Sunshine and Silliness...

Don't anyone have a heart attack, I'm posting twice in the same week. I thought I'd tell you about my mis-adventures in cooking yesterday. I returned home from the camping trip and dropped all my bags on the front room floor; then I gave my mom a nice camp-smokey hug, one of her favorite things. After I showered and became a normal human again, I walked into the kitchen.... I felt like doing something... and that something was cooking. anything. I started cookies, yummy carrot-cake-like ones.

This is where it all started to go wrong. The first batch was a little crunchy, so I thought I'd take the second batch out before the timer; then I got lost in reading an online article, and my cookies got a little carbonized. (It wasn't good for Han Solo and it wasn't good for carrot cookies) But my need to cook wasn't fulfilled, so I started soup with veggies-- parsnip, turnip, rutabaga, carrots-- from last week. (I'd never tried any of those, so I bought all of them at once. The checkout lady thought I was weird.) I wanted to make my grandma's vegetable soup-- one of those things she makes without thinking about but no one else could ever ever make it taste quite the same-- and I ended up cutting up twice as much veggies as the pan would take. I took some out, then added water and a cup of rice to the pot. Of course, I didn't think to ask my mom about the recipe until after I did this; my grandma only uses a tablespoon or two of rice (oops). So I put the extra rice into a separate pot and made rice. And I couldn't just let the rest of the veggies sit there, dressed up with no where to go, so I made that too.

So with two pots of soup and a couple cups of rice in the house, what did my mom and I do for dinner? Ordered pizza, of course. What a life.

Forgive me, i've been horribly lax in posting here. It's a good thing no one was holding their breath because I'd hate to be responsible for any deaths out there. This past weekend I was out camping with the Venture Crew for a "gourmet cooking" weekend; let me tell you, these kids don't cook the normal fare-- we had eggplant parmesan, calzones, chicken pot pie, banana boats, lemon bars, and apple cobbler. And despite the chilly air and even a dusting of snow, all toes and fingers that came along returned intact.

Watched the Academy Awards last night-- a few words: too late, too long. Who wants to wait until 1am to see Best Picture??? (especially if it's Beautiful Mind) The glam and outfits were great. Lord of the Rings deserved their awards-- maybe not score, which I thought was too heavy-handed (in other words, I don't want the cd). Monster's Inc deserved the best animation feature more as a totally original idea and for the new technology that made possible the incredible details.

One of the best things about watching the awards is learning about films that I haven't yet seen or even heard of; I plan to go soon to the movie store and reform my ignorant ways. Sidney Poitier in Lilies of the Field or Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Exodus. Love Story. Anything Hitchcock (I have yet to see one!) or Woody Allen (ditto!) Some or all of the documentaries (c'mon, admit it-- Thoth made you smile!)

Congratulations to the Humanitarian award winner-- Arthur Hiller. As he said, it may be embarrassing to win an award for doing what honors the way his parents raised him, for doing what he should be doing and what everyone should be doing. But it's heartening to see someone leading the way.

Cirque du Soleil's performance was THE coolest thing I've seen recently. What it must've been like in the theater for that! People hanging from the ceiling and bouncing on bungies... twirling silver hula hoops... someone rolling in on a contraption reminiscent of da Vinci's famous man-in-a-circle... the group who launched one person to be caught, launched, caught, launched, caught, launched... And my absolute favorite-- I couldn't stop laughing-- was the trio jumping from a "building" onto a trampoline and returning to their original perch!!!!! People aren't supposed to be able to do that-- doesn't it defy the laws of physics and angles and reflections? Whoever designed that show (especially since it mimicked so well the movies being shown on the big screen background) deserves another award!

Another note: staring at the stars this weekend, I was bemoaning the fact I left my nice star-map at home in a dark starless drawer, exactly where it couldn't be of use to anyone. I was told about a very cool program for the palm pilot called Star Pilot-- it's free! and can calculate for you the positions of the stars, messier objects, moon, planets, jupiter's moon, solstice information... all for your location and the current time! Wow. Another reason why you don't need to leave all technology at home during camping trips.

Ever want to understand Grateful Dead's original lyrics but didn't have the time to look everything up? Well, here it is for you-- annotated lyrics for at least a hundred songs, check it out!

Greetings from North Carolina! To be specific, Hickory NC-- furniture capitol of the United States. This place has seriously over a hundred different stores and manufacturer outlets to visit.... if you really wanted to. My brother and his family has lived here for five and a half years, in a nifty little house near the downtown and near the college. Chris is a professor of music at Lenoir-Rhyne College; Dena is a social worker, and Lorenzo eats, sleeps, runs around the house, learns his letters, and does all the cute stuff that a kid does when he's a year and a half old. (The little guy was pretty excited to have me around! "Oooh!" he said (which he says when he finds something new and interesting to play with, not to be confused with the "ohhh" that means he knows he's not supposed to do something but he's going to anyway)

I've gotten pretty used to the drive down to Hickory-- 14 hours? No problem! I enjoy the landscape of Kentucky and Tennessee and North Carolina best (hills, green grass, mountainous roads, and lots of trees). Of course, this time most of Ohio and Kentucky were covered by a white blanket of snow; while pretty, it reminded me that I haven't yet been skiing this year.

Last friday I went to a concert by Brooks Williams and Rani Arbo at east lansing's Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse. The first time I saw BW was three years ago-- I skipped Barclay's health psych class one night (believe me, I didn't miss anything educational) and went to his concert in Aker's Commonground coffeehouse. He has a voice reminiscent of James Taylor, a predominantly blues and gospel style touched with portugese and spanish influences, and major skill with the guitar. I'm trying to get my friends hooked so I'm not the only Brooks fan, so you too should look at his webpage or look on amazon.com

Let's see. This week was full of fun. Really.
Good news for those of you who may have been following my medical school progress... I turned in my MSU College of Osteopathic Med application on wednesday; picked up my wonderful recommendation from Dr. Whalon and brought it in to the admissions office to make sure that everything was in before the deadline. So I'll be waiting to hear from them, as well as Loyola Stritch School of Med.

Thursday was Christmas. no, I'm not using some pre-Gregorian calendar, it's just when Troy and I went for the Grand Mystery Event. I told him that I really didn't want to know what it was going to be, so he teased me that we would go to "Sesame Street on Ice," the rodeo, mcDonald's, a monster truck rally... a huge list of 'bad date ideas.' The day finally arrived and I had no idea what we were doing-- turned out fun (of course!): dinner, and Muzsikas at the Ark in ann arbor. This is what the Ark's page had to say:
"Recognized around the globe for their outstanding musicianship and enchanting interpretations of
traditional eastern European folk music, Muzsikas and Marta Sebestyen strive to keep up the
traditions of Hungarian folk music including the styles of Carpathian and Transylvanian traditions."

I admit, it was a bit jarring at first; the violins play in the higher register, and very fast. But the rhythms were certainly interesting, and the night was definitely cultural and educational.

First, the gortan (pronounced gorrrrrrr-tahn, roll the r) is an instrument found in this one valley in the Carpathian mts. This guy's instrument looked like it had been very well used (played in concerts, thrown into the baggage compartment without a box, and banged around a few times just for good measure). It looked like a taller, boxier guitar made of thicker wood, with four strings. Three of the strings were struck with a stick to make a drumlike sound; the fourth was plucked and made a snapping sound.

Second, there was a style of music meant to accompany a traditional dance; officially there were two speeds, slow and fast. But the three words of its name were the town, "plum," and "brandy"... so in reality the tempos were fast, very fast, and very very fast-- and which was played might depend on the amount of brandy the musicians had drunk!

Third, most of the songs they played were traditional-- they played mostly in the tourist areas at open-air cafes; he mentioned the many festivals and family celebrations that musicians were hired for, but I can't remember now if that was in the past or if they still did this. But the sad thing is, when they tried to learn the traditional songs from the Jewish tradition, none of the old musicians were still alive-- they learned songs by talking with a few gypsy musicians who had accompanied them. He said that most of the Jewish musicians had taken their instruments with them to Auschwitz and played while they still lived.

Fourth, Bela Bartok (and another composer) traveled through Hungary and collected folk tunes, which he then incorporated into his music. You can hear these melodies in his compositions (if you'd like to hear a bit of Hungarian culture).

Fifth (and last, because I can't remember all the interesting things he said), if you've seen the English Patient, Marta Sebestyen was the only vocalist on the soundtrack. If you haven't seen it, then you should!