Kara & Michael’s Blog

Chuck Colson claims he’s never met an atheist. I thought I’d introduce myself. Hey Chuck, how’s it hanging?  My name is Kara.

I’ve studied a load of religions in depth. I’ve studied groups you probably don’t even consider religions. They interest me endlessly. Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Pastafarianism… and then all the cults you probably don’t pay a second thought to, even though they tend to derive themselves from Christian tradition. I’ve never, ever found a religion that encompasses my world view.

Can I deny categorically that there is a God? No, but I can certainly say that I find it extremely unlikely there is one.

I used to be “religious”. I used to pray. These are habits most of us have instilled in us by our families, our communities, our friends. These habits become traditions and we attach them to places and feelings and memories and not so much to God over time. This is true even for religious people. How many Catholics really think about why they’re taking communion every Sunday? Do they just do it because it’s habit, because the whole group is doing it? I never had my first communion and as an adolescent, I used to be pushed into taking communion without any understanding of why we did so when I attended church services. Eventually, I stopped taking it because it was meaningless to me.

I refused to be married in a ceremony that would be tainted for me by being defined by any religion. When I’m close to dying, I will fight like hell, just like Dylan Thomas wanted.  I won’t baptize or indoctrinate my children. When I get in a shitty situation, I reassure myself about the inherent slack of the universe instead of praying. I am in control of my life and ultimately, the world (albeit a small portion of it). The good I do is reflected in the world, and in my heart. I don’t need a specter to threaten me or a benevolent being to reward me for my actions, the actions themselves are their own punishments and rewards.

The absolute, broad-brush approach to treating atheism as an impossibility for humans is hypocritical. I respect that people believe in God, that they may, in fact, be right. I don’t need to prove my disbelief in God any more than you need to prove your belief (because you couldn’t prove it, you know that, right?). What matters most is how we treat each other, something that too often gets lost in the flood of people trying to prove they’ve picked the right religion.

So now we’ve officially met. I look forward to your retracted statement.

I read a lot of writing on the internet, and so many people screw up the simplest phrases because they’ve only heard them and never read them and don’t think about it.  Today it was “intensive purposes” which is supposed to read, “intents and purposes.” Let me ask you something, does for all “intensive purposes” make any damn sense? Of course not. People just don’t think about phrases.

If I didn’t see crap like this all the time, I would just assume that someone had mis-typed a phrase, which happens to all of us. But that’s not the case - people actually don’t understand the phrases they’re using.

Occasionally, because I read so much and don’t actively define words outside of context, I’ll be writing and a word or phrase will come to mind that I think fits but don’t know if it’s accurate or correct. The great thing about the interwebz is you can look that word or phrase up and see if you’ve defined it correctly and used it appropriately.

For example, a google search for the phrase “for all intensive purposes” pulls up tons of hits with people arguing that the phrases mean the same thing. No they don’t. “For all intensive purposes” sounds stupid and makes not a whit of sense. “For all intents and purposes” is derived from a latin phrase.

I try not to be all grammar police because goodness knows, I don’t usually edit what I post unless I find some glaring error. You’ll find verb-tense disagreements, all sorts of basic crap that if I was writing professionally or even scholarly, I’d be editing out. But you know what you won’t find in this blog? Me using phrases or words I don’t understand or I mis-use. Because the most important thing about language is communicating meaning - and while comma splices don’t always screw up your meaning, misusing a word or phrase will always distort meaning.

Maryland Plate - 74T 260 (I believe). Red pickup truck. Driver and Passenger. Waiting behind me at the light to make a left turn onto 424 from 3 South, 18:00 on 7/1/2008. The light turns green but an ambulance with lights and sirens is in the left lane next to me, so I wait to see if it is turning. The passenger throws a bottle cap at the ambulance, it hits the ambulance, bounces off and it hits me. No big deal, just littering and you know, being a douchebag. I rant about how people who disrespect ambulances should have their privilege to them revoked. They’re behind me on 3 until I turn onto a side street, at which point the passenger tosses water on my car.

Water is no big deal. I guess what makes me mad is mostly this: Throwing crap at an ambulance is actually dangerous. If that cap had gone in through an open window, it could have hit the driver in the eye, which could have led to an accident, which would have delayed the ambulance from reaching its important destination. I take emergency vehicles seriously. These are people whose job it is to help all of us when we have a problem - a fire, a heart attack, a hostage situation. Disrespect towards emergency vehicles belies disrespect for society. If you don’t respect society, get off the road society saw fit to pay for by instituting taxes.

So I’m calling people out, license plate and all. You don’t have a right to drive, it’s a privilege. No one needs their stupid car, it’s a luxury. Before you start whining about getting to your job, you can move closer to your job. You’ve evaluated your priorities with a vehicle as a given because you didn’t think about what would happen if your privilege  to drive was revoked.

Among the problems I see with drivers in this country is that they see driving as a necessity. It’s not. Move to a city, get a job closer to home, walk or bike to the grocery store. We’re none of us entitled to drive, entitled to a car, entitled to cheap gas. It’s not in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. So grow up and treat it like the privilege it is.

Last night I made Flounder Florentine - using whiting instead of flounder and using collards instead of spinach. I thought I’d explain it because it was pretty simple and Michael said it was good.

To start, I boiled water with a vegetable bouillon cube. You could certainly use meat stock if you choose. Then I rinsed and cut a bunch of collards (probably 5 or 6 stems) - I cut out the middle stem and then rolled up the leaves and chopped them. I think they call this chiffonading them. It’s the easiest way I’ve seen to chop up collards. The collards boiled for fifteen minutes in the veggie stock.

While boiling the collards, I took out four of the frozen whiting fillets and set them into a glass dish to thaw out in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Then I grated half a cup of Parmesan, set a cup of soy milk into the microwave for a couple minutes (until it nearly boils) and threw a small saucepan on low heat and put in three tablespoons of butter. I melted the butter and then threw in three tablespoons of flour. You may worry at first about chunks of flour, but if you constantly stir the mixture, it will thicken and smooth out. I stirred it over the heat until it was a very pretty yellow color. I would have cooked this roux longer if I was making a white sauce for veggie sausage biscuits, but since I was adding Parmesan, I didn’t want too much color in the roux.

I took it off the heat to add the nearly boiling soy milk, and mixed that over the heat until it gets the thickness I wanted, then I took it off the heat again to add the Parmesan. While I mixed that off the heat, I added salt and then pepper and garlic powder - which are both entirely unheard of in a florentine sauce. Finally, I added all my collards (after draining them in a colander for a few minutes) - probably a cup or two cooked - into the sauce and mixed it in to make sure it got entirely covered in sauce.

The fish came out of the oven, I threw a little bit of butter in the pan (1 Tb or so) so the fish wouldn’t stick and then piled the sauce on the fillets. They cooked for a little over ten minutes at 375 until they flaked with a fork. Then we salted them (I notoriously under-salt, Michael loves salt way more than I do) and each of us had one fillet along with a whole wheat roll.

I have to say this is entirely not traditional, but I really loved the garlic, and the collards. So often I use frozen spinach doing a dish like this and it doesn’t retain any texture. The collards were tender but they still had a little bite to them.

Secondly - the other day I told Michael I wanted Pimm’s. It’s a british liquor, reminds me of the time I spent in England and of Summer. He went looking for it at our local liquor stores but none of them had it in stock right now. So he created a riff on it using 1 part gin, 1 part red vermouth, 1/2 part orange curacao. Using 1 part of the alcohol mixture with 3 parts fizzy lemonade (in our case, diet lemon lime soda), he then added orange, lemon, lime and strawberries to the cup. It tasted fresh and summer-y and hardly like alcohol at all. We each had two and then I stopped drinking and Michael continued with wild blackberry Korean wine and also North Korean Pyongyang soju. We have a local liquor store with Korean employees and they tend to carry a lot of really nifty Korean alcohol.

I tasted the Soju mixed with warm water and it was very good. Sweet tasting before and after taste, but almost no middle-taste. This one lacked complexity, but it was definitely a good drink for getting drunk.

Inari often does very irritating things because she is smart. Do not ask me how she does some of the things that she does because I do not know. But yesterday evening I came home and she had managed to get a Tupperware container of shortbread cookies open and pull out ONE cookie, only one, and lick it until it was sodden with kitty saliva.

The cookies - by the way - were put into a plastic container that once housed masoor dal. They are beginning to taste vaguely of it. I think it may be time to throw them out. That is, if Inari doesn’t decide to open the container again today.

I’m frequently struck by what a strange cat she is. She imitates our actions, using her front paws as hands. She will sit in front of a fan because she’s interested in it, even with it blowing on her although she hates when we spray her with air as punishment. She can open doors, and if the way she usually opens them doesn’t work, she uses tools. She’ll pull on a robe hanging on a door to open it. When she wants something, she makes a grasping motion - standing and putting both her front paws together rhythmically. She does this to me sometimes when she wants me to pay attention to her. Wherever she is in the house, no matter what she is doing, she comes running as soon as someone cracks the ice cube tray (much like a dog) even though she doesn’t get any ice.

She’s almost a year old. Michael asked me today if we would have a birthday party for her in about a month. I’m not opposed to it. But how do you throw a party for a cat?

Michael and I went to see Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine last night at the 9:30 club.

For those who have never visited 9:30, it’s a pretty small club in Washington, DC. I used to visit frequently, the shows are pretty reasonably priced, they’re all-ages unless otherwise specified, and they’re pretty well run. The only problem is parking, which isn’t an issue if you see a show on the weekend or an earlier show during the week because metro will still be running.

They always have free water out, and they have a couple bars (with good beer on tap), food and coffee. Speaking of, the drinks were strong. One gin and tonic got me pretty wasted… granted, I have no tolerance for alcohol anymore, but still. We managed to get seats to the right of center stage in the third row. This is the first time I have ever attended a seated show at 9:30 and those seats are really uncomfortable. Of course, there were plenty of people standing along the sides and back and on the balcony (as always).

Richard Cheese plays popular songs in a cheesy lounge style. He also perfectly embodies the cheesy lounge singer. He walked out with a martini glass in hand, and a tuxedo on, with his hair slicked back. If that wasn’t enough to make you laugh, he’s just funny. He hit on women (and some men) in the audience. He laughed at parents who brought their kids to the show. He walked through the audience a TON. He changed his tux 4 or 5 times. He interacted with the staff at the venue (named them, demanded applause for them). He drank a lot. He ranted about how the valet at the hotel in town dented their van. He gave out cds and tshirts to the audience. Among my favorite moments of the night was when he covered the Spongebob Squarepants theme. He passed out some containers of bubbles to the audience, had the staff turn on blue lights, had the crowd wave their arms and pulled out a bubble machine and ran around the stage with it on. It was great.

If you get the chance to see him on this farewell tour or at one of the highly paid gigs he will still do after this farewell tour - take it. I guarantee you will laugh the entire time. This man is an incredible performer (and his band is pretty darn good, folks). This is the closest you will get to the best shows in Vegas without going to Vegas.

PS: Michael just reminded me of his favorite part of the show.  Richard Cheese went into the audience looking for two girls who were together but weren’t together and told them to “Make out!” When they did briefly, he remarked, “No one has EVER done that before. I love this city!” haha, indeed.

Last night, after an evening meeting and super-late bus for Michael and a load of errands for me, we decided to deviate from our scheduled meals and eat out at a  local chain restaurant. We were seated next to a mother, father and their two children (a daughter of about 6-8 years, a son of about 4-5 years). The back of Michael’s seat was also the back of the seat for the mother and the younger son, who was getting restless and kicking his sister, crawling under the table - in short, doing the things that younger kids do when they get restless.

After a meaningless threat from his father, “You won’t get any icecream” (after it was ordered and they’re sitting waiting for it), the mother started talking to him in low, mommy-means-business, tones.

And she told her son that if he didn’t behave, she would let the man behind him beat him up. The man behind him was Michael.

Never mind that making idle threats to your children is a really idiotic way to get them to behave or respect you. Dragging a stranger into the discipline of your child is even more idiotic. After they left, I told Michael that since she had chosen to involve him in discipling the child, he ought to have a say in how it would be done. He said he would beat up the mother after he was done with the kid. We laughed and continued eating.

You’re encouraging your children’s fear of others, and also encouraging their disrespect for YOU. Children should behave because their parents told them to, and when they don’t, their parents punish them. If I had been misbehaving in a restaurant, I would have been taken outside and reprimanded. Heck, all it would have taken was a warning glare from my father to get me to shut up. But I probably wouldn’t have misbehaved, because going out was a special occasion (think a couple times a year) and we all had to be on our very best behavior. We wanted to be because it was a treat to go out and sit with adults, to be able to order what you wanted and have a whole meal to yourself! A luxury, especially for a picky-eater like me.

I wouldn’t rant about this if it hadn’t happened to Michael before. I have never had this happen to me or anyone I’ve known before, but somehow everyone thinks Michael would be a great disciplinarian for their kids. Once, Michael and I went on a double date to a baseball game and a nearby parent said to their wandering kid, “If you don’t get back here, that bad man will take you!,” referring to Michael.

First of all, why do parents think teaching their children that anyone they don’t know is a “bad” man? Strangers aren’t necessarily bad - strangers have helped me change my flat tires, they’ve helped me find my mom when I was bawling as a kid in the store. Heck, if your kid ever needs a police officer because something is wrong, that man or woman will be a stranger. So stop teaching kids to fear people they don’t know! Your kids will be smart enough to know if something or someone is “bad” if you give them a good sense of personal autonomy and boundaries.

Second of all, please don’t make Michael responsible for your kids behavior. He didn’t have your damn kids, he isn’t raising the beasts, and he shouldn’t be scaring them into submitting their wills to mommy or daddy. That’s not the way he would choose to discipline any kid. But you don’t leave him any choice.

Finally, what is it about Michael? He’s not intimidating at all. He’s not that built. He’s not that tall. He’s not loud. He’s not angry. He looks thoughtful, speaks quietly, smiles frequently. Is it strictly a question of gender? Do any other men get turned to this way when a child needs to be disciplined?

Maybe this bugs me more than it should. But the way people treat their children really bothers me sometimes, especially when they bring my husband into the equation with their idle threats. Listen, you raised your kids from Day 1, if they don’t respond to you - you’re doing something wrong. Change it and their behavior will change. It’s not rocket science.

I don’t mind kids acting like kids in a family restaurant (the parents of those kids ticked me off more than the kids doing restless kid things), but it should be pointed out: Every group in the restaurant, minus Michael and I and a couple tables of teenagers, had young children. All of those kids were on their best behavior from what I saw. So even if it’s in a child’s nature to misbehave, a lot of parents find a way to keep them under control, at least for an hour or so.

PS. Michael isn’t scary. He is harmless. The most he could do is instill in your children a very dark and surreal sense of humor. They would never be the same.

• Garlic Scapes
• Oregano
• Chard, bunch of stems
• Collard Greens, bunch of stems
• Zucchini, one
• Spring Mix, one bag
• Big head of Lettuce (Red Leaf, maybe?)
• Beets, one bunch
• Red Potatoes, 6 or so
• Bing Cherries, one pint

Michael loves cherries, and I’m allergic (darn birch sensitivity!) to uncooked cherries, so those are all for him. Still, though, is anything prettier than a cherry? Not by my standards.

Michael has a philosophy on weight loss that goes like this, “Live like you are the weight you want to be, and gradually you will move towards that weight.” It makes sense, no? So yesterday, he asked if I would walk the 2.something miles (one way) to the dollar store with him. It’s an easy walk, he said. I agreed to go.

If you live somewhere other than Maryland, I’ll let you in on a secret about Maryland summers. They’re pretty hot, but it’s not the heat that gets you. It’s the humidity. It’s the mugginess. It’s the haze of moisture that clouds everything and sticks your clothes to your skin and sticks your skin to your other skin. It’s gross. I had a Spanish teacher in high school who told us girls that we wouldn’t wrinkle because of the humidity, so we’d appreciate it down the road. Maybe she’s right, but either way, it’s not fun weather to walk in.

But walk we did. Slowly. Walking with me is like walking with a six year old. I stop to look at flowers, at squirrels, at birds. After about an hour, we made it to the dollar store. I bought bubbles, cookies and flavor-ice (their Italian Ice collection… it is tasty). Then we stopped at 7-11 for some propel. Then walked back. On the walk back, my legs started to give out. I had to push myself to make it the last mile or so. A woman walked by and asked, “did you walk ALL the way to the store?” as if the concept had never occurred to her.

This morning my quads and hamstrings are making me walk a little bow-legged. My right heel has been scraped up by the back of my shoe, so I’m putting that foot down funny. I look stupid, in other words.

But, I’m glad I went. I always look at old couples walking in the morning, holding hands and I tell Michael, let’s be like that when we get old. Maybe we’ll be skinny then. As Michael said last night, “I don’t see fat people walking. So we’ll either end up skinny or we’ll stop walking.”

Sights from our walk:

This bird was really cute. It didn’t run away from us and when I talked to it, it chirped back to me. It was adorable.

This was printed on a sheet of plexi-glass. I don’t know why. I think someone thought they were being really clever with this, but it doesn’t read well. The jumps in logic aren’t smooth enough for it to be funny.

And this is the cat I woke up to this morning, after she had thrown my glasses somewhere and made me look for fifteen minutes before I found them. Before she started chewing on a plug for a fan that was running. We are lucky she has not died yet.

Puffy cat! This is her sideways, dare you to fight with me, prance. Her tail is like ten times its normal size.

Anyone who is pro-ana.  Walk away right now, because I know you’re just going to throw a fit about how no one understands you and how you have every right to do what you want to your own body.  You’re right, you do. But don’t think for a minute that the way you take care of yourself doesn’t impact your family, friends, spouses and people who love you.

I stumbled onto a community for plus-size people who want to lose weight by utilizing anorexic and bulimic methods. Namely, eating a few hundred calories a day, binging and purging, etc.  It made me angry and sad.

I’ve been fat my whole life.  And I’ve gone through periods where I ate a few hundred calories a day and then binged and then hated myself and went back to eating a few hundred calories a day. I know the burst of pleasure you can get from denying yourself food, especially when you’re constantly thinking to yourself, “My life would be better if I was skinny.”

It’s not just “my life would be better”, it’s “My life would be perfect if I was skinny.”  I would sit and fantasize about how tiny I would be and how guys would fall all over me, and how confident and happy I would be automatically. As soon as I was skinny.

What a crock. Was I happier when I was thinner?  Yes - but it wasn’t because I was thin (I never was). It was because I was working out and eating well. I could go to the gym and lift weights surrounded by guys and not be self-conscious. I could race people and beat them in sprints. I was more confident, but I was more confident because my body was my friend.  I wasn’t skinny, I didn’t look the way I did in my fantasies, but my life was still amazing.

I understand why people think being skinny will make their lives better.  Attractive people do better in the world, and we all have to live in the world. But I also understand that people don’t choose to deny themselves food just because they want to be skinny. They do it to satisfy some emotional hole. And that is always the path that leads to destruction.

I lived on a few hundred calories to deny myself because it made me feel strong. It went hand-in-hand with behaviors like cutting and pulling out my hair. I did it to prove something to myself. And when I inevitably binged, it reminded me how weak and worthless I was. That’s why people with anorexia or bulimia are never happy - every day is a struggle between proving yourself and your own perceived worthlessness biting you in the ass. Trust me - when you believe you are worthless it will always, always bite you in the ass. Which means that no matter how skinny you get, you will never believe you’re skinny enough because you’re still miserable because you haven’t approached the real problem, which is this: you don’t believe in your own worth.

The antithesis of the pro-ana crowd are the plus-size crowd who think it’s okay to be heavy and that the medical impacts are over-emphasized.  I don’t like those people any more than the pro-ana crowd. Encouraging people to gain weight or stay at the same weight when they probably have bad habits is a terrible idea.  There’s not enough of a middle ground out there.  So let me establish it - your weight should never be attached to your ego. You shouldn’t be concerned with losing weight, but with establishing good emotional and physical habits for yourself. Forget everything else. Being fat doesn’t make you worthwhile or worthless. It makes you fat.

For the pro-ana and anti-diet crowds, I’ve lost 14.5 pounds while on slim-fast, as of today. I didn’t lose that by doing anything more than limiting my calories, choosing what to eat more carefully and getting more active. I can still go out to eat, I still eat sweets and carbs and deep fried onion rings sometimes. And I’m losing weight, anyway. Will I keep it off? It remains to be seen (heck, I’ve probably got another year or two of slow weight-loss ahead of me before I can think about maintaining). But honestly - the way I used to eat isn’t attractive to me anymore. I like my life, the way I cook and eat. And when I overdo it, I don’t feel awful or worthless.  I adjust my calories down just a bit for the next couple days and try to up my activity.

I would never be so presumptuous as to suggest everyone can or should do what I do. All I’m saying is if you choose a weight-loss program that puts your physical and emotional health at risk, you will never be happy - no matter how much weight you lose.