Would the state of Florida and the United States Congress please get the fuck out of the Terri Schiavo case and let her husband (sanctity of marriage) put her out of her misery?

Would her parents just let her go, already and quit fantasizing that she's gonna wake up? Her parents condemn their son-in-law for wanting to be able to marry his girlfriend with whom he has children. They want him to divorce her and let them keep her alive in her vegatative state until they die. They say he won't do that because he wants the million dollars from her malpractice decision.
Maybe, just maybe, and I'm really going out on a limb here, because I don't personally know any of the parties involved, maybe he won't divorce her because he really does care about her, he really does know what her choice was, and he insists on being her guardian so that he can follow her wishes and let her die.

But let me go back to the rant at hand, which isn't about the husband, or even really about those horrible parents. This is about the separation of church and state. This is about getting government out of the hospital room and out of the bedroom.

This is about the kind of faulty logic and inconsistancy that drives me the most wild.

The Republicans say that marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. They say that government should endorse that institution and make it the law of the land. OK. Fine. If so, then any decision between those two parties, the man and the woman, should be sacred and above the reach of government. Which means that Michael Schiavo should have the last word here. He should, by Republican stated beliefs, have rights that her parents gave up when she married him.

But no. They are wringing their hands over what they consider murder. If it was me? I'd want them to pull the tubes out and put a freaking pillow over my face. ASAP, too.

If putting a vegetable out of her misery is murder, then what do you call sending able-bodied American youth to Iraq with inadequate supplies? What do you call it when that same American youth puts a bullet into a native Iraqi woman or child? Is that not state sponsored murder?

What about all those criminals on Death Row here in Florida? Some of them there for crimes they didn't commit, and we all know how frequently that happens: it's in the Miami Herald several times a year. Isn't that state-sponsored murder? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the death penalty in certain extreme cases. Ted Bundy? I would have pulled the lever on Old Sparky my own self.

For a party that is soooo concerned with the rights of the unborn and the undead, they play pretty fast and loose with the rights of the children once they are out of the womb. Cutting funds for education, health care and school lunch programs is good in the Republican creed.
They want to punish single mothers (but what about the fathers?). They are just beneath my contempt.

But they are not above trying to legislate my life according to their own beliefs.

I had a dream last night that I refused to wear something because if I did, I just knew that I'd end up on Go Fug Yourself as a bad example.

Do you think I'm spending too much time on my computer?
This is for my sistergirlfriendgirl and her good dog Oliver. This is Levi, a blue marl Pembroke Welsh Corgi that I saw at the dog show. He has baby blue eyes and he is just beautiful.

This past weekend was busy here at the House of Shoes.

We took JoJo to her first show, and although it wasn't for points, it was an AKC show. She took second in her breed. For puppies. Against her twin sister. Here she is in the car, ready to head off to the land of "Best In Show."


It was scary. It was exactly like the movie. Some butch bitch complained that I was sitting too close to her (crated) chihuahuas. My friend Doug says that if you have to bend over to pet it, it isn't a dog. I'm there.

But she did so well, and seemed to enjoy herself so much (after the initial butterflies) that we're going to show her again.

On Sunday, we made a repeat foray to the farmers' market. It may still be winter in other parts of the country, but it is summer here, folks. I bought more fresh corn, the tiniest of cherry tomatoes and baby eggplant.

Sunday night I made a salad with the corn, tomatoes, scallions, radishes and pasta. It's from an old issue of Gourmet, a summer issue, if you please, that talks about the necessity of the freshest, ripest fruits and veggies. I took it to the Marquis de Steve on Monday, and he was so enchanted with my cooking that he made me hurt worse than usual and promised to bring new devises to the gym on Wednesday.

Here's a shot of the chopped veggies:



And here is one of the finished pasta salad:



And just because I've been absent for a few days, I love you all, and someday there will be fresh veggies where you live, I give you the recipe, too. Note: Not only can it be doubled, it can be quadrupled with no ill effect. I also added finely sliced radishes. And since I didn't have fusilli in the pantry, I used bowties. No problem.


FUSILLI WITH CORN AND UNCOOKED TOMATO SAUCE

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

1 1/2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar
3 tablespoons olive oil, or to taste
1/2 cup cooked corn kernels (cut from about 1 ear of corn)
1 pound tomatoes, seeded and chopped [the secret of this recipe is to use the ripest, most flavorful ones]
1/4 cup thinly sliced scallion
1/2 pound fusilli or other spiral-shaped pasta

In a large bowl whisk together the vinegar, the oil, and salt and pepper to taste and stir in the corn, the tomatoes, and the scallion. In a kettle of boiling salted water cook the fusilli for 8 to 10 minutes, or until it is al dente, and drain it well. Transfer the fusilli to the bowl and toss the mixture well.

Serves 2 (This recipe can be doubled to serve 4).
Gourmet
August 1993

Although I'm not working for the man anymore, I am still working at my computer, trying to write code for this website.

Last week, when I was buying fabric for the two commissions I have, I started talking to the owner of the fabric shop. One thing led to another, as it always does, especially when I'm one half of the converstion, and he offered to put my business cards out.
Which is all very well and good, but this is hardly the place to send nice Pinecrest Princesses looking for tallitsim for their princelings and princessettes. I need to create a new site, or at least a new look and feel for this site, and move some things around, or hide them or just jetison them completely.

All of which means that I need to redesign this site. In DreamWeaver. And MT. Using all sorts of crap that I never needed to know when I was working for the hospital.

I have spent the past week and a half buried in tech books, cruising how-to websites and forums, going back and forth with my pages. I add something, it doesn't work. I research and redo until I get the thing (whatever that thing is) to work, and then I move on to the next part. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I am learning more than I ever did before and I knew that there was a problem when I walked into Borders looking for more references and the clerk in the computer section asked me if I needed help and I said "Well, I have a problem and I don't know if it's an IIS issue or a JavaScript problem so I'm looking for information." And she gave me a deer in the headlights look and I said "I know. Pathetic, itsn't it? I actually knew what I meant by that sentence."

I am the uber-geek. And I can't take my cards and sample to the fabric store until I get all of this sorted out and working right.

Ugh. I need a drink, a bath and a meal, and not necessarily in that order. I think a martini in the bathtub is on tonight's schedule. A martini the size of the tub is what I want, and what that previous statement sounded like I meant, but it really. No. Just a long, hot bath and a long, cold drink.

If you've read this far, then let me ask one last question:

Is it just me, or do you think that the judge should have requested a drug test today for Michael Jackson instead of threatening to have him arrested for showing up late. In his pajamas. He's gone from his sartorial delusions of kinghood to an almost normal suit to his pjs.

And it's the first one we've had without him here. I remember so much about my father every day. Today is special, though.
The first story is about my father, his friend and my brother. It was the summer of 1966 and my mother and I were abroad, my brother had just graduated high school. One afternoon, Daddy and his friend started talking about great food, and one thing led to another, and the upshot was that they all took a road trip to Miami for scrambled eggs with kosher salami at Pumpernick's up on 63rd and Collins.

Except, remember that this was 1966, and a 100-plus mile road trip for scrambled eggs was hardly a thing to be embarked upon on a whim. But that's just what they did.

When I came home from Europe and heard that story, I would have given it all up for having been able to be home for that. What a lark it must have been. Mr. Rickmann and my old man gassing away in the front seat, and smoking nasty pipes or cigars. I don't know what they drove, I imagine it was Daddy's '53 two-tone Chevy. Powder blue on the bottom and white on top. Sigh.

And then there's the one about the time Daddy was at a party and calmly swallowed a tablespoon of Tabasco Sauce on a five buck bet. Didn't turn a hair, either.

Of course there are the other stories, too. The ones that are too personal even for me to relate. The ones that make me cry and miss the old fart so much. There is nothing in the world, I always told my male college friends as they became fathers to daughters, as deep and as pure and as everlasting as a little girl's love of a good father: they will worship the water you walk on until the day that they die. Don't fuck it up.

My father didn't.

Oh, I do love the farmers' market. The RLA and I took a road trip down to the market on Saturday, and I came home with the most wonderful treats.

I bought cherry tomatoes for a dollar a pound, and they even taste like tomatoes. For three dollars I got 15 eggs; big, double-yolked, brown ones, fresh from the hens.
And there were fresh garbanzo beans. Fresh, people, not dried. I'm going to roast them and make hummus. There was a guy with a machete and a pile of green coconuts on ice. Yesh. I had a coco frio and loved every second of it. There were heaps of tiny finger bananas, and we bought a hand. Fresh green beans, radishes complete with greens, giant green tomatoes, mysterious greens that I had no idea what they were, acres of dried peppers in a variety of shapes and shades of red. There were baby red potatoes, smaller than shooter marbles, and I roasted them last night, to go with a steak and fresh spinach. I bought a bag of fresh chicarrones and ate half of them before I came to my senses and buried the rest under some particularly stinky garbage, thus preventing myself from retrieving them.

If you have never eaten chicarrones, what can I say? In redneck America they are called fried pork rinds, but that hardly does them justice. They are fatty and crunchy at the same time. They taste of pure essence of pig. Earthy, primal. Greasy. Cholesterol on the half shell. And I love them. Once every five years or so I allow myself the pleasure of such forbidden food. The RLA merely looks on in horror and won't touch them. Good for him.

Tonight I'll make a casserole with the fresh green beans, a can of condensed tomato soup and ground beef, topped with a crust of corn bread. This was one of my mother's recipes from the 50s and one of my childhood favorites. It isn't hard, it isn't haute and it is so very, very warm and filling. She made it with canned green beans, and I use fresh, so it's a little different, but here it is:

Mom's Hamburger Corn Crust Pie

1/2 cup chopped onion
1 lb ground beef
1 lb can cut green beans, drained
1 can condensed tomato soup
1/2 tsp salt (optional)
1 box corn muffin mix

Pre-heat oven to 375

Saute onion until tender and slightly golden. Add salt (if using) and meat. Brown lightly. Add beans and soup and heat through. Pour into greased 10x6 baking dish. Top with corn crust. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.

Mix crust according to directions using half the liquid. Spoon in pencil thin lines over filling like a lattice.