Woohoo! A new bebe!

Congratulations to Steve and Michelle, who had their first boy, Michael Eugene, yesterday morning.

Steve says he's pretty sure all the limbs are in their proper places.

Can't wait to see pictures, although Steve is computerless for now. Michael's sisters, Miss Julia and Miss Grace, were properly excited, Steve reported, jumping up and down when they were allowed in to see their new brother. Miss Grace, the oldest, allowed Miss Julia be the first to hold Michael, saying "This is her first time to be a big sister."

Lucky Steve and Michelle to have such sweet kids.

Holiday porpoise

This afternoon, I went down to my favorite beach-end, the Second Avenue Pier, and was lucky enough to see a school of harbor porpoise playing in the surf. Not quite frolicking, because they didn't actually leap out of the water, but they came up and dove again. Wish I'd had my camera, but all I would have gotten were their fins and backs, anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Hope everyone has a lovely day. The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is fabulously obnoxious this year!

A Thanksgiving cornucopia...

...of hateful political news.

Apparently, Bush wants a refund from soldiers who got signing bonuses to extend their service in Iraq and then -- because they were injured -- could no longer serve.

It's like the White Star line billing the families of Titanic crew members for the uniforms that were ruined when the crew members drowned.

Bush wants a refund? I think we should get a refund of all the money we've been gouged by Bush's corporate cronies, all the "political capital" Bush thought he could spend and all the worldwide goodwill he has squandered, plus damages.

Get your Bigas on

Per Joel's request, here's the recipe for a shotgun-to-the-heart breakfast that so yummy on cold Sunday mornings in Aurora. It came to me from Miss Schnakenberg, who probably still makes the best pancakes ever. She knows her breakfasty treats.

Warning: The Bigas is addictive. It should be called "Crack-as." But that sounds too much like "Cracker," a word I don't want to be caught using in reference to anything other than a Triscuit here in the MB.

5 eggs
1/4 cup ricotta (sure, go ahead and use the low-fat kind, not that it makes a lick of difference)
5 slices bacon
2 small flour tortillas
1/4 cup chopped onion
handful of shaved Parmesan
salt and pepper to taste

Beat the eggs with a dash of cold water until they are fluffy and season with salt and pepper (I like lots of pepper and only a little salt, because the Parmesan and bacon are salty and full of delicious nitrates). Whisk in the ricotta. Cut the tortillas into bite-sized pieces and stir them into the eggs. Cover and refrigerate while you cut the bacon into bite-sized pieces and fry it until crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan to a paper towel to drain. Reserve about a TBSP of the bacon fat and saute the onion in it until it's tender. Add the bacon back and reduce the heat to low. Get your egg mixture out of the fridge -- if there's almost no moisture left, you can beat up one more egg and stir it in. Pour the egg mixture into the pan and slowly stir it with a wooden spoon until the eggs are cooked through and creamy. Top with the shaved Parmesan. Serves 2.

We liked to eat it with a gooey cinnamon roll on the side and a lot of coffee. The best part is that the tortillas soak up the egg and get all soft like little dumplings. The longer you let them soak, the better the whole dish is. It is, as the kids used to say, "the bomb." Just don't plan on moving off the couch for the rest of the day.

Another disappointing dinner

There are about a gigillion restaurants here in the greater MB area, and I like to try new-to-me places, so the restaurant section in the yellow pages of any new city is nothing but unlimited potential to me.

On Saturday nights, I take myself out to dinner hoping to find that one special place I could share with visitors.

I've found a great place for delicious martinis and mojitos -- especially the black-cherry mojito. Yum.

Other than that, I've had sad Asian chicken salad with the worst dressing I've ever tasted at a place everyone at work billed as "one of the best places in town;" a sucky lobster spring roll that had no actual shellfish in it and was burnt on the bottom; boring fajitas; chile rellenos drowning in cheese sauce; and, perhaps the worst because it should be the best because it comes right out of the local waters: badly done seafood -- overcooked, over-sauced, over-fried, just bad.

Tonight's experiment was a local trattoria. Now, I'll admit being a snob when it comes to Italian food, but when you know enough to call your ristorante a trattoria, I'm going to expect you know how to make at least decent cucina rustica -- a good bruschetta, a nice risotto and a fine espresso to end the meal. And if you're charging what this place charges, it better be better than decent.

Apparently, I need to lower my expectations.

My waiter told me he is Italian, but mispronounced everything on the menu, apparently having learned to identify his Italian food by watching "The Sopranos." Pro-shoot? Moozadell? Give me a break, junior. No, I'm NOT going to let you choose my entree (not when they are heading toward $30 a plate), and by the way, cappuccino is the one with lots of foam on top. Latte is the one with lots of milk in it and just a little foam. When I order a cappuccino, I want the foam. Worst risotto ever: This place.

Oh, and when you come to visit, I'll do the cooking. It won't be gourmet, but I won't lie and say it is, either.

The house hunt begins

Just found out tonight that I'm pre-approved for a mortgage loan, so now I have to get serious about searching out that place I want to live. I found one that's like a little doll house, alhough the pastel paint (different colors in every room) would have to go immediately. But it's kind of funky. I'm hoping I will just know the place when I see it. But my luck with that whole at-first-sight thing -- not so much.

Signage

I was too late to get a shot of the family campground marquee that had displayed an apocalyptic passage from the Book of Revelation -- the owners have changed it to something more soothing from the Book of Psalms.

Also too late to get a shot of the "Booled P-nuts" sign at the roadside produce stand near my office. Someone must have realized "boiled" has an "i" in it.

I did, however, find these.

Mary Kay Latourneau's new store:



And this one, which worries me slightly. Is Wicked Gift the name of a bad cover band from Boston? Or is it code for the STDs that will likely plague people who hook up at this rockin' roadhouse? I believe it's best to avoid this joint 2 NITE.

What rocks right now

The new Bruce Springsteen album. I don't usually listen to Springsteen song after song (except when Adam's plying guest D.J.), but I'm really enjoying this new stuff. Hope my downstairs neighbors don't mind it, or the Pete Townsend revival that's on right now.

Actually, seeing as how they don't even start their door-slamming, yelling, bowling-with-elephants parties until 2 a.m., I don't care if they like it. In fact, I might just put the speakers on the tile floor and turn it up, then dance around in high heels while I scrape a wooden chair across the floor.

Also, I realize I'm late to this, but I recently discovered Good Charlotte. Yay! And Jesca Hoop -- love her voice, especially on "Big Fish."

And I just saw "Sicko" this week. Normally, I'd be first in line for a Michael Moore movie, but I just never got around to it this summer while I was driving, and it came out on video on Election Day (convenient, that...) so I contributed about 50 cents to Michael Moore's fat bank account and bought it.

Typical M.M., there are some great stunts in it -- especially the trip to Guantanamo Bay and the Cuban hospital. I know he's a shameless self-promoter, but I like the guy. The movie will make you cry -- even if he takes a rosy view of what are surely flawed health-care systems in other countries, the stories here at home are heartbreaking. Made me remember to be extra thankful that my parents' health coverage was what it was.

The movie, like all of his films, made me furious. Made me want to move out of the country, in fact, and/or wish I was charismatic enough to start a revolution. But if Michael Moore can't do it, what chance have I got?

Today's driving home the reasons documentarians don't make movies about regular people's lives. Yawn. Here's our subject making coffee. Here she is writing out her grocery shopping list and contemplating actually going to the store. Fascinating.

Hope everyone's having a good weekend. If you haven't yet, or lately, check out my friend Michael Shea's blog from his trip to China (the link is on the right) -- great stories and beautiful photos. He's doing some crafty stuff with his pictures. I have to learn summa that.

La bella luna

Those NASA people. They get the best views.

Just do it

Vote. Seriously. Go right now and vote.

Living on the edge...

I realize I'm risking all hell breaking loose in my last 20 minutes at work tonight by saying this, but wow, has it been quiet. I'm only saying that in comparison to last Sunday, when we had seven college students die in a house fire up in Ocean Isle Beach, plus a meth-lab bust complete with haz-mat suits.

My request to the chaos gods for a peaceful night was granted. Thank you.

Another thing I'm thankful for? Fall back. I love standard time. Maybe because there's more moonlight.

Weather update

Noel has moved on up the coast. Sorry, Long Island.

Hurricane Noel

The hurricane is passing us, heading for the upper North Carolina coast or farther north (unless it turns... though it's a big comfort to me to know that a hurricane has never made landfall in the MB because we're in a sort of a cove). The wind sounds like a furious cow bellowing outside my front door, and the ocean is choppy and grey. This is what Weather.com was showing me just before 11 a.m.

Yahoo!

Congratulations to Dan, who passed the Bar exam. Now that plushy porpoise is never going to leave you alone, Dan. Just don't party too hard or Andrew will call the cops on you.

An office-coffee moment

The other day, a co-worker made some snide comment about the "sludge" we drink here in the office, which I thought was a joke until this morning. I'm on my second cup because I had to get here at 7 a.m. to be the day cops reporter, and of course, last night I was Insomnia Central. Didn't go to sleep until 4, got up at 6. I LOVE those nights. But that's all just an explanation for why in god's name I would ever, ever, have two cups of Folgers, triple Sweet-N-Low and fake creamer powder. And why I no longer laugh at "sludge," because there in the bottom of my cup, sure enough, is some greyish sludge.

The good thing about being this tired? I'm so tired I just don't care, and I'm punchy. Everything is funny, including the woman who just passed through the newsroom carrying a GIANT plastic bag filled with already inflated balloons.

I'm such a slacker -- I was going to post something for Halloween, with dogs dressed up in horrible, torturous costumes. I even found some hilarious pictures, like "dogzilla," with a bulldog in a green lizard costume. But now it's over. I guess I'll save them for next year.