won’t miss these

Posted on February 28, 2014 by is there any more pie?

According to an article in National Geographic I read this morning (you can click here for the scientific details), the polar vortex may have destroyed 95% of the stink bug population.

Should we share a moment of silence or do a happy dance around the room?  Since–thanks to my friend the Polar Vortex–it is 8 degrees out this morning, I will get the blood moving with some leaps around my office after I post this to the blog.

In memory of stink bugs everywhere, I’m reposting my recipe for Stink Bug Chicken.

And here’s a song for frozen stink bugs everywhere:

Posted in a more pie opinion, food, rhode island | 1 Comment

running away

Posted on February 25, 2014 by is there any more pie?

Eloisa James and Nina Sovich were on a panel at the Big Book Getaway, a panel titled “Travel and Culture”.  But it may as well have been titled “Running Away and Writing About It”.

These books are waiting for me at the library.  I cannot wait to read them!

Timbuktu paris in love

Nina ran away from her new life in Paris to West Africa, in To the Moon and Timbuktu

And Eloisa ran to Paris, to live with her family for a year.  The result?  Paris in Love

 

Let me know if you’ve read either one of these?  Or if you’d like to?

 

Posted in books & music, travel | 3 Comments

meeting dr. ruth!!!

Posted on February 23, 2014 by is there any more pie?

I’m still grinning from ear to ear.

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More Pie and Dr. Ruth

Banjo Man and I attended the 2nd Annual  Big Book Getaway Saturday, at the Mohegan  Sun convention center.  Sponsored by the Mark Twain House & Museum, the event presented panels of “more than 80 best-selling and award-winning authors” for an entire day of talking about books.

Heaven.

I’m surprised there weren’t thousands of people there.  If I belonged to a book club I would have gathered the club together for an overnight jaunt or a one-day field trip to hear favorite authors speak, buy new books, get autographs and learn about writers and books I hadn’t known before.

I was lucky enough to have been asked by my publisher to participate on the romance panel, which meant meeting writers and readers in a relaxed and friendly setting.

Dr. Ruth started off the day on the Main Stage.  She told about being an only child in a loving family in Germany, then sent–at the age of ten–to Switzerland with 300 other children escaping Nazi Germany.  She never saw her family again and stayed in Switzerland until she was sixteen.  She went to Israel and was trained as a sniper.  A sniper!!!  I almost fell off my chair at that revelation.

Dr. Ruth at age 85 (she turns 86 on June 4, the same day her next book is released) is a lively, outspoken, brilliant, funny ball of energy.

I’d forgotten my camera, so during lunch in a pub Banjo Man and I tried to figure out how to take photos with our cell phones.  We took numerous pictures of ourselves while waiting for the fish ‘n chips (mine) and the Dublin stew (his) to arrive.  Banjo Man was able to take a picture.  I never did.  

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But we decided we were ready just in case we were ever close enough to Dr. Ruth to get a photo.

I managed to corner her after the last event of the day–a speech by Debbie Macomber—and get a quick picture.  Cornering people for a photo is something that usually makes me uncomfortable, but I decided to hell with it.  I wanted my picture with Dr. Ruth.

Want to see it again?

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Too bad you can’t my see my boots in this picture.  I wore my fanciest pair of cowboy boots…just because.

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Posted in books & music, rhode island, writing | 4 Comments

oh brother where art thou?

Posted on February 21, 2014 by is there any more pie?

Sarge has left Alaska and is on his way to Texas to visit his brothers.  It’s been three years since the boys have been together and Sarge has been to Afghanistan, among other places in the world.  We all hope the very long drive is uneventful and he arrives in Austin with energy to two-step with the ladies, share his funny stories and wrestle with his nephew.

1993 New Hampshire vacation

1993 New Hampshire vacation

The brothers frown at the photographer, who is also their mother.

The brothers frown at the photographer, who is also their mother.

The three of them are so different from each other in so many ways, but when they’re together they laugh.  They laugh a lot.

dominos, fabric 011 (2)See you soon, Sarge.

Posted in family | 5 Comments

my new garbage invention

Posted on February 17, 2014 by is there any more pie?

When Banjo Man was away for five days I realized this meant I would have to take out the garbage myself.

This was not a happy realization.

And because we’d had snow and more snow and even more snow, and were expecting snow and sleet and rain and ice and more and more and more snow, I decided I would not be braving the back steps or the hill on the side of the house in order to deal with garbage.

So I shoveled and scraped and trudged through the snow and came up with this solution.

What’s behind the curtain???

2014-02-14 0012014-02-14 002I just open the slider, lean out to remove the lid and drop the bags inside.  I don’t even have to put boots on!

2014-02-14 003I wish everything was this simple.

Banjo Man is speechless.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Posted in rhode island | 3 Comments

enough already

Posted on February 16, 2014 by is there any more pie?

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Posted in personal female whining, rhode island | 2 Comments

let it snow

Posted on February 15, 2014 by is there any more pie?

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Posted in music, rhode island | 1 Comment

colder than russia

Posted on February 15, 2014 by is there any more pie?

duck hunting sweat pants

In honor of the Olympics and because it was really, really cold outside this morning when I got up, and because we are getting another 8″ of snow today, I am wearing my “Made in Russia” sweatpants.

And no, there will not be a photo of me wearing these, because, well, you can only imagine how very attractive they are.

My friend Bachelor Steve*** gave them to me about five years ago, after he’d lost weight.

Sigh.

He technically gave them to Banjo Man, but I saw them first and claimed them immediately for myself.  Because they are the thickest, warmest sweatpants that have ever existed in the world.  Because they are made in Russia, land of Siberia and ice and frozen reindeer.  Do the Russians know about keeping warm?  Yep.

Banjo Man and I had a bit of a crisis last week, because I couldn’t find “Steve’s Sweatpants” and I thought Banjo Man had stolen them from the laundry basket and was wearing them himself.

He actually looked very guilty after I accused him of stealing the pants.  I threw a fit.  He stripped off the sweatpants right there in the living room during “American Idol” and handed them to me, but they weren’t Steve’s sweatpants.  They were cheap L.L. Bean imitations.  I gave them back to Banjo Man and he huddled in front of the fireplace and kept giving me disgusted looks.

He’ll get over it.

Several years ago I wanted to buy Bachelor Steve*** a new pair of sweatpants, a pair as equally wonderful as the ones I so love.  I searched the internet and couldn’t find an exact match.  Steve had told me that they were his “special duck hunting” sweats, worn under something waterproof and green-colored.

I searched and searched, hoping to surprise Bachelor Steve*** with a replacement pair of duck huntin’ pants, but sadly they no longer existed.  The Russians quit making them.

Darn those Russians.

I bought Steve a bottle of Scotch instead, and he said that was much better.

These duck huntin’ pants are the only good thing about winter, as far as I’m concerned.

olympic jumper

***Bachelor Steve is no longer a bachelor, having married the lovely Susan last December!

Posted in family, friends, personal female whining, rhode island | Leave a comment

yoga music spa, the home version

Posted on February 14, 2014 by is there any more pie?

Banjo Man is busy with business and will be away for a couple of days (though by the time you read this–these blog posts are being written ahead of time–he will have returned, with many stories to tell, I’m sure!) so I am organizing my own Yoga Music Spa Retreat Days.

And what is that, you ask?

I have a plan.

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I have a list.  Would you like to know what is on it?

1.  Learn how to play the lap steel (or sell the little sucker on Ebay).
2.  Open the new “Gentle Practice” yoga dvd and try not to hurt myself.
3.  Say hello to the treadmill again now that the boxes of Christmas decorations are not covering it.
4.  Continue playing the acoustic guitar until my non-calloused fingertips scream for mercy (which is about 40 minutes per session).
5.  Memorize the lyrics to an array of songs, both old and new.
6.  Watch anxiously for the FedEx man to deliver the new sound system.
7.  Paint toenails.
8.  Organize photos of the 1990’s while watching the Olympics.
9.  Eat low carb food, not banana bread.
10. Sing, loud and long.
11.  Clean out things, but only if I want to and it feels like fun.
12.  Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle (two hour a day minimum).

I’ve often told Banjo Man that in order to learn how to play the lap steel I needed two days in a room, alone, with no one to hear me cry, swear and scream.  I need hours and hours of uninterrupted time to unlock the mystery of it all, and I am determined to do that during the Yoga Music Spa Retreat Days.

2011-11-09 2011 NOVEMBER LAP STEEL 005This little guy and I have a lot of work to do.

Posted in books & music | 1 Comment

inside llewelyn davis

Posted on February 13, 2014 by is there any more pie?

A good movie for your Netflix queue…

This singer/songwriter couldn’t do anything right.

inside lewyn

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a movie where the main character made so many bad decisions. That said, I enjoyed the movie. I liked the glimpse into the beginnings of folk music in Greenwich Village, too.  Because I’m old.

And in researching the characters the movie was based on, I found this article from the Daily Beast that compares the fictional Llewelyn Davis to the real Dave Van Ronk, upon whom the character was loosely based.

Check it out.

Posted in movies | Leave a comment