Someone try to explain, no, summarize

I understand why I like these.  I mean, there’s the rocking sound, the smart lyrics and harmonies, the love of family, and the hair.  

But could someone please explain why I’m supposed to find these attractive?  Or anything here?  Or how about here, especially these?  What is that, a designer parole bracelet?  

Seriously?

A National Geographic blog about education funding, specifically geography.  

Go Cook this

It’s fast (you really can have it finished in thirty minutes).  It’s easy.  It’s cheap.  And oh my, does it taste yummy.  

You might have to give up an email address to get to the recipes, but they’re both free recipes that were on America’s Test Kitchen on PBS recently.  In the show, they suggested that the garlic-shy could use as few as three cloves of garlic, but seriously, you want to use all six.  The house will smell fantastic for hours. 

Ziti

This one uses a bit of cream.  Which I did not have on hand.  So I used milk with a dollop of butter.  I also used 16 ounces of pasta and increased the water to four cups—in a bigger pan of course.

  

Ziti with Putanesca Sauce

This is a variation on the theme, using some anchovy and olive, and substituting red wine for the cream.  I’ll do this one next time.  Side note, I can’t read ‘Putanesca’ without thinking of the scene in the first Lemony Snicket book, where Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are forced to cook dinner for Count Olaf and his troupe of ‘actors.’  

You know you wanna.

Mother's Day, Part 2: Make it Meaningful

Ileana noticed the business about mothers in the U.S. Congress this week.

Our government is, indeed, quite weird sometimes. Many of the strange things they do can be attributed to ceremony and tradition. Often the gestures they make are symbolic. Yep, we’re going to vote to have Mother’s Day this year, or Nurse’s Week, or a national symbol of some kind or other. But it’s not always even as simple as that.

Turns out Mother’s Day is even complicated.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/08/AR2008050802999.html

After unanimously voting in support of Mother’s Day, in a revote 178 Republicans voted against it. The move was blamed on “procedural shenanigans.” Uh huh.

Whether the House supports Mother’s Day or not, however, is really rather meaningless. It is merely a recognition (or not) of mothers. A holding up of a symbol, so that they can say they love moms and all they do. But it doesn’t carry any practical support that mothers can use. Take for instance the recent vote about fair wages for women, famously criticized by John McCain, who thinks we just need more training and experience and we’ll get the same pay. Yeah.

Or how about paid family leave, the promotion and protection of family-friendly work spaces, protection and encouragement of breastfeeding, fair and affordable healthcare?

A consortium of mothers called MomsRising is working to aggregate information and support of legislation that can practically, meaningfully, and substantially show support for mothers and families in the United States. Check out their mother’s day e-card for a synopsis of where they stand on Motherhood.

In that vapid little rag, Parade Magazine, this morning, Sarah Jessica Parker, who claims to want to be the world’s most fabulous mom, ahem, she points out that if you put a bunch of liberal moms in a room with a bunch of conservative moms, we’d all want basically the same things for our kids. Her penchant for shoes aside, I have to agree with the former Square Peg. Mothers and Fathers want and need to have the tools to raise healthy and successful families in the United States.

If any of this moves you, whether you’re a mother or not, share it with other moms and dads you know and consider subscribing to the MomsRising list. You’ll get notifications about petitions and movements in Congress. Kick those congressional representatives in the pants and help convince them to pack a little action with those words.

Satan is Winning

Look, honey, Mummy’s brought you some presents! I got you a new book. And a Nip/Tuck Barbie, complete with lipo-pump and four sizes of removable silicon implants! And next week, I’ve scheduled us for a Mommy-and-me Medi-spa day for a little botox and chemical peel.

Just you wait until you’re 13 baby, and Mummy will share her plastic surgeon with you too!!

Keep that wheel turning, baby! Only two more pounds to go!