Hilarious article, excellent article, funny cartoon

My cousin Jill is an excellent source of all things guaranteed to overtake you with pee-in-your-pants laughter. It's delightful. Yesterday she sent this link to a Hater's Guide to the Williams-Sonoma Catalog and I still have not finished reading it because I start wheezing and snorting in hysterical, apoplectic glee. I happen to like W-S but this piece is just a gem.

This cartoon is pretty amusing too albeit on the political rather than culinary side of things. Et tu Laura Ingraham?

Lastly, this article by Frank Rich is excellent, truly excellent. It's an explication and measured rampage against Republican Fantasyland and the incredible, ballsy mendacity of the Romney campaign.

Ricotta, homemade sausage, Barbara's reading, stylish 6 year old

It has been entirely too long since I made some fresh ricotta, so this morning I made doing so a priority. It's almost done draining, and I cannot wait to indulge! Plus, more whey for my freezer stash. Did you hear the NPR commentary yesterday about whey? It is a super protein, and some dairies now make more by selling their whey -a byproduct- then from their cheese. Interesting! While it drained, I finally got around to making some sausages: fresh pork from the Eco-Friendly Foods butcher at the farmers market, fennel seed, ground fennel, diced celery and celery leaves, a bit of brown sugar and a dash of red pepper flakes. Aren't these handsome? I am looking forward to trying them this weekend.

Though I truly enjoyed attending Barbara Kingsolver's reading last night, I was so tired that when I awoke this morning, I wasn't sure if I'd dreamed it or actually been there. Wow. She came across as extremely smart, thoughtful and, at times, quite witty, and I was engaged by the passages she read from her newest work, Flight Behavior. I admire and am grateful for her commitment to raising awareness of and encouraging action on climate change; as she lives in SW VA on a farm and surrounded by other farmers, she's witnessed firsthand the devastating effects of climate change on agriculture and the enormous financial tolls it's taking on the working poor. As a trained scientist, she has lost patience for those who deny scientific fact and evidence and hopes we'll see a real change, politically, towards action based on belief rather than wishful thinking and denial. Amen!

Y'all, I could not love Jack more. Look at my little fashion-plate sweetheart.

A postmortem

I am unbelievably tired and my head is throbbing like I'm a timpani drum in a Sousa march. Though I stayed up late last night because I was happy and excited, today has been a fairly arduous one; that final celebratory cocktail didn't help. Ah well, I truly feel proud today. Proud of our electorate, proud of our President, proud that the egregious amount of money infused into the campaigns didn't buy the hoped-for outcomes, proud that gay rights were celebrated.

I also feel relieved. Relieved that the ads and debates and talking points and fabrications will now subside, at least for a while. Relieved that Obama will get another four years to help our country. Relieved that scary candidates like Akin and Mourdock lost. Relieved that I won't have to live in fear that one of the more moderate->liberal Supreme Court justices will retire.

As I'm sure you've seen, there has been an avalanche of commentary today about the future of the GOP: was this a death-knell election? are they freaking out and about to implode? which arm will emerge as the party leader?

I don't know, but what I do hope, more than almost anything, is that truth and fact will become valued again, lauded, strived for, expected, demanded. As Moynihan once said, "you're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts." Our country has simply got to deal with some very real challenges: climate change, our dependence on dirty energy, education in the U.S., healthcare, what we're doing and why internationally. These issues are too serious, too big, too great for our elected officials to spend any more time ignoring. The Republicans' primary goal cannot be what Mitch McConnell opined last time around: to make Obama a one-term president. That he and his party ever suggested that goal was more important than helping our citizens lead healthy lives, obtain education, make ends meet...well, it's shameful. It's beyond shameful.

They have got to start taking responsibility for the ways in which they've obstructed progress and equality in this country. No, the Democrats are not perfect. Not at all. Obama isn't either, but there just isn't any compare with the ways the GOP has held us back or turned us backwards.

We have much to be proud of but there is an awe-inspiring -in the terrifying sense- amount of work to be done. It will require that adults, not petulant bullies, truly engage in conversation with those from across the aisle. It will require compromise and negotiation, give and take, a willingness to stand in another's shoes, NOT unyielding and angry stances of disrespect and disdain.

I am hopeful.