Scout Moves

Everybody has a poll going these days, all feverishly trying to predict the next president. Realclearpolitics.com keeps track of all of them and averages the results so you don't have to look through the entire list if you haven't got the stomach for it. Some of the more interesting polls involve more than people being asked simple questions. Car washes around the country—the ones with more than one stall, at least–have been dividing up their customers by designating one stall for McCain and one for Obama. Some customers will wait in line for an hour to keep from having to drive through the wrong stall. Customers in one Wisconsin car wash have been favoring Obama, but the majority of customers of one in Pennsylvania have been voting for McCain. There is a bakery in Cincinnati, Ohio called Busken Bakery that has been decorating cookies with the images of competing presidential hopefuls for years, and they keep tallies of the number of each cookie they sell. Their cookie poll has...

Sometimes, when I work on a book cover design, I have to have a model who represents the main character, often a character who is a strong-willed woman of the prairie or a love-sick woman in the Wild West or an antique dealer in Atlanta who is wooed by a man in need of a slap upside the head. I come by these models by working with Jim the Photographer and by renting costumes from a costume shop that provides wardrobes for theater productions. Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours at the studio working with one of these models, Michelle, who was nice enough to let me take some shots and post them here. Here is Man On a Stick who helps out with lighting. Here is Cowboy On a Stick cannoodling with Ashley, my partner in design. She likes 'em tall. The model stands among lights and screens and umbrellas in front of a green screen so we can delete the background easily and blend the model's image with a setting suitable for the story line. In this case, the setting is snow and horses ...

I have discovered a new snack. It's not new, really, but it's new to me and new to my main grocery store. I have become hooked on FoodShouldTasteGood snack chips. FoodShouldTasteGood chips are gluten-free, artificial-ingredient-free, and kosher. And like the bag says, they taste good. These chips are low in sodium, but they are surprisingly full of flavor—odd flavors, like olive, chocolate, buffalo, and jalapeño. Multigrain is great, and The Works is full of just about every flavor you can put in a chip. My favorite is Sweet Potato which goes great with the hummus I made over the weekend. They dip well because they're sturdy like a tortilla chip but not loaded down with all the salt. I can't get all the flavors in my store, but for $39.48 I can order a case of chips in any assortment I choose. I'm not sure having a case of chips at hand is a good idea, but it's nice to know I could order one if I wanted to. Per serving: 150 calories, 6g fat, .05 g transfat, 0 ch...

What is it with people and Cindy Loo Who? Of my last one hundred blog hits, forty have been direct visits from regular readers, and fifteen have been as a result of people searching for "Cindy Loo Who," the little pixie from Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas . A couple of years ago, I posted an image of the original Seuss illustration as compared to the TV cartoon image, and for some reason, that post is bringing in the crowds, relatively. Maybe it's the weather. It isn't even November yet, and already we've had frost and have had to dust off our winter coats. When it gets cold like this, I start to think about Christmasy things like listening to Nat King Cole and decorating the tree. It's ironic because I am offended when retailers start pushing holiday stuff early, but I don't mind my own private celebrations. When my sister and I were much younger and still living with our parents, we would pick a day in July, close the curtains to darken the ...

Being an aide in a classroom full of immigrants learning English is going well, I think. I now do this Tuesdays and Thursdays for two hours at a time, and the experience has become one of my favorite parts of the week. Sometimes I read with people from Guatemala who are working through a language book. They read short stories about things like lady bugs or dust or sloths and then answer questions about what they've read. Sometimes I read a similar book with a Mexican woman, and sometimes I work through a news article with a group a little more advanced in reading English than the others in the class. The other day we discussed the disparity in wages between men and women and read that on average women in the US earn 80% of what men earn for equal work. There is a woman from Spain who reads well but is hesitant to speak, and we read through an advanced workbook with several grammar exercises per story. Last week after giving a spelling test to six or seven people, I sat with the Sp...

I have stories to tell and rants to unleash, but since it's Friday, I believe I'll just give you this to enjoy—Fred Astaire in Love

I was standing at the meat counter at the grocery store ordering up a couple dozen clams and about to ask for some wild salmon. My buddy Sam the Butcher was counting the clams and talking about how he'd like my autograph because he and his wife have been reading my articles in the paper, and someday when I'm famous and writing for Time magazine, he would like to be able to point to my autograph and say, "See, I know her." After thanking him and withholding my autograph because...seriously... Time ? I don't think so...I saw the trout, heads and all. In the middle of Ohio you can't plan ahead for something like rainbow trout. You can't run to the store one day to buy trout for dinner that night because it's hit or miss. I switched gears with my menu for the week and asked for two trouts instead of the salmon. Here is what I did with it, taken from a recipe from an old Gourmet magazine. Broiled Rainbow Trout with Pine Nuts, Butter Stuffing, and Sage But...

You know the phrase—there's nothing new under the sun. Narrow that down a little, and you can safely say there's nothing new in American politics even when we think we're making history. I have been reading Charles Osgood's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House , a book full of odd stories about presidential campaigns from Truman through Bush's second term. It seems fumbles, lies, dirt flinging, and snide remarks about political opponents have always been part of running for office. When Adlai Stevenson was running against Eisenhower, he was accused of being a socialist. Sound familiar? The phrase used against him was actually "creeping Socialism." He said in his defense, "I am no more in favor of Socialism than anybody else, and I particularly dislike things that creep. But if I don't like what they call creeping Socialism, there is something else I dislike just as much, and that is galloping reaction." In 1976, when Morris Ud...

There is a new chocolate company in San Francisco called TCHO . I have no idea what that stands for, but this from their website describes the founders: "TCHO was founded by a Space Shuttle technologist turned chocolate maker and a grizzled industry veteran who set up chocolate factories for 40 years from Costa Rica to Germany." The marketers of TCHO have included me in their list of taste testers for their new "citrus" chocolate. They haven't added artificial orange flavoring to this chocolate—this stuff has a natural hint of citrus that comes from roasting cacao beans from Madagascar, and it's yummy. Eustacia was home from college on the day the package arrived, and we nearly fought over the samples. We want more. Along with a sample of the chocolate bar was a small package of roasted nibs, small pieces of crushed roasted cacao beans. You can munch on them straight from the package if you'd like—they're full of antioxidants, so munch away. Or you c...

Last Friday, I took a day off from computers of any sort and drove up to visit Eustacia. Her school was closed for fall break, and she was scheduled to do absolutely nothing. I met her at her dorm, and then we walked a few blocks to a little cafe for lunch. We walked from there to Coe Lake, a small lake that was once a sandstone quarry in the 1800s. Mr. Baldwin, founder of the college, owned the property and turned it into a quarry. He used the proceeds to build his college, one of the first integrated schools in the country. During the 1930s, the quarry business faltered, and this spot was filled in to form the lake. There are trails here and there and places to sit and relax. Or ride horses. Judging by the wings, this is an angel, but his/her head is missing. A carving of a dove, nicely done. Along a walkway is a short wall covered in drawings. After a nice walk through the woods ...we came upon a cemetery, and since the gate was unlocked, we walked through it and read what we could ...

This is my nephew-in-law Dominick Washington, married to my niece Summer. As you can see, Dominick is standing with Michelle Obama. Mrs. Obama was campaigning on behalf of her husband in Minnisota. Dominick is the political director of Obama's campaign in that state, so it fell to him to introduce Mrs. Obama at various gatherings. While the larger family is politically split, it's safe to say everyone is proud of Dominick's position in Obama's campaign.

We all need a happy diversion, I'm sure of it. In yesterday's English class, I learned that "diversíon" means "fun" in Spanish. So, here is our fun for today. I have always hated sports, but if I could golf like Fred Astaire, I might be more inclined to get out there and swing a club, or a bat, or whatever it's called. What you don't see in this clip is that he was trying to impress a girl (Ginger Rodgers) who was standing by the fence when he first starting showing off. When he looks up at the end and sees she had not been amused and walked away, he grins.

I baked an apple pie yesterday just because...just because it's fall, and fall is all about apples. When I was a kid, a common school field trip was a visit to an orchard where we watched truck loads of just-picked apples being driven up to the market, where we drank samples of fresh cider, and where we were fed donuts, the cakey kind. Those northern Indiana orchard markets were great memory makers with pumpkins and bales of hay and the smell of outside. Sigh. Streusel Apple Pie from Bon Appetit, November 1999 First, the crust. 1 1/3 cups flour 1 tablespoon sugar 1/2 teaspoon salt 6 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 2 tablespoons chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces 3 tablespoons (or more) ice water Mix flour, sugar, and salt in food processor. Add butter and shortening. Process until mixture resembles coarse meal. Drizzle ice water over mixture. Process just until moist clumps form, adding more ice water by teaspoonfuls if dough...

Yesterday I volunteered as an aide for a class of immigrants intent on learning to read English. My town, like lots of towns around the country, has a relatively new group of Hispanic immigrants, and we have several programs in the area to help them learn English. The program I will be working with is funded by a grant, and it focuses on people with young children. In fact, you have to have a child in order to participate. The children are in one room and the parents in another all working at different levels. Sometimes, though, the levels are similar because learning to read a language you don't fully speak requires you to start with small words like what you find in children's books. I showed up yesterday having no idea what to expect except I was told these people are eager to learn and are hard working. They have a lot at stake here. They know what kind of life they have left behind, and they know what kind of future they want for their families, and this class is just one ...

A coffee-fiend neighbor of mine lectured me one day on the benefits of a cold-brew coffee system. It makes the best coffee available, he claimed, and if I really wanted a great cup of coffee... All I could do was nod because I didn't know what a cold-brew system was. Never one to be outdone in the world of coffee, I set out to find out for myself. Toddy is the coffee maker I was told to look for, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I swear to you I saw it in a floor display one day at Borders of all places, but when I went back a couple of weeks later, there wasn't a Toddy in sight. I finally found the system at Amazon for $32.49 plus shipping, and it arrived just last week. Here is what the parts look like. The idea is that instead of brewing coffee grounds in hot water, you steep them in cold water, extracting the flavor into a coffee concentrate that you then mix dilute and heat. Supposedly the resulting coffee has 67% less acid than conventionally brewed coffee. You start...

...to the county. My county's bicentennial celebration was held last night at the fair grounds. There was Small Town all OVER the place. Sometimes you wanted to wrap it around you like your favorite blanket, and sometimes you wanted to scrape it off the bottom of your shoe with a stick. There were Civil War reenactors, a display of ambulances throughout history, a guy dressed like a Colonial resident, historical displays, and food of some sort. And there was a concert. First, we can fill the grand stand to the brim for a tractor pull, but for a concert followed by fireworks to commemorate a historical event like a bicentennial, the stands were half empty. I was a little discouraged when the big community band took our seats on center stage—actually more like center dirt—but eventually people started to file in, and then the crowd didn't seem so sparse. At least with so many empty seats, I got a glimpse of a guy in a T-shirt and jeans making out with a woman dressed in an antebe...

Here is an article in today's Small Town Newspaper.

The articles I write for Small Town Newspaper have a word limit of 700. This series includes pieces I have written using 700 words but have not submitted to the newspaper. What does it say about us when someone can use the name “Hussein” and mean it as a barb, knowing full well they will incite people to feel anger or fear or mistrust? When political surrogates shout out Barack Hussein Obama’s full name, emphasizing “Hussein” with contempt as if it were equal to Hitler, or more directly Saddam Hussein, they insult not just Obama but all of us. It’s as if they suspect the public of being so ignorant and easily led that we’ll automatically associate the candidate with terrorists and threatening nations simply because of his name. Barack Hussein Obama was given the name in honor of his Kenyan grandfather. He has this name not because he sympathizes with violent extremists or is weak on nations that support terrorism but because it is a family name. Simple as that. The name Hussein, meanin...

My neighbor has given me a wonderful pound cake. It's sizable, and if I were to sit and eat it straight, I'd be eating it for days. So I have used part of it to make a trifle using a recipe from Bon Appétit . Granted, now I am eating trifle every day, but I don't mind. Pear and Caramel Trifle For pears 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise 6 cups water 1 1/2 cups sugar 1 2-inch strip lemon peel 4 firm but ripe pears (about 2 pounds), peeled, halved, cored For caramel 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup water 1 cup warm whipping cream 1 1/2 cups chilled whipping cream 1 1/2 tablespoons powdered sugar 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract 12 1/4-inch-thick slices from purchased 12-ounce pound cake (or a beautiful home-made one instead) Make pears: Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into large saucepan; add bean. I have a small jar of vanilla powder from a shop in Dejon, France, so I used a bit of that instead of the bean. Add 6 cups water, sugar and lemon peel. Stir over medium heat until mixture comes to...

The other day when I was telling you about my babysitter Surely Goodness, I listed the first and last names of the other women who watched me when my mother was at work. I clearly remembered a woman named Louise, but I couldn't think of her last name for the life of me. I have clear memories of sitting on her kitchen floor by the back steps and petting her scrawny, little Chihuahua. The thing wore tiny, green rubber boots on rainy days when it had to go outside to piddle. I remember the woman's surly husband, Bob, who was rarely around during the day, but when I did get a glimpse of him sitting in his Barcalounger, he never said a word that didn't sound more like a grunt. I remember Louise's big silver hair that seemed always teased, and I can see her sitting with the other women at church whose husbands didn't attend either. Not only did Bob not go to church, but he drank beer and he smoked cigarettes. If he had gone to church, he would have been frowned upon, and ...

My county will turn 200 this week, and the place is throwing a big shindig on Sunday with a few concerts and food (probably fried on a stick) and fireworks. In order to accommodate the expected crowds, this party will be held at the fair grounds...outside...in the evening...even though it will be 40 degrees. Where else could it be held, I suppose. One of the concerts will be performed by a big community band made up of music teachers and students representing every high school in the county, and the holes will be filled by what someone called "civilians." I get to be one of those civilians because the horn section is a little sparse compared to the other sections in the band. I went to the second of two rehearsals last night. I missed the first one the week before, so I walked in ready to sight read. The room was packed with kids and a few familiar faces from the summer band, and within seconds, I found myself in band mode. It's what happens to you when you enter a room f...

We spent the weekend at the lake house where it was quiet and still. Aside from the alarming caws of an occasional black bird, or sometimes a flock of black birds, the woods were silent. The park hosted its annual fall festival a mile or two down the shoreline, but noise from the festivities only made it as far as our house once in a while. If we were outside, we could hear the bands at night and the cannon fired by the Revolutionary War encampment at noon. I made prosciutto and Gruyere pizzas, knitted, read a bit of a memoir written by a local woman, napped, and watched movies. This part of Ohio was inundated with a devastating flood in 1913 which lead to the creation of a conservancy district and the construction of a series of dams. Our house sits on the shore of a lake created by one of these dams, an oddly shaped lake with about 28 miles of shoreline, boat ramps, two marinas, a yacht club, a park, and a campground. Our house is at the end of the north shore right by the dam, so we...

Small Town's writers' guild has critiqued a short story of mine. You can read it here , if you want. They follow a prescribed workshop format where someone reads the contributor's story aloud while the rest of the group follows along with their own hard copy, jotting down notes as they go along. After the reading, the moderator has the group list the strong points of the story. The group was fairly generous with what they thought I had done well. Then the moderator has the group list the weak points. This sort of thing is never easy to sit through, especially for someone like me who doesn't like to be told what to do. But given the casual and friendly environment of this group, they weren't harsh or pretentious or competitive. They did have a few points to make though—one woman thought the point of view was confusing because she wanted to see something very clear cut. I got the impression she had been to a clinic and had learned creative story telling must be done i...

The great Marx Brothers scene ever:

Just so we can take a break from obsessing about all the weighty issues that make you feel more like you're being pushed down to the ground than like you're being held down by gravity.

I have a cake in my kitchen, and it all started with a book cover. It went like this—I volunteered some time to provide book cover graphics for a non-profit organization that sells books to small stores in Nigeria. Their founder went to Nigeria to visit these stores and brought back a ton of beautiful beads for me. I made some earrings with these beads. My neighbor liked them, so I gave her two pair. In exchange, she baked a pound cake that rivals any Sarah Lee you could buy (she'll know what that means). The Salvation Army is getting a small donation to one of their posts in California. It went like this—I like/love/need to write, so I wrote an article for my local newspaper about the need for us to volunteer. A man in California read it and asked if I would help an elderly man by gathering local nuts for him to give to friends. I gathered a box full of nuts and shipped them after finding them on property owned by the Salvation Army. I shipped them out, and now the man in Californ...