Cheap Tricks

For those of you under rocks, who come here for all of the latest news, Senator McCain named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate this morning. What a cheap trick. Yes, she has a vagina - my question: Is that vagina supposed to show that she's a good substitute for Hillary? Hillary's fervent supporters wanted a woman in office - heck, I want a woman in office. But I'm NOT willing to vote for a woman who a) is anti-choice and b) has absolutely no record on foreign policy. I don't know much about Sarah Palin, but neither does Kay Bailey Hutchison, who actually has a record and a vagina.

Let me be clear here: Posession of a vagina does not give a person the right experience to be the Vice President, nor does it provide an automatic bye on the "sound judgment" question.

I think this is a cheap trick by the McCain team to try to get votes from those women who wanted Hillary in office simply because Hillary has a vagina and not because they believed in her policies. McCain and Palin have political viewpoints far from those of Hillary (and Obama, and Biden, for that matter), and a vote for the McCain ticket given only because there's a woman on the ticket is a vote from someone who only cares about that vagina, but not about the rest of the issues. McCain's record on women's rights, and children's rights, and veteran's rights is abysmal, and there's no reason to think that that record will change with Palin on the ticket.

I think it's admirable that Sarah Palin chose to go through with her pregnancy after learning her youngest child would be born with Down Syndrome. I probably would have made the same choice, but gosh, it's awfully nice to have that choice, and I do not want to lose it.

Cheap trick, McCain. I hope you're as embarassed as you should be. And I hope folks aren't so excited about the vagina that they forget about the issues.

Really Great Things

inspired by leonie five (really) great things on a Wednesday:

1) My family. I adore them all.
2) Peaceful, sunny days like today in my new town
3) Friends, new and old, that I love and can count on (and who can count on me)
4) Summer fruit
5) Really loving my job

Those are my five today. What are yours?

Boredom

I was talking to my mom the other day about Zippy getting ready to start kindergarten, and she reminded me that, after a day or two of school, I'd taken to walking back home after walking to school, because school was boring. I don't remember much of it, but I do remember that I gave some of the money from my bank to one of the little girls next door - I don't remember if it was Angela or Danielle that I gave it to, but I do (vaguely) remember my generosity.

When my mom sorted out what I'd been doing, she was (rightfully, I guess) upset with me. Five year old should not be walking home from school alone, they should be in class, where they belong (and OUT of Mommy's hair!), instead of wandering around the neighborhood by themselves. My explanation for going home? Kindergarten was boring. Heck, I could already read, and I knew all the stuff they were saying, so I didn't see any purpose in attending class.

My mom made me go back to school, because we all (apparently) need to learn how to deal with boring situations and she didn't want me to miss any new information the teacher might be presenting. Bah. I'm still not good at being bored, and still hate sitting in (most) classes.

So much for teaching me how to tolerate such situations. I know you tried, Mom.
Here's hoping Zippy will have a better time in school.

Trip home from Baker City

Jen suggested a couple different routes we could take coming home from Baker City; one of these included traveling down the Columbia River Gorge, which sounded interesting to me. That route is an extra 110 miles, but we had Luigi (my 1986 Alfa Romeo Spider) and I thought it'd be fun to give him a nice run (Luigi came with his name, I didn't name him. I think that's important to note).

Interesting thing about the Columbia River Gorge, at least the portion of it that we hit - there's VERY little foliage next to the river - mostly just the normal Oregon desert landscape. This surprised my east-coast sensibilities -- rivers are supposed to have TREES beside them. Trees that make the air cooler and provide shade. Let me reiterate - there are NO SUCH TREES by the section of the damn Columbia River that we drove. And the air was hot. Want to duplicate the effect? It's easy - get someone to point 18 or so blow dryers at you, all cranked up to their highest settings. For hours. I know, I know, it's a dry heat. WHATEVER. Hot is hot, and I was fucking hot. So hot that my sweat evaporated almost instantly. Hot sucks.

The good news is that we made it home safely. The bad news is that we left a little after 10 AM and didn't get home until 8 at night. Whichever online map Jen used said the trip would take 6 hours. Hah. Had I known how long it would REALLY take, and how fucking miserably hot it was going to be, I would have chosen the shortest route home. Really, it was so hot that Jen and I barely talked, because it was, for once in our lives, hard.

We did do an extended stop in Pendleton - we checked out the shop at the wool mill there and had a great lunch at the Rainbow Cafe, which has been in continuous operation in the same location since 1893. The Rainbow is really a cross between a diner and a bar; we ordered simple things - a club sandwich for Jen, a BLT for me, both with french fries. They hit the spot perfectly, and the service was great - just a good ol' diner. Warning - they do allow smoking inside, which doesn't bother me, but might bother some. The laws about smoking indoors in Oregon change in January 2009, though, so if smoke bothers you, you can just put off the visit until after the change occurs. The air conditioning worked great inside the cafe, thank heaven, as we'd been riding with the top down and were fairly baked (and no, Luigi does not have air conditioning).

Luigi had a great run. Kinda. I didn't warn him that we'd be spending the day in 100+ degree heat (hell, I'd have warned him had I known!). He was a pretty good sport about things - except when he briefly decided he didn't want to start again after we'd stopped in Biggs to grab cold drinks; even though he was off, he kept the radiator fan going for a good 45 minutes or so - I'm not sure how long it actually was, because we stayed inside in the air conditioning for the bulk of the time.

It turned out to be a Very Good Thing that Luigi had decided he didn't want to go right away - once he didn't happily start right up, Jen and I decided to wait a little while and give him a break -- and when we went back inside the building, Jen ran into a friend who had been coming north up 97 who mentioned to her that there was an accident several miles south of Biggs. We decided to wait a little longer to let it clear out, which turned out to be a good idea, as the accident had just cleared out and traffic was still under the control of a flagger - luckily, we didn't have to wait very long to get through the line, because I'm pretty sure Luigi would have HATED idling for that long.

Once we got going down 97 on our way south to Bend, an actual cloud or two appeared in the sky, and the air got cooler. not much cooler, but cool enough that I didn't want to kill myself. It must have gone down to 92 or so. Whee! You know it's hot when you're happy that half of the blow dryers are on medium instead of hot. Once we got into Madras, we stopped for gas (at the Safeway - I've been accruing gas credits shopping at the Safeway in Bend - for every $100 you spend, you can get 10 cents off a gallon of gas - I never get to take advantage of this, though, as it's just silly to drive 45 minutes to save a little on gas. I ended up getting $1.00 off each gallon, which was nice - and I'm guessing that $1/gallon off is a limit or something, as I know I've spent more than a grand at Safeway).

Because Madras is pretty green, and actual people live there, the air was cooler. I'd also like to thank every single farmer on our route who happened to be watering their crops as we drove by, as the air was cooler when the water was flowing. The trip from Madras to Redmond, where I dropped off Jen (her hubby was in Redmond after playing golf), and then down to Bend, was much better. Heck, I even got rained on a tiny bit just south of Redmond.

It was so good to make it home. I ate, took a COLD shower, and got comfy on the floor of the bonus room, snuggling with Zippy to watch the Olympics. Then I fell asleep, I think within about 15 minutes of lying down. ZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Pizza Heaven

This weekend, Jen and I took off for a long-planned weekend visit to Baker City to try the pizza that Kina and Whitey (and staff) work so hard to make. We'd heard rumors that it was good, and I believed it would be good. What I didn't know was that I'd come home and wish Paizano's was HERE instead of five hours (at best) away! OMG, Jen and I agreed that we both wanted to try the Sweet Thai Shrimp pizza, and decided we'd actually do half the pie with shrimp and half with chicken. The chicken rocks, but the shrimp is insane.

This isn't your typical pizza - without having heard Kina talk about it so often, I don't think I'd have braved it. It has sweet chili sauce, peanuts (yes, peanuts), coconut (yes, coconut), and green onions along with the shrimp (and these aren't canned shrimp) or chicken. I know it sounds weird. I know, really. But it is SO GOOD that I'm wishing that I'd brought a pie home with me. Yum.

The crunch and light saltiness of the peanuts, mixed with the tropical hint from the coconut, with the bright, clean tasting fresh shrimp, blended with the crisp green onion and the just-sweet just-sharp enough taste of the sweet chili tomato sauce blend was perfect. The pieces definitely make the whole - I think if I'd thought to order this anywhere else (I gave total trust to Paizano's here), I would have asked that the coconut be left off, and I would have been less enthralled with the result.

I'll be dreaming about this pizza for a while to come, and looking for excuses to go back to Baker City. Kina, it was so great to meet you, finally!!