I'm a naughty, naughty girl. A few weeks ago, in plf's infamous Memo to admins diary, I mouthed off to admins, including The Man himself, then pulled a reverse ErrinF by nuking all log-ins from my computer.

Unfortunately, while otherwise occupied (hauling water? estimating how many 50% off shoes I could buy?), I suddenly remembered them - all of them, except my very first username and password.

Uh oh. This could lead to break-up sex. That simply will not stand.

Therefore, I’m formally dumping you, dKos. And because I'm also scheduled to WFD?, I'm dumping you in a two part diary. First, the food. No cookies, tho, because, even though it's me and not you, I detest you and refuse to give up the goods.

Then I submit myself to your scorn and outrage, and tell you what I really think of you - nicely, because I am more mature than you, after all. But I will render hasta la vistas and implications of your loathsomeness nonetheless.

Thus: The Edible GBCW.

The CHECK ENGINE!!!!! light has been going off on my car for some six months now. I have conjured up various reasons (lack of a credit card to rent a car to get me back and forth; my usual mechanic being very reasonably priced and a great mechanic, but extremely unpredictable; etc.) for why I haven't taken it in to be fixed.

But the truth of my resistance finally revealed itself to me a few days ago: I need to just bite the bullet and get a new (to me) car. My rationale is this: I got the car for free anyway. And true, it's a landshark, but I've managed to get great mileage from it by driving like a granny, coasting down hills, never braking too hard or putting the metal to the pedal unless I simply have no choice (as is common when being pursued by dualies hauling trailers full of horses).

Alas, I simply can't stand it anymore. I have almost 125,000 miles on the car, and I can already tell that the entire thing has been pre-programmed to explode once that odometer turns over.

Thus, I'm polling you, fellow dKossians, on your cars.

::cue background music::

I'm just an old chunk of coal,
But I'm gonna be a diamond some day,
I'm gonna grow and glow 'til I'm so plu pure perfect,
I'm gonna put a smile on everybody's face.

I need a new way to cook. I tolerated my current Plain Jane gas range until flames belched out of it a month or so ago. Then, I found out it caught fire before I bought the place. Needless to say, I haven't used it since.

And, needless to say, the lack of a safe, working stove is a problem, given I eat primarily homemade foods and love nothing more than a nice omelet (made with eggs from chickens I'm personally acquainted with) for breakfast and some kind of stewish, stir-fryish, vegetable-ish, half-slow-cooked, half-flash-cooked something for dinner.

But in catastrophe lies opportunity. Besides, I never was happy with my kitchen - its multiple flaws include tininess, overlinoleumedness, dreadful plumbing and worse floors. So chunking the stove presents the perfect opportunity for an HGTV-style Kitchen Makeover.

I was supposed to leave the house several hours ago, but I'm at the far edge of an ice storm and really don't want to be permanently maimed in an accident with some doofus from Dallas who thinks because he or she is driving a Hummer or SUV that they're ready for anything. Damn them! Besides, I started drinking wine Friday night and didn't stop until sometime late last night, and my body abhors the cold anyway, so trying to get me outside in anything under 50 degree weather is near impossible. 100 degrees and up, though? I'm so there!!!

Um, I think it was my turn to do WFD? tonight. Unfortunately, I forgot.

Blame it on massive piles of grading everywhere, meetings I've never even heard of, a number of exciting yet unexpected and time-consuming events, a new puppy, a still broken waterline and general malaise and desire for ::oh dear Whatever Beings Might Govern The General Scheme of Things:: a freakin' break.

On a positive note, there's the wonderful pears someone sent me which go perfectly with my favorite treat, local goat cheese.

And, of course, the lovely new puppy, a gorgeous little redbone coonhound mix.

It's not that it came as a surprise. I'd even called the vet a week or so ago to talk to her about putting my lovely girl to sleep. After all, she was ancient. But the vet talked me out of it, and I relented, even though I was pretty skeptical that she could last much longer.

So, following the vet's advice, I pumped her full of aspirin, and she had a great week or two. Then, I woke up about an hour ago, and she died a few minutes later in my living room.

I rescued her in 2002 from a neighbor of my sister's who'd left her stuck in the backyard, tossing out a loaf of bread here and there, and maybe a bit of meat now and again. I used to sneak up to the fence and give her baked potatoes, carrots, dog food, whatever I had on hand.

We never did figure out how old she was, but we did know she had very bad dysplasia and what certainly appeared to be the onset of degenerative myelopathy, a relatively common (and devastating) disorder for German Shepherds.

I'm pretty sure her kidneys weren't the best, either, and hadn't been for years. And, over the past year alone, she'd been through Old Dog Vestibular Disease (which laid her flat for a month), ehrlichiosis and another disease that escapes me at the moment.

It's been months now since there has been a moment of peace and quiet here, thanks to the hummingbirds. They've been everywhere: lined up the front fence, hanging from the rafters, duking it out in the trees, body slamming in the grapevines. And trying to hold a conversation anywhere has been near impossible; I mean, really - how do you talk plumbing or the weather when swarms of the little beasties are zooming by within millimeters of your head? It's worse than the candidate diaries.

But it's mid-October, and their migration to the south is now well on its way. I've seen fewer and fewer with every passing day, and now, an entire day has gone by without one sighting. And to think, it was only a week or so ago that I walked into the backyard and thought I'd landed smack dab in the middle of a Merry Melodies cartoon featuring hundreds of squabbling mice.

But I'm not here to diss the hummingbirds.

The end of summer is here and, just like every end of summer weekend in recent years, I'm hiding from the hundred thousand people who've descended on my little piece of paradise for The Cherokee National Holidays.

I wish they'd go away. I wish they'd take their shiny new cars and tailgating ways back to wherever the hell they're from, and leave me be to putter along at the speed of molasses.

Besides, I have more important things to worry about than maneuvering around burnt to a crisp sweaty folk in 95 degree heat.

A week or so ago, I found Jacques Pepin's autobiography The Apprentice prominently displayed on a pedestal in the local library. I thought it odd that our library should have chosen this, of all books, to be front and center, given the cuisine in these parts runs more to menudo and hog fries than tripes à la mode de Caen.

So I grabbed it, expecting a ho-hum read, but hoping for inspiration. The truth is, I wasn't a Pepin fan. In fact, I was unclear exactly who he is, except that he had some association with Julia Child and might have been on television.

Well, it's not Dostoevsky or Cullers, but it is well worth a read. Pepin is sublimely (and yes, I did use that word) practical and down to earth. You won't be getting stern lectures from him about your failure to adhere to the latest culinary fashions or your lack of ascetism or austerity. Quite the contrary.

Hehe. Just received this from Jet Blue in response to my email:

Thank you for contacting us regarding the inaccurate DailyKos report
suggesting that JetBlue has pulled its donation of ten tickets to the
organizers of the YearlyKos Convention in Chicago. JetBlue continues to
support the convention with this in-kind donation.

Regards,

JetBlue Airways

Well now! This calls for yet another email addressing their attempt to CYA and play Denier.

As if you wild and crazy kids need reason to celebrate.

::cue Mary Wells::

You are invited

to celebrate the marriage of

our very own tvb

to

the lovely and talented Mrs. tvb

Chez What's for Dinner?

and

::cue bagpipes::

What's for Dinner?

celebrates

its first anniversary

next week

BYOB

And so, tonight, we bring you A Very Special What's For Dinner? because tonight, we're planning celebrations for these two very special events.

So bring your best ideas  --- and don’t forget housewarming presents for tvb's and The Mrs.' new home.

Well. I just came home to take care of the critters. And as soon as I post this, I have to leave again because I'm supposed to be 40 miles north of here sitting in a log cabin on top of a mountain watching something very exciting which I refuse to tell you all about.

But which I maybe might tell you about here in a few weeks. Depending.

My diet for days now has been dreadful. Other than breakfasts made with local eggs from chickens I personally know stirfried with homegrown mustard or basil or somesuch, or my homegrown beans or zucchini or potatoes every now and again, I have been at the mercy of whatever someone else thinks is suitable for me to eat.

It's been frightening at times, but by gawd, I'M STILL ALIVE! despite feeling for sure I would die from all the brown beans and potato salad and raisin pie I've partaken of in recent weeks.

I have too much to do and not enough time to do any of it. The consequence is that you, faithful WFD?ers, suffer at the hand of my overbookedness.

Not that I'm complaining. Okay, I am complaining. I haven't had time to do the dishes in days, I have deadlines up the wazoo and an important job interview next week. An interview for a job that will lift me out of subsistence level existence --- and, even better, requires no grading!

So I haven't had the time or opportunity to put together a WFD? of any substance whatsoever.

Therefore: this is the WFD? Open Thread.

Tonight, we're traveling through another dimension, one not only of sight and sound, but of taste --- a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination.

Next stop: The Eull Gibbons Zone where we will investigate wild edibles within strolling distance of my front porch.

Needless to say, the focus is local and not necessarily pertinent to your backyard. It also barely scratches the surface, given everything here is edible, or so it seems. Except the poison mushrooms. For now, I've limited myself to a few of the more common edibles, so you'll have to wait for a future diary to read about sassafras, morels and hickory.

Our guide: Rodney, the hummingbird:

Yes, I know --- the quality is lacking. But he's all hopped up on sugar and won't sit still long enough for me to capture his essence on film. I was lucky to get this, given the little shit launches attacks every minute or so, for no reason. I cut a wide berth around him, especially if I'm wearing red.

Well, alrighty then. Tonight's WFD? isn't particularly inspired or even that interesting because all I'm really doing is presenting numbers and lists, with a few recipes and a bit of chitchat tossed in here and there. In essence, it's a classic not a lot of theory, just a lot of data diary.

You see, the news that Oregon's Governor Theodore R. Kulongoski will spend only $3/day on meals captured my interest. So I decided to try an experiment, tracking my food costs for a week, then seeing how low I can cut them the next.

And in the process, I confirmed what we all already knew: without a well stocked pantry, it's impossible to eat well at minimal cost. Yet that pantry can make all the difference in your health and budget.

So this week, I give you Stage I of my Grand Experiment: 7 days of eats, complete with purchases and cost guesstimates for each meal. In the next installment, I'll see if it's even possible to eat for $3, even with a well stock pantry. I suspect that's going to be a major learning curve.

It is time for someone to take a stand against the cruel injustice which has infested dKos: the rampant posting of pootie pics.

I have been keeping an eye ...

... on this troubling situation for months now, and have finally come to the point I can no longer keep silent.

After all, as Democrats, we champion the rights of the underdog, do we not? We struggle for unity amongst ourselves, yet continue to fight like cats and dogs, reaching consensus only to claw and grovel our way back into the darkness.

It is time for this to end. Thus: Wednesday Afternoon Dog Blogging is born, rising like a phoenix from the ashes, spreading its wings proud and unsullied against the tyranny which is pootie.

Yours hosts:

Um, oops. Again: your hosts, ever attentive to your needs:

There's a movement afoot to draft dKossian UID 60392 and newly elected Oklahoma Senator Andrew Rice to run against the infamous Enemy of the Red Cross, Defender of Torture and World Class Practitioner of Doofustry, James Inhofe (R-Exxon).

Now, discussion of Rice and other potential challengers to Inhofe (R-Exxon) has been going on at dKos for a while now; see, for example, diaries by DocHoc and gypsy. And among the names bandied about as possible contenders are Brad Henry, Drew Edmondson (to which I say, keep your hands off, we need him for the poultry lawsuit), Dan Boren and now, Rice.

And now, there's a petition to draft Rice to run.