Stop Squirming and Get Moving

Occasionally I like to read my horoscope. I don't read it only one paper, but I like to compare it across several papers, choosing my favorite. Sometimes they are so off the mark, it's hard to believe that it is anything but Mumbo-Jumbo. And then other days I can't believe how uncanny the resemblance is to my real life. Take today's, for example, in the Washington Post:

For Monday, April 12 -Stop squirming and get moving. When you're this restless, there's usually just one reason: There's something you know you need to do, but you feel unable to do it. In this case, it may be that you want to make some big changes around the house, but they're so epic that you're not sure you can handle them alone. Make a few calls and see what happens -- if you don't know a contractor personally, you can at least find the number for a hardware store.

How did the writer of today's blurb know I was out shopping today in Lowe's and Empire Tile? How did they know I met with Pat today, a "shower guy" recommended by the "floor guy?" How did they know I bought a Bathrooms book so I could change my current master bath from this:

to this:

or this?

This one actually is the exact shower picture I showed to my shower guy (I mean, my "potential" shower guy) because I like the look of the pristine white tiles and the blue band for accent. He said he liked the sanitary look too.

Sanitary?

Okey-dokey. Maybe he's not the one for me. I have another estimate on Wednesday morning with another shower guy. Maybe he's the one?

Have You Seen This One Yet?

Click *here* for a great video trailer about every movie you've seen since the 1980s (according to Jim Emerson, another blogger).

Things Remain Undone

On the way to meet my son Chad for lunch, I caught the last of an interview with Ian McEwan on the occasion of his new book, Solar, and heard Mr. McEwan read this snippet:

"He'd been deluded. He'd always assumed that a time would come in adulthood—a kind of plateau—when he would have learned all the tricks of managing, of simply being. All mails and emails answered, all papers in order, books alphabetically on the shelves. Clothes and shoes in good repair in the wardrobes and all his stuff where he could find it. . . the private life settled and serene. In all these years, this settlement, the calm plateau had never appeared. And yet he had continued to assume, without reflecting on the matter, that it was just around the next turn, that he would exert himself and reach it. . . . [About the time his daughter was born] he thought he saw for the first time that on the day he died he would be wearing unmatching socks, there would be unanswered emails, and [at home] there would still be shirts missing cuff buttons, a malfunctioning light in the hall, unpaid bills, uncleared attics, dead flies, friends waiting for a reply. . . "

So Mr. McEwan finally captures the frantic race we all feel to Get Stuff Done, but we rarely achieve that "settlement, that calm plateau" he writes about. That would explain the mess in my study. That would explain why the cracked tiles in my bathroom have not been replaced in three years. That would explain the general overwhelmingness that visits me for for sometimes very lengthy intervals, riding around on my shoulder, a little chirpy voice whispering in my ear while the pen scratches out on paper a list of things that need to be done, no, must be done.

I've always had this belief that I can get caught up, and in some places there is a division of labor in my life: the grading will finish, the students will no longer show up in class, the fences will be built, the house will get painted. And then I start believing that this finality will gradually appear in other areas of my life: the quilts all sewn, the closets cleaned out, the floor mopped, the laundry completed.

Obviously, it's not a belief. It's a fantasy.

New Fence

New fences at our home this past week, but only on two sides. One side was replaced a few years ago. Don't make me think when. All my years are running together now. I used to be able to anchor events around the children's births, or where I was in school; now we use the sabbatical in Washington DC as a milestone, and even then we're always asking each other: "Was it before we went?" A shrug. Who knows. It's so bad now that when our water heater was replaced I got out a marker and wrote the date on it. . . just so I'd know. Our new windows have their manufacture date on the interior separating the dual-paned glass, and we got the new kitchen counters and stove then as well. Those guys are on to our forgetful minds.

Because my father is a fan of Robert Frost, I give you a fragment of Frost's famous poem Mending Wall:

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.'

Sometimes living here in Southern California I love a wall to make me feel like we have our own little fiefdom, tiny as it is. I had to walk around the block to the backside to enlist the approval of that neighbor (who asked me to please remind him when to send me the check; all I could think was, please, you're a grown man, give me a break and ask your own wife to do that for you)--and the next door neighbor below us. They both have pools so they have to have fences.

Our fence has been in bad repair for years. We had a lovely wedding reception in our backyard for our daughter and somehow, one of the fence posts had broken off and we didn't notice it in all the fixing up we did for that celebration. It's in all her pictures, this snaggle-tooth fence post.

Things like that, and the fact that I can't remember what year that was, keep me humble. Without further ado, the photos of our new fences.




We had a stockpile of fence boards in the corner near the garage and I asked the men to take them, please. This little animal had made a nest at the base, protected by the leaning wood. It's gone now, scared off by the noise of the workmen's air compressor.







I couldn't resist giving you a photo of the lovely wisteria, snaking around our wall, heavy with lavender, fragrant blossoms. I love spring.

April Fools!

I love a good April Fools Day joke, as long as it's not on me.

Thiebaud on the Brain

The wedding of a friend was held in the mountains of Santa Cruz, California, at a location with one name: Nestldown, and the main event was held in the "cabin"--a rustic, yet fine building with soaring ceilings, pine walls, and an elegantly set reception.

Over in the corner was the dessert table: one side full of cookies as the groom was from originally from Pittsburgh, and the bride corralled all her friends to bring the wedding cookie tradition to this celebration. (And yes, they had pizzelles.)

The other side was a rendition of the cake still life painting by Wayne Theibaud. My husband and I had just taken in the Thiebaud retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art that morning, and laughed when we saw this. I waited until they cut the little tiny cake with the looping scallops of pink to have my slice of wedding cake. It was luscious lemon chiffon. The original painting is shown below, my lame snapshot of it taken when we last visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, where it hangs.

Tunes for a Thursday

Give this one a minute. It grows on you.

Ordinary Miracle

My friend Judy and find that it's about this point in the semester when the quirks and habits of the students are either endearing or maddening. And for some reason, this week--the week after spring break--has brought a shower of maddening quirks, with one sad one. Not somebody died sad, but teachery sad, which is ultimately a happy thing.

She had a student who had been a doctor in the Ukraine? Russia? Romania? Somewhere over there. A white coat medical doctor. Several years ago they amazingly got visas to immigrate to America. But none for their parents who they lived with. She wanted to stay. He said if we don't go, we'll never go. If we don't go, we're all lost. They went. I think his first job was something like picking up trash in schools after hours; her first was playing piano for a Montessori school--jobs that don't require English. Those kinds of jobs. Then after ten years of this he got a job near us, an hour from Los Angeles, that could support both of them, and she decided to go to school to really learn English. She was in my friend's remedial English class.

When Judy opened up her mail on Monday after Spring Break there was a drop notice from this student. Wow, Judy said. My favorite student who was so hungry to learn is gone, Judy said. My favorite student who'd made teaching the lower level class rewarding. She wrote her an email, wondering. A day or two later the return email arrived. This woman , who had come to America and had been waiting for ten years until the right moment, had been granted admission to the pediatric residency program of Loma Linda University and was going to be a doctor again.

I've been listening to Sarah McLachlan's Ordinary Miracle song ever since she sang it on the Olympics. I think this story is one of those ordinary miracles, one of those teachery miracle stories that help me when I'm a bit dragging. We're here. Students are here. And when it all works--that the student gets to where they want to go--and we somehow knew them at some point in that trajectory, well, it's just an ordinary miracle. It's why we hang in there through the maddening quirky moments and do the grading and the lesson prep and hope and dream and encourage and push and pull.

I salute all the teachers out there, no matter where your classroom is or what your classroom may be.

An Auspicious Day

Can't imagine this world without him--for sure it's a better place because he's here, remaining calm and placid among the circus all around him.

Happy Birthday!

Wildflowers

One advantage of [lame] students who don't turn in their work on time was shown today, when I began grading the stack of 101 essays. They are essays supposedly analyzing the complex themes and worlds found in Einstein's Dreams, a novel by Alan Lightman (I LOVE to teach this!). There were a few who couldn't hit the side of a metaphor if they had a telescope and a repeating rifle, but most were right on target. Blessedly so.

Then, as a teacher, you begin to wonder if you're grading too easily--letting them off the hook on comma splices, misplaced commas and faulty analysis. That's when I realized that no, the [lame] students just hadn't turned theirs in! Easiest day of grading I've ever had, not having to struggle through a forest of errors, badly laid logic and wild and woolly constructions.

So, when my husband called me from work and said, let's go and look at the wildflowers in Sycamore Canyon, I changed into my walking shoes and we were off, rather than me begging off because of Too Much Grading. We've had a lot of rain this year and supposedly the wildflowers are on target to be quite showy and spectacular. They weren't, but we enjoyed them anyway. Dave pointed out all the trails that Peter and he like in this canyon, including a few that have been obliterated by all the building of warehouses (off camera, to the right).

Grading Stats:
Number enrolled in the class: 23 students (a few have dropped).
Essays late: 5.
Essays corrected: Yep. 18 lovely little papers.
High score: 97%.
Low score: 72%.
Music of choice: Ratatat's Ratatat.
Snack: Ginger Chews from Trader Joe's and lotsa water.

Clearing out the Cobwebs

Whenever I head out on a trip, an adventure, a visit there's this surge of adrenalin that picks me up and carries me through the travel, the airport hassles, the whatever.

Coming home? Only fatigue accompanies me along my way. The suitcase needs to be emptied, the photos uploaded, sleep caught up on and just a general list of Things To Do.

Only sometime later do the cobwebs of coming home clear in order to see the memories glistening on those strands like dewy jewels in the morning light. I have memories of my mother's blue blue eyes watching me. She asks about my children, demonstrating her ability to keep tabs on all those who she loves and cares about. She's up to date on everyone, not missing a beat on life events of her posterity. It's a talent. I have memories of my father leaning in for a discussion, intent on listening for the point I was making, catching it and winding up again to toss it back to me, keeping the fine art of conversation lively and active. It's a skill that I hope someday to emulate. I miss them both already, and look forward to my next trip.

My friend Judy posted about the yellows of spring last week and I came home to several fragrant stocks of yellow freesia in my garden. Temperature wise? It's supposed to be in the mid-70s today. I'm heading out Orange County to lunch with my son, then I'll do some grading. Somewhere in this day, I hope to stow the suitcase and put away the detritus from my trip.

Welcome home.

Back Home Again

There's something about coming home again--but it wasn't my childhood home. It's my parents' condominium, high up on the east bench of Mt. Ogden, overlooking the valley all the way out to the defunct flour mill towers and almost to the upper portion of the Great Salt Lake.

I never lived here, but have been here many times since they moved from the big house three streets over . As my mother likes to say, they got rid of the big house before they had to, nestling easily into this one-floor, served by an elevator, extremely efficient, very comfortable abode. Everything here has its place.

My 84-year-old father tells me that one day last week he realized, as he went to bed, that he hadn't had to fight with technology that day. The home theater worked, the car was working, and the computer/internet was up and running and fine. I understand that one, realizing that all these things that make our modern-day lives what they are, have a cost: that we are required to be handmaidens to technology. For if we do not remain patiently involved, the system may go down. It does not care if we are frustrated, or if we are trying to get the gold-medal

performance on the Olympics, or if we have a deadline, or if we desperately need to go somewhere in the car.

Emerson said, "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind."

Oh, yeah.

Encouraging the Students

The student came over to my "office" which is any free table on the second floor of the library for an hour before one of my classes, with his concern and dejection carefully plastered all over his face in his Meet The Teacher expression.

Him: "I plan to work really hard, really, but I just need an extra day for my essay."

Me:
Him: "I mean, I'm really stepping up here and want to do well.
Me:
Him: "By the way, do you have my grade?"
Me: "73%"
Him: "YESSSS!!!! Whoa, that's great. Thanks."


Miss Moved-to-Arizona-and Missed-Eight-Classes-But-Came-Back met with me last week. She, too, had the face on.
Her: "Can I still come back to class?
Me:
Her: "Thank you! Thank you!!! I know it's three weeks late, but can I still turn in the second essay?"
Me:
Her: "Oh. Bummer. Well, okay, I'll work really hard and turn in the third one on time. I'll see you Monday for peer review."
Me, after she didn't come to class on Monday:
Her email today: "I've been working on the paper for three days and didn't come to class today because it wasn't done. Sorry. Do you think I should drop the class and start all over?"
Me:

I like to encourage my students.

Parallel Sets of Knowledge

Like many teacher across the nation, I spent a few minutes reading the New York Times article "Building a Better Teacher," by Elizabeth Green (March 2, 2010).

We teachers all know that what we know is only part of the classroom experience, whether you teach kindergarten or freshmen in college. I wrote earlier about watching the series taught by Harvard's Professor Sandel and while I was interested in the content, I was also interested in watching how he pulled student comment out, used it to springboard onto other ideas, putting these ideas together, as my father, a long-time university professor, would say, in a "string of pearls."

So what makes a good teacher? The good ones--those who have "parallel" sets of knowledge know what it is that the students need to know (one set of knowledge) such as those items listed in a course outline or in an SLO*, but we also know the language--the lingo--on how to bring our students to that knowledge.

Many teachers have one set. Or they have the other (think "classroom management skills," for example). But to have both, according to current thinking, is what takes a teacher from adequate to spectacular. And that is the challenge for us all. I often wonder why we teachers flounder in the SLO swamp (can you tell I hate them?), trying to define and talk about and cram pedagogy down throats when some of us have felt like there's something more. Something that's missing in that discussion of standards, learning objectives, etc.

From the NYTimes article:

"Inspired by Ball [a teacher who has put together these two sets of knowledge in a system she's titled Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching, or MKT], other researchers have been busily excavating parallel sets of knowledge for other subject areas. A Stanford professor named Pam Grossman is now trying to articulate a similar body of knowledge for English teachers, discerning what kinds of questions to ask about literature and how to lead a group discussion about a book."

This has made me think about how well I combine the two in my own teaching. I know what I want them to know. But do I know how to describe it to my students? If I took last week's attempt to help them figure out how to write a thesis for an essay on a short novel we just read, I'd have to say in some areas I don't--especially if the looks on their faces were any indication. My mailbox is filling up with 'Is this what you mean?' sort of emails.

I do believe that some sort of struggling to gain mastery over a concept is okay. I just don't want to be the teacher who doesn't have the language to help her students gain that mastery.

--------------------------------------------
*SLO: Student Learning Objective. A sample is *here.*

Higher and Lower Pleasures

slide from Sandel's lecture

I've been watching/streaming/listening to Michael Sandel's class at Harvard, from which this slide was taken; this class was filmed and put on the web. The title is Justice: What's the Right Thing To Do? and I must say I can see those Harvard students are getting a great education if this class is typical fare.

The episode I listened to this week involved choosing between higher and lower pleasures and included three film clips to illustrate the point: Shakespearean theatre, the intro to Fear Factor and a bit from a Simpson episode. Sandel then asked the lecture hall which they preferred watching. The Simpsons won. Then Sandel asked what was the higher pleasure? Shakespeare. All of this was based on the thinking of John Stuart Mill, a philosopher. But even Mill acknowledged that a person had to be trained to recognize the "higher" pleasure.

I teach at a community college, and it has been--as my friend and I joke, especially this year with all the budget cutbacks--Walmartized. Indeed we are the lowest common denominator on the college scene. But I am also product of the community college system, so I believe in the philosophy behind it. But the exchange of ideas in this streamed episode made me realize how much time I spend talking about the lower pleasure basics: how to write a sentence, how to insert a proper MLA reference, how to avoid misplaced commas, and how little time I spend with my students talking about higher pleasure ideas. True, my English 101 course is designed to teach students how to write better (the original being taught at this same Harvard university in the late 1800s) and not to necessarily discuss ideas. But the last slide really made me think about trying to do this once in a while:

I don't want to leave my classes only with satisfaction gained from a tightly-written paragraph. I want to leave them with a desire to gain more knowledge, to figure out and to find their way to--according to Mill--the higher things that can satisfy.

This Too Shall Pass

My father, when listening to my travails, would say often "This too shall pass." I don't think he meant something like this, but how can I not resist posting this little clip? Put it full screen to really enjoy it.

Ladies Auxiliary Church Dinner

While our church dinner tonight with the ladies auxiliary didn't look anything like the one to the left--the women in the photo all in pert little hats and wide flowing skirts--we sat around round tables with real tablecloths, our fancy table setting of stemware, silver and real plates borrowed just for the occasion.

I was one in forty there tonight, but all over our church this month, women in many congregations gather to celebrate the birthday of the women's auxiliary, a proud occasion. I like this annual event, and brought my little gift to exchange, my chicken dish, and even lent them my husband to help serve, do dishes and to put away the tables and chairs at the end of the night. However they may soon ban me from the bring-a-dish volunteer.

When I was handed the recipe for the chicken dish, I inwardly groaned. It was like those recipes I used to cook in the 1970s, that always included opening a can of cream-of-something soup and pouring all over the chicken, topping with cheese and then bread crumbs drenched with butter, then baking for one hour. High fat, high sodium, low flavor. So as we stood in the hallway, the food lady and I, I asked if I could substitute the canned soup for a homemade white sauce, as we didn't keep those cans around: too much sodium.
Sure.
Then do you mind if I switch it to a broth-based sauce and cut out the cheese? Lactose intolerant and low fat, you see.
Sure.
Can I leave off the butter off the bread crumbs? That low fat thing again.
Yeah, whatever. Just have it there by 6:30, hot.

I made Ginger-Orange Chicken, and was served last (by my husband) which was fine with me because I didn't really want to upset the karma of the universe too much. But really. Church ladies! Time to update those recipe files. There's been a huge food revolution the last five years with Michael Pollan's books, slow foods, and locally grown food cooperatives among other things. Time to throw out a few recipes and learn how to cook the newer way. Like your hairstyle from high school has to change, so should your cooking. I didn't utter any of these radical sentiments at the dinner table, but three women asked if they could have a bite of my chicken.

Sure. No problem.

P.S. Recipe can be found *here* at ElizabethCooks.com.

Fever

My friend Heather turned me to all the Muppet Videos when she sent me the rhapsody one. Now here's one for her.

Slip-Sliding Away

Interesting results last night in Ohno's 500 meter race, where they ruled that because he touched the Canadian skater Trembley, and Trembley fell, Ohno was the cause of it and was disqualified.

Rewind the tape to the previous night and the 1000 meter race, where the Canadian skater Hamelin touched Ohno on the hip, causing him to slip. Ohno recovered and fought back for the bronze. See the review •here• in an interview with Bob Costos.

So, now what do you think about his disqualification?

Ice Dancers

While I was definitely rooting for the Americans to win gold, I thought the medals ceremony, where the Canadian gold medalists--and the entire hall, it seemed--were singing O, Canada, to be a touching end to a wonderful segment of Olympic competition.

I think I like pairs ice dancing better than pairs figure skating, if that's possible.

Click on the picture to go to NBCOlympics.com and watch the ceremony.
Now back to the grading: the second set of essays came in yesterday.

Fall Fashion Shows in New York

File this under Another Good Way to Waste Time on the Web. Along with this week's Olympics, which I'm crazy for, are the fall fashion shows held in New York City. I love heading to the New York Times website and looking at all the clothes. I kept finding things I wanted to share with my sister Christine, who is there in New York currently serving a mission, as she has such style and embraces different ideas in fashion easily.

This is not representative--just what I like this morning.
First up is Anna Sui, or How Many Patterns Can I Wear at One Time? And I love them all.

The way the NYTimes lets you see things is an outfit at a time, with thumbnails below (if you wish it that way). The way Sui layered the clothing, the accessories is inspiring. I kept thinking how it would look on a middle-aged woman of a certain size, in a hot climate, in a classroom. I guess I just get to admire them here.

The line of this dress is a throwback to what I used to wear as a teenager--I still have the dress patterns out in the garage to prove it. But what's amazing is the tights, the handbag, the necklace--all giving this simple design elegance and style.

Check out not only the scenes from Montana on her sweater, but also the designs on her knees.

Same tights. Different layered (both in the clothing and in the pattern) look.

The fabric design is echoed in her tights.

Ralph Rucci had some interesting things going on with accents of textures. The jacket is pretty straightforward, until it comes to this gridded jacket front. Detail below.

And what's wrapped on her hands? Everyone of his models had these stringy-faux-glove thing.

In honor of the Olympics, from Marchesa's collection, I present:
Girl Gone AWOL From the Skating Rink.

And in nearly every season there's a picture I call the Feed Me picture. A model that looks like she hasn't seen real food in about a year, with emaciated looks (beyond what the show has in mind) and too-skinny of legs and body.

This is this season's Miss Feed Me.

Tommy Kane, a guy who always has his sketchbook with him, recently drew what he thought they ate:
Love the pencil shavings bit.

Okay, carry on. I've done enough time wasting this morning. I had a late night last night, staying up to watch the Men's Figure Skating Finals, loving that Lysacek's style of skating won out over the jumping Russian Plushenko.

As I watched I was also able to quilt on my long-long-long-term quilting project: my appliqued Medallion quilt that I began in Washington DC. For some reason the quilting is taking FOREVER. One reason is because I was trying not to use pencil to mark up the quilt top, trying to use masking tape to keep my lines straight. Last night I said to heck with it, and with a ruler, drew the quilting lines. It's amazing how much faster I can go if I'm not struggling with strips of blue tape all over the place.
Last bit of news: we had an earthquake this morning, rattling my nerves. Ever since I was in the HUGE earthquake in Lima Peru as a child, any little shaking makes me tingle all over.

Lindsey Vonn and the Gold Medal

Watching Lindsey Vonn race her gold medal-winning race down that mountain was really exciting. But what I loved was her interview afterwards, and her tearful hugs of her husband. Head to the NBC website *here* to see the race and the interview. Unfortunately, they don't show the segment with her husband, but this shot is right after she said hi to her grandparents and told them she loved them--ah. What a woman!

Visitors. . . and a Story

We had some visitors from out of town last week. It was my daughter Barbara and her three kids: Cute, Cute and Cute. Did I mention that they were cute? All my grandchildren are cute. I'm so very lucky.

And now, a story.
Some time ago, I'd made a quilt with pinks and blues and cherries and flowers and was so frugal with my fabric I had enough for another quilt leftover. I starting piecing the pinwheels and put them up on the pin wall, and then was stuck. I tried this combo and that combo and nothing would come together.

Then one horrid horrid day, our friend Heather wrote to say that she had Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, and it had spread to her liver, and maybe her brain but they were doing CT scans checking, checking. We waited. Good news! No brain mets, as she said.

I began to work again on the stuck quilt. Only I knew now it was for Heather so it flew together in a glorious explosion of work and love and tears and care for our friend. I thought long and hard about what to name it.

I arranged a visit to see her shortly before she would begin her first of six rounds of chemotherapy, a grueling process. I wanted her to have the quilt. I had in my mind what I wanted to call it, carrying along my pen to sign and write the name on the back, just in case I was right.

We had one of those happy-sad-teary-laughing conversations about what lay before her. I knew then what I planned to call it was correct, Earth's Crammed with Heaven, from E. B. Browning's verse:

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God;

And only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

I told her that it meant to me that because of her suffering she would see and understand so much more about heaven and earth than she ever would before. She would see that indeed, earth is crammed with heaven.

I tracked her chemo treatments on my calendar, trying to visit when possible, emailing whenever as I waited for her to come up out of the vortex of chemo and bendy bones and pain.

Last week she had another CT scan, and because of her treatments, and her faith, and the doctors and her sweetheart and prayers and heaven and everything-we-could-throw-at-it on earth, her tumors have been eradicated. As she put it: "lots of high fives and tears in the doctor's office."

Oh, yeah. You go, Heather! Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Chinese New Year.

Happy Life.

Says You Radio Show Taping

Last Saturday, my friend Judy and I got tickets for the taping of the radio show titled "Says You." Amazingly Judy's next door neighbor was right across the aisle and using my phone, he took this picture of us (that's why it's sort of soft-looking).

What is Says You? "A game of whimsy and words and bluff and bluster," according to the website. It was held at Pomona College in the Mabel Shaw Bridges Auditorium, built in 1931. Across the interior ceiling are huge renditions of the signs of the zodiac in creamy white, against an aqua background. It's an old-fashioned auditorium, with large red velvet curtains, cushy seats and a broad proscenium and stage. Lovely.

They had two shows to be taped, with lots of clever jokes, puns, recurring jokes. It was a good day, with good company.

N'Arlins Food

Over at ElizabethCooks.com I posted recipes for some Saints-Be-Praised-They-Won-The-Superbowl Food. One recipe is for Scallop Gumbo (really good, but you have to watch the roux so it won't burn) and the other was an old favorite: Cajun Jamalaya.

These dishes will also work well for Mardi Gras, which according to the internet is in about ten days, on February 16th. In case that doesn't float your Mardi Gras float, I also have posted a few others that have been hanging around for a while.