Note of the Living Deb

My secret Santa has struck. I got two kinds of candy from Starbucks. One was chocolate-covered peanut-butter pretzels, which I really liked. The other was dark-chocolate covered blueberries and white-chocolate covered raspberries, which Robin really liked. (It is better if you don't read the ingredients list, though.)

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I asked my co-workers what term to use for the person I'm a secret Santa for, instead of "victim," and they said "recipient." Zzz. That's not really good enough.

Present #2 for my sugar plum visionary ("Visions of sugar plums...") is a list of quotes because she said she likes inspirational quotes. These are not all inspirational, exactly, but hey. [Parts added below in brackets like these are for your edification, but not in the present.]

Hopefully some of these will make you laugh. Out loud. So be careful at work or church, etc.

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Your Secret Santa’s favorite
Lesser-Known Quotes


“May the fleas of a thousand camels rest under your armpits.” – schoolyard taunt
“No, they may not.” – my brother

“If you need to step on someone’s head to get what you want, then you want something you are not supposed to have.” – J.D. Franklin

“If everyone jumped off the Empire State Building, eventually it wouldn’t hurt.” – Zak Nelson’s dad

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience—well that comes from poor judgment.” - attributed to Cousin Woodman

“In fifteen minutes, I’ll lose my voice. Then it will be Silence against Violence.” – overheard on the West Mall free speech area [probably from a member of the campus group Voices against Violence]

“When a problem eludes solution, it is not a problem, it is a fact.” – attributed to Ariel Sharon

“My theory is that all of Scottish cuisine is based on a dare.” – attributed to Mike Myers

“He would have brought much-needed diversity to the department, as we have zero representation of the a**hole demographic.” – commenter on Grumpy Rumblings blog

“… her patience was, perhaps, tired out, for this is a virtue which is very apt to be fatigued by exercise.” – Henry Fielding in Tom Jones

“I like win-win scenarios. Usually I have whine-whine scenarios.” – Dean Arthur Allert [her boss's boss]

“I’m much more efficient and productive when I’m loaded down with chores because I play them like Tetras—stacking and nesting them with each other, often doing three things at once, always thinking about the next thing I need to be doing and how I can accomplish more in the same amount of time or in a more logical order.” - “Wipeout” on the 3WA blog

Little Kid Weight Loss Program: Eat whatever you want. Run wherever you go. – Richard Fowler

“I am suspicious of these heroic dogs you see on television and read about in the papers. It seems every other day another mute librarian slips into a storm drain only to be rescued by a pack of selfless beagles. My guess is she had half a ham sandwich in her pocket.” – Elissa Schappel in Dog Culture: Writers on the Character of Canines

“I am allergic to alcohol and narcotics. I break out in handcuffs.” – attributed to Robert Downey, Jr.

“It was hard.
“But the thing to do when you have to do something hard is just dig in and do it. After a while, it being hard doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just what you’re doing, and you keep on doing it.” – Rosemary Kirstein in The Lost Steersman

“When I’m snoring and drooling, that’s kudos to the chef.” – Wendy Scott

Cake of the Day

I am getting tired of these cakes anyway. I am only 1/3 of the way through with them. So I'm just going to show you my ten (or so) favorites that you haven't seen yet and be done with it. Yes, I'd rather be judgmental than patient at this point.

First, yes, if you are totally crazy overboard, you might impress me. These guys didn't even bother having a moat:



Here is a close up of the dragon:



And the mushroom guys:



And the dragon again. You should have run before the dragon noticed you.

I get the impression that Nathanial Hawthorne despised the strict Puritanism of the 1600s and was glad to be living in the modern world of the 1800s instead. I quite enjoyed reading one character's excited talk about the promise of better transportation. At his first sign of freedom, he jumped on a train and bothered the first person who would listen (the ticket taker) with his notions of how speedy transportation would free us.

"My impression is that our wonderfully increased and still increasing facilities of locomotion are destined to bring us round again to the nomadic state. ... In the early epochs of our race, men dwelt in temporary huts, of bowers and branches, as easily constructed as a bird's nest, and which they built--if it should be called building, when such sweet homes of a summer solstice rather grew than were made with hands--which Nature, we will say, assisted them to rear where fruit abounded, where fish and game were plentiful, or, most especially, where the sense of beauty was to be gratified by a lovelier shade than elsewhere, and a more exquisite arrangement of lake, wood, and hill. This life possessed a charm, which, ever since man quitted it, has vanished from existence. And it typified something better than itself. It had its drawbacks; such as hunger and thirst, inclement weather, hot sunshine, and weary and foot-blistering marches over barren and ugly tracts, that lay between the sites desirable for their fertility and beauty. But in our ascending spiral, we escape all this. These railroads--could but the whistle be made musical and the rumble and the jar got rid of--are positively the greatest blessing that the ages have wrought out for us. They give us wings; they annihilate the toil and dust of pilgrimage; they spiritualize travel! Transition being so facile, what can be any man's inducement to tarry in one spot? Why therefore, should he build a more cumbrous habitation than can readily be carried off with him? Why should he make himself a prisoner for life in the brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timber, when he may just as easily dwell, in one sense, nowhere--in a better sense, wherever the fit and beautiful shall offer him a home?"

I bet he would like European trains - so quiet and smooth. Would he like the literal wings of modern planes? Or would the ordeals of security screening, lost luggage, missed connections, tiny seats, etc. be but a modern toil and dust of pilgrimage? What would he think of cars? Our own personal devices to go practically anywhere we want any time we want.

What would he think of Glenn, author of To Simplify, who got rid of almost everything he owned, moved into a van, and has been traveling, locally at first, then nationally, ever since? A van is hardly a "sweet home of a summer solstice," but then it's unlikely to be loaded down with the history of the ancestors who held it since it was first built.

What would he think about the fact that with all these fabulous forms of transportation, we mostly all still live in houses of "brick, and stone, and old worm-eaten timer"? What would he think of hotels--they let us have our completely unportable houses, but escape, too. And many people do escape on a regular basis, but travel is still the exception for most people rather than the rule of daily living.

Probably he hadn't thought about the idea that with everybody converging on the best spots, the best spots would get worn out and become less beautiful, less fertile, etc.

Most of now are tied by our jobs.

And most of us, unlike the character quoted above, actually like some of our relatives and have some friends--and those people help tie us to one place, too.

Blog of the day - Things Organized Neatly. This is a set of pictures that illustrate the title. It won't give you ideas for organizing your stuff--it's more like art for the obsessive-compulsive. Not everything is beautiful, perhaps there's nothing he won't photograph or display. But it's interesting just how many ways humans go about organizing things neatly.

Some of my favorites:

• Day after you die - an unlikely juxtaposition of well-organized belongings.
  
  
• Tour de France - so pretty
  
  
• Ital Florida Trieste - this one perhaps used to be organized a bit more neatly.
  
  
• Thorns on rice paper - there's something striking about thorns on rice paper.
  
  
• Bunkbeds - amusing
  
  
• Keys - especially for the obsessive compulsive
  

Today we went to Key West. On the way we stopped for lunch at Mangrove Mama's where “dinner is a little bit more fancier.” I just love quoting our waitress there. “Don't eat the food here.” “Don't take any pictures.” As you might guess, we disobeyed her at every opportunity.



We liked the ceiling decor.



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In Key West we started at the Museum of Art and Art History where we saw works by a guy who thought we should experience some of the classics from a different perspective. I really kind of liked this one.



Rita MacNelly and Beezy Bogan made characters, named them, and gave them little descriptions in the American Trophies exhibit. (Oops, no pictures yet.)

There's Arby Gladwell who “has not picked out a single item of clothing for himself since his second marriage.”

I've actually heard of someone who has never bought his own underwear. First his mom did, then his wife.

“Polly is game for anything. She's more than a woman, she's an experience.”

“Herbie has always felt his hair is his best feature.”

“Martha Jean was Miss Hopewell 1987 where she triumphed over an eager field of four, winning with her spectacular flaming baton act.”

“Horace H. Grubbs reads two obits daily with the glee of a man who has won a bet."

There was also a display on Ernest Hemingway who lived in Key West for a bit. (No, we did not tour his house.) I've read The Old Man and the Sea, which I remember liking, though it was depressing. Well here, I got to read a long letter he wrote back home after becoming injured in the war and, wow, he's a really good writer.

Duh. I know.

I may look into some of his other works.

We also learned that for a while the biggest part of the economy came from shipwrecks. When a new shipwreck was discovered, an alarm was sounded and whoever arrived first was put in charge and got the biggest share of the profits.

First the people were rescued, then the goods were recovered after having been sold for something like ten cents on the dollar.

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Then we stopped by a cart where Robin tried conch fritters, more fritter than conch. By the way, conch is pronounced KONK. Don't embarrass yourselves.

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We saw a mural by a guy who decided to create 100 murals around the world to educate people about sea life.



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Then we stopped at a shop where I got key lime pie. Key limes are a special kind of lime which are grown in the keys.

My mom makes key lime pie and I wanted to compare. I think the one I tasted was more tart than my mom's.

The place had one kind with whipped cream and one kind with meringue. I asked which she recommended. She recommended the meringue, with rolling eyes, as if everyone should know that key lime pies are made with meringue. Score one for my mom! The pie was also made with regular pie crust rather than a graham cracker crust, just like my mom's.



So, now you also know how not to embarrass yourself when talking about key lime pie.

I love the bicycle rack out front, shaped like a bicycle itself:



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Then we went on the Conch Tour Train (remember to pronounce it “konk”--I have trouble doing that, so I'll keep reminding you, too).

First we learned that the banyan tree is a type of ficus from India.

We learned about zigzag houses, where the roof has a zigzag shape. Every time you add a new section, you can add a new roof. They used tin roofs so that at the valleys, you can collect the rain water and store it in a cistern. People are no longer collecting all their water like this, or much at all; a pipe has been run from the Everglades in Florida to deliver drinking water to the keys. Still, collecting your own water sounds like a good idea.

I'd always heard that roofs with valleys like this were more likely to leak than those without.



I've also become fascinated with shutters (look again at the zigzag house above for many examples). Real shutters can close and actually protect the windows during a hurricane. And protecting the windows means you're protecting the contents of the house. And, if no windows break, your roof is less likely to fly away, too. We don't get hurricanes, and even if global warming raises sea level, we are still unlikely to get them here during my lifetime. But we can get tornadoes, so shutters still seem like a good idea to me.

I saw shutters on both windows and doors. And I saw many different kinds.

There's also such a thing as an “eyebrow house,” a Key West invention. This is where the roof eaves hang down beyond the windows on the top floor. Good for shade!

We learned that the land mass of Key West has doubled by dredging. When you dredge the ocean to make a deep place for boats to come through, you may as well take that dirt and add it to the edge of the land. “New Town” used to be the Gulf.

The beaches on the Atlantic side are made of imported sand.

The tour guide said that people in Key West were quite rich during the shipwreck era. But then by the Great Depression, the government wanted to evacuate everyone to someplace it was easier to deliver aid to.

The next big industry was tourism (I think). Then there was the hurricane with the 200-mile-an-hour winds. After that the railroad and then a highway were built. Then World War II brought the Navy. And now it looks like we're back to tourism.

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Here's a stained glass window I like in a shop we dropped by with an ice cream parlour.



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There are a lot of chickens running around Key West. I heard it's for bug control. I also heard they are considered a pest. They were much nicer than the rooster Robin grew to hate when he had to feed chickens and the rooster would always try to peck his shins to pieces. I liked them.



Back at the ranch, I remarked on how there were so many wooden houses that had obviously survived hurricanes in Key West. It was explained to me that the wood pieces were bigger than those used nowadays and carefully fitted together in ways we don't do anymore.

I also learned that Habitat for Humanity houses tend to withstand strong winds better than regular wood houses because the volunteers use "too many" nails.