Hey there. I’m still on the road, so not much today. My Christmas was merry and bright and so calorific I’ll be in elastic waistbands for a week.

How was yours?

For Boxing Day, a little boxing:

More tomorrow, when the world wakes up from its food coma, eh?

I need to knock together a short video for my other site, which doesn’t exactly count as a chore, except when it does. And it has to be done pretty soon, because I’m taking Kate downtown later today for a little micro-internship with an acquaintance who owns a recording studio. I take all career aspirations at this age with a mine full of salt, but it does no harm to encourage. And who knows? Maybe she will be a music producer, and maybe she’ll be the next Rick Rubin. I read a profile of Rubin once, years ago, with the arresting detail that he lived with his parents until years after an average adult would be shamed into leaving the nest, much less one with a hot streak of charting records, and not only that, he would crawl into their bed with them when he came home from a night out, and they’d talk about what he did. Srsly. The story featured a photo of all three of them, in bed.

So maybe not. But it won’t do her any harm to watch Jim lay down a few guitar tracks, which is the task for today.

So what I’m saying is, I have to turn my energies elsewhere this morning. How about some bloggage instead?

And….I don’t have much.

But I do have something for you English nerds. A little background: The Atlantic recently published a piece by Stephen Bloom, a University of Iowa journalism professor, a 4,000-word essay slagging the state as it prepares to kick off the 2012 presidential race with its famous caucuses. I haven’t read it; I refuse to read it; you can’t make me. Did I punctuate that sentence correctly? I ask because perhaps the only interesting detail in it is this blog post by the editor of the Gazette, which singles out this passage by Bloom…

When my family and I first moved to Iowa, our first Easter morning I read the second-largest newspaper in the state (the Cedar Rapids Gazette) with this headline splashed across Page One: HE HAS RISEN.

…and does what Bloom didn’t: Check the microfilm. Turns out the front page indeed includes the words “He is risen,” but not in a headline splashed across the page, but in a rather pedestrian graphic that papers run on holidays like Easter. The type is actually quite small. If anything is splashed across the page, it’s the headline MURDER DRAMA, but you know how memory is.

Anyway, score one for the editor, but in his blog, he writes:

I tend to see the religious aspect of that day’s newspaper as less splash and more dribble, kind of like Bloom’s 4,000-word embellishment.

I get what he’s going for here, comparing splash to dribble, but in comparing it to the original essay, I think he’s confusing dribble and drivel. And that, my friends, is the long way around to making several hundred words of fussy superciliousness.

Supercilious. Now there’s a word.

Off to edit video. And HT to Jeff for finding the editor’s blog. Enjoy the final countdown, all.

Someone in one of my social networks posted a quote — “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle” — and attributed it to Plato. Even allowing for translation from ancient Greek, that doesn’t sound like Plato’s territory (like I would know), but it sent me in search of the original.

For those of you who care, I have been deploying this aphorism with greater frequency of late; life with a teenager will do that, especially when they get wound up about their persecution by this or that teacher, or the relative weirdness of this or that classmate. I hate to get all Hallmark on her, but it’s a useful observation that you don’t know what’s going on in another person’s life, that sometimes it expresses itself in persecution or weirdness, which underlines what I think should be the central message of parent to child at this time in their lives: It’s not about you, and it’s hardly ever about you, so chill.

In the past, I would trot off to Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, a copy of which I own. Because I am crazy, and because I used to leaf through it when I was bored and stuck for inspiration. For the hell of it and the pre-internet thrill of it all, I just did. Not in there, which shoots the Plato attribution all to hell. So I turn to the mighty internet, and quickly bog down in the Straight Dope discussion boards, where smart people who know everything gather, and have already taken this one apart.

Not Plato. Probably Ian MacLaren, a Scottish author who left us in 1907.

It took more legwork, but part of me misses reference books. Dictionaries, thesauruses, reference grammars, Bartlett’s Familiar, etc. (Not “The Elements of Style.” I read Strunk & White, but I never picked it up again, and writers who hold it up like a beacon through the murky, wordy darkness get on my last goddamn nerve. It’s usually some twit in a bow tie. A useful text if you want to write like E.B. White, but not everyone does.) I miss them like I miss smoking — as a writer’s procrastination device. Stuck? Lean back, light a cigarette, think for a couple minutes. Or select one of your tomes and leaf through it for a minute or two, in search of le mot juste. In fact, there’s a book by that very title, Le Mot Juste, to help you find just the right foreign word or phrase to punctuate your essay. For writers who cannot afford George Will’s quote boy, it’s nice to have.

Perhaps my all-time favorite was “An Incomplete Education,” now in its umpteenth edition, which is a veritable internet full of interesting things you should have learned by now, but probably didn’t. The section on world religions alone is worth the cover price if, like me, your catechism class didn’t cover Zoroastrianism.

All are more or less obsolete in the age of Wikipedia and a billion websites as close as your laptop.

Do you have any favorite reference volumes? That you still use?

I’m running late today, so let’s get to the bloggage:

A nanny by profession, a photographer in her off hours, but she collected some amazing snaps from the streets of Chicago in the 1950s. Vivian Maier, the posthumous tribute.

Something I miss about being a columnist — pulling any old thing out of your ass, and getting it published:

America’s first black female secretary of state is quietly positioning herself to be the top choice of the eventual Republican presidential nominee, ready to deliver bona fide foreign-policy credentials lacking among the candidates. The 56-year-old has recently raised her profile, releasing her memoir in November and embarking on a monthlong book tour.

After 2 1/2 years as a professor at Stanford, Miss Rice is reportedly getting “antsy” to get back into the political game. “She’s ready to go,” said one top source.

Yes, it’s Condi-mania! Oh, and yes, nowadays I pull any old thing out of my ass and publish it, but I no longer get paid for it. Big difference.

I’ve become a fan of Ken Jennings’ Twitter stream. Yes, the “Jeopardy” champion. And you would, too:

BREAKING: Tim Tebow currently in the locker room watching a Bergman film, smoking Gauloises, contemplating “God’s awful silence.”

My phone just autocorrected “dreidels” into “strudels.” Strudels! That is just insult to injury.

Funny guy. OK, gotta run. Have a good one, all.

If any of you are looking for a good way to make green beans — and who isn’t? I ask you, who isn’t? — you can’t do much better than Mark Bittman’s spicy-sweet take on this most mundane vegetable. I know I’ve mentioned it here before, but I just made them for the third time, and was reminded again how good they are. They do depend on you being the sort of person who has almonds on hand, and dried chilies, but if you’re not, it’s worth adding both to your shopping list. They’re that good.

(And if you don’t have almonds around but you do have pine nuts, try the garlicky variation using pine nuts. I plan to, next time, now that I’ve used up the last of the almonds.)

And that is today’s installment of What Did You Have For Dinner, which I was reminded last week is perhaps a too-common topic around here. Well, hell. I can’t sparkle every day, and sometimes that’s the most interesting thing to happen in my rather sedate life. I’m writing this Sunday night to get a jump on Monday’s grind, and for now, at least, all is right with the world, which is a trite way to say I got the laundry done, Sunday dinner made/served/cleaned up after, and I more or less know what the week to come will bring. Plus, the full moon is rising in a clear sky, and I can see it from where I sit. Little things.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject, I made that French pork stew BobNG suggested last weekend, and it was great. I liked the prunes, Alan didn’t, but we both agreed it was the fresh tarragon that put it over the top. Again, not something most people keep on hand, but worth a trip to the fresh herbs section of your grocery. It’s a very good recipe.

Which then reminds me that the poobahs at Cook’s Illustrated — where the French pork stew came from — were on “Fresh Air” last week, and gave a delightful interview about what it’s like to run a test kitchen. They said the biggest challenge is people who don’t follow the recipe, substituting this for that and then complaining it didn’t work. There was an anecdote about a man who whined about a chicken recipe that had required about half an hour of heat — the worst chicken he’d ever had, he said, before adding that he hadn’t had any chicken, and had substituted shrimp. Oh. Well. Cook’s is known for testing recipes dozens of times to get the very best one, and I’m indebted to them for solving my au gratin potatoes problem once and for all. Mine always turned out runny, but not anymore. The secret: Half-and-half, and start them on the stovetop before they go into the oven. Yum.

Have I bored you senseless yet? Good. Then let’s go to the bloggage:

I listened to Hank regarding “All-American Muslim,” and haven’t been watching:

Though there will be occasional arguments and mini-crises that come along whenever you put any human beings on TV and then tell them to pretend the camera crew is invisible, “All-American Muslim” is mainly an act of public relations, going out of its way to avoid becoming “The Real Housewives of Dearborn.”

What I said up there about having a rather sedate life applies to most people, and you don’t have to live here, or in any metro area where Muslims reach critical mass, very long before they start to blend into the scenery. But that wasn’t enough for the Florida Family Association, which started an email campaign to lean on its biggest advertiser, Lowe’s, which folded like a cheap tent, although now that there’s been some loud pushback, they’re doing the dither, in a Facebook statement:

“Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance.”

How special. How respectful. In my winding path through the web many days, I’m amazed at how the Islam-exists-to-destroy-us meme flourishes on right-wing sites, and there’s simply no doubt in my mind that a North Carolina-based corporation is a particularly ripe target for the various “family associations” out there stirring the pot. Too bad, as they led the way with bilingual signage, and seem to at least acknowledge a rapidly diversifying nation, although maybe they think it only exists among contractors.

Oh, and speaking of bigotry, the case of the gay-hatin’ Troy mayor seems to be finding another gear. She’s already showing signs of fatigue — she’s tired, and she doesn’t feel well — and the Chamber of Commerce, generally the squarest, dullest people in any town, does not like this woman, especially now that gay groups are calling for shopping boycotts. (Troy is home to the area’s swankiest mall, which may be too big to dent, but maybe not restaurants and smaller stores.) One of their leaders was on a local radio show this week telling listeners the voters were victims of their own apathy, and elected a tea party ignoramus because they didn’t do their homework. The one quoted in the linked story is similarly dismissive. This woman may crumple yet.

And as always, when I read stories like this, I reflect that I never thought I’d live long enough to see gay people throw weight around like this, but whaddaya know? Progress is possible after all.

Among the many things I feel no obligation to pay the first bit of attention to, I’d put pro football in the top five. However, I understand that there’s this quarterback out there named Tim Tebow, and he’s doing something newsworthy? In matters like this, I rely on the guys at LGM, and of course TBogg.

OK, time to get out of here. The week lies ahead of us. Let’s embrace it.

Thanks for your patience this morning. Evidently we had a server crash, but it’s fixed now, and y’all are free to move about the cabin.

This is one of those mornings where I feel like I’m living in a parallel universe than the one I woke up in yesterday, one where I can open the newspapers and read several different takes on the Jon Corzine grilling before Congress yesterday, and not read the following line:

At several points during the questioning, members of the committee leaned across the table and hissed through clenched teeth, “Where is the money, Mr. Corzine? WHERE IS THE GODDAMN MONEY?!?”

Because this is where I am simply in over my head. Maybe I don’t read closely enough. I certainly don’t understand finance at this level, other than the banal observation that it has a lot in common with a casino, only with computer screens instead of slot machines but the same hookers.

How does…I think the figure is up to $1 billion now, according to that NYT DealBook story linked above. How does $1 billion in customer money just up and walk away? WHERE IS IT? Because you tell me a billion dollars is missing, and my first thought is of the “Die Hard” movies, the last one of which featured Jeremy Irons stealing all the money in the world in a parade of dump trucks. Is Simon Gruber sitting on a beach in Tahiti, digging his toes in the sand and cackling over the unbelievable score sitting in his Swiss bank account?

And yet, scrolling through the stories about the implosion of MF Global, I read passages like this:

“I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date,” said Corzine, 64, in his first public comments since his resignation was announced four days after the bankruptcy filing.

Or this:

When pressed by lawmakers at the House Agriculture Committee about whether he authorized a transfer of customer funds to firm accounts, Corzine said: “If I did, it was a misunderstanding.”

Or this:

“I’m not in a position, given the number of transactions, to know anything specific about the movement of any specific funds,” said Corzine, who took over as CEO more than a year and a half ago.

So, there were a “number of transactions” that siphoned off $1 billion? And now it’s gone, and no one knows where it went, and presumably a team — hell, an army — of forensic accountants are going to be billing a lot of hours for months on end, but for now, sorry, no one knows where it is?

I’m in the wrong business. And Simon Gruber, you sly dog.

I don’t always participate as fully in comment threads as I’d like — frequently I’m reading them on my phone while running errands, or otherwise can’t get to a keyboard, but I read every one, and I’d like to call a couple to your attention, if you don’t usually dip into the comments. One is MMJeff’s experience in dealing with Richard Cordray, which you should read if you haven’t yet, and the other was an offhand remark made by Basset, to the effect that his wife is a nurse and occasionally sees young women who make the living workin’ a pole, so to speak, with terrible skin infections. I’d like to know more about that, Basset. Also, don’t look at this picture.

Also, don’t read this story, although the headline is great: Castrating lambs with your teeth may make you sick. This must be a Spanish technique. I’m sure Cooz knows more.

I remember when Tim McVeigh was executed, his last statement was the text of “Invictus,” which my friend Lance Mannion, a former English professor, explained was kitsch, a killer going down with some bad 19th-century he-man poetry. It would appear he has a spiritual brother, Rod Blagojevich, who is fond of quoting Rudyard Kipling. Fortunately, Neil Steinberg found a more appropriate poem than “If,” the one Blagojevich likes to wave around.

One for you grammar nerds, from Nancy Friedman.

Excuse me. I seem to have something in my eye…

I’ll leave you with that. Let’s get this weekend under way, shall we?

I have a system whereby I gather links for this space. Early in the day, I open a “new post” window on WordPress and copy/paste things I find in my perambulations, and then sort ‘em out when I write the day’s post, usually in the morning. Some days I’m busier than others, and find less of note. Today there was only one waiting for me, a YouTube link; I can’t remember what it was and the link gives no clue. So let’s just embed it and be surprised, shall we?

Oh, right. That one.

I love high-def video; it’s fun to pause it randomly and see where I can capture the most unflattering facial expression. And that’s pretty much all I have to say about Rick Perry 2012 and his Carhartt jacket.

Something else I learned and can’t post a link to: Michigan congressman John Dingell was a page on the floor of the U.S. House when President Roosevelt asked them to declare war on Japan. Yes, we have a YouTube of that, too:

A number of immediate observations we can draw:

1) Those Carhartt jackets just don’t look right unless they’re a little dirty. Squeaky-clean like that, they resemble a Lincoln pickup truck. Twee.

2) Still, Perry could step in for one of the Village People in a pinch. The construction worker.

3) John Dingell will outlive us all.

(Pause.)

As you can probably tell, my morning has not exactly been a-brim with inspiration. In fact, I was just sitting here thinking it might feel good to do some yoga. I never do yoga. But I need a lot of stretching today, and maybe some lean, protein-rich foods. Yesterday I took myself out to lunch at a little middle eastern joint in Midtown, and got the grilled falafel sandwich. (Yes, it exists.) The proprietor was yakking it up with some of his regulars in guttural Arabic, or at least I assume it was; what other language sounds so much like extended throat-clearing? Hebrew does, a little, which suggests a connection between their delicious food, with its various nutty pastes, and those hacking consonant blends. Like most bilingual people, they scattered their conversation with English words, and the most common one in this chat was “chicken.” Puzzling, because surely there’s an Arabic word for that. (There is: dajaj. Thank you, internet.) I ate most of the falafel and got a go-box for the rest. As I rose to go, the proprietor asked, in perfect un-accented English, “Did we give you enough of a headache yet?” Ha ha, don’t be silly, I said, and as I left, the usual l’esprit de l’escalier flooded in:

You should have a doctor look at that throat.

As you can see, I wasn’t at my best yesterday, but I’m glad I had enough presence of mind not to say anything that witless. And that was one tasty sammich.

I love eavesdropping on people speaking Spanglish, or Arablish, or whatever. The last time was in one of my fave Mexican places, and the woman talking on her phone looked a wee bit street. Blah blah blah in Español and then, And I’m like, gurl, you don’t need to put UP with that shit blah blah blah. It suggests there is no satisfying translation for that concept, which makes me proud to be a native English speaker.

Good lord, it’s time to pull the plug on this mudbath, isn’t it? On to the bloggage:

I have much love for my Wisconsin friends and readers, and I say this with great affection: Wisconsin, you are NOT a mitten. Michigan is a mitten. Stop trying to be something you’re not.

Newt Gingrich has only 106,055 Twitter followers. The rest of the 1.3 million his site claims are fakes. Well, who understands the internet, anyway?

Obviously I don’t, or I wouldn’t be about to hit “publish.” Have a great Thursday.

I hope you guys are having a better Monday than I am. Funny how a gloomy morning after an all-night rain means one thing on Sunday — brew a bigger pot of coffee, read the entire newspaper front to back, maybe make gingerbread because we won’t be doing yard work today — and something else entirely on Monday. That is to say, ich.

But this is the Monday we have chosen, and as usual — AS USUAL — it intends to be difficult. So let’s go to the bloggage, eh?

You know how we can make education SO much BETTER? Turn it over to the American businessman, with his endless ingenuity and his new perspectives, unencumbered by the oldthink of the education establishment! Take it from this sadder-but-wiser student at something called Brown Mackie College in Fort Wayne, an institution that didn’t exist when I left town seven years ago. I think the deal was sealed for me when I learned this about the school’s corporate parent:

Goldman Sachs owns 41 percent of the company.

Say no more!

Seriously, though, it’s a good read. When I went to the TED conference last year, I ran into a guy who was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at Michigan, my brother in fellowship. He was a beat reporter for the AP, and was planning to spend his year studying this exploding field of for-profit education. It’s not that the schools are all as bad as this one — which has students with felony convictions enrolled in the criminal-justice program, a field they will never be able to enter — but they are mostly far more expensive than community-college options. In this particular case, 3X more expensive.

I don’t know how I missed this on the health beat when it was new, but its warning is timeless: Men who have sex with animals have a higher risk of developing penile cancer. The gems are in the last two paragraphs, in which we learn about the length of these relationships and, of course, the preferred species. Whinny!

JeffTMMO posted this on his Facebook, about the Kindle Fire:

Amazon seems to have learned a lesson from the late Steve Jobs, who derided the original Kindle: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore.” The company’s business model for the new tablet reflects the fact that Americans prefer to juggle a wide variety of games, apps, and videos rather than sit and focus on a book or essay. The case of the Kindle Fire demonstrates that today’s consumers embrace a lifestyle of interruption, multitasking, and limited focus. Unless we use the Fire and devices like it to read more books, our society may be driven to distraction.

I’ve embraced e-books, but not wholeheartedly. I think my one-word New Year’s resolution (a tradition introduced to me by Laura Lippman) will be: Focus. In other words, I’m going to be reading more paper books.

But I won’t be reading anything unless I get moving. So I am.

I’m a fan of prunes. Not gonna apologize. I’ve eaten them since I was a kid, although less in adulthood — their famous fiber-richness makes me fart, which becomes less cute in a woman as she ages. But for a quick sweet that doesn’t cost much, calorie-wise, you can’t beat a prune, and I buy a box from time to time.

I’ve watched the contortions of the California Prune Board over the years as they try to overcome their image as producers of something old people gum in a vain effort to get their bowels moving. Some of these have been more successful than others. You see prunes now offered in individual wrappers; I guess you’re supposed to toss a few in your gym bag or purse for when you feel your energy flagging. Then there was the rebranding as “dried plums,” which didn’t do any good, I gather. They’re back to prunes, but it appears this year’s marketing strategy is snob appeal:

You can see a package of the individually wrapped ones peeking out there.

Who knows if this will work in boosting American per-capita prune consumption. I have a booklet somewhere of prune recipes, and once tried to tempt my family into eating some prune bran muffins. (It didn’t work.) They weren’t very good — the heat from the oven made the prunes kind of leathery, and the batch turned out tasting a little like commune cuisine, c. 1970. No, your best bet with prunes is just to eat a couple at a time right out of the box. And then spend the next couple of hours in a private place with good cross ventilation.

Let’s have a linkfest today, shall we? I’m tired and I’d like to get some Christmas shopping done this afternoon. So…

Whoever came up with this gimmick — destress the law students at exam time with an order of puppies to go — certainly earned their paycheck. How do I get one? I’m under stress, too. Maybe with a side of kittens.

Whenever Newt Gingrich considers the world outside the Tiffany’s showroom, he steps in it. I can’t believe this guy was ever a teacher. I’d love to see what Rate My Profs would do to his doughy ass.

Guns N Roses — what’s left of them — played the Palace last night. One of my Facebook friends just posted that her husband left at 11 p.m., and they still hadn’t taken the stage yet. Axl must have had some doughnuts to clean off the backstage buffet yet. Anyway, sounds like no one missed much; an “inescapably generic experience,” the DetNews critic said (without mentioning the delay, oddly). Show still went three hours, with Axl leaving the stage during the many extended guitar solos. Doughnuts…mmmmm….

A short video that’s basically an audio clip, filed under Strange Bedfellows.

OK, I must flee. A good weekend to all.

Roe vs. Wade became the law of the land my sophomore year in high school, and for a few years before that, abortion was legal in New York. In my young adulthood, I knew lots of women who got abortions, a few who elected to become single mothers, but none who bore children and gave them up for adoption. It’s possible there were some who spent extended vacations with Aunt Jane in Kansas and came home with stretch marks, but if so, they never talked about it.

For women of my generation, giving up a baby for adoption was something that mainly happened in weepy movies of the week or, later, in nightmare scenarios like the Baby M surrogacy case or — dare we mention it? — the Baby Richard case in Chicago. (A moment of silence, please. OK, that’s enough.)

Around the same time the adoptees’ rights movement began to gather steam. I recall reading many, many an internet posting by people who’d been adopted under the old systems of Secrecy Unto Death, advocating and sometimes suing for access to their files, demanding information about their birth parents. And I read an equal number of personal stories by all involved, most of which worked out but a few that didn’t. There was one about a woman who’d conceived as a result of rape, and opened her door one day to find a young man there, informing her he was her son. The happy endings were bolstered by a changing cultural environment that had stripped the shame from unwed pregnancies, and the coverage was almost always on the mother-and-child reunion, the adoptive parents relegated to paragraph five, sometimes with an indirect quote: “Samantha said her adoptive parents have been ‘totally supportive’ through the process.”

All of which I mention only because I’d forgotten how rife with drama the whole process was — is — until I read this fascinating story about the secret love child of Loretta Young and Clark Gable. Judy Lewis died last week at 76. I’d never heard of her, and the story of how she came to be — borne in secrecy, shuttled around to foster homes and institutions until she was a year and a half old, at which point Young “adopted” her publicly. She was kept in the dark, despite volumes of Hollywood gossip, until she was 31, when she confronted her mother and heard the truth.

The photo is arresting; Lewis is the spitting image of Gable, and even had his protruding ears — until they were surgically altered at age 7, probably to tamp down the snickering about their resemblance to you-know-who’s.

I’m not much for genetics, even as accumulating science tells me I’m wrong. It treats people like show dogs, and, medical issues aside, implicitly disparages the extraordinary bonds forged between non-genetically related people. But I have come to understand people’s deep need to know who they are and where they came from. And I feel for Lewis, who was apparently the last person in Hollywood to know who her real parents were.

So, it’s an office-hours day, and time for bloggage:

The Publishers Weekly blog has named the latest winner of Worst Book Ever — “Microwave for One,” a 144-page cookbook by Sonia Allison. Whatever harm has been done by the book is entirely redeemed by that burgeoning new art form, Amazon customer reviews:

It used to be that I got home from work and the only thing I’d want to put in my mouth was the cold barrel of my grandfather’s shotgun. Then I discovered Sonia Allison’s Chicken Tetrazzini, and now there are two things.

I don’t watch much local TV news, so those of you who do have to school me on this. Is this sort of thing, a report by former Detroit News reporter Charlie LeDuff, the way it’s done nowadays?

This is the second piece I’ve seen by LeDuff, and he actively cultivates this NewzKlown act. The hip waders, the smirks and asides, all of it. Is this TV news now? If so, I’m glad I don’t watch.

My, but time is fleeting. Must run. Thursday already! You lose a day to electricity failure, and the week gets shorter.

Just to show that the day could still deteriorate, yesterday’s driving rain continued all damn day, although the wind picked up late morning, and sometime around noon, I got the screechy chirp from the CO detector that announces: Power failure.

And that went on all day.

Tuesday is Kate’s heavy-homework day, so the remainder of it was spent as a Flying Dutchman of wi-fi, cruising from the library (slow) to the coffee shop (slower), all in the slashing rain, until 10 p.m., at which point I threw in the towel, thanked my colleagues for covering for me (via instant message, the way we all communicate) and went home. At least I’d get a good night’s rest. Alan had a fire going and even though the house was 60 degrees by then, all was right with the world. I went to sleep at 11:30, unimaginable luxury for a weeknight.

The power came back on at 12:15 a.m., with the CO alarm shrieking. It was just the device resetting itself, but try going back to sleep after that.

At some point, the rain changed to snow, and we got our first dusting of the season. It’s all very picturesque. Just looking at it makes me want to hibernate. Pass the mashed potatoes.

No, not this year! I just took delivery on a pair of water-resistant workout pants, and I intend to layer them up with some high-tech longjohns and take on winter. Embrace it, even. Five months is too damn long to spend on the couch eating root vegetables in elastic waistbands.

And with that, Wednesday commences. Snow on the ground, massive puddles everywhere, the solstice still three weeks away. I hope it doesn’t kill us.

I have a couple questions for you deer-hunters out there: Do you age your meat at all? I ask because it’s the season, and I’m starting to see references to venison meals here and there, and all of them sound — how to put this? — repulsive. Here’s one from my Twitter feed today:

Paleo-bachelor Breakfast: ground venison and mustard.

May I just say? Ew. That’s from the guy I interviewed last year, the “cave man” who was featured first in the New York Times and later on the Colbert Report, which led to a book contract and a big advance and, as far as I can tell, an awful lot of tweeting and not much book-writin’. He amuses me as I watch from afar, because like so many people who’ve discovered a Thing, he spends a lot of time retrofitting everything he likes into his new lifestyle, and declaring it Good. When I interviewed him, I teased him because he called himself a hunter-gatherer, but had never been hunting (he had taken a class about it, though) and did all of his gathering at farmer’s markets and various high-end delis in Manhattan. How can you grow up in Michigan and know nothing about deer-hunting? I asked. Quite easily, evidently.

Well, he must have finally gotten serious about it, because he went out during gun season and bagged what looked from the photos to have been a yearling at best, but no worries — we have many more deer than we need here, and that’s one less for me to hit with the car next spring. And now I’m hearing about every meal via social media, and it’s reminding me why I can count the decent venison meals I’ve eaten in my life on one or two fingers. To be good eatin’, an animal has to be either fat or the meat well-aged, in my experience. Aging requires a constant low-but-not-too-cold temperature, and while most garages would probably suffice, the time it would take to properly age a deer carcass might make the “constant” part tricky. A duck hunter I know hangs the birds in his breezeway/mud room, but ducks are pretty small and ripen quickly.

So, just wondering. Basset?

I should get a little work done before I hit the shower. For you among my constituency who ever toiled at newspapers in the region known as Michiana, you lost one of your best readers last week. Ron Reason writes about his mother:

As early as I can recall, Carolyn had the Michigan City News Dispatch and/or the La Porte Herald-Argus (or weekly Town-Crier) in her lap, was awaiting their arrival or remarking on their contents. It was just a household habit – to get the paper, devour it, fight over the sections, talk about it. Even if it became a lament at times of “there’s nothing in this damn thing,” my parents have regularly received two or more regional papers for decades. It wasn’t unusual to see one or two other papers bought from the newsstand, lying on the family room floor or waiting to go into recycle, when I’d return home to visit. The South Bend Tribune was always added to the mix on Sundays.

…Her devotion to typo-hunting, I think, made us kids try harder on spelling tests or when taking our turn at a spelling bee. Her laughter at the latest Erma Bombeck column (I know I’m taking some readers way back here, anyone else who doesn’t know Erma, just Google her) made us appreciate the wacky side of life, and made me try my hand at column writing. I tested the waters in my high school paper, then in the teen pages of the Westville Indicator and Herald-Argus, and later at the Indiana Daily Student, my college paper at IU-Bloomington. I got hooked.

It’s a wonderful remembrance, but I have to say that if my daughter were to follow her parents into newspaper journalism? (Shudder.) My BFF held a variety of positions at the Michigan City News-Dispatch. I trust Mrs. Reason wasn’t the lady who called one day to chide her for printing all those front-page photos of black children playing at the beach in summer, “because people will see that, and think we’re as bad as Gary.”

I’m glad the cool weather is here, and Coozledad has more time to update his blog. He got a new solar-powered farm vehicle. Looks like it’d be great for deer-hunting.

Dexter mentioned the death of Patrice O’Neal yesterday. He was a funny guy.

Have a good Wednesday. Let’s hope everything stays turned on, dry and out of the ditch today.