Thursday, July 07, 2005

G8 Summit

Good for them! The G8 Summit is staying put.

London Terror Attacks

I just checked the BBC America site and found out about this. I've had the classic rock digital channel on all morning. I had gone to site to find out what was happening with G8 and Lance Armstrong. After a few minutes digesting the gulp in my throat, here we all are.

I understand anger, rage, frustration, even hatred and a whole of other negative emotions. I cannot understand how anyone can think putting those emotions to work in the form of terrorism. All it does it compound the negative image toward them and mobilizes people against them.

Can't we all just get along!

It seems that's too much to ask these days. Some people would rather cause pain and destruction, whether on a one-to-one level or on a world wide level. As Nany used to say "whatever you do, good or bad, always comes back to you." All the suffering that these people cause will come back at them, and if the Wiccans are right it will be three-fold. Will they learn their lesson? Probably not.

My heart is heavy with the thought of the suffering this is causing.

I haven't seen anything so far, but my guess is the G8 summit is might be cut short, although they shouldn't do it. It'll make it look like governments can be manipulated into doing whatever the terrorists want.

Chili Tomorrow...

Well, the chili will appear magically tomorrow. I was missing ingredients. Tonight I will get the stuff I need, once the sun goes down.

Fact of life: I have lupus. Sunlight and I don't particularly play well together. Even if I don't break out in that godawful rash, I still get muscles aches, joint pains, nausea and trouble breathing in humid weather. That bugs me the most because I've had pneumonia twelve (count'em 12!) times. I had pneumonitis and pleurisy in May, and I still have the pleurisy. I am literally waiting to exhale.

Sigh.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Chili/Time

Tomorrow I am making chili. It's not a special recipe, just the a basic hamburger and spice combo, and in a great fit of sentimentality, kidney beans. I don't normally put beans in my chili unless it's the vegetarian version, but the past couple of days I'm missing my grandparents lots, especially Nany, my mother's mother.

I think the reason I miss her so much is that when I was talking to my mother on the phone Saturday, she forgot who she was talking to...twice. She's probably in the early stages of Alzheimer's according to her doctors, and the medication she's on has helped some, but for the past several weeks when we talk she seems...different. Christmas before last she forgot that I had told her my father was in the hospital after four heart attacks in as many days, so this shouldn't be much of a shock. (He's fine now.) While she has other health problems, it seems easier to dismiss those as just a part of aging than it is to accept the memory lapses and subtle personality changes as this horrid illness that could take her away before she's gone from us.

Part of what bothers me is I don't know how to ask her if she's aware of it. Or even if I should. Would it point out the obvious to her and make her depressed? Would she ask "What memory lapses?" and be offended? Or would she just shrug it off and go on to tell me what happened on the last Days of Our Lives episode? (Which might actually be her most likely choice!)

My grandparents would have a wise answer. Knowing my grandmother, Nany, she would have said "Honey, just ignore it and enjoy your conversation." My grandfather would have said the same thing.

All my grandparents had very sharp minds, right to the very end. But with my mother it's hard to think of her leaving us kids months or years before her body dies. I guess everyone who has, or had, a loved one with Alzheimer's or any other form of dementia goes through this. I think it's time I found a support group.

And now she's got me watching DOOL, as if General Hospital wasn't enough! (Which I've watched since it came on, btw...)

As for the chili, I'd post the recipe, but it's never the same recipe twice because none of the cooks in the family ever wrote the recipe down in the first place. Or any recipe for that matter. There were few cookbooks when my grandmothers were growing up, so you learned to cook by watching and doing.

Maybe when I make the chili tomorrow I'll keep track of what I use and post the recipe afterwards. That way, my siblings and my neices, nephews, and anybody else for that matter, will be able recreate the recipe, even if I someday forget.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

Gimme Caffeine

I worked for Starbucks for almost three years. I used to love their stuff. However,
Starbucks switched to those semi-automatic espresso machines. Their espresso shots now taste bland; they lack the complexity and depth of flavor of the old La Marcozza machines. Now I get whatever bold they are brewing.

When they started, they introduced Americans to a fairly good espresso but as they grew they morphed into McCoffee. What's with that? I now try to find little indie cafes that do the real thing. There's nothing like an espresso con panna to sooth the soul!

They still have great music though.

Imperfect Sense

For years I have been saying "Today I shall start a blog" and then done nothing about it. Now that I have to pack multitudes of boxes for a move to Utah, and will be obsessing about whether I can get everything done in time, it's a perfect time to jump in and get started. My husband is going to be teaching math at Monument Valley High School in the fall and since it would be a very long commute from Tennessee, we are moving in August.

If you are wondering who I am, keep checking back. You may figure it out before I do.

If the blog name sounds vaguely familiar, you may have guessed I'm a Queen fan.