Tales of the Mint Mansion

I never ate beets as a child - they just weren’t a vegetable that was ever presented to me, except in big jars of pickled purple eggs. But on Saturday, we bought some beets from our Amish booth-mates at the Farmers’ Market, and I made this recipe from Self.com for dinner on Monday.

Earthy and clean, beets kind of taste like the air smells after a storm. In this recipe, the roasted beets are still warm, and they’re complemented with walnuts, goat cheese, and balsamic vinegar. My version of the beets wasn’t that pretty (and Andy made that clear to me), but I’ve provided a photo above from Self’s website showing the true yumminess of the beets.  Note to self - track down golden beets (and plating experts) for better presentation next time.

After gorging ourselves on beets, we walked up to the Dairy to get massive ice cream cones, seeing our neighbors at the place and just barely managing to avoid one of my PD clients. Beets and ice cream get an A+ for a quick summertime dinner. Hooray for very full bellies!

UPDATE:  Beets make you poop rainbows.

Haven’t had much time to post since last week, but I found the following article on the ABJ site and just had to share the story. It’s just bizarre.

EPA: Salad Dressing Runoff Floods Ohio Homes

COLUMBUS: An Ohio EPA official says creamy ranch dressing mixed with sewage and storm runoff in the flooded basements of at least 10 Columbus homes.

As one ABJ commenter stated:, “I guess it’s better than finding radon down there.” Yes, ranch dressing is capable of killing you, but only if you eat it like Hurley does.

So, Carly and I have what we call our “movie boyfriends” or “movie girlfriends.” This week, we both got to indulge our Hollywood infatuations with GET SMART, the updated adaption of the old 60’s television show (which was just awesome, in its day). Among the cast are Anne Hathaway, my movie girlfriend, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Carly’s crush. It was a fun film worth the cash value of the tickets in laughs. Well recommended.

There happens to be another thing coming up that has some of our movie crushes in it… Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog! It was created by Joss Whedon and stars NPH as Dr. Horrible. The other players include Nathan Fillion, formerly of Firefly/Serenity fame, also Carly’s sci-fi boyfriend, and Felicia Day, from the quirky Cheetos commercial, the last few episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (also with Fillion), and The Guild web series, also my TV girlfriend.

This here is the teaser for the project. Watch it:

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Got back from Dixieland on Sunday, and when we returned, Mount Vernon had exploded into a cacophony of Fox News fodder, governmental scandals, and the undead.  Seems like the news happens when we’re not around.

Fifty-second reflection on the week’s missed events:

Freshwater - the report’s out, the board made it’s decision, and from what I understand there’s a file three inches thick on the guy.  It’s pretty clear that this went way beyond the bible on his desk, and this firing sounds warranted.  Still, from what I’ve seen and read, it looks like the real problem lies with Mr. Daubenmire and his little band of Minutemen.  As I understand it, he was just chomping at the bit to get on the telly and talk about Mr. Freshwater, but he flailed and complained after the Geraldo interview.  An entertaining (and ironic) side note: Daubenmire’s son was busted for kiddie porn a couple of years back.  Only slightly related to the Freshwater controverty, but this is news to me, so I thought I would mention it for the sake of depraved curiosity.

Sheriff Barber’s piggy bank (no pun intended).  This has the potential to be a huge scandal.  I’ll go ahead and address the pink elephant in the room - why did the Columbus Dispatch scoop the News?  I find it kind of odd that they beat them to the punch on this story, considering that we have some pretty thorough, intelligent journalists employed at the News (who don’t mind broaching controversial subjects).  Doesn’t help that the paper received some of the disputed money.  I’m sure I’m not the only person who entertained this connection.

Zombies.  Andy and I gauge our emergency and long-term planning around one scenario: what happens when the zombies come?  Now we have an answer, and we can assess our preparedness for the undead apocalypse.  And the MV News wins the “best-named web address of the week” award for this article.

Oh, and details and photos of our trip will soon follow.  Hurrah for the death of the slide projector and the advent of the Internets.

So, our intrepid, beleaguered public school teacher, John Freshwater, has been canned by the school board here in Mount Vernon.  Poor Mr. Freshwater’s arguments just don’t hold up to the photographic evidence.

This photo, borrowed from Yahoo! News and Associated Press, depicts the burns that Mr. Freshwater inflicted on one of his MIDDLE SCHOOL charges.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080620/ap_on_re_us/teacher_bible

I’m sure the guy will appeal, try to save himself (because he can’t save the kids!), but really, I hope he just fades away, like all the other religious nuts who get caught in the act, harming people, America, themselves…

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/03/haggard.allegations/index.html

Got this in mah mailz today, no kidding:

The concept of “cornhole” as a family-friendly backyard game is relatively new to me. I always knew this game as “beanbag toss”, and “cornhole” meant something entirely different.

With that bright shiny thought in your mind, the final rounds are held in LUCASVILLE.

On Tuesday we had the telly tuned to CNN while I studied for the Fed Bar.  This creative lolspeak abbreviation appeared:

A few minutes later, CNN retracted the statement.  Typical CNN histrionics.  Still, it gave Andy time to exercise his creative genius:

(for those of you who don’t “get” teh lolcat, click here)

I can bitch now that I’m a paid MV News subscriber.

John, Paul, George, Ringo, and a famous New Orleans chef threaten the biodiversity of Knox County by parasitically munching on trees:

“Researchers developed the traps and a lure that attracks adult beatles,” said Cindy Brown, a spokeswoman for the ODA. “This is the first time these traps are being used to track the population of the Emeral Ash Borer.”

Other tree diseases to watch for include the Von Dutch Elm Disease and the American Cody ChestnuTT Blight.

Despite their problems with the Fab Four, the News ran a nice little shot of one of the partners with our client along with a blurb about the bond hearing today. However, they failed to put the photo on the Web! Boo, inconsistency! Boo, blogger-unfriendliness!  MV News kills trees, just like the Beatles!

I had the worst time sleeping last night.  It was a combination of things… first, I was under the influence of some allergy meds, which I never take, which made me itchy and restless; second, it was one of the first warm nights of the year, and the bedroom was a bit muggy; third, I have a big decision weighing on my head, and it does need some not sleeping to figure out.

Yesterday, I received an email from the HR people at Dept. of Homeland Security, tentatively offering me the job in New York.  For reasons I’ve previously mentioned, it’s both exciting and frustrating.  I think I’m going to accept, because it’s a good opportunity with decent pay.  And my acceptance just initiates the background/security check that goes along with any position of trust in the government service.  It will be several months before I know if I actually got the job.

So with all that on my brain, I finally crashed out at 5 AM, in the midst of a thunderstorm–which, while I really enjoy thunderstorms, it’s a bit hard to fall asleep to them.  And Sophie is frightened of thunder, so she was up on the bed, panting and drooling all over the place.  Poor dogga.

In the morning, we rightfully slept in until the dogs’ bladders were protesting, so I got up to let them out to water the lawn.  Carly and I continue to lounge around in bed, watching the DNC committee proceedings on CNN for a while.  Mina is restless, running around barking at us to get up.  She wasn’t particularly hungry, just bored, and wanted us to stop lying around.

Now we will lock her up and go get brunch somewhere.

We have a hopeless section of our yard, littered with stumps, some kudzu-like plant, and the occasional patch of poison ivy.  As I was hacking away at the biomass, I found these growing all over the place:

Yep. Strawberries.  Everywhere.  Guess I can’t mow the side yard for a while.