wabisabi

ça ce discute

Okay, so I stumbled across a video on YouTube this evening, and The Other and I fell about it fits and gales of laughter.  "Ça ce discute" is kind of a lame French television show where they get people on to talk about certain issues (maybe like a lame Jenny Jones or a tame Jerry Springer), and this parody of it was done by the very funny French comedy duo Kad et Oliver.  Also featured in the sketch (in the red turtleneck) is the equally wonderful French humourist Gad Elmeleh.

Don't watch if you don't speak French.  Don't watch if you do speak French and are easily offended.  What can I say?  We like the Three Stooges, too...

the phone never rings where the pirates are*

Well there's 16 men on a dead man's chest
In this hallucination
The map we got, x marks the spot
We're following directions
The 7 seas, the balmy breeze
The pleasure of surrender
The end is nigh, the sun is high
It's late, for pirates on parade
Too late, for pirates on parade*

Avast, me hearties!

Okay, so I normally don't go in for the whole Talk Like a Pirate day stuff.

But I ran across this over at web zen, and couldn't resist sharing it, based on the theory that you can never listen to too much David Byrne.

(p.s.  It disappears tomorrow, so enjoy while you can, and maybe go buy the album if you like it.  You know, supporting the artists and all that, what?  Arrrrrrgh!)

*from "Pirates" by David Byrne, from the album "Grown Backwards".

the universe

giveth

So, I'm watching Il treno dei desideri last night and I'm rewarded not once, but twice.

(Okay, there was that appearance by that Zac something guy who I know nothing about but there were lots of little girls in the audience screaming their every-loving hearts out.  I went and checked email during that bit...)

First, the important thing about Treno is NOT to miss the opening moments, because that's when host Antonella Clerici makes her grand entrance.  La Clerici's outfits have occasionally led to her being described as a bomboniere,

(Italian wedding favours, traditionally five sugared almonds wrapped in silk, organza, tulle, ribbon, the whole schmatta)

But she never fails to disappoint.  Alas, I can only give you a glimpse of the upper portion of last night's wonder:

It was a full-length ball gown made entirely of letters, like those received by the show (which grants wishes).

The Other commented that it was a whole new definition of "busta-iere" (get it?  busta-iere?  bustiere?), which considering he only knows a smattering of Italian, is a pretty good play on words (busta = envelope).

But that wasn't all!  No, no, no!  For look, what the Universe bestowed on me:

Antonella AND Flavio!  Flavio was a guest!

Oh, hey, and RAI international, instead of showing the Monday episode of Affari Tuoi, showed Sunday night's, so I got to see the first one anyway.

However.

and taketh away

The price I paid for all this pop culture wonder was that I couldn't sleep at all last night.  No, not from the excitement of it all.  Sheesh.

But because I need to replace the splints I wear on my wrists at night to stop my hands going numb.  They've finally worn out, and I haven't been able to wear them the last couple of nights.  Last night, the pain and numbness in my hands kept waking me up.

It never rains but it pours, you know?

I just realized I've had two cups of tea, it's almost 11:00 a.m., and I forgot to eat.

Not like me at all.  However, given all that?  I'm remarkably chipper this morning.

il buono, il brutto, il cattivo

il buono

• discovering that Affari Tuoi is back!  (Well, actually, it was back yesterday, but RAI International isn't broadcasting the weekend episodes.  Alas.  I would have liked to see the first one of the season.) 
• discovering one lone episode of Cotti e Mangiati on YouTube.

(Okay, okay, yes, I will admit that I have an inordinate fondness for Italian actor Flavio Insinna, and I would dearly love to have all the Cotti et Mangiati on DVD.  Hey, we all need our motivating factors in language learning, right?)

• discovering that Il treno di desideri is back!  I shouldn't love this as much as I do, but I would watch anything host Antonella Clerici does, and I'm a sucker for this -- invariably I end up weeping at something they've done.  Yes, it's designed to make you feel good, or tug at your hearstrings, and it works with me.

il brutto

• not finding La prova del cuoco back on the schedule yet.  This is RAI's version of the British cookery show Ready, Steady, Cook, expanded beyond the concept of the cooking challenge.  It features information on food, other cooking segments, games, as well as the final sfida (challenge).

Yes, see my fondness for host Antonella Clerici, above.  But it's not so bad, because they're supposed to be back on the air starting tomorrow.  On the other hand, RAI International doesn't seem to have put it on the schedule.  I'm fearing the worst, but I'm reminded by the fact that RAI seems to stand for "Random Acts of Italianness", meaning anything can happen between today and tomorrow.

il cattivo

• the crushing disappointment that set in after, first discovering with joy that I could subscribe to a couple of France Inter podcasts that I dearly wanted to listen to (those of Stephane Bern and Jean-Pierre Coffe), that for some reason I am unable to download them.  There's some bottleneck somewhere, and they start downloading, insist the download time will be something like 4 hours, start, then crap out every few minutes.  Sigh.
• hoping to find Laurent Ruquier's and Laurent Baffie's radio shows on Europe 1 available as podcasts.  Nope.  Sigh.

il downright cattivo

I rarely talk about having fibromyalgia, for a number of reasons.  First, no one really is interested in the health issues of others, no matter how kind and considerate they are -- they may be sympathetic, but they don't really want to hear the details.  Which is okay, because this is how I feel about most things medical, too.

Also, for a while there, FM became the flavour of the week.  Anyone who was a little tired or achy immediately self-diagnosed with FM, and it made me so annoyed that I didn't want to be associated with that whole problem.

The problem with that, though, is that for a long time I tried to ignore or deny the symptoms I felt and the challenges they presented me with.  I'd rather overdo things than admit to having FM.  The other side of this too, is that you can either act as a victim, or, even if you don't, sometimes people treat you like that.  They don't give you opportunities you could use, or take chances on your skills, because they just think you're going to be a slacker all the time.

There's a fine line, too, between using FM as an excuse for not doing things and actually -- well -- not being able to do things because of FM.  There are days when I just can't get moving.  I just can't focus.  When my body screams with pain.

And there are better days.  I have learned that I have to be very flexible in life when dealing with the bad days.  I don't think I'm very good at it yet, not even after almost a whole lifetime of dealing with this.

However, the reason I bring this up now is that I seem to be experiencing a particularly brutal flare right now.  I tried to ignore it, I tried to tell myself that I was just coming down with another cold and that things will be all right, but today I know I can't kid myself.  I often have problems with changes in season, but today I feel downright awful.

I've known for a while that I need to make some changes to how I live my life, and today I know that just thinking about it isn't going to cut it.  I hate this -- I hate feeling like I'm giving in.  I hate feeling as if I'm going to let people down if I'm not one hundred percent positive and on form.

But I'm going to be useless to myself and those around me if I don't shape up, right?

Thank the stars, though, for game shows and divertissements, because that's what's keeping me going these days...

le petit rapporteur

Le petit rapporteur was the brainchild of powerhouse French television host Jacques Martin, who passed away today.

If I'm honest, I'm more familar with his son, David, who is an excellent presenter on all things food and cookery, but if it weren't for Jacques Martin, this prize piece of video, featuring French actor and humorist Daniel Prévost, would not exist today:

It's rude, yes.  But it's also a brilliant example of subtlety and punnery, and it has me in stitches every time.

(And in the spring of this year, the village of Montcuq named a street after the programme.  And courtesy of Le Grand Zapping de l'Humour, you can see Montcuq thirty years on...)

(AND, it was on Jacques Martin's television programme L'ecole des fans that Vanessa Paradis -- AKA Mme Johnny Depp made her first television appearance.  It's adorable.)

ch-ch-ch-changes

"So," some of you have asked me, "what was the blog break thingee about, anyway?"

Essentially?

I was just tired.  Really tired.

Okay, it wasn't just that.  I needed some time to mull some stuff over, and although much of the time I'm perfectly happy doing that in a public forum, this time I didn't want to.  I just wanted to roll the marbles around in my brain and see which holes they would drop out of.

And what I realized?  That I should have been sensible like many of my friends and acquaintances, and taken an internet break over the summer.

Of course, me being me, I realize this just as everything is gearing up for the autumn.

Duh.

So I afforded myself a couple of weeks to think, and got some good thinking done, too.  Wish I could unplug completely for a few more weeks, but things are just too busy.

In any event, there will be some changes coming around here, although I just don't have the time right now to work them through as I would like.  At some point, all the knitting chat will find itself a home over at Purl Diving.  I decided that since I'd set it up to be a blog in the first place, and then hijacked it to become the podcast's show page after the fact, that really, it would make sense to keep all the knitting together.

And besides, I already know that Purl Diving is a finite product.  No, not tomorrow, or next week -- but I do have a certain number of episodes I'd like to reach in mind, and I think I may end it when I get there.  This is partly because I think if I don't do that, I will likely burn out on the thing.  I know I've got several episodes plotted out, and figure I'll get a few more ideas in the meantime, but I do think I'll reach a point naturally where there will be no more for me to say on the subject.

I have a lot of ideas for other podcasts, a couple of which I'm working on.  But I only have so many hours in the day, so eventually it will be nice to let one podcast go when I'm ready to start exploring in another direction.

So, when I finally get the time to wrap my head around writing about knitting elsewhere, I'm hoping that I'll have come up with a new name for this blog.

I've known for quite a while now that I need to change the name -- but I've yet to come up with something I want it to be.  But "wabi sabi" (which I chose partly because I liked the irony of writing about creative stuff using mostly natural materials in an electronic format, and partly because it was a little tongue-in-cheek -- and if one of the ideas in wabi sabi is that you embrace mistakes, well, can you not see how perfect that seemed to me?) has run its course.  There are now a couple more fibre/crafty blogs that use it in the title, and I think I just need a change.

What, I don't know.  But as with everything like that, I do know that when the time is right, the perfect name will come to me.  And I'll know it to be perfect, because the domain name will be available when I search.

Apart from all that?  Well, I've got a couple of knitting projects that I need to finish up (and I can't figure out why, when I work on them a little bit every day, they never seem to grow.  I think the elves come at night and undo what I've done during the day...)

The garden will need some tidying up to get ready for winter.

And life, as we know it, will just go on, doing what it's always done.

Banana Muffins

Okay, so I had some mushy bananas, and figured I'd adapt my basic reasonably healthy muffin recipe.  They were pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quick-cooking oatmeal
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/3 cup spelt flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp flax seeds (I chop these with a knife for a bit before putting them in)
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 very ripe bananas, mashed

Method:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Line a 12-cup muffin tin with muffin papers.

Combine the oats, flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinammon and flax seeds in a  large bowl.

Combine the buttermilk, egg, oil, and vanilla in a separate bowl.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, stirring just enough to make sure everything is moist, but taking care not to overmix.

Fold in the bananas.

Spoon the mixture into the muffin tin.  Bake for 20 minutes, or until the muffins turn golden brown.

seriously, did you go read him the first time I sent you there?

If not, then really, go and read Chris Brogan's blog RIGHT NOW.

It's almost eerie the way Chris writes about things I'm mulling over.

(I'll be back posting soon -- I've been thinking about making some changes around here, in the way I blog, in the way I organize my on-line life, and I just need a little longer to roll that marble around in my brain.)