CuriositySquared

2019-12-04T23:17:00.000-07:00

Simon, the world's most fickle treat eater, wants you to know that he absolutely loves these!

It dawned on me, as I was reordering these Carlson Morgan dog treats, that I shouldn't keep this product a secret. My dogs absolutely love these treats, above and beyond even the over-priced bully sticks. And this 32 oz container lasts a really long time.

These treats are healthy - grain free, made without added sugar or salt, no preservatives. But they also have something else going for them - they're made in America. Better for the environment because the product travels shorter distances to reach you, it's also become a necessity following reports of contaminated imported food products. I spend a lot of time turning treat bags over to see whether the product is from China.

And, for those of you, like me, who are forced by circumstance to follow your dog around with a (biocompostable) doggie bag, I've noticed that some treats are easier on my pups' systems than others. The "kids" have had no problems with Carlson Morgan's treats. Find them here: http://www.carlsonmorgan.com/

And since I mentioned it, let me also recommend Bio Buddy, fully compostable doggie bags. Don't be fooled by so-called biodegradable bags that degrade into teeny, tiny microscopic pieces of plastic. Bio-compostable bags are vegetable-based plastics that compost just like any other vegetable. You can find Bio Buddy bags here: http://bio-buddy.com/

Booted by Western Medicine All the Way to China

2014-03-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

I have decided to make a serious exploration of a medical system that does not include in its focus an over-reliance on available medical testing equipment, a protocol developed by insurance companies, and a strong affinity for doing whatever invasive thing will cover one's arse for liability purposes.

So, friends, I haven't brought this up before but it's time. Thanks to a series of unfortunate medical care experiences, I've decided to...um... yes...well... I'm having trouble getting it out of my mouth.

This is why I haven't brought it up before... it's a difficult thing to admit. I have no idea what you will think of me. But now that I'm further along in my nascent exploration, I'm going to take the plunge and bring you into my thinking process.

But maybe I get ahead of myself. Maybe this would be easier to tell you if I contextualize my decision with a couple of stories. Be forewarned that there is female parts talk in this story. If that's problematic for you, this is where you exit.

BACKGROUND: Once upon a time, I had a cyst removed. When the surgeon went in, she found that the cyst had grown into my right ovary. An otherwise perfectly good ovary was playing hostess to a cyst and causing me pain. So, along with the cyst, out came the ovary. Now, what comes next is going to be over-simplified both because that is how it was explained to me and because it doesn't make a hill of beans' worth of difference at this point to clarify the nuances. A drop in estrogen triggers another hormone (name forgotten) that is supposed to rekindle estrogen production. However, if that doesn't happen, that other hormone just keeps trying until... bad things happen. One of those bad things is a decline of the function of the thyroid. You see, all these hormones operate as a system. Thyroid and female hormones and adrenal gland, etc, etc. I got progressively tireder until I couldn't keep my eyes open from about 3 pm in the afternoon until about 6 pm. I was worthless. I was a danger to myself in a car. If I had to work or go to a meeting, I had to pump myself up on so much caffeine just to stay awake that I couldn't sleep at night, which created further complications. And yes, I've since been told that I should have been given a hormone supplement to ease the abrupt drop off but let's let that go. It didn't happen and here we are.

Story No. 1: Dr. A has an excellent reputation. In fact, I was referred to her by a friend I trust implicitly to know good doctors from bad. My first meeting with her goes well. She takes a bunch of blood work and returns a verdict of guilty thyroid, along with some other hormone imbalance stuff. I am getting to that age, and all. She prescribes a thyroid supplement and compounded hormones. The thing is, prescribing hormones is a fine art. Our bodies make them, and so there is no "one dose." You wait awhile, retake the blood work, and see how you feel. It's a process and something of a fine art. So, over the next year, I have my blood drawn about six more times. I submit to assorted other tests. Things still aren't well adjusted. But on top of all that, after the first visit, I never see my doctor again. She is always on vacation or at a conference or anywhere but in her office. And every time I show up, I see a different nurse practitioner. I don't know if it's a turn-over problem or she just employs a lot of different people. At any rate, of all the things that can go wrong when the doctor is not overseeing her own patients, here is my favorite thing: One day, following one of these blood draws, I get an urgent phone call from one of the nurse practitioners that I must come in immediately for an adrenal treatment of some sort. I am startled and say so, because as far as I know, I have no adrenal implications. This was just a routine follow-up blood draw and shouldn't turn up something brand new. She insists. I refuse. She says it is urgent. I doubt aloud whether she is looking at my chart or someone else's. I ask for the doctor to review the test results. She tells me the doctor is on an island somewhere sipping an umbrella'd beverage. She says my treatment won't wait. I make her call the doctor, wherever she is. It turns out that the blood work belonged to someone else, and my blood work is lost. One wonders whether the patient who needed the urgent adrenal treatment ever got it. One wonders what would have happened to me had I been a more mousy, less assertive patient and quietly succumbed to the test. In the course of a year, I have visited the practice nearly a dozen times and seen the doctor once. Given the craziness of the U.S. medical payment system, one does not wonder why the doctor put the nurse practitioners in charge. It's easier to make the practice pay (and more fun too) if you let the lower-paid nurses do all the doctoring.

Story No. 2: In my search for a replacement for Dr. A I consult my pharmacist because I need a doc who will prescribe compounded hormones. My pharmacist refers me to Dr. B. As I am still a student, I begin a dance with the folks at the university's Student Health Center to get around the insurance company requirement that I make an actual visit to the Health Center (in another state) for the referral. By the time I get in to see Dr. B, I am out of thyroid medication. I've brought all my charts with me, and the doctor looks at my hormone levels and freaks out. Yes, I mean that. Her bedside manner included forcefully projected anxiety and if I was more easily frightened, well... let's just not go there. Apparently, under the watch of Dr. A's nurse practitioners, my assorted female hormone levels had escalated into a danger zone. Or perhaps it's just a difference in opinion, but I'll never know because there's no way to facilitate a conversation between Dr. A and Dr. B. At any rate, Dr. B tells me to get off everything, wait six weeks and then return to her office for another blood draw. Six weeks and ten days later (after the blood draw), I am called in to see... you guessed it... a nurse practitioner. By this time I am feeling pretty crappy again. However, the nurse practitioner informs me that their office will prescribe the compounded hormones but not the thyroid medication. She wants me to see an endocrinologist for that. Surprised, I explain that all these hormones - female and thyroid - work together and can't be treated independently of one-another. She declines anyway. I try another tact, tell her I'm having a very difficult time working and ask for just one 30 day supply of my thyroid supplement while I go through the Student Health Center dance again to get a referral to an endocrinologist. "No." I ask to speak to the doctor herself. She trots back somewhere but comes back to tell me the answer is still "No." I plead with her for compassion. I can barely function, I have to work, and they are leaving me without treatment. She is really getting irritated by my advocacy in favor of myself. I ask to see the office manager. The office manager also tells me "no" and asks me whether I will willingly leave the office or wish to be escorted out. I am an uncooperative patient and have been booted from the practice!

Story No. 3: I am exhausted and ill, but through sympathetic friends I find Dr. C. She is an internist and will treat everything. She is lovely, gives me a prescription for thyroid, and we begin the process, once again, of finding the right balance of hormones. At some point over the next year, I begin vaginal bleeding. I make an appointment, but the doctor's schedule is packed and I have to see... the nurse practitioner. I should tell you that I have friends who are excellent nurse practitioners and this one might be too, except perhaps she spooks too easily. I come in for my appointment. She looks at my chart, we talk, and we agree it is highly likely to be a problem with my hormones which we are still in the process of fine-tuning. However, to be on the safe side, she asks that I get a trans-vaginal ultra sound. I do both things. The ultra-sound results come in two days before the hormone panel and the same nurse practitioner calls to tell me that the ultra-sound is clean - but I must go see an oncologist pronto. Now I don't know about you, but there is some cognitive dissonance for me when I hear "the ultra-sound is clean" and "you need to see an oncologist." I asked if there was something she wasn't telling me. Although she says "no," I manage to ferret from her that the radiologist who read the ultra-sound made a notation on my chart to the effect of "Can't find the problem. Next stop, oncologist for a tissue biopsy." However, the radiologist did not have the benefit of my entire chart. She did not know that we had a theory based on the entirety of my situation, or that I am in the middle of balancing hormones. She did not know a crucial hormone panel would be back in two days. All she knew was that I was bleeding and she couldn't find it. I suggest to the nurse practitioner that we wait the two days (did I mention it's only two more days?) until the hormone panel comes back before I go through a painful, expensive, invasive procedure. "No." "Why not? What am I missing?" She won't say but keeps urging me to see the oncologist now. At this point I may have asked her whether the urgency has to do with covering her office's arse because of the radiologist's notation, and of course, she denied that. We are going around in circles and I am tense because either there's something she's not telling me, or it's a total CYA move, and either way, I need to know the truth. So I beg for any valid reason why, given that we DO believe it's probably hormones and I have a nice, CLEAN ultra-sound, we shouldn't wait TWO DAYS for the HORMONE PANEL TO COME BACK. Now you need to know that those capital letters represent my raising my voice at Dr. C's nurse practitioner, behavior for which I later had to answer to Dr. C and for which I apologized to the nurse practitioner. Note: Neither the nurse practitioner nor Dr. C apologized to me for scaring the bee-jeezus out of me in hopes of covering their... In the end, I simply refused to make the appointment with the oncologist and told the nurse practitioner to make a note in the file that the patient willfully refused to see the oncologist before the hormone panel came back. Oh, and yes, it was hormones. Adjusted. Bleeding stopped. End of story. Except...

Story No. 4 is just beginning. I'm still at Dr. C's office - thankfully they did not give me the boot and I continue to appreciate Dr. C - and I'm not going to bore you with the whole story, except to say that another nurse practitioner in Dr. C's office has recently recommended me to yet another (in my mind) premature invasive procedure for what appears to be a pretty minor gynecological issue. I might even need it, for all I know, but I can tick off very clear reasons why it is not the next logical step in diagnosis. It is a bitch to be an educated, self-advocating patient, and despite everything you read about being a participant in your own care, in my experience medical practitioners don't prefer that kind of participation. I think they simply mean you to participate by actually doing what you're asked to do - whatever that is. And so I've decided I need to consider other pathways.

So just to ease your minds, I've made an appointment with the gynecologist who delivered my daughters a million years ago and even her nurse practitioner will probably have seen more problems like my current problem than the internist's nurse practitioner.

But I have also decided to make a serious exploration of a medical system that does not include in its focus an over-reliance on available medical testing equipment, a protocol developed by insurance companies, and a strong affinity for doing whatever invasive thing will cover one's arse for liability purposes. Now please don't get me wrong. I think that medical professionals are pretty much forced into this system and it's become a way of life. It's become the American medical experience. But statistics tell us there are something like unnecessary 130 tests and procedures that are routinely used, to the tune of $6.8 billion a year. Notice, they haven't even tried to measure it in terms of patient anxiety costs. Sisters and brothers, I am tired, tired, tired of being part of that routine.

Now, with all that build up, maybe what I'm about to share will make some sense. The alternative medical tradition does not try to pinpoint a primary underlying cause for a symptom,but rather looks at symptoms in the totality of the person's life, physical, emotional, psychological, environmental. Here is an example of what I am talking about: The alternative medical tradition understands that a peptic ulcer may arise from one of six unhealthy situations, and if the ulcer is treated with a common western treatment for ulcers, but the actual underlying situation is left diagnosed and untreated, the problem will simply re-manifest one way or another. Here is a description of the alternative medical system I have decided to explore:

"The...physician...directs his or her attention to the complete physiological and psychological individual. All relevant information, including the symptom as well as the patient's other general characteristics are gathered and woven together until it forms ...a 'pattern of disharmony.' The pattern of disharmony describes a situation of 'imbalance' in the patient's body....Diagnostic technique does not turn up a specific disease entity or a precise cause but renders [a] workable description of a whole person. The question of cause and effect is always secondary to the overall pattern...The...method is based on the idea that no single part can be understood except in its relation to the whole. A symptom, therefore, is not traced back to a cause, but is looked at as part of a totality. If a person has a complaint or symptom, [the methodology] wants to know how the symptom fits into the patient's entire being and behavior. Illness is situated in the context of a person's life and biography. Understanding that overall pattern, with the symptom as part of it, is the challenge..."

That paragraph should ring true with anyone familiar with systems theory. It comes from a book by Ted Kaptchuk, "The Web that has no Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine," considered to be the best entree into traditional Chinese medicine for the westerner. What resonates for me about Chinese medicine is its focus on the whole person. Although Dr. Marcus Wellby used to take an approach similar to the one outlined above, today's doctors are pushed more and more away from using their experience and instinct alongside science, limited by insurance companies to a strict scientific approach. Compare the concepts above to the primary methodology of western medicine, which Dr. Kaptchuk explains,

"...is primarily concerned with isolable disease categories or agents of disease, which it zeroes in on, isolates and tries to change, control or destroy. An ontologically circumscribed entity is the privileged ideal of the system. The western physician starts with a symptom, then searches for the underlying mechanism - a precise cause for a specific disease. The disease may affect various parts of the body, but it is a relatively well-defined, self-contained phenomenon. Precise diagnosis frames an exact, quantifiable description of a narrow area. The physician's logic is analytic - cutting through the accumulation of bodily phenomena like a surgeon's scalpel to isolate one single entity or cause."

In other words, practitioners of Chinese medicine don't try to isolate the thing gone wrong inside the body. They look instead to the person - to the whole person, in context of her life and environment. While the modern Chinese physician doesn't ignore the modern tools available for diagnosis and treatment, she would never have had to rely solely on a blood test to diagnose a patient's adrenal failure and consequently, would have recognized the incompatibility of the blood result with the rest of the patient's circumstance. She would never have kicked a patient out of her office because she was not allowed by her insurance carrier to treat the whole patient. She would never have seen one notation by a radiologist who has not visited with the patient to be a definitive determinant of next treatment steps.

And so... down this path I go. Anyone want to come with me?

Something Creative This Way Comes

2014-01-15T13:29:00.003-07:00

I feel something creative coming on...

Contemporary Bathroom

Shhh.... Meatless Meatloaf

2013-09-29T20:40:00.002-07:00

This year, my resolution is to live more intentionally. I do some cool things - at any rate I think they're cool things - but they are wasted for posterity because I don't record them. For example, I don't write about the amazing things that sometimes happen in my classrooms that my students are doing. And closer to home, I often make delicious, healthy foods that will never be made again because I don't bother hanging onto the recipe. Or if I created the dish, I don't bother writing it down.

Now, on the one hand, no biggy because I can create a new dish every single day if I want to. On the other hand, what a shame, right? Because if it's really good, why not allow myself the pleasure of enjoying it again?

One of the things I wrestle with - I've wrestled with this for years - is our reliance on meat. Part of my new commitment to intentionality is to be more intentional about meat eating. The ramifications of eating meat bothers me on multiple levels - the cruel way most of our agricultural industry treats the animals that become our food, and the amount of land we use to feed animals that could otherwise be used to reduce human hunger. Unfortunately, there's a bigger profit in beef than in beans, but that's a topic for another day.

I am also aware that our health is better when we include more non-meat fiber, protein and vegetables in our diet. I'm not planning to become vegetarian, but when I cook for others, I too often find myself falling back on the dinner plate formula I learned growing up in Kansas - meat, potato, vegetable, dessert. Oh, and a hunk of garlic bread if we were lucky. Well, there are very few white potatoes in my life anymore - although I consider truffled garlic fries a birthday cake substitute. And I eat bread only "out" and then only those loaves I consider irresistible. At home, my dinner plate often excludes what used to be called "a starch," the role on the plate represented by the potato or pasta - "bad' carbs. But it doesn't often enough include the healthy replacement, "a fiber." Fiber, good for us in so many ways, often contains enough protein to let us leave meat off the plate. A reduction in meat is good for me and good for society in several ways:

Reducing meat purchases reduces food costs, leaving me with extra money to pay the higher cost of buying meat from compassionate farmers when I do buy meat. I can't even write about what happens to many of the animals abused by industrial food production facilities without my stomach turning, but the Grace Communications Foundation website covers it thoroughly enough, and everyone ought to take the time to read about it at least once.1 Unfortunately, meat raised in kinder (and more sustainable) ways costs quite a bit more than facility-raised critters, but if you reduce your meat costs by eating less of it, you can shift those savings to paying the up-charge. Sources for compassionately raised meat can be found at CertifiedHumane.com, AmericanHumane.org, AnimalWelfareApproved.org and compassionate-carnivores.org.

If you happen to keep kosher, like I do, it's going to be more difficult. I've found three companies, Wise Organic Pastures, Kol Foods, and Grow and Behold. Unfortunately, they're all on the east coast, making shipping prohibitive if you live anywhere west of the Mississippi, although Kol Foods and Grow and Behold have buying clubs in some cities. Two other Colorado based companies and a Texas company stopped offering kosher grass fed meats within a few years of their launch dates. Costco and Trader Joe's carry free range organic kosher chicken from Empire. Trader Joe's carries kosher meats, but as far as I can tell, besides the Empire offerings, none of it comes from compassionate producers. Otherwise, I suggest Googling "free range kosher meat" and see what's available.

If everyone would reduce meat consumption even by a little, some of the land used to raise feed could be converted to raise crops for humanity, and more people would get fed. According to a Stanford study, over two-thirds of the world's agricultural land is given over to raising crops to feed livestock, compared to only about eight percent used to feed humans directly. I find that unbelievable. And as the economies grow in third world countries, these numbers are only expected to get more extreme. The industry is taking over forests and grasslands, changing ecosystems forever and using our already insufficient supplies of fresh water.2 Why, in 2012, a Business Insider article reported that within the last decade, over 495 million acres were sold or leased to foreign governments for the purpose of accessing land for agricultural, forestry and natural resource extraction purposes.3

And of course, we are healthier when our ratio of vegetables, legumes and fruits is higher than our meat consumption. I say "of course," but maybe that's not so obvious. I have no intention of getting into it with the Paleo crowd and say, "God bless them," but we are not the same creatures we were in caveman times. The level and type of activity we needed to eat to support, and the length of our lives were different then, and medical science still insists that too much meat leads to heart problems. Conversely, adding vegetables, especially those cruciferous veggies like cauliflower, broccoli and the like, have the opposite effect.4

Ok, the "why" discussion can give way to the recipe. What, you may ask, prompted me to go all "eat less meat" on you? Well, today's recipe is a meatless substitute for one of America's favorite meat dishes, meatloaf. Just try it. I predict you'll like it.

Shhh.....Meatless Meatloaf

As often happens, my inspiration for this meatloaf came from a lot of online sources. I saw some amazing versions that include walnuts, but I got in the habit of eliminating all nuts but almonds from my cooking about 30 years ago, because my oldest daughter turned up allergic. So many kids have nut allergies. I noted what I liked, but moved on to lentil loaves. I liked the idea of a hearty lentil meat replacement, but most of the lentil loaves mixed lentils with rice. I've more or less given up on rice, because its glycemic index number is higher than I prefer, even though it's not a simple carb. So, in the end I decided to mix chana dahl - looks and tastes like a lentil but is actually from the chick pea family and has more protein than lentils, and mix them with quinoa. As an Indian food staple, it's readily available at your local Indian market or online. I worked to get the same meaty, tomato-y taste we're all used to from a good, old-fashioned meatloaf, and I think I succeeded - but would love to hear about your modifications.

Ingredients

Loaf
1.5 c quinoa
2 c chana dahl
7 c vegetable broth - I used "No Beef" bullion
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp sage
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce (vegetarian or not)
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp olive or other oil
1 yellow onion diced
1/2 c shredded carrots
3 cloves garlic, minced (I was out so I used garlic flakes, which I didn't bother to measure)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Glaze
1 small can of organic tomato paste
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce (vegetarian or not)
2 tbsp coconut palm sugar.
1/2 tsp mustard (I used dijon because it was handy but I think anything will do)
1/4 tsp hot sauce of choice, amount adjusted to personal taste
1 tbsp roughly of water, to get the whole thing to the right consistency to spread on top of the loaf

Soak the quinoa and chana dahl briefly to dislodge any particles of dirt or tiny stones, and, using a strainer, pour off the rinse water - I used it to water plants - and put the quinoa and dahl into a pot. Add the broth and spices and bring to a low boil. As the proteins in the dahl break down, a white foam will well up in your pot, similar to simmering meat for broth. Skim it. Turn the heat to low and simmer for approximately an hour minutes, stirring occasionally until the water has been absorbed, the dahl mixture is creamy but not wet, and there is no broth left in the pot when you stir it. If you feel the dahl is drying out before it reaches this stage, feel free to add up to more broth or some water. When finished, taste it to see if it needs salt and pepper. This will depend in large part on the bullion or broth you used.

While you wait, saute the onions and carrots until the onions are translucent. About now, it's probably time to preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

To make the glaze, mix all the ingredients but the water together in a 3 or 4 cup measuring cup, or a wide mouth bowl. Then slowly add a bit of water, stir until well mixed, and continue to add more until you get a consistency that would be easy to spread but unlikely to drip. That's your glaze.

When the dahl and quinoa are ready, mix them into the onions and carrots, add the worcestershire and soy sauces and stir until everything is well mixed. Use a bit of oil to lightly grease the surface of a loaf pan, and turn the mixture into the pan. As you can see, I chose to use an 8 x 8 pan instead of a loaf pan, but you can do it either way. At this point, assess your dahl mixture. It should be dry enough to support the glaze on top, but if it's not, you can glaze the loaf midway through baking.

Bake for 1 hour, or until it just begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let it sit for about 10 to 15 minutes to cool sufficiently to cut before serving. Serves 6.

Issue
The first time I made this, I took the advice of those who said that if you cook dahl without a pressure cooker, add more water. So I added an extra cup, and then it took about 2 hours to evaporate all the water out of the dahl. The second time, I used a cup less liquid and found that the mixture stuck to the bottom of the pan and I needed to add more water. In neither case did it impact the flavor, but too-wet dahl mixture did not bake up as firmly as I would have liked it to. Just be aware.

Alternatives
American vs. Asian loaf: I have to say that using these particular spices with dahl felt awkward, as I usually think of dahl as carrying asian flavors, but if you want it to taste like meat loaf, go with my combo. If you want something more exotic, feel free play around with cumin, dried chili pepper, masala and other spices. If you do, you probably ought to use a half teaspoon of finely grated ginger and something slightly fruity - jam or chutney - in place of the worcestershire and mustard in the glaze. If you use ginger, remember that fresh ginger has a pretty strong bite, and reduce the hot sauce accordingly.

Sweetener: Coconut palm sugar is slightly less sweet than table sugar, lower glycemic and lower calorie, and has a natural vanilla taste. You might prefer maple syrup, brown or plain cane sugar, or a zero calorie sugar alternative. If you substitute, start with a tablespoon (or an equivalent for the zero calorie substitutes), and adjust upward till you get a sweetness you like.

Hot Sauce: I used Nando's Peri Peri Sauce, medium, courtesy of my friend Kate, who brought it back from South Africa. I put my pinky in the jar and tasted it first. Whoa. Hot. Not Medium. I don't even know if you can get this in the states. Chipotle would be good, or Sriracha sauce. Or anything, really. Adjust to personal strength.

Lemon Juice: If you don't have any, sub in balsamic or another vinegar.

1. http://www.sustainabletable.org/274/animal-welfare

2. Brooks, C. (2011?). Consequences of increased global meat consumption on the global environment -- trade in virtual water, energy & nutrients. In W. I. f. t. Environment (Ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University.

3. Khetani, S. (2012). These 14 Countries Are Buying Incredible Amounts Of Foreign Land In Deals You Never Hear About. Business Insider.

4. Pan, A., PhD, Sun, Q., Md, ScD, Bernstein, A. M., . . . et al. (2012). Red meat consumption and mortality: Results from 2 prospective cohort studies. Archives of Internal Medicine, 172(7), 555-563. doi: 10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287.

First Harvest: Roasted Eggplant, Squash & Tomato Salad

2013-05-02T22:20:00.000-07:00

It's only May 2nd, and yet I harvested two beautiful Japanese eggplants from my garden. This particular plant sprouted of its own volition from last year's harvest, and so it's light years ahead of the plants I put in a few weeks ago. Herbs also lasted through the winter, or popped through as soon as it warmed up, so I plucked some sage too.

Never having been a patient woman, I hit Google immediately in search of recipes. I found several that appealed to me, both for the idea of them, but also because I mostly had the ingredients at hand.

In the end, though, the assorted ingredients in my refrigerator suggested their own outcome. Yellow squash, mushrooms, onions, arugula, tomatoes. Roasting appealed to me because grilling or frying eggplant is a mess - a delicious mess and I do it sometimes, but not today. Very simple - and - it got the thumbs up from Tony, especially the 'shrooms.

Roasted Eggplant, Squash & Tomato Salad

2 Japanese or one "regular" eggplant
1 yellow summer squash
1 medium onion, any color
8oz tub of fresh mushrooms - I prefer crimini
6 cloves of garlic
6 small or Roma tomatoes, or maybe 3 times that many cherry tomatoes
Handful of fresh torn or teaspoon of dried sage
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp garlic powder (optional)
salt and pepper mill pepper to taste

1/4 c of pine nuts
2 c arugula
3 oz soft goat cheese

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Slice the eggplant and the squash into medallions about half an inch thick. Cut the onion into 6 to 8 wedges. Slice the 'shrooms in half. Get the garlic cloves out of their skins. Throw all these veggies except the tomatoes because they're probably too fragile into a bowl and toss until coated with the olive oil, the salt and pepper and the sage. If you're a garlic hound, add the garlic powder. Cut the tomatoes in half, unless they're big ones, and in that case, cut them into very thick slices.

Find a 9 x 13 glass baking dish, dump in all the coated vegetable pieces and spread them out across the dish. Add the tomatoes in a bit more carefully. Roast the vegetables for 20 to 25 minutes, depending on your oven. Slightly under-cooked is far better than over-cooking them. The high heat will continue to work through the flesh even after you pull the veggies out of the oven.

On salad plates, spread some arugula. Scoop some of the veggie medley on top of the arugula, crumble goat cheese liberally, and then scatter a few pine nuts for show. Voila! Serves two as a main course, with left-overs, or five or six as a side dish.

Damn, that's Good! Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup

2013-04-09T23:08:00.000-07:00

Occasionally I strike out. I made something the other night that Tony so over-salted. I got the message.

Tonight, on the other hand, home run.

Wow. What's with all these sports metaphors? That's so not me.

Anyway, back to my home run. Or really, back as far as Passover. I got this idea that I would make some mushroom matzah kugel for Seder. So I bought a couple of trays of crimini mushrooms. But my friend Sharon offered to bring this winner of a sweet potato dish, and I realized I could drop back one dish. I'm an ambitious hostess, but I know a gift when I see one. At that last moment, having one less thing to prepare is a blessing. Thank you, Sharon!

Passover was a bit ago already, but I still have a couple of gallons of turkey broth, and two packages of mushrooms. Perfect storm for Wild Rice & Mushroom Soup. This is the easiest soup ever, hearty and delicious. And demonstrates the value of having frozen broth on hand. If you don't have broth, click this sentence for my fast and easy Vegetable Bin Broth recipe.

Wild Rice & Onion Mushroom Soup

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions, sliced thin
1 container of mushrooms (about 8 oz), sliced
8 cups or so of turkey, chicken, beef or vegetable broth
1/2 cup of uncooked wild rice (or, use quinoa, barley, beans or lentils)
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a large, deep saute pan. Add sliced onions to hot oil, and turn the heat down to medium low. Push the onions around so they all get coated in oil, and then stir occasionally. Saute until onions become translucent, and then caramelize. To caramelize the onions, you simply cook them over medium to low heat long enough for them to brown, stirring occasionally so they don't stick and burn. If they seem to be sticking, just turn the heat down and stir more frequently. This process takes about thirty minutes. If you want a fuller explanation about caramelizing onions with lots of pictures, click this sentence to be whisked to one of my favorite recipe blogs, Simply Recipes.

Once the onions are how you like them - or if you've never done this before, a warm brown color, push the onions to the side of the pan to make room for the sliced mushrooms. Toss them in, and push them around every few minutes, for about ten minutes, until they are well sauteed, but still firm. Set the onions and mushrooms aside.

You can see carrots in my soup. These were already in the
turkey broth, but aren't necessary.

In a pot, pour the broth and add the wild rice. Heat to barely boiling, then lower the heat and simmer gently for thirty minutes, until the rice is al dente. If you're using something other than wild rice, adjust the time accordingly. Lentils, for example, usually take longer than 30 minutes.

When the rice is ready to eat, simply stir in the onions and mushrooms, and let them heat in the broth for a couple of minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Ready to serve.

Before we say goodbye so you can go make this simple and beautiful soup, I feel the need to make mention of my suggested substitutes for wild rice. Not everybody has wild rice in the house all the time. You could, I suppose, substitute regular white rice for this dish. It's not as hearty and the flavor is different, but it would work pretty well. You could substitute pasta. Almost everyone has regular rice and some sort of pasta sitting around the cupboard. But I specifically did not recommend those things because they are high on the glycemic index, and low on nutritional value.

They are the comfort foods of your childhood, but if you don't give them up or at least reduce their incidence in your diet significantly, they will be the bain of your old age.

But don't take my word for it. If you don't understand glycemic index, read what Harvard says about it by clicking this sentence. To see Harvard's food chart listing glycemic index of 100 foods, click this sentence.

Was that easy or what?

Vegetable Bin Broth

2013-04-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

Fridge clean-out day. I didn't plan it that way, but when I opened the bin this morning, so many melancholy veggies looked up at me with those big, sad eyes. I knew it would be Vegetable Bin Broth day. Vegetable Bin Broth is the perfect antidote for pouting veggies. Almost anything that is so far gone you wouldn't buy it from the market, but not actually rotten can be put into the pot to create a delicious, healthy soup base. Use it now, or freeze it for later.

Here's the recipe. Don't despair that my measurements are not exact. You really can't do any harm here as long as you have adequate water in the pot with the veggies. Quantities depend on how many veggies you're trying to get rid of, and how big a pot you're using. And you will notice I don't have you remove skins or leaves. These add flavor, color and nutrition, and you'll strain them out later. If you don't have a regular strainer, use your spaghetti strainer!

Vegetable Bin Broth

Nice to Have Ingredients:

You can make a nice soup with only the following ingredients. But even if you don't have all of these, you can just use whatever you have. Really!

An onion or two, quartered. Don't even bother to remove the skin
Two or three cloves of garlic. Leave their skins on too.
A couple of carrots cut into pieces

Pepper corns
A bit of salt
A couple of bay leaves or a sprout of thyme or parsley

Optional ingredients

Whatever uncooked, limp but un-dead vegetables in your fridge. Celery, root vegetables, peppers, past-prime (but never sour tasting) tomatoes, parsley or other herbs, broccoli, brussel sprouts, squash, mushrooms. Anything, really. The only vegetables I strongly advise against are cucumber and particularly starchy vegetables like potatoes. Trim off bad spots and stems, but use the leafy tops.

This soup is perfect for vegetarians and vegans, but if you are a meat-eater and want to toss in a couple of chicken quarters or beef bones, feel free. But don't feel you have to. A purely vegetable stock is a lighter concoction with a more delicate flavor, and you'll find lots of uses for it. Some of my favorites: as a base for Asian soup recipes, a flavorful broth for steaming or poaching fish, or a substitute for water when simmering rice, lentils or beans.

Preparation

Toss whatever you've got into your pot, and add water to just cover the vegetables. Now however high the water comes in the pot, add more water till it's double. Bring to a boil and then quickly reduce the heat and simmer until the onions are translucent and the carrots have exchanged their vibrant orange for a muted rust color. The process could take anywhere between twenty minutes and an hour, depending on how much stuff you've got in your pot.

By the way, if you get involved in something else and forget your soup, and when you return, there's hardly any soup in the pot, do not despair. Unless you've let it go so long that the veggies are scorched and stuck to the bottom of the pot, just add water back to reconstitute the very concentrated broth that's left. It will be fine. If it is scorched, you'll have to toss. Scorched veggies leave an acrid taste in the broth. Yuck. If you're like me, and prone to time lapses where you look up at the clock and entire half days have gone by, consider setting a timer that goes off loudly.

To know when you're done, use your eyes. When the colors are dull, the broth is ready. Don't worry about how your veggies look - you're not serving them. You're getting rid of those veggie carcasses as soon as they transfer their healthy goodness into the pot. If they're still bright and colorful, then their value is still in the vegetable and not yet in your broth.

Once your broth is ready for you, use a strainer placed over another pot to separate the vegetables from the broth. Let the broth cool and refrigerate it. Reheat your broth for soup tonight, adding some cut up veggies, rice, or lentils before serving, or you can freeze it for later use.

I don't want to guilt you, but consider tossing your spent veggies into a composter. They are still good for enriching your garden soil. I seriously recommend clicking here to see this little composter guy. It fits right under your counter so you don't have to run your scraps outside. It is air tight, surprisingly doesn't smell at all, and turns out some really great compost, as well as compost "tea" for your house plants. By the way, compost tea needs to be seriously diluted before using.

Once you've gotten into the habit of creating delicious stock from your vegetable bin, you will swear off bullion cubes forever.

Bon appetite!

Garlic & Kale Smashed Cauliflower

2013-04-08T18:26:00.000-07:00

Can I write about food here?

I'm on a self-imposed diet. I'm trying to keep my youthful figure, even though I'm upwards of that half-century mark where everything heads south, best intentions notwithstanding. So, I've become a low carb, low glycemic kind of gal. I also avoid fried foods, but more because frying tends to destroy perfectly good vegetables than that it's bad for me. I know it's bad for me, but the best food in the universe is a french fry, and really crispy onion rings are right behind. And a few other things, but I won't go on. I occasionally do indulge.

Mostly I'm good.

I've noticed that when I don't record my recipes, I can't remember how I made something. This has been vexing for baked goods, because, while I can pretty much improv anything else, I'm not much of a baker. Tony likes his sweets, though, so it's worse than a shame when, after spending ages trying to force almond flour and sweetener substitutes into ice creams, cookies, brownies and bars that pass the Tony taste test, I can't remember how I made them. From now on I record.

Today I'm not baking. Today I am missing mashed potatoes. I thought I would try to replace it with smashed cauliflower. I read half a dozen recipes, and then created my own. Here goes. Maybe I'll remember to take a picture and post it here before I eat it. Maybe not.

Garlic & Kale Smashed Cauliflower

Ingredients

One head of cauliflower, cut into large florets
Enough vegetable broth to cover cauliflower in a pot
Olive oil
3 cloves of garlic, chopped into smallish pieces
Two cups of kale, cut or torn into medium size pieces
One cup of basil, torn into medium pieces
1/4 cup grated parmesian cheese (optional)

Put the cauliflower and the broth into a pot big enough to hold them with room. I actually made a vegetable-based broth because I only had left over Turkey broth in the house, and meat and cheese do not co-mingle in my kitchen. I also think the gamier flavor of meat broth would overpower the basil flavor, but I'm not sure about that. If you try it, let us know.

Making a vegetable broth, by the way, is an easy way to get rid of vegetables that are limping along in your refrigerator wondering if you even remember they're there. If you already have broth, that's great. But if not, click here to check my fast and easy recipe for Vegetable Bin Broth.

So, where were we?

Oh, yes, the cauliflower is now in a pot, with broth to cover. Bring to a boil on medium high heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer. While you are waiting for the cauliflower, rinse and chop your garlic, kale and basil, if you haven't already.

After 10 minutes, the cauliflower should be done enough to move a fork through the vegetable easily. It's best not to overcook it, to preserve nutrients, flavor and texture. Use a strainer to catch the cauliflower, pour off the broth, let it cool, and refrigerate it for another use.

Put the cauliflower back into that pot or a smaller one, and mash it with a potato masher, mixing in a tablespoon of good olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Put the cauliflower aside.

In another pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil, and add the chopped garlic. Stir over medium heat until the creamy shade of the garlic begins to darken to a beige color. You'll want to watch carefully, because garlic goes from beige to burnt fast. Burnt garlic gives your oil - and hence your dish - an acrid flavor, forcing you to pitch the oil and start over.

When the garlic is ready, add the kale and stir. It will begin to wilt within a couple of minutes. If you hear sizzling or cackling, add a bit more oil and reduce the heat. As soon as the kale starts to wilt, toss in the basil. Stir for another moment, until the basil starts to wilt too, and then remove the pan from the heat. If you're ready to eat, move on to the next step. If not, let it cool, and refrigerate the greens and cauliflower in separate containers until you are ready to eat.

When you are ready to serve, reheat the cauliflower if necessary, stirring in a few tablespoons of the left-over broth. Stir in the greens. If you want cheese, stir that in too. When the cheese "disappears" into the dish, it's melted and you're ready to serve. Serves four.

Ode to You, ASU - NLM 160!

2011-12-18T17:39:00.004-07:00

Dear Students of NLM 160 Voluntary Action and Community Leadership:

FINALS ARE GRADED. I left comments about your individual exams in the Bb gradebook.

I'm very proud of this class. There were 13 perfect 100 point exams! If we were together, I'd make you give a standing ovation to these students.

The graph above shows the spread of your scores. Although there are a couple of very low scores, you will see that they are quite skewed toward the high end of the scale. Only seven of you earned less than a B.

Some might say, "Well duh, you gave us the exact selection of text where we could "look" for the answers." Well, yes I did list the readings I wanted you to refer to for each question. However, that's not really what we're seeing.

By asking you to find an organization online and apply the information in the readings to that organization's situation, you demonstrate that you can use the information in a real life situation. I want to know whether you can apply what you've learned, not whether you can memorize and spit information back to me.

If you can't take what you learned in class and apply it, then I've only done half my job.

The amount of work involved in reading 60 exams is well worth the trouble, because it gives me an opportunity to see exactly what you've learned this semester and what didn't work. Here are the two biggest mistakes, both of which I consider minor because they are definitional, not substantive:

(1) About two-thirds of you wrongly identified an organization as fitting the community building model. There were two common mistakes, (a) the organization fit the civic model but worked inside a geographically bound location, or (b) the organization were "support" organizations for community building organizations, but were not, themselves, community building organizations.

(3) About a third of you do not realize that "framing" means the way we craft language - rather than tactics - to create powerful messages that express an ideology (Lakoff).

NOW, HERE IS WHAT IS BRILLIANT ABOUT YOU

The beauty of this exam was that I got to see that you are capable of figuring out what these organizations were doing right, and what wasn't working for them. You were able to identify the assets they bring to their endeavors, and suggest other resources that might improve their work. You had thoughtful suggestions about better strategies to further their causes.

You noticed where their framing was successfully pulling others into their work, and where their framing was frightening potential allies away.

You were able to trouble-shoot, innovate, and suggest ways that very diverse organizations could work together. I marveled over and over again at your brilliant solutions for thinking about how diametrically opposed organizations could find a way to come together.

A couple of you rose to challenges like joining Westboro Baptist Church or Pro-Life organizations with LGBT groups, or "out there" protest groups like PETA or Rolling Thunder with quiet cultural centers or youth education organizations! Do you realize that if you employ these skills in real life, you will bridge gaps that have stymied older generations?

One of the most impressive things you showed me was that you know that if two groups are not ready to work together, there are still preliminary places they can meet and engage. They can pair off for conversation and get to know each other as individuals. They can convene to simply tell their stories, without any future obligation at all. There is always a starting point for trust-building.

I don't believe in grading on a curve. I believe in making sure you walk out of my class with solid knowledge. You guys did a marvelous job and should pat yourselves on the back.

Oh yeah, and my other favorite thing about this exam: Those who skated without reading the assignments during the semester have surely read them by now. No getting these excellent grades without reading the material!

You were a great class. I learned as much from you as you did from me!

Enjoy your holiday break, and when you do really amazing things in your future, which I know you all will, please let me know about it!

Warmly,

Sandy Price

So Many Fishies, So Little Time

2011-12-09T11:29:00.011-07:00

"One guy could be the driest man in the universe, giving practical birthday gifts - think paying for a window washer so I don't have to get out the ladder. The other guy could take me to the moon, turn life into something beautifully, romantically surreal. Of course, he might be poor as a dog, spending all that time writing poetry."

In a world where most people are paired by my age, and I don't meet that many single Jewish guys in the course of my normal day, I have found a place on the online dating sites. One such site, Plenty of Fish, has as many Jewish guys as JDate, and because the service is free, why not? That also means I am approached by non-Jewish guys in about the proportion that non-Jews are represented in the overall population. The interaction on these sites can be so amusing, such a study of human thought and longing, that friends have urged me to save the responses I get and write. I've never wanted to do that until today. Today I got two such diametrically opposed letters that I couldn't help but share.

So, to begin, I actually got more than two letters. This morning was typical. I received several emails - maybe eight or ten. The majority of them started and finished with something like, "You're beautiful [hot, pretty, sexy, just what I'm looking for, etc]. When can we meet?" This is flattering, but it is also indicative that the fellow is flipping through profiles looking for someone he can sleep with without putting a bag over her head. If I'm up to testing this theory, I can simply check his profile, and "yup, he's not Jewish." That is a sure signal that he didn't read my profile, in which I have three paragraphs of explanation about why - I mean it - I am only dating Jewish men. I don't even respond to these bag men. There are simply too many.

What, you ask, if he's a Jewish bag man? LOL. I wish.

To be fair here, we are all animals and physical attraction is worth something. The few times I've been tempted to break my own rule about dating Jewish guys, it's because I have a strong physical attraction to someone's picture, then read into the profile and see that they're interesting too. I have to fight those urges down, so I get it.

There's a more intelligent variation on the above tactic. These guys say, "I loved your profile. Check mine and tell me if you're interested." While it purports to be interested in what I wrote, it's a no-brainer that he's secretly interested in the photo. You can tell because he doesn't mention a single thing I actually wrote about myself. Again, I can check my theory, and as soon as I read something like, "Good Christian, loves Jesus," or just plain "Episcopalian" in the Religion box, I am confirmed.

Today, for example, I got a note from one Javier that said this, "You have a very sincere and open profile. Really tells alot about yourself. My name is Javier and I would like to get to know you better and hopefully go out and have dinner." Javier, it turns out, is Catholic - and 32 years old.

I usually answer these, because it humors me to be honest, with something like, "You didn't really read my profile, did you? LOL."

I hope the "LOL" tells them that I get that he's being, as Bill Engval would say, "just a guy." I'm not really being too snarky.

Sometimes they come back with, "Well, you're right, I didn't read your profile, and now that I have, I apologize. I'm not Jewish and I wish you well." Answer: "Thank you."

Other times they come back with, "You are limiting yourself. You don't know where love will show up. Please reconsider." Answer: "We all limit ourselves. Some won't date someone with an opposing political view. Others limit by body type. If you were attracted to me, I bet you passed right by all those well-rounded mamas you saw. I have a few rounder girlfriends, and you know what, they're every bit as interesting, loving, sexual - as I am. You're really limiting yourself."

But my favorite is, "I didn't realize you were a prejudiced bitch. Glad I don't have to meet you." Answer: [none]. Or, occasionally, if they didn't call me a bitch - just prejudiced - I tell them that my first husband wasn't Jewish, and that, although we used the same words, our underlying value system was different. That I want someone who shares my nostalgia for my holidays and rituals. But mostly, why talk to a wall?

Not to mention, the old saying, "Yes means yes, maybe means yes, and no means maybe to a man." If I even continue the conversation, I'm apparently letting the man know that I'm open to talk - and hence reconsider. So, I don't respond more often than a polite Kansas girl thinks in her heart is correct.

But getting back to my typical day. I got two very interesting emails this morning, in that they are very different. I don't usually write about this stuff, but these two approaches were so distinct, that they warranted a blog post. The first writer is obviously a left-brained fella, and he's using reason and evidence to convince me that I'm lucky to have his attention. The bottom line: "There aren't that many men in the barrel, and if one comes along, I should grab him up." I should tell you that this man has been pursuing me for months, AND is Jewish, and I've turned him down repeatedly on the grounds that he's ten years younger than I am. I will date someone 5 or 6 years on either side, but I confess to a bit of insecurity about what happens when my looks take their last breath, and the man in my bed wakes up one morning to find Granny Clampet laying next to him. Is he out the door, or does "In sickness and in health, in beauty and in decline..." mean anything to him? Will we have enough money to keep me in botox?

I experienced this fear, whether or not irrational, when I dated a man 9 years my junior for three years. He was fine with it, but his friends were his age, and their wives and girlfriends were 15 years younger than I. I have always been satisfied with myself. I don't see myself as a great beauty - more like the girl next door. Very happy with that. I've learned over time that I'm not for some men, and others will like how I look very much. But hanging around women who are 15 years younger than you can be intimidating. You immediately start realizing all the ways you're aging. Your skin texture is different. They can still eat everything under the sun without effect. Their thighs haven't started leaning on their knee caps yet. Whatever it all is, it's like having the fact that you age - yes, I know it's inevitable - thrown into your face. Nobody likes to look aging in the face.

Anyway, the first writer is 10 years my junior. Otherwise I'm sure we would have met by now. Here's his latest argument - and as a teacher, I do have to credit him for doing his research!

"There are 80 men for every 100 woman in the United States. Over age 40 that number becomes about 77 men to every 100 women.

30 % of the population in Arizona is considered Obese 47% of the population is considered overweight.

The number off single men over 35 as compared to single women is 2 women to every guy 2-1 which means if a guys is attractive enough for you there is at least 1 other person he could be dating. 10% of the population is unemployeed. 70 % of the men over 40 have been married at least once and have children. Which means the odds of finding a single in shape man over 40 with a job no kids is 1 out of five. Which make me feel very good about me.. Oh due to the current mortgage crissis a home owner you don't want to know..I feel even better.

46 of the adult population is not married using the ratio 100 million unmarried males and females.

The median male income in Arizona was 33000.00 per year. So a single guy who makes 3-5 times that a year and is not married well let's just say it's about 1 in 22. I believe ever one deserves the best it's just how we define it."

It's hard to argue with him by these statistics. He's a catch! And age difference or no, I should realize my good luck. He's persistent too. I'll give him that.

The second writer, obviously, has either been schooled in how to appeal to the romantic side of a woman, or is a romantic himself. You never really know. But he wrote a poem. Or he lifted someone else's poem without crediting the author. But you have to give him credit, whether he wrote it or lifted it, for choosing it. I assume he did not write this poem for me personally, and that he uses it with any woman he approaches.

"i want to touch you... yes your flesh
but more than this i want to handle
bright glorious fabric of your soul
with gentle hands of my heart
let it slide though fingers
of patient understanding
like colorful fine silk
leaving behind it
indelible sense
of your true
uniqueness
i want to know you, every part of you
all your heights of obstinate courage
and darkest depths of fervent fear
each wild fantasy you entertain
and gloomy reality you face
i want to hold you close
and kiss you so deeply
soul to soul with lips
flaming imagination
on fire with desire
for me alone"

One of these guys could be a rock. Stable and realistic and there for you when you need someone to be there for you. The other guy could spend his days in flights of fancy, his feet never really touching the earth. Or one guy could be the driest man in the universe, giving practical birthday gifts - think paying for a window washer so I don't have to get out the ladder. The other guy could take me to the moon, turn life into something beautifully, romantically surreal. Of course, he might be poor as a dog, spending all that time writing poetry. Can we eat poetry?

I know there are stories just like this on the other side - the male side - of this gender gap. I have heard stories about the women who ask you right up front how much money you make, or try to move in after the very first date.

So, these are the choices we singles get to make every day. The mating ritual can be so interesting.

Oh, and if you know any nice, intelligent, single Jewish guys between the ages of say, 48 and 58, be so kind as to introduce me!

UPDATE - Is this the Facebook, er, World we want?

2011-09-26T16:42:00.000-07:00

Earlier this afternoon, I posted my concerns about the Facebook privacy changes. They are really confusing, and if we happen to be friended on Facebook, you can read my pal Dan Notov's running commentary as he tries to figure out how to make a completely clean public Fb wall.

Because that's what the wall used to be - completely blank unless you specifically set it to let others see it.

That's what we suppose it still is unless we go to some special profile edit page and use a button that lets us see what the Public sees when they look at our wall. I'll ask Dan to come back to the blog and put his findings up when he's figured it all out.

So, knowing this is all in Dan's good hands - he's a computer geek - I decided to do something else. I have a bunch of open windows - Google Chrome Browser, by the way - and I thought I'd see what I'd parked till after I finished today's grading, and then close them down.

Well, the first thing I noticed is that the ads on every single page were very predictable. They all, without exception, had the two shoe ads you can see on this blog. If you know me well, you know I love to be outdoors. Because of the heat, I prefer sport sandals over any closed shoe, even though, as my friends like to point out to me, I'm more likely to take a pebble than if my foot is closed into a lace-up shoe with socks. I also narrow down the selection by looking for shoes that have a toe guard, which basically means the sole wraps up in front and creates a bumper for my toes.

As you can see, someone, aka Google, has been taking stock of my preferences, and putting pics of the two pairs of shoes I spent the most time looking at right in front of my face.

No, I did't buy them...yet. But these photos sure are tempting me.

What's all this have to do with Facebook? Well, nothing yet. But I'm wondering just how much more privacy Google+ really provides. It is a Google network, and John likes it because it is tied into other Google applications. If Google Chrome tracks me like this, what's to say Google+ doesn't follow me around the web too? I'll have to see if John will explain all this.

If you have any info, please jump in...

Is this the Facebook we want?

2011-09-26T15:27:00.001-07:00

John, one of my good friends, has become paranoid enough about privacy issues on Facebook that he's removing himself (mostly) and transferring his social networking life to Google+. You know what they say about paranoia.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

I say "mostly" because John still maintains a silly little private page a few of us have going, and he will be subscribing to his friends without "friending" them. He sent me a link to a couple of interesting articles written by computer geeks, but clear enough at least for the most part to frighten me too.

The changes on The New Facebook seem to include the ability of Facebook to automatically post every location you're at, every website you visit, etc, without asking you if you'd like to share it. I don't spend any time on porno sites, but I'd rather not have anyone know how much time I've spent on Amazon.com looking at shoes.

But what really bothers me, if I'm understanding correctly, is that people can now "subscribe" to your wall and see everything on it, whether or not they are friends. This is completely antithetical to the idea that you can control who sees your wall by specifying only "friends," "friends of friends," etc. And it appears to be true, because John could subscribe to my wall after he unfriended me. He could not post, but he could read it. My settings say "friends of friends," but since he has unfriended all his friends, I shouldn't be showing up for him, even if he's subscribed. Or so I thought.

The import of this development - that anyone, anyone at all can see everything on my Facebook wall - is troublesome to me. While I'm trying to decide if I should wean myself off of Facebook, I thought I'd share the links John sent me. Parts of them are written in Computer Geek, but if you're not a computer geek, just scroll past that and it becomes English again.

Here's the first one, by Dave Winer, "Facebook is Scaring Me," explains the privacy impacts of the recent Facebook changes. By the way, when John tried to put the link into a Facebook message, Facebook error messaged me, saying:

Attachment Unavailable
The attachment source was deleted or the privacy settings on this attachment do not allow you to view it.

John, though, is smarter than Facebook, and he got it through!

The second article, "Logging out of Facebook is Not Enough," by Nik Cubrilovic, picks up where Winer left off, explaining the technology and making some suggestions - as I said, scroll past the tech stuff if you're not interested. There is also a wealth of information in the discussion thread below, including a letter from a Facebook employee explaining some of their practices. Nik isn't buying much of it, though, and explains why in a follow-up post.

This is fascinating. I don't think I have much to hide, but then... I'm still job hunting and who knows what information might impact someone's hiring decision.

I'm seriously considering following John's lead and moving to Google+. The problem there is... it's not intuitive and I think it's going to be difficult figuring out how to use it. I'm such a wuss.

Bubbl.us?

2011-08-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Tonight I'm trying to figure out some workshop exercises to help thinkers get out of their ruts. Sometimes using visualization - forcing people into the creative side of their brain - results in the flow of new ideas.

So, using my past employer, The Nature Conservancy, as a model, I hand drew a "community" of people and organizations who care about preserving the ecosystem. It included cute little cartoonish hunters, hikers, teachers, etc.

My work of art really wasn't that skillfully drawn. First, I don't have time for that tonight. Second, I didn't want to scare my attendees away from the project by giving them something to live up to. But, from my years of experience teaching art, I realized that even my goofy cartoons were going to intimidate some folks. So, I went off in search of a mapping tool that would quickly let me draw boxes to label, instead of the actual characters.

I found bubbl.us, a free mapping tool. It's fun. The address is www.bubbl.us. Here's the map I made for my workshop. If I'd had more time tonight, I would have monkeyed with shapes and colors.

Very cool! Try it. It's free.

I'm Sorry. So Sorry.

2011-06-03T19:19:00.000-07:00

So today I think I might have but don't really know if I potentially caused a potential disagreement, not even a real one as far as I know yet but I'm still worried about whether I did, between two guy friends. I immediately felt guilty and apologized. And then I apologized again because they didn't accept my apology fast enough so it's probably not enough of an apology. Then I saw the blog below.

They're probably both so having a beer together at this very moment.

By blogger Shaheen Raja:
"New research by psychologists at the University of Waterloo, found women apologize far more than our male counterparts, and we say "we're sorry" to strangers a heckuva lot more than we do to family members. In two studies that measured the frequency and reasoning behind apologies, there was a clear-cut gender gap. "Findings suggest men apologize less frequently than women because they have a higher threshold for what constitutes offensive behavior," the Canadian psychologists explained.

So what exactly is this "offensive behavior" women fear they're unleashing on the world?

"I apologize to people on the subway who bump into them, as though I've been offensive to them, simply by taking up space on earth," says Amy, 32.

"I've said sorry to guys I've dated for not acknowledging that they're trying, even if they're trying and failing," says Leah, 27.

Sandra Elmoznino, a 27-year-old teacher tells the Wall Street Journal all she has to do is call a friend too early or arrive somewhere a few minutes late and she's asking forgiveness. "I want to be in everyone's good graces," she explains. "It's an anxiety thing."

If anxiety stems from lack of control, is it possible women see apologizing as a form of taking back the reins? "For women, apologizing is a way of reconnecting with someone whose feelings you have hurt, however inadvertently," writes psychologist Sam Margulies on his blog at Psychology Today. "A breach in the relationship is avoided and the relationship continues undisturbed. Neither the woman offering nor the woman receiving the apology regard it as unusual but rather see it as a routine aspect of relationships."

For men, it's just the opposite. "Men tend to view apologies as humiliating and a loss of face," suggests Margulies. "Men are more conscious of the impact of what they say on how others perceive their power position or lack of power. So for a man to acknowledge that he has done something wrong often means that he feels diminished in the eyes of those who hear the apology."

PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE ARTICLE BY CLICKING HERE.

Source: http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/study-finds-women-apologize-more-than-men-why-2401376/;_ylt=ArP6Arrdh3kCdphHFdTMV5VabqU5

Volunteers for America

2011-05-29T09:26:00.002-07:00

My friend Ray Jagoda drove down to Joplin from the Kansas City area to help the residents there. Here's his report and his photos:

"My kids and went to joplin to pass out bottled water to tornado victims as they sifted thru the wreckage to salvage what they could, which was not much.

I will never forget what we saw.

The F5 tornado was like a nuclear

Bomb. I never realized just how

Powerful the weather could be until we saw first hand

What it did in joplin: bark peeled

Off of trees, cars lookedd like they

Had been hit by an ied and then

Thrown into the middle of a raging

Gun battle. Metal roofing wrapped

Around concrete posts as if it was

Aluminum foil, brick torn off walls

As if it was styrofoam.

And it went on for mile after mile.

Each house with a story. Some tragic

Some miraculous. Of luck, bravery and

Heroism. Many of great loss.

But one thing we couldnt help but notice

Were the thousands of volunteers there helping

With cleanup,food, and their bare hands... From all

Locals, groups and walks of life.

On this memorial day weekend I could say I was

Proud to be an american, but most of all I am

Truly touched and happy to have witnessed such a

Redeeming side of humanity."

pepsi bottling plant

Therapy for Life

2011-04-27T15:58:00.003-07:00

I'm OK, You're Not.

Those other people aren't the same;
they're different, they must be to blame.
If only they were more like us,
who would we throw beneath the bus?

My brother Mike Gale recently published a book called Of Wisdom and Ignorance and the Fine Line Between Them.

I want to say it's a poetry book, and it is, but really, it's a book of short, to the point observations about life. "Wry" would be the word I would use to describe these little gems. Oh, yes, and they do happen to rhyme.

Here's a few more.

From the section, "Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder."

My next door neighbor has it all;
Two cars, a boat, a house so tall.
When asked what he thinks of me,
he craves my life's simplicity.

From the section, "Chaos Theory."

Order is so hard to keep;
endless things to fix or sweep.
But as I fix or sweep each day,
The mess in me is swept away.

From the section, "Good Sports"

Why do people love their sports,
silly men in silly shorts?
Weekend warriers think they're bold,
Cause when they stop, they start getting old.

And the poem after which I've titled this post, for its delicious little double entendre:

Your family members you can't choose;
With some you win, with some you lose.
They bring you love, they bring you strife.
They bring you therapy for life.

By the way, you can read them all for a mere $3.58. Yes, I'm shameless!

To Us and Our Good Fortune

2011-04-11T01:12:00.013-07:00

Rose: The Belle after the Ball

It's quiet here now. My parents are tucked away in their big bed. My Aunt Carol is in my parents' comfortable guest room. My cousin Michael ("Aunt Carol's Mike") is downstairs on the fold-out couch. My brother Mike ("our Mike") is folded into the little sofa in my dad's office, and I am parked on the couch in the sitting area off the kitchen.

There is one more couch - in the living room - if you need a place to sleep tonight.

Over at my cousin Sam's house, Sam's two brothers, Howard and Ethan, Ethan's wife Rona and son Mac are scattered in spare bedrooms and on couches around the house. Ariella, my 22 year old cousin from Melbourne representing the Australian branch of the family, is also camped over there somewhere, maybe sharing a room with Sam's daughter Imerie.

From Ariella I learned that Australians do not want to make their own coffee, even from Starbucks beans, even if it could taste exactly like their favorite brew. The act of leaving the house each morning to pick up the morning coffee is part of a soothing ritual.

Howard's audacious son Shai and my hip cousin Larry the psychologist are already missed terribly, somewhere in the skies over America, winging their ways homeward. They should both be landing soon, Shai in Washington, D.C., Larry in Berkeley. Tomorrow we lose Ethan and clan to Connecticut. Mike, Michael and Aunt Carol to Seattle, New York and Israel respectively. Ariella to New York to visit more cousins before heading back down under.

My cousin Stanley and his wife Erica (from St. Louis) went with Stanley's brother Gene and wife Melanie (from Las Vegas) to the graveyard this evening, to visit Stanley and Gene's parents. They are all still in town until tomorrow.   Next week Stan and Erica will host my daughter for first night of Pesach because she will be in St. Louis for a Wash U reunion (already?). They promise to get the skinny on the new boyfriend, notwithstanding I feel I already have it. There is never too much information about a new boyfriend.

My cousin Lauren and her husband Kenny (they make a really cute couple) are still here somewhere. Not sure whether they stayed with my Uncle Neil and his wife Gloria, or Lauren's mother, Judy. They will head back to St. Louis in the a.m.   Unfortunately, I did not adequately connect with Lauren's brother Steven, and I am worried about him. I will check this with Lauren later.   Oh, and yet more really cool cousins, Matt and Daniel, brothers to another "local," Sarah, all three more of Rose's grandkids.

And those are just the out-of-towners. Today we toasted my Great Auntie Rose on her 100th.

My great Uncle Lou, whose birthday it is also, did not begrudge his big sis her occasion. He's about sixteen years behind her, after all.

The social hall at the Shalom Geriatrics Center was overflowing with people, some who have known my aunt for many decades. Yesterday, sitting around the table at my parents' home, we picked out faces we knew from Auntie Rose's wedding photo.  "There is something about the Goller boys that looks so much like Uncle Sol." There is my beautiful grandmother Ruth, in her prime, with the man Zayde ultimately forbid her to marry, the immortalization in this photo of their prohibited relationship some kind of heavenly poetic justice. Some of these people must be Uncle Sol's family, or the happy couple's friends. Who, we wondered, are the two little girls sitting at the foot of the bride and groom?   Then, today, two women walked up to take the mic while we are telling stories of Auntie Rose's life. These two women, in their 90s, announced themselves to be the flower girl and ring bearer at Auntie Rose's wedding. Mystery solved.

Auntie Rose is a woman with an interesting life. She was born in Biale, Poland and traveled as a preteen with her younger sister Ruth (my grandmother) and their mother (my "bubbu Lesky") to the United States to be with my great-grandfather, Ben, or Zayda, as my mother called him. I never knew Zayda because he died six weeks before I was born. In fact, I was named for him. Zayde preceded his family from Poland by eight years. As a young girl, Rose trailed her father around his business whenever he allowed it. As a young woman she followed in her father's entrepreneurial footsteps. After she married her handsome prince, my Uncle Sol - an ambitious tailor - she did the unheard of thing for a woman of those times - she opened a business. She secured a loan with the help of Uncle Sol, and built a fabric store.

Somewhere along the lines, Auntie Rose and Uncle Sol finagled a house in a development with covenants prohibiting Jewish residents by convincing a non-Jewish builder friend to buy the lot, build the house and sell it to them.

Why, I once asked her, did you even want to be in a development full of people who didn't want to be around Jews?

"Honey" (HAH nee), she answered me in her sweet, patient, little bit shakey voice, "why - how could they KNOW they didn't want to be around us until they had a chance to meet us?" She knew she'd win those gentiles over, and she did.

Although my Uncle Sol eventually bought the mens furnishings factory where he got his first job, he never stopped tailoring, and was the tailor to President Truman, before and during his time in the White House. The famous quote from Uncle Sol about Harry Truman, from an interview with a Truman Library historian, is this:

"I’ll tell you, my experience with Mr. Truman . . . In fact, I told him one time, that only in the United States could this happen—I’m Jewish—and only in America could a Jewish boy from Poland grow up to make clothes for the President of the United States. This could never happen in any other country especially in Europe. And he says, “In the United States, everything can happen. I was a farm boy and I became president. Anything can happen.”"

Auntie Rose's home has always been adorned with pictures of Uncle Sol standing with famous political figures of the era, for some of whom he tailored suits. Auntie Rose traveled extensively with Uncle Sol, for both business and pleasure. I'm not entirely sure who cared for their daughters (my first cousins once removed) Shirley and Laurel while they traveled, although it's highly likely that certain summer escapades that were the stories of my youth happened at my great-grandparents' country farm while their parents were away.

Auntie Rose has weathered a lot of storms too. She apparently has the genetics of the energizer bunny. She has miraculously survived multiple by-pass surgeries, lived through the gut-wrenching sadness of losing her oldest daughter Shirley (mother of Sam, Ethan and Howard) to cancer, and the natural death of her beloved Sol. I think what keeps her ticking, quite frankly, is the way she collects and surrounds herself with friends, and also the way she recalls her life.

As for her friend collection, everyone she's taken an interest in feels they have received something substantial from the relationship. Even in the short time she's been a resident of Shalom Geriatrics, she's already become the belle of the ball. One of the speakers today, a man who exercises with her in the indoor pool and has apparently not lost his eye for beautiful women in swimming attire, noted, "She's still hot." Howard, emceeing, put the mic to Auntie Rose after this statement.

"Boiling," she retorted.

And... well... a lot of how she remembers her life is not exactly as it really happened. But she puts the best dress on it from her vantage, and although it occasionally irritates those who were also there and remember it differently, her stories sustain her.

# # #

Sleep, in my parents' sitting room, has been particularly hard to come by.  Someone wakes in the night and drifts into the kitchen for water. Someone else gets up early and can't control themselves. They pick up the end of the blanket draped over my head to shield me from the inconsiderate light coming through floor-to-ceiling windows, just to see if I'm there. Well, duh.

But it is hard to complain.

Last night I sat with my brother and cousins at Sam's house, eating kosher fried chicken and whatever else they had left over from the night before's Shabbat dinner, catching up on the plans and dreams of these wonderful people with whom I have a forever bond. Listening with amusement or awe or pure pleasure to the younger generation of our family, coming up behind us and beginning to make lives of their own.

I so wished my daughters were there. I so wanted them to meet their cousins, see that these people they barely know because they did not grow up in the same community are nevertheless so much like them. The genetic pool or maybe it's the values pool is such an amazing thing. We speak the same language, we communicate so easily, we understand each other as though we share a skin. We joke, we support, we agree, we suggest. The conversation ranges from technology to ethics to newly begotten drivers' licenses to photography to politics. The laughter flows like wine.

There are others who could not join us, and their absence is particularly felt. Aunt Betty and Uncle Lou have one child, Jody, living in town. We feel the absence of their other three terribly. I wish my brother Jon was here, but he stayed home tonight. We brought my niece Nina to represent his clan. She is upstairs doing who knows what with Imerie. This makes me smile. We keep her out way too late.

The silly term, "these are my peeps" suddenly takes on the proportions of the Exodus from Egypt. I would go anywhere, do anything, for these people. Cousins.

And in fact, we decide to strengthen the bonds. To explore a reprint of the family cookbook. We talk about taking the wonderful family tree work done by my Uncle Lou and cousin Lolly and put it "in the cloud" so that we can all contribute to it. We talk about gathering stories so that the begat chart can be fleshed out while there are still those who remember. We speak of visiting the family who isn't here. About finding the family we haven't really met. About traveling one and all to far-away places to look for lost relatives. A sense of sudden urgency overcomes us. It's getting late. Our parents are getting old or gone. For the most part, our grandparents are gone. Why are we just now having these conversations? It suddenly seems like time is sliding out from under us and we are just beginning to appreciate the enormity of what we have.

I so badly wish my daughters were here too.

I have some guilt about not bringing my children up in the vicinity of their cousins. I don't think they will ever have what those of us who grew up together in Kansas City have. But, maybe if we put our family up in the cloud, connections and reconnections will happen. Facebook has already instigated a bit of this. Maybe Lisa and Shai will discover each other's writing. Maybe Jessica, Natalie, Ari, Jody and Lisa, sisters and cousins of relatively the same ages living on two different continents, will somehow connect, with God's help. Maybe if all the parents and grandparents already up there can sway with the Universe just a little bit.

After the first party this morning, just the family - meaning probably 40 or 50 of us - retire to Laurel & Mike's home for real food and familiness. Laurel has pulled together both parties and can't seem to get enough of us. We oblige her by eating her out of house and home, and taking photos of every configuration of family grouping we can think of, officially and methodically in the library with Auntie Rose, and haphazardly on the staircase, grabbing whomever is passing by.

Already the pictures are beginning to find their way to facebook. Cousins who could not make it are "liking" what they see, and joining belatedly in the celebration. People are promising to make it to Israel, Vegas, Phoenix, Australia. Talking about traveling together as cousins. It feels very, very cool.

Being joyous together is different from the reunions we've had around funerals. Not a funeral this, but a simcha, a celebration. A bit of a heart-felt knock off below.

"God would like us to be joyful even when our hearts lie panting on the floor.

How much more can we be joyful when there's really something to be joyful for?

To us and our good fortune. Be happy! Be healthy! Long life!

May all our futures be pleasant ones, just like the present one,

Drink l'chaim!

To LIFE!"

Tell Me What You Really Think!

2011-04-02T01:47:00.001-07:00

Do you wanna know a secret? Ooh ah ooh. Do you promise not to tell? Ooh ah ooh. Wo-o-oalk closer. Let me whisper in your ear. Ooh ah oooh. All the words I long to he-e-ear. I'm in love with you. Oooh ooh ooh ooh. Oooh ooh ooh ooh.

I was reading an article about "social proof," the term that denotes a measure of peer approval for an idea. The article contended that we're all influenced by the knowledge that a lot of our "friends" like something. In fact, if many friends like it and we haven't tried it, we're likely to think we're being left behind!

While as a generic thing, it's undoubtedly true that we are influenced by friends' opinions, the article was specifically talking about the little "like" icon that shows up next to all kinds of things these days.

You know, I admit to being influenced when a foodie friend lets me know she had a really good meal at a new restaurant. I admit to being influenced when certain friends tell me they loved a new best selling novel. But... there's nothing about an anonymous tip that gets me going.

Part of the friend-influence factor is who the friend is, and my level of respect for their expertise in the thing "liked." Back to my foodie friends: I am more likely to be interested in their take on restaurants. But say a date wants to take me to their mother's favorite restaurant - and it happened that way not long ago - I am suspect. I know my eating habits are not even remotely like most of my own generation, let alone my parents' generation. Or, if someone is a conservative, I'm highly unlikely to agree with her opinion of a policy article. Or, since I'm a health food nut, I'm unlikely to be swayed by the number of "likes" next to a Frito Lays advertisement.

In other words, I think the bean counters are missing the boat. I don't really care how many people click the little "like" button. What I do care about is whether people I deem to be in the know think something is hot, hot, hot!

It's not how many friends have an opinion. It's the right friends that makes you smart.

scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?

2011-03-30T11:23:00.004-07:00

Oh Sarah Palin. How can I ever thank you?

Yesterday people were gigging you again for another Palinism, "squirmish." I didn't see the original context, so I don't know whether you were after "skirmish" or "squirm."

I wanted to check the spelling of "skirmish," which led me to the dictionary. Imagine my surprise when I read there the origins of the word:

Origin:
1300–50; (noun) Middle English skirmysshe < Old French eskirmiss-, long stem of eskirmir < Germanic (compare Old High German skirman ); replacing Middle English scarmouche < Old French escaramoucher ( see Scaramouch); (v.) late Middle English scarmuchen, scarmusshen to skirmish, Middle English skirmisshen to brandish a weapon < Old French escar ( a ) mucher to skirmish; vowels influenced by Old French eskirmiss- http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/skirmish

There it was. Scaramouch.

Be honest, dear reader. How many times have you sung along with Queen, "Scaramouch, scaramouch, will you do the fandango?" and asked yourself, "what IS that nonsense I'm singing?"

Well, lo and behold, it is not nonsense. Scaramouch is from the French, as you can see above, and means to skirmish - yes I know you're not supposed to use a word in its definition, so "skirmish" means a hand-to-hand combat.

So, following the stream of consciousness that passes for my brain, of course next I look up the lyrics to Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody to see what the fandango - isn't that a dance??? - has to do with military skirmish.

Absolutely nothing.

So it turns out that Scaramouch is also the name of the hero in an historical novel of the same name, by Rafael Sabatini. In the novel, Scaramouch is a "swashbuckling character" who goes incognito. Perhaps his name is Scaramouch because "swashbuckling" sounds a little like something one does during hand-to-hand combat. All right. Hold on. I will look up "swashbuckling."

Oh, for crying out loud.

–adjective

characteristic of or behaving in the manner of a swashbuckler.

Apparently even http://www.dictionary.com/ doesn't know it's against the rules to use the term itself in the definition. Let's try Merriam Webster.

swash·buck·ler

noun \-ˌbə-klər\

1: a swaggering or daring soldier or adventurer

Better. Now, back to Queen. According to Wikipedia, for whatever that's worth, Queen was inspired by Rafael Sabatini's character and thus put a scaramouche into their song Bohemian Rhapsody:

I see a little silhouetto of a man
Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the fandango?
Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me ...

And if you're not now singing, "Galileo, Galileo," then your mind works far differently than mine!

By the way, you've simply got to love the people who make Wikipedia their life's work. There is an ENTIRE entry just on this one song, Bohemian Rhapsody. And it's a long entry. Everything you never knew there was to know. But that's a topic for someone else's blog. Or, click here if you want to be instantly transported.

So, thank you Sarah Palin. Look at the adventure I got from your latest gaff.

And, Sarah, seriously - I want you to know I LOVE the word "squirmish" and think we should find a place for it in the dictionary. It rolls off the tongue really well, and I can think of half-dozen uses.

I mean, how better to describe a two year old struggling to get out of your arms? He's squirmish.

Or a politician struggling to get her foot out of her mouth. She's squirmish.

Wait. Maybe that was what you had in mind all along.

Why not collect all your Palinisms into a Palinary? What an adventure that would be.

...♫... I'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me
He's just a poor boy from a poor family....♫...

MOTIVATION: Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose!

2011-03-29T17:35:00.001-07:00

We are not as endlessly manipulable and predictable as you would think." ~ Dan Pink

In the video below, Dan Pink talks about what motivates us. This will surprise you. Here's a small teaser.

An economics study: The theory on performance suggests a large reward - high incentives - will get the best performance. Results: as long as we're talking about purely mechanical skills, the motivation scheme works. But the minute the task requires cognitive skills, the incentive scheme worked the opposite way we assume. This has been replicated over and over again.

So what does motivate performance?

Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

Learn more!

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SINGLE

2011-03-27T00:21:00.003-07:00

Today's winning email:

After a rigorously brief overview of your profile, I wanted to let you know I have already married and divorced you in my mind.

Thanks for all the wonderful imaginary memories... you will always have a special place in my heart.

your ex-hubby,
...
Murrell

ps. You can keep the house in Maui but, I am going to need half your money according to our prenup.

Sigh... If only I had some, Murrell.