food, orchestrating meal prep, setting up tables. It’s hard. Really hard. Luckily it looks like the weather tomorrow should be lovely. If you’d like to join us we will be at Minnehaha Falls Sunday at 4pm. Bring your own meat to grill, we’ll have the sides for you.
* Wanting very much to crochet cute little flowers but your hand hurts too much so you’re stuck. That’s hard too. I can’t do much of anything today, my wrist and hand are all achey and painful. I crocheted a bit this morning and now it’s done for the day. I need to do dishes and laundry and I can’t (well, I’m doing laundry but not folding anything).
Rock on party people! See you tomorrow.