Thursday, January 15

Some Observations About a Year Only Fifteen Days Old

In addition to being a short list of what we are looking forward to in (or not) in 2004, this article was inspired by the coverage of the blogging phenomenon in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday. We'll see how it goes. After all, teens and politicians are blogging away. We don't want to fall behind!

There are too many Democratic candidates for President at the moment. I personally can't wait for Iowa and New Hampshire to weed out some of the also-rans so that we can get down to business and start some serious spending on attack ads. Poor Dennis Kucinich. But good for him, for being so openly vegan.

What is this new show on the Food Network called "Dweezil and Lisa," anyway? Are they a couple, or just two sort-of-famous people trying to work their way back through the rings of stardom? Lisa Loeb had one big hit back in the nineties on a movie soundtrack. Why is she still wearing cat-eye glasses? And how many little Zappas are there? Evidently you no longer need to cook, or even try to cook, to get a cooking show. Hm. That's food for thought. Actually, that's the exact premise of the Style Network's new show "New York Nick." I really need to get into television.

It is COLD in the Northeast, baby. I had to let my faucet drip cold water all night last night. The local news told me to. I always do what Jim Vance and his crack reporting team tell me to, by the way. They all do such a great job reporting all of the "news" of the day. Sometimes they even talk about the war in Iraq or the presidential campaign. After the sports of course.

Speaking of sports, let's go Joe Gibbs! I couldn't be happier that he's back. He's a class act and a great coach, and thanks to him the Cowboys-Redskins rivalry might finally perk up again. It's been a long time. Redskins fans are right to be excited.

Has anyone seen Steve Spurrier? That man should be a magician. He disappeared fast enough.

My new favorite bad TV "chef": Sandra Lee. May "Semi-Homemade Cooking," her newish show on the Food Network, live forever. Where you might just see a can of frosting, Ms. Lee sees infinite possibility. "Cool Whip" and "whipped cream" would be interchangeable in her vocabulary, except that I'm not sure she knows Cool Whip is an imitation of anything. Tune in. It's worth it, if only for the tablescaping (yes! She made that up!) tips.

I'm currently reading Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides. It's a story about a Greek-American hermaphrodite. So far in the book Calliope hasn't figured out that she is different, but I'm eagerly awaiting the reveal. This book won the Pulitzer Prize, by the way. It's nowhere near as good as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which is a book about a magician and a comic-book artist that also won the Pulitzer. Go figure.

My Crockpot adventures continue. Most recently I braised a Boston butt pork roast in it. Braised seems like a fancy word for what you do in a Crockpot, but I believe it to be the correct one in this case. Anyway, the roast turned out well and took exactly five minutes of work. Step one, marinate the aforesaid roast overnight. Step two, dump into Crockpot at 7:30 a.m. with a tiny bit of the marinade. Step three, eat any time after arriving home from work. Magical!

According to the periodicals I've been reading, knitting and crocheting are the hottest home trends of the moment. We are still nesting, evidently. I would nominate the Crockpot as a close second. They now make stainless-steel Crockpots, including one called the Little Dipper for serving dips at parties.

Pete Rose did it and he's not sorry. He just wants to get back into the game. For Pete's sake (I couldn't resist), stop denying that you called the bookie from the clubhouse!

Currently listening to: Shelby Lynne, "Identity Crisis."

Current mood: mildly upbeat. I'm looking forward to visiting the moon in 2015.

Current thought: Next week I'm back to the normal format. I'm too old to blog.