Battling Epilepsy, and its Stigma (NY Times, February 20, 2007)

Discusses how people w/ E often face a worse stigma over their disease than people with cancer, HIV, etc. Also mentions how much the side effects of Depakote suck, although the little girl in the article didn't seem to lose hair or gain weight etc.

Classism on Brazil's Beaches (NY Times, February 6 2007)

Profile of Tariq Ramadan (NY Times Magazine, February 4 2007)

Sweet Transit-Friendly Mittens (Subway Knitter Blog, January 2007)

History of General Tso's Chicken (NY Times Magazine, February 4 2007)

Sex in Space? (Come on, we all wondered) (Slate, The Explainer, February 7 2007)

Hahahaha!

Roving Gangs of Drag Queens bring New Orleans Fashion District to its Knees

Um, oh. Wait. Apologies for the headline. But I'm not changing it now.

Good news: after 5 months, I have health insurance!!!

Proud to say that my very own barrio is featured on foundmagazine.com today with the find of the day!!



The caption under this picture reads:
"Your Car
FOUND by Mia Jenneman in Minneapolis, Minnesota

I found this near an apartment building while I was walking my dog around Powderhorn Park. I am an avid cyclist so the ugly car note is my favorite."

Hahaha.

Btw, I'm not being lazy -- I've posted several times since the last one and they have finished successfully each time, so I don't know what has become of them since. Way to go, blogspot.

Oooh! Oooh!! I just made up a super-good recipe!
Paul hates it when I do this for dinner, because he doesn't agree with me that they always turn out excellently delicious and apparently does not have as an adventurous appetite as I do -- so today I decided to make myself something for lunch.

I had seen the idea for a cream-cheese-based pasta sauce a while back, but going in another direction. Also, last winter I want to make this cauliflower-cheddar gratini. So what do you do when you have lots of bits of food in the fridge? Mix recipes together and make stuff up!!

So, I took a head of cauliflower that was beginning to go brown and cut off the best parts, to steam in the microwave. Meanwhile, I cooked some rotini pasta. and while I was doing THAT, I cut mold off of the bits of cheese in the fridge and made a yummy cheese sauce. Here's what I did: cooked in a small saucepan some milk, a couple of spoonfuls of leftover chive&onion cream cheese, and some grated cheddar, pepper jack, and monterey jack cheese. (I thought the regular MJ was mozzarella until after I had already put it in.) Then I added paprika, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and "italian seasonings". When the pasta was done, I drained it and crumbled the cooked cauliflower into the pot. Then I scooped some of this mix on a plate, covered it with cheese sauce, and then sprinkled it with some old romano cheese from the back of the fridge!! (Don't worry, I sniffed all the questionable ingredients before using them.) I have to admit, when I sat down to try the first bite, I had my doubts. The sauce was a weird orangey-pink, and I don't always trust my sniff-test, to be honest. But I tried it, and YUM!! Exceeds expectations, I'd say. I'm on my second plate. So, I just wanted to give out a public SO THERE, Paul!! Eat it! (Literally, there're some leftovers...)

haha
sorry i dont post anymore. but as an international woman of mystery, it gets tough. (hahaha, if i say that then will anyone believe it and excuse me for not posting? cause really, i've just been lazy. and occasionally checking my own blog to see if anyone has left me any messages. pathetic.)

Only click on this if you want to spend the next 2 and a half minutes cringing while this fat businessman does a striptease for you. (OK, I swear that I didn't search this out. It's from the Onion AVClub again, who in turn got it from some music-video tv channel. But it's amusing. It's called the "pants-off dance-off." Scary.)

Mark this day, folks:
It's the one I went for a leisurely stroll of 60 minutes, 5.16 miles.
(Perhaps a slow 11:38 pace, but like I said, it was leisurely.)
The farthest distance and the longest time I have yet run.

Breaking news:

Porter Goss Resigns as Head of CIA

I can't believe this great news. I didn't see this part of the shake-up happening. I am so excited. We can start to get good people back in there now and undo some of his mess!! (Provided, of course, we get someone better in there!)


Anyone want to take bets on who's next? Everyone's saying Snow, but I don't know too much about that particular situation.

Eliot, comments?

"It is, I think, that we are all so alone in what lies deepest in our souls, so unable to find the words, and perhaps the courage to speak with unlocked hearts, that we don't know at all that it is the same with others."
(Sheldon VanAuken)

The doonesbury comic from yesterday was hilarious. Who knew someone could capture the essence of georgetown so easily? Hahaha. I had to post this, because it fits my freshman year to a T. (Was someone watching?)

This is huge, on the issues of conception, contraception, Plan B, abortion, etc. I will elaborate later, you read now:

Cardinal Martini OKs Condoms and More

Paul's sisters are doing a charity fundraiser and need to raise $100 as their entrance fee (total). It's going to the Twin Cities Bed & Bread Club (a Salvation Army homeless/hunger program). Anyway, I'm the only person that's given so far, so if you guys are interested, here's the link:

Donate Here.

In other news:
Today I got some leads on some soon-to-open state jobs that could be pretty kick-ass. But "soon-to-open" in government terms means "between now and never," so...

My running has been going well; I have moved off the Jack Daniels white plan final month (it wasn't proving challenging enough, after I completed an adapted version of month 3) to just running. I run Sunday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Friday/walk Saturday.
This week (I'll start from last day 6, friday), I have done:

Friday: 41 minutes
Saturday: 30-min walk
Sunday: 28 minutes (it was difficult)
Monday: 30 minutes
Tuesday: X (had to trade with Monday so I could go to a college girls' lacrosse game)
Wednesday: 37.5 minutes
Thursday: X
Friday: 45 minutes

so, doing pretty good. next week i am planning on doing roughly 30-35 minutes on my shorter days, and 45-50 minutes on my long day, although eliot wants me to do 50-55. So I will try a little further.

K time to get ready to go meet Ben & Marye at the Lake Street Garage for some good ol' fashioned milkshakes! (OK I think everyone else is having beer.)

While I am pre-run hydrating, I decided to take a poke around the in-ter-net and went to the onion avclub. I found this blog entry on FCC censorship, which was funny (if you read it, make sure you go to their first link, which is this, at parentstv.org, a tv watch-group I guess). That site is funny because they not only describe an offensive "teen orgy" scene from Without a Trace in detail, but then offer a clip of it linked at the bottom of the site so you can watch it and get offended for yourself. Hahaha! And let me tell you, those people really had to watch it a lot of times, in slow motion, to be able to pick up everything they did. Good for them. I'm glad that our TV censorship is in the hands of pervs watching teen orgies. They also had a link to a recent FCC publication which documents all the complaints received and their rulings on them. THAT is a funny document. Seems the spanish channels are getting in a lot of trouble. Hahaha.
But finally, in the spirit of things, someone commented and linked to a clip of the Jimmy Kimmel show (sorry, spirit of things!!), which he calls "This Week in Unnecessary Censorship" -- watch it, it will make you giggle. If you are the giggly type. Hehe. Anyway, for your laziness, I have included it here:

So, Jude and Michelle are getting married! Yay! Thumbs up for them.

Wavered on thinking it was an April Fool's joke when they first announced it, but only for a nanosecond. Would have been a very funny one though. But considering it's been 48 hours, I assume that it's not. ;) Anyway, I couldn't be happier for them and looking forward to a wedding that I will enjoy very much!!

Two websites that you might want to visit and give the south dakota tourism industry it's what-for:

(Apparently, as I think I may have already mentioned in a previous post, south dakota is taking the hit to its tourism industry seriously. Lots of people have called/e-mailed/written in telling them that they are not spending a dime in SD until the abortion ban is overturned, and canceling any travel plans they had. This has been appearing in SD papers more frequently -- I know, I see them every day at work. Anti-abortion groups, true, are writing in saying that they will be sure to come to SD now that the ban is in place, but not in as large numbers as pro-choice fans. I recommend joining in and telling SD where to stick their ban: )

Official South Dakota Tourism Website Contact Form

Official State Website Feedback Form (Select "Tourism and State Development" to send your feedback to.)

I don't have a lot to write, but I guess that's a poor excuse for not posting, so I thought I'd drop in. I've just been working on getting more hours at work, and my running schedule. I would tell you how the running has been going, but I gave up whining about it for Lent. Suffice to say that it is slowly getting easier. Can't wait 'til it's much warmer out. (My asthma kicks in in cold weather.)

I've been doing a lot of knitting lately: I made a purse, which I have to felt still and I don't really know much how, and I am almost done with a set of armwarmers, and working on an ipod cozy for Paul, and some slippers for me, and several sets of alligator mittens. I am also staying busy studying my Arabic; we just learned clothes and fruits/vegetables. Mostly fruits. Well, actually lots of vegetables in class, but we didn't get any worksheets or anything with the words on them, so I just had to go online and find stuff. So I know some random words.

On Saturday Bridget and I are moving into our new place, and we are very excited!! It will be a bit expensive to move to a new place of course because you have to start all over with food and stuff, but let's all cross our fingers together that I'll get more hours soon. Good thing I've been working overtime on the days I actually get to work. I also have to buy plane tickets out to graduation soon, so it will be an expensive few weeks. Rent, food, transportation.

Mmmm...reminds me that today I ought to balance my checkbooks. Gross. Been putting that off for quite a while.

K just checking in. 'voir.

Sweet. Stealing more from Tim's blog, as he manages to find amusing things frequently. This is a "word-cloud" that was made from the most commonly-used words in my blog. Although I think it got a little skewed with the side-bar links, because no offense to some of you people but I don't think I REALLY talk about you enough to have your names show up that big. ;)

The program is available at SnapShirts.

(this version doesn't exclude any commonly-used words)


(this one does)

I don't know how Tim hooked up the video to just appear on his website, so I am just going to present you with a permalink to his "douchebag" post.

Pierce Bush is a Douche-bag

Also, that kid used to come into Snaxa and try to pay for things with a check. Huh?

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!

Last night I had to go to a dinner with some of my siblings -- a "sisters' dinner," (although 2 brothers were in attendance as well) organized by we-can-all-guess-who. Whatever. I went. To keep up appearances that I am a good sister (oh wait, I don't think any of them harbor that illusion). It ended up being exactly what I expected, which is what sibling gatherings always are: a chance to bash on/gossip about everyone not there, and some there, but mainly my parents. And then everyone shares around their bits of family secrets and compares notes and half the time the same person has said the opposite thing to two different people, so then you get in fights over what version you should believe - comes often down to which person the person in question likes better, and therefore would tell the "real" version to. So...these gatherings can be very interesting and revealing sometimes, but always downright depressing about how fucked-up my family is. (We all agree on this except for miss goody-two-shoes and the organizer of the dinner. They idolize my parents to no end. They may think some siblings are fucked-up (mainly anyone not like them), but my parents can do no wrong.)

Anyway, I did learn some juicy things, like what "really" happened to X sibling to change their personality so dramatically, or what was really going on 10 years ago during some family drama. Some things that aren't exactly any of my business, but some that were - for example, my oldest sister thought that the reason I stopped talking to her when I was about 10-11 years old was because I hated her. I didnt know she had thought that all these years, so I think she was somewhat pleasantly surprised to learn that actually when I was that old she was one of my only friends and I cried every night because my mom forbade me to hang out with her since she was going to "corrupt" me. (She used to read me bedtime stories every night, but I would get in terrifying loads of trouble if we were ever caught, so I had to stop showing up.) So...13 years later, that's out in the open. And I learned about some of the rumors my mother has been spreading about me around the family, so I had to set them straight, even though some of them were rather personal matters that no one had any business talking about anyway...all the more frustrating that they were getting the wrong story.

Anyway. Gah. I would spill everything here but I feel that is not very nice. Otherwise this would have been a much more interesting post. Sorry.