It was pouring when I left work yesterday. There was such a downpour that the RLA couldn't grill the steak that was waiting in the fridge for its moment of glory over the coals.* I would have broiled it, but the control panel on the oven blew, and I'm waiting on a replacement. I have a second oven, but (ok, little O/C behavior alert) I only use it for baking.
Some of my friends think I keep the oven for baking because I'm kosher. Nothing could be further from the truth. I keep it pure for baking because it keeps the flavors and aromas of my baked goods pure. No meat, no grease, nothing despoils the quality of my pies and cakes.

This inability to cook meat meant that I had to do a quick two-step and figure out an alternative dinner. Hmmmmmm. There is a 2-pound bag of rainbow carrots. I have fresh onions and garlic. A dozen fresh lemons are hanging around in the fruit compartment.

Off I run to the laptop, and three minutes later, I have found a recipe on Epicurious.

It was simple to make, and absolutely delicious. On a rainy night, there's nothing like a bowl of homemade soup. Here's the whole recipe, direct to you from the pages of Epicurious.

"CARROT SOUP

Root vegetables are a staple of Irish cooking. They often show up in soups, such as this one from The Courtyard in Schull, Ireland.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 pounds carrots, peeled, sliced
1 large onion, finely chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled
5 whole cloves
4 cups (about) canned vegetable broth or water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Pinch of sugar

1/4 cup chilled whipping cream

Chopped fresh parsley

Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add carrots, onion, garlic, and cloves and saute until onion is translucent, about 8 minutes. Add 3 1/2 cups broth. Cover and simmer until carrots are very soft, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes.

Remove cloves from broth and discard. Puree soup in batches in blender. Return soup to same saucepan. Mix in lemon juice and sugar. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Thin to desired consistency with more broth. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)

Whisk cream in medium bowl just until slightly thickened, about 10 seconds.

Stir soup over medium heat until heated through. Ladle into bowls. Drizzle cream over. Top with parsley.

Serves 6

Bon Appetit
May 1996
Restaurant: The Courtyard; Schull, Ireland"

My variations were as follows: I used chicken broth (purchased) instead of vegetable broth. I did not garnish with whipped cream and/or parsley.

It barely served 2. There was maybe a single bowl left over.

On the Epicurious site, reviewers of this recipe reported excellent results from roasting the vegetables first.

* The RLA's "Indian Name" is Man Who Cooks With Open Fire

This week, I took a meeting with someone from HR, or, as they now are called, Human Resources Capital Management. Am I a capital asset? I suppose that's a step up from being what ever the hell I was classified before.
It started, like so much else, with a memo. The e-mail arrived, over the signature of the Director, who invoked the name of the Senior Vice President, and told me that, per said SVP's request, the attached newsletter should be placed on the web. It was requested that this internally-directed piece be linked off the home page.

I replied, politely, that it should, in my opinion, be placed on the Employee's home page. I cc'd all and waited. The response came back, via telephone, from a random middle manager, who admitted that this was his project, and he had sent the original e-mail out over his boss's siggie. Then he requested a meeting with me and my boss, in my office, so he could "see" where I wanted to put his link, because "I'm a visual person."

Fine. I'll show him a page on the site, that he either doesn't know how to get to, or is too lazy to click on, or what ever excuse there is for him not to be able to find it on his own.

He comes into my office, and my PHB is hanging in the doorway. Not completely out of the meeting, but certainly not a total participant, either.

I show the manager where his link will go. He shows me the newsletter he's created (all by himself) in Word. And then we all fall down the rabbit hole together, when he says:

"A lot of my employees are computer phobic. They are afraid of computers. What can we do?"

I tell him. "Hey. It's the twenty-first century already. Tell them to get over it, and learn how to use the tools."

"Well," he replies, "I need for them to read this, but we want to get away from paper, and they are computer phobic. How do you suggest we reach them?"

"Hmmm. Well, you know, wanting to get away from paper and not wanting to use computers are sort of mutually exclusive. I don't know what other options you have, unless you buy a radio station."

And that, my friends, is why they keep me in a room by myself, and try not to let me interact with the clients.

I also had a drop in from my own Senior Vice President, who wanted to know what kind of response I was getting from the department regarding our most recent call to volunteer out in the community. I told him that out of the hundred or so employees in our group, I had received exactly one response. It said that the sender could not participate, due to allergies.

Well. What is wrong with people, he asked me. Why won't they volunteer? Uh, is that a rhetorical question, sir, or do you really want to know the answer? He said he really wanted to know. So I, the Oracle; the Voice of Ugly Truth, told him.

"This is a county hospital. Everyone here feels like coming to work is a volunteer activity. And today, with lay-offs hanging over our heads, and the communication about it so mismanaged, and disfunctional, the attitude of your employees is like: "You want me to go volunteer to do manual labor in the community and I could come back and not even have a job? Bite me."

He was stunned. Really? That's the way people feel? (Uh, duh. Yeah.) The best way to get over feeling sorry for yourself, he said, was to do service for others. (I guess that explains the comment he made to me about my father's death: "Good luck with that grief thing.")

We ended on a positive note, though. I had a sudden brain storm and suggested that maybe, just maybe, the best volunteer opportunity yet lay ahead:

Why don't we make our department service project a "Get out the vote" effort, and sign up new voters, work the polls in November and drive voters to the polls?

He loved it. I did too, because when they start announcing those layoffs, and the crisis in public funding for public health, those pissed-off, soon to be unemployed union members are going to vote for the Democrats.

Kerrystock ended, and I feel good about my candidate. What made me happiest? Was it his one daughter identifying the core value of her father as "integrity"? Was it his speech? Was it his band of brothers, his Swift Boat crew, standing behind him? Was it that he truly is a war hero, and our war president is an AWOL dolt? Nope. None of that. It was that he entered the hall to the strains of "No Surrender." And it wasn't a cover version.

"Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender."

The fact that Bruce hasn't issued a cease and desist is what makes me the happiest girl in the world.

Tonight is movie night at the Casa de Zapatos. We're having a special showing of "Bubba Ho-Tep", arguably one of the odder cult films of recent history. It stars Bruce Campbell (he of "Army of Darkness" fame) as Elvis Presley. In a nursing home. Fighting to save the residents (and his own soul) from the death kiss of a rogue mummy (the titular Bubba Ho-Tep). It co-stars the incomparable Ossie Davis, as JFK. It's a redemption story. It's a mystery. It's a horror story. It's a hoot.

I have been the recipient of some pretty nasty offers of some pretty nasty porn, coming in through the spam transom. But the names the spammers are using these days is so amusing, I have to share:

Monologging J. Fairies
Jubilation L. Bobbin

Now I, myself, do not like to speak in front of large crowds, but have, on occasion, done so. Neither do I consider myself to be an expert on the art of public speaking. Having said both of those things, let me critique last night's oratory at the DNC.
There is a tendency, and I don't know when it started, to have a catch phrase that the audience chants along at intervals. Maybe this is a nod to the call and response of traditional Black churches, but let me tell you now, it just sucks when some stiff white guy tries to get it going. *

It does nothing for the message, either. I mean really, who's going to be quoting "Here comes hope!" when you can use "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."? Right. Not one soul. Not even the hack who wrote it.

If I were the person who scheduled the speakers, I would not have led with Barack Obama on Tuesday. He was too hot, too passionate, too good to be wasted on day two. Last night we had the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and, in my humble (yeah, right) opinion, he has had his day. His delivery was off, his rhetoric was stale. He's lost the fire in his belly.

Al Sharpton? Better than I expected, but still not the kind of rallying, blood-boiling speech that one wants on day three. Oh, and that stiff? Marvin? Melvin? O'Malley? ( I had to look him up: Mayor Martin O?Malley of Baltimore) Oh. My. God. He sucked. He sucked big. He sucked so badly, that even I, political junkie from Yellow Puppyhood, had to turn the sound off.

All I can think is that they needed people who'd make John Edwards look good. Not that he needed that much. Is it just me, or does he have that whole Dennis Quaid thing going on? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The high point of the whole night for me was the video from the Firefighters Union. The photography was chilling, riveting. And the music? Well, we know where I fall on that, don't we. They used one of the best of the best, Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender." And must have had permission to do so, as it was a real version (I think it was from the New York City Live shows, but I could be mistaken). The last time someone tried to co-op one of his songs (Reagan and "Born in the USA") he shut them down in a heartbeat, and even went so far as to explain to the Republicans that it was a protest song, you morons, and not a paean to the glory of being an American.

I couldn't stay awake for my very favorite part of any of these conventions, the Roll Call. Is there anything more quintessentially American than the roll call? I just love it: "The Great State of East Elbow, home of the quadruple cheeseburger on rye with onion relish, Silverfish Capitol of the Universe, and center of everything to the left of Cleveland, proudly casts its fourteen votes for...." They had the Roll Call on after eleven p.m. Who the hell would or could stay awake for that after an evening of mediocre public speaking and even more random musical acts?

Oh, yeah. The music... Uh, John? John Mellancamp? A little Queer Eye advice: stop with the dying and teasing of that pathetic mop of what used to be a magnificent head of hair. You look like Elton John before the hair transplant. And another word, if I may? Do not, under any circumstances, ever, ever, ever repeat the lyric changes in "Small Town" to reference the fact that your wife was only 10 years old when you wrote the fucker in the first place. It caused me, and probably many more folks to do the math, and all I can say is: EWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Thanks, I'm done now.

*OK, so Springsteen can do the revival call and response like a a first-class tent preacher, but then, he is hardly the definition of a stiff white guy.

Oh, baby, baby, baby. I got a new political hottie: Barak Obama. Did you guys see him? Did you hear him? Oh. My. God. I have seen the future of rock and roll. Or politics, what ever.
He is the face, the true story of America. A first-generation born citizen, who lived the dream his grandparents set in motion. He is eloquent and passionate, and not afraid to say the things that need to be said, and that have been suppressed by political correctness for too, far too, long.

I loved him. I stood up in my living room and applauded. I cheered. I clapped. I believed in America again. Now, I just have to see if he actually wins his election.

And Teresa Heinz Kerry! Oh. My. God. The first (potential) first lady with actual flair and style since (dare I say this?) Jackie Kennedy. (Swoons) Did you see her stand-up collar? Her hair? She speaks five languages, which is five more than Bush. She's an (another bad word coming up) intellectual, God bless her little heart.

And that old, not-yet-toothless lion of liberals everywhere: Teddy Kennedy. He looked great, and not at all like a bloated parody of himself. He did the thing that only he can do: he invoked the words, the works and the spirits of his dead brothers. He contrasted the intelligence and noblesse oblige of those two men with the callowness and self interest of the current administration. And he can. Because he's the last one.

But wait, unless you readers have cable, you didn't see any of those things because the three major networks didn't show any of the Democratic Convention in prime time. They cite low ratings. They cite disinterest. They are remiss in their duty to the American people. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes exposure to raw information is more important than profit. (Try not to faint.)

So where is the liberal media bias the right keeps yawping about? If there really were a liberal media conspiracy, wouldn't the Democratic convention have been broadcast into sports bars and gyms everywhere? Wouldn't the spin be something other than Teresa Kerry told a pushy, asshole reporter to shove it? How come that makes her a bitch, but telling the Senate to go fuck themselves makes Dick Cheney a real man?

For the answer to that question, just listen to Ms. Heinz Kerry herself:

"My right to speak my mind, to have a voice, to be what some have called `opinionated,' is a right I deeply and profoundly cherish. My only hope is that, one day soon, women -- who have all earned the right to their opinions -- instead of being labeled opinionated, will be called smart or well-informed, just like men.''

The C-Span camera cut to Hillary Rodham Clinton at that moment, and on her face I read "oh, yeah, sistah, been there, done that, got enough t-shirts to make a fucking circus tent."

See you tonight on the couch, for day three of Kerrystock.

I have found my reality TV addiction. No, it isn't one of the scripted pieces of dreck on Fox, it is the C-Span coverage of the Democratic National Convention. No commercials. No commentary. No "fair and balanced" talking heads. Nope. Just pure convention, all talking, all the time.
I've loved watching the national conventions since I was just a Yellow Puppy.

Last night was some of the best stuff I've seen in years. It was wonderful to see Jimmy Carter (sounding, however, like his dentures were loose, or he'd just come from having a root canal) blasting the Bush policies of unilateralism and intolerance.

And my old flame, Al Gore. I'd seen Al speak in person way back in the old days, before he was anything other than a rising Young Democrat. I never understood why people thought he was stiff and humorless, except that is what the pundits decided during the last election cycle.

Last night he was funny, and eloquent, and yes, bitter about the last election. As well he should be. And he gave the people in Boston a direction for their own bitterness: Don't let this ever happen again. Don't let the Supreme Court ever select another President, and don't let this President select the next Supreme Court.

Like Al, I've never forgotten how Bush came to be in the White House. Nor have I lost my bitterness. It's a lot like my divorce. I had to remember all the hurt, and all the cruelty to maintain the fight. At the same time, I had to channel that energy outward, and not inward, so that, although the bitterness and resentment informed my actions, it did not change me into a bitter and resentful person.

And then we had Herself, Ms. Rodham Clinton. Wowza. I loved that she pointed out that SHE had been at Ground Zero on September 12th, unlike someone else, namely the duly appointed President of the United States. (Maybe he was still digesting the plot of My Pet Goat.)

The evening wrapped up with Bill, another reminder of my first marriage. I never cared much for Bill Clinton, because his personality was so much like the AntiChrist: slick, insincere, a survivor of childhood abuse, and over-driven because of it. Unlike the AntiChrist, though, Clinton was not a sociopath, and did honestly care about other people. His presidency was proof of that. Last night he was in rare form. In my opinion, it is Bill Clinton, and not Ronald Reagan, who should be remembered as The Great Communicator.

So yes, I was glued to the set by the spectacle of reality TV. I'll be there again tonight. And the night after that.

In closing, let me leave you with some quotes from great politicians of the past:

"I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it." -- Thomas Paine, 1783

"Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free." -- Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

"The truth is found when men are free to pursue it." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." -- George Orwell, 1945

"Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them." -- Dwight David Eisenhower, 1963

"What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant." -- Robert F. Kennedy, 1964

"Go fuck yourself." -- Dick Cheney, 2004