There are few things that make me has happy as flowers and fresh flowers in my house make me just plain giddy. Today I went to La Casita (the local florist on the train tracks in my village) for flowers. I was ecstatic to find that spring flowers were in the mix. For the last few months there hasn’t been much to choose from other than chrysanthemums. You would not have known that it was 40 degrees, cloudy and windy today by the look of the colorful bounty that I found at the florist.
My mother always had flowers in the house, lots of them from her amazing rose garden. She had several rules for bringing the flowers inside that she imparted to me.
My mom didn’t like bouquets per say. She more than often put only one kind and color of flower in a vase. If she used more than one kind of flower they were the same color
She always put an odd number of stems in a vase
She never used filler and I remember she had a special hate for baby’s breath
She never put fragrant flowers near food.
She always had gardenias in the powder room
If the stems were ugly she would line the inside of the clear vase with palm leaves
That being said, there doesnt need to be rules about flowers, its really hard to screw them up, they are so beautitful.
When things get busy, like they have this week, I don’t always have time to research a new fabulous recipe off my favorite food site Tastespotting. So today I went to an old standby and always a crowd-pleaser. Embellished Brownies. These are brownies out of a box that I play with the directions and then make a gooey topping to hold some candy jewels. I don’t ever add butter to a box mix, I substitute oil, which makes the dessert moister and it doesn’t dry out as fast. The other change would be to cook them in a cupcake pan (no papers just spray) and cook them for considerably less time than is indicated on the box so the centers are soft. Its not everyone’s bag but its the way we like it and the next day they are still moist. The topping is driven by what I have in the pantry. Today I mixed peanut butter and as much condensed milk as possible while the mixture is still spreadable and then topped them off with M&M’s and marshmallows (mini marshmallows work better than cutting up the big ones with scissors:() . Some other ideas we have tried: putting a mini peanut butter cup in the batter, melting chocolate and condensed milk to make a great icing and making peppermint brownie with thin mints in the batter and a fluffy pick frosting with mint extract and crushed up candy canes on the top.
If I was clever I would have photoshopped some heads on, but I am not.
Its winter holidays right now. With the kids going to an international school we have 6 weeks in June/July and 6 weeks Christmas until the beginning of the February. Most schools in Argentina have 2-3 weeks off and start the second half of the school year the beginning of August. Well this has been a kind of funky holiday for us.
Generally we have traveled during this holiday, sometimes north of the equator, sometimes here in Latin America. This year, because the oldest was going to be going to camp in the northern hemisphere for 2 1/2 weeks smack in the middle of the break, we decided to stay here and ski. There has been one problem with that plan, there is no snow. At least not in Argentina. There are some great places to ski in Argentina, Las Lenas and Cerro Cathedral are probably the best. The one problem is that they have little to no altitude, so it better be cold. In past years we have been to Bariloche twice to ski at Cerro Cathedral and have been rained out both times. So we are now looking at going to Chile to ski where there does appear to be snow. That will happen at the end of the month.
Normally this would be a great time to take the kids to the zoo, museums, the movies, shopping etc..normally kids in local schools would still be in session for at least another two weeks. But not this year. The gripe porcina (swine flu) has hit hard, or at least the government would like us to believe that. To show how responsive they are being, they close everything down. The kids are all out of school, basically until further notice. In the last week they have closed cinemas, my gym, concerts and sports events. And as of tomorrow (which is Argentina’s Independence Day, 9 de Julio) there is now a long weekend, including Friday which is a “feriado sanitario” (or health holiday) in which everyone has been encouraged to stay home, away from large crowds, with the hope to stall out the virus. It makes things very quiet around here. I never left the house today. The kids went for a walk with Corina to buy medialunas (sweet croissants) for tomorrow. Its OK for a few days..but even I, who can always be entertained by a book, could see how this will get old quickly. When GM gets back from the States we will for sure go somewhere. This would make him nuts. Either to the more immediate campo or to Junin.
Until then, more Camp Mommy. There has been a lot of Pictionary the last few days and we started a Puppy/Kitten 500 piece jigsaw. We got all the edge pieces isolated and the corner pieces identified. Then Ana, in her quest to clean every surface of humanity, stuck the puzzle back in the box. Well there is tomorrow, and the day after that, and the next day….
It really is all about being a really shitty loser. These guys just cant believe it. It happens. God knows it has happen to me enough in my life time. I lived through Nixon, Reagan, (who at the time seemed reactionary, now seems almost moderate) Poppy Bush (who at least wasn’t an idealogue) and then W and you can read lots here how I felt about HIM. But in all my discouragement and disappointment I never thought about overthrowing the democratically elected government. (although a debatable fact in the last two presidential elections) I never called Bush a Nazi or a plant for radical Islam. I never bought into all the various conspiracy theories that abounded during W’s presidency. I just kept informed, put the pressure on my legislators and supported the candidates that would bring us back from the brink. I won. You lost. You have a choice. You can make the best of the situation that is not going to change until 2010. Or continue to say really stupid things about democrats being monarchists or fascists. Actually, why don’t you spend the next few years brushing up on world history and and use a dictionary for the words you don’t understand.
Sorry for being so condescending, but what else am I suppose to think when hear drivel like this:
I am amazed at the hatred and bitterness I observe on political blogs by some Hillary supporters. It is hate directed at Obama, his surrogates, his supporters, media and especially a blogger who is remotely critical of Hillary or positive of Obama. The verbal abuse (it does go both ways) was heating up towards the end of the primaries and once the RBC met, the gloves were off.
This weekend it hit an all time low with really mean-spirited comments being left about Tim Russert. The guy has just died, and while he was not my favorite journalist I will respect his memory and the people who love him, and keep silent of any criticism that I could have. Its called human decency.
I understand why these supporters are reeling from the lose of an epic battle that was the democractic primary election 2008. After the 2000 and 2004 general election I could have been bitter and moved to Canada. Well actually, that is not a good example because in 2003 we did move to Argentina. Al Gore was a gracious loser, who played by, and respected the rules. I took his example and conceded to Bush, and vowed to fight harder the next time. In 2004, I was disappointed when Kerry emerged and Howard Dean faded and demoralized by Kerry’s eventual loss. I don’t remember in all of this LOSING, telling people, I didn’t know, that they were disingenuous, stupid, cult members or trolls.
What I am not understanding is the intensity of meanness. Again, I don’t really no what the numbers are as there has already been some movement of women in the polls to Obama. However, some of the disenfranchized are pissed off enough for 10 people. They have three main arguments as to why they will NEVER EVER vote for Obama.
Process related: She won the popular vote, caucuses should not count, the Florida and Michigan delegates were stolen
Sexism/Racism: She was victim of media and Obama campaign sexist attacks and Obama campaign played the race card against her, and he had affiliations that would reflect possible black racism
Barack Obama is unfit for office of president: Because of the above, inexperience, lack of substance and “dont know what Obama stands for, character is questionable”
I have no sympathy for the Process related argument. There are rules as to how we elect our presidents. Some are in the Constitution and some the political parties make. There are processes and protocol for questioning or changing these rules. I would argue that if Hillary did think the nominee being pick by accumulating delegates through primaries, caucuses and superdelegates, she should have tried to change the rules before she lost. Its like the electoral college. Every general election cycle we talk about how archaic this part of our constitution is, and we never do anything about it.
Undoubtedly, sexism was a challenge Clinton dealt with during this campaign. Is that why she lost? No. Is is Obama’s fault? No. Did Obama lose because he was black? Oh, wait..he didnt lose, he won.
There is a lot of stuff about how he is not qualified to be president. This line of reasoning quickly degenerates to his affiliations and his “ambigious” religious background rendering him “unfit”. Wow, that is quite a judgement to make without there being any facts involved! There are a whole set of rumors (smears) that have gone viral and are stated as fact by many commenters. Obama supporters can be sensitive on the boards too, but not to the degree of spreading smears, that they know arent true. My personal favorite because it it so stupid, is that he has not presented a birth certificate and he is refusing because he 1) was born before Hawaii was a state and is lying about his age 2) Was actually born in Kenya and has no birth certificate 3) His parents were not married. He has infact submitted one (not required to) and it was scanned and making the rounds.
I am feeling a lot less in exile these days. But my blog is still a mess of political and personal thoughts along with experiences of living in Argentina. While I can't promise, I will try to balance talk about my kids with something more universally relevant. And sorry if salty talk is offensive but I was a derivatives trader in another life and it cant be helped.
