Cold. Again.

The temperature's supposed to go down into the 40's tonight. Oh well. At least it's not snowing.

Ok, This REALLY Gets My Goat...

From BBC News:
Sudan man forced to 'marry' goat
A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his "wife", after he was caught having sex with the animal.

The goat's owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

"We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together," Mr Alifi said.

Mr Alifi, Hai Malakal in Upper Nile State, told the Juba Post newspaper that he heard a loud noise around midnight on 13 February and immediately rushed outside to find Mr Tombe with his goat.

"When I asked him: 'What are you doing there?', he fell off the back of the goat, so I captured and tied him up".

Mr Alifi then called elders to decide how to deal with the case.

"They said I should not take him to the police, but rather let him pay a dowry for my goat because he used it as his wife," Mr Alifi told the newspaper.

Mom Visiting

My mom's visiting. And that's a good thing because we get along, she's great with the kids, and she helped me alot when the Branch and Blossom were first born. My mom got here late Wednesday night and is staying a week. She wanted to come for her birthday (which was yesterday) because she was here over her birthday last year and really enjoyed herself.

On Wednesday I ordered a birthday cake and was able to get Nanny G. to pick it up for me while she (Nanny G.) went out for lunch with her fiance, Mr. D. No-one over the age of 29 likes their age in candles on their cake, so I came up with a great idea. I put 6 candles on the cake, 4 blue and 2 pink, to represent her grandchildren. I told her to look carefully at the candles before blowing them out and she quickly picked up the hidden message. Branch and Blossom enjoyed some birthday cake too.

I took my mother to a Japanese restaurant for her birthday. It's very good and it is nearby. I just don't go there too often because it is very expensive. What's up with that anyway? Chinese food is usually cheap but the Japanese must be proud of their food for what they charge for it.

Bikers Protesting the Protesters

Check out these guys, protesting the protesters at military funerals. My helmet's off to them.

http://www.patriotguard.org/

Prez Day Well Spent

The Citizen had off today, so I took advantage of the extra help with the kids to change the oil in my Mustang. I actually enjoy changing the oil because it gives me a feeling of self-sufficency and accomplishment. I can also avoid those jerks that try and tell me something ELSE is wrong with the car, rip me off to change an air filter, etc. This morning I also got the car vacuumed and wiped down on the inside, put air in the tires and gas in the tank.

I grilled steaks for lunch, and served them with loaded baked potatos and salad. It really felt like a holiday. Almost even more so than Christmas - no stress, no mess. And if it wasn't 80 degrees today, it was darn close. Pictured are the Citizen and the Branch enjoying the weather.

In the afternoon I went grocery shopping, made tuna salad and the Citizen and I went out for dinner. (I know, after that big steak dinner. But that was our postponed Valentine's Day dinner.) I even managed to spend some time with the kids.

A great day here at Herding Cats.

Grocery Store Goth

The trend around here is for shopping strips not too look so, well, shopping -centerish. This has already been done in places such as Rockville, MD, where stores have brick facing and some attempt at style in features such as doors, windows, and lamp posts. The goal is to re-create the city street feeling rather than the barren, boxlike store structure. To maintain the genuine feel of city living, parking in these new centers is as hard to come by as it is in a real city.

ANYWAY, our local Publix Supermarket has small brick walls flanked by wrought-iron fencing at the end of each parking row facing the store. This gothic face fountain is one example. According to local legend, Publix got these walls and wrought-iron fencing from a nunnery near Pittsburgh, PA. I think they're rather cool, although they look somewhat out of place in sunny, cheery Florida. (Note bright blue sky in upper lefthand corner.)

Publix is the official grocery store of "Herding Cats"

Black Belt Bloopers

Last night in class, I was practicing gun disarms with a long-time classmate and good friend. (No, we do not use real guns. We use wooden guns which are painted black. They have no moving parts).

I flubbed the techinque and she jokingly said "You just shot yourself in the foot!" Without missing a beat I replied "Well, if I was Dick Cheney I would have shot YOU in the foot!"

Then we comiserated about the fact that it's getting downright embarrassing to be Republicans nowadays.

Meme from Lin

Ok, here is the meme from Lin. I settled the book quandry by selecting books from childhood.

4 jobs I’ve had
- one hour photo lab tech
- working at the junk mail factory
- working at a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents
- putting salt on saltines at the cracker factory, (I didn’t really have this job, I just tell people I did. Some of them actually believe me.)
- working in foreign exchange at a bank


4 movies I could watch over and over
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (starring the deliciously yummy Jason Scott Lee)
The Crow (A dark movie made all the sadder by the death of Brandon Lee during filming). Awesome soundtrack as well.
Clockwork Orange
(A movie I once saw on Sundance channel. It took place in ancient Korea and it was a love story about a young prince and a girl who was the daughter of a former prostitute. The costumes and lighting were AMAZING. It was based on a pansori tale. Pansori is an ancient form of oral storytelling in Korea. If I ever find this movie I will BUY it. I can’t remember the title but I would know it if I saw it. The title is the girl's name which starts with "Cheung-" or "Chung-").


4 places I have lived
Ok, I’ve only lived in two states and 3 cities so I will have to do Philadelphia twice:
Philadelphia Avenue, Shillington PA 19607 (Shillington is the home town of writer John Updike)
Lombard Street, Philadelphia PA 19147
South Quince Street, Philadelphia PA 19107
McRae Road, Tampa FL 33637


4 TV shows I love
Iron Chef, original Japanese version. Kaga Takeshi is HOT and the whole show is a riot, Canadian dubbing and all.
The Simpsons
Keeping Up Appearances (Britcom)
World Music (Linktv.org)
(Obviously, I don’t take TV too seriously…)


4 favorite books
Winnie The Pooh
Casey the Utterly Impossible Horse (my childhood dream come true – a horse that lived in the garage, wore pajamas and talked)
Little House On The Prairie book series
A book I had on all different types of horses

4 places I have vacationed
Marconi Beach, Cape Cod, MA
Palm Desert, CA
Outer Banks NC (Hated this place. It was the family vacation destination when I was a child. I mistakenly returned when I was in college and it was as bad as I remembered)
Maui HI (Loved this place. Next time, will skip the rest of HI and just go to Maui.)


5 blogs I read every day
Adventures of Zube Girl
Fiddle Dee Dee
Stringman Thoughts
The Don Wood Files
The ContingencyPlan
(not sure why this category was 5 when all the others were 4s)

4 favorite foods
Hershey’s chocolate
Bagels and cream cheese
Anything the Citizen cooks
Mashed potatoes


4 people to pass the meme to:
Crystal
Lagato
Brandy
Groovy Vic

Update: On March 9, I found the Korean movie. It is called "Chunhyang"
and is available on Yesasia.com

A Special V-day Poem

I should be posting my response to the meme I was tagged for by Lin
. I'm just stuck on trying to come up with 4 favorite books. I've read so many books that it's just one big book blur. I've enjoyed many but I don't remember their names. If I did see them in a bookstore, I would recall reading them. Maybe I'll check my purchase history on Amazon. But I'll save the meme for later on this week.

Nanny G. is engaged to the very wonderful Mr. D. He is a cool guy and often comes over to visit and play with the kids. The Branch thinks Mr. D. is just about the coolest guy EVAH. Mr. D. is very sentimental and has written lots of poems for Nanny G. He's always getting her cards, flowers, and little gifts. He wrote a poem for the Branch and Blossom, using their Spanish nicknames, Gordito and Llorona "Yo-roh-nah"). Gordito means "little fat guy" and was originally given by Nanny A. I wanted to discontinue use of "Gordito" after Nanny A. left, but it stuck, as nicknames are wont to do. Llorona means "she who cries" because the Blossom used to cry quite a bit. She still cries at mealtimes because she hates to eat, although she puts everything else in her mouth, including her feet

At any rate, here's the poem:

There is a little Gordito
And a little Llorona in all of us,
Some are short and sweet
and Hate to eat, except of course for their feet,
Some are Chubby Bears that Bubble with Glee
They love to laugh, eat and play with their bellies as if they were jelly.
Look into their eyes and see a different world because there is a little Gordito and Llorona
In all our worlds, they're represented by the tiny boys and girls that live in our souls,
And no matter what we do they never grow old,
So let's change those diapers with pride my friend for the wonderful feeling of seeing the world as a child should never truly come to an end.


Of course, I cried when I read it. Happy Valentines Day and thanks to Mr. D.

Foray into Fast Food

Today was the occasion of the Branch and Blossom's first foray into fast food. Like it or not, fast food will be part of their lives. The higher goal was to accustom them to the experience of restaurant dining. The plan is to start them out at fast food places, move up to buffet places (i.e. Golden Corral) and onto casual sit-down restaurants (Beef O'Brady's, a Herding Cats favorite. We went early, (11:30, which is really their lunch time anyway) and on Monday to minimize the waiting and the inconvenience to both the restaurant and other customers.

The adventure began at Burger King. Branch and Blossom had chicken fries, French fries and vanilla shake. Blossom, a notoriously picky eater, of course ate everything with great glee. The Branch ate, but also stared at workers who filed in shortly after us to eat Whoppers. I'm not sure if it was the men or the size of the burgers he was staring at. Either way, I tried to re-direct his attention to our table.

In Branch's pic it doesn't look like he has much food. That is because he will cram all available food into his mouth, we have to dole out each tidbit separately. And in Blossom's pic, yes, the table was clean. If we put the food on a napkin she will eat that too! Such is life with toddlers.

The outing was a success and we'll do it again next month.

What's Your Shibboleth?

Interesting article (for word-lovers like me) on freedictionary.com about Shibboleth. A shibboleth is a way of pronouncing a word or words that identifies you as a member of a certain ethnic group or region. Shibboleths were actually used during wartime to distinguish friend from foe. We're all familiar with the Bostonian "paak the caar" (park the car) and the Canadian "ahboot" (about).

We've got alot of them in southestern PA where I'm from. My classmate's dad wanted her to "shuffle the snow" which made me wonder what he did when he played card games. My grandmother took a "shar" (rhymes with "bar") and many people from our German-settled area said "naw vonst" (now once). We're also famous for incorrect positioning of prepositional phrases ("Throw the pigs over the fence some food"). My personal shibboleth was "caw-fee" when I lived in Philadelphia. And having moved "down South" I'm now prone to saying "y-all" (you all).

What's your shibboleth? Is it from your cultural heritage or region of residence?

I Scream, You Scream

Conservative Ice Cream! (to counter the liberalism of Ben & Jerry's, I suppose).

Check out the flavors:

Star Spangled Ice Cream Co’s current flavors:
— Air Force “Plane” Vanilla
— Fightin’ Marine Tough Cookies & Cream
— G.I. Love Chocolate
— Iraqi Road
— Navy BattleCHIP
— Smaller GovernMINT
— Gun Nut
— I Hate The French Vanilla
— Nutty Environmentalist

Order yours here: Star Spangled Ice Cream

Article from MSNBC

North Korea: The Musical

From Digital Chosun Ilbo, (South Korea) further proof that anything can be made into a musical:

A planned musical about human rights abuses in North Korea’s Yoduk concentration camp has run into massive obstacles, not least from officials fearful of upsetting the Stalinist country.

South Korean government agencies are demanding changes to the story, which they say dwells too heavily on the negative aspects of the camp, according to producers. Officials also allegedly invoked the National Security Law to warn producers against showing a portrait of former leader Kim Il-sung and the singing of North Korean songs in the show.


After the Chosun Ilbo ran a story about the musical, one theater abruptly canceled the run there and a company which had promised to invest W300 million (US$300,000) pulled out.

A key member of the production team has quit, and the director Chung Seong-san, who happens to be a North Korean defector himself, has received death threats.

“Yoduk Story” focuses on a camp where 20,000 inmates work more than 14 hours a day living on just one bowl of cereal and a spoonful of salt. Those who try to escape are executed by hanging or stoning because the authorities do not want to waste bullets killing them.

But its scheduled debut in March is now in jeopardy. Reportedly under official pressure, more than half its budget of W700 million has disappeared, making it difficult to feed producers and cast.

"After reading our script, government officials demanded that we change part of the story, saying it’s too much,” Chung said. “I got a phone call, I don’t know if it was a government official, saying 'It's so easy to get you. You will be punished.'”

But Chung is determined to plough on. When Seoul KyoYuk Munhwa Hoekwan promised to show the musical in its theater last December, Chung borrowed W20 million against a contract to sell his left kidney. His father was publicly stoned to death in a Hoeryeong concentration camp in 2002. “I feel that my father is watching over our rehearsals,” Jeong says.

Private citizens are also chipping in. One elderly woman sent a gold ring, a jade ring and a pair of earrings after reading about the show, and an elderly man sent a box containing W500 coins, W1,000 bills and W10,000 bills totaling W10 million.

Chung says he is always hopeful in rehearsal but anxious when he is on his own. But he believes the show must be staged. "This is not a political activity. What we’re trying to do is just let people know about human rights abuses in North Korea by producing the musical. We are ready to deliver the message in the right way to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il,” he said.

For more information call 02-569-4483 or go to www.yodukstory.com