God's Gonna Get You For That, Walter

Big love for the awesome Bea Arthur, who died yesterday. My favorite clip of her that is not from The Golden Girls, Maude, or the Pamela Anderson Roast is this: a song with Rock Hudson about drugs. So retro~

Secession is a Bitch

A quickie, since I'm not officially back till May 1st:

Texas Governor Rick Perry last week: There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that...But Texas is a very unique place, and we're a pretty independent lot to boot."

Texas Governor Rick Perry, amid a swine flu outbreak in Texas: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas asked the C.D.C. to send 37,430 doses of Tamiflu."

Will Texas have its own CDC, Governor? I sure hope so, because all this federal government intrusion is obviously a problem for you--except for when it's not.

It's Hard to Talk When You're Teabagging

Figures I go on hiatus just as the word "teabagging" is permitted to be uttered on national television! Here is my boyfriend Anderson Cooper delivering it like no one can:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyhP1pFO_8A

Can we please just acknowledge that this corporate-sponsored "movement" is complete nonsense? I mean, besides their complete lack of awareness of the original meaning of "teabagger," this whole thing is ridiculous. What are these people protesting precisely? As Paul Begala put it: "You want something to protest? How 'bout protesting how little we give back to our veterans? Or how 'bout protesting that the entire budget of the National Cancer Institute (where government researchers battle a disease that will strike half of all men and a third of all women) is 0.03 percent of what we gave the bandits at American International Group alone? Oh, but veterans benefits and cancer research might cost money. It might require -- dare I say it? -- paying taxes."

Gimme A Break

So I've been thinking. A few of you, online and off, have recommended a "Gone Fishin'" sign rather than an Everything-Must-Go sale. Maybe you've got something there. So I'll be back May 1st.

Thank you, sincerely, for all the good wishes and supportive thoughts. I really do appreciate the online love!

See you May 1st!!

Honestly?

I'm having trouble caring about blogging. Or, rather, I'm having trouble caring about the stuff I ought to cover in this blog. Maybe it's writer's block, but maybe it's something more than that.

When Star Spangled Haggis began in 2004, it was something I threw up (with the help of a very tech-savvy friend) because some family and friends liked my kooky stories about work and life and politics. So it was a way to tell the stories and keep in touch with people I already knew.

In 2005 it served as a wonderful way to communicate with friends and family while we were in China being joined with Bambina.

It has more recently served as a way to communicate all the funny and stupid and unpleasant elements of a stem cell transplant.

Somewhere between the transplant and now, I've lost the urge to talk politics 24/7. Maybe because I don't have the time I had while a shut-in to read/surf the web/study/ and understand all the issues, any post on a given topic feels like it would be nonsense prattling.

I've also found myself straying into Dear Diary territory and that breaches the Prime Directive of this blog from its founding: no diary writing. I'm also veering into Mommy Chronicles territory, which is entertaining now and again, but not really something that makes me sit up till 2am getting on a blog.

So, as U2 said after the monster success of The Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum, "this is the end of something...we have to go away and...dream it all up again." What they dreamed up was Achtung Baby, an album unlike any they had created before. One particular song on AB, called Acrobat, really spoke to my 1992 self. A couple of lines are speaking to me now:

What are we going to do now it's all been said?
No new ideas in the house, and every book's been read.

So I'm thinking that might be what I need to do here. Maybe go away and dream it all up again. Find a new voice, a new way of saying new things. Maybe let the Haggis go with dignity before I manage to kill it with mediocrity.

What's Cookin?

Well, folks, I decided to channel my inner Mad Men-50's-housewife and cook today. I was making meatballs with pine nuts and golden raisins From Scratch. Okaaaay. How did it go? The good news is they tasted great. The bad news is that it took me HOURS to make them. Not because the recipe itself is complicated and necessitating hours of cooking. Nope. Just because I am lacking in basic kitchen technique, which is exacerbated by being knife-phobic. I cut myself all the time. Any random cooking event with me turns into that knight scene from The Holy Grail, where his arms are spurting blood and he's yelling, "It's just a flesh wound!" I am the reason Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle: you don't want my body parts in your food! So: one medium onion = 20 minutes to "chop finely." Twenty. Then forget mixing the stuff together with the turkey meat, because having my hands in raw meat nauseates me. So I was dithering all around it with a plastic fork because all my other forks were in the dishwasher being washed at that exact moment. Add another 20 minutes. Then sauteeing the onion till translucent but not colored: What? you want me to WATCH a sautee pan as it cooks? Apparently so. Man, this is a fucking CHORE! Who does this?! Finally I get all the stuff in the meat and fork it around, then realize that I cannot form the meatballs because that would require me to put my hands in the raw meat! At that point, an hour had passed and I called the BBDD to tell him dinner was ready, except for the making of the actual balls, the actual frying of the actual balls, the actual placing of the actual fried balls in the sauce, and the actual full cooking of the actual balls in the sauce.

He's a smart man, so he simply said, "That's great!"

Idol's Doing Country. God Save America.

I had major trepidation, but Li'l Rounds has just shown us how it's done. Randy hates it, but I thought it was good. The judges hate it, I loved it. Standard comment: "You seemed uncomfortable with that song." Hello! You chose COUNTRY! Who ISN'T uncomfortable singing that? Randy Travis is the helper this week, and he is just so straight that his discomfort with these kids is obvious.

Paula Abdul as always is babbling and irrelevant. She either needs to stop the drugs or take more. The BBDD says she is trying to look like "Sophia Loren At 60." This is not a compliment.

Adam is up. He's doing Ring of Fire with sitars, etc. It's definitely a non-standard rendition of the song. Weird, actually. Creepy, actually.

Here comes Scott, a really impressive musician who happens to be blind. He's not great when he's without his piano, but whether he wins Idol or not, he's got a career. More Paula prattling.

Again, this show is boring this season. Last season had people to piss you off or freak you out. This year: YAWN. I'd rather watch Glenn Beck.

No, I take that back.