Friday Night Miscellany

Hola Darlings! Last night I was home late and so did not blog. It was a night out with a good friend - good drinks, an even better dinner, the excellent company of my friend and all the $$$ we spent went to supporting a locally family-owned establishment bar/restaurant called Kegel's that is time-worn around the edges but still serves dinner on crisp white tableclothes and wine is under $5 a glass. Oh - the food is uniformly excellent too. No nouvelle cuisine, just good German and American dishes presented on a modest two page menu in a no-nonsense manner. The dishes offered are all excellent. I usually get a filet mignon or the veal liver, Ann gets the German-style beef tips in gravy over thick homemade noodles. By the way, their baked potatoes are NEVER over-done. I've eaten at some high-brow restaurants where that was not the case. The prices have gone up a dollar here, and dollar there, since I've been visiting Kegel's the past 3-4 years, but the service has remained the same - relaxed, friendly and unassuming. It's the kind of place a woman alone can feel comfortable sitting at the bar to have a drink or two after work or spend some time alone, and not feel uncomfortable. All age groups visit Kegel's but the droopy drawers set who think they look cool (har!) don't hang out there, thank Goddess! Last night on our way out from dinner I was introduced to a fellow legal eagle who was sitting at the bar working a crossword puzzle. She had what I believe was a martini in the trademark-shaped glass, and what looked like dark beer in a stubby glass waiting on the side :) Now that's the south side of Milwaukee for ya! So, posting tonight, I'll see how long I last. I'm very tired; it is our busiest time at the office (through April 15) and Sunday night the critters in the attic reappeared with a vengence, waking me up at quarter to three in the morning; I finally gave up trying to get back to sleep upstairs where I could here every little scuff and scratch and, I fancied, even a few squeaks from time to time. Arrrggggghhhh! I finally removed to the recliner in the family room downstairs on the opposite end of the house from my upstairs bedroom. Suffice to say I didn't get much decent sleep. Monday night I slept in the guest room, but the mattress is hard, ouch! I need to get a better mattress pad for that bed - that will entail an extensive shopping trip to the local mall, I'm sure. Tuesday night I slept in my room, and I again heard the critters in the attic, so Wednesday night I moved back to the guest room. Last night I returned to my bedroom and it was a quiet night, thank goddess! I suppose until the excess mouse population has been disposed of through the unfortunate method of poison I will continue to experience these critter home invasions. Sigh. You can be sure bright and early Monday morning I was on the telephone with the critter people. We'll see if it's quiet tonight and the next few nights...

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A storm is on the way later tonight, we may get as much as 6 inches of snow, starting at midnight. Blechy! I am SO over winter. Here it is February 20th, we've got probably another 4 to 6 weeks of winter and perhaps even April and May. I cannot wait to get on that jet and fly away to New York. It's generally mild there in May - at least milder there than here! That trip is coming up fast! I'll be on vacation from May 7 - May 26th, yippee!

Some items that you may find of interest - they may make you laugh, they may make you cry: Here's a good one - the Chinese scientists have caused an uncontrolled blizzard of man-made snow that closed 12 highways. So much for being able to control the weather, har! Melt-pools 'accelerating Arctic ice loss' One of those "duh" articles - it took them HOW long to figure this out??? I mean, geez, it's only been reported for the past twelve months or so that the polar ice caps are melting faster than anticipated by ANYONE, but they didn't know why! Oh come on guys, don't you cook? You can thaw a totally rock solid frozen steak by wrapping it in plastic to be water-tight and floating it in a tub of cold water for 30 minutes or so. Isn't this the same effect, basically? I don't know the science, I only know it works. You're the scientists - why did it take you so long to figure this out??? The Candidate's chess match between American hopeful GM Gata Kamsky (who used to play for Russia years ago when he was an underweight teenager) and Bulgarian hopeful GM Vesilin Topalov is taking place right now. Today game 3 was played, and Kamsky playing with the black pieces drew the game, coming back from a defeat behind the white pieces in game 2. The score now is Topalov 2/Kamsky 1. Game 4 proceeds tomorrow. I believe the match is 8 games - not much time for either player to achieve a dominating position, so look for some fireworks tomorrow at this half-way game. GM Susan Polgar has provided live commentary on all of the games; here is her commentary on game 3. Others are also providing live commentary and analysis of these games, but I prefer SP's analysis. I can follow along much better with the action than when I read other GMs' comments/analysis. I am NO expert, that's for sure - but SP's analysis is usually spot on, and she explains how the game is proceeding in a way I can grasp. Perhaps it comes from all of the teaching courses and videos she has put together over the years, to help kids (and the rest of us) learn how to play chess :) She's got the knack of informing without being obscure, and presenting potential lines of action without being overwhelming. I highly recommend reading SP's commentary on the games, and playing the moves out on a chessboard as you go along. I cannot do that at work, but she's so good at what she does I can sometimes "see" the chessboard in my head as I sneak a peek at the progress of the games, which totally amazes me! Life goes on, the world keeps spinning around the sun, and the sun won't blow up for another billion years or so, at which point I won't give a damn cuz I'll be dead in less than 100 years (barring a miracle, darlings). Why, then, does this article about a new "Atlas" of dead and dying languages make me so sad? A fascinating story I read earlier today at the Wall Street Journal. I know next to nothing about the world of art (as in paintings and sculpture), but I know what I like, and I like a lot of the "Old Masters" because their paintings at least are recognizable as people and things and animals and plants! LOL! So I'm a barbarian - but I do speak the Queen's English properly (for the most part). Anyway, darlings, when I spotted this person's phiz in the print edition of today's WSJ, my first thought was "My Goddess, that's a woman disguised as a man!" My second thought was "what happened to her face, ohmygoddess!" Well, it turns out that he is - or was - not a she. He was a he - Harold Smith, who fathered at least half a dozen children, so I guess I cannot build up a proper fantasy about a "man" taking a great secret to her grave :) It's still a fascinating story - about an art heist and the people who investigated it, including Harold Smith, an iconic figure in the world of art - one of the best experts ever on recovering stolen art, who tried to track down the perpetrators and recover the stolen art. Really good stuff. I will read this book: The Gardner Heist" (Ulrich Boser) review by Guy Darst 2/20/09. Sorry - no link, but there is that photo of Harold Smith... Harold Smith's face was disfigured by a decades-long battle against skin cancer. A lesson for all of us who think skin cancer is relegated to a mole or two that can be easily excised by a doctor's scalpel.