Northern Noise

When I was a kid, we had fondue for New Year's Eve.  My mom would make these cool meat sauces, and we would cook our meat and eat fondue and drink sparkling cider.  Sometimes my folks would go out, and the three of us would hang out at home and watch the ball drop on tv.  I have nice memories of New Year's in Kenai.  In fact, I recently acquired some more fondue pots, so I can have a fondue party here at my house.  We had friends over one night for fondue - one pot for cheese, one for chocolate, and one with oil for cooking meat and I made my mom's old sauces.  I have her original 1960 era Better Home and Garden Fondue Party! cookbook. Tonight, there's no fondue at our house.  Ali just got home and Georgia was in the Liberty Bowl so it was a bit of a busy-ish day.  Instead, Ali is having her favorite meal, mac-n-cheese, Bob and Jed are eating their favorite hamburgers with homemade french fries.  I am on day 4 of my 45 day "no sugar, no al...

I think I'm going to end up burning in hell.... okay, for those of you thinking, "Duh, she just realized this?" I say to you, " Hush ."  I've atoned for many of the sins of my younger years, and try hard to live right.  However, I've got this inner voice pushing me to blaspheme. See, a few nights ago my son asked me, "Jesus came back from the dead, but he wasn't a zombie, right?  It made me laugh at the time, but also got me thinking.  See, I really like horror movies, zombie movies in particular.  Ever since I saw Night of the Living Dead all those years ago, I've been a big fan of brain eaters.  I also like the comic take on horror.  I smile to think of the classics:  Shaun of the Dead, Army of Darkness, Saturday the 14th .... So now I've got this hankering to try my hand at writing a movie script.  I think I can combine my twisted sense of humor with the classic genres and throw in some holiday cheer.  I've even got the titl...

During this break, all my friends and family are getting sick.  My mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew spent Christmas Day feeling yucky and the night before up every few hours.  My best friend in Puerto Rico spent her Christmas Day at the ER; it's either swine flu, or pneumonia, or some combination thereof, but scary.  My girls are in Georgia, partly because 3 of their maternal aunts/uncles have been diagnosed with cancer in the past 2 months.  Jed and I blew boogers while sitting on the couch feeling blah for two days.  Yesterday, my mom ended up in the ER in Tillamook, largely because she doesn't have a local doc but also because she had a bad case of the flu.  I went to town today to see the chiropractor to adjust my aching back, and now my hubby is sitting with ice on his shoulder.  So what does all of this mean??  It means, dear friends, that this is it.  Mortality is reminding me of it's presence but I don't want to rush it....

Here is my list of Christmas gifts that I don't want, but for some reason are oddly tempting to purchase if I had money to spare. 1) The bumper dumper.  A portable potty available in camo or traditional white.  Just because you're camping why suffer without the comforts of home? 2) Bacon flavored lip balm.  Available at  along with bacon mints, bacon gumballs and bacon bandaids.  Who doesn't love bacon?   3)  Handerpants - underpants for your hands!  Hundreds of uses supposedly.  You can even download the Handerpants ringtone at handerpants.com 4) Kung Zhu - robotic hamsters that don battle armor and fight in some sort of kung zhu arena.  These are not to be confused with zhu zhu pets, which are sweet robotic hamsters that have clothes and look cute.  I must confess that I have purchased one of these for a small relative, much to his parents' chagrin.   5) Sarah Palin toilet paper?  Yo...

Are all 7 year old boys obsessed with bad words??  For the past month or so, it's been a daily report from school about who said which bad words and how many times.  Granted, my son doesn't actually say the bad word, he just spells them or says the "s word" or the "d word."  Apparently, Jed runs with a pretty rough crowd, one of his friends says the "f word" at recess on a regular basis.  On the other hand, he still things the "c word" is "cuss," so maybe I'm not in too much trouble.  Yet. He is also fascinated with movie ratings.  Every time a movie or television show is on he asks what it is rated, and then give a run down of what every rating means. G = general.  PG = Parental Guidance and so forth.  One of his friends told him there's an I rating which means "inappropriate for all audiences."  I think he's starting to question this however, because (as he told me) "If it's inappropriate for a...

I'm readying my sock drawer for Christmas.  I LOVE getting socks for Christmas and every year, Santa puts some in my stocking.  I especially love warm socks, probably because we keep our house at 64 degrees and the floor is freezing, especially in the kitchen where the flooring is tile. I used to have a whole drawer full of warm socks, thick cotton and wool as well as smart wool blends.  Then one day I realized, I had more socks than I had space for.  I had socks in every color:  cream, navy, sage, blue tweedy, charcoal, red, purple even socks with stripes.  I used to wear them to school every day with my birkenstocks, a habit that earned me laughter from my students I later learned.  I wore them around the house constantly.  Eventually my socks started to wear out, and in the spirit of conservation, I decided I'd wear 'em all until there were none left.  I also decided that when they got huge holes in the heel that I couldn't mend, I wou...

I'm angry about the current debate over repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell. We are a country that claims to stand for civil rights of all; this shouldn't be an issue.  Yesterday, NPR played an interview with evangelical army chaplains who were worried that if DADT is repealed, they'll have to counsel all soldiers, even when they're committing the sin of homosexuality.   It not only made me mad and sad, it once again showed that the evangelical right doesn't count on logic and common sense to make their points. ( npr article on chaplain and DADT) The first error in their argument is that army chaplains only have to deal with soldiers who agree with their religion.  This is simply not true and, actually the military has several groups of individuals who evangelical chaplains would find sinful and offensive.  One example,  "Islam is the fastest growing major religion among American military personnel. According to the military, there are at least 4,100 Musl...