Very Late Seven

1. Why does my reaction to this make me feel like William F. Buckley Jr., standing athwart history yelling "stop"? Blech, blech, blech. Is it blasphemy, or just brainless lack of taste? I can't decide. I do know two things: (1) it makes me happier than ever to be Orthodox, and (2) if I showed this to our archpriest, exhausted as he is from Lent and Holy Week, I think he might cry.

2. It's Earth Day! Please don't turn your significant other into fertilizer, like the day's founder did. Instead, eat at Arby's and think of the rainforest. Well, at least that's what I always do...

3. In a related note, Two came home from school yesterday and announced he knew what "The 3 R's" were: reduce, re-use and recycle. He is now being homeschooled, and is grounded until he's 30. Almost kidding.

4. Have you seen all the kerfluffle about the implosion of Three Cups of Tea writer Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute? 60 Minutes ran a piece on it last week, and Jon Krakauer has written a longer article called Three Cups of Deceit, which is available on the new (and very cool) website, byliner.com. Apparently it boils down to this: lots of those "Pennies for Peace" you dropped in the jar at your kid's school? They went to pay for private jets and book tours, not schools. Sad - not for Mortenson, who will get what he deserve (one hopes) but for all the people who depended on him and his organization for help. But a good lesson for would-be shysters: do NOT accept $75k donations from investigative journalists and expect them to ignore any shenanigans you engage in.

5. One and I have been enjoying smoothies from recipes posted by Kristen Howerton last week. I've monkeyed with the recipes a bit (as usual), but the tropical fruit/spinach combo Green Machine smoothie is to die for. Two? He can't be persuaded to get near any of them: he has years of fruit and vegetable awareness training under his belt, and he's not going to eat anything he isn't completely certain didn't come from a plant.

6. I posted this on Facebook already, but seriously: the new "energy safe" lightbulbs shouldn't be used anywhere near people? I put one in Husband's closet over a year ago. Guilt. Sob. Guilt.

7. Simcha Fisher wrote a piece at the National Catholic Register last week about the very interesting St. Anthony "Wet House", run for alcoholics who have repeatedly failed to stop drinking. The home provides them with food and a roof over their heads, and they are allowed to drink the alcohol they provide themselves in a specific place in the house. I read the story with interest, and the comments with much more interest. They are divided pretty much between (1) God wants us to help those in need, and (2) isn't this a sin? we need to make sure it's not a sin before we help others. I definitely fall into the first camp, thinking it more compassionate to give someone a home and food rather than force them to sleep under a bridge; their own sin is between them and God. But I found it rather interesting that there was such a legalistic component to the thoughts one would have before extending a hand to the least of these.

There are no official "7 Quick Takes" this week at Jen Fulwiler's site, but check out all the goodness over there anyway, if you like.

Seven Quick Take Questions for Friday

1. Is sugar the devil?

2. Why are eating disorders increasing among Orthodox Jewish girls in the US?

3. Is anyone else as creeped out by work avatars as I am? Apparently IBM assigns one to every employee, or so I’ve heard. If I work for them can I request that mine is a size 2?

4. Would you paint your boy’s toenails pink? How about sharing a picture of it with the world? Me, I’m just glad my boys start gagging when they see pink, so I don’t have to answer either of these thorny questions.

5. If you’re a foodie, would you have liked cooking 100 years ago as much as you do now? Megan McArdle doesn’t think so. I think this helps explain why my home, built in 1940 in pre-air-conditioned Houston, has a kitchen cut off from the rest of the house, complete with swinging door and bells to call the cook from the torture chamber kitchen. I don’t like making dinner much these days at all; the idea that it took 30 hours a week to feed your family 100 years ago? I might have run off to join the circus at a young age, that’s all I’m saying.

6. Did you know I have a sister? This is her on the left.

Isn’t she good-looking?

7. Can we please do this in Houston? Woof.

For more Quick Takes, visit Jen Fulwiler’s blog, Conversion Diary.

7 Quick Takes Friday

This my first time officially participating in 7 Quick Takes (hosted by Jennifer Fulwiler), so if you're coming here from there, welcome!

1. The first replacement election equipment arrived this week in Houston. All 10,000+ voting machines owned by Harris County were destroyed in a suspicious fire several weeks ago, right after the Harris County Voter Registrar announced his intention to go after several groups allegedly engaged in voter fraud (groups with connections to the likes of Acorn, I might add).

2. This Friday marks the 5 year anniversary of Hurricane Rita, which was our first (and only thus far) hurricane evacuation. Eric Berger at the Chronicle has an excellent post on the storm (as usual), and how, despite the nightmare of the evacuation, Houstonians were probably right to be a little panic-stricken. As he says, 3 days before landfall, "The storm's maximum winds at the time were 175 mph, which roughly corresponds to an F3 tornado. Only this wasn't a tornado but a hurricane spanning hundreds of miles. And the storm was forecast to come ashore to the west of Galveston Island, pushing a massive 20- or 25-foot or greater storm surge across the island, into Galveston Bay and up the Houston Ship Channel. Winds over downtown Houston probably would have exceeded 120 mph. Damage would have been catastrophic. People had every right to be freaking out about the storm. It absolutely was a worst-case scenario for Houston."

3. Last weekend I made jerky for the first time, and as I promised my FB friends, I'm posting the recipe here. The boys are notorious jerky-eaters, so I put a little in their lunch boxes every day. And it's not just them: it's the most-stolen item at lunchtime, especially this week when the word got out that it was homemade. The quick and dirty on the jerky is this: I followed the "cold marinade" method listed here, and dried the jerky in the oven with the door cracked open. I used 3 lbs of buffalo and an eyeball marinade mixture of soy sauce, a dab of honey, apple juice, onion and garlic powders, and black pepper. 24 hours in the marinade and about 8-9 hours in the oven, in part thanks to the fact that I didn't slice it as thin as directed. The boys actually like the thicker strips, as they are easier to bite into. Next, I'm trying turkey.

4. While we're talking about food, I also made a delicious squash cake from The Meaning of Pie, my friend Kelly's excellent food blog. Two still has no idea the cake has squash in it. I did use lightly toasted pecans as a topping, but I skipped them and the raisins in the cake itself. I also skipped the dried squash slices, as I figured this would give me away altogether.

5. The Texas State Fair opens today, and once again I am left without plans to attend. Someday, someday, I will make plans in advance to take the boys to Dallas to gaze upon Big Tex and eat something fried.

6. Speaking of fried, Bettina Siegel has a post today on Frito-Lay awarding cash to school football programs ... for eating their products. That's just what big, beefy high school football players need, isn't it? More salt and fat. Yum, yum.

7. This week has been such a doozy, as is any that begins with backing the minivan into the half-open garage door. God must have increased my patience tenfold to help me get through this week without blowing up like a rocket, and for that I am immensely grateful. Despite the broken window and subsequent $265 charge to replace it, I have done less than my usual share of child-yelling, work-complaining, and all around crabbiness. God is so good, sometimes when we least expect or deserve it. I. am. so. grateful.

Have a wonderful weekend, y'all. And don't forget to check out other quick takes here.