Muddling through the middle...

Up to 34,446 words out of a planned 100,000.

Not sure where the plot is going right now. My subconscious kicked in and totally derailed a subplot I was planning on. The lifestyle consultant may well be a victim of the criminal conspiracy, but it's gonna be a chapter or two before Caprice learns anymore on that front while the Bureau burns precious days arresting the poor fella and interrogating him to find out how many other Sirian-manufactured potential exploits he's let loose on the Internet.

Heart's doing the "dear gods, can't we write something else?" while the Brain is saying, "No, we committed to this through May. Live with it." Barely managing about 500 words on a good day, but still managing. Nobody told me middle age was going to be so goddamned hectic.

The Internet makes old people paranoid...

My mother called me Tuesday all freaked out because there was a strange billing amount on her monthly bank statement for $327.17, an electronic transaction from her account to a bank based in Puerto Rico. She wanted me to use "the Internet" to find out all I could about this transaction.

Hah. Too many Sandra Bullock films.

Omaha and I thought it was possibly identity theft. Mom was convinced that maybe, somehow, my brother had fallen back into his previous bad habits and was taking money out of her account. But it was a regular transaction; the same transfer was on her previous month's statement, which she hadn't read quite so closely before. Either that or it was identity theft. The bank was being as helpful as it could be, but Omaha and I talked to her about the process of generating a new bank account number and pulling the old one out of circulation, a common response to identity theft.

After calming Mom down and going through all this, she calls me back a half hour later and says she's figured it out. The number was weird, she admitted, so she looked it up and discovered that it's the maintenence fee on her condominium.

Brainsurfing...

Clinton's pastor defends Obama's pastor

To evaluate his dynamic ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr. Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize.

Oh, but what does Pastor Dean Snyder know anyway?

It's a profit and loss system, Dummy!

I heard this on NPR last night. Professor of Economics Russell Roberts states the obvious:

In a world where people who make bad decisions are spared the full consequences, only one thing is certain. We've encouraged more people to make more bad decisions in the future. The real price to be paid isn't the dollar costs of any bail out, but the encouragement of recklessness and irresponsibility. That will make all of us poorer down the road.

The one thing he didn't point out is that invention is one of the seeds of growth, and invention requires both regulatory freedom and the chance to fail.

Is Cheney betting on Economic Collapse?

Tinfoil-hat article suggesting that Cheney's investment strategy, which is apparently public knowledge, is heavily skewed toward non-dollar holdings, short-term bonds, and other financial instruments that would do much better than average if the economy's pooch gets buggered

11 Year Old Girl Dies Because Parents Choose Prayer Over Medicine

The girl has three siblings, ranging in age from 13 to 16, the police chief said.

"They are still in the home," he said. "There is no reason to remove them. There is no abuse or signs of abuse that we can see."

Uh, hello? Their sister just died because their parents believe insane things about the way reality does and does not work. She died of a completely manageable form of diabetes, and her mother continues to insist that her daughter might still be resurrected! If this isn't the most horrible form of child abuse-- a reckless course of action that results in a slow, lingering, painful death-- what the fuck is?

Dean Kamen invents ultra-efficient water purification system for third world villages.

Ultra-efficient vapor-compression distiller married above a Stirling engine which generates electricty; the waste heat from the engine drives the compressor for water distillation. If it works as advertised, it's a serious step in the right direction for dealing with the world's water shortages.

Prada Prostitutes

An interesting article for writing about sex. Deals mostly with the lack of introspection among sex memoirists, but I'm wondering: what does the writer of the article really want from these people?

Protection Portfolios for the Home

Does it mean I'm old when stuff like this gets my attention?

The Real Cost of Financial Clutter on the Road to a Remarkable Life

I think I'm getting older...

50 Tips And Resources to Better Sleep

Yep, definitely getting older.

Mmm... überrisotto

So, I still had the chard left, and some squash, and the usual carrots and chicken broth. I stopped by the grocery store and bought two extra things I didn't have at the time: 3 oz of pancetta, and a pound of pearl barley. I had always wanted to try cooking with barley rather than rice, so I slammed two of my favorite recipes together with instructions from a third on how to cook with barley, and invented:

Barley Risotto with Pancetta, Chard and Roasted Winter Vegetables

4 cups chicken broth plus two cups water
1/4 tsp thyme
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 small parsnip, chopped
1/2 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped
1 1/2 cup pearl barley
3 oz pancetta
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tbs. bacon grease (or olive oil) 3 cloves garlic, smashed
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 cups torn chard
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven to 425F. Put the broth and water into a saucepan and bring to a near-boil.

Prep the carrot, parsnip, and squash, put into a bowl or plastic bag with 4 tbsp olive oil and 1 tsp salt, toss well, arrange in a single layer in a roasting pan, and roast in the oven for 35-45 minutes.

Melt the bacon grease on medium-high heat (or heat the olive oil) in a deep, wide pan. Chop the pancetta, onion, and garlic, and toss into the pan with all of the barley. Stir constantly for about five minutes, until the onion is glassy. Pour in the wine and stir until it's all gone, then cook risotto as normal: 1/2 cup of broth until it's absorbed or evaporated, then another 1/2 cup, stirring frequently (constantly is not necessary). This part might take upwards of an hour. Barley, I've learned, takes a lot longer to release its starch than rice.

Somewhere in all this, the roasted vegetables will be ready. Take them out and let them cool. When the risotto gets creamy and the barley is tender but chewy, mix in the vegetables until they're heated through, then add in the chard and mix, lowering the heat. Let the chard wilt, which should take about three minutes. Turn off the heat, mix in the Parmesan cheese and you're ready to eat.

This was just utterly fantabulous. Barley has a rounder, chewier texture than aborio, and the mix of squash, parsnip, pancetta, and chard made every bite different from the last, in a most delicious way. You really need your sense of smell for this one, too, and it stands up very well to even a strong red wine.

I'm gonna send her a memo, dammit, I really am!

"Muse, no."

"But I've got it. Really, I do! See, Gabriel's supposed to be the next Adam, a kind of posthuman Adam. It would work, wouldn't it? Remember Lucifer's promise at the end of Repentance? It would work. See, Gabriel's supposed to progenitate-- is that a word? It is now!-- "

"Muse, please!" I'm wailing at her.

"You said you wanted an ending, didn't you? Anyway, Gabriel, who thinks he's in love with Jill, is supposed to progenitate-- oooh, I love that word!-- with Elitia, right? That was the idea. Only, only, see, he gets set up by watching Mahazioth die at the flaming swords of the other angels, just so you can write the fight scene, which is something you need practice doing by the way, and at the last second he's whisked to safety by some on Mahazioth's side, including Hushai--"

"Wait, I thought Hushai was a demon. From Hell."

"She is!"

"You're giving me a massive headache, Muse, really you are."

"Anyway, Hushai gives Gabriel and Elitia the room they need, but... but! Gabe refuses to go along until someone, you know, the Guy In Charge™ does something to right the wrong of Mahazioth, because it's really Mahazioth that Gabriel's in love with."

"And then what?" I said.

"Well, then you write the love scene that gives Gabriel what he wants."

"What does he want?"

"You're the writer. You figure it out!"

"Muse!"