Have You Seen the One With the Guy and That Other Guy?

Have you ever spent an evening hanging out with some good friends and the conversation flows from Stradivarius to P. Diddy's jet to Nursery politics and the minutes just tick by until before you know it you're watching Internet videos of random things and it's midnight but it's all so funny you just can't stop? This one is for you Scott and Libby.

Breast Milk Ice Cream Naming Contest

I got this off of my oh so awesome sister-in-law's blog which got me to thinking, what would you name ice cream that's made of breast milk? Ben & Jerry's tends to be a bit avant-garde in their titles so I immediately thought of Nursing Neapolitan, Dulce de la Leche League and Lactation Lime as pilot flavors. Under the circumstances perhaps Pushy PETA Pistachio would work as well. What would YOU name it (be creative! not crass!)? The winner gets public acknowledgement that I think they're cool. I wonder if they'd have to change the tag line of "Vermonts Finest All Natural" because it could be considered sexual harassment? They's also have to screen for women with breast augmentation to be able to support the claim "all natural".

September 23, 2008

Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield,

Cofounders

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Dear Mr. Cohen and Mr. Greenfield,

On behalf of PETA and our more than 2 million members and supporters, I'd like to bring your attention to an innovative new idea from Switzerland that would bring a unique twist to Ben and Jerry's.Storchen restaurant is set to unveil a menu that includes soups, stews, and sauces made with at least 75 percent breast milk procured from human donors who are paid in exchange for their milk. If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers-and cows-would reap the benefits.Using cow's milk for your ice cream is a hazard to your customer's health. Dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies, constipation, obesity, and prostate and ovarian cancer. The late Dr. Benjamin Spock, America's leading authority on child care, spoke out against feeding cow's milk to children, saying it may play a role in anemia, allergies, and juvenile diabetes and in the long term, will set kids up for obesity and heart disease-America's number one cause of death.Animals will also benefit from the switch to breast milk. Like all mammals, cows only produce milk during and after pregnancy, so to be able to constantly milk them, cows are forcefully impregnated every nine months. After several years of living in filthy conditions and being forced to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally, their exhausted bodies are turned into hamburgers or ground up for soup.And of course, the veal industry could not survive without the dairy industry. Because male calves can't produce milk, dairy farmers take them from their mothers immediately after birth and sell them to veal farms, where they endure 14 to17 weeks of torment chained inside a crate so small that they can't even turn around.The breast is best! Won't you give cows and their babies a break and our health a boost by switching from cow's milk to breast milk in Ben and Jerry's ice cream? Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Reiman

Executive Vice President

As Far As It Is Translated Correctly...

This is from Comedy Central's Joke of the Day which I get on my iGoogle reader:

The Pope dies and, naturally, goes to heaven where he's met by a reception committee of angels. After a whirlwind tour, The Pope is told that he can enjoy any of the myriad recreations available. He decides that he wants to read all of the ancient original text of the Holy Scriptures, so he spends the next eon or so learning the languages.

After becoming a linguistic master, he sits down in the library and begins to pour over every version of the Bible, working back from the most recent "Easy Reading" to the original handwritten script.
The angel librarian hears a loud scream, and goes running toward its source only to find the Pope huddled in a chair, shaking and crying. "The R! They left out the R!" "What do you mean?" the angel librarian asks. After collecting his wits, the Pope sobs again, "The word was supposed to be CELEBRATE!"

My Two Cents

Today I finished Breaking Dawn, the last of the Twighlight series. First of all I have to give a HUGE shout out to Brent who silently took Liesel so I could curl up and read. He never once complained and went so far as to patiently listen to MY complaining when the plot took a turn I didn't like. So here's a quick rundown of my opinion on the series (Spoiler Alert!):

Bella--Would you like some cheese with that whine? Seriously, I wouldn't be irritated that everyone's trying to make her so happy if she seemed to deserve it and weren't such a crybaby. She drove me insane the entire time. Waaaaah I want to be with Edward. Waaaaaah but I don't want to get married. Waaaaah I want Jacob around too. Waaaaaah I can't understand why they don't get along. Waaaaaah I don't like people giving me hot cars and designer clothes. Waaaah why are people looking at me on my wedding day? Waaah Waahh Wahhhh!!! I was a little disconcerted to find myself understanding her character in the final book. Her sentiments about not knowing how much she wanted a baby until she was pregnant were exactly how I felt. It kind of bothered me to be on the same wavelength with her but I'll stop complaining so I can get off it. In the movie, her role should be played by Tonia Harding.

Jacob--Let's just rename him Bitter Betty. Initially I didn't like the story from his perspective. You can only hear names like "bloodsucker" "leach" and such so many times and GET OVER Bella already! He should have come up with some more creative slams like Fangor or something. I'm glad he came around though. I wish they would have mentioned him bathing every now and again. He was always the dog sleeping in the woods and hunting elk but then he's holding a little baby? Seriously, it grossed me out. At least wash your hands Jacob! Ewe. Micheal Moore would probably do a good Jacob.

Edward--I STILL don't get what he sees in Bella. Soooooo she's really worth risking your life, your daughter's life, your families lives, your friends lives and well, the vampire world at large? I just couldn't GET there with you Edward. And you would go so far as to loan her out? Uh uh, not cool. That just didn't seem to fit with your oh so proper gentlemanly demeanor. I have to admit I asked Brent why seeing me in pain didn't cause him to also writhe in agony like Edward did. Perhaps it was at that point he started volunteering to take Liesel so I'd just finish the book. If it weren't for the loaning thing I'd give Colin Firth this one but I'll have to downgrade him to Gerard Butler. Not much of a downgrade really but Colin Firth will always be #1 for his Mr Darcy role.

Carlisle--The real hero of the book. Sort of like Lord of the Rings is kind of more about Sam than Frodo. He should have taken the chance to take down Aro and all them just for being such power-hungry lame-os. He kind of let their injustices slide which again, I thought was contrary to his nature. Take them out I say, let's see Carlisle dominate. Then he could have begun a generation of vegetarian vampires and developed a vaccine to make them human again. Yeah, I like that ending much, much better. Carlisle could be played by Sean Connery.

Feel free to disagree!

Brimfield

Mom once mentioned I have the hobbies of an old lady. She didn't mean it pejoratively and in many ways she's right. A couple of weekends ago I convinced Brent to go with me to Brimfield for the largest antique show in the nation. It's held 3 times a year and the next show isn't until the spring so this was the last chance for a while. I couldn't believe how huge it was and after hours of searching the tents for finds I think we were able to see perhaps 25% of it. Some highlights:

This sign actually makes me want to drink. Don't you want to get down with the Hooya pig and sip some jiggity liquor? Come on, you know you do. Everyone else is doing it... even the livestock. We saw this on the way into downtown Brimfield and couldn't stop joking about it so we snapped a picture on the way out. If anyone can tell what's on the pig's head please share! LOLOLOL! I'm still laughing when I see this. The food was another reason to attend this event because they had all kinds. It was nice to sit down for a bit to rest the legs and try something yummy and new. I think I had something Greek like a falafel or gyro or something. Brent and I shared some sort of potato curly thing with bacon bits, the fake cheddar cheese that looks like melted plastic and a huge dollop of sour cream.

I don't entirely understand this one but Brent wanted a picture. I guess Dave and Blair were the Blues Brothers or wanted to be the Blues Brothers or danced like the Blues Brothers? I dunno, take your pick I guess. Neither one of them looks like Jim Belushi so I don't know who would be who. Personally I think Dave looks like Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales and Blair looks like ... well BLAIR. Anyway, not far from here we found our favorite tent which had beautiful reproduction furniture. I like pieces that have some history and a little quirkiness to them. We were tempted by a number of items. I was happy to have a background in stained glass and quilting because a number of tents had those displayed as well. I quietly told Brent which ones I thought were worth the asking price and which ones were a rip off.

This photo just warms the cockles of my heart. Brent was pumping gas when Liesel caught sight of him through the rear window and she started laughing. A man in about his late 40's saw her and was immediately smitten. He said he had nothing but 4 boys in his house and he wished he could have had a girl. He looked at Liesel and said, "Even the DOG'S a boy!" and she cracked the biggest smile which was just adorable. As he drove off he rolled down his window and yelled, "May she have good health and happiness!" She got a lot of comments as we walked around the tents. We were definitely some of the youngest ones there.

Beach Baby

Latest photos and video of Liesel.
Our ward had a clambake last weekend at Cranes Beach in Ipswitch, MA. Liesel had a BALL on the beach as shown by the photos. I've also never seen a baby crash so hard afterward. Brent moved her briefly to prop up her little head with a sweater and she looked at him like waking her up for that was SO not worth it. I'm glad he caught a photo.

Also general cute outfit photos (thanks for the hand-me-downs Reagan!), bootie in the air asleep photos, in love with her own reflection photos, sucking on her feet and just out of the shower looking like a fuzzy baby chick photos. One day after work she kept grabbing at my Coach scarf so I finally tied it around her head and I rather like the effect. "Super Baby" is also in there.

Pipe Dream

Over the long weekend Brent and I packed up our little kumquat and headed south to visit Mom and Dad. Initially when we began making these trips we intended to use their tiny mission apartment as home base while we made forays into Manhattan. Silly as it may seem, we're now content to just hang out and chat with them while we're there. Well, as long as we can make it to Irving's for some melt-in-your mouth pastrami for lunch that is :) On this particular weekend Dad had some other ideas since there just happened to be an antique car show across the road from the mission office. It was inevitable, we had to go.

You have to understand that growing up I was a regular at what's known as a swap meet. In my adulthood I now understand this is where those aficionados of collector cars assemble to seek out various rare car parts as well as other period memorabilia. As a kid however, it was nothing but seemingly endless miles of oily, rusty car parts laid out on the grass while the sea of beer-belly buffalo plaid milled about. "No Refunds" was often posted at the entrance. There was a reason. It looked like a bulimic, cancerous car had thrown up its insides. I suppose I should have learned patience while Dad perused these apparently priceless items but I have to admit I hated it. Car shows were marginally better, at least all those parts were put together inside the brightly colored and perfectly polished cars. Still, as a little girl they weren't exactly the stuff of fairy tales.

It's with this background that I went to the car show with my parents and my little family. The show was indeed impressive with miles of classic cars. Mom wanted to play a game, which car would YOU want to go home with? She began to tell me how they decided on all their classic cars: the '31 Model A, the '56 Thunderbird and the '66 Mustang. Mom pointed out the low riders and told me how they're "not our thing." Dad took me under his wing and as we walked past the open hoods he showed me how to pick out the spark plugs. He showed me the difference between a V-6, a V-8 and a straight 6. Dad pointed out the carburetors and told me the power of an engine comes from being able to pull the fuel in and out most efficiently. The word "piston" made it in there somewhere but to be honest, he lost me at that point. Mom mentioned that if you looked around, you saw a lot of gray hair. Like so many hobbies, this one seems to have lodged itself largely with the Baby Boomer generation.

As we headed back towards the entrance I was thoroughly enjoying myself despite the heat and humidity. Brent and Liesel, the two human furnaces, were positively roasting but even they seemed to be having a good time. As we rounded the last corner, there it was: a 1957 white Thunderbird being raffled off. After the miles of beautiful cars I couldn't help myself, I bought the smallest allowable book of tickets. Mom passed behind me and whispered, "I think I've seen that in other shows" which was her gentle way of really saying, "I can't see gambling for beans and if you plunk down that $10 it's going to hurt my Scotch." True, true... but a girl can dream, can't she?