haghausted

I'm not about to admit defeat - just yet.
But all the merging/purging going on around this house for the past months is - yes - finally - getting to me.

The house is progressing, ever so slowly but surely, into an environment that is a bit more simplified. Things around here are finally making sense. I may soon be able to cook a meal or work on a project without turning the place upside down and inside out looking for the necessary supplies.

The place is looking good.
However, I have become, in the process, rather haghausted.
(hag + exhausted = haghausted)

After I get through the last phase of the First Phase of Re-Organization, I really must address my own physicality.

Just a reminder...

... that Chinese New Year is coming...
This year, the celebration begins on February 7 and lasts for 15 days.
It's time to clean house, re-pay debts and prepare to party hardy.

Everybody loves a clown...

NOT

EVERYBODY.

Home Cooking

There's nothing like home cooking. I believe in preparing tasty meals using the freshest ingredients - and in the home kitchen. It IS the way to good eating.

However - I do adore going out to eat, and particularly so at eateries offering dishes not typically prepared in my own kitchen. Not that I am incapable of trying new things. My cooking repertoire is pretty extensive, if I say so myself...and it always seems I have to say so myself....(smile).

Yet - I still question the wisdom of eating food 'outside' that can be so easily prepared at home - usually for much less cost. For example, when making pasta for a crowd, I have been known to point out that each plate of pasta/sauce served at home would cost that much more in a restaurant.
Home-cooked usually tastes better too...and you can get seconds.

A lot can be said for enjoying the pleasant ambiance of a meal in a restaurant setting...but wait....so many eateries lack for proper dining ambiance anymore. They are frequently so overcrowded that it is noisy, drafty and there is a din which annoys me no end. Dinner conversation is near impossible with that restaurant din. I, for one, do not relish straining to hear, or shouting to, my dinner companions over the dining table.

It can be very costly to partake in too many restaurant meals, wreaking havoc with the home budget. Perusing the monthly Visa charge card statement, I note with some unease that the most numerous (and sometimes the biggest) expenses are those restaurant meals.

It can be less healthy to eat 'outside food' - due to the fact that many of us make the poorest choices from the menu.
I know I do.
When dining out, I invariably gravitate towards The Fried and/or The Greasy. Time after time, these dishes win out over unadulterated, cleaner, simpler fare.

Why does that happen? I'm excited, I'm hungry and I'm not prepared for the consequences of eating over salted, oily food with rich, cloying sauces. I'm also pretty good at being in denial about the copious amounts of poor food choices that I am about to devour.

Reality check:
I absolutely, positively appreciate the health benefits of fresh, seasonal foods.
I enjoy eating such food.
But I haven't been eating so healthy lately.
(Good grief - yesterday, I didn't eat a fruit or a vegetable! How alarming!)

I love to cook.
But I haven't done much cooking lately.

Hmmmmmmm and Doh!
Whassamada me?

Something is amiss.
Something's gotta give.

Not so much a New Year Resolution for me (that would be setting myself up for failure to comply), but a very worthwhile goal nonetheless:
More home-cooked meals in 2008!

Yes Yes Yes.
Now... this would work especially well .... if only someone else would consistently clean up the kitchen afterwards....

awwwww....you guys made me ink

For reasons unknown, and inexplicable even if they were, I've been repeating this quote (from the cute little squid gal) a lot lately.

rollin' rollin' rollin'

Keep them doggies rollin'.
Keep them doggies rollin' - Rawhide!

TV westerns.
Good bad and ugly.
I grew up watching them in the 50's & 60's, and have been drawn to westerns ever since. Without a doubt, part of the reason I am so intrigued by the history of the westward movement in this country is because I have been so enamoured with television shows depicting The Old West.

There were mediocre TV westerns and better than mediocre TV westerns.

Then HBO's 'Deadwood' cut a swath in the TV Western genre that proved too w-i-d-e, too deep and too daunting for any newly conceptualized TV western to traverse.
It has yet to be equaled or bettered.
Every other TV western before or since has failed to hold a candle.

Since the last episode of Deadwood's Season 3, I await in eager anticipation for the next all-consuming western series on television.

Along comes Comanche Moon on CBS. A 'prequel' to Larry McMurtry's 'Lonesome Dove', it could have delivered something, anything - to whet this parched palate.

Alas! It is only my humble opinion, but Comanche Moon fails to serve up the thirst quenching and/or intoxicating and/or addictive elixir. Indeed, it falls miserably short, as in Damn-But-Why-Can't-They-Deliver-Just-
A-Bit-of-Deadwood-Stylin'?!?

Even the presence of the awesome Wes Studi barely holds this miniseries aloft. He's always amazing with what he contributes, but there's too much in the way of insipid characterizations for his acting to overcome. Rachel Griffiths is also good, but then - she too - with the right direction, could be great.

Alas - 'Deadwood' has spoiled me - for life.

Calling Dr. Kildare & Dr. Casey

Was watching a bit of a 'B' movie last night on TCM - when Lo and Behold - there was Vince Edwards - playing some young punk, dressed in a nice suit, going round robbing innocent folk at gunpoint.

Seemed out of character to me. Perhaps it was before he went to med school...
...A few of you out there may or may not remember Vince Edwards at the highlight (?) of his acting career, starred as Dr. Ben Casey on television (circa early 1960's).

When I was a kid, Ben Casey was the TV doc of choice with my family. Mom more or less ruled the TV roost at our house, and convinced the rest of us that Dr. Kildare was much too milk-toast to even be considered.

The opening of the Ben Casey show can be credited for teaching many young viewers the symbols for " Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity." That is precisely when and where I learned them.

Thank you, Dr. Zorba.

I sure do miss Ben Casey.

Yet I send a friendly nod to Richard Chamberlain's Dr. Kildare (I didn't entirely agree with Mom's opinion of D.K. as being so utterly blah).

P.S. Lest we forget, Lew Ayres* was the first Dr. Kildare.
Hey and Golly Gee - the things you learn whilst Googling - I just found out that Lew Ayres and Ginger Rogers were married for about 6 years! I never knew that. HubbyDear adds that Lew Ayres was a pacifist who created quite an uproar as well as changed military rules when he declared Conscientious Objector status during WWII....

Clickety Clicking

That could be the sound of knitting needles clicking together in eager anticipation of a soon-to-be finished knitting project.

Not so.
Not tonight anyway.

Rather, it's the keys on the computer keyboard as I spent just over an hour working and re-working this post. Upon completion and ready for publishing, I clicked somewhere I shouldn't have and lost the whole dang thing to the black hole of blogging.

Alas and
Oh well.

Here's the accompanying photo and
a summary of the (typically) wordy missive I had originally intended:

Those of you who were recently lucky (?) recipients of a handmade item from me might appreciate seeing a few of the other knitted creations I labored over for holiday gift-giving.

G'nite...
Sleep tight...
Don't let the clickety clicking keep you up too late tonight...

high time for hi time to say a few words about a happy new year

Whaaaaa hoppen?
For me, 2007 spilled into 2008 rather seamlessly.

Hectic weeks in December flowed without any notable demarkation into the first days of January. Many a delightful minute/hour swirled and whirled with other, not-so-pleasant times. The current mixture of events and emotions is dictating my daily action (or inaction).

Keeping hella-busy with planned and not planned activities.
Who doesn't have people to see, places to go, things to do?
We seem to pride ourselves on being so all-consumed and occupied, don't we?
'I've been soooooo busy' is our byline.

There are those whose daily schedules aren't nearly so full: the aged, the infirm, the lonely...
When I'm about to sound the horn on my 'life being much too busy' I stop to consider those who would take on more, if only they could.
'Life is dynamic, not static' a wise neighbour once remarked.
If we are so lucky.
At this time, I breath in, I breath out - and life is full.

Rest is good too.
The yin and the yang of being in action, then stepping away.

This morning I am allowing myself the first real (rested, fed n' burped, not in a hurry, relaxed) opportunity of 2008 - to sit back, say 'Hi' and wax not so poetically on the theme of a Happy New Year.

Hello to 2008.
To me, the traditional Happy New Year greeting is not an altogether realistic, attainable or even desirable goal.

We're all aware there will be happy times during the year - for there is such joy and much affirmation to be had for us living on this earth with all its wondrous beauty. In the next months, we will find ourselves steeped in the cozy warmth of quality hours spent with those we love. How fortunate if they should be generous enough to offer us love in return. There will be learning, growing, helping, interaction with others whilst exercising kindness and honesty....and there will be the mental, physical and emotional highs that accompany those things.

We also know there will be plenty of miserable moments - as we lose things that are precious to us...when people behave badly...when we overextend ourselves. We will invariably go out of our minds with worry over big and little things. There will be lying, cheating, getting ripped off, greed, being deceived, deceiving. We will disgust and we will be disgusted.

Why set ourselves up for a Happy New Year, only to fall short?
OK, so I'm taking it literally. But when has an entire year, 365/24/7 ever really found any of us in a state of constant happiness? A pretty unrealistic goal. Not one to top the new year resolution list, that's for certain.

Why not try instead for a sense of BALANCE?
A reasonable mix of calm with chaotic.

Allow me then, to greet you at the start of 2008 thusly:
I Wish For You Many Happy Times in the New Year.
May you find BALANCE.
A mouthful, but I do mean it most sincerely.

Let's focus on numerous moments of happiness.
They feel nice....and they do add up.