Remember This?
The mosaic tile angel I pulled out two years ago to work on again?
Well I didn’t work on it that day or even for another two years. Today I felt like doing something artistic and pulled it out. I almost didn’t get to it as I couldn’t find the tile biter. I persisted and didn’t stop until I found everything I needed.
These are the ceramic tiles in all the different colors I have planned out for the entire project. I used a wet saw to precut long thin strips of tile so I could use the tile nippers to “bite” each little square. Most of the hard work for this has actually already been done.
And here is where I started today:
See that blank face staring at me? That was the problem. All that time I was afraid I’d fail. So far the thing was beautiful and I didn’t want to mess it up by doing a bad job on the face which I consider the focal point in this piece.
It is unusual for me to have a fear of failure. I fuck up all the time. I don’t dwell on it though because I truly believe the best things in life come from taking the biggest risks.
Which is why today I went straight for the face and finished that part. No practicing on the scrolly parts to get back into the groove of how to do it.
And look:
Just a quick snapshot, the angle is off, making his head look too small for his body. I’ll get better photos once it’s all grouted in. The thing is, I’m on my way. Hopefully you’ll get to see it finished by Christmas.
Why Debone?
People who have not had a turkey this way ask “why debone?”
Besides it being a new twist (I’m a writer, I’m big on twists) on an old tradition, it’s great if you have a small oven and a big turkey. It also cooks faster, doesn’t tend to dry out, and the seasonings are more uniform throughout. When it’s time to carve it up, well, there is no carving. You just slice right through it like butter and everyone gets to eat it while it’s still hot.
Here’s a photo of the deboned turkey I roasted for Thanksgiving.
I didn’t stuff it since I don’t like my stuffing all sogged up with turkey drippings. After deboning, I rubbed it it with Cajun seasoning (Tony’s is good), some minced garlic, and about a stick of melted butter, then let it marinate for a few hours. It only took three hours in a 325 degree oven to cook. Considering this was a 26 pound turkey (bone in weight), I’ve lessened my carbon footprint along the way.
Here’s a good tutorial on Youtube if you want to know how to debone a turkey or a chicken. If you like to cook, you might want to consider trying it this way. Just make sure you have a sharp knife.
After a lovely dinner with my family and some friends, we all watched Wall-E. It’s a CG animated film, but I don’t think it was made for little kids. It’s about a robot that lives alone on Earth 800 years into the future, when humans have destroyed the planet with garbage and God knows what else. The humans have all gone to live in outer space on a luxury cruise liner where everything is so automated they have all gotten obese and can’t even walk because they’ve lost bone density (that’s what happens if you don’t exercise).
Anyway, poor Wall-E is on Earth cleaning up all the trash and trying to get the Earth inhabitable again for the humans to return. It’s an excellent movie and is out on DVD now.
A couple of our guests mentioned that they saw people were already lined up at Best Buy for their after Thanksgiving Day Sale. This was a full 16 hours before the store opened.
So we all took a ride out to the Best Buy near our house and sure enough, people were really lined up. Some of them had tents. Here’s a photo.
I rolled down the window and asked a guy in line what he was buying. He said a plasma tv for $599. A woman farther back in line said she was buying a laptop computer for $399.
Everyone seemed to be in a wonderful mood, I guess it was sort of like a party out there for them, something different to do.
Blane couldn’t wrap his mind around it. “Why don’t they just go work somewhere for a few hours to make up the difference and buy it at regular price?”
Although I’ve never camped out at a store for deal like that, I have punched a time clock. I can see not wanting to do my regular job, rather hanging with other bargain hunters for the night instead. Also, these people might not have the opportunity to put in extra hours at work. I can understand that.
At about three this morning Scrappy had a panic attack. That means one of two things. Garbage man or big storm. Looked out the window and it was like a monsoon rain.
I feel for the people in that line right now. I hope there was someone in that store to let them inside the first set of double doors to wait out the storm.
Happy Thanksgiving
I began preparing for the feast a couple of days ago by baking the pumpkin from Halloween.
350 degree oven for an hour.
I ended up with 20 cups of pumpkin meat so I packaged most of it and shipped it to the freezer.
I saved some for this pumpkin bread using this recipe.
Which is delicious.
The pumpkin pie did not turn out so well. It is inedible. Probably put too much egg in it. Yuck. What a disaster.
I deboned a turkey and now am too tired to do anything with it. So I’m left with this long sheet of raw turkey which at one time got so knotted up and inside out I had to just stop and laugh. It’s so heavy and floppy (26 pounds) and the skin was all over the place. I managed to get it all seasoned and rolled up and will wake up early and stuff it or something.
After a little bit of sleep, I will continue making the goods and by the time everyone gets here I will be thankful that it is almost all over with and I can relax.
It’s easier than Christmas, at least i won’t have to have presents for everyone.
Happy Thanksgiving, I’m going catch a few zzzzzz’s.
Wait. Check out Cartoon Network’s float at Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade:
Exquisite Cinematography
I found this gem of a short on Vimeo, but you can watch it on YouTube. All I know about this director is he is a filmmaker from Madrid.
The angles and lighting help to convey a tone of pure anxiety. I had to watch it quite a few times as I was completely astonished by this guy’s work. The acting and story line are excellent as well (and there’s a twist at the end), but what stands out for me is the cinematography.
The name of the short is “God Bless You.”
If you like watching on Vimeo, it is here:
God Bless You – Short film from Lizondo on Vimeo.
Accusé
Have you ever left a comment on a blog and just seconds after hitting “submit” regretted it and wanted to take it back because you felt like you might have made a complete fool of yourself?
I have.
Now I’ve been accused of a lot of things in my life, but today was the first day anyone ever accused me of not being a Cajun.
And they did it here on this blog.
Here’s the comment someone left on my “About Me” page:
I’m sorry but i have grown up Cajun AKA coonass and I believe you’ve grown up somewhere in Shreveport LA, Which is not Cajun . Your video of the Cajun viral video of the guy that sounds more like a Mexican is freaking stupid. Please before you call your self Cajun please make sure you really are one.
Thanks
Dustin Bordeaux
While I found that completely hilarious, I got all fired up and responded:
You must be talking about Poo Poo Broussard who is just about the hottest thing in Cajun Country right now.
I did not grow up in Shreveport, I grew up near Lafayette. And a little down Bayou Lafourche. I can cook gumbo, catch and boil crawfish, fish oysters (and eat them raw), let’s see… skin a nutria, you better watch out boy, I can give you a good ass whuppin too.
Now behave on this blog, I know yo mamma didn’t raise you to talk like that.
Later I got to thinking that maybe someone was pulling my leg to get a reaction from me. OhmyGod, have I made a fool of myself? Come to think of it, someone had left a comment very recently over at Clair’s blog, something about her not being a Cajun (she is).
Then I thought, maybe it is the same person going all around the internet targeting Cajuns and questioning their roots to start some kind of flame war?
And that just totally cracked me up. If you want to start a riot, go try that. See if you come out of that with your skin intact.
Turns out it wasn’t the same person. The video he’s referring to is probably the one in the post “My Sorry Ass Cajun Christmas.” My sleuthing skills tell me the commenter landed on my blog by looking up “how to debone a turkey.”
Been dere, done dat.
Celeb Hair?
Just after Angela donated her hair to Locks of Love, Spanky decided to do the same. While digging around for links for the blog post, Pimp My Hair, regarding Angela’s donation, I found some controversy surrounding that organization. A lot of the hair gets thrown away and some of it is sold to cover operating costs.
I mean, where did this chick’s new hair come from?
So I told Spanky it was a nice thing to do, but there might be a chance her hair would never make it into a wig for a child with alopecia (balding) but on Britney Spears’ head.
She said she was going to do it just in case, and grew out her already long hair for another year.
Apparently this is a big thing amongst high school girls, to grow their hair out for Locks of Love. A lot of them assume it is to make a wig for cancer patients. It is not, and their website clearly states that.
While in the salon a few months ago, I mentioned to the stylist why she hadn’t seen Spanky in such a long time. She told me the salon did the cutting and took care of the shipping to Locks. They also gave a 50% discount on the cut.
So, Wednesday was the day.
Her hair was to her hips.
The stylist made two ponytails, each twelve inches long and cut my baby’s hair. (the minimum donation amount is ten inches)
Spanky said she felt as if she was holding two cut off extremities.
Then while she was waiting for the stylist to finish with my hair, I caught her in a moment of boredom, blowing on her side bangs, watching them go up in the air then watching them land back into her face.
Today she says she has absolutely no regrets.
I wonder if she’ll be thinking what I’m thinking when we see a blonde celeb in the tabloids a few months from now?
Car Fights
Since Blane and I both work from home we only really need one car most of the time. Blane sold his car, a manual so we could get one with an automatic transmission for Spanky to learn how to drive.
Now you know Blane is a cheap bastard and he doesn’t buy anything until he gets what he wants at the price he wants it. At the end of October he walked from a deal over a $400 difference. That’s supposed to be the best month to deal.
Keep in mind Blane’s been hogging my car for two months. Pushing the seat all the way back, tilting the backrest, fucking with my mirrors, moving that sticky pad for my phone to where he likes it, and the worst of all, bringing it home on empty. He’s probably flipping people off in there, too, ruining my car’s reputation around here.
I don’t complain, he did sell his car so Spanky could learn how to drive before she gets her license (she has a permit now and can drive with an adult in the car).
Last weekend he finally got the guy to the price he wanted and got a car, one which which will be Spanky’s when she gets her license in April.
Now that “we” have this new car, I haven’t gotten a chance to drive it. When I need to go somewhere, he’s in it. Three days and I haven’t even been behind the wheel. He had to go out of town today and I thought for sure he’d take my old junker, but no, when I looked in the garage the new car was gone, gone, gone.
It’s a nice color, a sapphire blue. Spanky loves it but she doesn’t seem too excited about it. She drove it half-way around the block and that’s it. After Blane came back from the airport I asked if she wanted to drive and she said she had to go study.
I guess maybe when she can drive it all by herself she’ll like it more.
For now? It’s ours, and Blane and I will be fighting over it. It’s a cute car.
And Spanky may have to fight us for it when she’s old enough to get her license.
Fireside Chats 2.0
Have you ever listened to the president’s weekly radio address? I wouldn’t even know how to find that on my radio. I might have heard one of them in my entire life and it was probably a wav file on some website somewhere right after Sept. 11th. I usually catch the gist of it later in a newspaper or magazine.
Now it is easier than ever to get your weekly dose of the nation’s Major Dude in Charge. Obama’s doing his on YouTube!
Here’s the first one, out today, from the president-elect.
He also has a website, www.change.gov so we can keep up with what’s going on in his administration.
What I like about this besides the transparency and accessibility is his ability to bypass the mainstream media. A while back, I signed up for Obama text messages. If he ever wants to get out some information, all he has to do is text his massive list of subscribers. He doesn’t have to go to ABC or CBS, call a press conference and deal with their filters, pundits, whatever.
What that tells me is he trusts the American public to be smart enough to understand the message and he wants people to be involved in government.
And that is just what we need right now for starters, whether you like him or not. Yet.
Sweetpea and the Cure for AIDS
Sweetpea, being a middle child doesn’t always get enough attention in this house. Every once in a while I’ll do something special like bake some muffins just for her and declare it Middle Child Day. I was a middle child and although I never really felt left out of things, I believed the hype when I heard it growing up.
The thing about Sweetpea and attention is she doesn’t really ask for it. She’s independent and moves through an amazing social life. While she almost always sleeps here at night, rambling runs in her veins. She doesn’t seem to need me as much as the others do. Always was like that.
Although she doesn’t have a big rep for being a brain, she does have an impressive mind and often surprises us. Her vocabulary is average, but what she has, she uses well.
Last year, while on a girl’s day out, she mentioned to Spank and I that she had the cure for AIDS. Now Spank and I didn’t discourage her or say how naive we thought she was. We didn’t even laugh. Sweetpea was talking about mutated genes and some specifics, but neither Spank nor I know a whole lot about gene therapy. We sure as hell never saw Sweetpea reading stacks of medical journals, so…
Meanwhile, this past week Sweetpea got her SAT scores. Surprised everyone but me. I kept telling them she was going to blow their minds, but since they know she’s not “married to the school” they didn’t expect a whole lot.
Moms know things like this about their kids, whether they are intelligent. We are a bit biased, sure, but we know their potential.
I know it from how she solves problems in unique ways.
That puzzle took her ten minutes to solve. It has graduated shades of different colors that you mix up much like a Rubik’s Cube but with this one, the balls are pushed in and moved horizontally and laterally. None of us could solve it, and one of us can solve a Rubik’s Cube in less than a minute (Blane).
So back to Sweetpea having the cure for AIDS. A BBC article out this week claims doctors in Berlin cured an AIDS patient with a bone marrow transplant that involved a mutated CCR5 receptor gene.
That CCR5 gene was exactly what she was talking about.
I guess this all sounds ridiculous, maybe a bit unclassy and boastful, but today I just want to show some love for my girl, my middle child. She did ace that SAT.
Taps
My father was a veteran of the Korean War.
All of his life he was an active member of his local VFW. I’m sure those guys did a lot of things, but all I’m aware of is he cooked for bar-b-que fundraisers, called out the numbers at their bingos, things like that. The most important thing he did was play Taps on his trumpet at veterans’ funerals.
Just before his burial (this was 15 years ago) I kept thinking about how hard it would be not to collapse when they played Taps for him. I thought of a million things to give me the strength to make it through that moment.
It was a moment that never came. My dad was the Taps guy. Doh.
So there was a moment of silence at that point instead. I should have been relieved, I didn’t have to worry about collapsing, but I got angry. He’d spent so many years doing this for others and when his time came, there was no one to do the same for him. I didn’t have any brain left that day to think it out, that no one else was trained for this. I kept this all to myself, of course.
In honor of my father, I support three Veterans charities. My favorite is Help Hospitalized Vets. It’s a group that provides craft kits for patients in VA Hospitals. My father had been in and out of the VA for years and he used to rave about these kits and was so proud of all the things he made.
Here’s a pair of mocassins he made for me while in the hospital:
I can’t tell you how much these craft kits helped him pass the time or how they gave him the feeling of accomplishment.
T.S. Young can, he’s a veteran in Battle Creek, MI who recently sent me a thank you card.
I get a lump in my throat every time I receive one of these in the mail.
For all you vets and current soldiers out there, thank you.
Crazy!
Craziest thing happened to Blane Jr. He had just gotten his new car maybe a couple of weeks ago, remember that accident? A couple of nights ago he was driving across a parking lot and this Crown Vic was headed straight for his side of the car, same thing as the other accident. He stomped on the gas and just barely made it. The Crown Vic went on to hit two other parked cars.
He thought maybe the driver had had a stroke or heart attack, so he parked and ran out to see if he could help.
The driver got out the car, crying like a baby. It was a seven year-old kid! The dad was on the passenger’s side and said he was trying to teach his kid how to drive. The boy meant to press the brake but hit the gas instead.
Crazy people.
The French Teacher
I took French lessons at the nearby college for years, sometimes repeating a semester if I missed too many classes due to family obligations or work. It was always with the same teacher, Anne, a woman I greatly admire.
Without getting into the reasons I think she’s wonderful, let me just skip to one little detail about her. She always wore a certain brand of perfume sold exclusively on the Champs- Élysées in Paris. I don’t remember the name of it, but can smell it just thinking about it. It’s a nice fragrance, a bit flowery, and it evokes sounds and visuals in my mind.
Visuals as in verb wheels. Sounds as in a bunch of students repeating, “Je vais, vous allez, nous allons…” True, it was rare to smell that on anyone else, but I did come across it a few times, mostly while in France.
It’s been a few years since I finished the courses. About a year ago, I started going to the same school for a writing class with a different teacher.
Upon entering the building, I could smell Anne, only a subtle hint of it, as if I just missed her. Only now, the visuals have changed to a faint trail of flowers where she must have passed. She must be teaching on the same nights.
During quiet times in the new class, I can hear her French class going through verb drills. I’ll look up at the rest of my classmates but they don’t seem to notice. Maybe my ears are just tuned to it.
It’s sort of a ghostly feeling I get not seeing her but knowing her presence that way, by scent and sound. It seems after a year, we might have bumped into each other, but we hadn’t. Not until last night.
While on a short break, I walked past the elevator cove and caught sight of her out the corner of my eye. I was walking so quickly, it was like a blur. When it registered that it was her, I was about three steps past the cove. I stopped in my tracks and took back those three steps, stood there to her side and called her name.
When she saw me, she gave me a warm embrace. I said at that moment, “Wasn’t it an amazing week?”
She knew what I was talking about, pulled me back in, and hugged me again, even longer this time.
I can’t think of a better time to have finally caught up with her. Even if for just a moment.
Children…
While I was growing up, my next-door neighbor had this poem on a poster in the kids’ room. By the time I was a teenager, I was their babysitter. One time, while putting them to bed (after the lights were out) I asked them if they knew the words to the poem on the wall. It was so cute, all three of them reciting this thing in the dark.
I don’t know them anymore but often wonder if those kids had kids and whether they thought about this thing while raising them.
For me, these are probably the most important things I know about parenting.
Children Learn What They Live
BY DOROTHY LAW NOLTE
If a child lives with criticism,
He learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
He learns to fight.
If a child lives with ridicule,
He learns to be shy.
If a child lives with shame,
He learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with tolerance,
He learns to be patient.
If a child lives with encouragement,
He learns confidence.
If a child lives with praise,
He learns to appreciate.
If a child lives with fairness,
He learns justice.
If a child lives with security,
He learns to have faith.
If a child lives with approval,
He learns to like himself.
If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
He learns to find love in the world.
America the Beautiful
Photo from Huffington Post.
What a moment. What a day to be an American. God I love this country.
Scrap, Working Like a Dawg
I completely forgot to tell you about my terrier, Scrappy and her relentless work for the Obama campaign.
First, when the primaries were going on and we were all for Hillary (even Mireille my other terrier was for Hillary), Scrappy broke for Obama. I know this because every time he came on tv Scrap would stop what she was doing, climb on the highest spot on the sofa and watch him speak.
When you say “Obama” she tilts her head. Without fail.
So when I went out to do block walking for Change…
Guess who had to come with me?
That’s right. Scrap did. She even let all the little children we saw pet her. She learned the routine quick. Walk up the sidewalk, turn when we get to a house, and as soon as she heard the doorhanger snap onto a doorknob, she was turned around and ready to “hit” the next house.
What a dog!
This is the Moment
Last week Sweetpea and I waited in this line…
For one of these machines…
To vote for this man…
And his fellow democrats on the ballot.
Then Blane came just as we were voting. We were supposed to save him a place in line but he was a nanosecond too late.
So I waited with him in line all over again.
We talked. We laughed. We made history. But that’s not why we voted for a black man. We’re tired of the lies, the fear tactics, the greed, the theft of our nation’s treasure and blood. We want change and all else Obama brings to this suffering nation. Honor. Respect. Integrity. Hope.
Do this with me. Go vote. Join us.
This is the Moment.
We Might Have to Punk the Boy
My son has been having some problems keeping his Obama sign in his yard, so he set up a hidden camera and has it up on a website that shows live streaming video of his sign. Anyone can watch.
That cracks me up. Here’s the link, go see:
Steal Blane Jr.’s Obama Sign Live Streaming Video
Once you see the player, you have to click on play. The screen will be blank for about 5 seconds.
Oh, and I swear, I will not get in that leaf creature costume and steal his sign at 10 PM CST tonight.
Laugh Myself Silly
Man. I am laughing like a hyena here. It all started when I went to read a guest post of Ginny’s on Brian’s blog. Somehow I ended up at a post the dude did on his unibrow.
Actually it was about a book bag/man purse and he had a poll asking whether he should keep it or not as well as a toss in opinion regarding the unibrow. I’ve never seen a unibrow like that before and showed it to Spanky. She thought maybe it was Photoshopped. Anyway, long story short, I’m usually nice to other bloggers and am careful about how I say things to others. Normally I don’t comment on something if I can’t think of a nice way to say it or if I don’t want to get involved.
I almost didn’t comment, then thought maybe no one ever tells him the truth about it, that it had to go. He had to know, and I had to say something. I told him to yank it.
I felt a little bad about it and wondered if maybe I was being shallow. Then I thought back to my own brows, how for so many years I plucked them myself and they looked like total crap. Only I didn’t know they looked bad. Someone finally told me and suggested a salon that does good work. I went and wow, what a difference. Looking back at some old photos I can’t believe how long it took someone, anyone, to tell me one side of my face did not look like the other.
I’m glad I was honest.
You should go read Brian’s post, The Taming of the Brow for a good laugh (it has photos and everything). I can’t wait to show that to Spanky tomorrow.
