The Short and the Tall of it

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

08.27.08 -- Morality, Individuality and an Infinite Universe

When I was growing up, I had lots of theories. One was that all people were good, and that when they were doing things that society called bad, it was because they were either 1) misunderstood, 2) mentally or psychologically compromised, or 3) dealing with insurmountable challenges that sort of justified their wrongdoing. Therefore, these people couldn't really be held accountable for their acts. In college, I learned that my theory has a fancy name: moral ambiguity.

I believe differently now.

I now believe that some people do not mean well, that they do not have good intentions, that they intend to lie a little, cheat a little--or lie a lot and cheat a lot--take advantage of well-meaning innocents... to get what they want. They may not be psychologically sound, and they may have terrible histories, but this does not relieve them of culpability. Every person is given a life of choices.

On the radio the other day, I listened to a prize-winning physicist explain that, according to his findings, we are all products of our atomic make-up. What's more, he said, is that not only do we have nothing to do with the people we are/become and the choices we make, but there are infinite worlds in the universe EXACTLY like ours with EXACTLY the same things/people/thoughts/chips in the fingernail polish that occur in our world. According to him, there are countless dopplegangers of you in the universe--doing exactly what you're doing, thinking exactly what you're thinking, with precisely the same history as yours.

Theories are sometimes ridiculous. His theories are ridiculous to me, anyway. I can wrap my mind around them to see how he arrives at these conclusions, but they are ridiculous.

Monday, August 25, 2008

08.25.08 -- Short and Tall

Friday, August 22, 2008

08.22.08 -- The Day After

Lucy's birthday was yesterday. Thanks to a lot of help, both her friend party and the family party went really well. Today, I am pretty much wiped out. Not so for Lucy. Here's Lucy this morning: the very picture of enthusiasm. (I asked her to demonstrate her new chair and table for me.)

Thanks to my wonderful niece, Eliza, for her invaluable help wrangling toddlers...And a huge quadruple thank you to Crystal, who not only brought her son, Lucy's best boy friend, Ben--but helped with crowd control AND brought her camera (more importantly, her skillz). I didn't ask her to, but she took all of these great pictures and made the best CD for us. Honestly, I would've paid her to do this. I treasure these!!!

After watching the slideshow, I'm a little disappointed--you definitely get the idea, but you miss the clarity of the of Crystal's photographs. As for the music, I just pulled something happy-sounding from our iTunes collection. There's no correlation to the party.

See what I mean? Thanks, Crystal!

Cream cheese lemon cake...

I made-up a new cake and a new chicken marinade for the family party, and was happy with both. The cake was inspired by the frosting (recipe from AllRecipes.com). How was it? De-lush-us (if you're into a moist, slightly dense cake with a fresh lemon zing to it). Lemme know if you want more info.

The marinade, I made up after consulting some recipes (on AllRecipes.com), deciding to use what I had instead of making another trip to the store. A lot of people asked how I did the chicken so here it is:

for 6 cups of marinade (yes, a ton):

3 cups of lemon juice, worcestershire sauce and white wine vinegar
3 cups of olive oil and canola oil
3 normal sized packets Good Seasons Italian dressing mix (dry)

After using up all the lemon juice (from concentrate) that I had -- about 1/3 cup, I emptied my bottle of W. sauce (about 1 1/2 cups), then topped it off with the white wine vinegar. Then I added all of my olive oil, there was about a cup left; the other 2 cups were canola oil. I mixed all this with the 3 packets of italian dressing mix (you guessed it), all I had, marinated overnight and it was really, really good grilled.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Worth Watching

Check it out.
Check yourself.

08.17.08 -- What is the Date?

What is this?

Seriously, WHAT IS THE DATE??

Okay, you got me. I obviously had to look at the date before I put the title on this post. Sometimes I just like to use my first conscious blogthoughts as the title.

This title reflects the slightly mashed state of my psyche. Lately, I have had what I will describe as a tremendous drive to get things in order and to get things done. It has been largely successful to this point. I'm not sure what I'll tackle tomorrow, but in the past week, I made sense of Lucy's closet, our closet, over a dozen drawers, the pantry and the fridge.

In addition to this organizing frenzy, I have kept the house PDC (pretty darn clean), and the laundry up to date. I have socialized to a moderate degree and even read a full book. Another accomplishment: preparation & delivery of the Relief Society lesson. Now, I like challenges, so I like teaching these lessons once a month--but it still stresses me out. As much as I've tried to get it all together weeks in advance, it somehow always ends up coming together minutes before we leave for church. I guess old habits are hard to break. This is a habit I've been reinforcing for as long as I can remember.

The pattern: Read a lot on the subject to be presented in report/essay/project/lesson form. Digest. Read more, follow any whims that arise along the way. Digest. Once the deadline is imminent, make sense of it all (with intended audience in mind).

This month's effort came together in a way that made me very happy. I had a feeling it would work and this gave me an extra boost for the lesson itself...the extra boost in turn made the whole thing better. Ta-da! Self-fulfilling prophecy!

Among other things this week, I've got a neighborhood party, time with Grandma (my Grandma, Lucy's Great Grandma), Lucy's birthday party with friends, Lucy's family birthday party, and a mini family reunion. As always, I'm preoccupied with all things creative, so I've got Lucy's little friend party on the brain...and it will be little. She gave me a handful of names and I didn't press her for more.

The invitation was heaps of fun for me to put together (earlier tonight)--the rest of the party should be just as entertaining for me. Lucy? She wants cupcakes and friends to attend. So is the party for her or for me?