the fact-based sassiness of this article pleases me: what donald trump was up to while john mccain was a prisoner of war

what i'm listening to right now

from the finale of the daily show with jon stewart, this gorgeous song - "land of hope and dreams," by bruce springsteen:


i must admit that i have a tiny crush on bruce.  how can you not?!

the late, great stephen colbert - this is a truly remarkable article.  interesting in what you learn about how he's transitioning to the late show, but don't read it for that.  read it for the second half, where he talks about love and loss and being grateful.  i don't think i'll ruin things by sharing the last paragraph:

The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it around with me since. It's our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain. “At every moment, we are volunteers.”

or sharing this, from a few paragraphs earlier:

I asked him if he could help me understand that better, and he described a letter from Tolkien in response to a priest who had questioned whether Tolkien's mythos was sufficiently doctrinaire, since it treated death not as a punishment for the sin of the fall but as a gift. “Tolkien says, in a letter back: ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. “ ‘What punishments of God are not gifts?’ ” he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. “So it would be ungrateful not to take everything with gratitude. It doesn't mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.”

beautiful and thoughtful.  read this article.

a ruby a day

Early morning conversations with her friend Frederick, on the next balcony over, whom she has never met in person. Is Frederick inviting her out to play? Taunting her with his freedom? Is this the first time they've met like this, or do they regularly commune through the window? We may never know.  All I know is that she had no interest in me this morning. 

more stuff i've been cooking that has turned out great:

smitten kitchen's buttermilk salad dressing (i hate the chemical-y flavor and the gloop-y texture of store bought salad dressings, but that sometimes stops me from having salad at home because oil and vinegar is only so interesting.  this salad dressing is solving lots of problems!)

then i made pioneer woman's tomato tart and about died of happiness.  i made my own pie crust (because, people: it is so easy.  the best pie crust i've ever made - so now it's the only pie crust i make - is julia child's.  of course it is.  i am so classy).  but back to the tart: it's got a layer of caramelized onions!  and then a layer of delish roasted tomatoes!  and there's some cheese!  and julia child's pie crust underneath!  this is absolutely worth making immediately.  it is savory and perfect and reheated great for lunch the next day.

oh, that's right: the pie crust did not fill the pan that it was supposed to fill.  don't worry!  just have half of it be ugly.  that's my solution!

I ate a yogurt for breakfast instead of a breakfast taco. I went to yoga after school instead of taking a nap. I ate homemade brown rice and roasted veggies (with a peanut sauce) for dinner instead of, well, more tacos. Who am I?! First day of school - off on the right foot!

another fantastic bit of mountains beyond mountains, when the author is recounting a story from when paul farmer started dating his wife:

"at some point, paul said [to his friend ophelia], 'tell me about your family.'  many years later a friend of hers would offer this recipe for seduction: go out to dinner and say, 'tell me about your life.'  ophelia would think of paul and how, when he said those words, he made so many people feel he cared about only them in that moment."

a recipe for seduction: go out to dinner and say, "tell me about your life."

oh, how true.  how infrequently we are asked to talk about ourselves to someone who listens with all their being.  seduction, indeed.

mark bittman's asparagus pesto is incredibly good and you should try it immediately.  i had some asparagus that was about to go bad in the fridge, but i didn't know how i wanted to eat it.  i imagined asparagus pesto would be good, and googled it and found this (so simple, so easy) recipe.  i ate it over pasta with peas and it was an excellent decision.  this is definitely going in my weeknight dinner rotation!

i'm listening to mountains beyond mountains, by tracy kidder, which is about american doctor paul farmer and his work in the developing world, mostly in haiti.  i have owned this book for a LONG TIME, but as i've said here before, i have trouble motivating myself to read nonfiction in my free time because it requires more concentration than i want to expend when i read in bed, which is when the majority of my reading happens.  audiobooks allow me to get the nonfiction i want in a form that works for me.

i found this portion of the book so poignant:

farmer is asked, when traveling to russia to do work on a TB outbreak in russian prisons, "is america a democracy?"

farmer answers, "i think whenever a people has enormous resources, it's easy for them to call themselves democratic….americans are lazy democrats."

so so true.  i rewound the CD in the car and recorded this portion on my phone to transcribe here.  we are lucky in that we can be lazy democrats.  we don't have to fight every day for our freedoms.  we take them for granted.  the hard work was done centuries ago, with upkeep along the way.

i take my democracy for granted.  something to ponder and to appreciate.

what i'm listening to right now

"geronimo," by sheppard - another song with a great beat that i have a hard time not dancing to:

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask 'why not'?”
—John F. Kennedy

this is my life:

chilly at work?  office formula was designed for men

except not right now.  the air conditioning broke in my office, so right now i have fans (plural) aimed at me while they order a new part that they need.  ugh.

There is nothing more frustrating than being forced to check your carry on suitcase because there is supposedly no overhead storage space left, and then getting on the plane to find plenty of overhead storage space. Please don't outright lie to me. 

Currently trying to get my rage under control. 

My brain waffles on the death penalty. I think that one of my greatest strengths as an educator is my ability to see and advocate for both sides of an argument. My brain can understand why people support the death penalty. My brain wants the death penalty sometimes - some crimes seem so horrendous. 

But my heart knows what I really believe.  In the email inbox on my phone I can often only see part of the subject line on an email. My heart reads "breaking news: Boston marathon bomber sentenced..." or "breaking news: Colorado gunman gets..." and my heart pleads to open the email and read "life sentence."  I just opened such an email, saying out loud as I did, "oh please let it be..." and today it was. 

cat lady musings

while vacuuming today, i mentally wrote this post.

things ruby is scared of that make sense:
-the vacuum cleaner (she doesn't go under the bed - her normal hiding spot - but instead on a counter…which is quite logical, actually, since the vacuum cleaner comes very close to the bed and not at all near the high up counter)
-really loud thunder and lightening (this scares me, too, ruby, so i understand entirely)

things ruby is scared of that are ridiculous:
-the door bell.  even if it is on tv, she will hide under the bed immediately.  chill out, lady.  and she doesn't listen to me when i yell "it's on tv!"

things ruby is not scared of that i would expect her to be:
-the garbage disposal (she is not fazed, even if she is in the kitchen when it happens)
-the ice maker plopping ice down (please let the record show that sometimes this terrifies me when i am home alone and forgot i turned it on, but ruby is cool with it)
-the dryer when it buzzes super loudly when it is done (ditto - i jump every time and ruby is totally fine)

what i'm listening to right now

"photograph," by ed sheeran:

(p.s. i am totally captivated by this video, which is home videos of ed sheeran growing up.)

a ruby a day

my dad has "floor time" with his dog, abby, almost every night.  he crawls down on the floor and pets/massages/forces this dog to snuggle with him.  this is how he maintains the title of dog whisperer.

ruby and i have some floor time most days when i come home from work.  i sprawl, exhausted, on the living room floor and she comes over to see me in between bites of dinner.  there is head butting and petting and forced snuggling and i play words with friends on my phone when she wanders into the kitchen for more dinner.  love this girl.

a fascinating article: this is what happens to your heart when you dive into the sea.

"The moment your face submerges in the sea’s salty waters, a Hulk-like metamorphosis will trigger. Blood will begin rushing from your hands and feet, up your legs and arms, and into your core; your heart rate will reflexively lower 25% its normal rate; your mind will enter a meditative, almost dreamlike-state. If you choose to dive deeper, the transformation will grow more profound until you bear only a passing resemblance to your terrestrial form. You will become a water animal — a fish, essentially. Scientists call this transformation the mammalian dive reflex or, more lyrically, the Master Switch of Life."

"Human blood has a chemical composition 98% similar to seawater. An infant will reflexively breaststroke when placed underwater and can comfortably hold his breath for about 40 seconds, longer than many adults. We lose this ability only when we learn how to walk."

july: 18, 19, 20 & 21

july's pleasure reading was a bit disrupted by a 224 page course reader of supreme court cases and analysis for the seminar i went to at stanford at the end of july.  it was slow going, and my fun reading suffered a smidge for it.  but i still read four books!  none of which i'm head over heels for, though.  june's excellent luck with books couldn't last.  this month i read:

we were liars, by e. lockhart (do you have a stomach bug?  are you vomiting profusely?  well, as someone who experienced this over 4th of july weekend, i can tell you from experience that the next day you should read this book, when you don't have the energy to do anything else.  it is so cliche at points and the characters are so annoying most of the time and i am not telling you to read this book.  unless, as i said, you are confined to a couch.  i have heard great things about OTHER e. lockhart books, though, so perhaps you should check them out and leave this one alone.)

at the water's edge, by sara gruen (everything that you predict will happen in this book…happens in this book.  i was a little disappointed that it didn't live up to my huge expectations from the author's previous novel water for elephants, which is one of my favorite books of all time.  sigh.  this is a fine little summer read, and i didn't dislike it, but i will just take this opportunity to tell you to read water for elephants instead.)

a land more kind than home, by wiley cash (this is a debut novel that takes place in the north carolina mountains [and we've already established that i love books set there], about a church that deals in snake handling and laying on of hands and the consequences of that for one family.  if this sounds interesting to you, this is a great addition to add to your list!  but again [theme for the month!] i won't necessarily be proselytizing about this one the next time i see you, like i still am for deep down dark.)

i am the messenger, by markus zusak (ugh, month of loving authors' other books more!  this was no book thief.  it was an a-okay young adult read with an interesting plot structure [the main character receives playing cards with names on them and he has to figure out what those people need in their lives], but it was no book thief.  read the book thief.)

stories from the shuttle bus

After asserting confidently - and multiple times - that she was not given a ticket indicating where she'd parked in the parking lot, the woman on the airport parking shuttle bus took two seconds to look in her bag and there she found her ticket. Of course she did. 

I am so tired of (a) other people and (b) traveling. Glad to be home!