Wednesday, February 24

Roadkill

In defense of my hunting husband (who provides all our red meat) and on behalf of all my friends who cringe when they see email from me during hunting season (what dead animal will be pictured next?), I had to tell the world that I draw the line at eating roadkill.

I just finished Mika Brzezinski's book, All Things at Once, a memoir that I picked up to read about balancing work and motherhood. Turns out I had more in common with Mika's mother than Mika (MSNBC host of Morning Joe - had to look that up as I don't get cable). Mika's dad was Jimmy Carter's national security advisor so the family moved to the Washington, D.C., area where her mother tried to balance her individualism and art with a political husband and three teenage children.

Her mom's art medium was wood sculpture so she must have been pretty handy with sharp instruments. One day before an upcoming DC dinner party, her mom was driving to pick up Mika at school when she came across a dead deer on the side of the road. "Naturally, she got out to check if the carcass was still warm. It was. So she started hacking it up right there...Some guy in a truck pulled over and helped her, and they ended up splitting the deer, and she brought her half home in the trunk of her car, thinking about how she might prepare it for her guests. To her, this was normal... Mom was a wonderful, resourceful, and courageous cook, and she especially like to cook venison, so she counted herself lucky to have stumbled across this great find. It was like winning some wild-game lottery... When (the guests) sat down to dinner, they took turns marveling at the venison... They wondered aloud who the caterer was, and where my mother got her venison. Mrs. (Pamela) Harriman was just bringing her fork to her mouth when my mother blurted out her response. 'Oh,' she said, 'I found it on Old Dominion Road. It had been hit by a car just moments before I pulled up! Isn't it wonderful?' ... She went on with her story, as mouths dropped all around the table. 'I couldn't believe my good luck,' she continued. 'I gutted the thing right there, and skinned it, and brought the best part home for my guests.' ... What happened next was like a spit take scene from an old Honeymooners episode. Pamela Harriman--midbite, midsentence--spit her mouthful on her plate and turned ashen white. This proud, grand, refined woman, who had been married to Winston Churchill's son, who had dined at the finest restaurants and banquets and receptions all over the world, who would go on to become the U.S. ambassador to France, was simply aghast. And my mother, God bless her, couldn't understand the commotion. The story made the gossip section of the newspaper. Something about the Brzezinskis serving roadkill."

No way would I do that for a deer, but an antelope or an elk, well, I guess I better say, "never say never." But I'll wait until after dinner to reveal my sources!

Did you know ...

Did you know that you can get music on the internet?! Wow, that's what everyone has been talking about! I'm not a big music person, as in I can listen to the same CD for about six months without really noticing, but setting up radio stations on pandora.com is way fun. Brian and I had to laugh at ourselves pulling up all our favorite old songs on lala.com until way too late the other night. Guess we really had been living in the dark, or rather, the silent ages.

Monday, February 22

Connected

Whew, connected again to the outside world! The day after I send out an email announcing my blog, my computer gets a virus and dies. But now I'm typing away on a shiny new laptop. The printer is still in a box and I have programs to load, but I'm loving the sound (old speakers never worked on hand-me-down desktop) and the
HD screen (my old monitor, from the local community college give-away pile, was an antique)!

Friday, February 5

Netflix

Did you know that if you accidentally return a personal DVD to Netflix in the little white sleeve you will NOT get it back? Turns out they will give you $9.99 in credit for the loss of you DVD which is awfully nice considering I have no idea what DVD I returned. So if their system doesn't catch it, someone out there is going to be expecting an Al Pacino cop thriller and may be getting Thomas the Train instead!

The scary part to me is that I thought I checked the DVD to make sure I was returning the right thing. Just like I thought I made scones correctly the other day and after cooking them and taking the first bite determined I forgot the butter. Or three weeks ago when I carefully paid two bills on line and then forgot to enter it in my check register and only just now caught as I balanced my checkbook (thank you Quicken). And I'm not currently nursing a baby or working outside the home! Kudos to all you women who work hard at home and the office and still remember to pay your bills on time, send birthday cards, return library books, bring all the right gear to ski lessons and pick up your children at school! Way to go!

Wednesday, February 3

Beautiful Things

And another quote from Anthony Doerr's memoir, Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World

"The Natural History, the umbrella pines, Borromini's Sant'Ivo, the question of starlings, and the questions of fatherhood—my interest in them all rotates around one question: If we creatures are on earth only to extend the survival of our species, if nature only concerns itself with reproduction, if we are suppose to raise our kids to breeding age and then whither and slide toward death, then why does the world bother to be so astoundingly, intricately, breathtakingly beautiful?"

I thought of this yesterday while skiing on a track at the local golf course through a lightly falling snow. I could only see the snowflakes when they were little flecks of white against dark evergreens. Looking up to the white sky they were invisible and looking down against the white snow they disappeared again. Only by looking straight out towards the trees that flanked the greens did the spiraling flakes appear. Next summer these flakes will turn the fairway and the surrounding mountains green and lush. So if it's just water storage, why does it arrive in tiny floating sculptures, each a unique creation never again copied? Because there is a God who shares His creativity with us and allows us to join Him in creating words and art and children and beauty.

O Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-- bringing forth food from the earth: wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. from Psalm 104

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. Ecclesiastes 3:11