What's Wrong with This Picture?

Yes, We Can? No, He Shouldn't

Kicks created by Van Taylor Monroe

I'm scared that Iran will ratchet up the nuclear pressure, causing the US to do more than posture. I'm disturbed because we keep pumping more resources into Afghanistan, but the Taliban seem to be gaining more of a foothold there.

I'm sad that Annie Le's family had to bury the slain Yale graduate student on Sunday. I'm feeling a perplexing kind of despondency in the wake of news that someone murdered Bill Sparkman-a single father, cancer survivor & part-time census worker-in Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest. The word "Fed" was scrawled on his chest.

I'm flumoxed by health care reform. I know that we should all have coverage, but don't have the first clue about what's best for me, what's best for the country. And I'm alarmed that my congressman might not have the first clue, either.

I'm irritated that the economy has not yet pulled itself out of its greed-induced tailspin. But I'm hopeful that the Dow has turned the corner & Mr. Fairway will be working full-time again soon.

I'm unhappy that Our Humble High School is overenrolled & that teachers, like me, are underpaid. I worry when empty Versace suits like Sarah Palin & porcine prognosticators like Rush Limbaugh spread lies & hate to folks who should know better.

What with Gitmo, "death panels," Iraq, the out-of-control deficit, global warming and everything else that's going on with this spinning orb we know as Mother Earth, I'm also confused. Why does BO, the Leader of the Free World as we know it, need to travel to Copenhagen with Oprah this week to try to snag the 2016 Olympics for his hometown?

Beats me. After all, y'all know that Chicago is definitely not my kind of town.

Deal Me In: Texas Hold 'Em Jambalaya

Mr. Fairway's not much for rustling up grub. But he knows a delectable dish when he dines upon one.

Another thing Mr. F. is known for is his quasi-regular, when-the-little-woman-is-out-of-town-occasional-poker game. And years ago, when the kids & I were very young, he even had a regular game that regularly featured gustatory delights.

Known as the Poker Guys, the Hubz met them thru a friend of a friend of a friend. They were carpenters in suburban DC. Maryland, I believe. And Mr. F. often traveled to College Park, hoping for a hot hand & a chance to quell the rumbly in his tumbly (with apologies to AA Milne).

Of several dishes he sampled over the years, the F-Man was particularly enamored of a dish made famous in Louisiana & my native Tejas. Now, I've made gumbo before. But this is jambalaya. Similar ingredients, but a subtle difference that really makes a difference, I believe.

We moved to the 'burbs ourselves, after 12 years in DC. Mr. Fairway left the regular poker game behind, but we kept the jambalaya recipe. We've tinkered with it over the years, & consider it the best we've ever had, north of the bayous of Baton Rouge & Beaumont, anyway.

One Editor's Note: I pick the shrimp out for Ella Numera Dos. Only a Mother's Love, huh?

Mrs. Scribe's Texas Hold 'Em Jambalaya

Ingredients:
1/4 cup cooking oil
1/2 lb. smoked sausage, sliced (we like andouille)
1/2 lb. ham, cubed
1 large onion, chopped
1 large green bell pepper, chopped
5 stalks of celery, chopped
1 bunch of scallions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 16-oz. can tomatoes; do not drain!
1.5 cups of water
1 Tsp. thyme
1/2 Tsp. cayenne pepper
1/4 Tsp. black pepper
1 Tsp. salt
1.5 cups rice
1.5 Tbs. Worcestershire Sauce
2 lbs. peeled shrimp

Directions:
Sauté sausage and ham until lightly browned.
Add onions, pepper, celery, green onions and garlic. Sauté until tender.
Add tomatoes, with juice, thyme, papper and salt; cook 5 minutes.
Stir in rice.
Add water and Worcestershire Sauce.
Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer, add shrimp, and cook uncovered for about 30 minutes, until rice and shrimp are done. Serve it up with a hunk of cornbread & a brewski. Nothin' finer, I promise!

A Veritable Mexican Standoff

Presenting another Ella Numera Dos classic! Patch (to the left, to the left) & Pepper only get along sporadically. Hence, the closed sliding glass door.

Y'all know what to do, correctamundo? Take a gander at this Superior Snap. Then conjur a caption for said snap, & tippy-type it reall quick-like in the comments section of this post.

You'll receive nothing tangible, this time around, for all your blood, sweat & tears. Just Mrs. Scribe's undying love & devotion. And what could be sweeter than that?

Bling-Bling! Hello?

My bling always comes in twos.

Celebrating the bestowing of bling today for 6-Word Saturday. First off, I'd like to thank Mom of Three for the pretty festooning my space above. The proprietress of When Did I Become My Mom? has just undergone a bit of a cyber-makeover, so you should drop in to see her, here?

The Loyal Award is for loyal blog followers. I'd like to bestow this bling on the following followers (get it?):

Tammy at Keep in Touch with Mommakin

Yaya at Yaya Stuff

Vodka Logic

Blue Violet at A Nut in a Nutshell

Next, I've been handed a cool-as-beans accolade from that Grey Goose Girl, Vodka Logic. I'm told I'm a honest & hardworking, so I'm accepting the Honest Scrap Award, & passing it right along to:

Z's Mom from Zander & Me

Mannequin from Fractured Toy

Carma from Carma Sez

Em at Life, Liberty and the Pursuit

Hope y'all enjoy your "pretties." I would also like to thank Cate, at ShowMyFace, for hosting 6-Word Saturday each week. I'm blinging you with both of these, my bloggy bud!

Avidya Got Ya Down? Try Beach Yoga

Avidya: According to The Yoga Glossary, this term means "ignorance." As in, Principal Man disturbed the peace of my ashram with several inane decisions. Or, in my review of hundreds of student assignments this past week, I've come to feel that avidya kinda vibe. And ~ but of course ~ Back-to-School Nite, being the silly & exhausting ritual that it is, has left me still somewhat jet-lagged.

Aside from the asinine, my shanti (peace) has also been a tad askew since Mr. Fairway entered the hospital yesterday for knee replacement surgery.

But (Praise the Lord), miracles of miracles, Principal Man has kept his mouth shut of late (the last couple of days); my student journalistas had a sucessful day at a state-sponsored workshop (more on taking teens on field trips later), & Mr. Fairway is on the mend, scheduled to return home mañana. All is right with the world ~ or close enough, which is good enough for moi.

A brief comment on this Superior Snap. Shot by Ella Numera Dos at Newport Beach in SoCali. The two chicas are Hayley & Big Sis Ella Numera Una.

We've got a peaceful, easy feeling today. Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta & SkyWatch Friday deemed it should be so.

Amazing Grace

Writer's Workshop Prompt #1: If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?

The old man lived with his disabled daughter about a mile from Casita Scribe. He made his home in the red brick Colonial on the corner, & attended all the neighborhood gatherings. His wife had died about 18 months before.

He was a neighborhood fixture for more than 20 years. Folks who lived on his street, though, said he'd been a little "lost" since losing his wife.

I got to know my neighbor Bill only after he'd passed away himself & became another item in the local paper's police report.

Apparently Bill had been feuding with the state over details involving his daughter's care. He missed his wife, Julia. Frustration piled upon frustration, as they do in everyday life; after 79 years, I'm sure he'd seen his share.

A Verizon employee visited Bill's house in June. I don't know if the call was phone- or television-related. The newspaper didn't say. Bill, though, was upset with the Verizon man for some reason, & followed him outside to his van.

As the technician began to drive away, Bill reached into the van and grabbed the steering wheel for some reason. While details of what happened next are fuzzy, the end result was tragic. Bill fell in the driveway & died.

The paper never reported Bill's cause of death. The neighborhood mourned this senseless loss. A crew was hired over the summer to go through the house, clean it out & hold an estate sale.

I stopped by Bill's house last weekend, on the last day of the sale. No, I'm not a morbid voyeur, but I felt that even though I didn't know the man, I owed him some measure of respect. Most of the rooms were empty. A few knicknacks, a few sticks of furniture, kitchen dishes & utensils were all that remained of the life that Bill & Julia had built over 20+ years in my neighborhood.

Two hand-crocheted Christmas stockings hung in front of one of the living room windows. One, done in red & green yarn, said "Jim." The other, crocheted in the same style with the colors in an opposing pattern, said "Grace." I assumed those stockings once belonged to Bill's kids.

Out on the back porch, where pots & pans, an unfinished rocker & glassware stood watch on the wooden floor overlooking mature azalea bushes, a small plant still thrived, in dirt long-cracked by lack of water & care.

The plant, in a small clay pot, looked like it hadn't been watered in about 3 months. Probably had sat out on that screened-in porch since June, when Bill died.

I hadn't planned to make a purchase. But I went back in the house & asked the woman in charge of the estate sale how much she wanted for the little green plant. I plunked down 3 dollars & 15 cents. She's mine, now.

I don't know this for God's own truth, but I'm guessing Bill took care of the little plant in memory of his wife. From the looks of the house & the yard, I'm guessing that Bill & Julia had mighty big green thumbs.

I'm taking care of her now. I named the little plant "Gracey," after the name crocheted on the stocking hanging in Bill's window. I repotted her, watered her & now she's on my screened-in porch.

But I need your help, please. I have no idea what kind of plant Gracey is, or how to really care for her. Please, someone, take a look at these snaps & give me a good guess. Her leaves are kind of thick and waxy, like a Jade plant, but serrated around the edges, not round.

I Gracey to thrive, in memory of Bill. Even though I never met the poor old guy, I still feel the loss of a someone's friend, someone's Dad; my neighbor.

If I could travel anywhere, I'd like to travel back in time. Back to a time when Bill & the family ~ Julia, Jim & Grace ~ lived down the street from me. I'd like to meet them. I'd like to know their secrets for growing such stunning azaleas out in the yard.

Yes, a life ended in an odd, sad way just a few months ago. But I'm hoping that I can keep Gracey going for a good long while.

Back-To-School Nite...Let Sleeping Bears Lie

May You Stay Forever Young

The old gal turned 14 over the summer. She's lost a lot of teeth & shed a few pounds. She went from an all-kibble diet to soft food twice a day; the trouble is the young whippersnapper ~ who's 7 years her junior ~ keeps stealing the gourmet vittles. We try hard, though, to pamper Patch, our nonagenarian. Check it out...14 x 7=98, in kitty years, that is.

Patch is also our shy, retiring furball. While Pepper is out & about, snaring flies out of mid-air & gobbling them down, while salivating for the songbirds out in the dogwood tree, Patch prefers to stay put. She's never been a mouser, even when said mousies are in the housie. As a youngster, she stared vaguely at the occasional field mouse who breached our doorway. Pepper took up the slack for her.

She's still a snuggle-bunny, though. Last nite, in fact, she chased the youngin' off the bed & settled down for a long winter's nap...right between the crook in my elbow & my left armpit. Over the years, in fact, she's garnered an odd nickname: "Armpit Kitty."

And her purr sounds yards away, signaling her presence with the happy, droning hum of a motorboat idling on high. Hence the other nickname: "Motorboat."

Patch is all about that peaceful, easy feeling. She refuses to chase most critters &, for the most part, doesn't engage when her younger counterpart throws down the gauntlet with a hiss, a swat or a low rumble in the throat.

And I'm happy to report that in her dotage, Patch got game. We've had a sudden invasion of cute little brown & white bunnies in our backyard. Whenever one of them hops on over near the deck, Patch puffs out her tail & hollers to be let out. Took a few of these kitty hissy fits for me to figure out what was what.

Patch suddenly wants to chase the bunnies. I'm thinking it's because she wants to be "friends," & not the usual feline bloodlust. Not that she'd ever catch them...they scurry away in a blur of fur, & slither between the fence slats before she can get up the gumption to go get 'em.

Glad you're showing some interest, little Patch. And may you stay forever young.

Lawyer-to-Be Gets Some Grilling Done

Photo courtesy of Reader'sDigest.com

Ella Numera Una called her Mamasita the other day. Wanted to rustle up a big, red flank steak. Before the chica headed off to law school, I did put together a recipe box full of family faves. Ella just wanted to check in to make sure she was on the right BBQ track.

"So, I'm gonna grill a steak tonite."

"Great. What kind?"

"Flank, natch."

"How big?"

"Oh, a pound-and-a-quarter, I guess. I've only really got one question."

"Shoot!"

"Can I leave the steak in the marinade for more than an hour? 'Cause I wanna take a nap."

Ah, the stresses of higher education! That's the beauty of marinating steak, in my humble experience. The longer you marinate the flank steak, the tastier it is.

"Oh, and one more thing, Moms."

"Yes?"

"Is it OK if I do it under the broiler instead of on the grill? It's getting dark outside and it looks like rain."

I assured Ella that grill or broiler, her Flank Steak À la Scribe would be delightful.

Here it is, Scribe Fans. Get your grill fired up. And get fired up for some steak tonite, OK?

Flank Steak À la Scribe (with help from Weber & Reader's Digest)

(Full disclosure here: The basic marinade recipe comes from the Weber Grill Owner's Guide, circa 1997 & earlier. Mrs. Scribe has owned a charcoal Weber for 20+ years ~ when one rusts out, she asks for another for Xmas or her birthday ~ & uses it to turn out all kinds of delicacies, from Johnsonville Brats to smoked turkeys. We've "goosed" the marinade recipe over the years, to really make it our own. But Weber deserves the preponderance of the credit.)

The Marinade (enough for one 1.5-lb. flank steak)

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup soy sauce

1/4 cup balsamic vinegar

3 tbs. lemon joice

2 tbs. Worcestershire sauce

2 tbs. spicy brown mustard

1 tbs. garlic powder

lots of salt & pepper

The Process

Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a bowl that has a lid, and place the flank steak in the marinade, turning to make sure it's all coated. Put that sucker in the fridge. You may marinate your flank steak anywhere from 1 hour to overnight. That's the beauty of it. No time constraints on marinating! When you're ready to cook, fire up either the grill or the broiler. Remove the steak from the bowl and dispose of the marinade. Place the steak either over (grill) or under (broiler) direct heat for 5-6 minutes on each side. Remember that a cut like flank steak will taste best if it's a little on the rare side, but also remember that flank steaks are usually thicker in the middle than on the ends, so when you're done, you'll probably have different degrees of flank steak rarity, ranging from medium (the ends of the steak) to rare (in the middle). When the steak is done, slice it thin, diagonally against the grain, and serve with a big salad and the Reader's Digest Horseradish Sauce.

Reader's Digest Horseradish Sauce

1/4 cup fat-free mayonnaise

1/4 cup reduced-fat sour cream

1 tbs. Dijon mustard

2 green onions, finely chopped

2 tsp. prepared horseradish

Combine these ingredients in a small bowl. Cover and refrigerate. Mmmmmmmm, that's some good eatin'! And BTW: Ella Numera Una & Roomie had themselves a feast, plus leftovers for sandwiches. I really think they're eating a lot better than I ever did as a college kid!

Trailer Trash? We Come in Peace...

Snapped by Ella Numera Dos at a field hockey tournament near Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. I think this is a trailer, parked in a former potato field. We'd thought for a moment that we were reliving a scene from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Y'all remember that movie, don't ya? If not, put it in your Netflix queue!

Y'all know what to do, correctamundo? Take a gander at this Superior Snap. Then, conjur a caption for said snap, & tippy-type your caption real quick-like in the comments section of this post.

You won't win anything tangible this week for all your toil & tribulations. Just Mrs. Scribe's unending love & affection. Oh, & also the knowledge, deep down in your soul, that you made an old lady laugh. And what could be better than that?

Making the Grade

Have to grade...all weekend long.

It's been 3 weeks, more or less, since the Back-to-School Preseason; I've spent 2 weeks, then, back at that teeming edifice known as Our Humble High School. Classes, besides being packed, are full of bright-eyed cherubs, eager to learn. Or not. Teaching 62 students' worth of AP English, plus 3 sections of journalistas can be wearing on a Scribe, is all I'm saying. The grading, you see, sometimes gets me down.

If y'all want to brighten my outlook a tad, you could do me a favor. Please Vote for MOO as Best Photography Blog in the Blogger's Choice Awards. And while you're over there, please record your Vote for Mrs. Scribe in the Best Blog About Stuff category.

6-Word Saturday, of course, is brought to you each week by Cate at Show My Face. Have a great one!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Celebrities continue to die in "threes," & Your Humble Scribe feels the need to pay proper tribute to the recently departed. How sad am I that Patrick Swayze will no longer be dancing dirty?

Or that Henry Gibson will no longer be around to share his lovely, quirky poetry?

But the most profound loss I feel this week is over the death of Mary Travers, she of Peter, Paul & Mary fame. With the voice of an angel & a heart larger than the number of causes she supported, the lady made a huge contribution not only to our collective National Pop Culture Psyche, but to the Scribe Family's lore as well.

As a child of the '70s, I did a little "experimenting." No, not with magic mushrooms or funny-tasting brownies. With music. Specifically, acoustic guitar. I've still got the sheet music to prove it. Baby James Taylor. Judy Collins. Bob Dylan. John Denver. Joni Mitchell. Peter, Paul & Mary. And yes, I still own a 6-string.

"Blowin' in the Wind." Yup, I know that one. "Where Have All the Flowers Gone." Uh-huh. We used to sing folk songs before the kids went to bed. My Peeps & I even wrote a song one summer about the odd little family staying near us at the beach. We named it "Little Green Men."

Our family favorite, however, has always been Denver's "Leaving on a Jet Plane," as sung by P,P & M. The Girls & I sing it, recite it, pen e-mails to one another incorporating the lyrics & have a habitual call-and-response involving this particular tuneage.

I'll throw out a line from the song, not necessarily in chronological order.

The next person has to answer with the next line from the song. Sometimes I'll just speak two or three words from the song. No tune at all. Then one of the gals will call out the next three words.

We can go back and forth for minutes. Sometimes hours. Yes, we're weird.

So goodbye, Mary. We will always remember you, & your work, quite fondly. Oh, babe, I hate that you had to go.

Please stop by Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta. TGIF!

Repeat Offender

Mrs. Scribe is still slogging thru the flotsam & jetsam of the second week of school. I've graded 120 papers in the last week, with miles to go before I sleep, y'all! I selected this prompt from Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop: The Message You'd Like to Craft. Think there are quite a few messages in this piece, which first appeared as a guest post at Mr. Teacher's Place.

The prose struck me. Fluid. Full of imagery. An intro paragraph that fairly lifted off the page and hung there.The Boy definitely “gets it,” I said to myself. He captured the thesis—the gist of his analysis—within the first two sentences, and laid it out there for all of us to see. None of this “The book I read is about…” nor “The thesis of my research paper is…”

Manna from Heaven. Or, prose proffered by a pupil, if you prefer. Literate, readable; the yin and yang of the perfect research paper.

Paragraphs two and three stood at attention. Then they marched off the page and into my psyche, begging my green (green, you know, is the new “red” for high school English teachers these days), pen to scritchy-scratch across the sheet. But I kept my powder dry. Only the merest “Good Job!” emitted from the felt point of my green Flair pen. (No red marks mar my students' work, since the day one of them complained, "Mrs. Scribe, my paper is bleeding!")

I knew that calamity surely waited around the bend in Paragraph 4. Or perhaps 5. But the melody of The Boy’s prose continued to sing along with the harmonic balance of his analysis. “Bravo!” I scrawled.

But then came Paragraph 6. Hmmmmmmmm….I know! I’ve read this before! Plagiarist! I knew it was too good to be true! I scurried to my laptop to search for the roots of The Boy’s criminal action.

But nothing clicked. Nothing remotely resembling the research paper before me. What, then, was that “familiar feeling” that kept lurking right behind my eyes, willing my felt-tip to scribble away?

I flipped the pages back to Page One. Searching for an answer. Which lay, of course, in the first paragraph of this alleged prodigy’s “masterpiece.”

Yes, The Boy wrote a near-perfect first paragraph. Anchored with a tenacious, bold thesis. His subsequent four paragraphs echoed the thoughts that he meant to argue, and persuaded his reader—this reader, me—that his points were well worth considering. Until…Paragraph 6? The same as Paragraph 1. And Paragraph 7? The same as Paragraph 2. And so on and so forth. Word for word.

The Boy had not suddenly learned how to write. Rather, he had absorbed that age-old lesson that we teachers of writing don’t like to admit. Not all of us read every word we assign.

The young man specialized as a “Copy & Paste” crook. And a gambler, I’d wager. He was betting that 5 solid, golden paragraphs would be a good investment. And then he copied & pasted until he had the required 5 pages. Wrote a deceptively wicked conclusion and called it a day.

You might say The Boy was a Repeat Offender.

X Marks the Spot...Vote for MOO!

Taking on The Pioneer Woman

Image provided by Slippery Brick.

The other day, even though I've just started the long slog toward June that's known as a high school English teacher's fate, I started reading a new book. For pleasure. Yes, Your Humble Scribe still needs something to get the grey matter juiced. Reading does that for me.

Can't say my latest conquest is the deepest piece of lit I've ever perused, but Julie & Julia has some pretty prescient things to say. Long about page 96 of the paperback edition, author and blogger Julie Powell makes the following oh-so-true statement:

"Today, when we blog about our weight-loss problems and our knitting and our opinion of the president's IQ level," Powell writes, "we do it on the blithe assumption that someone gives a s**t (OK, she wrote the real cuss word. I can't bring myself to put it down in black-and-white, although this particular expletive definitely is part of my spoken vocabulary) ~ even though there's a guy stuck in Baghdad who blogs, and a Washington DC staff assistant...who blogs, and our own jottings must all be dreadfully dull by comparison."

She has more to say, Dear Readers. Which might be why her book was just made into a Major Motion Picture: "Nowadays anyone with a crap laptop and Internet access can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be. But the surprise is that for every person who's got something to say, it seems there are at least a few people who are interested. Some of them aren't even related."

Well said, Ms. Powell! Which brings me to Today's Topic: Taking on The Pioneer Woman.

No, I have not a whit of enmity toward Ree, she of a cyber-space so blogtastic that I've thought for quite some time that The PW's blog must be cranked out by a corporation. ExxonMobil or ConAgra or Halliburton, trying to weasel their way into the subterranean recesses of the oh, say, hundreds, nay, sometimes thousands of The PW's readers.

The blog is too perfect. Ree is too perfect. Who has time to cook, and write and take purty pictures and run a ranch and wrangle the occasional stray heifer? And still put out a production the likes of which I've never seen anywhere else in the blogosphere? Not I, that's for sure!

And no, I'm not taking on The Pioneer Woman. I realize that she's too big and my space just a bit tiny by comparison. But my youngest, Ella Numera Dos, is.

Nominations and voting for the 2009 Blogger's Choice Awards are now open. And both The Pioneer Woman and MOO, Ella's modest little cyber photo crib, have been nominated in the Best Photography Blog category.

OK, hold your horses! Don't get too riled up. Ree is leading in her category, with 222 votes cast for her so far. At last count, MOO had 6 votes.

So here's what I'm proposing. On a good day, my little ol' blog gets about 20 visitors. If each one of those friends were to vote for MOO, and then told 5 friends to vote for MOO, and then they told 5 more friends to vote for MOO, we might have a movement. My chica could win by a landslide!

Well, that's a pretty pie-in-the-sky attitude if you ask me. But think about it. I'm agitating here, in the best tradition of Lincoln Steffens, Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair. They brought a big city machine, Standard Oil and the meatpacking industry to their collective knees. It's about time the blogosphere saw a little muckraking of its own.

I'm proposing a friendly competition, is all. The Pioneer Woman vs. MOO. Straight up. Goliath vs. David, only with keyboards and digital cameras. In my book, the Little Guy wins every time. Vote for MOO...pretty please?

Ella Numera Dos Collaborates with Giada

Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Ella Numera Dos. At the impressionable age of 16, she loved all things beautiful: clothes, shoes, art, food.

Above all, she listened to the rumblings in her tummy. But she also believed in presentation, a trait inherited from her Baba.

One weekend, the young woman's Mamasita, Mrs. Scribe, had to scurry out of town. The child was left, more-or-less, to her own devices, since her Dad, Mr. Fairway, was in charge. The young woman skipped swim practice, slept in, and scheduled a manicure.

While getting her nails done later that Saturday afternoon, Ella Numera Dos met foodie Giada De Laurentis, she of Food Network Fame. Giada was whipping up an attractive dish for her program, Everyday Italian. Ella stared at the plasma hanging on the wall behind the manicurist. Her tummy rumbled. The lightbulb went off upstairs, where Ella does her most serious thinking when matters of the tummy are involved.

After all, her Mamasita was out of town. Dad doesn't cook ~ much. Wouldn't it be fantabulous to surprise the 'Rents on Sunday evening, when the family was scrambling for something to eat?

The next afternoon, Mrs. Scribe walked into her kitchen to the most delectable of smells. Pasta boiling on the stove; garlic sautéeing in an adjacent pan; Ella Numera Dos grating Asiago cheese, then chopping spinach & halving cherry tomatoes.

We've enjoyed this recipe multiple times since Ella introduced it to us 3 years ago. The recipe for this gorgeous, delicious dish appears below. One note: The Scribe Family goes a little heavier on the cheese than Giada. It's all a matter of taste, I suppose.

Fusilli with Spinach & Asiago Cheese

Brought to you by Giada De Laurentis & Ella Numera Dos

Ingredients
1 pound fusilli pasta
1/4 cup olive oil
1 garlic clove, minced
1 (9-ounce) bag fresh spinach, roughly chopped
8 ounces (1/2 pint) cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup (about 3 1/2-ounces) grated Asiago
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Add the pasta and cook until tender but still firm to the bite, stirring occasionally, about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain pasta reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid.
Meanwhile, warm olive oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the spinach and tomatoes and cook until the spinach wilts, about 2 more minutes. Add the cooked pasta and toss. Add the cheeses, salt, pepper, and the pasta cooking liquid and stir to combine.
Transfer the pasta to a serving plate and serve. Preparation time: 20 minutes. Serves 4 Scribes nicely, with a tad left over for lunch the next day!

Silly Sunday Sweepstakes: Cat Nap?

Meet Patch the Cat. She's the property of Ella Numera Dos, the chica with the fab photoblog called MOO. Drop by to see the budding photojournalist when you get a chance.

OK, back to Patch. She's elderly. She's lost several of her teeth, & she sleeps all the blessed day long. Except when she's outside, cattin' about. She likes to do that, too.

Many of you know I went back to school last week. For the first time in a long time, I felt elderly. Like I should be lying in the sun, a la Patch

So, let's get to the contest portion of our program, shall we? You veterans know just what to do, I reckon. Take a gander at this Superior Snap. Then conjur a caption for said snap. Tippy-type it real quick-like in the comments section of this post.

That's all there is to it, Scribe Fans! Of course, you'll win nothing tangible for all your hard work. Just Mrs. Scribe's enduring love & affection. And the knowledge that you tickled an old woman's funny bone today. And what could be better than that? And while you're at it, go visit Camera Critters, too. You'll find something cute to cuddle with, I'm sure!

John McCain Redefines the Power Nap

Joe Wilson sure wasn't the first!

Thought I'd inject a little politics into 6-Word Saturday. Many of y'all have heard, I suppose, about South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, & how he heckled the President during the health care speech this week.

BO was talking about health care & illegal immigrants, and the good congressman stood up & shouted, "You lie!"

Just wanted to say that The Honorable Mr. Wilson is not the first of our national legislators to disrespect the President during an address to a joint session of Congress. I'm a DC-ite, & I know from whence I speak.

The last to play the rude card in the House Chamber, however inadvertently, during a Presidential speech was our own Johnny Mac, who fell asleep during George the Second's last State of the Union Address in 2007.

OK, he's old. I get that. I often take a power nap myself. But consider the time & the place. Johnny's sweet running mate has had a few "gotcha" moments herself of late, too, but don't get me started on Sarah P. "pardoning" the turkey.

This, really, is why we adore our elected officials, is it not? Next thing you know, The Prez will be ducking shoes thrown by irate Iraqis, correctamundo?

9/11...I Will Remember

Our Humble High School is one of the closest schools in our district to the Pentagon. Consequently, many of our students are from military families. At one point a few years ago, more than 50 percent of our school's parents worked at the 5-sided behemoth that controls our country's military-industrial complex.

Last year to commemorate this date I wrote about that Tuesday, and what went on in my classroom. Today, in honor of the victims in NYC, DC and PA, I'd like to share a couple of Superior Snaps with you.

These were shot by one of my journalistas at the 9/11 Memorial Run, which was held in Arlington near the Pentagon a couple of weekends ago. The flag is flying upside down in the universal responders' signal of an emergency...in this case, to honor the 189 Pentagon victims, one of whom was a parent of two students who attended Our Humble High School. He was on Flight 77, which crashed into the north side of the building.

As the years advance, I'm regularly taken aback by the fact that my students just weren't that old on September 11, 2001. Our current crop of seniors was in 4th grade; our freshmen were just in 1st grade. It's so difficult for me to grasp that, for many of them, 9/11 is just another day.

I will always remember. I will never forget.

He Feeds More Than My Soul

Editor's Note: Since this is the first week of school & all, Mrs. Scribe feels the need to alleviate the stress in her life & do a little recycling. The following is a post that originally appeared here. The Writer's Workshop prompt is What Does Marriage Mean to You? Photo courtesy of The Good Guy.

We met in college. We shared the same major. But that was where the similarities ended.

Mr. Fairway admired Dirty Harry. I had a passion for Barbra Streisand. I swam laps. He thought Speedos belonged only on effeminate young men on the beach at St.-Tropez.

The man was a golfer, for goodness sake. He wore Polos even off the golf course. The only folks I’d ever seen in Polos—especially those in shades of chartreuse and tangerine—were effeminate young men in Greenwich Village, during a college summer in NYC.

My best bud Debbie said we were “meant for each other.” That she could tell we were “soulmates.” But there the clichés ended. Because it just wasn’t meant to be.

But the more I saw of him, the more we became comfortable in each other's ways. The Dirty Harry fan took me to more than one chick flick. And I even once rose before the sun did and, discarding my usual uniform of jeans and a T, donned khaki and a Polo to attend a PGA Golf Tournament.

We were there 12 hours, and I have to say that I enjoyed myself—because he was there.

He’s Norwegian, from the Upper Midwest. I’m a Southern Gal. He’s parsimonious in his prose, sometimes going hours without a single word to anyone. I can talk a blue streak, with anybody, anytime.

Debbie was right, of course. As the ’80s morphed into the ’90s, and the new century dawned, we watched the seasons of married life fly by. Two kids and years beyond college, we’re still together.

And no, this isn’t a post commemorating our anniversary. That comes up in the Spring. Today, I’m honoring a note he left on the kitchen table. A memo, of sorts, just a quick FYI, scribbled in a husband’s scrawl, which greeted me when I returned from doing laps yesterday morning.

“Hello...I’m cooking dinner tonight.”

That’s all he had to say to win my heart again. He had me. After “hello.”

Sardines in a Can

Superior Snap by Saw Lady

Like straphangers on

the New York subway, students

share seats, desks ~ and dreams?

She Has the Time

Editor's Note: Since this is the first week of school & all, Mrs. Scribe feels the need to alleviate the stress in her life & do a little recycling. The following is a post that originally appeared here. Enjoy!

She lights the candles, one by one. Five different scents, in different stages of meltdown, scavenged from the right-hand cabinet of her mother-in-law’s dining room hutch. The hutch that Julie and Lynn U-Hauled clear across the country one Spring, along with a table, seven chairs, and four young boys eager to see their cousins.

She turns on the water, and lets the faucets run full-out. The hotter, the better, as she recalls. Sometimes she wonders if she’ll end up like one of those frogs, the ones in the experiment. Her high school Biology teacher once told her that if you put a frog in a pan of cold water on the stove and turn on a burner, he’ll never know he’s being boiled alive. She always thinks of the frog as the steam starts to rise.

She goes to the back closet and gets down the old terry cloth bath robe. Not so white any more, but just as soft. A slight yellow tint around the cuffs. The robe she used during her hospital stay after the birth of their first little girl. An emergency C-Section. The baby was coming out sunny side up, the doctor said. The procedure—they called this gutting and stitching a “procedure”—lasted less than 10 minutes. Thirteen hours of labor, 10 minutes of delivery, one week in the hospital. Mr. Fairway went out to buy her a robe so she would be comfortable during her stay.

She closes the bathroom door, turns out the lights, gets into the tub, and sinks in a profusion of orchid-scented bubbles. Twists off the cold tap and lets the hot run a few minutes more. The hotter, the better, as she recalls. Then she thinks about the frog.

Her long legs (a 34-inch inseam, to be precise) don’t quite stretch all the way out in this standard-issue tub. The formica (Julie always wonders when she’s going to replace it—the answer is “no upgrade needed.” She likes the ’70s effect) casts an unsettling glow. The candles sputter, the bathwater laps a tiny bit over onto the tile floor.

She has time to think.

For 22 years, life turned itself—and the two of them—topsy-turvy. She started off on the journey of motherhood without a clue. In fact, when the first precious little bundle came home from the hospital and pitched a screaming fit, Mr Fairway asked, turning the baby over onto her stomach, “Do these things have an ‘off’ switch, or what?”

The years rushed by in a cacophony of clichés. And before they knew it, they were sitting through yet one more of life’s little truisms: high school graduation. The youngest was about to embark on a journey of her own. Then the girls had their Honda loaded down, with more than 15 pairs of shoes. Cue Kenny Chesney, if you please: “There goes my life.”

Empty-Nesting has its moments. Time to talk to one another in an uninterrupted flow of thoughts. Time to try to remember what life was like almost 22 years ago. Time to ask how we got on this merry-go-round to begin with, and wonder if we’ll ever get off. And if we’ll be able to remember all of this sweet, wild, wonderful ride.

Time to ponder what’s coming next, as well as what has come before.

Time to take a bath, in the orchid-scented bubbles that the youngest gave her Mommy as a Christmas present. An unexpected gift, to the woman who has spent the last 22 years wondering if anyone was really paying attention. Life’s still rushing by. But now, she has the time.