Quotes

"It is the decided opinion of all who use their brains, that all men desire to be happy."

"Being attached to him, or rather let me say, re-attached--for we had detached ourselves and lost hold of Him--being, I say, re-attached to Him, we tend toward Him by love, that we may rest in Him, and find our blessedness by attaining that end."

"For our good, about which philosophers have so keenly contended, is nothing else than to be united to God."

--Augustine of Hippo, City of God, excerpts from Book X, 1-3. You've got to love Augustine, especially when he's cheerfully co-opting Platonism for Christianity!

A melancholic server

"A server crashed at a big law firm downtown and ended the world as they know it." --Mrs. Smith

The server of my big law firm downtown has developed something of the melancholic, not to say obstreperous, temperament. It becomes burdened with self-doubt around 3:00. This becomes particularly evident to those who finish a claim, go to the queue, and request another claim.

The server finds itself forced to make a decision. It freezes. "Maybe I should give you this one. No, that one. No, that one. Oh no! Someone else wants another claim too! AHHHHH!" And the patient reviewer sits and waits, and gets timeout messages and unhandled exception messages and "You have been chosen as the deadlock victim" messages, and has time to write short stories about deadlocks and victims while the server second-guesses itself, and eventually restarts her computer in an attempt to jolly the server into thinking she didn't really mean it.

Julie, my project leader, is keenly, even painfully, aware of the server's shortcomings. So she's trying to work with it. She has a spreadsheet of all the claims that need to be dealt with, and she doles them out as we go. This has helped keep the server from having to make queue decisions, but now it isn't sure it can even work up the strength of soul necessary to save our work. We ask, and it sits and contemplates something, probably its own impending doom. The reviewer is reminded of the strange Renaissance habit of painting decorative young persons meditating on skulls as a memento mori, a reminder of death. Hamlet's random conversation to Yorick's skull comes smack out of that tradition, and isn't quite as random as it looks.

My theory is that the server gets an afternoon low in its blood sugar, and needs a snack. I find reviewers do. Either that, or the tech-gnomes need an afternoon snack and get a bit nibbly in the gigabytes. Meanwhile, our January 31 deadline is getting loomier and loomier. We all hope Julie doesn't have a stroke, or a conniption, or a fit of insanity, or whatever project leaders do get, brought on by a melancholic server.

Quote of the day

"And I don't think he's developed much of an idea of my constitutional reasoning, because of yet the only words I have said in his class, and I quote, are 'Macduff was from his mother's womb untimely ripped.'" --Jonathan

A name for a pizza

Every once in a while, we feel the need for a pizza. It's a natural, human desire, I think. So we generally get carry-out from our closest little Pizza Hut. They're quite nice and all, but they do have a terrible time with our name.

The first time we went--not long after we moved here--I explained to the girl what our name was. "With a B," I said. We picked up the order for "Vail." Ah, well.

Next time we went, I explained our name again. They earnestly wrote it down, and they found our pizza under the name "Bates."

Yesterday, on the way home from work, I called in our order. I gave my name and phone number, and the guy took forever to enter it in, as they just got new software. (I feel his pain.) But he repeated my name back correctly, and even said, "Oh! With a B!" So I was reasonably confident.

I got there--a bit later, because in one of Richmond's less charming traits, during rush hour they randomly put up "No left turn" signs at intersections, and haply the intersection I wanted was one of them so I had to go up and turn around--but I got there.

This time the ticket was for "Cales."

!!!

Jane Austen Facebook feed

Thacia Olive sent me this Facebook feed. There's nothing quite like reworking a classic into a new genre....

Despereaux

The day after Christmas, we went to see The Tale of Despereaux and then meant to go home and make turkey soup.

I liked Despereaux. The story begins with a rather nice sea-rat named Roscuro who was beguiled by his love of Soup into climbing up to a dangerous position, from which he fell into the Queen's bowl... so that she fainted and drowned therein... and the King in his grief unwisely outlawed Rats and Soup as well.

This, of course, ruined the lives of his daughter and all their subjects. (Soup was a Big Deal in the Kingdom of Dor.) Just like when the king is good, the kingdom prospers, when this king ruled badly, his kingdom suffered. It wouldn't rain for years. Everyone began taking out their ruined lives on everyone else, and everyone else retaliated, and the Princess is betrayed and-- well, I shan't tell you, but things get Bad, actually sufficiently Bad that I think the movie deserved a PG rather than a G.

Everything might well have been ruined forever but for Despereaux, an unusually small mouse with large ears who simply wouldn't cower, and read books rather than eating them. His imagination was caught by Courage and Honor and Truth, and he became a gentleman. He gets banished for un-mouse-like behavior ("Are you a man or a mouse?") and promptly goes and starts saving the kingdom.

There aren't many movies where the hero's virtue, especially Capitalized and Made a Point Of, is taken seriously. Or where it works in the plot without being silly. (I'm thinking of Shrek.) Despereaux is funny without being made fun of. The characters aren't perfect, not even the beautiful Princess with long golden hair and the voice of Hermione Granger, but the movie has real evil and takes good things seriously. And when things are set right, it begins to rain again in Dor.

It's a proper fairy tale, in the tradition of proper fairy tales. It was delightful finding it at the movie theater. As we walked out it rained on us, and we went home to make Turkey Soup.

Calculations

I just ran across a list I made soon after moving to Richmond. As of July 22, in the previous 25 days (which would start counting the day of our wedding rehearsal and end two days after Ben and Lisa's wedding) we had stayed ten different places ranging from New Mexico, to Scotland, back to New Mexico, and then scattered across the continental US, for an average of 2.5 nights per place. Our maximum stay in a single location was six nights. That honor was actually split between my parents' house, in two stints, and our bed-and-breakfast in Edinburgh, also in two stints. The second-longest stays, at three nights, was split between our bed-and-breakfast in Inverness and the cottage where Ben and Lisa's wedding was held. These 25 days also included packing up my things and having them shipped to our new location. And then we got to move into a new apartment and learn a new city, where we didn't even know where to find grocery stores.

No wonder I was so tired!

My parents' house - 1
Santa Fe - 2
Atlantic Ocean - 1
Edinburgh - 3
Inverness - 3
Edinburgh - 3
My parents' - 5
Oklahoma somewhere - 1
Memphis - 1
Pigeon Forge - 1
Cottage in Fairfax County - 3
Richmond - 1

Really fun omelette for two

I was experimenting this morning, and came up with a very fun omelette which I thought worth sharing.

3 eggs
a glug of half-and-half
6 or so cooked green beans (leftovers), sliced up small
a sprig of parsley, shredded
1/4 cup of grated Parmesan
4 inches fresh thyme, if you've got it, snipped apart
tomato bruschetta
1 Tb butter

Melt the butter in a nonstick frying pan. Mix all the other ingredients except the bruschetta, and pour it into the melted butter. Cook it on medium or medium-low, pushing the edges back so any uncooked egg runs and fills in the space, until it's essentially set through. Flip the entire omelette.

Spread bruschetta over half the omelette and fold the other half up over it. Let it cook just long enough to let the innards get warm. Hopefully the bottom of the egg mixture will be a little brown. You can turn it and cook the other side, if you like. Split it in two and salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

Yummy!

Of liquor and mouse brawls (or, "I Wanted It For Cooking, Really")

We had quite the day today. My goals were quite simple, really: a frame for Jonathan's "Cyrano" poster; a purse calendar because there's about a week left before the new year; food for Christmas week, including a small thing of brandy for this brie dip I want to try making; and a friend or two for the mouse Maraschino, as she did seem very all-by-herself-ish since Bing passed on and we thought it would be nice for her to have company while we're gone all day.

Things started out well enough. The frame was procured, the calendar was procured, this and that in the food way were procured, two young (female) mice were procured, and we even found a glass soap dish, which we'd been hunting for for months.

So after the pet store packaged up our mice and made us sign papers that we'd be good people to them, we named them Cobbler and Jubilee and went straight home and introduced them to Merry. Merry had none of it. Actually, she viciously attacked them, and they didn't have the sense to keep out of her way and hide. So we carried them all up to the bathtub in hopes that neutral territory would help matters. It didn't. We finally had to pick her up to prevent bodily (mousily?) harm, and even then she sat in our hand, spitting curses down on the trespassers' heads. I don't know where she picked up that kind of language.

Alas. There being nothing for it, we took the erstwhile Cobbler and Jubilee back to the pet store, leaving Merry to simmer down in our absence. The people were very nice and even refunded our $5.23, which I hadn't expected. Apparently we're not the only people who have to give back mice.

And we went on with our food shopping. Wal-Mart had most everything, but no anise for the biscochitos, only one deeply mangled can of Libby's pumpkin for the pie, no chicken bouillion cubes, and, of course, no brandy. So we go across the street to the expensive little gourmet place. They had anise and no Libby's pumpkin. They have expensive little cans of organic pumpkin, but I don't want expensive organic pumpkin, I want Libby's pumpkin. I was quite determined on that. I've used it before, and my mother and grandmother before me, and it works. So there! They also don't have any brandy in their extensive little alcohol section, only beer and wine. So we go to Ukrop's. (This is our sixth grocery stop, if you count World Market.) Jonathan prays, and they have bouillion cubes! This is very exciting because I've looked there before and couldn't find it. One of the workers directs us to the pumpkin and--it's the expensive organic stuff.

So we stand there in the aisle and just laugh. We laugh. We keep looking, and in an entirely different place, they have Libby's pumpkin. HUZZAH!

We also hit the alcohol store next door, which has only beer and wine. Then we go to the alcohol place cati-corner, which has only beer and wine. This is getting peculiar, so we ask the lady if they haven't got brandy? Or cognac, or something like thereunto? She says no, their license doesn't allow it; we need to go to the state-run store just cati-corner, next to Ukrop's and Starbucks.

What?

We go home. It's late. I don't want brandy that badly. Besides, didn't we just go to the liquor store between Ukrop's and Starbucks? I want to make biscochitos to take to Ben and Lisa's party tomorrow. We go home.

And I'm out of flour. AARGH! Six grocery stops, and I DIDN'T BUY FLOUR! While we're home, we google what is up with these stores not carrying brandy. It appears that it's a leftover law from just after Prohibition: in Virginia, only state-run stores can dispense spirits. Fascinating. My New Mexican soul boggled, because I distinctly remember every grocery store back home having That Section where one may procure Jack Daniels or whatever, into which my innocent young soul feared to enter.

So we go back to Ukrop's. We buy flour. We also scope out the strip mall on either side of Starbucks, just to make sure, and by George there is a Virginia Something which appears to contain bottles. Golly.

They had brandy. They had cognac, and gin, and whisky, and vodka, including seven-times-distilled something blue vodka, a giant bottle of which a man trailed by a herd of small children grabbed. (Jonathan is sure one of them said, "Uncle, that's not the one that tastes good!") Another little man picked out his Christmas spirits, humming happily down the aisle. The checkers were very cheerful too, possibly because the very air in there was...thick. And a little tipsy.

Well!

Quote of the day

Me (in a flash of brilliance): "See, my hand is peeling, like a sunburn."

Jonathan: "Oh, I thought that related to film. I was like, 'There's a metaphor here. Does it involve monkeys?'"