my cupp runneth...

I watched last Friday’s Real Time last night on the DVR, and listening to SE Cupp was such a perfect moment of hearing the call of ignorance in its natural habitat. Her attempt to put forth a position on civil rights and gun ownership was so pathetic that I had to sit down and tap some keys. Even with someone (Michael Moore, in this case) sitting right next to her saying, “You can have all the guns you want, we just want background checks,” she was still too shallow in the thinking pool to realize her diatribe on her second amendment rights was pathetic. Her position, and I’ll paraphrase here, is that “us law-abiding citizens who want to buy guns should not have to wait – even a second – for a background check to be completed. We are law-abiding citizens. That is violating my rights.” (They like to repeat that law-abiding bullshit quite often.)

Let’s breakdown the gun owner talking points that Cupp parrots so wonderfully. First, it’s clear she supports the idea the guns aren’t the problem; our mental health system is the problem. Second, if we could only have a list of those “mentally ill” people, and the rights that we will suspend, then we could fix the problem. (We don’t need to get into the issue of mental health right now; nor do the sudden mental health supporters ever offer any answers to myriad issues with this pipe dream.)

Hopefully Ms. Cupp can follow along – I’ll go very slowly. Imagine we have shaken fairy dust over all Americans and now have lists of those we don’t want to have guns – or as Ms. Cupp might put forth in private: blacks and swarthy fuckers, but not mental problems because she can’t identify them with her eyes. We have a list of felons who can’t own guns (she’d agree with this), another list of those on the terrorist watchlist (she’d wrinkle her nose and say “that’s great!”), and the mentally ill. So, Ms. Cupp walks into Joe’s Guns and Crepes, strolls over to the counter and says, “I need a .38 immediately.” Her position, funny enough, is that in her head, and correctly I’m guessing, she’s a “law abiding citizen,” so therefore everyone must also know what is in SE’s head. I’m the gunshop owner and I’m supposed to do what? In her world what I’d do is this: look at this pretty white woman wrinkling her nose. Clearly she’s not a criminal, crazy, or a terrorist. That is how Cupp sees the world – do not interfere with the white folk. How about his: a 25 year-old black man walks into a gunshop, let’s say he’s a student at Howard U. here in D.C., and he wants to buy a gun because he lives in a neighborhood that leads him to believe a gun is necessary. He says to me “I need a .38 immediately.” In Cupp’s lonely mind it would be perfectly fine for me to run a background check on him because he’s black. How exactly does she think we can apply the fantasy mental health list to gun purchasers if we can’t actually use the list…for everyone. Does she think there is special training we will provide to gun shop owners? Does she think that by saying, “I need a gun,” we’ve passed along information that is the universal signal for “I’m a law-abiding citizen”? Her position is so untenable there’s no way she could even see through the bullshit she’s spouting.

And, one last thing Ms. Cupp: your declaration that you’ve been “living this” with guns for a decade is comical. Living it? What exactly is living it? Owning a gun?

Well, at least she’s pretty.

have you got a penny?

A few weeks ago, while driving about town, H asked X why we eat like peasants if she and I make ‘so much’ money. Peasants? Have you eaten at my house? Regardless, I think the question was driven by the fact that I do soup and bread once a week – usually it’s a heavier soup with some veg, beans, potatoes, served with the mandatory massive hunk of bread. I like soup; I have an awesome soup tureen and ladle. H likes soup primarily because as a teenager he can put it in his mouth. Apparently, the discussion evolved into jesting about using potatoes for food, and how it must be the only food if we are eating like peasants. What if the King shows up and requires his payment from the peoples? Since we only have potatoes (see how this is coming around?), we must have to save at least one potato to pay our tax. The great tax potato: “Oh no, we’ve eaten the tax potato!” When the two knuckleheads got home and relayed this monkey-chatter story to L, the entire house broke out into the snark you’ve come to expect from this crew: the great Tax Potato Laff Fest of 2013. You should have to live in my shoes.

I did my last Open House at the New School over the weekend – they have four or five a year where potential students and their parents visit for a look about the place. I’ve always enjoyed taking families around and giving them a tour of the classrooms and introducing them to the teachers. As has been put out there over the years, I don’t think I could create a place better than the New School. It’s not perfect, but it’s close. L’s time there has been wonderful – even though stress in high school is unavoidable – and I don’t know that she’d be where she is without the school. I’ll miss it when she finishes.

This is what passed as a critique of pizza night. The zucchini blossoms and ramps are out at the market these days; or, at least for another week or so. L and I stuffed the blossoms with ramps, a bit more garlic, salt/pepper, and goat cheese. I then did a quick egg wash and pan frying to sort of seal them up nicely into a shape that would hold in the oven. The pizza was a red sauce, smoked mozzarella, a stuffed blossom on each piece (our big rectangular pans end up in eight large pieces), salt and pepper, and finished with grated Manchego. It was damn good. “I would like more blossoms on my pizza,” she says while drinking her New Zealand Cab-Sauv and eating handmade pizza from her couch. We have quiz up tonight – our consistent position seems to be three of four weeks in the top 3 or 4, and one week in 4 down around 9th or 10th. We are coming off a tough one last week so hopefully we’ll respond to the challenge. As a learning (rabbit) experience for all, when a question begins, “What New York City skyscraper…” the answer, regardless of what comes next, is The Empire State Building.

X has gotten one of the raised gardens in and full of the first plants of the Spring – four more to get through this week. Then, sitting near the garden and watching I don’t think

I've relayed the kids’ story and query about our eating habits and the “tax potato”. I will do so tomorrow.

life chugs along

A month? I’m lazy. Here’s what needs to be known about the last two months: L is sorted out after college visits and will be attending the University of Mary Washington next year. It’s about an hour down the road in Fredricksburg, VA and has a very strong creative writing concentration in the English department. She visited Goucher (near Baltimore) twice, Mary Washington (twice), and The New School in New York after acceptance letters arrived. In the end, a great battle of the minds came down to Goucher and Mary Washington. Both schools are very good, and both offer the concentration in writing that she desires; but, Mary Washington offers a bit broader catalog of classes and a few more options than Goucher. It’s about 4,440 students, as well as a Virginia state school which saves all involved a nice chunk of change over the private fees at Goucher. I loved both places, but with so little separating them it didn’t make sense to spend the extra money. She’ll be very happy at UMW. Hard to believe that I’m involved in any of this – she used to be so small. She’ll graduate on June 8^th and shortly thereafter head to Vienna for a weeklong vacation of eating schnitzel and pastries;  that’s immediately followed by our week up in Vermont at the end of June. She’ll no doubt disappear out to Victoria, BC for a good part of July, and eventually return to get ready for her life at college. (The picture above was drawn by one of her classmates and will serve as part of her page in the school’s yearbook). We have settled into a strange run of Spring weather, but the garden is looking fine and the veg garden is going in – from X’s seeds – this weekend. She spent last weekend on the driveway building five raised garden frames that were promptly soaked by two-and-a-half days of rain. I think she wants to paint them blue so here’s hoping for a few more days of drying weather. I’ll catch up on other doings shortly.

All are alive. All is well.