Month: February 2005

SUPER BOWL THOUGHTS

TODAY’S WORRY

On Sunday, like so many other Americans, I watched the Super Bowl. It was the first football game I’ve watched this season. Here are some of my thoughts about it.

I don’t understand why people get so rabid over “their” team. It’s a game. It’s really got nothing to do with you or your self-esteem. Are you some how better because you live in New England now that the Patriots won? Probably you’re just cold.

What’s with the stupid dancing in the end zone or after a play? My brother-in-law, Gary, suggests that points be taken away if you blatantly celebrate. Not a fine. Points. That way, your teammates would be mad at you, the coach would be mad at you, and the fans would go berserk. No way anyone would do it twice. In tennis, if a player is unsportsman-like more than once, he loses points. I think it would work. Good idea, Gary.

I have got to say I loved Paul McCartney. Yeah, he didn’t grab his crotch or pull off anyone’s costume. And he can’t hit the high notes like he used to. But still, he was my favorite Beatle and I think he did a good job.

And finally, I heard on Monday that the second ad for GoDaddy.com was pulled because, in this brave new world of morality police, it was considered too racy. They’ve probably garnered more attention by the removal of the ad than they would have otherwise. Does anyone even know what they were selling? FYI, GoDaddy.com is a vendor of Web site names. You have to get attention somehow.

Farther and further

Here’s another pair of words that people avoid. If farther is the comparative of far; is further the comparative of fur?

According to The American Heritage® Book of English Usage as found on bartleby.com, the following is the correct usage.

“Many writers since the Middle English period have used farther and further interchangeably. A relatively recent rule, however, states that farther should be reserved for physical distance and further for nonphysical, metaphorical advancement. Thus 74 percent of the Usage Panel prefers farther in the sentence If you are planning to drive any farther than Ukiah, you’d better carry chains, whereas 64 percent prefers further in the sentence We won’t be able to answer these questions until we are further along in our research. In many cases, however, it is hard to see the difference. If we speak of a statement that is far from the truth, for example, we should also allow the use of farther in a sentence such as Nothing could be farther from the truth. But Nothing could be further from the truth is so common that it has become a fixed expression.”

Clear?

Vegetarian

In our ongoing attempt to get started on a diet, John and I have decided to eat mostly vegetarian. Of course, first we have to finish off all the meat in the freezer. By vegetarian I mean I’ll eat vegetarian almost all the time (except for some shellfish) and John will eat vegetarian when he is with me. This leaves him free to eat what he wants at work. Sarah gave me a great cookbook for Christmas, A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen by Jack Bishop. He’s the guy who does the taste test on the America’s Test Kitchen program on PBS. The vegetarian dishes he makes look absolutely wonderful. I can’t wait to get started!

So what has this got to do with dieting? Well, a diet is actually anything you eat. Right now, my diet is on the too much salt, starch and fat side. By eating vegetarian, I’ll be cutting down on at least the fat. That is, as long as I don’t overdo the cheese. I am trying to eat a healthier diet. Hopefully, weight loss will be a side effect.

DEPENDENCE

TODAY’S WORRY

I like to think of myself as a fairly independent person. But when I see young women out in the working world, I realize how really sheltered I am. And since John retired, I find it even more so. He rents the cars, does most of the driving, and deals with people at hotels and stores. He stays with me at social events where I don’t know people so I won’t have to be making chitchat on my own. What a good person! I think I was more independent when I first came out of college. I did a little traveling for my job and even stayed by myself in a hotel once but I never rented a car on my own until about 10 years ago. It is so easy to slip into a mode of avoiding all the “hard things.” I really need to force myself to do the tasks that are the most difficult for me before they become impossible.

Fewer and Less

First a quick note; did you find the NY Times Sunday crossword just way too easy today? I think the theme clues really set up the puzzle to be done in about a half an hour or less. Interestingly, the word, “interstice,” was in the puzzle today. Because it was the one of the words for the day this week, I remembered what it meant. Yay!

The other day, Sarah and I were discussing the usage of certain words and how we tend to modify our sentences to avoid using them altogether. Words like “lie” and “lay,” and “further” and “farther.” My friend Sophie, who was an English teacher, has a good rule for lay and lie but I can’t remember what it is. Hopefully, she will write in with it. So I thought I’d start with something a little easier.

Have you ever been in a grocery store line and the sign says, “Ten items or less?” Here’s the correct usage for less and fewer.

The traditional rule holds that fewer should be used for things that can be counted (fewer than four players), while less should be used with mass terms for things of measurable extent (less paper; less than a gallon of paint).
(dictionary.com)

So the sign in the grocery store should say, “Ten items or fewer.”

Left Bank, Menlo Park, CA

On Friday, all five of our family went out to Left Bank in Menlo Park for dinner to celebrate Jon’s recent birthday and our return from Florida. Left Bank is a bistro type restaurant with a large open seating area and a bar in front. It was pretty crowded and warm on Friday. We were seated at a large octangonal table which, given how noisy it was, did not promote a lot of conversation except with the person nearest you. This may be an older person problem; the kids seemed to have no trouble hearing each other. The waitstaff appeared promptly to take drink and food orders. We were given an interesting pitcher of water to keep our glasses filled. This was much appreciated since we tend to drink a lot of water.

Ryan ordered prawns with Pernod with garlic and citrus butter and Brussel sprouts with bacon. This was very good and everyone enjoyed dipping pieces of bread in her leftover sauce. Jon said it was quite complex. Sarah had tart Camembert and fondue Savoyarde, a fondue of goat, brie and bleu cheeses. So you could say she had a pretty cheesy dinner. Once again everyone enjoyed dipping pieces of bread in her fondue. Jon had the sausage special which he felt was rather bland. However, Jon likes everything pretty spicy. John had steamed mussels with pommes frites and the Brussel sprouts. This was a really big portion at a very reasonable price. I had sea bass with leek fondue and butter braised potatoes. I ordered the fish rare and, guess what, it was cooked exactly as I had asked. I found the potatoes and leeks a little heavy what with the butter and cream.

All the food was mostly very good and the bill, including two glasses of wine, only came to about $100. It’s not easy to go to a restaurant and get this quantity and quality of food for five people at such a reasonable price.

Pluses – well-cooked and interesting dishes, good service and reasonable prices
Minuses – noisy and warm; some of the dishes were too buttered, baconed or creamed (for me)

Mary – B+
John – A- (John thought his meal was really great but agreed about the noise and the warm)

Icons

TODAY’S WORRY

Back in the day when icons meant more than pictures on your desktop, we were indoctrinated with “doing the right thing” by Smokey the Bear and the Litterbug. Now being a suburban New Jersey girl, the chance of setting forest fires was remote, but I took to heart, “Don’t be a litterbug.” I remember giving my dad a really hard time when he would open a pack of cigarettes and throw the cellophane on the ground. (A few years later we would castigate our parents for smoking.) We children of the 50’s were a small army of litter police. Driving around in Florida, California, Nevada and Utah in the past few months makes me think that perhaps we need a new army of children indoctrinated with the “Don’t Litter” mantra. They will take it upon themselves not to litter but, even more importantly, they will call upon their piggish parents and acquaintances not to do so.

interstice

Another reason I like to be home is that I have a great big dictionary open on a table in the family room. I can get up from my chair (do you have a special place to sit at home?) and go look up a word easily. I like dictionaries because while you are looking for your word, and singing the alphabet song in your head, you see all these other words. As I said back in December, my English teacher from junior year always made us responsible for all the words around the “Word for the Day.” Of course, I’ll go on using dictionary.com for words here because it’s easier.

The word today is one that has come up a lot in crossword puzzles. Every time I see it, I think, “I’ll remember it for next time.” Then I don’t. I’ve tried reading it and saying it out loud but it just doesn’t stick. Maybe I will always remember it if I write it here in my blog.

interstice – A space, especially a small or narrow one, between things or parts. (dictionary.com)

This word comes from the Latin intersistere, to pause, make a break . You’d think after four years of Latin I’d know this. For all you Latin fans, Omnia Gallia est divisa in tres partes.

Cafe de Marco

Cafe de Marco, Marco Island, FL

Where do I begin? I guess with the article in the newspaper that Peg read to me extolling this restaurant’s many virtues and awards. Ted said, “maybe they wrote it themselves.” We should have listened.

The place, billed as a bistro, had the decor of glitzy, aging grand dame. Pink walls, swags at the windows, and fake, sparkly flowers above the lighting fixtures. I couldn’t figure out whether it was left over from Christmas.

The menu was primarily fish and seafood and the prices were in the $20-$25 per entree range. We ordered a bottle of wine and oysters Rockefeller to start. Other people had a basket of bread. Not us. When we finally asked the waitress to bring some bread, she feigned surprise at the oversight. In the oysters Rockefeller the bacon was tasty, the oyster almost non-existent and I think I was lucky enough to get a piece of shell (or maybe it was a pearl.) Next came a salad with lots of dressing.

For our main courses, John ordered the sea bass special and I ordered prawns and scallops. There was some confusion at first because I called them shrimp. duh. I guess if I were a waitress I’d know that shrimp and prawns are about the same thing. Both of us stressed that we wanted the fish and seafood cooked rare. Then we had a long wait. We drank most of our wine. Ate the three little rolls. (No more bread was ever offered.) Looked at the decor. Finally the order came.

John’s fish was cooked perfectly. I had scallop hockey pucks and dried out shrimp. So we sent mine back. We order more wine because we’ve gone through the bottle during the long wait. The waitress seems surprised. More people from the restaurant come to our table because we’ve complained. We explain that the dish was ordered cooked rare. We are told that most people like it cooked through. We explain that that is the reason we specified “rare.” I change my order to the sea bass. A new dish comes almost immediately. It was someone else’s. I feel sorry for the person who is not getting his dinner. The fish is good. The green beans are very crunchy. They really needed more cooking. It seems strange that they think that their clientele would like overcooked seafood and undercooked green beans.

To cap the whole experience off, the waitress makes a snide comment about the additional wine. And so, we celebrated our last night in Marco Island (or tried to.)

Mary’s rating – D- (this was only saved from an F by getting a piece of adequately prepared fish fairly quickly)
John’s rating – B- for his dinner and F for the whole experience.