On, Wisconsin!

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Grand old badger state!
We, thy loyal sons and daughters,
Hail thee, good and great.


On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Champion of the right,


"Forward", our motto
God will give thee might!"


(I don't know the whole tune to this, our state's song. I know how it starts, but somewhere in the middle it turns into the BYU fight song. Ra ra ra ra ra?)

"Someone came home to craft with me!"

That's what my mom exclaimed when dad hollered down the stairs, "What are you guys doing down there?" We were "crafting". What were we crafting? Headbands!

There is only one story

"We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is."


"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning towards dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all of his life in the gray, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless and pale. And then--the glory--so that a cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished."


"You are one of the rare people who can separate your observation from your preconception. You see what is, where most people see what they expect."


"The greatest terror a child can have is that he is not loved, and rejection is the hell he fears. I think everyone in the world to a large or small extent has felt rejection. And with rejection comes anger, and with anger some kind of crime guilt--and there is the story of mankind. I think that if rejection could be amputated, the human would not be what he is."


"The King James version says this--it is when Jehovah has asked Cain why he is angry. Jehovah says, 'If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.'...The American Standard translation orders men to triumph over sin, and you can call sin ignorance. The King James translation makes a promise in 'Thou shalt', meaning that men will surely triumph over sin. But the Hebrew word, the word timshel--'Thou mayest'--that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world...Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win."

Potty Knowledge

We ate beets for dinner. I love beets--cooked and salted. Once, I forgot about a certain side-effect of eating beets and found myself worried for my health in the bathroom.
So let's get it straight.

First of all, I would like to make a reference to a cartoon of my childhood, Doug. Doug Funnie loved The Beets...
Doug also loved his alias fantasy, Quailman, and his dog, Porkchop...


...his faithful friend, Skeeter Valentine...


...and, of course, that babe, Patti Mayonnaise (said as his eyes turn to stars...)


Anyway, back to red pee...

Beeturia, the passing of red or pink urine after eating beets, plagues only 10-14% of people and can appear and disappear at different times in a person's life. Just because you have it tonight, doesn't mean you'll have it next year. It has to do with the oxalic acid in your intestines, which allows you to preserve the pigments from being degraded, those making more pigments available for absorption and secretion. More oxalic acid, more red pee. Beeturia is more common in people with iron deficiencies and depends on the type of beet as well as the method of cooking the beet.

Since we are talking about beeturia, we might as well also set straight the myths about asparagus pee. I also love asparagus. Grilled. With lemon juice. Mmmm...


This time, instead of a small portion of the population actually producing an altered form of urine, everyone's pee stinks after they eat asparagus. But, only around 20% of people have the gene to smell that rank smell. I'm lucky to not be of that small percentage.

So I can eat asparagus to my heart's desire.

Mecca

Pilgrimage: A journey to a shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith.


Welcome to Madison, Wisconsin in July. Sure, it's not the greatest place to visit in the winter, but right now, it's comparable to Eden. Is there really a place so lush and green, where the air feels healthy and alive with water instead of dry and life-sucking? Are those real birds singing non-stop in the trees and cicadas roaring in the evening? Green grass? A protective umbrella of trees for the sunlight to shine through? Oh, how I love this place.


Besides the dreamy climate, what else do I love about home? Let's start with the basics, like my bed...


...and a kitchen where magic happens. Pulled pork sandwiches with mustard vinegar sauce, potato salad swimming in cilantro, homemade chocolate brownies, and much more to come.


Finally, Saturdays in Madison means Farmers Market. Best Farmers Market in the world, and that's not a joke. Hundreds of people swarming the sidewalk around the square, it's more like being pushed into a herd of cattle, slowly mowing along. Smoothies from fake tiki-huts, fresh produce heaped in piles, flowers that attract anyone's eye, honey from the bee man with a hive hat and his bees on display, tables of cheese and squeeky cheese curds, breads, cakes, cookies, and pies from Amish kitchens, delicious berries, meat, eggs, gords, jams, chiles, herbs, handicrafts, musicians all around...what could be better?


And let's not forget... hot, spicy cheese bread! I think I ate the whole loaf.