total convenience and flowers seven days milk:

Me: Hey, fishwhistle! Look at this! The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is back in fashion again!

Fishwhistle, skeptically: ...

Me: No, look! It's right here in the Times! Man, you wait long enough, any old idea comes around again.

Fishwhistle, speedily: The flat earth theory?

Me, after an awkward pause: Just wait. I bet sooner or later some bit of string theory or fancy programing language will require a flat-earth frame of reference.

Fishwhistle, grumpily: ...

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In other news, today is Getting Ready for Grape-Juice-Making-Day Day, and sheep poop was involved. Tomorrow is the Great Day of Grape Juice itself, and if you can get here in the next week or so - because the juice only lasts about three weeks - we would be delighted to give you some. It's usually pretty good and we always have way more than we can drink. And this year, because we have hired ourselves a Hired Hand, we will have more than usual - in previous years we've gotten too tired to go on before we've juiced even half the ridiculously large amount of otherwise-inedible grapes from the back yard.

It's been a good year for the grapes, too. Also beets (last week I made myself quite ill by eating a couple of pounds of beet tzatziki and pretty much nothing else over the course of 36 hours or so, but it was so good! Not quite as good as the beet tzatziki that idlerat makes, but pretty close) and onions, most herbs except cilantro, garlic, cape gooseberries, chard, raspberries, arugala, rhubarb and chiles. Not so good for tomatoes, lettuce, and apricots, but no summer is perfect, right? And since I was too crippled to do much besides stick everything in the ground and hope for the best, it's amazing we got anything at all.

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In other other news, my ex-girlfriend (some people referred to her at the time as the Spawn of Satan, which was possibly a slander on some of Satan's other children, but never mind that now) has been for some time the chief drama critic for a high-circulation tabloid newspaper in a Major Metropolitan Area, which is kind of hilarious as long as you have no connection to whatever it is she's reviewing. But now, sources tell me, she is also contributing criticism to NPR. I've been listening and listening - even going so far as to Google - but so far nothing. I will keep you posted.

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And finally, a little further away, a way-too-brief visit to the New York Area reminded me that the best thing about New York is not the art or the walking around or the shopping or the brilliant acupuncture (check out People's Acupuncture of Brooklyn, the beauty and helpfulness of which I cannot even describe in words) or the fabulous music of many descriptions, much of it made by friends, or even the astonishing food (and there was some truly astonishing food, the best of which came from the gardens and/or kitchens of friends) but the chance to just hang out with the people I love. I miss you all already! Thank you so much for the wonderful acupuncture treatment and music and food and letting me stay in your apartments and most of all your company!

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And now to rinse off the sheep poop and boil some more jars. Hey look! I posted!




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I'm pretty sure that the title to this post - "My dreamers will wake in another America" is a line of poetry from a Patti Smith album cover from the 1970s. But who wrote it originally? Or am I just making it up? I feel a bit haunted.

( So anyway. )Oh, and a guy sang a beautiful version of that gospel song whose name I never remember:

God gave Noah the rainbow sign
No more water
It's the fire next time

He banged on the poles and the overhead railing of the subway car for percussion. Not apropos, I hope, but beautiful.

We should try to sleep a bit more now or we'll be useless at the phone bank.


...

So fishwhistle and I were trading comments about, yes, Sarah Palin again, over at idlerat's lj and then I wandered over to his desk:

me: Ah, the comedy stylings of Lola and Fishwhistle! Thank you, thank you, we'll be here all week ...

Fishwhistle, pointing to his own damn comment: And look here, this is even funnier.

me, chagrined to learn that this was true: Damnit Fishwhistle, you're always topping me - oh wait -

Fishwhistle, triumphantly: IN EUROPE! ... pity you can't post that.

me: oh yeah?


~~~

And I know I said, three posts ago, that I was going to step away from the wacky Sarah Palin facts, but ... I'm not. Stage an intervention if you must. But first:

From a link provided by, among others, the delightful Ms. djinnj, this is a collection of facts taken from Alaska newspapers by Democratic party researchers to aid opposition to Palin when she ran for Governor of Alaska two years ago. It's all good but here are some highlights:

* While Mayor of Wasilla, she presided over a wedding in the local Walmart of two Walmart employees. It made her teary. "It's so Wasilla!" she said. Among the attendees: passengers from a tour bus.

* Her brother-in-law was a losing contestant on a reality-TV show about dating. He crashed his mountain bike in the first episode.

* In 1996, she drove to Anchorage on the pretext of a visit to Costco, but really to see Ivana Trump at JC Penney's cosmetic counter. She told a local reporter how wonderful the event was because "we are so desparate in Alaska for any semblance of culture or glamour." [note Canadian spelling. More on this later. Am desperately researching possible Canadian angle. Are we sure Alaska is really in the US?]

* Either she welshed on a bet, or she has the Big Dipper tattooed on an ankle.

From other ramblings around the internet - this is somewhat less reliable - it appears that she's not a fundamentalist at all, but a member of an Assembly of God congregation, which is to say a speaking-in-tongues Pentacostalist. If there is any justice in this universe at all, there will be video of her or her family members handling snakes, and McCain will lose the entire right-wing Christian vote except for the other Pentacostals and maybe the right-wing Unitarians.

Finally, apropos of last night's speech, somebody in a comment thread over at Making Light quoted this from some other comment thread on some blog, so we'll just have to attribute it to Anonymous Internet Genius:

"Mrs. Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor."