Friday, December 23, 2005

Cookies and hotdog dogs


Marla, my former and sweetest ballet teacher ever came over for lunch Thurs. and at my request brought her 2 mini-dachshunds, Oscar and Vienna. There they are in character as Scrooge and Tiny Tim. Vienna (Sausage) is new but I know Oscar (Mayer) since he was a tiny puppy. He and his Dad, Sabrett, would hang in the studio during classes. They knew they were allowed to beg for treats only after reverence, (bows) then they would go nuts. How did they know? Was it the tempo of the music, the choreography? Recently Marla had out-of-town guests who had a sealed, taped, tin of M&Ms in their closed suitcase. While the people were out, Oscar not only opened the suitcase, he unsealed and opened the tin, and ate zillions of M&Ms. How did he do that? When Marla came home, she found him all fat and swollen and, because chocolate is toxic to dogs, the vet said that she had to induce vomiting. Just picture that tiny dog spewing out multi-colored... never mind. But he’s so cute! We had a wonderful day! I'm so happy that her dance company will use Mom's old mink stole and her black mink jacket and Auntie's 40's racoon jacket. In fact, Marla is working on a new ballet with a sort of Thin Man, 1930's murder mystery motif and the furs will be way appropriate. Mom and Anna would qvell !

Since seeing Charlie and the Chocolate factory, I’ve been laying awake nights thinking about making candy and cookies so on the the day of the winter solstice I made some:dark chocolate raisin bark with toffee peanuts, triple chocolate cookies (an old recipe from Morgana I will share) and butterbrickle-pecan cookies. Steve and Marla both brought cookies, so I'm all hooked up in terms of an extra layer of fat for winter.

Last night we ventured into deepest, darkest Boro Park ( an orthodox Jewish neighborhood- no one there!)) to finish our Xmas shopping. 15 minutes away, it took 45 to get there thanks to the transit strike, but the store and the supermarket next to it were almost empty! Yeah baby!

Of course the TA strike ended last night but not before it got ugly. (Told you so!) The mayor accused the Transit Workers of being "thuggish and selfish", which was accurate- they were like a gang of thugs holding the city hostage during a major tourist and sales season.Toussaint, the TW pres, called the remarks racist, because most of the workers are Black, Latino and Asian-american. Hmmm, so is most of the MTA ridership, as well as the population of the city. There may be a lot of issues here, but to bring the race card in is just mean and irrelevant. No cookies for him!

No cookies for Congress either. $50 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. $29 billion for US hurricane relief. There are still people living in flophouses. Hey, what's the rush?Republicans said because they can't drill in Alaska, they will cut $2 billion in home heating assistance for low-income homes.The Patriot Act, was cut and pasted into limbo again. W warned yet again that security is more important than privacy. While this may be debatable, the concept of security is not. Secure is kinda the opposite of violate, yet our rights, laws and our Constitution are being violated and we are certainly not more secure.

I am totally for increased security! The world and US have changed since 9/11. I support random bag searches on the subway and am angered that people oppose it while at the same time spill their lives out of cell phones in every public place for everyone to hear; anyone can monitor cell phones. Security and privacy need to be defined; we can't have different (illegal) rules for the government that no one knows about. Our own gov't is depriving us of the very freedom it says it is fighting to keep. Security needs to be intelligent, respectful, judicious and non- invasive and gasp, sensible. Unlike the following true story:

The night before the RNC last August, NYC police used a $9.8 million custom helicopter designed to track terrorist activity for the purpose of watching Critical Mass, a group of several thousand bicyclists ( a known rowdy and subversive group?) as they tried to ride peacefully thru the city. As this was not on the Republican agenda because no fossil fuels were used, they were denied a permit and hundreds were harrassed and arrested. (This story also involves a developing scandal about "ringer" cop/ agitators amongst the bikers, but more about that later) Meanwhile, a couple on their private, dark, enclosed rooftop were filmed by infrared camers as they shared intimate moments. For four minutes! Hey, youse got a bomb or a bombshell up here? The owner of the apartment found out about it when the tape was shown on TV. Our tax dollars at work, don't you feel the security already? It's enough to make you want to toss your cookies.

Johnny Damon abandoned the RedSox for the reviled Yankees for a zillion dollars per each at bat. He is a cookie (with or without) the hair but really, who cares! It's the wrong season anyway.

Last night I ate cookies and watched the end of the Nutcracker on PBS followed by a show about the holiday lights in ... Dyker Heights! Am I au courant or what? Or in this case, or watt!

2 comments:

Bebe said...

Ive lived thru this kind of crap before but never has stupidity and lying been taken to this degree. George ll has nothing on Edgar Hoover, those sneaky, paranoid,peeping,muggle death-eaters both!

Anonymous said...

Johnny Damon! Are you a baseball fan?? I am a huge Sox fan, and...you're in New York, right? Uh-oh. :)

Dachshunds are my all-time favorite breed of dog. My grandparents had one named Heidi who was perfectly well-behaved, unless they dared to leave town and board her, in which case she would make herself so sick that the kennel would call my grandparents and they'd have to come home. She had them very well-trained. Heh.

Happy holidays! :)