Arrrgh!!!

Arrrgh…..where to start?? Red Eagle has been kind enough to set me up with this blog. I’m rather new to this world, although I have visited a few blogs which have been suggested to me. Frankly, I’m amazed that she would take me on, because I am a technological idiot. T…..you get extra brownie points and a lot of polish on your halo for your good works! <G>

For those of you who choose to follow along, who don’t know me, you’ll see people call me Buffy or Kitty. My family calls me Kitty; Buffy is my on-line alias. I started chatting in the spring of 1999. I was sitting at the computer trying to get into a chatroom, and was faced with the dilemma of needing a NAME. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” was on in the background, and I simply appropriated her name. I’m about as far as you can get from Buffy in real life, but that was fine with me. Unfortunately, now everyone knows me as Buffy, so I’m sorta stuck with it. Besides, I can NEVER think of a name when I need it. I loved the guy who named his boat "Cutty's Ark." Why can't I think of things like that!?

I live in the Chicago suburbs, and am married to the famous, or infamous, Fred. That’s the Fred who fell off the roof in November and severely sprained an ankle, and the same Fred who tried to bring down a thief who was eight inches taller and 25 years younger, and the same Fred who limped for months when he ripped a hamstring chasing said thief! This is also the same Fred who is addicted to sailing, who makes me a boat widow every summer. I swear I’m going to take an axe to that boat one day!

In another life, I was a grade school band director. In this life I am an office. My mother lives with us, and she has reached the point in her life where she no longer drives, so I am her chauffeur. Two of my passions are gardening and quilting. You’ll see me bitch about weeds on a daily basis for the next six months. The other addiction seems to be communicating on-line.

I’m at a point where I find the quirks of life interesting. Perhaps some of you will find them interesting, too.

I'm delighted to be here. Thanks again Red Eagle!

Earlier this month, when the U.S. government was voting on the President&#8217;s budget, I think I heard that we were giving a BILLION&#8230;.that&#8217;s right a billion with a &#8220;b&#8221;&#8230;.dollars each to Jordan, Israel and the Philippines. Unfortunately, our largess didn&#8217;t stop there, but those three caught my attention.

I would be the first to admit that I am not well versed in international politics. I know that administrations prior to this one have paid out huge sums in an effort to shore up friendly countries, or to try to bribe unfriendly ones into seeing us more favorably. It seems to me that most of that has backfired and left us with a large part of the world assuming that there will be never-ending handouts. Despite our generosity, we are now hated across the world.

I don&#8217;t understand why we are giving such large amounts to these countries. What have they done that warrants us supporting them? Are we paying Israel because it kept out of the war and kept a low profile? And why are we supporting the Philippines? I just don&#8217;t understand. Even more, I object to the blackmail coming from North Korea. &#8220;Pay us, or we&#8217;ll send a nuclear suitcase bomb to you!&#8221;

We&#8217;ve helped to free Afghanistan from the tyranny over there, and we&#8217;re told that if we don&#8217;t rebuild their country faster, they will let the tyrants back in. What ever happened to the concept of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? That&#8217;s what we&#8217;ve done. It&#8217;s how we&#8217;ve become the success that we are. Generations of Americans have worked long hours, and saved pennies, and done without until they could afford things. What&#8217;s wrong with applying that same concept in other places?

At the grocery store where I shop, there are men who hold up signs saying that they will work for food. A man who shops when I shop, will invite them to come in with him, and then he buys them meals and juice or milk. He does this to be sure that the money he gives is used for food, and not siphoned away for drugs or alcohol. This is generosity that I can understand.

With countries, I&#8217;d like to see us send food or medicine or technology, rather than cash. I realize that some places are in such dire straits that they need help to feed their people, but once the populace is stabilized, we need to assist them in ways that will make them independent. We don&#8217;t need to collect satellites; we need to create partners in a healthy economy.

Or, and this is a thought&#8230;..we might keep the money and start taking care of our own problems. We could see to it that students in poor school districts received a quality education, or we could subsidize more college education. We could provide basic health insurance for those who currently have no coverage. We could provide temporary shelter for the indigent, or create training programs for those on welfare. We could even recreate a Works Progress Authority to rebuild our deteriorating infrastructure. We would create jobs, train people, and improve our situation.

I suppose that those who are involved with politics or government will have dozens of reasons why we can&#8217;t do this, but I think that they are geared to the status quo and are unwilling to see that we have other options. We need fresh thinking in our government, and some new direction, and I hope we can bring about a better reputation for our country, too.

I don&#8217;t have the answers, but I can see the need for change.

I'm addicted to books. If there was a Bookanon, I'd have to stand up and say "Hi, my name is Buffy and I'm a bookaholic." I love fiction but I can be pursuaded to read non-fiction. I haven't joined a book club because I was afraid it might feed my habit, but I was sorely tempted on Easter when my sisters were all talking about the books they had been reading.

An online friend introduced to me two sci-fi series. One is the Honor Harrington saga by David Weber, and the other is the Miles Verkosigan series by Lois McMasters Bujold. Honor is a superb miliary officer who has half the galaxy lined up against her, including a number of politicians from her home world, who continually rises to the challenge to save the allies despite incredible odds. She has great personal loss, and a fair amount of personal gain. These stories are heavy on science and technology and military strategy and politics, but Weber has written them so well that I wade through all that to get to the charachter development. I read about six or eight of the books one after the other, and then had to wait for the most recent volume. With the last book, I had to take notes and keep a chart of who was who, just so I could follow the action. There were hundreds of characters! Still....I highly recommend them to anyone who likes sci-fi. Be sure to look for the Tree cats who communicate via sign language. <G>

Bujold's characters are incredibly addictive. Miles is everyone's favorite underdog, who manages to live by his wits in a mostly fictitious world of his own creation. Miles gets into trouble in his late teens while on a trip away from home and tries to bluff his way out of trouble pretending that he is an admiral. The bluff works and becomes his alter ego off planet for the next ten years. Trying to juggle the "Admiral" with his real life provides most of the humor in the books and almost all the delimma. Miles's take on the world is sufficiently off center that he sees options that others miss, and it's that creative thinking that will bring you back to these books again and again.

There are other series that I like. I think I have every one of Nora Roberts books, and maybe those by Linda Howard, too. I prefer the sensual or erotic romance to the ones where helpless women are saved by big strong men and then they go to bed as you read the last page. Save me from Harlequin and Siloutte books!

And then there are the mysteries and thrillers.....Carol O'Connell, Patricia Cornwall, Earlene Fowler, Susan Albert, Sue Grafton...and endless others.

We built our own house about 14 years ago, and we arranged to give up one foot of the depth of the master bedroom so that we could put a bookcase in the hallway. It's been filled about three times over in that time. We cull books to give to the library and to pass on to family and friends. I've had to stop buying gardening and quilting books, because there's no place to put them any longer. And then DH starting buying books on boats, and now we're REALLY in trouble!

In the kitchen, I have a floor to ceiling bookshelf overflowing with cookbooks. Mother has gone overboard and purchased every slow cooker cookbook she could find. We have a lot of the cookbooks published by Southern Living, and an entire section on Christmas cookies and holiday meals. Fred has studied Cantonese cooking, so we have a few of his cookbooks, and there are Mexican and Italian, soup, and bread cookbooks. I have cookbooks dedicated to potatoes, chicken, garlic, tomatoes and BEANS to mention a few! We may be one of the few households in the US who can provide FOUR recipies for Bagna Cauda! I gotta give some of them up or be found ten years from now when someone decides to clear away the mound of cookbooks in the kitchen!

Soooooooo....you could say I'm a bibliophile. Maybe I was supposed to be a librarian in this life! "Marian"........nah......that's no better than "Buffy" <G>

Ya know, every cook worth her salt has a minestrone recipe she prefers. Minestrone is one of the most forgiving soups around, and I prefer it to vegetable soup because the seasoning is more interesting, and the floaters have more variety. One of the best Minestrones I've ever had is a baked version with an incredibly beefy broth and mozerella baked over the top.

I'll give you a basic recipe, and then I'll tell you how mine has morphed from it.

1 cup dried kidney beans or white beans
2 cups bouillon
6 cups water
1 large onion chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
3 large carrots, finely diced
3 stalks celery with leaves, diced
1 cup diced raw potatoes
1 cup cooked macaroni
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 cup cooked tomatoes

Okay....this is how I made it this evening, when I was pressed for time:

1 can white beans (or kidney beans), drained and rinsed
5 cans of College Inn Beef broth (low fat, low sodium if desired)
1 large onion, sliced in half and then slivered vertically
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 cup julienned carrots crosscut into 1" lengths
1-2 stalks of celery with leaves, diced
1/2 a red pepper sliced into narrow strips and diced
1 large potato peeled and diced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 pkg. fresh pasta: 3 cheese ravioli in mini size
(or 1 cup cooked miniature pasta shells)
1 TEASPOON salt.....cut way back on the original
several twists of fresh ground pepper.
1 can recipe ready diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon dried basil, crumbled
fresh grated Parmesan (optional)

Put the rinsed beans, Bouillon and diced tomatoes into a large stockpot and bring to a boil. Heat the olive oil (I happen to like Colavita brand, but you can use whatever suits your taste) and saute the veggies until they have wilted, but not browned. Add the veggies, salt, pepper, and basil to the broth, return the soup to a boil and then reduce the heat to simmer for 30 minutes. Add the macaroni and simmer for another 15 minutes. If you prefer a thinner soup, add more broth. Serve with Parmesan sprinkled over the top.

There are some considerations. First, if you are a purist, you can soak the beans overnight. Most of the beans have instructions for this, but generally you rinse the beans and pick out the rocks, and then cover the beans with a couple of inches of cold water. Cover the pot and let it sit all night, and then drain the beans when you are ready to start the soup. You can also follow the same steps in the morning, but boil the beans for 3-5 minutes and let them stand for an a hour. Again, drain the water off the beans before preceeding. I prefer Great Northern beans, but you can use any variety you like, or even mix several types together.

We choose to use the Buitoni mini ravioli as our pasta. It makes a slightly heartier soup, and must feel more Italian to the men in my family. Besides, the shell macaroni becomes rather shapeless when it's over cooked. If you choose to use dry pasta, be sure to cook it first, or it will absorb all the broth and dry out your soup.

Use fresh ground pepper, and grate your Parmesan fresh. Don't use pre-grated Parmesan; it's much more flavorful if you grate it just before using.

I also cut back on the salt in my soup. I figure that each person can salt to taste, and most of the older recipes call for way too much salt for today's palate.

Make this soup personal. You can vary the ingredients to suit your own taste, or change them to take advantage of summer's bounty. I have a summer and a winter version of this soup. Enjoy!

We are aficionados of some very silly movies. "Princess Bride" is surely at the top of that list. Who can ever forget Billy Crystal saying "To blathhhhe" trying to avoid the subject of True Love. And then there's the Bishop with the speech impediment..."Wuvvvve...TRU Wuvvve."
Someone once said:

"Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, Love gives us a fairy tale."

Perhaps that's why I enjoy the movie "Roxanne" so much. Love lifts Steve Martin's character out of an ordinary life, and wraps him up in a fairy tale of joy and hope. We all hope for the same kind of luck; luck that makes our fairy tale come true.

Another wise, but anonymous person said:

"You don't marry someone you can live with, you marry someone you can't live without."

I wonder how many of us have settled for less than true love sometime in our lives? There are SO many things that confuse us as we look for a life partner...great sex...security...friendship, that perhaps we are lulled into accepting less than true love. Shouldn't your true love be the one who supplies those pieces of you that are missing, and makes you whole?

Bertrand Russell said: "Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness." I love him..I love him not...I love him...I love him not. Or maybe the thought goes...Will my family like him, will my business partners think I've made a good choice, will my friends like him, or will I loose my friends if I commit to him? All those things interfere. They keep us from listening to our hearts.

Here's a line in a movie titled "Dream for an Insomniac:"

"Unless it's mad, passionate, extraordinary love,
It's a waste of your time.
There are too many mediocre things in life.
Love shouldn't be one of them."

I'm still pondering the subject of love. Pardon me while I try to figure out just what I think about it. <G> You're welcome to weigh in on the subject.

...not not the weather kind, the bridal kind...or ANY kind of shower along those lines. I think whoever created the 20th century concept of showers should be taken out and SHOT!!!

I have to go to my step-daughter's bridal shower today. First, let me say that I am delighted to be celebrating her coming nuptuals. She's found a swell guy to marry. I'm pleased to be able to give her a gift that I know she will like. I don't have any problems with brides being registered, or the the idea that we are gathering to give her household items (or lingerie, or cooking tips, etc.).

What really bugs me is the stupid games! My sisters were rather busy procreating, so I was invited to bridal showers, baby showers, eight grade, high school and college graduations, and then bridal showers for my nieces and future nieces-in-law and baby showers and so on. At all the wedding oriented activities, women get together and play the silliest games, all for the purpose of distributing token gifts to the participants. I finally tried to beg off on some of those showers, but it never worked.

This is my idea of a great shower: NO GAMES. Maybe you could organize a pot luck supper, or go out to eat, and then open gifts. NO GAMES!! Sitting and chatting, or putting together a personal book of recipes, but NO GAMES!!!! Going out to a Chippendale performance and having a drink or two, then sending the bride home to open the gifts the next day, but NO GAMES!!!!!

<muttering as I walk away........no gamesnogamesnogames>

Okay.....Okay.....The shower wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. The apartment was lovely, the brunch was exceptional, the company was genial, and we only had to play ONE game! YES!!!

The givers of the shower did something cute that I hadn't seen before. They asked the groom to answer questions about the bride or himself, and then each time she opened a gift, they quizzed her to see if she could tell how he had answered the questions. She got most of the answers right, and enjoyed the ribbing on the few she missed.

I live in the western Chicago suburbs and had to travel to the farthest reaches of NE Chicago for this shower. I had some concerns about making the trip because I was going to have to drive through parts of Chicago I've never seen before, but it all turned out fine. I took two tollways and a freeway and a three mile stretch of Lawrence to get to this lovely quiet neighborhood. It took me about an hour and 20 minutes going and an hour returning. God was sitting on my shoulder the entire way. *S*

And I STILL think most showers need a fresh approach! *G*

<b>Dis.....</b>As you know, I'm very new to blogging, but I was delighted tonight to learn that I am involved in an activity that is still considered to be the newest trend in online communication. We were watching the Lehrer Report this evening and one of the segments was on blogs. Do you recall Trent Lott's recent political downfall? It seems it was brought about not only by Mr. Lott's own mouth, but by political bloggers who kept his words alive for several weeks until the regular news media recognized the ground swell and focused on it.

The TV program focused primarily on the legion of blogs "penned" by people interested in politics, but commented on those that focus on other subjects, such as pornography and knitting. There is a woman at MSNBC who reads blogs each day to get a feel for the trends and interests, and they have assigned several journalists to blog each day. (Actually, having the cable journalists blog doesn't really make sense to me, but she must have had a purpose in doing it.) I was truly surprised that they ignored the Comments feature of a blog. I caught T-bone saying he was a comment whore, and I know just how he feels.

At any rate......I'm so glad T made a place for me among you!

<b>Dat...</b>
If you are interested in herbs, growing them, using them in food or for medicinal purposes such as aromatherapy, I moderate a Yahoo Group called "AnHerbGarden." You're welcome to join us. We do NOT consider marijuana an herb, thank you very much, but we discuss most everything else! lol All levels of ability and interest are welcome

<b>Dis...</b>
Who said:

When we can't be together, keep me in your heart, I'll stay there forever.

<b>Dat....</b>
In annual beer consumption per person, the Czech Republic is #1, followed by Ireland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Denmark, United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia and Slovakia. The US comes in 12th at 84.4 liters per person. Personally, I prefer wine, so someone else has had my beer for low these many years.

<b>Dis....</b>
I don't know that Texas T-bone will ever read this, but if you do.....stick to resolution number five and keep shaving. *grins* A new study shows that men who don't shave every day have less sex and are 70% more likely to have a stroke. (info courtesy of Cosmo. Catch my thoughts on Cosmo in a coming post.)
Wouldn't ya know, I'm married to a guy whom I've never seen without a beard. My Dad, my brother and my ex all had/have beards, and Speedbump had a mighty fine beard the last time I saw him. (Ladies, that man will make you drool. Wait 'til he smiles at you!)

I'm not obsessing over this data, because I haven't seen the research. The sample could have been skewed or too small. I'll wait for the AMA to start talking about it. Until then, this was just one of those quirkie little things that caught my attention.

Thhhhhat's all, folks! Come again, soon!

I've been bitten by the Domestic Goddess bug. Last night I cleaned out our bedroom closet, and this morning, I worked ahead on meals for the week. I finally got the new wreath made for the living room fireplace, and I've been working on a "to do" list for the coming month as we get ready for my step-daughter's wedding. I did all the little stuff that takes up so much of our time, watering newly planted seeds, starts from the nursery and houseplants, laundry, dishes, making the bed. It's amazing how many hours get frittered away in a day with stupid repetative chores! I love how my home looks when all the chores are done, but I sure hate having to do it again and again and again......

DH and I both had appointments at the eye doctor this afternoon. I was surprised to find that just my left eye prescription had to be tweaked. I always assumed that both eyes changed a little bit at the same time, not independently. Isn't it astounding what an exam and a pair of lenses can cost??

I've been dozey all afternoon, so it's going to be an early night, but I stopped in to read the blogs that T has linked for me. I saw Jet's comment about Desiree's blog, and went to visit. When I started reading the comments there were FIFTY-THREE of them. I haven't learned to create a link yet, so you'll have to go read JET's blog.

The subject matter there is pretty deep. It started out being singles who seek out married people to have an affair, and somehow morphed into marrieds having affairs with marrieds. And then it became a two way conversation. The important thing is.....I was reminded just how public blogs are. There are times when I'm tempted to say personal things, and this was a superb reminder of just how public this forum is. You can't assume that you are anonymous, or unread.

Sooooo, with that sobering though in mind, I'm gonna toddle down the hallway and grab some zzzzzzz's. Good night, all!

Okay.....the title of my blog is based on the name of my husband's boat. We sat around for a week tossing out possible names, arguing the pros and cons of each, wishing we had a really clever choice to settle on along the lines of "Cutty's Ark." We finally went with Arrrgh!!!, or so I thought. When the paperwork came back from the state, I discovered that DH had opted to change the spelling. I STILL give him a hard time about it.

The Arrr!!! is a 32 foot Bayfield sailboat. It's a cutter, which means it has two foresails (jibs) and a main sail. She's having her 20th birthday this year. Bayfields were made in Canada, so when it was time to do some serious looking for a new old boat, we went to the Toronto area to take a look at several that were for sail. Let me tell you, there's a LOT to learn about buying a boat in Canada and bringing it to the USA. We found out about it the hard way. :-(

Fred is so addicted to boating that he makes a boat widow of me from about May 15th to October 15th. I've been on the Arrr!!! a number of times. The year we bought her, I helped motor her upriver to the harbor where we moor her in Chicago. It was a beautiful day in June, and we made it through the locks without any problems, despite being novices.

Last year I went with to put her in the water, and it started raining just outside the locks where we stopped to have the mast shipped. It went downhill from there. The water on the harbor side of the lock was horribly choppy, and got worse closer to the mooring. We hooked up to the mooring ball and were rocking so roughly that I could barely keep to my feet. I began to contemplate whether I could make it to shore if I hurled myself over the side of the boat and swam for it Ya gotta know I'm not that great a swimmer.

It must have been the word "hurl" that did me in, because I got to worship the galley sink god. Again, and again, and again. FINALLY the tender came for us, and I realized they wanted me to jump from this madly rocking boat to THAT madly rocking boat. It wasn't a matter of courage. By then, I was so sick that I really didn't care much what happened to me. PLEASE GOD......DROWN ME!!!

The cheery boaters on the tender all reached out their hands to me and I THREW myself at them. They pulled me in, and I huddled in one corner praying that the trip wouldn't be long.

He can have his boat, and I'll garden and quilt and blog. I'm never gonna sail on a small sailboat again. Give me the Statendam, anytime! lol